Apple TV’s Glossy Programming, ‘The Pitt’ S2E5, and How ‘True Detective’ S2 Explains the World

Summary

The Watch – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Apple TV’s Glossy Programming, ‘The Pitt’ S2E5, and How ‘True Detective’ S2 Explains the World
Air Date: February 6, 2026
Hosts: Andy Greenwald & Chris Ryan, with producer Kaya
Podcast: The Watch (The Ringer)

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Episode Overview

This week, Andy and Chris dive into the latest spring/summer Apple TV offerings and discuss the service's distinct style, speculate on Disney's future and entertainment industry leadership changes, break down Season 2, episode 5 of The Pitt, debate London vs. American city-based TV, reflect on the legacy of True Detective Season 2, and touch on other pop culture topics (from Muppets and streaming woes to sports and legacy acts in film and TV). The show is filled with their signature pop-culture references, dry wit, and friendly banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

[03:32] Disney’s Executive Shuffle and the Future of Franchises

• News: Disney names Josh D’Amaro as successor to Bob Iger, with Dana Walden’s portfolio expanding.
• Host Reactions:
  • Chris wonders about Disney’s direction after “Secret Wars” and “Mandalorian” wrap.
  • Both see Disney’s focus shifting to parks and live experiences as their most stable, expandable business.
  • Speculation about the next big Marvel phases, especially the X-Men (“Just give me the X-Men…They’re being so coy with that” – Chris, 07:34).
  • Andy riffs on the optics of Disney’s “tidy” succession and their aversion to giving a woman the top job: “they wanted everything to be as tidy as possible…” (08:29).

[09:39] Apple TV Press Day – The Branding of Glossy Streaming

• News: Apple holds its first major TV press day, releasing teasers for several spring/summer originals.
• Meta Observation: Chris and Andy note the uniformity and “brand” of Apple TV shows: glossy, big-name casts, quick teaser drops, and a measure of narrative sameness.
• Weekly Frustrations: Andy complains about constantly having to email different Apple PR reps for screeners, humorously highlighting the “struggle” of TV coverage (10:04–10:22).

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[12:22] Spring/Summer Apple TV Previews & The “Apple TV Aesthetic”

• Friends and Neighbors S2
  • Returning in June, adds James Marsden.
  • Chris: trailer feels like a “soft reset”; Andy: higher hopes for season two, likes when it’s “clubby, glitzy”.
  • Both have strong opinions about the trope of “season two flashbacks”– Chris threatens: “If this season starts with a flashback, I’m out.” (15:02)
• Lucky
  • Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening, Timothy Olyphant, about a con artist on the run.
  • Both hosts impressed: “Very visually dynamic…made me more interested.” (16:55–17:14)
• Anya Taylor-Joy Career Chat
  • Andy: “There’s also a difference…between interesting and charismatic. The fact that she might not be a movie star does not make her less interesting or talented, but she’s been positioned to be both. And that can be a tough place to be.” (21:07)
  • Chris: “She’s on a post-Queen’s Gambit…slowly going up the stairs of stardom again.” (20:48)
• Other Apple Projects:
  • Imperfect Women: coming soon, Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, Kate Mara.
  • Margo’s Got Money Troubles: Michelle Pfeiffer, Elle Fanning, Nick Offerman.
  • Hosts note all projects are adaptation-heavy, feature giant casts, and present a “tidal wave” of expensive programming.
  • Andy: "As a branding exercise...I absolutely can tell you what an Apple TV show is now..." (23:34)
  • Chris: compares Apple's approach to how some people treat CBS shows as comforting, default television (25:23).

[26:00] Kaya’s Streaming Struggles

• Producer Kaya laments losing access to her parents’ HBO Max account and needing screener access, prompting light banter about the changing streaming landscape and login restrictions.

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[33:22] The Pitt S2E5 Breakdown

• Both continue their praise for the series, specifically how week-to-week viewing enhances the show's impact.
  • Chris: “There are some thrilling moments and some clunky moments, but it’s a TV show that is giving me week to week, a lot of joy.” (33:28)
• Robbie, The Main Character:
  • Now “fully the main character,” characterized as “tall, dark, handsome and complicated.” (34:09)
  • Both note his recklessness is rising as he prepares to leave, with Andy pointing out the "Chekov's motorcycle/helmet" moment as a major flag for Robbie’s headspace (37:18).
  • Chris: “He’s like, I’m not coming back to work tomorrow. So, bring me up on charges or don’t.” (36:13)
• Langdon Conflict:
  • Lingering tension with Robbie, but due to the show’s real-time format, avoidance “feels more pronounced.” (39:10)
• Alashimi & Joy:
  • Mixed feelings on new chief (Alashimi); Andy feels she's too much “a looming administrative presence.”
  • New character Joy’s motivations are more nuanced, with speculation about her past and inner conflicts.
• Show's Structure:
  • Andy praises the “frog in boiling water” shift in tension this season, compared to the overt disaster setup of S1 (“...this season feels like it is intentionally doing more of a frog in boiling water type of thing.”–38:27)
• Patient & Medical Drama Details:
  • MRSA/necrotizing fasciitis (“neck fash”) case analyzed; Andy lauds the visual intensity and procedural accuracy.
  • Segments on death doula and end-of-life care; MacGyver nostalgia.
  • Jokes about the realism of hospital TV (e.g., TV doctors not masking: “But they're not masking because they are actors with pretty expressive faces…”–45:36).
  • Chris: “It’s really enjoyable to watch every week.” (44:08)
• Meta TV Commentary:
  • Andy: praises the ensemble's choreography; “...the ambient noise of case after case is building up.” (43:02)

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[56:03] Steel (Amazon Prime) Review

• Chris introduces Steel as a “stylish, cool little heist show” starring Sophie Turner.
• Andy notes parallels to Industry (London specificity, post–Game of Thrones actors loosening up), with shoutouts to the supporting cast and writer/directors.
  • “Sophie Turner...fun and charismatic...not that she was bad in Game of Thrones, but that show doesn’t allow a certain range of motion.” (57:22)
• Pensions heist plot prompts jokes about modern finance and worker security (“Nothing will make you think this country is cooked more than seeing your late parents’ pension payments.”–58:18).
• Discussion of the strength of UK series in their use of real locations and physical place as a storytelling element vs. generic “volume” or Toronto/Atlanta-set American TV.
  • Andy: “...shows are elevated by location shooting and being in a place...I miss it; it's lacking in our American shows.” (65:32)
  • Chris: “...drone shot and whatever the scene is could have been shot anywhere in the world…” (61:19)

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[65:32] The Value of Place in TV: US vs. UK

• Deep dive into why UK series like Steel and Slow Horses feel grounded compared to most current American shows.
• Discussion about audience perception, production logistics, and the generic nature of many U.S. network/streamer productions.
  • Both agree U.S. series rarely celebrate physical place, citing rare exceptions (Mr and Mrs. Smith, Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul).
  • Observations about diminished crowd scenes, extras, and the “airlessness” of TV since the rise of remote and studio-based tech.

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[65:32] True Detective Season 2 – Critical Reappraisal

• Chris’s “psychopath” rewatch of True Detective S2 springs from recent current events reflecting on conspiracy, institutional rot, and collective online sleuthing.
• S2 Themes: human trafficking, corrupt elites, environmental and financial crime in California.
  • Chris: “If this show came out this year, [it] would be a top five show for me…so fucking good.” (71:03)
• Andy says S2 was “compelling and frustrating in equal measure,” with a stronger sense of authorial control (Pizzolatto) creating mannered, purgatorial performances.
• Praise for Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams.
• Chris: “It’s a show...devoid of redemption…all these characters are absolutely incinerating themselves…” (73:14)
• Discussion of recurring themes: elite cabals (see: Epstein, QAnon), nihilistic worldview, and how the show predicted the cultural moment.
• Andy: “That’s the level of, like, malevolent...almost like Armando Iannucci scripting season 15 of Veep level of cynicism…” (74:37)
• Conversation about prestige TV’s aspirations to “lasting significance” and the dilution of best-in-class work by the medium's sheer volume.
• Chris encourages reappraisal: “...I think [S2] is a level of quality of television that I think is absent from a lot [of TV] today.” (85:36)

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[78:44] On Legacy Acts, Lost Projects, and Unfinished Works

• Conversation turns from True Detective to David Lynch’s unmade final project (Unrecorded Night/Wisteria) – Jennifer Lynch may publish the scripts.
• Musings on ambivalence around posthumous or unauthorized continuations (e.g., Anthony Bourdain biopic starring Dominic Sessa).
• Andy: “There’s something incredibly bittersweet about it because no one can do what he did [Lynch].” (82:15)
• Discussion about whether continuing a TV "universe" after the original creator departs (e.g. True Detective: Night Country) feels authentic or worthwhile.

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[86:22] Eagles/Sports Corner

• Chris playfully psychoanalyzes Andy’s relationship with sports—wanting his teams to “reflect some sort of goodness.”
• Sadness at a revered Eagles offensive line coach leaving amid Philadelphia drama.
• Chris: “It was. It’s been amazing to deal with you today. Not deal with you. Deal with the world.” (89:29)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Apple TV Brand:
  • Andy: “As a branding exercise...I absolutely can tell you...what an Apple TV show is now in terms of its glossiness, in terms of frenetic pace, often based on pre-existing like Beach Read type material, big names in the cast...” (23:34)
• On The Pitt:
  • Chris: “He’s [Robbie] like, I’m not coming back to work tomorrow. So, bring me up on charges or don’t.” (36:13)
  • Andy: “The show begins with Chekov's motorcycle...the show is telling you everything you need to know about this character's mindset as you go into it.” (37:18)
• Chris on Flashbacks:
  • “If you start your second season with a big event and then go six weeks earlier, I'm fucking out.” (15:13)
• On Anya Taylor-Joy:
  • Andy: “There’s also a difference that is hard to parse…and hard to capitalize on, especially in this very divided media landscape between interesting and charismatic.” (21:07)
• On Streaming Culture:
  • Andy: “...Apple is just like we are selling…the high test Peruvian flake and we are flooding the market with it…” (24:17)
• Place in TV:
  • Andy: “I miss it; it's lacking in our American shows.” (65:32)
• True Detective S2:
  • Chris: “If this show came out, this year, [it] would be a top five show for me…so fucking good. And I can’t believe I didn’t, like, see it at the time…” (71:03)
  • Chris: “It is like a level of quality of television that I think is absent from like a lot today.” (85:46)
  • Andy: “...what's compelling about a lot of what Pizzolatto writes is his absolute micro-targeted fixation on, like, the swirling around the drain. But…that drain is located on his navel…” (74:56)

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• [03:32] – Disney leadership shake-up and entertainment industry news
• [09:39] – Apple TV’s press day and new show teasers
• [12:22] – “Friends and Neighbors” S2, “Lucky,” and Apple TV style
• [17:18] – Anya Taylor-Joy’s curious post–Queen’s Gambit career
• [25:23] – “CBS for millennials” and Apple TV’s hold on certain viewers
• [33:22] – The Pitt S2E5 breakdown: Robbie’s journey, Langdon, and show structure
• [45:36] – TV medicine realism (doctors not masking, “hand trauma”)
• [56:03] – Steel (Amazon Prime) review and the London TV boom
• [65:32] – US vs UK TV, specificity of place, and extras/background issues
• [65:32] – Chris’s True Detective S2 rewatch, cultural import, and thematic resonance
• [78:44] – Lynch’s final project, Bourdain biopic, and posthumous continuation in art
• [86:22] – Eagles breakdown, Andy’s sports emotions, Sixers trade venting

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Conclusion

A packed episode, balancing keen pop culture analysis, TV-nerd in-jokes, and broad skeptical warmth for the shifting sands of streaming, TV production, and the endless churn of “content.” Whether evaluating Apple TV’s “glossy” house style, reappraising the much-maligned True Detective S2 in 2026’s context, or breaking down the interpersonal drama at the heart of The Pitt, Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan continue to make insightful, self-deprecating TV talk essential for pop-culture obsessives.

Transcript

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[Chris Ryan]

Pain 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 woefully behind on his charting, it's Andy Green Walls honestly never.

[Andy Greenwald]

Related to anything in the medical profession.

[Chris Ryan]

More we're going to talk about the Pit today. We are going to talk about the Muppets. We are going to talk the disdain in your voice about we're going to talk a little bit about steel. We're going to talk about some apple shows that are coming in the spring and summer. And I embarked on a project that I want to discuss with you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Phoebe needs to come home.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm rewatching. I'm almost done my rewatch of True Detective Season 2. This is Psychopath behavior because a canary in the coal mine. I'm really excited because you have blanked me every time I've mentioned this to you. You're just like, I like the idea.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, because I keep saying like I'm trying. Look, should we pull back the curtain a little bit? You guys don't like it when we do that. You in the room. But I think the listeners and watchers do. You were presenting to me an idea for something you wanted to talk about. And I generally am supportive of you and your work.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, you're not committal, but you are supportive.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, but I was. I continually did ask, is there anything actionable here? You know what I mean? I'm like, is there something that you would like me to read?

[Chris Ryan]

The notes. It's all actionable.

[Andy Greenwald]

You didn't send me the notes. You were like, not really. No.

[Chris Ryan]

I was trying. I didn't want to add to your heavy load.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, I appreciate that.

[Chris Ryan]

We are load managing you.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's working out for Joel Embiid. Question.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I was just gonna do some housekeeping. Is this gonna take us into a different part of the podcast?

[Andy Greenwald]

So why don't you do the housekeeping?

[Chris Ryan]

Thewatchpotify.com to email us to watch us. You can do it in two ways that I know of. You can go to YouTube.

[Andy Greenwald]

Disturbing.

[Chris Ryan]

There might. I used to watch soccer on a website called iraqgolds.net so we might be there too.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

I haven't gone to that website in a long time.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is riddled with viruses.

[Chris Ryan]

You can watch us. You can go to YouTube and you go to Ringer TV. Or you can just search the watch.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Or search Ringer tv. I think it'll come up. There's lots of keywords. That's where we are to watch on YouTube. You can also watch us on Spotify, where I hope you listen to us, but I imagine we're available on lots of different audio platforms. And is there anything else? Oh, thewatchpod on Instagram.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And after that, it's really up to you guys. The discourse about this podcast, about Andy, it happens all over the place. You know, about me, about me. Nobody talks about me.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. People find you fascinating, but they're generally supportive.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I hope so.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's the difference.

[Chris Ryan]

I hope so.

[Andy Greenwald]

Um, I wonder if the CR heads will comment on. First of all, you look great. Today. Thanks. I already complimented the circle.

[Chris Ryan]

This is kind of a.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is a great shirt.

[Chris Ryan]

A quasi Canadian tuxedo.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh. But I don't think they can see our bottom half's on the. Unless you pay for YouTube Premium. Iraqgoals.net and the camera is just fixated. It's just. Yeah, that's shot in imax. Yeah. James Cameron's vision, Hoyt van Hoytomo is just like, just brought to life.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I did want to say you are wearing red, white and blue. And I wonder if that could be interpreted as just like a sign of patriotism, of a quiet resistance, or of full throated support.

[Chris Ryan]

I hadn't really thought about that. You know, I just got dressed today.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

But sometimes the colors find you in.

[Andy Greenwald]

The moment, you know, and they don't run.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, there wasn't any, like, big entertainment industry news, per se. Obviously Disney changed, announced the successor to Bob Iger after. Oh yeah, that always works out. So I think this will be going well. Park's head, Josh, tomorrow.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Is taking over Dana Walden's like, portfolio expands at Disney. I don't really have a ton of interesting things to say about that other than, yeah, it will be interesting to see in the coming, I don't know, 18 months what happens with some of their big franchises. Because I saw a note in one of the trades where Bob Iger was like, we're done buying ip.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Which is fine by me. But where are they gonna go in a post Secret wars doomsday, which now sounds like it might be three movies. And what's gonna happen with Star wars after Mandalorian with Filoni Verse?

[Andy Greenwald]

So my first question about this is, did you have a dog in this fight?

[Chris Ryan]

Were you Dana or Josh? Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Were you on the poly markets? Did you support in like an outsider candidate? Did you think that this was fait accompli?

[Chris Ryan]

I think that. I think, I guess I was pulling for Dana Walden. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other about Josh d'.

[Andy Greenwald]

Amaro.

[Chris Ryan]

I. I do note with interest that, like, I think the Park's business has been very successful for them.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Even in the face of everybody being like, you are literally bleeding every cent I have in my life out of me when I go to these things. And like, you have to pay to get to the front of the line to get a turkey leg and stuff, but, you know, that's. That's America.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's the. Sure is. That is the take. I mean, that is the. The takeaway. The takeaway is that it is a recognition, I think, by the board that the live experiences and the parks is the most consistent and potentially still most expansive part of their business. Yeah, it is a. It is a more of a bet, I think, on the Avengers Doomsday IR experience in Florida that they are inevitably building than it is on what Kevin Feige is going to pull out of his hat in three or four years.

[Chris Ryan]

Just give me the X Men. You know what I mean?

[Andy Greenwald]

They're being so coy with that.

[Chris Ryan]

I know. I'm sure that they will pop up in the Doomsday movies or the.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, we know they are.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but like not the old ones, like a new version of them. Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Why? This campaign against Kelsey Grammer is just bizarre to me. You just can't.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, McKellen has just only got so many innings left.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did you see him on Colbert yesterday?

[Chris Ryan]

He's going to be in the hunt for Gollum.

[Andy Greenwald]

He, I mean, he's just, just standing up and reciting Shakespeare. He's incredible. And also I think we got him with that. You know how like, you know.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh. Cause he was doing like Richard. What did he do? Richard iii?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, he did Thomas More about like protecting immigrants and he did the stage and Colbert like hugged him. And in the words of our parents, after watching Chris Hayes in April 2025.

[Chris Ryan]

Got him.

[Andy Greenwald]

Got him. I think we really got him. Yeah, no, that was incredible. I think people should check that out.

[Chris Ryan]

So there was that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And I think the other thing about it is just the imagineered optics of it. Like, they definitely wanted to avoid a Chapek situation and there was a lot of. Well, obviously this is a unanimous decision and everything's fine. And though we of course considered a woman for the top job, we wouldn't actually give it to her.

[Chris Ryan]

And considered cosmic CEOs, apparently, yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

But they wanted everything to be as tidy as possible. So we'll see.

[Chris Ryan]

Uh, they dragged my boy Ted Sarandos up in front of the Senate. Ted Cruz asked him some, some hard hitting questions.

[Andy Greenwald]

Ted on Ted, TED Talks, uh, that.

[Chris Ryan]

Was about the merger, et cetera. Um, Josh Hawley was like, yeah, go on. I don't even know. I. You know, they, they were just being dicks, you know, like the Senate.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's what they do now. That's. That's their brand. They pivoted to that. Remember when it was like the most like August body of deliberations in the world? Yeah, that were so they say those.

[Chris Ryan]

Are my days when Jesse Holmes was just cooking as the most August Body.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did you see your guy David Ellison in London being like, the monopolization of media spearheaded by the evil Netflix Corporation shall not stand that guy's freedom fighter.

[Chris Ryan]

And then that's it for news. Except for a bunch of Apple shows, because Apple did one of their. I think it's their first ever Apple TV press day.

[Andy Greenwald]

Were you there?

[Chris Ryan]

No. But not a ton of news came out of it, but a bunch of teasers.

[Andy Greenwald]

I only ask since we have the kimono open already. Apple loves sharing its shows with you. And every time there's a new show, you're like, oh, you should check this out. It's interesting. And then I have to email a variety a changing.

[Chris Ryan]

Have you ever once said it would be great in your press dealings? Have you been like, you can just add me automatically.

[Andy Greenwald]

But they used to. And then, you know, respectfully, they didn't. But now I just. Every time I have to email a different woman named Kate to request access to something that you've already watched.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't.

[Andy Greenwald]

The struggle is real. Yeah, okay, go on.

[Chris Ryan]

Everybody in America sympathizes with you.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think it's a top five issue. I'm not saying it's number one front of mind, but I do think it's top five.

[Kaya]

Can I. Sorry, can I just state something for the record?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, Kya, please.

[Kaya]

I've been kicked off my parents HBO Max account.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whoa.

[Chris Ryan]

Why didn't we lead with this just now?

[Kaya]

Just this week.

[Andy Greenwald]

By your parents?

[Kaya]

No, by hbo.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, first of all, Casey listens. Casey, hook up. Kaya, can you do it?

[Chris Ryan]

You can't have like a family password, so you can't do that. They're just IP addresses.

[Kaya]

They're like, what location are you watching? And would you like a travel pass?

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, yeah, travel. It's.

[Kaya]

It's over for me. I went to go and watch industry. They're like, what is your location?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, my God. Really? Really?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I know someone at HBO named Kate who could hook you up with. With the.

[Kaya]

I have. I have industry screeners. They don't let you screen mirror, so I had to watch it on my laptop.

[Chris Ryan]

You can get an app for that.

[Andy Greenwald]

So I think.

[Kaya]

I don't want an app. I just want to be able to.

[Andy Greenwald]

Mooch off my mirror. I think this is top seven concerns. Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Iraqgoals.net I'll have to look into the big piece of news that I saw come out of. There was a variation on what Vince Gilligan, the creator of Pluribus, basically said to us, which is, we are working Working real hard on season two. Don't hold your breath. So it wasn't like in a very bad way, but I feel like we gave Severance a lot of grief about taking a long time to come back. He's like, we're moving as quickly as we can, but this is not X Files where we can just bang out like a bunch of adventures of the week and then come back to the main story and all that stuff.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is 2027 is what we're saying.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And not early 2027.

[Chris Ryan]

Not early 27. When did you. It came out in August of 25.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, it was later. Later, but. But they're just getting together now, it sounds like. So okay, that's a bummer. But you know, sure, we're used. We're used to change. We're. We're used to different schedules.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. But turn about like, if since we have given a lot of shows a hard time for taking their time, I'm not giving Pluribus hard time because I.

[Andy Greenwald]

Want it to be good and because they came on our podcast and it's a back scratching business.

[Chris Ryan]

It's true. So we had some teaser trailers from some shows coming out. Two of them come from Jonathan Tropper, who I would not go as far as say is like house Apple style, but I wouldn't say he's not. I think between him and Bill Lawrence, they are responsible for a healthy slice of the Apple TV pie and in some ways are illustrative. Illustrative of like the aesthetic and the, the image that Apple TV wants to project to its viewership. However many people there are watching those shows, we don't know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Unclear.

[Chris Ryan]

So Friends and Neighbors Season 2 is coming back in June, I believe, already.

[Andy Greenwald]

Received season three renewal and adds James.

[Chris Ryan]

Marsden to the cast. If you watch the teaser, it feels like kind of soft resetty. To the extent that the first season ended in any kind of resolution, this one seems to bring back the gang. Add to the gang and put Jon Hamm squarely back Robin folks in his neighborhood for the thrill of it with.

[Andy Greenwald]

A new square jawed neighbor. The Marsden sans continues. There's your X Men. Yeah, he plays Cyclops.

[Chris Ryan]

I know. Any comments on Friends and neighbors season two in the 50 seconds that we see of it?

[Andy Greenwald]

Only to say that I have higher hopes for the second season than the first season.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, what makes you say that?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that the show found more of its voice as it went along and I think that the people who are involved in the show are generally smart, good creatives and So I feel like there's a, there's a chance. I'm not, I'm not staking my reputation on it, but I'm, I'm willing to give it a shot. I didn't love the way I didn't love the first season.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm gonna make a bold.

[Andy Greenwald]

But also, I like Marsden. And if the show can be the tone, I think the show is at its most successful when it is the kind of clubby, glitzy tone of this trailer.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

As opposed to like the deep, deep ruminations of incredibly rich people in a gated, siloed, rich community.

[Chris Ryan]

I noted with interest that Mun is walking the streets in this.

[Andy Greenwald]

I was surprised Mun was back and.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought she had been arrested for murder in the show. And it feels like a soft reset in the sense that, like, we don't want to get rid of Olivia Munn, so let's figure out a way to have her on bail or whatever.

[Andy Greenwald]

I would be concerned if you felt that like a white collar rich criminal getting pardoned and back on the streets was like, that's the deal breaker of reality for you.

[Chris Ryan]

The other thing I was going to say is I, and I say this in front of you and God and our listeners and Kya, if this season starts with a flashback, you're out. I'm out.

[Andy Greenwald]

100% agree.

[Chris Ryan]

If you start your second season with a big event and then go six weeks earlier, I'm fucking out. And I don't care if it's like succession reunion, I'm out.

[Andy Greenwald]

How did Shiv Roy move in next door to James Marsden six weeks earlier? Well, first of all, I love this.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think it actually would help clear some of our viewing docket if we just made outrageous.

[Chris Ryan]

We should do that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

The watch commandments.

[Andy Greenwald]

If Silo comes back and they're still in a fucking silo, forget it. Done.

[Chris Ryan]

I will be very interested to see if paradise how paradise handles that now.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Like all their flash forwards and flashbacks because a lot of that obviously was built around like these slow reveals and it's like, well, I mean, how many reveals are we going to be doing on season two? Or is it just going to be more like Sterling K. Brown looking for the truth out there?

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, I can't tell you.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. All right.

[Andy Greenwald]

I feel like you're asking me for some inside information.

[Chris Ryan]

Another show.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you want me to do the Wind Horse Fingers about the fate of Sterling K. Brown's wife? I don't, I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

Another show coming from Tropper and Reese Witherspoon's hello Sunshine via Candle Media. One of my favorite media companies Absolutely is Lucky, starring Anya Taylor Joy, Annette Bening Angenoux, Ellis Taylor, Timothy Oliphant and Drew Starkey. And this one is about a con artist on the run after a heist goes wrong. And the con artist being played by Joy is pursued by the law. And the lawless in the crime boss, played by Annette Binning, which I would not have guessed. Uh, that's her role. Uh, this looked slick and cool.

[Andy Greenwald]

Great trailer. Great teaser trailer.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Very visually dynamic in a way that I. I'm not mad at that. Like, I think there's good ways to spend Apple's money. And the log line of the show is one thing, but then seeing the sort of visual razzle dazzle of the teaser made me. Made it. Made me more interested.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I have a thing I wanted to ask you about.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

Anya Taylor Joy.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Odd career since Queen's Gambit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Since being on this podcast. I think it's Anya. I think she's told us that.

[Chris Ryan]

My bad.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Anya Taylor Joy, I apologize to you personally. And I also think that you've had, like, an interesting, strange career since you broke big with Queen's Gambit. So that was 2020. Let's just take it from the pandemic, you know, last night in soho. Well, first it was New Mutants. New Mutants. Which lost to history in time, but was supposed to be a thing. And she played magic.

[Andy Greenwald]

Ileana Rasputin.

[Chris Ryan]

Damn.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sister of Colossus.

[Chris Ryan]

You had her government name right in your.

[Andy Greenwald]

You only like. Like humans with brains. You only use 5% of me on this podcast. Anytime you want to dig deeper, I'm a veil.

[Chris Ryan]

Did she pop up in Powers of X?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

How so she does.

[Andy Greenwald]

Dude, she's important.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Big old sword.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yo, she's. I've. She's in a cool scene in that comic book. Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's an important character.

[Chris Ryan]

Last night in soho and Edgar Wright joint kind of came and went.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Has its believers have its detractors, but did not do well at the box office. Northman. She's incredible in that. The menu. She's great in that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. That did well.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, so we have those two right there. Amsterdam, David O. Russell. Abomination, Dune Part two. She's cool. She's in the end spoiler.

[Andy Greenwald]

She'll be in part three.

[Chris Ryan]

Furiosa. Amazing. And then these last couple where she's like, in the Gorge and Sacrifice and an Apple TV show which it's just. I guess that's just where we're at.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, the Super Mario Brothers erasure.

[Chris Ryan]

Right, sorry. She also is doing.

[Andy Greenwald]

That was like a billion dollar movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. But, like, people do that, where they're like, pratt still opens movies. And I'm like, nobody knows that's Chris Pratt. These people, most of the people, have barely formed frontal cortexes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Chris. Wow. First of all, I've been in the audience for these movies. I'm the one with the weakest frontal cortex in that theater. Everyone else's amygdalas are cooking.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Especially after the candy hits. Second, I will let you know that Chris Pratt isn't like. He's like Lorenzo Music with, like, you know, a voice actor without parallel. He's just Chris Pratt.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but nobody in the audience Chris Pratt.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, but everyone in the audience is like, oh, Mario sounds like Garfield. Sounds like Star Lord sounds like Andy from Parks and Rec sounds like the guy singing at the church up the street. It is not some dexterity. It is 100% Chris Pratt, good or ill. All right, I'm glad we cleared that up. I think the thing that's interesting about that career, if I may, is that.

[Chris Ryan]

About Chris Pratt's career or Anya Taylor.

[Andy Greenwald]

The only thing that interests me, at least two of those movies were the kind of things that every person on her team probably fought tooth and nail to get her into. And the fact that they tanked disrupted everything. And that would be Last Night in soho, which was a very hotly tipped movie. And Furiosa.

[Chris Ryan]

Furiosa, I mean, I think is actually underrated at this point, which is fine.

[Andy Greenwald]

But it was a. It was catastrophic at the box office, and nobody was like. And not only that, I think she got a lot of the blowback for it, because what was memorable about the character was the performance. I haven't even seen the movie, but I'm saying that she did take a hit for that.

[Chris Ryan]

You would like Furiosa. Cause your boy Tom. What's his name? He was in Black Bag Burke.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, yeah, he's good.

[Chris Ryan]

He's awesome. In Furiosa. You know what I was gonna say about Anya Taylor? Joy is. I wonder if almost like Queen's Gambit is the outlier in terms of something that's this mega, huge success. And then the film's like, she is now on a post Queen's Gambit, like, going slowly up the stairs of stardom again.

[Pharmaceutical Ad Voice]

I don't know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I think there's also a difference that is hard to parse. And then Hard to capitalize on, especially in this very divided media landscape between interesting and charismatic. The fact that she might not be a movie star does not make her less interesting or less talented, but she's been positioned to be both. And that can be a tough place to be.

[Chris Ryan]

Imperfect Women is also coming. I believe that's a little bit sooner than these other ones that might be in March.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then there's Margo's Got Money Trust.

[Chris Ryan]

And Margo's Got Money Trust. Annie Weissman, who did physical created Imperfect Women with Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, Kate Mara. Also Joel Kinnaman who hilariously was like, I accidentally bought a house in Malibu. He literally said this. He was like, I bought a house in Malibu and now I can't say no to things because I have to pay for it.

[Andy Greenwald]

That, that's a, that's, I don't like.

[Chris Ryan]

I can't remember where I read that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Good for him.

[Chris Ryan]

But spiritually it feels true.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Because he's just like, I. If I'm a veil, you know, like if you guys need me for a day, for a week, whatever.

[Andy Greenwald]

Margo's got money troubles is what you're saying.

[Chris Ryan]

And Corey Stoll and Leslie Odom are also in this.

[Andy Greenwald]

I believe that's based on a book.

[Chris Ryan]

You're probably right. Devastating crime has an impact on decades long friendship. That is the logline.

[Andy Greenwald]

That is our fortune, that is our future.

[Chris Ryan]

What's the crime going to be?

[Andy Greenwald]

I couldn't begin to say.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm going to rug pull a meme stock. That's what my crime is going to be.

[Andy Greenwald]

That'd be so sick. I don't know what any of that means.

[Chris Ryan]

Me neither. Margo's got Money Problems comes from David E. Kelly stars his wife Michelle Pfeiffer and Elle Fanning, who and Nick Offerman.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a great cast.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's a great cast. And it's also a book. Also a book. And that one is the one I think I'm most excited about.

[Andy Greenwald]

I would say so too. But I will say what was remarkable about this and as you said at the top, these were all rolled out concurrently as part of an Apple press event, which maybe speaks a little bit to how similar they all feel because they probably played very consistently in the room but it was as a branding exercise. This is remarkable because I absolutely can tell you as I think anyone who watches these trailers can tell you what an Apple TV show is now in terms of its glossiness, in terms of the frenetic pace often based on pre existing like Beach Read type material, big names in the cast, huge names like just spilling out into like the B level and C level of the cast. People just showing up incredibly slick, incredibly glossy. And I have to say I don't. The takeaway from this event was a feeling of big tech inevitability. I'm not commenting on the merits of each one of these shows because they were each made by distinct creators and actually in the viewing might prove themselves to be interesting or worthwhile or arrhythmic to this larger beat that they're trying to sell. But the feeling of just flooding the market. Every one of these trailers was March, April, March again, like we are just going to have this shit available to you at a pace more frequent than Mac OS updates.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, closer to Netflix than to hbo.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think closer to Netflix, but also at a much higher price point because I think Netflix floods the zone with stuff. But half the stuff, not half the stuff, but large tranches of it is international or reality or a, you know, acquisitions. Apple is just like we are selling, you know, the high test Peruvian flake and we are flooding the market with it. Just to pull an analogy from potentially an Apple show, it, it felt, I felt, I felt beaten down by it, to be honest. And it, it did make me feel like here is a style of presentation of television that, that definitely creates space for. I don't know if it creates space financially, but it creates space aesthetically and culturally for the more slow food approach that we often resonate. That often resonates with us when it's coming from other networks. I'm not setting this up to say we hate these shows. No, I think there's something, you know, we will judge each of them by the merits, but the, just the, the.

[Chris Ryan]

Physicalize a certain kind of person. I agree with you and I am not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person, but there is a certain kind of person who talks to me about Apple shows the way my mother in law talks to me about CBS shows.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Where it's almost like that is, that is like their happy place. And it's like if Stick is on, shrinking is on. If Margo's got money problems is on. That is just the show that is on right now. It's an easy interface. Yeah, they, they advertise within the app very well. Like you turn it on and yeah, that's smart. There's Idris Elba being like, ah, I've been hijacked again.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, like that's not the twist. But don't Spoil it. Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Speaking of, have you kept up with Hijacked? No, I was going to say, I thought about it, and then. I'm going to be very honest with you. The last thing I want to do at the end of a workday these days is descend down into the Berlin subway station in winter with Idris Elba. So maybe Apple's onto something with the sunny disposition or at least the color palette of its other shows, because I don't. Chris, I don't want to watch that show.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you know what I mean?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. That's what we're all about, let's be honest.

[Andy Greenwald]

But that's.

[Chris Ryan]

We don't sign contracts with the shows. We sign a contract with each other. It's written in blood. 20 years ago.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is that what that was? Jesus Christ. Did you want to watch Hijack Season two?

[Chris Ryan]

I lost interest. Yeah. I think similarly, like, perhaps the visual kind of the overall atmosphere of it. Tell me about the Muppets.

[Andy Greenwald]

You want me to.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, it's better that you do this now before True Detective.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't want you to think that this was, like, reactionary. It wasn't. Like you started email, started texting me about True Detective, and I was like, oh, boy, here we go again. That fucking meme. Oh, shit. That.

[Chris Ryan]

That.

[Andy Greenwald]

I was like, well, I need to counterbalance this with a take of Muppets.

[Chris Ryan]

No, but you were like, I'd like.

[Andy Greenwald]

To talk about the Muppets, but just a small. Whether it's from Daddington island or whether it's show. And tell them just. They brought the Muppet show back again. But weirdly, for the first time, maybe since the late 70s, early 80s, they brought it back just as the Muppet show, as opposed to all of these weird permutations over the years, like the 90s version where it's like Muppet TV and they're running a whole suite of programming on a network or the. I think, honestly, as Memory hold, as. What was the thing you just mentioned that's been totally Memory Hold. The New Mutants movie. Yeah, that briefly.

[Chris Ryan]

Like the straight to Hulu New Mutants movie briefly.

[Andy Greenwald]

There was a Muppet reboot that was a single camera mockumentary show that briefly was on, I believe ABC 10 years ago. So Seth Rogen, who is just really on one right now, is responsible for bringing the show back. And they brought it back as a variety show. And it's very entertaining. My kids loved it as it being released.

[Chris Ryan]

Is it like once a week?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, they made one and hopefully they'll make more I don't really understand if that's a vote of confidence these days.

[Chris Ryan]

It's on Disney.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's on Disney. It was on abc. Oh, no. It's. Yes. I think it aired on ABC this week, but it will then live on Disney platform. Seth Rogen is on it. Sabrina Carpenter is the musical guest which got immediate buy in from My children. Maya Rudolph makes an appearance. And the thing that people, I don't know if many people, I don't know. Did you grow up on the Muppet Show? Did you watch it when you were a kid?

[Chris Ryan]

You know what I mean? I just think that what happens is, if you don't have kids, the things from your childhood kind of start to recede in the rearview mirror.

[Andy Greenwald]

But did it matter to you when you were like five or six?

[Chris Ryan]

I liked animals in the Muppets.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

He is in the Muppets.

[Andy Greenwald]

He is a Muppet.

[Chris Ryan]

He's the drummer, right?

[Andy Greenwald]

The Muppets aren't a band. He's in Dr. Teeth's Electric Mayhem Band. He's the drummer.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, he did drums. He's Animal. Statler and Waldorf. Like, I like them, but it's just like, I don't. I have never had a reason to go back to the Muppets.

[Andy Greenwald]

They're great. And if you watch the reruns, which now are all available streaming, it's deeply weird. And like, I remember watching the show when I was a kid and I was like, ah, this is. This is children's television. But it was just like incredibly delicately, specifically choreographed puppet performances of like, 1930s Americana standards. And then Carol Burnett or John Cleese would wander into frame or do a solo. And the most specific late 70s, early 80s type of celebrity as well, which really burned its way into my retinas. And I think that what was really smart about this new version is they just. They're still doing the variety show and they still do very, very intricately choreographed performances of now contemporary songs.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like. Like songs by the Weeknd and stuff. But it's. It works because it never really made sense, is it? And everyone involved is very game. The only thing that I bump on this is a very tired and what are you gonna do about it? Argument is that other than gonzo, no one sounds right.

[Chris Ryan]

Cause Jim Henson is no longer with.

[Andy Greenwald]

Us and hasn't been for many years. But also the person who then kind of has been doing Kermit for 20, 30 years, who also wasn't Jim Henson because no one could be. He was let go. And so There's a. I think he's the fourth Kermit.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

And at this point they're just like, just trust that it's a frog. You know, it's like kind of Kermit. You just kind of have to accept it. But the spirit of it is really good and really true to what it was. And it was really fun to watch it with my kids who no longer, like, they definitely were raised on watching Muppet movies in the Muppet show, but they were like, we actually like this. My almost 13 year old is like, that's actually good.

[Chris Ryan]

Really?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Great.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's inherited a little bit of her father's.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, when that happens, are you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Secretly proud that she liked it or.

[Chris Ryan]

That she's just like, that's actually good? Like, you know.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. Then I. No, I'm like, what have I done? No, absolutely not. I don't want. You think I want to give this away?

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[Chris Ryan]

Why don't we do the pit first and then I'll talk about Trudy at the end.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay. Oh, and what about steel? We got to talk about steel.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, we can do pit and steel. Okay, I can summarize like the various patients and what's going on, but I want to cut to the, to the chase here. Let's talk about Robbie. I have found this, this season totally cool and enjoyed it. And there are some thrilling moments and there are some clunky moments, but it's a TV show that is giving me week to week, a lot of joy. The most interesting character on this show is now fully the main character because he's really the one, I think, where everybody else is pretty much explicitly saying how they're feeling and what's on their.

[Andy Greenwald]

Mind and the benefits of generative AI in the workplace.

[Chris Ryan]

He's the only one who, who's kind of tall, dark, handsome and complicated.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And with the. And we'll see what happens with Langdon. Robbie is the only one who is in a traditional TV type framing on the precipice of something.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. So he's on the precipice of leaving, as we've seen last year. He might be on the precipice of some sort of breakdown.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

He is obviously got like a kind of secret but not so secret love affair going on with the woman who handles the insurance and the patient sort of accounting side of, of things for the hospital. He is ping ponging around the er kind of, I think not happier, but like feels a little like he's like, it's my last day, you know, and if challenged, he will do something reckless and extraordinary at the same time. But for the most part is like getting through the day kind of laughing when they're trying to talk shit about Al Hashimi. Last week he's just like. Not, like, shutting it down, but also not engaging. It feels very much like we've got a couple more days. Yes. And then when it comes to Langdon, obviously is doing all of everything that's happening is happening, like, behind a scrim of professionalism. But he is obviously not being very professional, by the way. He's punishing him in certain ways because he feels wrong by him. And then he cuts that lady's leg to let the infection flow. The one who has Mr. MRSA. That what they call it?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, then they started saying neck fash.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's. There's a lot of terms.

[Andy Greenwald]

Don't Google that. That doesn't get you what you want.

[Chris Ryan]

But because surgery is like, oh, she needs another scan and another scan, and he's like, if we wait for the scan, she's gonna, like, lose her leg, if not her life.

[Andy Greenwald]

He doesn't just cut through her skin. He cuts through red tape, bureaucracy. The scalpel is sharp.

[Chris Ryan]

And I. I. You know, maybe that moment will just be like a crazy Robbie moment where he, like, flips a guy's lung with his bare hands or whatever. But I thought it was indicative of a guy who's like, I'm not coming back to work tomorrow.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

So, you know, bring me up on charges or don't. But, like, did you think that.

[Kaya]

That.

[Chris Ryan]

That cut. That doing that was, like, especially reckless on his part?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, it. It. It's not just reckless, because I think that it's. It's been proven that he's a miracle worker, that he is the best of the best and is almost always right, which is baked into the show. I think that what it suggested was a complete lack of patience. You know, he's just. He's kind of done with the structures and regulations and the naysayers and the haters and the losers who are keeping him from being great. Look, I mean, the show is many things, and we praise it week to week for its triumphs, but it is never particularly subtle, nor do I think it needs to be, considering the type of drama that it is. The show begins with Chekov's motorcycle, you know, and what surprised me about that opening scene was that there was any conversation at all about it. Like, do you think that was intentional, that Robbie's not wearing a helmet? It's like he had no shit.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, the show is telling you everything you need to know about this character's mindset as you go into it. Now, does that mean he's going to be in a catastrophic wreck and become a Patient before the SC maybe, or it's just giving us a little bit of flashlight into where he's at in.

[Chris Ryan]

Terms of how much he's caring about.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whether he and where he's going. So I enjoyed it. And I also think that one of the things that they do so well is consider the big picture. So you're right that they are hyper focused on the main character as our tour guide through this day. But one thing that is slightly different, at least so far, through five episodes, I believe so.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So the first third of the season is that thus far, it feels less like we are on the edge of a catastrophic event like Pitfest, which we could feel coming. And a lot of the tension of the first season was in our bones.

[Chris Ryan]

From watching it, because once that kid was like, I'm going to Pitfest. Do you want to go to Pitfest? I can't make it to Pitfest.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, and that we were like, well, they chose this day. So what is going to happen? We kind of knew. And that informed our viewing experience. This season feels like it is intentionally doing more of a frog in boiling water type of thing.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the other hospital sending all their patients.

[Andy Greenwald]

And so there's just a constant twist of the dial. The temperature's going up, up, up in a different way. And that's just really smart. Right. It's a different way to change the temperature of the show. And it may be that it is an ideal way to showcase Dr. Robbie the Frog's reaction to suddenly being boiled alive.

[Chris Ryan]

There's an interesting thing happening where in the course of a workday, it would not be strange for Robbie to have yet addressed his issues with Langdon. It's only been four or five hours or whatever it is, but it has been more than a month in our life.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And so his kind of neglecting the situation or avoiding the situation feels more pronounced. I wonder when they're writing certain storylines, how much they account for that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, for the disconnect between. Right.

[Chris Ryan]

We'll watch this show week to week over the course of months. So for us, I see it's almost agonizing that Langdon has been standing around for five weeks being like, are you gonna notice me? But it's only been four hours.

[Andy Greenwald]

One of the. One of the correctives to that is Dr. Alashimi saying, I'm glad you're back and I'm going to be your boss.

[Chris Ryan]

That was the other person I wanted to talk about.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

They got.

[Andy Greenwald]

They got.

[Chris Ryan]

I hope we get, like, a looser version of this. Character as the day goes on. Not like, I really have a problem with the performance, but it's too much of a direct foil to Robbie.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, I don't really understand why everything she's doing is only in relationship to, like, what Robbie is doing.

[Andy Greenwald]

I. I would say that one of the sophomore struggles that the show has encountered is. It is. No one is. No one is questioning the. The. The idea that they would need to add new ingredients to the pantry. But the nature of the show is such that, like, we just fell in love with what you were cooking in season one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And choosing what to add to the mix is very delicate, especially when everyone else is working in such a beautifully choreographed unit. So far, the new additions are not hitting the way that I think I would like.

[Chris Ryan]

My exception would be Joy.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, Joy's interesting. And the way they slow play the reveal, I thought that was well done because I wrote in my notes, what's the deal with, like, why. Why Joy?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then you see that she has some inner life. Her reactions are given a little bit more context in this episode that she's had her own struggles with the financial realities of the healthcare system.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Thus informing how she behaves and how she responds to all this stuff. I get that.

[Chris Ryan]

There also just seems to be, like, do you actually want to be a doctor, or do you want to be a doctor because you don't want anyone to go through what you went through? Like, what is. What is motivating your. Is there family pressure to become a doctor?

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, the Al Shashimi thing is. Is just really tough so far because, again, it is not a criticism of the performer or even the performance. There's very little to work with. And so much of what it takes to be on the show is to be able to convey great oceans of inner life while you're saying things like, bring in a crash tray.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And the fact that she just continues to sort of be a looming administrative presence, ultimately not that different from Gloria last year in that, you know, she just sort of keeps popping up like Clippy on the old Microsoft Word, being like, may I interest you in generative AI? Like, that's tough.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you use Microsoft Word?

[Andy Greenwald]

I do, but I've disabled Clippy.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I don't. Yeah, I do. I'm old school.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, proudly old school.

[Chris Ryan]

To write scripts or do you use Final Draft?

[Andy Greenwald]

Final Draft, Yeah. Would you use. For my scripts, do you use Google Script Generator?

[Chris Ryan]

True Detective Season 2, Part 2, Season 2.5.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's your shit. Yeah. Yeah. And then you have her like she basically then has every so often they sprinkle in a moment for her to express some humanity. And she talks about humanity the way Steve Carell talks about women's breasts and 40 year old version where she's like, I would rather spend time with my son. You know, so that's. It's tough, it's tough to sort of bend human behavior into the tightly choreographed demands of the show. Cause one of the other pleasures of watching it even this episode is as the, you know, the ambient noise of case after case is building up. There was a moment when I kind of stepped back in my brain and I was just watching the way they do handoffs. Two people walking out of one examination room and then someone else walking by, giving a look and always aware of like the, the, the court awareness.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

If you will, of the space.

[Chris Ryan]

It's all 22 of it. It's elite.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, it's really remarkable and easily something that I'm not going to say, you know, normals will overlook. I'm overlooking when I'm trying to watch it. So I think that that in and of itself is remarkable. But do you feel just to put a bow on it, like you're pointing out the, the Robbie journey and some of the maybe unnatural feeling friction of some of the other characters. Is this taking away from your enjoyment or is this just. We're a third of the way through the ride and you're noting.

[Chris Ryan]

I think more the latter. It's not really. I'm not down on the pit. I'm not selling any pit stock. I'm not. Are we sure it's gooding it? It's just like. Okay, like I think that this season is more about long term sustainability of the project than it is about like every time this show starts, your heart's gonna break and you're brain's gonna leak out of your ears because it's so intense. And I think I'm just basing that off of the last five episodes of the first season rather than the totality of the experience of watching the Pit. It's also like really enjoyable to watch every week.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's my favorite thing to watch.

[Chris Ryan]

I haven't gotten super into a patient yet.

[Andy Greenwald]

Unlike Ogilvy.

[Chris Ryan]

No, there's just way too much flying on HBO right now.

[Andy Greenwald]

I wanted to get you to this point.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, you have historically had a very kind of highbrow sensibility. You know, you don't, you don't, you don't go for the bathroom stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

I just. It's not something I'm dying to watch on tv. Are you?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Finally. I gotta be honest with you.

[Kaya]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I got into this business like. Like, Joy got into medicine for one reason only, and it's finally to see.

[Chris Ryan]

Big tall knights take dumps by trees.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Or. Or see big tall residents, you know, digitally extract excrement from an elderly woman's rear.

[Chris Ryan]

Not my favorite.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did you know, I just want to throw this out there because this is something that I've known for a while. Did you know that 70% of doctors get exposed to TB?

[Chris Ryan]

You did say something to me off mic that I thought was interesting, which is. He's like, they're not masking.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. I thought that was pretty. But also, it's a television show with actors.

[Chris Ryan]

That was sort of my initial reaction to that's why Robbie's not wearing a helmet is because I'm like. Because that's the star of the show and it looks cool.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But maybe, obviously they've brought it up multiple times as, like, Noah Wiley on talk shows has been like, take note of the fact that he is not wearing a helmet.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. But, like, they are so, so, so dedicated to showing the real life hand skin trauma of being an ER doctor, of just, like, how many gloves and how much Purell they're using. But they're not masking because they are actors with pretty expressive faces. Except briefly when exposed to TB in one room once.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I don't know. I gotta be honest. Tuberculosis is one.

[Andy Greenwald]

You cool with it?

[Chris Ryan]

No, but that's like what Doc Holliday got him, right? Is that like, consumption essentially? It's not the same thing. Probably.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I think that's a great question because, listen, as the person on this podcast who has maybe read the most books where people die of consumption, it's a great question.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought it was more of a general lung issue if you. If the pneumonia happened, like. Yeah, I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

But why is it so. It's wildly contagious or.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, it's bad. Yeah, it's bad. There's a book out recently called Everything is Tuberculosis.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't read that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, did you read it? It's disappointing. I read about it. Yeah. There you go. And I'm telling you about it. In the world of the Pit, even characters as dismissive of authority as Santos just has a little bag of stats, you know, that you could just reach into and just throw on the table.

[Chris Ryan]

To educate the prisoner who is cuffed, who is basically a symbol of the dehumanizing impact of the carceral state on humans.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to talk about that.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know what? Put me on. Kai, clip this if you need to, if you have to.

[Chris Ryan]

I hate when you do the breadcrumbs.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's not going to be.

[Chris Ryan]

Honestly, all it does is it just means like less representation for me on Instagram.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, I want you to be the face of this comment I'm going to make.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think generally in the cases of violent criminals, I think you can keep the handcuffs on when they're scalpels.

[Chris Ryan]

They don't know what he's in for.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just saying call me anti woke. Okay. Call me old fashioned, but I thought that the, the prison guard being like, we keep him cuffed for a reason.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And meanwhile Whitaker is like, you know, you are not needed here. Hannibal. Hannibal, how are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? I'm just saying.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

What's the harm? The man is. They've given him morphine, his senses are dull, he's sedated.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

But when they were sewing him up.

[Chris Ryan]

And he has the skin of an 80 year old man.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, who among us? The LA son is unforgiving. But when he's out there, you know, they're stitching him up, his fingers are like. I felt like they were reaching for the knives a little bit.

[Chris Ryan]

I was wondering about that. I really hope that doesn't happen.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. But I'm just saying, just because those.

[Chris Ryan]

Are my homies in there, I don't want them to get scalpeled up. But like it seems like that would have to be a classic pit zag.

[Andy Greenwald]

But also it's a little bit like the scorpion and the frog parable, you know, where the guy's just like, I gotta be me, I gotta cut people up. Or he is like already it's like a wee bay in the wire situation.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, he's just like, I already got.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm never leaving prison. I will now take credit for 16 other murders in exchange for a pit beef sandwich.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

So I'm just saying, a lifetime of television shows, entertainment, the Pittsburgh sandwich, the.

[Chris Ryan]

Primanti Brothers one with the fries on it.

[Andy Greenwald]

The fries in it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's a great sandwich. Yeah, we haven't seen a lot of that. I think my guess about that, and I'm sure our Pittsburgh based fans and or Aaron Rodgers could chime in about it, I feel like they haven't done it because the show is so respectful of Pittsburgh with like, with references and needle drops. That we didn't get from apparently very important local bands that it would be like a Philadelphia based show being like, ah, Geno's cheesesteak for lunch. Again, the best thing to enjoy like that might be a little too on the nose and there's probably more like regional specialties or more specific, you know, that they want to appreciate.

[Chris Ryan]

We'll see. We'll see if they bring them in. The late stage cancer patient with a loving husband and a death doula.

[Andy Greenwald]

My note on that was a lot of McKay, like a lot of the other thing I was noticing. This is not a brilliant observation, but I was appreciating and noting the way the show gives us information about its main characters with limited real estate with camera cutaways and lingering shots. So that whole I'm caring for my wife in this terminal awful pain riddled state. Every time there was a moment of like, whatever you need, you know, I'm there for you, they would cut to McKay and she's just sort of taking it in.

[Chris Ryan]

But I also thought it was Javati's sort of alarm or shock at the death duel. It was notable. I don't know why that didn't.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, it's that. That I didn't think that's that inside of the realm of. I agree. She.

[Chris Ryan]

Giovanni was like, what? Like when they were like kind of being very direct about this probably being the end of her life.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think she just really.

[Chris Ryan]

She's young.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I think she's. She realized she's missed an opportunity for going viral. Like Dr. J could be like, you know, what's in.

[Chris Ryan]

What's up gang?

[Andy Greenwald]

Time to die.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And then Langdon. Let's talk briefly about him.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Patrick Ball. Just. Just punching the clock, waiting for Robbie to notice him. He had the MRSA patient and also the dry ice brothers.

[Andy Greenwald]

Side note on the MRSA patient, the other Robbie off the handle, off the rip was when he grabs the phone from her and is like, I will. Oh yes, she will sue you if you fire her. Yeah. Please continue.

[Chris Ryan]

That's it. I mean, like I anxiously await their. Their showdown, their emotional showdown. The MERSA patient.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's.

[Chris Ryan]

That's just a tough beat that was scary. I don't know how that happens. Like what happens. You just have an infection. The. I don't want to know. I gotta say, don't answer me like, I'm just want to live naively in this world.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's better when you don't know a lot of things.

[Chris Ryan]

I know too much about certain things. So when it Comes to infections. Let's just let the dice roll.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought it was. I think it's a remarkable testament to the intensity and specificity of the show that a red skin infection line going past an artificial blue marker was terrifying. Like Jaws. Like, that was a. That was quite scary. And.

[Chris Ryan]

And what's like, the expanding, like, bruise that she's got?

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, would you rather. This is a terrible. Would you rather I'm gonna say this going in. Would you rather be brought into the ER with like a. Oh, a refrigerator fell on me. That hurts and the bones are broken and they're going to fix it or be brought in being like, I've got a rash. And then over the next two hours, have everyone slow motion freak out around you.

[Chris Ryan]

That would really freak me out. I think I'd rather just be. I think I'd rather have my ACL blown out. And everybody's just like, you does seem like you'd blow your ACL out because you're so good at sports. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then be like, actually, I will continue to compete in the Olympics.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, you got to talk about.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can we talk about that?

[Chris Ryan]

What's up? Doesn't she. She's like the Terminator. Like, isn't she? She's gotten into many accidents. Correct. She's 41.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

She's the greatest downhill skier in women's American history. Probably. You asking me, I'm putting you on the spot. Do you not know about women skiers?

[Andy Greenwald]

I know about Ileana Rasputin. Tortured history. I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know. I don't know about that. There are certain injuries.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Where they're like, you can't fuck it up more. I'm always dubious about that. But like, in football, you will hear about. They send them back out because they're like, we gave him the choice. He's not going to hurt him. He can't break it.

[Andy Greenwald]

The best example we have is from our beloved Philadelphia Eagles, Lane Johnson, the ironman of the offensive line. Yes. During the super bowl season that we lost the Super Bowl a few years ago. Right. Tor and adductor muscle.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Which, you know, as someone who's passionate about Pilates, I'm, like, really attuned to the core and what it does for me. But like it. I can only imagine. I can imagine. What about Kaya losing her parents subscription?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

The same. America. I can only imagine the absolute agony of this injury. But he was like, I can have surgery to stitch my muscle back together or I can go back to my day job stopping 300 pound men from hitting Jalen hurts. And it's already ripped. As awful as that sounds, I can think my way through it.

[Chris Ryan]

Jason Pearce used to do that too. Where they'd be like, his ankle has essentially been destroyed, but he won't pop his Achilles again, you know, so he's gonna go back out there.

[Andy Greenwald]

Why didn't they try that with Achilles?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, maybe Christopher Nolan will answer that for us. My question about Lindsey Vonn is I just didn't know you could opt out of an ACL injury. I didn't know you could be like, thank you. Yeah, I'm good. I will continue skiing down mountain.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it hurts a lot, but I.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you have the structural.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know. I mean, honestly, also, once you get locked in on the skis, what. What else is there to do?

[Andy Greenwald]

Stand up on them. Yeah, but like, don't lift your body.

[Chris Ryan]

But you're not moving. You have to step, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if about the. I don't know if. About the human body.

[Andy Greenwald]

There's four Americas. It's people who are used to downhill slaloming in Europe. Yeah. Anyone?

[Chris Ryan]

Kaya? No. Do you ever ski, Kaya?

[Andy Greenwald]

You're from Northern California?

[Kaya]

I. I like to snowboard, yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think you could do it with a blown out ACL or torn acl?

[Kaya]

No, absolutely not. And this is actually a subject in one of my group texts right now. My friend just tore her ACL while skiing and she's like, how the.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is your friend Lindsey Vaughn?

[Kaya]

No.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Kaya]

She's like, how the. How the. Is she doing this?

[Chris Ryan]

Basically. Jesus.

[Andy Greenwald]

So the symptoms include a loud pop at the time of injury.

[Chris Ryan]

That's what everybody is always like. That's. That freaks them out.

[Andy Greenwald]

The most immediate, significant pain and swelling.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Feeling like the knee is giving out or buckling.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Loss of range of motion, pain and discomfort when walking.

[Chris Ryan]

I think my wife tore her MCL once and that was she. She. Check all those boxes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

You've already won so many medals.

[Chris Ryan]

Who?

[Andy Greenwald]

Lindsey?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I thought you said me, Lindsay. I thought you were like, I did. I did quite a lot. Swimming in Philadelphia. That's it. Ogilvy had to clear out that lady. There's tuberculosis. Okay. Any other broader notes on the pit aside from Al Hashimi? Robbie.

[Andy Greenwald]

I respect its willingness to let the elder millennials or older make a MacGyver joke and then have the younger people not get it.

[Chris Ryan]

Not get it. Yeah. We are Getting to that point, a lot of stuff from our youth. Like we'll reference LA Law. Nobody's going to know what we're talking about.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, you mean like the show? Yeah, not like the breakdown. We are downtown.

[Chris Ryan]

All right, brother, you want to talk about. Let's talk about Steel. Steel briefly.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You join me. This is a show on Amazon prime that I checked out last week. Andy watched one and a half. I only watched the pilot, but I did enjoy it. We had a boisterous conversation about Sophie Turner in the process of discussing this, but I wanted to see what you thought of the first episode, which is like a stylish, cool little. I thought like a really just well done heist show.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, it's very entertaining. I don't know if you have it called up like the name of the writer. Director.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. Satyris Nikais.

[Andy Greenwald]

And it is like many directed, some.

[Chris Ryan]

Of the episodes directed by Hetty McDonald, who did Howards End a couple years ago that I liked a lot of.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, the one with Matthew McFadden, that was really. That was really good.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I see an incredibly entertaining show thus far about a wildly high stakes robbery in full daylight of a financial firm, that bank that manages pensions. Pensions and a number of reasons to like this one. Imagining that this is in the industry shared universe and that somehow all of the Starks have just remade themselves into financial crusaders. Genuinely, the similarity with industry that is most compelling to me is like, it's really nice seeing these kids freed of chainmail.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sophie Turner is. Seems not unlike Kit Harington, just relaxed and relieved. Not that the character is relaxed in these high stakes circumstances, but she's a fun and charismatic performer in a way. Not that she was bad in Game of Thrones, but that show doesn't allow a certain range of motion.

[Chris Ryan]

When you say that, like, as soon as she comes onto screen, you're like.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, you're a person.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And she's like, I'm hungover. I'm showing somebody around. Like I am. I am the lens through which you're viewing the show. It's just really. I don't want to give too much away because I think part of the thrill of the pilot is the. The unfolding of the heist. I will say I thought pensions had some safeguards around them and that it wasn't as easy as being like, I have a gun to a guy's head and he's going to give me your pension.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you still believe in guardrails, buddy?

[Chris Ryan]

The thing is, I don't really Believe in pensions, you know, so it's like they're not there, are they?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. I also think that the show.

[Chris Ryan]

Nothing will make you think this country is cooked more than seeing your late parents pension payments.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, like that old TIA cref when it hits.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I'm just like that. You just taught for a while. Like a while. 30 years.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And then they just keep paying you. Yeah, that's cool.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's so sick. Right? Couldn't be us. You don't think that at some point you're gonna get called to Sweden and they'll be like, chris, in recognition of your many years of service to the podcasting industry, here is a sweatshirt with the logo on it. Like many of these British shows that we've been covering and enjoying, there's just such a wild bench of performers and I just want to shout out. The lead robber is played by Jonathan Slinger, who's an actor that I saw on stage in London. And I was like, man, this guy's incredible.

[Chris Ryan]

You dropped something.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think I can drop a Jonathan Slinger reference. Just a great actor and compelling and charismatic and surprising. Gadot with Ben Whishaw. He was really good. Did you not make it?

[Chris Ryan]

No, I couldn't. I didn't see that.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. That's too bad. You know, the thing about the West End is, yes, the restaurants are good and you know, the feeling, the energy on the streets is remarkable.

[Chris Ryan]

I was too busy re watching the western book of the Dead.

[Andy Greenwald]

Fair. I'm enjoying Steel. I want to watch it. Six episodes seems fun. Great. A question I had for you that I think I actually have a preloaded answer for. Sure. But I'm curious about. This is we have been enjoying, and not just because we like to travel there or work there recently, but we have been enjoying a lot of very specifically London shows. And when we review things and talk about things like Steel or years ago when we were talking about slow horses, stuff like that, I may destroy you. But specifically slow horses comes to mind of, like, they are very, very physically grounded in a place. Like, now they're by the Barbican, now they're on the 55 bus line. And like, we've been there and we understand it, but I think anyone watching these shows, whether they use their active mind to appreciate it or not, understands that these shows are elevated by location shooting and being in a place. And particularly in Steel, there are a lot of drone shots of all the new towers in the city by the bank street station that are like, well, this is a. This is a transformed Landscape. And we are going to play with the scope and scale of it. And I was. That made me think. And I actually don't know if you have an answer for this. When the last time was that we had a American show that celebrated specificity of location.

[Chris Ryan]

Great question. August of 2015, true detective season two.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, we're gonna get there.

[Chris Ryan]

No, but I'm just saying, like, that was one of the things that leaped out at me was I was like, that's. That's the. That's Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, where they are standing.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is a good segue then. I mean, we have noticed it in terms of, like, Wonder man filmed in Highland park, but that's not exactly what I mean. Wonder man is notable because it does do establishing shots of Pacoima, which matters. It's not just the volume or not just Toronto or Atlanta most of the time.

[Chris Ryan]

What happens now is you will see drone shot and then a. Whatever the scene is could have been shot anywhere in the world because they are usually in shallow focus. So that the actors are in focus. Nothing really in the background is happening. And so it could be shot in Vancouver. It can be shot wherever they're shooting it.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think there are a few recent examples of productions using the New York City.

[Chris Ryan]

Nobody wants this takes advantage of Los Angeles, I think, to some extent.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. A very specific sliver of it, but that's true. I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, when they look for parking spaces, just count that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Or. Yeah. Or they walk from skylight to. In front of the movie theater where the light is good. Yeah. It's a nice third of a block.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

A few shows have used the New York City tax credits. Well, like Mr. And Mrs. Smith, for example, a few years ago, or Black Rabbit was very much a sort of slick vision of New York that is legitimate. But these shows, like, these shows that do the. I guess what I'm chasing is something that I think reveals one of the major infrastructure problems of the American industry, which is that because production has cratered in traditional production hubs, often shows have to be written to be so deeply. Genre. Not genre, location, non specific, that by the time you are told where you will be going to shoot, which over the course of a show's development could move from Louisiana to Vancouver to Budapest, you cannot make the place a character. And I think that the shows that we are making are suffering from it. And not just like the great, you know, HBO shows that we always lionize, but even like maybe the more marginal, entertaining Apple shows or Peacock shows like.

[Chris Ryan]

I think there's also something going on. Like, I've asked you about this and I've talked about this. There's something going on with, like, the use of extras and the use of background action where, like, even Law and Order and SVU now, when you watch it, it just feels a little bit more canned and it feels like.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like the way that people look.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, like. Whereas, like, if you watch early Law and Order, it seems like they're kind of running and gunning out on Central Park. And that's probably just like, really good ads, getting really good extras to look like people jogging through Central Park.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, that's a really good question.

[Chris Ryan]

But there's. I also don't know whether this is what happens to every human brain, where at a certain point they're just like. Things just seemed more authentic 20 years ago.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I do think that there was a more robust. Everything's budgets were bigger, shooting days were longer, or you had more of them and you could let it rip a little bit. Probably, like, you could take over a larger corner of Central Park West.

[Chris Ryan]

Max Mahalan and Kal Penn talked about how that opening scene of the two of them walking through London in industry. The people in that shot do not know they're on industry. So I don't know whether there's a different law about who has to be like, you have to go. Then go up to people and be like, you're gonna be on an HBO show. I have to imagine you do. But I just feel like, you know, when I drive by in LA and they're shooting something. Even if they're shooting something in LA and, you know, the three blocks are blocked off and they're shooting something outside the Friend in Silver Lake or Los Feliz or whatever, you know, it's not gonna. It. It still feels, like, very canned and, like, safe, you know?

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think. Is that. Were they shooting there because they're doing, like, documentary footage of your 40th birthday party, like, recreating. Recreating the night, which is, I think, also.

[Chris Ryan]

No. She went to Tenants of the Trees. I was gonna say Charlie XCX had her birthday there as well, but she was.

[Andy Greenwald]

You did both have past cigarette towers, if I remember correctly. My point isn't even so much the. It's just that, like, if. If you're shooting, it would be nice to see things that are. If you're shooting in Atlanta, which people are not doing anymore, make it in Atlanta. One of the triumphs of the Vince Gilligan cinematic universe is the celebration of Albuquerque as the place, not Albuquerque as something else. Yeah. And it's been that the English television shows of the moment, industry accepted industry for. For price point and budget reasons. Shoots in Wales. But just the fact that, like, some of these clearly spend. Your English shows are taking advantage of the city that they're filming in. And I miss it's lacking in our American shows.

[Chris Ryan]

This is a good enough segue to talk about True Detective just because of the. You know, I was talking about, like, does your brain reset after a few years and think that just things that happened 10 years ago or like, the.

[Andy Greenwald]

Way, like, we are shedding skin so that we are ship of theseus ing ourselves every seven years?

[Chris Ryan]

That's a very big theme of True Detective, by the way. This season, I just was like, you know, as I kind of read about Epstein stuff over the last couple of days, obviously, you know, I was almost like, looking to pair it with something. I was like, what is like, this feeling that I'm having that I think is a very shared feeling of, like, am I losing my mind as I. As I read the news or as I go beyond the news into piecing things together? And, like, I think that everybody has to, like, kind of have their own limits as to how much of that that they can take on. As a. A man with no children, whose wife is currently traveling, My limit might be a little higher. There might not be a limit in.

[Andy Greenwald]

Terms like scale of one to ten. One being a church mouse and ten being Ray Velcoro. What was your behavior yesterday?

[Chris Ryan]

I have received documents from websites from Jason Concepcion that require translation from Russian to English.

[Andy Greenwald]

But those were just like, consent forms to whether or not basically.

[Chris Ryan]

Was like, a Russian agent for fsb, but, you know, and who knows?

[Andy Greenwald]

Is Jason gatekeeping this stuff? No.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, I'll share it with you. I don't know whether or not my computer's gonna explode in five minutes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'll just watch it on your screen.

[Chris Ryan]

I was kind of thinking about things from the last 10, 15 years that had either reflective or predictive of the moment that we're in. And one of the first things I was thinking of was, like, True Detective Season 1 and Carcosa, this idea that a show or a piece of art or anything could be solved in a community online, you know, And I remember around that time of True Detective, I can't remember the exact time, but, like, the first time I ever really noticed this was after the Boston Marathon bombing and people, like, sleuthing online. Obviously this happened with serial a lot people like Taking it upon themselves to piece things together. True Detective, I think, is very reflective of and predictive of, of, like, that kind of behavior is the idea that there's, like, always another layer. There's always another conspiracy to be found. Now, the reason I went to Trajective Season two, so I'm pretty familiar with One and also two is about human trafficking, a cabal of sexually deviant demons living in and around, you know, Bohemian Grove. It's also about the environmental and financial rape of California. And when it came out, I think both of us, certainly you. But even I was, like, pretty out on it, you know, like, if I remember correctly, like, I don't know if I was out out, but I think I was like, this is humorless. This is a chore. Cary Fukunaga obviously brought a different visual sensibility to it.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think we were. My relationship with it was. I was frustrated with it because I liked the cast, particularly Colin Farrell.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

And there were, in a way, it was like the non clown face version of late period Taylor Sheridan in that I was. I found it compelling and frustrating in equal measure.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because there was a lot of good there. And then it was very, very seemingly insistent on walking itself off a cliff.

[Chris Ryan]

So in the first season of Trudy, Woody and McConaughey are doing their version of his words, and then Fukunaga is shooting it in such a way where the magical realism, there's, like, the tracking shots, there's the incredible compositions, it's very well shot.

[Andy Greenwald]

The comparison I would make is Social Network, the film in the sense that you had two people who are very, very, very strong in their fields in terms of, like, a noisy written style and a noisy camera style colliding and having it make something that is somehow maybe, I think it's fair to say, greater than the sum of its parts. Right. Like, I mean, I love Fincher generally, and Sork and I can often take or leave, but together it shouldn't work. But it worked.

[Chris Ryan]

It certainly did.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I think that even as someone who is famously or infamously not a big fan of season one of True Detective, the alchemy of those two was the best work that either of them have done.

[Chris Ryan]

The second season, even though Justin Lin directs the first two, I think Giannis Metz directs this third one, and then Jeremy Podezwa directed the fourth one. I haven't watched the last few yet because, you know, life. But you can feel the authorial vision is coming from Pizzolatto, because the primary directive seems to be like, say, the words, the way I want you to say them. And. And. And we're using all of the words.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Scenes go on for much longer. There is less riffage, you know, there's less kind of like it's maybe what he wrote, but I'm going to put, like, the McConaughey spin on it or the Woody spin on it or the whatever, you know?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like four people who are being instructed to act like they are dead, like they are in purgatory.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch, Rachel McAdams, who's awesome in this show.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And Colin Farrell, who's fucking incredible in this show. He is this show. Honestly, four episodes. If this show came out, this year, would be a top five show for me.

[Andy Greenwald]

I love this.

[Chris Ryan]

This is so fucking good. And I can't believe I didn't, like, see it at the time, but maybe you just need. I don't really rewatch a lot of television just because there's just simply too much new stuff to check out. But I kind of. I wonder now, like, how many seasons of TV are out there that I'd be like, man, that was actually insane. Now, part of what's good about this season is remembering broadly what happens, but not the details of it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's been really cool. Like, you get to the part where Velcro grabs, like, beats the shit out of the bully's father in front of the bully.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And he's like, you can't cry. Look at what you did to your dad. Look at the beating he's taking.

[Andy Greenwald]

Forgot the happiest you've been on this podcast in months. And.

[Chris Ryan]

Thematically, I think it's just like a very resonant show right now.

[Andy Greenwald]

So this is what's interesting to me is that when you were texting me and I was being non committal, which is par for the course because I sent you 19 things before you woke up and you were like, cool. So I felt like turnabout is fair play. I thought you were saying that True Detective, broadly, but specifically season two, was interestingly predictive of our current television moment, but you actually feel like it's predictive of our larger cultural moment.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that it was. It's also. Yeah, I think it's the former, the. The latter. I feel like in some ways it's just forgotten a time. And I don't think people make shows this absolutely devoid of redemption, you know, and, like, any of the qualities, like, all of these characters are just absolutely incinerating themselves, and they're so miserable. They're. They. All their vices are completely taking over their lives. Their repressed feelings are destroying them. In the case of Taylor Kitch's cast character, it's so cynical about the world. It's so like the putrid disgusting that comes out of the woman's leg and the pit when they cut it. You know, that's what this show is.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But then if you look at a certain. If you look at the world now through a certain lens, you're like, it's way more right than it is wrong.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, it's interesting because the idea of a cabal of disgusting, rich, you know, pedophilic monsters is a. It's a real chestnut of American entertainment. Remember the guys in Squid game?

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, when it comes, like, it's almost cliched now, as we've learned, like the real black mirror of the last 10 years of American life is like. No, no, it's actually that stupid. Yeah. It's actually the things we thought are just like too beyond the pale and basic. Actually, that's what's been going on. I think what's missing is the level of almost like dark cartoonish humor of the fact that, like, it's not just that the conspiracy theories seemingly are. We're dead on. It's that the people involved went onto 4chan and invented an even more cartoonish conspiracy theory to muddy the waters of conspiracy theories generally and to get people off the scent. Like, that's the thing. That's the level of like, malevolent. Almost like Armando iannucci scripting season 15 of Veep Level of cynicism that something like True Detective, which ultimately is about boy scouts finding out the world's broken.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe in the first season. The second season is not about that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, they are no longer. They're hollowed out because they had reasons for becoming civic leaders or cops or whatever, but reality.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, yes, even the Velcro character in season two is like, presented as like this beautiful kind of kind man whose life is destroyed when his wife is assaulted.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. So I think that. I think that the missing. The third. The third heat that's missing for me is any kind of recognition of the dark humor of it. What's compelling about a lot of what Pizzolatto writes is like his absolute micro targeted fixation on like the swirling around the drain. But it's also that drain is located on his navel because he cannot get out of his navel.

[Chris Ryan]

He's definitely like, this is the. This is like Sirianni after The Super Bowl. Like he's getting to call his own. Call it. Us, call his own shots here.

[Andy Greenwald]

Season three, Kevin Patulo's offense.

[Chris Ryan]

I actually liked.

[Andy Greenwald]

I like season three.

[Chris Ryan]

I will say that one of the. I forgot that one of the central kind of plot drivers of the second season is the corruption and financial malfeasance surrounding a California rail line that will connect the Central Valley, the North and the South. Still, we still haven't built that well.

[Andy Greenwald]

Maybe with redistricting we'll finally get there. Like, I think that it's an. First of all, I love the history lesson and I think it's fascinating to look at shows that were maybe misunderstood at the time, but I still think that in entertainment and out at the bar, a guy sitting next to you being like, you actually don't understand how bad it is is not that compelling to me. I need something.

[Chris Ryan]

I think you're right. I would almost be curious if you watched the first one, if you would be like, oh, actually this feels a.

[Andy Greenwald]

Little bit more quaint in retrospect.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Because pre Trump, it's pre. Like, it's like if you go through the last 10 years like we have, and then you look back and you're like, oh, these were four, like damaged but well meaning people.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's also, I think one of the things you can look at it one of two ways. Like in those first three seasons, there are hall of Fame level performances from McConaughey, Harrelson, Farrell, Mahershala, Rachel McAdams and like in the service of were pieces that to some didn't hang together.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

What's your feeling about that? You know, it doesn't discredit their work.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

I wish I, I definitely found myself more like, I wish that it was in the service of something broader and grander. But there's also talk about, like, there was a feeling, particularly at that time, that because the doors had been blown open in the medium of television, that the work that was being made now in this golden into prestige era, whatever you want to call it, would be not just interesting, compelling, entertaining, meaningful, but would be significant and lasting in a way that we look at cinema and I think maybe with a few exceptions, TV is still tv. Like it. We keep shoveling. It doesn't. I don't say that to say that like Sopranos wasn't great, but I do think that the way we talk about individual performances and shows still somehow is diluted because of the quantity. Because to say Sopranos is great versus saying, I don't know, pick a Pick a great movie. I don't remember any.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean even something like versus like Goodfellas.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right. Is that. It is. It is a different commitment and a different aperture of like how much you have to take in.

[Chris Ryan]

Goodfellas is a long way movie that would take two and a half episodes of Sopranos. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

What. What will you. What will you do next story.

[Chris Ryan]

Also, I would be curious to see how you felt about the David Lynchisms of season two on. On Second Pass.

[Andy Greenwald]

I had a hard time with it in season one because, you know, that's.

[Chris Ryan]

Because they got the. The city manager with his eyes burned out, being driven up the coast with the bird head.

[Andy Greenwald]

I remember that very well.

[Chris Ryan]

You were mad as fuck about that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Because as this podcast's number one David lynch gatekeeper, there's a reason why I was like. Many have tried, but none have succeeded. Maybe with the exception of Tim Robinson on the Chair Company. Because David lynch is funny as hell and you just cop the moves but not the spirit. It's a very, very funny.

[Chris Ryan]

You weren't with me on Mulholland Drive when I was shooting in the gym.

[Andy Greenwald]

What about. Speaking of David lynch, did you see that there has been some movement in terms of sharing his final work, his screenplay. So there were.

[Chris Ryan]

I know Toby Jones said that he was supposed to be the star of the last movie, right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Is that what he said? The lead. There were a lot of rumors and then more than rumors, there was more than just smoke like that. He was prepping a massive project for Netflix. It was under the working title of Wisteria. There are people that have talked about it publicly. There are people that I know that auditioned for it and were going in and there were. There was some information going around about it, but that broadly speaking it was understood to be like a like twin the return. Like a massive movie that's going to be chopped up.

[Chris Ryan]

16 hours or whatever.

[Andy Greenwald]

15, 16 hours. And then later it was revealed that it was. The actual title was Unrecorded Night. And then he was. And it seemed like Netflix was willing to do this with him, but his health precluded even getting it into production. And then Strike and Covid and all the other things that delayed production generally. So it was never realized. But that his daughter Jennifer is saying that they're going to publish the scripts. Yeah. Wild to think about.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you want to read those?

[Andy Greenwald]

I desperately want to read them. But it does. It's painful because it's not like ah, you know, in the same way that like, you know, Le Carre's sons are writing new smiley novels. Or like there's a lost Chandler book that was finished by a contemporary crime writer. Like no one can do what he did.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I have a very strange relationship to the sort of legacy acts. Not even the legacy acts. But like, I was thinking about this because I was on the plane back from Boston. I was watching. Now you see me 3.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are you a completist? Have you seen the first?

[Chris Ryan]

I have now. I've seen all of them. Like on planes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Wow. Do you like them? I don't know nothing about them.

[Chris Ryan]

They're fully entertaining but like actually insane. Dominic Cessas. And the third one, I.

[Andy Greenwald]

First of all, that broke Containment, that trailer which seemingly gives away the whole movie. Played in front of every children's movie in theater for a year.

[Chris Ryan]

He's playing young Bourdain in the upcoming movie.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm a big Cessa head.

[Chris Ryan]

I like Dominic Cessa too.

[Andy Greenwald]

I love the Holdovers.

[Chris Ryan]

It's just like we are now in what are different ways to continue to put out Anthony Bourdain's stuff in the absence of him. And I, I like half of me is like, yeah, I'm going to be there day one. I can't wait to see it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, this is a story about Bourdain. I thought you were going to tell me about the magic movie.

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, sorry, go on.

[Chris Ryan]

He is playing young Bourdain. Would you describe yourself as like, I can't wait to see that. Do you think that there's a similarity between like, paging through a never to be film, David?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, because this is a biopic. Yeah, but like, which is different than like Parts unknown, season 15, hosted by Dominic Sessa with generative AI helping him.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

But is the question, like, do I feel like I'm done?

[Chris Ryan]

It's just things that, like, I don't know, that the artists would have wanted. I don't know that David lynch would be like, look at my unfilmed.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Because I'm a filmmaker.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I don't know that Anthony Bourdain would be like, I really want my young, my youth to be like biopic, you know, Like.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't know the answer. I think my interest level. My interest level varies. Like, I think that there is something for the lynch thing. There's something incredibly bittersweet about it because no one can do what he did. But in terms of my curiosity and interest in these people, that meant something to me. Sure. These two examples. But I haven't read no disrespect to Nick Harkaway. But like, I haven't read his new Le Carre stuff. His new Smiley book, the Silver.

[Chris Ryan]

What was it?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, that was the last Lucari that he finished. There's like a book called Smiley, something that is credited to Nick Harkaway is just a new Smiley book. Do you. But is this how you feel about True Detective Night Country?

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Andy Greenwald]

Continuing Nick Pizzolatto's work without him?

[Chris Ryan]

No, I had a lot of time for Night Country, I don't think. I think it was like just. I would like to see that project continue. I think it's a really interesting and fun for me world to live in is these sort of like occult investigations by broken detectives.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I think the thing that the show. And look, my criticism of this franchise has been well criticized and that's totally fair. But I think one of my recurring things about it is weirdly True Detective didn't go further far enough in either direction. I know what you're saying is really compelling that he was onto something obviously that he was feeling and was inspired to write about. And that does chime with the world, maybe even 10 years in advance. But it didn't go all the way there. Like the show, none of the teased it. They teased the story.

[Chris Ryan]

Except actually I think Three maybe touched it the most.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Well, Three has an explicit moment of tying in the series. Very brief right at the end there's a reference to like.

[Chris Ryan]

But it's also like it's where this, the character winds up is the most, I think is the most spiritually, like true thing that happens to any of the characters in this show, in this entire franchise is the fate of the Mahershala character.

[Andy Greenwald]

What's weird is I'm almost arguing for a more conventional structure in which like a prestige network like HBO hires a. And I think it's fair to say, regardless of how you feel about the output, like a prestige creator like Nick Pizzolatto, who works in a certain manner and expects his words to be performed and said in a certain way. But it's macro engineered like the X Files in the sense that like Nick Pizzolatto's Broken Men characters are perpetually lifting boulders up a mountain that they can't carry. But at the top of the mountain is the fucking cigarette smoking man.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

And he's always, you know, emailing people to get tickets to see Howard Stern or whatever, whatever the case may be. You know, like it would almost be. And it's very indicative of something about TV that I like. So I want to be careful. I'm not. I don't want to arguing against myself here, but the fact that it doesn't really stack up to something is okay. Like not everything can be engineered. But it's almost interesting purely in hindsight that if there had been some like macro story that he was going to keep running at from different vantage points in America, from different character vantage points, different casting, maybe even different eras. One thing that you could explain, not just carcosa and flowers like some. And something a little bit more specific and thus maybe more heavy handed than the evil that lives within all men.

[Chris Ryan]

I think if you were to go back and watch season two, you would be surprised by how much you like it because it's, it's. It is like a level of quality of television that I think is absent from like a lot today.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's the way I feel about Miyazaki's very personal. The wind rises.

[Chris Ryan]

I can see where this is going.

[Andy Greenwald]

In the sense that like I do think there's something in there that you would respond to because it is a film about tuberculosis and smoking and airplanes.

[Chris Ryan]

Where are we at 11:45?

[Andy Greenwald]

You gotta go.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I was just thinking about whether we should do any. Is this After Dark?

[Andy Greenwald]

This has been After Dark ever since you brought out your notebook.

[Chris Ryan]

Would you like to weigh in on Stout?

[Andy Greenwald]

Like because of all the creamy punches.

[Chris Ryan]

Long time.

[Andy Greenwald]

Other stuff. I do follow a lot of Guinness content.

[Chris Ryan]

Longtime Eagles offensive line coach and run game coordinator.

[Andy Greenwald]

People want this. I'm ready for it.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't really care.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, let's go.

[Chris Ryan]

I want to hear about it. Let's go.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sports.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm going to paint a little portrait of Andy. Andy's a guy.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Who doesn't just need sports, but he needs the sports that he cares about to. To work out in a certain way.

[Andy Greenwald]

To reflect. Yeah. To some sort of goodness.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. To reflect like a certain chemistry, a certain togetherness, humanity. And yeah. Like I think you're looking to sports to. To right some wrongs in the universe. Not you.

[Andy Greenwald]

To be the best of us.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And so when bad things happen or like, you know, locker room drama spills out about the Eagles and he's like the last to believe it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Very upset. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. He's always just like, I trust how he will. Will take care of like all of this stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I love that about you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But this is one where a very like long serving and beloved and perhaps best at his job in the world. Offensive line coach, 13 years has chosen that he Would rather not work for the Eagles anymore than work for the new offensive coordinator or Nick Sirianni anymore. And he doesn't like how he was treated last year, whatever the reports are. And this is the one that seems like it may have broken you a little bit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I did spend my drive in listening to our friend Shiel and our old friend Ben Solak talk about this in ways that did remind me of Vince Vaughn's attitude towards justice in True Detective Season 2. I would not say it was a sunny thing in my, in my defense. Shout out Vic Fangio. I have noticed that there is an inversion that happens in season and out of season. Whereas during a football season I am a reactive lunatic where every single snap is catastrophic and then when the season's over, I'm like, trust the process.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

I like these moving pieces. It could work out. Whereas you and Zach, I think are much more granular in your nervous systems during the offseason.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm much more level headed during games.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Like there's an element of it that's just beyond our control, you know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And I'm more level headed in the off season because, you know, I trust the great man theory. I trust Jeffrey. Who's the great man? Tbd. Yeah, tbd. No, this is a bad one. This is a bad one in the sense of like if they can't actually make this work, what are we doing here?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Doesn't feel good. How do you feel about Jared McCain getting traded?

[Chris Ryan]

I'm mad. I mean while we, we've been recording for quite some time now, while we have been doing so, there may have been like another trade that was coming.

[Andy Greenwald]

Seems like it was just a tax.

[Chris Ryan]

I did not like that. Yeah, I know we have to sign like some of our guys on two way contracts but like I'm glad Eric Gordon has a a warm seat on the bench for life for the Sixers.

[Andy Greenwald]

For some reason. Do you think if we go to the Comcast Infinity Shinehart Wig Company arena they will have up in the rafters, they'll have like Dr. J's jersey, Iverson's jersey, and skirted the first tax April in 2026.

[Chris Ryan]

I was thinking about bringing that sign to the game tonight because I'm going to go see the Sixers play the Lakers.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, nice. I'd be like proud of you guys.

[Chris Ryan]

You're under the threshold, Greenwald. It was. It's been amazing to deal with you today.

[Andy Greenwald]

Deal with me.

[Chris Ryan]

Not deal with you. Deal with the world. Deal with the files.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you want to show people your work.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm trying to be more present my thought and write out my thoughts longhand. Because when I'm on my computer, I'm just, like, all over the place. I'm just like, oh, let me listen to some shoegaze.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, look at this. This is. I like this.

[Chris Ryan]

Industry. And Night of the Sand Kings go up on Friday. We're not going to do a show until Monday, though, so don't get your hopes up. And we'll talk about the super bowl, some ads, state of the World, State of the Birds, state of Greenwald.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just putting all my eggs in the Sam Darnold basket.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks to Kya. Thanks to Kai. Thanks for listening, Ra.