‘Alien: Earth’ Failed Itself. Plus, Ethan Hawke and Sterlin Harjo on ‘The Lowdown,’ and ‘Slow Horses’ Is Back!

Summary

---

The Watch – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Watch (The Ringer)
Episode: ‘Alien: Earth’ Failed Itself. Plus, Ethan Hawke and Sterlin Harjo on ‘The Lowdown,’ and ‘Slow Horses’ Is Back!
Date: September 25, 2025
Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Special Guests (Live Segment): Ethan Hawke, Sterlin Harjo

---

Episode Overview

This episode of The Watch tackles three main pop culture touchpoints: the divisive finale of FX’s “Alien: Earth,” a spirited interview with Ethan Hawke and Sterlin Harjo about their new series “The Lowdown,” and the return of fan-favorite spy dramedy “Slow Horses” for season five. Andy and Chris deliver their trademark blend of incisive critique, TV nerd detail, and banter, moving from granular scene analysis to broader reflections on genre and contemporary television’s evolving standards. The live “Lowdown” interview, meanwhile, exposes the creative energy and camaraderie behind the show, surfacing stories about collaboration, the Tulsa setting, and actor-director process.

---

Segment 1: Alien: Earth Finale – Postmortem

Main Points & Discussion (03:16–39:19)

Disappointment and Diagnosis

• Chris opens with his provocative thesis: “Alien Earth didn’t fail me, and it didn’t fail the Alien franchise. I think it failed itself.” (03:16)
  • He’d been an early season supporter, but felt the finale moved from promise to letdown.
• Andy compares the finale’s ending to “moving all of the pieces to the middle of the game board and then call[ing] game.” (06:14)
  • He questions the wisdom of ending on a setup with no guaranteed season two: “It was an enormous letdown, frankly.” (07:17)

Plot and Character Frustrations

• Chris: The show’s high-concept worldbuilding can’t mask problems in payoffs and logic.
  • The climactic moment: “Wendy now controls two xenomorphs with her voice and all of networked digital equipment with her brain” (05:01)
  • “What distance have we covered over... eight and a half hours?” (05:20)
• Both hosts bemoan the lack of meaningful stakes:
  • “The only people who really get it are red shirts.” – Chris (07:22)
  • Perplexing character motivations, especially Kirsch’s shifting allegiances and Hermit’s arc.

The Alien Problem

• Andy: “The alien, ultimately, are the least interesting thing... in how they are deployed.” (30:43)
• Chris: “If you just were like, it's about AI and synthetic people and immortality and Peter Pan, I would just be like, I'm not that interested in that.” (30:58)
  • They note a lack of “consequences and stakes” compared to traditional Alien stories.

Writing, Structure, and Craft

• Reference the standards set by shows like Andor; discuss how careful narrative architecture (e.g., “prison logic”) raises the bar for sci-fi TV. (24:32–28:51)
  • “The standard has been raised,” Andy observes, and Alien: Earth falls short in detail and completeness.

Notable Quotes

• “You don’t want an ending of a season... to be described as 'shocking' for the reasons that I found this ending to be shocking.” – Andy (05:27)
• “This is just such a punt. This is not really saying anything other than what is a human.” – Chris (08:16)
• “At a certain point, the characters on the show are not serious people about what they are messing with and... it’s hard for me to take it seriously.” – Andy (33:00)
• “The last thing I’ll just leave us with is... still these aliens have not gotten off that island.” – Chris (33:27)

---

Segment 2: Slow Horses Season 5 Premiere (40:42–50:13)

Main Points & Discussion

The “Thriller” Returns

• Chris and Andy celebrate the restoration of urgency and teamwork to the Slow Horses ensemble.
  • “I love this season because it puts the thriller back in spy thriller.” – Chris (41:06)
  • The new season is based on Mick Herron’s novel London Rules and is “a Roddy-centric season.”
• Praise for the ensemble dynamic:
  • “It just feels like the propulsion is back in this show... exploring the studio space, finding out what they sound like live.” – Chris (41:49)
  • Andy notes the “beauty and the brilliance and the stability of the show is that it has these books.”

Craft, Direction, and Character

• Directed by Saul Metstein, with showrunner Will Smith’s swan song; strong character-focused writing likened to “the best sitcoms” and “classical music composer[s].”
  • “The ball movement is elite,” Andy observes of the going-away party scene (49:18)
• Andy lauds the silent, tense opening mass shooting as “brilliantly pulled off.” (45:13)
• They appreciate how new character pairings “shuffle the deck” in S5. (49:44)

Notable Quotes

• “Louisa leaves Slough House and River is obviously like, I’m kind of the last, I’m holding the bag here.” – Chris (46:32)
• “London rules. Yes... the risk you run is that if there’s a book that is [less strong, you’re stuck].” – Andy (42:01)
• “It’s a masterclass on how to manage a large ensemble.” – Andy (49:36)

---

Segment 3: The Lowdown – Ethan Hawke & Sterlin Harjo Interview (Live, 52:24–90:19)

Main Points & Insights

Creative Genesis and Collaboration (53:01–56:02)

• Harjo and Hawke met pre-Reservation Dogs, first collaborating on that show before realizing they wanted to work together on something more.
• Inspiration: Character “Lee” is loosely based on Harjo’s real-life journalist friend Leroy Chapman.
  • “He was a journalist and sort of a thorn in the side to the establishment... he had a lot to do with helping the Tulsa race massacre... come out.” – Harjo (54:06)
• Harjo wrote the lead with Hawke in mind (“a sort of Ethan Hawke pass”). Hawke was tricked into notes: “Script’s fun, but I should be in this.” (55:51)

How They Work: Vibe, Blocking, Trust (56:22–63:15)

• “It almost feels like being in a band together,” says Hawke on the creative partnership. (56:33)
• Both emphasize a fluid, improvisational, and trusting working style:
  • Hawke: “We would do that a lot. Let’s just see what happens, you know... It was kind of like jazz in a way.” (61:13)
  • Harjo: “We’re also not precious. Once I write it, once it’s down, it’s like, let’s do whatever we can do to make this better.” (59:26)

Place and Energy: Tulsa as Co-star (69:08–73:53)

• Tulsa is described as an “incredible co-star” – a noir not seen in typical US cities.
  • Hawke: “All the crimes of America are on the surface in Oklahoma... It’s alive and it’s present... a perfect place for a noir.” (70:52)
• The show's core community energy comes from a “mixture of immense gratitude for the privilege of getting to be a creative person” and “irreverence... fuck it, I’m doing something with it.” (69:26–70:19)

Character Construction & Thematic Depth (75:17–80:32)

• Lee embodies a familiar but complex PI archetype—idealistic to a fault, inspiring but with “blind spots.”
  • Hawke: “What Leroy Chapman was... obviously somebody to be admired... it creates blind spots. You know, they don’t see the glasses of wine their tail is breaking over, you know, because they’re so hell bent to do this thing... that contradiction of it being both noble and destructive seemed real to me.” (77:12–78:45)

Making a Mystery (86:14–88:26)

• Plot construction (“plot is four letters hard for you: P-L-O-T”) is not Harjo’s default, but the challenge revealed genre’s power for making deeper points.
  • “You can actually say more with genre than you can just out there freeballing.” – Harjo (87:14)

Influence & Discovery (88:26–90:19)

• Both reflect on the importance of infusing character and world with real culture. Hawke credits Harjo for continually introducing new music, writers, and artists into the work.

Standout Moments & Quotes

• “He literally said... is this ready to go out? You got any notes?... I’m like, script’s fun, but I should be in this. And Stone just went back, yeah, I can fix that.” – Hawke (55:40–56:01)
• “[Directing] is kind of like jazz... we’re improvising as we go, but it always meant something.” – Harjo (61:13)
• “The way he talks to himself and mumbles and you can just hear the studio executive saying, ‘I can’t understand what he’s saying.’ And I’m like, it’s okay, neither can I. It’s cool.” – Hawke, on The Long Goodbye and pulling art away from blandness (84:56)
• “They bought those scenes, somebody wrote those words. They weren’t superhuman, they were humans, just like us.” – Harjo (83:50)

---

Episode Highlights: Quotes and Timestamps

• “Alien Earth didn’t fail me, and it didn’t fail the Alien franchise. I think it failed itself.” – Chris Ryan (03:16)
• “This is just such a punt. This is not really like saying anything other than what is a human?” – Chris Ryan (08:16)
• “If you just singled out [Kirsch’s] scenes, it would be incomprehensible to me what his motivations are. Do you share that?” – Andy Greenwald (09:42)
• “The standard has been raised. And I think that what we are bumping on is the difference between a show that is dedicated to giving us a complete thought... and a show that is maybe an imperfect vessel for what motivates the creator.” – Andy Greenwald (28:50)
• “If you just were like, it’s about AI and synthetic people and immortality and Peter Pan, I would just be like, I’m not interested.” – Chris Ryan (30:58)
• “It’s a masterclass on, on how to manage a large ensemble.” – Andy Greenwald on Slow Horses (49:36)
• “All of the crimes of America are on the surface in Oklahoma... It’s alive and it’s present, and so it’s a perfect place for a noir.” – Ethan Hawke (70:52)
• “There’s a rebellious spirit to Sterling. There’s a rebellious spirit to try to make a show like this.” – Ethan Hawke (82:56)

---

Conclusion

This episode of The Watch sharply dissects the pitfalls and hopes of three major TV offerings, blending granular TV storytelling critique with infectious enthusiasm and soulfulness during the live interview segment. Andy and Chris remain skeptical but generous about “Alien: Earth,” delighted about "Slow Horses," and genuinely moved by the creative energy and sincerity behind “The Lowdown.” Listeners come away with both big-picture reflections on streaming TV and a close-up on how great shows get made.

---

For specific segments, see:

• Alien: Earth discussion: 03:16–39:19
• Slow Horses S5: 40:42–50:13
• The Lowdown live interview: 52:24–90:19

---

Transcript

[Chris Ryan]

This episode is brought to you by Focus Features. Don't miss Focus Features Anemone, starring three time Academy Award winner Daniel Day Lewis in his long awaited return to the big screen. It's the most anticipated performance of the year. Anemone tells the story of two brothers wrestling with their past and the one secret that has kept them apart for decades. Anemone Rated R under 17. Not admitted without a parent. Only in theaters October 3rd. I need support staff to clear the room.

[Andy Greenwald]

Stand up and walk now.

[Chris Ryan]

Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an [e-mail] and joining me in the studio now. He rules. It's Andy Greenwald.

[Andy Greenwald]

You got a little pep in your step today, I can tell.

[Chris Ryan]

I'd say, you know what, I've just been potting so much, I'm getting a little punchy. I did Zach Lowe yesterday. I've got you. We've got the big picture. One battle after another pod, then we're just rolling back around.

[Andy Greenwald]

I've got you. Is that. Yeah, that's what this has become.

[Chris Ryan]

This is your hour. Using my time.

[Andy Greenwald]

We do send this out, right?

[Chris Ryan]

This is just, by the way, just. We have some really interesting stuff happening on the show today. It's a gangster sized mega bonus episode of the Watch. Because you and I, the usual, like absolutely razor sharp bands, the gruesome do some. But then afterwards. So earlier this week, I did an event with Sterling Harjo and Ethan Hawke at Brain Dead here in Los Angeles where they screened the first episode of the Lowdown. And then I chatted with those guys on stage. Kyle was there, Kai was there. Every. The gang was there. Kyo was working. She. She definitely let me know it was work.

[Andy Greenwald]

Were you trying to like socialize with her?

[Chris Ryan]

I was just like, what's good? You know, come, come to the east side sometime. No, we hung in the green room for a little bit. You know, me, you, Ethan. That's right. Jay Chillin.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's right. Nice.

[Chris Ryan]

So we're going to put that at the end of this episode. You can listen to that. Andy and I will get deeper into the Lowdown. The first two episodes went up on Tuesday. It's one of our favorite shows of the year.

[Andy Greenwald]

I love the show.

[Chris Ryan]

Great show. Uh, we'll talk about that next week. So also a little bit of like, a little bit of house cleaning.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

Uh, as you may have seen on our social feeds, uh, Andy and I are going to be appearing at Vidiot's on Sunday night hosting a panel talk Following a screening of the fourth episode of Task. Uh, that panel will include Tom Pelfrey, Mark Ruffalo, Brad Ingalls being the director, Sally Richardson Whitfield. We'll be chatting there. That's KCRW VideoD's event. And we.

[Andy Greenwald]

We were on the low line of the Coachella poster in that.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know that we made the post.

[Andy Greenwald]

But that's fine. Yeah. You know, there's always surprises. Like Weezer Coachella last year, I believe.

[Chris Ryan]

At the top of the poster. Said at the same theater that Sean Fenasi often sees films as we present. No. In any case, what we're gonna do is run that on Monday. But we are also going to chat, the two of us in studio, about Task, because how could we not? We have a lot to get through today because we have the Alien Earth finale. Slow Horses is back.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And then whatever else is on the right.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, no, please. Apparently, we have a tight, tight window. I like to keep it moving like Jalen hurts. We can manage a tight window throw.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, like Jalen hurts. You're getting more aggressive with me in.

[Andy Greenwald]

The second half of our lives. That's true. Can I. Okay. Do you want to just get it? Should we just get into it? Is there any other.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, I'm stalling a little bit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Why? I've gotten up to the. I've gotten up to the line of scrimmage, and now I'm checking to see if I need to call an audible. Is. I don't want to jump in and be in a bad mood about Alien Earth because, Andy, I have to tell you, after the finale, here's my take. Alien Earth didn't fail me, and it didn't fail the Alien franchise. I think it failed itself.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whoa.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, you're being the high school coach. Wow.

[Ethan Hawke]

Wow.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay. You wanted it to do better and get into a better college for itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see little teenomorphs come and go, you know? But this one was special, and you wanted more for it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. So. All right, let's get into this. This is the real monsters. Guess who they were. And it's directed by Dana Gonzalez, written by Noah Hawley and Migi Migzy Person. Peninso. Sorry. And I think I. I've been pretty vocal, especially in the early parts of this season, of finding a lot to like about this series. And then the second half of the season especially, and then this finale. Really? Really? I. I felt pretty let down about. I. I'm not like, I'm taking My toys and going home. I. First seasons of franchise shows, there's a lot places to go, but I think when I got to the end of this episode and needle drop, the. The hybrid kids have locked up all the mean adults. Yutani is on the way with an air force that she apparently did not feel the need to send the first time she invaded this island. And Wendy now controls two xenomorphs with her voice and all of networked digital equipment with her brain.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think she could explain a VPN to me?

[Ethan Hawke]

She is the vpn, damn it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, you're right.

[Chris Ryan]

She's gonna be sitting in your room when you get there. And she's like, andy, the Eagles are losing seven.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's a very precocious.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like, well, is. Where did we. Where did we arrive? Like, what distance have we covered over the last eight and a half hours or whatever?

[Andy Greenwald]

You don't want an ending of a season of television to be described as shocking for the reasons that I found this ending to be shocking.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right. Like, I go off king. No, no, I. I'm not.

[Chris Ryan]

You dropped something, King.

[Andy Greenwald]

By the way, we were talking earlier off mic about how you would fare on a political ticket, and I just want to reiterate that once again, you are just so.

[Chris Ryan]

I will be Amy Poehler's Tim Waltz.

[Andy Greenwald]

So what we'll do.

[Chris Ryan]

I guess that doesn't really work.

[Andy Greenwald]

That still lost. No, I just mean that, like, even now, you were like, this show failed itself. I wasn't super into all of it, but I was super into some of it. You go. And I'm like, I am so.

[Chris Ryan]

And it kind of, like, record kind.

[Andy Greenwald]

Of leans in, rubs her hands together like the yellow suit meme. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be modest and controlled here as well. I think that. What I mean is, I don't think I was the only audience member who checked to see how much time was left. Like, that's really what we're doing, which is just to move all of the pieces to the middle of the game board and then call game and then, you know, I think most savvy viewers these days also know with a show of this caliber and of these production values, this expense, this talent. When are we going to see season two? The show has not yet been renewed. It would seem likely that it will be, but when would we see a season two? Considering the challenges involved in the production of it? 2027, charitably. I don't know if that is a safe bet to end this way when you have that much of a gap to make up for. I just think that might be poor planning because it was an enormous letdown, frankly. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that the thing that let me down was the roads not traveled.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

I do not think you can. I am not trying to be like, I have bloodlust or anything like that, but I don't think you can really set a show in this world. Forget the previous Alien movies. If this was your first experience with Alien and you saw what the alien did to the Maginot in the beginning and then in the middle of the season, how can you go through the end of this season, the last episode especially, and the only people who really get it are red shirts. And then the guy who we thought had an alien burst out of his chest, thus destroying his organs, is resurrected as a zombie by the eyeball, which I guess that's a thing that it can do. It doesn't need any other organs.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, it doesn't need this sternum. You know what I mean? Okay. We're doing sports. Science is doing incredible things these days.

[Chris Ryan]

And then you have this situation where it's like you have a big fight between moron Kirsch, but they're both fine. You have Dame Sylvia, like, destroyed by grief and her decision making to prioritize, like, the furthering of the science that she's been pursuing against her husband and her love and her life and everything and that like that. But she never actually articulates that. She just stares out a window for two episodes, basically. And I got to the end of this episode and I was just like, this is just such a punt. This is. This is not really like saying anything other than what is a human? And I think that the reason why it drove me crazy is because I think no one knows it, because he hints at hermit is going to be the person invaded by this species. You know what I mean? Wendy's going to have to make these decisions. What if a human being had then become a xenomorph, like that is, Or a xenomorph hybrid of its own? Like, what does that do to their strange, constructed, dramatic relationship of brother, sister, but not really.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right?

[Chris Ryan]

That's really interesting. Kirsch and Moro kind of just blindly fighting for their corporate entities, I guess is the least interesting outcome of those two Fascinating characters who both hinted at different motivations and different allegiances and different kind of internal lives over the course of the season. And just to have it be like, I work for this guy. Fight, fight, fight.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, the the curse thing is particularly perplexing because if you just singled out his scenes, it would be incomprehensible to me what his motivations are. Do you share that?

[Chris Ryan]

I have no idea.

[Andy Greenwald]

He appears to be a loyal synthetic person scientist. He then seems to be quite clearly undermining his boss and allowing these creatures to run wild. And then when the moment comes that the rival arrives, he is blindly loyal again. As far as I can tell, that's a tough beat. I do get the sense. And not to read into performances, these are all professional actors. But we talked. I mentioned this last week when we were talking about the show, that Alex Lauthor, one of my favorite current working young actors, seems perplexed in scenes in a way that isn't even dramatic. And it happened again this week. And I think what I'm picking up on, or at least what I'm supposing, is that it has to do with his character. A good hearted, big hearted one lunged medic. His shifting attitudes towards mega violence, where he seems completely fine with his sister unleashing hell through her alien protege on red shirts, but not his red shirts. But then later, kind of on his red shirts too. Yeah, the. The shocking episode ender last week of what did you do? Is immediately wiped off the board because your.

[Chris Ryan]

Your girl Nibs is fine. She's totally fine. She's dead. I was like, I don't think so. And then not only is she fine, but bl.

[Andy Greenwald]

So what was the issue? And how hard is it for even a emotional 8 or 9 year old to understand that Herma was trying to stop people from getting killed? Like Wendy's ability to solve complex quadratic equations and FaceTime from her own brain notwithstanding, I think she would also be able to understand that her brother is just borderline trying to do the right thing. I think kids actually understand that often more than they understand nuance. Yeah, that was.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's also like there are directions that the show goes, like Wendy's seemingly unlimited powers, right. Which develop over the course of the finale episode to the point where she's gesturing in the air and controlling the entire computer network that governs this prodigy facility.

[Andy Greenwald]

She is now able to basically hack any synthetic person who is on the WI fi. And yet it took seven episodes for her to understand that one of the most prominent people on the island, an island of about, you know, charitably 27 people total, is himself a synthetic person on the WI fi.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, that's Adamson's character, right, Adam?

[Andy Greenwald]

Did she just notice that? I Think she was it not relevant.

[Chris Ryan]

Makes it. Well, she's present for Boy Cavalier's speech about I made a fake dad.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right. She's president for that. So you could. You could do the TikTok of like. Not the TikTok video. The like in the journalistic sense of one thing leading to another, not in the Our brave patriots Larry Ellison is going to help save the social network God bless commerce and free capitalism that.

[Chris Ryan]

She heard as a vice presidential candidate. I've yet to weigh in on TikTok, but I think that there are good arguments on both sides of the acquisition.

[Andy Greenwald]

God, I love this. I love this for you.

[Chris Ryan]

What if I just ran for Veep, But I never.

[Andy Greenwald]

But whoever.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, like, I was like free agent Veep.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you understand that you were born for this? Like, 25 years ago, you had a hundred percent approval rating in all bar conversations with any group of people. That is who you were.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then at the time, I imagine at some point, Chuck Klosterman probably said something out loud like, if only there was a career path for a guy who has opinions about everything and everyone loves. Then Bill Simmons invented the podcast, invented the Internet.

[Chris Ryan]

There you go.

[Andy Greenwald]

And now here we are. So the next logical step is everybody's Veep cr. It doesn't matter.

[Chris Ryan]

You don't have to like the top guy.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, the second guy's Great Newsome Ryan, Vance Ryan. It all sounds American to me.

[Chris Ryan]

And I think I could actually loosen both those guys up.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, my God.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you know? Because I could pod with them.

[Andy Greenwald]

You could.

[Chris Ryan]

Why don't we all pod together?

[Andy Greenwald]

First of all, three, man.

[Chris Ryan]

We. Vance Newsome, Ryan and Marshawn lynch and its favorite NBA teams to not win a title.

[Andy Greenwald]

Everyone is podcasting now. Like, I don't mean like everyone has a podcast. I mean, our government is now run by podcasters.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So this does make sense. And we would clearly so much rather talk about your political trajectory than the finale of FX's $400 million alien television show. Anyway, we'll return to this. By the way, speaking of positivity, the previously on Alien.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the coolest invention of this show. Yeah, it's awesome.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's awesome.

[Chris Ryan]

The music's great in that sequence.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

What was I talking about?

[Andy Greenwald]

We were talking about Wendy's powers and whether she knew. Right. You could say that that was the progression of her realization. But it does seem like someone who is in a Lamborghini Internet body might be aware of what's a machine and what's not. She wouldn't need plot armor to accomplish that.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I think that. That in a vacuum, these small. Huh? Are we sure about that? Moments are insignificant. The greatest shows of all time, Boy.

[Chris Ryan]

Cavalier and Dame might not understand the true extent of Wendy's powers because clearly we do not understand the true extent of the powers of AI now. Right. Like, so there is.

[Andy Greenwald]

What do you propose to do about it?

[Chris Ryan]

It's an interesting topic and I think that what we have to do is get to the bottom of it. But also remember how we got here.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you know what's going to be amazing is when your campaign, all your campaigns crashes and burns. When the moderator. Wait. When the moderator is just like. One final question for candidate Ryan. How do you feel about the Avatar franchise?

[Chris Ryan]

And I thought you were gonna be like, how do you feel about cigarette smoking?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, one of the two. And in the break room you just see like, you know, like some, like Donna Brazil, like.

[Sterling Harjo]

No, no, don't say it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Anyway, these small things in a vacuum are all forgivable and almost not worth devoting a podcast to. But when the. Especially the finale of a show is stitched together with an enormous number of. Huh.

[Chris Ryan]

Yep.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are we sure? Moments you get, you begin to get the feeling, as I think I walked away from the series with that the show was a. The story of the show, the narrative arc of the season was a means to an end. Both to get to an end place where these people were in prison and she had some aliens and the Lost Boys were now, you know, awakening man robot children. But also that the points that Noah wanted to make were paramount. That was what mattered. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that his interest in this story, if you told me that he actually had a take or a sci fi story that you wanted to tell that was about something like the hybrids that is heavily referencing and based on Peter Pan and that the xenomorphs are incidental to the entire thing.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, they were.

[Chris Ryan]

I would believe you because it kind of seems like that's the case. And I don't mean that as an insult because I think that there's like a clearly, like, Noah Hawley understands way more about making television, way more about what works on TV than I will ever, like, come close to grasping and.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is bringing a significant decade plus body of work of what he wants to do and how he wants to use the medium to accomplish it artistically and thematically.

[Chris Ryan]

On one occasion, you know, I was pretty skeptical just going into Fargo about, like, what the hell are you going to do with a Coen brothers movie that is 100% approval rating, but is also like that's the story.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a closed circuit.

[Chris Ryan]

And instead finds threads to pull on and has made a really, really cool show out of something. Out of nothing. And then I. It makes sense that you would apply that same brain to something like this IP work. It's not that I think he's hostile towards Alien. I just don't think he knows what to do with it. Like I don't the aliens in Alien. I mean, like, I think he's just kind of like. Well, I don't want to repeat what Ridley Scott and James Cameron and David Fincher and Fetty Alvarez and you know, Ridley Scott again and all these people have done. But I have to kind of tip my cap to like a chest bursting scene or an alien comes down from the ceiling scene. How can I spin it? And his way of spinning it is to make it a pet. An attack dog really. And that's interesting. But it actually like what your viewer knows about aliens is that there is no. The alien takes a second to think about whether it's gonna kill you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Before like. And then the guards arrive at the last second. Like that's never happened in an Alien movie.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

The alien is like watching you and then it punctures you and then it drags you away. And that's what makes it so fucking scary. There's no, there's no debate about what's gonna happen.

[Andy Greenwald]

The, the, the moment I kind of left my. You know, like there's a, there's a way when you are so enveloped in a program and you're just completely living in it. And even if things are inconsistent, you're just rolling with it. Cause you're so completely immersed in it. And then there's like the first kick that kind of pushes you out a little bit and you're starting to watch and nitpick a little bit more. For me it's in this episode when under a island wide lockdown and Internet outage when it is quite clear that the high security lab has somehow failed yet again. And savage Xenomorph plural now are free hunting, free range hunting on the island. Dame Sylvia goes to the graves of the kids out somewhere on the side of a mountain just to have a little by herself meeting the alien finds her there, watches her, waits for her to turn around, looks at her and then gets knocked away by guards who are not themselves immediately killed to say like, ma', am, it's not safe out here. Right boy Cavalier is established as a preening egotistical megalomaniac. This episode really underlines that he has adhd.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

He's playing with a pill bottle. This is a. It's a tough beat to introduce a plot point that apparently important. 20 minutes.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Adam says, like, you know, the extremity of your ADHD requires. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

A curse says that when he goes to visit the now hostile, you know, galaxy sized powered Lost Boys, he walks into their cell with one security guard.

[Chris Ryan]

Mm.

[Andy Greenwald]

Neither of these scenes are particularly strong examples of human behavior. I would say they are. That's behavior that is dependent on what you want the characters to do, the shot you want to take, where you want them to end up.

[Chris Ryan]

Like the kids sitting in the. In the cage.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And him walking into the lion's den is. Is a cool shot.

[Andy Greenwald]

And Jesse Davis realizing her life is over, except it's not. In front of a xenomorph is also beautiful and, you know, haunting. And she's the. She is to some degree the only human avatar left on the show. But all of this for me makes it fails because the central argument of the show is who are the real monsters? Well, I guess the takeaway is humans. But where are the humans? Right. I don't see them in the show. I see a white blooded, completely inscrutable robot fighting a one armed cyborg rage machine. Right. And I see a bunch of little kids in superpowered bodies and xenomorphs and plant aliens and sheep eyes and Hermit being like, I guess I'm a human. But what's going on here? It's tough. I mean, you touch on for a finale to be this based, this dependent on not just a. I'm sorry, not a finale. A season to be dependent on locking mechanisms to be when it's really just a suggestion. It's just a whisper of a thought. A high security lab, whether it's on the Maginot or it's on Boy, Cavalier's island is really just another stop on the walking tour for anyone to go in and out of constantly. I think for me it's summed up most when you have Hermit and Morrow sharing one of these cells. And when Morrow wakes up and there's a. There's sort of a bizarre line of dialogue I'll try and find. I definitely took it down. But he. The first thing he does when he wakes up is he goes to the door and jiggles the handle. Classic high security future.

[Chris Ryan]

Honestly, not a bad idea in that place.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's what I'm saying. When he gets out Easily. He just grabs a set of keys from the guard and immediately unlocks his cyborg arm. Because the guy was carrying the keys on him.

[Chris Ryan]

He used to. His cyborg arm. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Again, to make a story unfold in the way you want it to unfold, happenstance and convenience is gonna be a part of it. It's just the long chain of happenstance and convenience to get us to a place to set us up for a future season. That rankles.

[Chris Ryan]

I truly do try to stick to what we were given on screen and not read too much into postseason interviews. Noah Hawley has talked to a couple. I think Hollywood Reporter is where I read this, where he talked about one or two things. One is that he typically works in 10 episode seasons and this is the first time that he had worked in an eight episode one. I don't. Maybe he said this was eight. He also pointed out that he had to do essentially an alien movie to start the season.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Gets back to Neverland for two episodes, then goes back out into space to do the Maginot origin, gets back and then has to, you know, basically has a three episode arc to get to the end of the season. And I don't know whether that's like the strikes, the cost of making this, whether or not they had Timothy Oliphant for as much time as they needed him if they wanted to do certain things. Like. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea. But I wonder if there's a better 10 episode season of this. And I also think that one of the reasons why you and I are so on edge about watching some of this stuff and we keep thinking saying things like the lock and her powers, which have yet to be discussed until the end of being that massive. I mean, I know she's able to communicate with Hermit in the beginning of the season.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But that would suggest that she already can do that. And why would you then let her roam free without an off switch? Switch.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Right. We got an email a couple weeks ago from someone named Alan which was very good because I think he picks at something that probably for a solid chunk of our listeners is the case, which is basically we've gotten andor pilled and that ages ago Tony Gilroy came onto the Watch to talk to y' all about the Narkina 5 arc of the Andor Season 1.

[Andy Greenwald]

Season 1. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Tony talked about the writers room and Luke hall spending a lot of time figuring out how a space prison would work. Like if the prison had no bars, what would keep the prisoners trapped of, oh, the floor Is electrified. That would mean the prisoners would be barefoot, shout out, boy, cavalier. How do you prevent the guards from being shocked? They'd have to wear these heavy boot things and so on and so on and so on. But all that detail about the architecture and functions of the prison dictated the movement of the story. Would Alien Earth have benefited from that kind of planning?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think it's a great, great question. It's a great point. A couple things in what you were saying. One is, thanks for the email, Alan, I think. And thank you for the dramatic reading of it, I think. I love when you read emails on the show. It gives me time to do you actually. Well, they're great emails.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Gives me time to check mine. No, the.

[Chris Ryan]

Another fundraiser from Vice President Ryan, who's.

[Andy Greenwald]

Running for Attorney General in New Mexico. Again. Wait, it's Chris. A couple things about this. I think it's a very fair question to ask if, due to budget reasons or production reasons, the episode order was trimmed. There is a moment in this episode when I believe it's Adam basically narrates what's going on on the island that does feel like a lot of yada, yada, yada.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Yutani is on her way with her.

[Andy Greenwald]

Ships and a lot of, like, dreamy footage that definitely. Of scenes, not all of which were shot to be part of the montage of someone narrating. That's just very clear, artfully done. But, like, you can get that. You can get that sense. So there might have been more story left on it on the bone. I think that it's important when we talk about shows like this to always contextualize it by saying it's not as if all television shows in 2025 start from the same place in terms of budget, in terms of priorities, in terms of producers, executives, networks, hopes, dreams, creators, et cetera. What andor did is a miracle for any number of reasons. The number one reason being it is exceptional television, like some of the best maybe ever made. When we look back on this, it is also not repeatable. Not just repeatable, not unrepeatable, because margins have changed and Disney isn't investing in Star wars that doesn't involve puppets as much anymore. It's not repeatable because it is a unique chemistry, not just of Tony Gilroy and material, but Tony Gilroy and Kathy Kennedy in charge of Disney at a moment of transition, being like, we need.

[Chris Ryan]

Hours of TV for Disney.

[Andy Greenwald]

And him saying, I can deliver it. And him saying, okay, great, I'm going to hole up in my brownstone with my Brother and Beau Williman and Tom Bissell. And we are going to spare no expense and we are going to operate on the highest possible level at all times. Everybody sets out to do that, but it's not always possible. Noah, by contrast, works differently, thinks differently, has different aims and goals, but also the aims and goals of Fox, of fx, of John Landgraaf, of the nature of like, having a room and then shooting in Thailand. Like, all of this goes into it. So I don't want to hold them up next to each other and say one is better than the other. But I think that the larger takeaway from the email that I definitely agree with is the standard has been raised. And I think that what we are bumping on is the difference between a show that is dedicated to giving us a complete thought, both narratively but also thematically, politically, visually, artistically, which is. Andor. And a show that is maybe an imperfect vessel for what motivates the creator. And I am never going to come on this podcast and say, oh, I wish creators had less opportunity to express their innermost hopes, dreams and passions. But this feels a little bit, at the end of these episodes, like an ill fitting garment for some of you.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder whether or not also there was something about this story that he felt like he needed to tell to get to the next one, which is.

[Andy Greenwald]

Also a tough beat for contemporary creators.

[Chris Ryan]

Also, a creator who has worked in an. In a somewhat anthologized fashion in TV.

[Andy Greenwald]

In the past, other than Legion. He has.

[Chris Ryan]

And I would not be shocked if now he. He has said in his interviews he was like. But it's. It is a very interesting situation because even though Wendy is like, we rule now. All these ships are coming, you know.

[Andy Greenwald]

And so what does she rule over? Those people in the prison?

[Chris Ryan]

Humanity. I think that's kind of like we don't work for you. You know, we're not show showroom models. We are, you know, we are the. You're the showroom models.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is that what the new skinny iPhone is going to say? That's why I'm not. I'm not updating to that new OS with the bubbles. Like, that's. No, thank you.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you. Do you think that there's any promise for future seasons in terms of, like, creatively, like, your interest level?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, I mean, I think the constant.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know if that's a good question. No.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I think the constant of. The constant of our conversations over the last eight weeks have been, I think, incredibly impressed by some structural decision making and some just Idea generating that is at the root here. And then some frustration with the sort of the straitjacket of the first season problem, you know, and then maybe beyond that, what we're starting to tease at today is like, maybe there's a cool show about AI and humanity and hybrid machine robot baby people. But is that an alien show? Do we want aliens in it? I mean, the alien ultimately are the least interesting thing. You know, I think about this show, don't you think, in how they are deployed?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I mean, I think that the alien is the show. I mean, if you just were like, it's about AI and synthetic people and immortality and Peter Pan, I would just be like, I'm not that interested in that.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm not that interested in it in a vacuum. But if you tell me every other detail about this is the same in the sense that there is.

[Chris Ryan]

The coolest shots in this episode are still like the alien, you know, dissolve against the sun, you know, on a mountaintop somewhere on this island, screaming into the night, into the void, you know, like, that's cool to me. Like, I don't know. That's your platform.

[Andy Greenwald]

Single issue candidate. I'm interested in the stuff that I. I think I'm interested in a lot of the things that Noah's interested in.

[Chris Ryan]

I think xenomorphs are the best part of this show.

[Andy Greenwald]

They're Americans too. I think the world run by five cutthroat corporations with a blurring line between what is human and what is machine. And a guy basically being like, I've invented immortality. But I'm really just mostly compelled by the works of J.M. barrie. And so I'm making sure that this follows the deep Peter Pan cuts the moment when they're in prison when Wendy's like, actually, Wendy was the most popular, but Peter got mad later when she grew up until he came and kidnapped her daughter. It's like explaining the plot of Jurassic World 3 to me. Let's stay focused here. We get the bit. Although I was impressed that in the finale, Wendy's self upgrade finally allowed her to stop saying the boy genius. She said boy K. I was like, let's go with that. But all I'm saying is I actually found the most interesting template for a longer running Noah Hawley series to be the things that I think he was more interested in. And by the end, when they're refer when Boy Cavalier is like, you know, all my toys are here and these aliens are just toys to him. And there's still the sense that everybody just wants It. But why do they want them? They seem like a lot of hassle. And I don't think that safety glass has iterated enough to really allow us to fully explore having these things stop.

[Chris Ryan]

Developing safety glass at, like, the movie Ice Age in its release.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that's absolutely true. They don't on a fundamental level. And maybe this is a few weeks ago, you were talking about how in some interviews it seemed like Noah was saying, yeah, these people are stupid. You know, I'm paraphrasing, sure. But at a certain point, the characters on the show are not serious people about what they are messing with and what they are doing, and it's hard for me to take it seriously.

[Chris Ryan]

Du Bois character is that it's kind of like making a piece of art about someone who's a great writer and not showing the writing. Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Or something about a musician who writes the greatest song in the world.

[Chris Ryan]

This guy is a genius, multi trillionaire, and seems like kind of an idiot. Now, you could say, oh, I can think of some examples in our current setup where that's the case as well, but there's really no evidence to suggest that this guy would even be trusted by anybody, you know, to do. To do any of this stuff. The last thing I'll just leave us with is the fact that still these aliens have not gotten off that island. So you could still, like, theoretically throw a blanket on top of it and be like, aliens have never been to Earth or nobody else knows about this and nobody else is like, xenomorphs. I. I do think that he's gonna have to reckon with some kind of canon if he makes another season and he's indicated that, like, he'll have to start considering that more heavily. But, you know, I. I think my first red light or my first alarm was when it was kind of like, oh, yeah, Prometheus and Covenant. Don't. That. That doesn't matter in this world or, like, that's alternative fiction. I admire the creative chutzpah, but it. It's like, well, then what are we watching then? Right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Is that the first time you've used Yiddish on this podcast, my brother? That. That was. That was a dog whistle for this.

[Chris Ryan]

Dog, the High Hollies man.

[Andy Greenwald]

As our resident alienologist, can you.

[Chris Ryan]

Don't put that on me. I like it. I don't.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are you running under Andrew Yang's?

[Chris Ryan]

No way. I just. I don't want LV426 to get mad at me, but go ahead.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's not about specifics. It's more about the. The traditional vibe of these stories is that they are more or less haunted house stories in space where everybody dies.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Except, you know, there's always one survivor or a Ripley or whatever. This did invert that the Maginot did the Alien movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And then it was a different but.

[Andy Greenwald]

This everyone of note other than poor Isaac Rest in power King. Everybody else survived. Did that throw you?

[Chris Ryan]

Yes, that. That threw me a lot. That threw me a lot.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I Not only because I just like I want to see aliens get after Threw me a lot because I like watching things where the consequences and stakes that are obvious are actually followed through. And that's why I was like put the eyeball on Hermit. I would love to see Alex Lothar be Frankenstein's monster. Like, let's see what happens when this happens.

[Andy Greenwald]

I will say that, you know, the development process is so glacial often in television that there are things that are, I think, broadly accepted not just by the viewing public or by podcasters, but I think within development meetings and sales pitches and things that the industry has moved on from or have has finally understood and taken and learned from. One of those is you can't start a pilot with the most exciting thing and then say one month earlier, yes, Black Rabbit was written and developed before this seemed to really sink into the consciousness. So Black Rabbit did it. The other one that I think one of the lessons from this past year so Alien could not have caught up to it in its development process is I no longer think that you are playing with house money when you are developing and spending on a massive IP known IP franchise show and you cannot spend burn a season clearing your throat.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

This season did not just clear its throat. The Maginot stuff, the world building. I am not skyscraper.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm not trying to dismiss it. It went for it in ways that I think were very smart and met the moment. But broadly speaking, there were House of Dragon vibes to the sense that, like, don't worry, we'll get to the good stuff in a larger story.

[Chris Ryan]

I think you're right. I think that there's something to that.

[Andy Greenwald]

In The Last of Us Season 2 ratings kind of proved that you cannot bank on it. You cannot count on that same level of excitement, engagement, coming back with you ratings wise. Again, that's not. That's not quality. That's not a quality comment. The ratings were down. So I think that big stuff that's being developed now will have to go in with that mindset. Either we make it every year or we tell the biggest possible story.

[Chris Ryan]

Every year, three years from now, we do Alien Earth Part Season 2, and it's about something completely different. And maybe Kirsch is in it or whatever, but like we've kind of changed the game board the same way he does with Fargo.

[Andy Greenwald]

I would also say, and again, the shows that are on television at the same time are not in competition with each other. It's not really fair to do it. But they are because the nature of a podcast, they are in conversation with each other. And one of the things that I was excited to talk about on Task Episode three, and we talked on Monday, was how Brad Inglesby is incredibly adept at giving characters their ISO Hero ball introductory expository speech in ways that even if it's not natural, flows and is, you know, it draws your attention and draws you deeper into the story in the world. I thought this episode was a did not succeed to that level. When you have moments like Morrow and Kirsch are fighting to the death and Morrow suddenly starts talking about John Henry.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, the pop culture thing is. Is maddening to me.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, I think, again, that is an interesting analogy. It is relevant. It's a good story to tell. I don't know if that was the moment for it, you know, and similarly, like boy cavalier, like walking into a room full of murderous hybrid baby robots and being like, let me tell you about my father. Read the room. You know, I know you own the room and probably built the room and everything.

[Chris Ryan]

We're going to say that from outside of the gate, you know, even though when she opens the gate, that's probably a bad sign that, like, but you're going to get trapped in there.

[Andy Greenwald]

Or maybe he's so smart because he understands that there really are no walls between any of us.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right, man.

[Andy Greenwald]

At any time. He clearly does not believe in security protocols.

[Chris Ryan]

Campaign slogan There are no walls. This episode is brought to you by Pretty Litter. Living with more than one cat means you've got double the cuddles and double the litter duty. But Pretty Litter makes things so much easier. Not only does it control odors and last longer than other litter, it also keeps you ahead of the color changing crystals actually flag fluctuations in your cat's urine. How about that? Plus Pretty Litter ships free right to your door. So no heavy bags to carry and no last minute pet store runs right now. Save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at PrettyLitter.com watch. That's Pretty Litter.com watch to save 20% on your first order get a free cat toy. Pretty Litter.com watch Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. C Site for details let's talk a little bit about the first episode of Slow Horses Season 5. We still have this lowdown thing to get to so we can keep this brief enough because this is a setup episode for the most part. I found it to be the most viscerally kind of electrifying and almost confrontational of those slow horses. Here's the bomb. Here's the moment that puts the case in motion. I love this season.

[Andy Greenwald]

You've watched ahead.

[Chris Ryan]

I have watched ahead and I will not be spoiling anything or talking about anything. And I love this season because it puts the thriller back in spy thriller. I think that obviously they're following along with McC Heron's books. This one is based on London Rules, as people may have read. This one is a rotty centric season.

[Andy Greenwald]

As his PR reps have clearly, like there's a big profile in the Times. This guy's front and center.

[Chris Ryan]

And I think what I loved about this was where the fourth season felt a little bit like there's the Jack Louden season happening over here and then there is the. The these two are running around over here. Shirley and Marcus maybe are doing stuff. It feels like the band is coming back together and exploring the studio space, finding out what they sound like live. And it just feels like the propulsion is back in this show. And I don't really need this series to be myth making and to be like, what's the bigger story about River? What is his? It's like River's trapped. All these people are trapped. They also all can't admit that they prefer living in Jackson's world rather than the bullshit world of the park or wherever or outside. But tell me what you thought of the first episode.

[Andy Greenwald]

I love the show. I love that it's in our lives every year. It's a gift. I was pleased to learn that it was Based on the McCarran novel London Rules, not the text I was sending you between September and March where I said based on London Rules. London Rules. Yeah, I, you know, look, the beauty and the brilliance and the stability of the show is that it has these books. The risk you run is that if there's a book that is. I mean, I haven't read them, so I don't know if Spook street was an off book, you know, or maybe not as strong as the others. But you are basically, you've made the decision to follow the tracks that were laid by the writer. And I loved watching season four. I'm never gonna take it for granted that we have it, but the things about the show that I am not particularly. That not particularly interested in include river being an action hero in a separate television show.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

River's origin story. River's Oedipal relationship with his mean supervillain dad. Right. I don't really care. Like that's. That's kind of tangential stuff that makes it like a Slow Horses, you know, expanded universe. And like, I don't watch it that way. And it's fun and cool for people who do. Or it might hit different. When you're reading a book and, you know, characters maybe bubble up and then disappear again and come back. This does feel like. I think what I picked up on that you were responding to is that this season immediately starts off with a series of horrifying things, but you're immediately back in the tensions that made the show worthwhile to begin with of this collection of misfit toys found family hate each other and are trapped with each other and yet somehow keep showing up for each other. I think it also makes a difference that Saul Metstein, who directed season three, which was excellent, is back to direct this season. And maybe there's also a little extra, a little gas in his engine because this is Will Smith who has won Emmys and has been the showrunner and main adapter of the series since season one. This is his swan song. He's stepping back from the day to day showrunning after this.

[Chris Ryan]

They're also back on home field. So being back in London starting the season with. And we'll spoil the first episode going forward. The first sequence is essentially a mass shooting at a campaign stump promotional.

[Andy Greenwald]

Not even. It's just like that guy has a table in a. What appears to be like a council flat. Like he's just.

[Chris Ryan]

And he's trying to register people and get them to vote for the Siddiq Khan stand in that Nick Muhammad is.

[Andy Greenwald]

Playing who is the current mayor in the world of slow horses, he's the.

[Chris Ryan]

Incumbent and he is running against a populist demagogue. Vaguely Nigel Farage ish. A Farage ish character. Soul Horses has done a really nice job of like talking about the nuances between the conservative side of the British sort of political spectrum and their relationship to the more like National Front. Racist.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, I mean, I heard that it's Sharia Law there now I'm very interested. I'll report back soon.

[Chris Ryan]

And so, yeah, I think that it starts out with this mass shooting that takes place there. There's immediately, like, questions about what we know as viewers versus what cops and agents are trying to catch up with.

[Andy Greenwald]

And by the way, kudos to the production and to Saul Metstein and Will Smith. Like, the show is very propulsive and very funny all the time. That opening was horrifying. Yeah, it was. I thought it was brilliantly. I don't want to say shot or executed, but it was brilliantly. They pulled it off brilliantly.

[Chris Ryan]

But I liked it because I think most slow horses seasons start with a bomb goes off way down over there or there's a murder and then it kind of spirals out from there. But I feel like the show needed something like that to kind of say, like, hey, we know it's season five, but pay attention.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And I just thought that the framing of it there was. The most horrifying aspect of it was the silence that they lingered in. That usually it's like a knee jerk thing that anytime there is any kind of act of violence on television or movies, if you leave the scene, you hear the sirens, you hear the approach, you hear a scream, There's a sense that. But it's almost like letting the audience know, don't worry, society is here to pick up the pieces. The guardrails exist. And I really appreciated that. It was just this horrifying, funereal silence.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And then it kind of snowballs from there. You know, there's an attempt on Roddy's life, surely. Maybe Shirley is obsessed with the idea that it was.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a white van, by the way, which is what Ethan Hawke drives in the Lowdown.

[Chris Ryan]

That's true. And, you know, there's a lot of tension arriving from the internal kind of allegiances, but also dreams and nightmares of the members of Slough House, specifically. Louisa Leaves Sly House and River is obviously like, I'm kind of the last. I'm holding the bag here. Like, I'm close to becoming one of those people that just spends the rest of his career here. And what's that gonna mean for me when I think I have, like, a higher purpose? And I think I'm like the number one draft pick of all spies. Jackson is still Jackson. Farting, drinking.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, his. Can you imagine his Grub street diet? Oh, my God.

[Chris Ryan]

It's just like.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because he starts noodles, he starts with a full English. Yeah. Some of it ends up on his Tie he then. Oh, man. I meant to the Tesco. The Tesco Caterpillar. Who has a name? I'm. Someone's going to email me about this, including my friends in England.

[Chris Ryan]

What's the Tesco Caterpillar?

[Andy Greenwald]

So he takes. They go to Tesco to get the supplies for the going away party.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And one of the things that they get is a cake of this character. And there's gummies. And I've got them from Slinky or. Yes, Fuzzy. Thank you, Colin. No, it's Colin.

[Chris Ryan]

Colin.

[Andy Greenwald]

Colin, the caterpillar. Thank you.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like a Carvel thing.

[Andy Greenwald]

London rules. Yes, we would think of it. I use the same analogy. Then I had to explain Fudgy the whale, and everybody was like, it's time for you to fly home now.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you have Carvel out in the west coast growing up?

[Andy Greenwald]

What is that?

[Chris Ryan]

It's an ice cream chain, but they make ice cream cakes, usually in, like, these proprietary cartoon characters.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, we had, like, Baskin Robbins. Wait, okay, I'm gonna get Kaya. You were right. Colin is the Marks and Spencer version of it. The classier version of the classic Slinky.

[Chris Ryan]

And what does Tesco sell?

[Andy Greenwald]

Slinky. Okay. So Jackson then takes the Slinky cake and a bottle of whiskey and almost dies smoking a cigarette. He doesn't clearly know about Zins yet. No, that might be season six. And then after polishing off the cake, I believe switches to garlic noodles and shrimp chips before exiting the office. It is a legendary run by my guy. It's firing on all cylinders in the like. If anybody who listens to the show wants to write for television and ongoing television, I would just watch this episode as a primer on the possibilities of ongoing series and what you can do. Because it's so deeply rooted in character in the way that, like, the best sitcoms are, where everyone knows the role they play. And in the same way that, like, a classical music composer might know which section of the orchestra to use and how to have them interact. The scene of the going away party, everyone is playing their role and the ball movement is elite. And then the subtle gradations that you get only in the fifth season of a show where Shirley is, like, correct that something has happened to Roddy and everyone's reaction to it is both, A, in keeping with who they are, B, has ulterior motives, as Jackson says that he does.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

But C, you also see where river is in his journey towards being more like his grandfather, more like his father, or more like Jackson.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

And that he's pretty dismissive of it too. Yeah, it's just a masterclass on, on how to manage a large ensemble.

[Chris Ryan]

They also do a really good job of in this season, I will say, like finding new pairings and mixing it up. And that's my favorite thing when you have a long running show like this is like shuffling the deck a little bit and being like, what if these two hung out for a while? And what if these two had to do something?

[Andy Greenwald]

What do they have to say to each other?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andy Greenwald]

Louise's face when river plants one on her. Great, great stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

Just looking, looking over the Thames.

[Andy Greenwald]

Would you like to comment on that? Do you have just politically where you'd like this relationship to go?

[Chris Ryan]

Will they or won't they? Who can say?

[Andy Greenwald]

Cause you know what's good? I'm just gonna throw a little curveball to you before we go to our interview that we've been teasing for 40 plus minutes. But like, but Zoron went back to the New York Times editorial board and they were trying to gotcha him and he was like, nope. They were like, would you apologize to the nypd? And he said yes. And then they were like, oh, what subway seat would you like to sit in, sir?

[Chris Ryan]

Do any takes?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, it's kind of amazing if you just. This is my, that's my platform. I just speak my truth.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's get into that Lowdown interview. So this was recorded on Monday night and I was myself and Ethan Hawke and Sterling Harjo. It was really cool. A bunch of the cast, cast of the Lowdown was in the audience. So it was really cool to see them interacting with Ethan and Sterling while they were on stage. They told some great stories and it was really awesome. I think I understood these guys like working together, but these guys are like creative brothers. And it's really cool to see someone of a different generation like Ethan Hawke just be like, now you are my guy. Like, let's, let's make stuff together.

[Andy Greenwald]

And it's one thing Ethan Hawke is notorious for. He doesn't like making stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

It was a really cool chat. Thanks to everybody who came out. And we will be back on Monday with another one of these where we have a panel talk, but this time with the cast and creators behind. Behind task.

[Andy Greenwald]

Kaya, will you be there? I will.

[Chris Ryan]

East side Kaya. That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's wild. Wow. We don't see the culture we've got. Venturing over to Eagle Rock on a Sunday.

[Chris Ryan]

Traffic will be fine.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's true. On a Sunday Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Greenwald, great to see you. See you on Monday. My name is Chris Ryan. You are here for a special live taping of the Watch, minus Andy Greenwald. He apologizes, but I do have some special guests to introduce. So without further ado, let me bring out the creator and star of the Lowdown, Sterling Harjo and Ethan Hawkeye.

[Sterling Harjo]

They're loud. I like that.

[Chris Ryan]

Guys, thank you so much for doing this with me. I'm so glad everybody just got to watch the first episode. I talked about it a little bit earlier today when I was recording an episode of the Pod with Andy, and we were marveling at the fact that a lot of the shows seem to be, like, almost pulled from our minds and, like, tapped into just so many of the things that we are interested in. I think you can really feel that this is something that you guys actually wanted to see on screen. So I wanted to know if we could just go through. Take me through Genesis. Take me through how this project came together.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because Ethan and I had met before Reservation Dogs. We started writing a project together, and we just kind of became friends and, like, good friends, and we'd share music together, and we talk. We talk literature and blah, blah, blah. And, you know. And then he was in Res Dogs, and I think Ethan thought he was going to be like, I'll be a cameo or something.

[Ethan Hawke]

You know, I was going to be a cashier attendant or something.

[Sterling Harjo]

But, you know, as soon as Ethan Hawke said he's going to be in the show, I was like, well, let me go and write you the biggest role of one episode, you know? And so he became a Laura dad and came down.

[Ethan Hawke]

We filmed.

[Sterling Harjo]

It was a great time. And that was kind of like, you know, we knew. I knew after that I wanted to work on something, like, whether it's a film or whatever, like, we needed to do something because we just gelled. And then, you know, it's kind of like thinking about what to do after Res Dogs. And there's this old script that I had had. It was actually a feature to begin with, and it was just like, the first 20 pages. And I'd written the first 20 pages, like, 15 times. And a friend of mine inspired the character, Lee. His name is Leroy Chapman. He's a journalist that I worked with this place called this Land Press. I literally rode around with him in a white van, and he told stories about sort of underground stories of Tulsa. And we made this video called Tulsa Public Secrets. He passed away. And I just was inspired to Write this character. And it wasn't meant to be a bio, but inspired by sort of the spirit of him because he was also, like, he was a journalist and he was sort of a thorn in the side to the establishment. And he had a lot to do with helping the Tulsa race massacre like that come out, which had been covered up in Tulsa, not talked about. And so through the work of this land, we did a lot of work about truth. And anyway, so I started thinking about what would I do next after Reservation Dogs. And I was like, I'll turn this story into a pilot. I rewrote it, wrote it as a pilot, sent it to him under the guise that I wanted notes. And you could tell the rest of that.

[Ethan Hawke]

Well, it was a really old school trick is what it was. He literally said, because we had been writing together before Res Dogs started, so it kind of made sense. He's like, hey, thinking about submitting the scripts. Is this ready to go out? What do you make out of this? You got any notes? Does it work? And I was like, sure, sure. So I open it up and I read about this character, owns a bookstore. I'm like, this is me. Like, why is he not offering me this movie?

[Sterling Harjo]

I forgot to mention I did sort of when I was writing this character and rewriting some of what I already had, I did a sort of Ethan Hawke pass, because I'd written for him already and knew him at this point.

[Ethan Hawke]

And I literally text him, like, script's fun, but I should be in this. And. And Stone just went back, yeah, I can fix that.

[Chris Ryan]

Tell me a little bit about the specific nature of your collaboration, because you mentioned at looking, possibly trolling him for notes. But as the show starts to come together and as you start to map it out. Ethan, were you working with the writers? Was it more of a kind of I'm on set kind of as a creative figurehead for the show? How did that work?

[Ethan Hawke]

It's a little mysterious. I really trust Sterling, and this is Sterlin's dream. This is his city. This is inspired by people and a world that he knows extremely intimately. I felt immediately when I read this first 60 pages that I understood this guy. I never thought twice about it. I wanted to play that character really badly. And. And so we have a great. It almost feels like being in a band together where we would talk about ideas, we would talk about fatherhood, we would talk about what journalism means, we'd talk about Hunter S. Thompson, we'd geek out about different Jim Thompson, different things that we thought the show should Feel like. And I really trusted him to lead. Once the show gets green lit, you've got a couple months to write a novel, and he doesn't need to be checking in with me constantly or having too many cooks in the kitchen. But I also felt that he really trusted me so that I would read drafts and be like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if I did this? And he'd be like, yeah, that'd be cool. Or that wouldn't be cool. And we found a vocabulary that was lead together. And it was extremely rewarding and interesting to go. I had an incredible supporting cast. Every day that I would wake up.

[Sterling Harjo]

They'Re all sitting on that row right there. Raise your hand. Stand up. Stand up real quick.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

So, like, I had these amazing people that would give me energy, and it was, I think, part of my. We're like a troop. We were a traveling troop trying to make this dream come true. And I never felt like Sterling didn't want to hear my ideas. Never. And I knew I was safe. He's very fun to work with. It's hard to say it with you sitting right here, but it's okay. Yeah, it's a little. He was asking me to jump off the high dive, and he was asking everybody to jump off the high dive, and he wasn't sure how we were going to land, but he knew we were going to by hook or by crook. We wouldn't finish until we did. And if I ever thought something was wrong or some other cast member, Stone's the first person to say, what do you mean? Why do you think it's wrong? All right, let's do. What do you think? What would be funny? And we also really like each other. So if he's not laughing, I'm not happy, you know? And so it was a fun set to go to because my job was. Here's the other. There's a negative way of putting it. He gets bored so easily. And so if it's boring, I could look. I'd see him behind the moniker, okay, this scene sucks. And he'd be like, yeah, do something else. You know?

[Sterling Harjo]

But it's strange. It's like we're, you know, we were meant to work together, and, you know, we have such similar kind of, like, styles as far as blocking a scene goes. And we're also not precious. Like, once I write it, once it's down, it's like, let's do whatever we can do to make this better.

[Chris Ryan]

Can I actually just ask you A follow up for that. You just casually mentioned similar styles of blocking a scene. Can you tell me what that means? Because there is a energy that is present in this episode and the following episodes where I love how Lee is always moving through his space.

[Ethan Hawke]

Can I go? Yeah, a lot of times you can.

[Chris Ryan]

Go whenever you want.

[Ethan Hawke]

By the way, I'd be driving to set and we're. It's the first thing that comes to mind. There's a million things that come to mind. But I know that it's the scene where I have to like, pitch my idea for the story to my editor, the, at the, the Heartland Press in the, in the show. And, and I know what the. I know that we're under time pressure and I know that the DP is going to want me to sit there and the other person sit there and we can get this scene really fast. Cause I'll sit in there and I'm like, but you know what? He can't sit down. Can't sit down, can't sit down. If I do sit down, I'm getting right back up. And that's gonna make it such a pain in the ass to shoot. And I've got a history of making movies. I know what a problem that is as a director if an actor has an idea like that. Like, I have to pitch this to Sterling the right way. And instead of doing it the right way, I come in and go, I can't sit down. And Stern's like, you can't sit down. You know, and then everybody else just has to roll with it.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah. I mean, it was interesting, like, you know. Cause you.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't.

[Sterling Harjo]

I don't know. Like we, we would come on set, he would say, yeah, I just don't feel like I'm like, I know. You know, like, we gotta like. And we wouldn't even kind of finish the sentences. And then it would be like, let's just see what happens. We would do that a lot. Let's see what happens. You know, and we start walking around and start saying the scene. Usually we sit down and start trying to read the lines. And then it's like, oh, let's just get up. Well, what if you walked over here and it was. It's like. It was kind of like jazz in a way. You know, we're improvising as we go, but it always meant something. It's not like. I think that a lot of times people will look at a scene and it's like, okay, there's two people talking. Let's just have Them talk. It's gonna be brilliant. We're gonna shoot it. It's gonna be brilliant. And it's not brilliant. Cause you can also take those two characters sometimes. And I'm not saying I don't do that, but you could take those two characters sometimes and get to some sort of other truth about the scene with the way that they move within the scene.

[Ethan Hawke]

You have a lot of experience. Now, what smells like real life and what doesn't, I'll do. I've never had this happen to me in my life. I'm doing a scene, and I, in the back of my mind, know that I know the difference between when Sterling is really turned on and when he's, like, thinking about what's not working.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Ethan Hawke]

You know, and I'm.

[Sterling Harjo]

It gets real obvious.

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah, but so we're active scene, the cameras are rolling, and all of a sudden, my director walks in to the shot. This is boring.

[Sterling Harjo]

What is it?

[Ethan Hawke]

It's almost like he's trying to smell what's fake. You know, he's just standing there going, like, maybe go over there maybe. What do you think? And then all of a sudden, I'm like, okay, I got it. I'm free. I'm free. I was feeling trapped, too. And once that happens, and it's so exciting. One time we were in the middle of doing a scene, and it wasn't in this episode, but still in the idea. We just start shooting the scene, and Stone's like, what if he's wearing the same hat you are? And it's bugging you, it's getting you on your nerves, and it takes, like, a normal scene. It totally screws it up because.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Ethan Hawke]

We start doing the scene halfway through the thing, it's like, are you wearing my hat? He's like, well, it's not your hat. It's a hat. No hats are my thing. And it's so weird, and it doesn't make any sense, but it reminds me of, like, shit that happens with my friends. And so all of a sudden, the scene smells real. Do you know?

[Sterling Harjo]

And like, if I may, Michael, steal the story that you told the other day. I'm going to do it, but new nodding. Yeah. Michael Hitchcock, everybody. He. He. I went up to him before a take of whenever they're in the estate cell. And I said, you should slap Lee on the ass when you get up there. And, like, it's like that stuff that I feel like, you know, it's within the character. It's within the story. And Michael said that, you know, that Told him everything that he needed to know about their relationship.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sterling Harjo]

And I think it does to an audience, too. Right. It's like, oh, they have history. They know each other, they flirt with each other, they mess. They bug each other, you know, whatever. There's all this stuff that's kind of cooked into it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sterling Harjo]

That kind of tells your history. And then. And similarly with. With Killer Mike, who is amazing ever. I mean, like, I love the familiarity that they have with each other and they are just sitting across from each other. But it's like, you know, I remember Ethan going, maybe I should just, like, try to sit. Like, maybe I should sit here. And I was like, well, what if you sit there and then he kicks you out of it? You know, it's like, it's great for.

[Ethan Hawke]

It, but it's just, right, get out of my barber chair. And then all of a sudden, they know each other. And you're always hunting for those weird little behaviors that unlock character.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I mean, we were just talking about all the President's men upstairs. The scene where he's like, is there anywhere you don't smoke? You know, and it's like, has nothing to do with Nixon, but you're like, oh, I totally understand the relationship.

[Ethan Hawke]

That movie's a great example that they play a lot of that movie in two shots and wide shots. And it's really great because you can see Hoffman and Redford's interaction. So you actually watch them working together and you don't feel manipulated. And the film has a great sense of realism that's really heightened. And you feel like you're in the room with them because, A, they're good and their behavior is good, but that the director was willing to say, actually, you know, what's interesting about the scene is the way they're sitting. You know, that that's communicating something. And a lot of people just. They come in, they have a shot list in their head. And anytime an actor does any weird, it's. It's in the director's way, as opposed to how I view it, which is trying to help.

[Chris Ryan]

I wanted to ask you about how you go about creating with that, for lack of a better term, a vibe for a show. How much of what we just saw is, this is in my head, and I'm trying to get it out through music, through cinematography, through how I block a scene and how I get performances of actors versus you show up in Tulsa, you turn the cameras on, you have certain performance, and it's like, lively. And you find it on the day or you find it over the course of production.

[Sterling Harjo]

I think there's some of that is, like, you show up at Tulsa with the cabin turn on, even though I don't show up until I live there. But, like, it is in my head is this vibe. I don't know. Like, I have influences. You know, I've talked about the Long Goodbye, you know, we were watching. We talked a lot about the Long Goodbye and killing of a Chinese bookie and, like, you know, Drowning Pool and all these. All these, you know, the Big Lebowski and all of these things. I don't know. It's what I see in my head. Head, let's say that. But I also got really good. I'm really grateful for. I think of it as like, Altman or like Sidney lmat or someone. Like when Altman was doing a lot of TV directing. You're able to make mistakes and learn kind of what you want, and you learn kind of what you like. I did a lot of short documentaries, some of it for the this Land Press that Heartland Press is based on, but I made a lot of short documentaries. And the thing about making documentaries, as you walk into a space, you have to, right off the bat, know where the camera goes, how to edit it, how to tell the story you're trying to tell, and how to get a performance out of someone. And that was just like, over and over, this repetition. It trained me to be able to, I think, keep things alive and kind of moving and not feel too bored. But, I mean, I guess I don't even know if I answer the question, but it is a vibe that I want to create. Like, I feel it, you know, but it is a feeling. It's hard to kind of explain it, I guess.

[Ethan Hawke]

The show you guys just watched is exactly what he described to me when we were first talking about what it would. And it happens slowly, shot by shot, it gets unveiled. I remember when I was younger and I was doing Dead Poet Society with Peter Weir, I had the distinct feeling that he had seen the movie before, like 30 years ago, and he was remembering the movie. So it's kind of like you'd be blocking a scene and when he'd be like, just be looking at it. It's like something's like, it's not the way I remember it, you know? And then you'd go over and sit there or do something weird with your hair and be like, oh, that's it. That's in the movie. Like, as if. Like, he was. Do you know what I mean?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that's Amazing.

[Sterling Harjo]

It's very strange to me because that is how it happens. And I think it's just. I am playing it in my head and I think about it for so long, even before I write anything down, I'm thinking about what I want to write down and I think about it for long and I write to music and I do have the vibe in my head. And the beautiful thing about this, and this wasn't for filmmakers out there, it wasn't like that for me in the first half of my career. It wasn't until Reservation Dogs that I got good enough confidence, met with talent, I think, and I got good enough to see it in my head and then watch it come alive in front of me. And the beautiful thing about when it started happening with Reservation Dogs, and especially this is it was better than what it was what I had in my head, but it was better. But it wasn't always like that.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's talk Tulsa, which is arguably your co star in the show. I've been there once last year and it was unlike any place else. And I think that this show does this incredible job of evoking that even. Did you spend much time there other than shooting Reservation Dogs before making?

[Ethan Hawke]

I just driven through Tulsa my whole life until. Until Res Dogs and when I got to that set and I felt it immediately, I felt so comfortable. The energy that, oh, you know, the production designer, the sound engineer, the first ad, the whole team, they trust each other and they believe in each other and they have a great strange combination of immense gratitude for the privilege of getting to be a professional, creative person. Met with this irreverence of like, I've got this opportunity, fuck it, I'm doing something with it. Yeah, you know, I'm not. And so it. It had a rebellious spirit and the humility of gratitude and it was really pleasant to be on. And the way Eric Edelston almost bought a house there.

[Sterling Harjo]

This guy was just. He won't quit talking about.

[Ethan Hawke]

Wasn't just Sterling. It was the company of players and of people that really cared about making something to make it. Not about what was going to happen later or what it was going to get them. It's like, what are we doing today? How could today be cool? And that's an energy that really, really turns me on and is pervasive in Tulsa. The history of Tulsa, the pain of Tulsa, the love of Tulsa is. It's right on the surface. And you know, we've seen a lot of noirs in New York and LA and Chicago and Boston and New Orleans. And this is a really unique part of America that is actually extremely interesting to be at right now to talk about. All the crimes of America are on the surface in Oklahoma. They're right there. And you can see them in the people and the places, in the architecture. It's alive and it's present, and so it's a perfect place for a noir.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah. It's also, like. I don't know. I think there's something. And everyone can have this. There's this especially. I'm talking about the film side of things because there's such a. You know, it's growing the film industry there, but it's like, it's been so few and far between. We're all. All independent filmmakers, so when we got these opportunities, Res dogs and, you know, something like Killers of the Flower Moon comes and shoots there. It's like everyone is just so excited to be working on something. And I just think, like. And that's not just Tulsa. You know, people from la, crew from la, or crew from Louisiana or Atlanta would come and work as well with us, and, you know, like, they would just be crushed if they had to leave because they just felt something there. And it was that mix of what Ethan's talking about and also, like, just being so happy to be doing this. I mean, this is what we're doing. You know, we're trying to tell stories.

[Ethan Hawke]

I'll give you an example. We had the wrap party, and we finally wrapped the show, and it wasn't anywhere. It just was right where we finished shooting. A party erupted. We were on a street in Tulsa, and, you know, somebody brought some beer, somebody brought.

[Sterling Harjo]

All of the trucks, just lowered their. Whatever that thing is.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

And everybody just starts sitting on it and music was playing. Somebody lights a fire, and everybody starts congregating. And I hung out there for a couple hours. It's like, all right, this is fun. I've never seen this happen, but I've got to go pack because I'm flying tomorrow. So I left for a couple hours, and I packed up the house and fed the dogs. And I was like, it's like, now, 12:30, like, what if they're still there? So I get in the car and I drive over. Everybody's still partying. There's more people there. I'm like, all right, park the car and sit down for another couple hours. And that doesn't happen.

[Chris Ryan]

I wanted to ask you about the strip that Lee's Bookstore is on, because it is kind of a slice of heaven on earth. You've Got touch of vinyl. The record store.

[Sterling Harjo]

You've got Josh Fatem. Josh Fadem store, everybody.

[Chris Ryan]

You've got the. The law offices. Making Blair's law offices. And then you've got Sweet Emily. Yeah, Sweet Emily's, which is a diner out of my dreams. And then. And the moment Ethan walks into Houd before he gets jumped, and he's like, ah, I'm home. And it's like, you've. I think everybody here has probably had that feeling walking into a used bookstore. You're like, I'm gonna spend three hours here. Just tell me about making this. This little world inside of Tulsa because you had to construct that, right? Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Sterling Harjo]

I mean, like, what's interesting is that block's really cool. I mean, my first feature film that I ever made, Four Sheets to the Wind, I shot there. So, like, we just kind of, like, in that same building, and I made a diner, and I made a bar, and the main character lived upstairs where Lee lives. And it just so happened that this building was free again, and we rented it. And this old restaurant. Diner thing, nothing ever survives on that corner. And so we just, like, I would love to open that diner, you know, like, keep it. But, like, we just. It was basically having a Little backlot on 6th street in Tulsa and able to put. And we rented it all, and we put all of the businesses right there. And it was just sort of, you know, because at first it was like, you know, at first he actually went to the coffee shop as, like, the Waffle House. Then he would come back to the bookstore. Nothing was closed, but it was like, what if they're all kind of. Of close together? And then it just represents Tulsa as a street, a specific part of Tulsa, you know, and it just worked out beautifully, you know, and it's like. And, you know, Cody Lightning, who plays Waylon, who's the wild guy with cowboy hat, is like, you know, I kill people.

[Andy Greenwald]

Lee.

[Sterling Harjo]

Funny enough, he was the lead actor at 19 years old and four sheets to the wind in that blog. So he got to come back, and that's amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

You got to go come back and do security.

[Sterling Harjo]

Exactly.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's talk a little bit about the Lee that inspired this character and also some of the themes of the. The show itself. You know, I got a chance to watch. Maybe it's the one that you made. I was, like, watching the YouTube about the Tulsa. Tulsa Riot, like, in. In earlier today, and I was like, oh, I had no idea.

[Sterling Harjo]

Was it with Leroy?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. And I was like, all those. Yeah. I had no Idea like whether or not Ethan, you had drawn was there a line where you're like, I'm going to be inspired by this character, but there are going to be certain flourishes that I bring.

[Ethan Hawke]

I should say that what mattered to me is, you know, I. Sterling sent the script, I loved it, so let's do this. I've never done it. I've never accepted a part. He's heard me say this a thousand times because I said it to him all the time. Like, I've never done this. Where I took a part where I haven't read it. That's my whole teaching, my whole understanding of performance is to understand the theme and metaphor of a piece so that my performance isn't about entertaining people, it's in service of a story. That's where, where you can get lost and lose yourself. And that's what feels really good to me. And I was like, I don't know exactly how to do this. And I wanted to understand what the lowdown was going to be about. What, what is it about besides making people be amused, you know, like and, and Stolen came over to my house and showed me all these videos that.

[Sterling Harjo]

He made kind of way later too. It was after we'd already. The script was already.

[Ethan Hawke]

It was, it was much late. We knew we were really doing it. And you came over the house and we watched a bunch of those and you sent a bunch of. To me. And what mattered to me is that the show is coming from a real place. The engine is that this person has something to communicate. And what Leroy Chapman was obvious was a really special person and obviously somebody to be admired and somebody I was really interested in. But he also represented something to Sterlin that really interested me when I was growing up. And like at first becoming an adult in the arts, you meet people who are extremely idealistic and their idealism and their passion is, is blistering and amazing and inspiring and it creates blind spots. You know, they don't see the glasses of wine, their tail is breaking over, you know, because they're so hell bent to do this thing to them is noble. And that part of the character and that part of people that I do, it's a story I really love to tell of people who are willing to put themselves online for something they believe in and for something that is in service to others, that they see themselves as interconnected with their community and that my well being is connected to your well being. And the truth of being a journalist is very similar to the spiritual truth of wanting to be a Performer of. To drive it, to give people something true to look at so you can see your own life, reflect on it, reflect on your culture, get outside of your own point of view. All these things are the mission of my life. And so I could see that in Lee, and I could also. I mean, we have friends. I have friends who. Who've died because they can't see those blind spots, you know, that their cause is noble, but the internal damage that's created or the damage to their family and damage to other things because they're so blindly in pursuit of what they love. And that contradiction of it being both noble and destructive seemed real to me. And Sterling's work with Leroy Chapman was inspirational to. Like, I knew that was the engine of the show. Does that make sense?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Sterling Harjo]

And it's also, I think, you know, the thing that he and I bond over and the character is like, it's scary to know that you're passionate about doing these things. And it's like, to what end? You know, like, we're sitting here and we did something that we can be very proud of, but there's also versions of us that did something and. And destroyed their lives or whatever. You know, they took some wrong turns or whatever.

[Ethan Hawke]

Hurt their family.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah, hurt their family, whatever. And that. And he and I talked a lot about the father, daughter relationship in that way, because at the time when I was at. When my daughter. My daughter was that age, and it was a lot of, like, being an independent filmmaker. Should I keep doing this? We were in, you know, it was hard to make money. I didn't know if I was ever going to make money. And it was very inspired by that. He's a father of two daughters as well. And, you know, as far as, like, Leroy, too, it was like, it was kind of this. It was this idea, though, of a. I didn't want him to feel. But it wasn't a biopic because I didn't want him to feel like he had to do one thing. You know, I wanted him to be free in that. So that's why it was just kind of a jumping off point. But, yes, like, it was to embody these people that kind of inspire us and sometimes, you know, get too close to the flames.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I mean, I was. I found him to be an incredibly entertaining inheritor of the legacy of, like, the Private Investigator. Over the course of, you know, probably all the books and movies that we love. And there are some guys who are just, like, really laconic, and they'll do something a little bit just to watch what happens. And then there are the guys who are shambolic, and they kind of just happen into it. But Lee is like, I'm jumping through the glass window here, and we'll see who reacts to what here. But you can tell the Megan Blair character is like, he's a loon, but he's really entertaining. You know, Mike's character obviously has this effect. Everybody has this affection for him, but they kind of have to stay a little bit out of the blast radius. Right? Yeah.

[Sterling Harjo]

It's scary to be that close to someone like that. Right. Like, you have to protect yourself, too. But you care about him. But you also know, I mean, like, even, you know, Sienna east, who plays Deidre right over here, she's like.

[Chris Ryan]

Like your.

[Sterling Harjo]

She's like, you know, it affects me too. Like, this is your place. This is my place of work as well. Because I. One of my favorite lines is when he's like, yeah, people get beat up all the time. People always get beat up. You know, it's like, do they. Like, I don't know if that's true. And, you know, and Deidre's like, yeah, well, you gotta. Like, this is our place of business. It also affects me, you know, And I think that that's kind of everyone's relationship with. With him, the one that loves him the most, I think, being his daughter, you know, and that's kind of the heart of the story. That's the scariest relationship, because it's like, that's the thing that you got to protect.

[Ethan Hawke]

I'm excited for you guys to get to see the rest of the show, because everything Sterling's talking about is manifest.

[Chris Ryan]

In the show, even just in this episode. An incredibly. You're like a five tool player in this one, because you've got to do humor. You got to be vulnerable. You got to get your ass beat a couple of times. Times. And you are like the expository fulcrum for the show. Like, you were the one who's like. And then all of this has happened, and all this might happen because of that. And it's like, Ethan's the best at.

[Sterling Harjo]

Saying, we gotta get all this information out here. Let me just, like, let me.

[Andy Greenwald]

Let me.

[Sterling Harjo]

Let me just see how I can say it, you know, and, like, just cooks it down to, like, really quick and a couple of lines and bam, the exposition is out the door. You know, it's great.

[Chris Ryan]

But did you find that the, like, the nature of the things that were being asked of you almost fueled the desperation of the performance or the character itself, kind of.

[Ethan Hawke]

Yeah. I mean, there's a rebellious spirit to Sterling. There's a rebellious spirit to try to make a show like this and put it out into the homes of America and say the thing just to imagine that anyone would care, you know, and we had a lot of pressure on us in that and not enough time. And you can use that as permission to fail or you can use it as wood in the stove.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

You know, and so I, I enjoy that. I, I felt like we were making an epic, you know, eight hour indie movie and we were trying to shoot it. Well, trying to shoot it smart. And I know that all that has to do with preparation in your mind.

[Sterling Harjo]

And sometimes it's like all those movies that we love, we're in LA right now. I'm sure all of you are movie lovers. It's like all those movies that we love, well, somebody made them, somebody blocked those scenes, Somebody wrote those words. They weren't superhuman, they were humans, just like us. But they were like, oh, I'm going to say something. And they made the right amount of things and put it in a stew. And they wouldn't give up from making something interesting and seeing what would in their head. Making it happen, you know, and that's such an attainable thing. And we just did it. I mean, we just fought for it. Day after day.

[Ethan Hawke]

I get so inspired. Like I watched before we started, I watched the Long Goodbye again. If you watch the opening of that movie, it's amazing. There's this whole sequence about him getting.

[Sterling Harjo]

Cat food and this 30, 30 minutes of a cat actor.

[Ethan Hawke]

When it first starts, he's sitting there in bed and you see all these marks on the wall above him and you're like, what are those marks? And then he lights his first cigarette and you're like, oh, that's. The filmmaker in me goes, all right, who had that idea? That's a great. I mean, it's just a tiny detail. So easy to do the scene without that detail.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

And yet that detail makes the whole thing come alive. And, and the way he talks to himself and mumbles and you can't, you can just hear the studio executive saying, I can't understand what he's saying. And like, it's okay, neither can I. It's cool. But it, it, the pull to mediocrity is so strong. There's so much fear in whenever anybody's making art. That's not going to work. That's not going to work. And you do have to consider it all. You do have to think about it all. And you also have to sometimes just go, I think it's cool.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah. And what do we remember that movie for the cats?

[Ethan Hawke]

They can't.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah. And I mean, like, hats off to FX for giving us freedom.

[Chris Ryan]

It's true.

[Ethan Hawke]

A lot of them are here tonight, and I. I feel so blessed to have my first experience in television be with them, because these people are all really serious about putting substantive, meaningful art into the world and making it a commercial enterprise, you know, meaning, like, let's. What if we could do something really cool and have it work? And. And they're dedicated to it and they've been supporting us. And the only reason we were able to do that is because of the positivity that you built. Built with Reservation Dogs, and they've done with a lot of shows besides the shows we're involved with.

[Chris Ryan]

I wanted to know what was the thing that surprised you most about making a mystery? To the extent that you would define this as one. But, like, man, I get pretty cocky about it because I watch a lot of them and I read a lot of them. I'm like, well, you know, they've kind of tipped their hand here. Was there a little bit of, like, oh, now I'm in. Now I'm the guy deciding, like, who done it.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah. It's so difficult. One of the hardest things ever. I can write people hanging out all day, you know, like. Like, I could do that in my sleep. And dialogue and character, like, I. I'm on top of it. Like, I got. You throw a bit of mystery in there. And a conspiracy plot, let's face it.

[Ethan Hawke]

It'S four letters that are hard for you. P, L, O, T. Yeah, exactly.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah, most definitely. But it was such a good challenge. And I mean, like, with Reservation Dogs, what Reservation Dogs taught me, because we would play, as we talked about, we would play with genre in different episodes. And what I fell in love with was how much I could say in the episodes that I played that I was sort of making a genre piece. And all of a sudden I realized, oh, you can actually say more with Genre than you can just out there freeballing or whatever, you know, like, you can say more within the parameters that you set up for yourself. And that's exciting to me. That's super exciting. So that was exciting. But then, you know, once you're in the mystery of it all, I mean, here's the thing. I have. I treat everything the same, which is, like, whether it's blocking, whether it's like watching a performance, whether it's writing a scene, whether it's writing dialogue. I always, it goes through like my brain filter, which is, have I seen this before? I don't want to ever see. I don't want to ever do something I haven't seen before. Or if it's. I've seen it before, I want it to be very different. And how do I change it? How do I put life into it? How do I bring something new to it? And I went after the, the plot and the crime the same way. And, and also, you know, hired Walter Mosley and other really great crime writers to help me. So, you know, that was also part of it.

[Chris Ryan]

One of my favorite things about this episode that you guys got to see is just the tapestry of stuff that the viewer gets introduced to. Jim Thompson, Bob wills, the, you know, 70s music, the 70s film font of the credit sequence. And I thought maybe as a last question I'd ask you guys, what's one thing that you discovered? Writer, musician, Something over the course of maybe making this show together or hanging out that you wouldn't have didn't know about before, but you got turned on to. Because I think a lot of people are going to get turned to some really cool stuff by watching this.

[Ethan Hawke]

I'll start, thank God, help me with There's. Well, she's not in this episode, but the wonderful actor who plays Pearl.

[Sterling Harjo]

Oh, Ken Pomeroy, a friend of mine.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ethan Hawke]

Okay. Well, one of the things about hanging out with Sterling that's so wonderful, which strangely, a lot of the best artists I've worked with, the best artists I've worked with have a love of other artists, painters, musicians, filmmakers, writers. And you're always telling everybody to go check this out and go check this out. And music is a particular passion of yours. And you cast this young woman who I had never met before, who's just a brilliant singer, songwriter and she can act. And it ended up making what could have been a two dimensional character, a really three dimensional presence in the show. And I could say the same thing about Jacob Tovar. And so, so basically I take the.

[Sterling Harjo]

Whole crew and everybody, we go listen to my friends play music like every week while we're shooting. It's pretty beautiful.

[Ethan Hawke]

And then you put everybody in the show.

[Sterling Harjo]

Yeah, then everyone's an actor in the show.

[Chris Ryan]

That's not a bad life, man. Thank you guys so much for doing this and thank you so much for making such a great show.

[Sterling Harjo]

Thank you so much.

[Chris Ryan]

Thank you to everybody coming out Brain. Thanks to everybody at Brain Dead.

[Ethan Hawke]

Take care.