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The Watch
Despite Everything, ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Works. Plus, ‘Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney,’ ‘The Pitt’ E11, and the ‘Top Chef: Canada’ Premiere.
01:25:51
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- [00:00]
A
This episode of the Watch is brought to you by Coffee Mate. Coffee Mate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee. So when they heard the new season of HBO's original series the White Lotus was set in Thailand, they were inspired to brew up two new flavored creamers. Thai Iced Coffee and Pina Colada flavored creamers. They're available for a short time only, so for the love of coffee, go try them now. This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. Would you sell your soul for greatness? What would you be willing to sacrifice? Find out on September 19th in the new Jordan Peele produced heart horror film, Him Only in theaters, starring Marlon Wayans as the greatest football player of all time and Tyreek Withers as his up and coming protege. Directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Monkey Paw Productions, Never Meet yout Idols. Him hits theaters September 19th.
- [00:49]
B
Your teen adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. One who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. New team. The new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you.
- [01:18]
A
Pain Sports. To have to clear the room, stand.
- [01:21]
B
Up and walk now.
- [01:24]
A
Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor@theringer.com, and joining me in the studio, justice is blind and so is his lawyer. It's Andy Greenwald.
- [01:38]
B
Yeah, yeah. Did you get it? Because justice is blind and so is Matt Murdock. You got it.
- [01:42]
A
Yes.
- [01:43]
B
It took like four seasons.
- [01:44]
A
I was actually referring to new member of the resistance, Amy Coney Barrett. Wow.
- [01:51]
B
Wow. You know, it's funny you should mention that. I was listening to Gavin Newsom's podcast on the way in and I.
- [01:56]
A
Which one? The Bannon one.
- [01:58]
B
Look how excited you are.
- [01:59]
A
No, I'm not excited for Steve Bannon.
- [02:01]
B
No, you're just excited for content.
- [02:04]
A
Gav's got a real idea in his head about how to win over. Persuade. Persuade the persuadables.
- [02:10]
B
Yeah.
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A
And we'll see if he works.
- [02:12]
B
Yeah. God bless.
- [02:13]
A
Yeah.
- [02:13]
B
You know, it worked with Plump Jack Chardonnay. Why wouldn't it work with democracy? We're starting in hot for a day. We have so much content, so much.
- [02:21]
A
Stuff to talk about. Andy, today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about a couple of shows that are coming up and how they are being marketed to us. We also wanted to Talk about tonight's episode of the Pit. We're going to talk about the first three episodes of Daredevil Born Again. We're going to talk about the first episode of Top Chef Canada, which is tonight as well. Which is tonight. So this episode is going to go out late this evening. Many of Kaia's favorite shows being spoiled as we speak. And am I missing something? Oh, yeah. We also wanted to talk about John Mulaney. Everybody's live.
- [02:49]
B
It's amazing how much content we have for today.
- [02:52]
A
It's crazy. Couple quick things. Housekeeping. We are on YouTube. Bringer Dash TV is the channel. You can watch us on video on Spotify, where you can also listen to us. You can also listen to us wherever you get your podcast. You can email us. The address is the watchpotify.com and you can follow us on Instagram. Thewatchpod underscore@instagram. And you know, we're doing some great, great content on Instagram. Get ready with me. A Day in the Life. A lot of cat videos.
- [03:19]
B
Are you making this up?
- [03:20]
A
Ramen Tours of. Of Osaka.
- [03:22]
B
Oh, I get that.
- [03:23]
A
Yeah.
- [03:24]
B
Okay, that's fine.
- [03:25]
A
Do you.
- [03:26]
B
Do you. Do you feel like we're getting a lot of. Lot of traction on. On YouTube? Like, do you feel like that's.
- [03:31]
A
I think we're doing fine. Yeah. We're a fledgling channel, us. And the Prestige TV podcast. We're doing our best.
- [03:37]
B
Do you think people are not. I don't know if.
- [03:38]
A
Did you get a chance to watch my Tears of Taylor Sheridan, like, ranking all of his shows and films?
- [03:43]
B
No, I. I didn't get a chance yet. It's on my. It's on my suggested for you screen. Thank you, though, for reminding me. I just wondered if people were noticing the small injustices. Like, I can't. What do I do with this wire?
- [03:56]
A
But I don't know what to tell you.
- [03:57]
B
Cause you're on that side.
- [03:58]
A
Yeah.
- [03:59]
B
And it's subtly hidden from you. Your headphone wire.
- [04:02]
A
Okay.
- [04:03]
B
But I feel like this is just. It looks like I'm wearing a lanyard, which I probably should to get in here. It's unbelievable the way I slip in and out.
- [04:10]
A
A couple of shows have been thrown in our face recently by the great marketing machine that is the digital Internet space. And honestly, sometimes when you're watching terrestrial television, you'll come across one of these. But Andy and I wanted to talk a little bit about what marketing says about streaming networks, what marketing of these upcoming show says about the networks that are putting them out. So we just got our first trailer for a hotly tipped Apple series, your Friends and Neighbors, starring Jon Hamm, coming from Jonathan Tropper, about a rich guy loses his job, starts robbing his neighbors to get by it.
- [04:45]
B
That.
- [04:45]
A
That sounds a little bit direct. I think it's a lot more arch and satirical than that, obviously. Also, Andor coming in April, Andor had a teaser with the Steve Earl song that debuted during the.
- [05:00]
B
No. Debuted.
- [05:01]
A
Did it have, like a big debut? It came out on YouTube, but then it was shown during the Oscars.
- [05:05]
B
Yes. It debuted while we were recording that show when I was in London and.
- [05:09]
A
Then also when we were recording another show. Yeah, they put out the special look behind the scenes of Andor, which actually was like a different trailer.
- [05:17]
B
Yeah, I like that.
- [05:18]
A
And then had Tony Gilroy and. And everybody talking about the series. The studio from Apple coming soon was heavily marketed at the Oscars and has been. I feel like they've been pumping this more than most Apple shows.
- [05:32]
B
They did an event for it and a premiere for it at south by Southwest last week, I believe.
- [05:36]
A
Do Seth Rogen and Kathryn Hahn. Are they doing development meetings in Grand Central Station live?
- [05:42]
B
Oh, I love that. You think that, like, Apple got a really good deal on a glass box in Midtown east. And they're like, sorry, David Oyebolo's there. And then no one even knows about the show. He's there.
- [05:52]
A
We do it at Union Station in. In Los Angeles where all great. All the Hollywood deals get made there.
- [05:57]
B
We took a train once.
- [05:58]
A
We did comic con 2013.
- [06:02]
B
Yeah. A long time ago.
- [06:04]
A
And then, of course, Poker Face.
- [06:06]
B
Yeah.
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A
The Natasha Leone anthology. Not anthology series, but week to week mystery show and in the. In the style of Columbo that's coming back for its second season came out. First season was January 2023, which is.
- [06:21]
B
Interesting because I was about to get on here being like, it's been four calendar years.
- [06:25]
A
I don't even remember her name.
- [06:28]
B
I don't even recognize her face.
- [06:30]
A
That's coming back with an incredible cast of guest stars. Guest stars. And that's coming back in April, I believe. May.
- [06:39]
B
May.
- [06:39]
A
It's May.
- [06:39]
B
It's May.
- [06:40]
A
That was a trailer that just popped up on Twitter. Andy, this was your. Kind of like, I want to. I need to talk about these. Not so much about the trailers themselves, although we can discuss them, but about kind of like where we're at with creating awareness around series and about promoting things.
- [06:58]
B
Yeah, well, mostly I just feel like it's interesting to see these tech companies. I don't know if you've heard the term that I invented recently, disruptors, but I feel like it's relevant here because so much of the machinery, even though Hollywood has gone through paroxysms of catastrophic slash existential change over the last few years, the broad strokes, mechanisms of how we process stuff, how it gets promoted, how it gets covered, how it gets talked about on podcasts and distributed, a lot of that has stayed relatively stale and the same. Right. And increasingly some of the bigger services just aren't playing by any recognizable rules. And I think that the reason why we wanted to talk about this wasn't just the, you know, almost self harming time gap between seasons of shows, especially shows like Poker Face, that were specifically pitched to be like, we're bringing TV back. Sure, we're doing 70s TV. It's more that something like a service like Apple, which has more money than anyone else, a show like your friends and neighbors, which we had heard was good from people who had worked on it and people who had seen glimpses of it. Apple clearly thinks it's good. They renewed it before it even premiered. And then the clock turned to march and they hadn't even dropped a trailer for it. It seemed like they were. Are they disinterested in promoting it? Is it unnecessary to promote it? Or are they looking at algorithms that we aren't and basically saying we're gonna flood the zone in the last two weeks to get eyeballs on it? We don't know their strategy for releasing it, and we don't understand its value to them. And I feel like I, so I feel like the, the, the parameters of the conversation are worth setting because it's harder for us because we want to engage with this show, especially if they're dropping a weekly. It seems really exciting. The trailer, we should say, looks awesome.
- [08:48]
A
Yeah, it looks really good. I admit. Completely honestly stopped watching midway through because I was like, I'm, I'm sold.
- [08:57]
B
Well, you were sold. When Corbin Burnson was in a hot.
- [08:59]
A
Tub, I was sold just because I didn't want to give away. I mean, even if. Let's just say that's the first 20 minutes of the first episod. Starting to get into it. As they started introducing, like, his kids and like more and more characters in the trailer, I was like, let me just discover this.
- [09:13]
B
So wait, are you the reason why there's no trailer because you don't need it?
- [09:18]
A
There's a difference between whether or not I need a trailer and whether or not we're giving people awareness of Shows and when they're coming out. Now, some of that just does not matter. I do think that we're probably in a place now where most people's.
- [09:32]
B
Media.
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A
Consumption more mirrors their inbox, their. Their email inbox where they're probably subscribed to maybe some newsletters or they are trying to basically like go to the thing that they want and cut out other noise.
- [09:50]
B
Right.
- [09:50]
A
So people aren't necessarily like, maybe they're just turning on Apple TV and they're like, well, look at that beautiful man. Jon Ham is standing in front of me. What is the show about? That sounds interesting. I'll try it. Click. Yeah. Which is not altogether. Than sitting at home on a Thursday in the 90s and NBC just puts another funny face in front of you and you're just like, I will continue to watch. This is good. But the thing I think is getting lost as everything becomes so, I mean basically like shattered down into these like million little pieces that we have in front of us is that there is really very little of the networks themselves pumping out their chests there. Isn't that like coming soon on hbo. There isn't that feeling of the trailer.
- [10:37]
B
This is your spot.
- [10:38]
A
Yeah. Because like what I think everybody needs right now is a feeling that there is a banner under which this stuff exists that they can depend on. That was what made HBO so great. It's what makes FX so great is that I will watch this new Michelle Williams show because it's on fx.
- [10:57]
B
Yeah.
- [10:57]
A
I will watch whatever HBO puts on Dying for Sex. Dying for Sex, Yeah. So, yeah, I think that one of the things that's odd is like and. Or the studio, Poker Face and your friends and neighbors. Four of shows that we're really, really excited to check out and watch. Again, don't say anything about Peacock, Apple, Disney plus.
- [11:18]
B
I would take it a step further. Well, no, well, I won't take it a step further yet. Let's. Let's engage with what you just said. I. It does say something. Well, I think in terms of how secure they feel in their place in the firmament of the industry or the larger economic environment. Apple saying, as you said, we're good. We know we have something good. It's working smoothly. Jonathan Tropper, the creator, who I'm hoping we'll talk to, he's been on the show before, back when he was working, when he had created, co created Banshee, one of my favorites. He's under an overall deal. He's worked for them before. It's rolling. Right. They literally will be Rolling on a second season soon in the next few months. That works for them, for Apple. And I think exactly is what you're saying. They're like, we have a cozy ecosystem. People are using their Apple TVs, people are buying new iPhones. They're getting free subscriptions when they see Jon Hamm is there. And this is a brightly colored, buzzy show, which does seem to be what they look for. People will find it and they're secure in that. What that doesn't necessarily do is a lot for Jonathan Tropper maybe and his creative team who worked really hard to make something that would like to be singled out and celebrated for the work that they did as opposed to just being a useful piece of the larger corporate strategy which is opaque to them. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I think the Andor thing is an interesting counterpoint because, you know, there is no show we're more excited about, I think, coming this year than season two of Andor. The narrative around season one was an interesting one. It was universally celebrated by people who don't really pay that much attention to Star wars stuff. Right. People who checked in with it. There were some attempts to broaden its potential audience. I think it was around Thanksgiving of the year that the show was out that they put it on terrestrial tv. They put it on all the Disney channels to try to get people watching, watching. And it worked in an old Hollywood sense. It was nominated for Emmys. Did it work in a this is return on investment for the hundreds of millions of dollars Lucasfilm spent on it on behalf of Disney or vice versa? I'm not sure. So what they're doing ahead of season two is interesting to me. They seem to know what they have in that the marketing does not seem to be the marketing you would do for the Star Wars Story continues. They have Steve Earle in the trailer.
- [13:38]
A
And they have all the critics hosannas as like, this is the most critically acclaimed Star wars show ever made.
- [13:45]
B
And the boldest thing that they're doing behind the scenes is that the first season is now streaming for free on Hulu. So outside of the Disney plus Silo, if you don't subscribe to it, but you do subscribe to Hulu, you can watch it. The first three episodes of the first season are for free on YouTube right now. So they are really trying to get people to watch it. What that says to me is two corporations with very different mandates in terms of how they want their expensive properties to be viewed.
- [14:12]
A
Yeah.
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B
Or the imperative to get them.
- [14:14]
A
I think it's also maybe a bet on andor it's like we think that the more people that get a chance to see this, there will be uptake. They'll want to know how this story concludes.
- [14:23]
B
Do you think there is and this is just look, this is, this is our Thomas Friedman. We're driving in a cab in Bangalore. How's he doing type of journalism? He's mad. He's quite, quite mad. He doesn't like the way things are going one bit. I feel like, I feel confident characterizing his attitude as that. Does it make a difference to the consumer how these services are marketing themselves to us? Because just to stay within the Apple world for a second, your friends and neighbors we have not watched yet. Looks really good. Absolute radio silence in the forward facing media. The studio you and I both watched some of and we then stopped because we didn't want to get too far ahead because we're going to be potting about it. I feel confident saying on here that I think it's awesome. I love it. I loved the pilot. I can't wait to watch more. It has the potential to, I think, not just be a hit, whatever that means, but to be an actual like industry mover or driver. Like, people are excited about it. They're excited about comedy being back. They're excited about Seth Rogen taking a big creative swing. They're excited about the aesthetics of the show. And probably in a myopic way, they're excited about what it is saying or not saying about Hollywood.
- [15:40]
A
It might be that, but it's better.
- [15:42]
B
Than just that, right? It is not just a navel gazing.
- [15:46]
A
I just think that it's a. We're going to talk a lot about the studio. One of the things we're probably reckoning with and we can leave this conversation here because ultimately we could do 60 minutes on it or we could do six minutes on it. Is there was a period of time where it was not uncommon and likely our podcast is an outgrowth of this phenomenon where people would be like the first question you would ask somebody at a party or at a dinner or when you saw somebody you hadn't seen in a minute, you'd be like, oh, what are you watching? Anything good? And that actually meant tv. Like, what TV show are you watching? Oh, well, we have gatherings on Sunday nights to watch Game of Thrones and Girls and Veep or whatever. Or we everybody gets together and watches Mad Men. Or we are giving each other recommendations of things that we've come across. Like, oh, you got to check out Terriers or whatever. And I think that TV is still good, but the ceremony, the ritual, the centralization of television as like an important thing that that's a part of people's lives is probably almost like it's gone back to like where it used to be, where it was like TV is, is this additional thing in my life, but I can't keep up with who has what when and when it's debuting. I will watch when your friends and neighbors. When I finally do turn on my Apple tv, I will check out your friends and neighbors.
- [17:08]
B
Yeah, I think the other, the flip side of that, and let's go back to the naval gazing Hollywood part again though, is the flattening effect that you're describing, I think does matter internally within a creative industry when it just really does feel like you're working as hard as you were before, you're pouring as much of your creative self into something and you really are just making content widgets for a larger unfeeling company that makes decisions at a level that you don't really understand.
- [17:35]
A
Right.
- [17:37]
B
That is just what work is now, I guess, for everybody. So this isn't some like enormous breakthrough observation. But it does, I think it does have an effect and it does have a dispiriting effect. Knowing that you were on Sunday nights on HBO used to mean a couple things that went along with it, right? In terms of investment in. And investment in return on investment in terms of what you put into something, it would be celebrated, it would be marketed. You would have a tangible sense of who's watching it and why and you'd have a connection with that. That doesn't feel necessarily like the case anymore. I'm sure there are many.
- [18:13]
A
Well, there's no such thing as a lead in anymore. There's no such thing as, as a appointment television that you like with the exception of Sunday night HBO stuff like where you want to be watching White Lotus or whatever maybe is like Last of Us will be a really good example of a show that I think people are urgently watching Sunday to Sunday, but I don't really feel like that. And furthermore, I mean like with Andor, for instance, I saw Tony Gilroy was interviewed about the release schedule and he made a joke about like, it's tough for podcasters, but you know, it is. This is a decision that was made above my head.
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B
It is nice that we were front of mind for him.
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A
But that also is gonna be something where it's like what time does andor release on the Wednesdays that it comes out or The Fridays that it comes out. And like, is there any kind of. There's no ritual around tuning in for a new episode of that when there's three episodes that go up at like 6pm Pacific or something?
- [19:05]
B
Well, let's bring it all the way full circle and talk about. I mean, this is, in that sense, this is a. Maybe this is just a completely in our problem, not a world problem. But like. Chris, do you remember? I don't want to tax your memory. I know you've had a busy year so far.
- [19:19]
A
I don't know. I have plenty of tax money to spend now, apparently.
- [19:23]
B
Do you remember, do you remember a show called Squid Game? Yeah, that was.
- [19:28]
A
Well, that's the funny thing. We haven't talked about Netflix at all in this whole conversation.
- [19:30]
B
No, but I'm saying, like, if we talk to people at Netflix, we talk to Bella Bajari, we talked to Peter Friedlander, they'd be like, squid Game season two is a, you know, blockbuster for us globally. It was a huge, huge success. It hit every metric we had internally. It, you know, we had, we saw significant subscriber retention or subscriber growth connected to it.
- [19:53]
A
There's buzz for whatever activations outside of the screen that we're engaged in where there's, you know, experiences and yada, yada.
- [20:02]
B
Yada, they, they, they're probably very, very pleased inside their office. We as podcasters who watched the first episode of it when the whole thing dumped in December and we were like, okay, it feels a little empty. You know, the ritual of watching it connecting, feeling part of something larger and having it say something, being able to say something about it, but also feeling like it was saying something about us in return. That is a potentially a very old school and disposable fantasy.
- [20:32]
A
Okay, so that sounds all very dark.
- [20:34]
B
Yes, well, we're talking about the industry. What else am I going to do?
- [20:36]
A
That same network is releasing a very, very, very compelling series this week, Adolescence with Stephen Graham and Aaron Doherty from.
- [20:44]
B
Stephen Graham, the hardest working man in.
- [20:47]
A
Show business, which is like another just example of Netflix can just afford to take chances on things. And this is something I hope a lot of our viewers take a chance on. And then they also just like, let Mulaney cook for an hour in primetime Live. Now, you and I were both huge fans of Everybody's in la, which was John Mulaney's Live show series that he did last year. This year, he is scheduled to do 12 weeks of these live shows. Now, starting with this one that aired.
- [21:15]
B
Theoretically, this would be the first season, potentially of more than one. We'll see.
- [21:18]
A
I got a chance to watch some of this when I got home last night from a screening, but I know that you built your entire evening around this.
- [21:24]
B
You weren't live.
- [21:25]
A
Yeah, I was not live, but what did you think?
- [21:27]
B
Well, first of all, I appreciate you making this segue, because I think it is worth noting that Netflix's increasing investment in live events is its. Its version of addressing this concern.
- [21:36]
A
Sure.
- [21:36]
B
Of making it a. Not just a profit driver for itself, but a sort of, you know, across all metrics and across all demographics, like the hub for what we watch and process and enjoy. So, yeah, I. Everybody's in la. Was. You thought it controversial, but it was on my top 10 of last year.
- [21:58]
A
Yeah, I thought that you did a little bit of rule bending with that.
- [22:00]
B
No, I'm still waiting for you to watch a Miyazaki movie for just talking hard truths to each other on the mic, but okay.
- [22:06]
A
Oh, wait. I watched Porco Rosso.
- [22:09]
B
What?
- [22:10]
A
I watched Amanda's son watch it on an iPhone, but I thought it looked pretty good.
- [22:14]
B
Can you just say those words again in that order? I just. I just want to let them wash over.
- [22:19]
A
Me and Knox were hanging out and he wanted to watch planes, and so we were watching Porco Rosso.
- [22:25]
B
Yeah. And that's the one about the pig pilot.
- [22:28]
A
Yeah.
- [22:29]
B
It was probably arguably one of the weaker ones.
- [22:32]
A
Okay.
- [22:33]
B
But go on.
- [22:33]
A
I wouldn't know. I mean, I just. I have nothing to compare it to.
- [22:37]
B
How. What was your milligram dosage in your jaw at that moment? Just where were you, Zinwise, what was your zyntrus level?
- [22:44]
A
I was two Italian loggers in, but I thought it was great.
- [22:47]
B
Well, Italian is in spirit of Porco Rosso. The pig is Italian.
- [22:50]
A
Yeah. I wanted to squeeze one more European lager in before they become out against the.
- [22:55]
B
That's right. Too rich for my blood. Signore Moretti. Wow.
- [23:02]
A
Do you think there's going to be a run on Peyronie's tonight to get them before they go up? If he's really. If Trump's really tariffing European.
- [23:11]
B
I was saying this to you on the way in, like, all the stock market fluctuations doesn't affect me, but I am very exposed in the cognac space. Like. Like, worryingly exposed. So you joke, but I'm going to start doing so many seasons of stick the landing. Be like, hey, you know, it was.
- [23:32]
A
A good ending to a show. To broke girls.
- [23:34]
B
It was a good ending to a show. The Watch podcast Because so I did plan my night around watching this. And look, I love, I love this conceit. I loved. He also in this show basically almost like did a new mission statement for what he was doing. Because the everybody's in LA idea was like, hey, they're letting me do something crazy while the comedy festival is going on and literally everybody is in la so we can have these star studded things and we can have fun and we can build some momentum and as he said last night, figure out how to make the show just in time to stop making the show. So in a way it was starting again from a cold stop. But he did say that it is his opportunity to inflict his particular cultural detritus damage from his childhood on a new generation.
- [24:16]
A
Yes.
- [24:17]
B
Which I do think is interesting. We are the wrong people to be talking about this, but he definitely is doing things that for us feel like, well, it's talk shows. Yeah.
- [24:25]
A
Well, he did an entire credit sequence that's an homage to William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L. A.
- [24:31]
B
Still is.
- [24:32]
A
And he. His first guests were Joan Baez and Michael Keaton. All I'll say about the. The first segment I watched, Mulaney's kind of like intro, stand up part was just that it was very reflective of this current moment in Los Angeles. Yeah, it was just like we got fires, floods and measles, man. So like, here we go.
- [24:54]
B
I thought two things about it. I think that he's like a generational talent and is good at almost everything. And one of the, one of the low key things that he's proved himself to be quite good at is navigating conversations. And he does do really well when there are a lot of things being thrown at him. The producer in his ear, the caller on the phone, four disparate guests on a couch. Richard kind like, he's very, very good at being the ringleader, which isn't always the case for people who are solo practitioners often on stage. So seeing him get good at that kind of talk show stuff and the flow is really cool and really exciting and it does create a lean in kind of experience watching it because it is, it is live. And that part alone adds this like frisson of excitement and fun to watching it. I'll say that after one episode, what I missed most was the LA of it. There was a specificity to that.
- [25:45]
A
Was this not in la?
- [25:46]
B
It is because he was saying in his monologue like Netflix did not want that conceit to continue because they at least maybe he was joking but also, I feel like he wasn't.
- [25:53]
A
He was like, people don't like la.
- [25:55]
B
People don't like la. And he said they made another run at the focus groups after the fires. Why not?
- [25:58]
A
Everybody's in Seoul, Korea.
- [26:00]
B
I mean, the thing about one of the things that I loved, and I think there's gonna be more of it. And there was some evidence of this. It's like, guy, can you imagine if.
- [26:06]
A
He was like, everybody's in the electric state, and they're just, like, robots walking around.
- [26:12]
B
And then, like, accidentally the camera slips behind the curtain. You see the Russo brothers lighting money on fire and laughing.
- [26:17]
A
All the ads are just Billy Bobby Brown's extended brand deals. Yeah.
- [26:22]
B
God. Have you talked about the electric state on the Big Picture? No, I just feel like before we have to, like, you know, pivot to Avengers Doomsday, I feel like you just got to get off a couple more like Russo Real Talk.
- [26:35]
A
Oh, I'm coming for them later. I got something for them on the Daredevil thing.
- [26:39]
B
Oh, nice. Okay, great. Anyway, the. I did.
- [26:44]
A
I'm still mad at you guys for ruining the adaptation of Cherry, which is a great novel. You.
- [26:49]
B
Do you think they're listening?
- [26:50]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [26:51]
B
You think both Russo brothers stop what they're doing?
- [26:54]
A
Anthony listens, and he's like, joe, you're not gonna believe what they said about us. Ben Stiller was on Real Ones this week. Yeah, I. He didn't say that. That this. On this podcast on. On the Real Ones pod, but people should check it out. It's a very fun episode. But he did say on a. In, like, an interview with Eddie Q where he was like, sometimes I listen to podcasts about severance, but as soon as they're critical, I turn them off and never listen again. So I guess.
- [27:20]
B
Do you think he's not coming back on? I don't think so. Did you think I burned that?
- [27:23]
A
Would you. Back to Dan Amora, you know.
- [27:26]
B
Oh, we could do that.
- [27:28]
A
Yeah.
- [27:28]
B
Do you think he's gonna do that?
- [27:30]
A
I don't know.
- [27:31]
B
Or is me watching multiple seasons of Severance sort of a meta show about a man in prison?
- [27:35]
A
That's right.
- [27:36]
B
A trapped man. You know what? I do appreciate. You do? Let me. You do? Let me run.
- [27:42]
A
I let you crash this podcast.
- [27:43]
B
That's the thing. Like, I watch, like, you have your computer open. Like, do you see interview bookings dropping out of our ical in real time?
- [27:51]
A
Oh, we're very popular with the community here. Yeah. I think, honestly, I would do the same thing if I was Ben Stiller. If I heard us talking about my show.
- [27:59]
B
Yeah.
- [27:59]
A
I'd be like, fuck these guys.
- [28:01]
B
I still want to get to the bottom of his. When he was on.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah.
- [28:07]
B
You know, it was like.
- [28:08]
A
I think. I think that that was just a miscommunication. We were told that he really loved our show.
- [28:13]
B
Right.
- [28:13]
A
And it. Then it.
- [28:14]
B
He really loved real ones.
- [28:15]
A
Yeah. It turns out he was waiting for Howard Beck and Roger Bell and Logan Murdoch.
- [28:19]
B
That's fine with me.
- [28:20]
A
I am, too.
- [28:21]
B
Anyway, I. All I was trying to say is the conce.
- [28:24]
A
La conceit. And how it was less LA this time.
- [28:26]
B
It did feel that way. You know, he still has a great, great filmmaker, great friend of our pod. Honestly, he. I know he does listen, unlike the Russo brothers, Brooke Linder, who's doing all like, the interstitials and the videos and the sort of man on the street stuff, which I think is really crucial to the show, I also kind of noticed and I wonder if they're going to address this going forward. It was much more panel than the previous shows had been. There was. It was almost entirely the panel conversation. And then there was one totally bizarre, funny bit about Willy Lomans in Death of a Salesman. And then Cypress Hill performed with the orchestra. And then the show was over and there wasn't a lot of, like, extenuating, like in the street comedy bits or short films or tape pieces.
- [29:10]
A
I liked the joke he made about how he no longer does cocaine and Adderall. So he does things like this to get his heart rate up and feel alive again. Sometimes I wonder if that's why I watch so much Taylor Sheridan.
- [29:23]
B
Did you talk about that on your YouTube thing? Because I watched that. The after hours one. Yeah. Here's the question I had for you. I don't know if you saw this part. Did you see when Joan Baez came out?
- [29:34]
A
I did not.
- [29:36]
B
It was interesting. Joan Baez is 84 years young. You know her? Oh, Monica Barbaro from the movie you like. That was Joan Baez. I didn't know if you.
- [29:44]
A
Did you ever see that?
- [29:45]
B
No. Okay. You want me to see it?
- [29:48]
A
I do want you to see a complete unknown.
- [29:49]
B
Yes. I would like to watch it in the same way that you watch Porco Rosso. Over someone's shoulder.
- [29:55]
A
Over a young child's shoulder.
- [29:58]
B
This is Bob Dylan. Knox. Great, great man.
- [30:05]
A
Unlike Ben Stiller, I think Amanda does listen to this pod.
- [30:08]
B
We know that Amanda listens to this pod. And we're going to be hearing about this is just wanton use of her Son. As a. As a conversational prop, the. When Joan Baez came out, the first thing she said was, they told me, this is live, and you could say anything. So I do want to say that, like, unelected oligarchs are destroying our country, and we're living in an insane, like, end of democracy times. And there definitely was a. Oh, someone just, like, just. Was just let it rip at a cocktail party.
- [30:39]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [30:39]
B
Like, it was. Weirdly, there was a lot of silence, and I thought it was an interesting moment. And then John Mulaney was just like, okay. Then he was like, thank you for saying that, Joan. Now, I promise you, every single person, every single. I've been watching him for a long time. Every single person on that stage, and probably every single person working on the show, and probably 98% of the audience, unless the parking attendant you had last night in Hollywood was in the audience, agrees with her. But it was a very surreal moment of, like, this is live and crazy, but there are limits to that. And what we can and can't say. And listen, I'm not. I don't want this to be, like, misheard as me being like, how dare John Mulaney muzzle the resistance live on television. It was an interesting example of, like, what chaos is or isn't in one of the most bizarre times in American history.
- [31:34]
A
Well, I can't wait to watch it jump.
- [31:36]
B
I saying that and then send dog in a tuxedo going smoke weed. Like, was. That was weirder like that. Do you think I do this podcast? Because I used to just listen to Cypress Hills Black Sunday in our buddy's song.
- [31:53]
A
What connection does that have?
- [31:55]
B
I just. That is a weird, like, oh, like.
- [31:57]
A
What are the sliding doors that brought you here?
- [32:01]
B
I thought, I guess maybe this is just what aging is for everybody. But, like, I think I said this. I definitely said this to you. I don't think I talked about it on mic, but, like, when I was in London, I went to see an incredible museum exhibit. I did say this, right? The National Portrait Gallery about the Face magazine.
- [32:16]
A
Yeah, we talked about that.
- [32:17]
B
We talked about that. And I was like, oh, so this was just life, and now it's here. That's kind of what it was like, seeing Cypress Hill wearing tuxedos.
- [32:26]
A
So seeing, like, a picture of Alexa Chung next to, like, a Francis Bacon painting.
- [32:31]
B
Mm. Yeah. Life's a trip, man. I'm just gonna enjoy this cognac while I can. I'm glad the show is back, and I'm very curious to see what it turns into as it goes. These things have to evolve. They can't just be. Can't just do it once.
- [32:42]
A
Let's do. Let's do Daredevil because we can save the Pit and Top Chef for the end if people are, like, waiting to get to those things. The first three episodes of Daredevil, Born again are up.
- [32:54]
B
Two went up last week, one went up this week. I believe.
- [32:57]
A
I believe so. Yeah. One of the more labored over of the Disney plus Marvel series. And that's really fucking saying something.
- [33:06]
B
Yeah.
- [33:08]
A
Some of that is, like, widely documented. Some of it is like, you know, superleaks.org on Twitter, it says that episode two used to have a different ending or whatever. But in any case, this is usually when things are picked over. Re, edited, reshot, reorganized, new showrunner, whatever. I don't think there was a new showrunner necessarily.
- [33:28]
B
There was. There 100 was. Do you notice that the show says, created for television by Dario Scarapane and Matt Corman and Chris Ord.
- [33:37]
A
Oh, yeah. Okay. So typically, what that means is that's going to be a no from us dog. Right. Like, usually like that kind of turmoil, bullpen by committee, turmoil, re edits, reshoots. Nobody knows what we want here. And I think that I completely understand if you watch these first few Daredevil episodes and that's your takeaway. I think what I, weirdly, I wouldn't say loved, but liked quite a bit about these first three episodes.
- [34:06]
B
Here we go.
- [34:07]
A
Was that somehow, some way, in this crazy world of ours, they have a show with a pov and they have a show with like a feel and a vibe and a tone.
- [34:18]
B
Yep.
- [34:18]
A
And that show is probably the show that they had eight years ago or six years ago.
- [34:23]
B
It kind of was.
- [34:24]
A
Yeah. On Netflix.
- [34:25]
B
The Netflix show.
- [34:25]
A
But I will tell you this just to get the ball rolling, okay? The first 15 minutes of this first episode are the best fucking thing Marvel has done in years. Like, seriously. And I know that it's a divisive sequence where some people feel like it's just. It's way too chaotic or. Or poorly shot or poorly executed. Benson and Moorhead did it where. And those guys have done some other Marvel stuff, but have also made a series of really, really striking independent sci fi movies. And I. I'm here to tell you, I think these guys should be the Russo brothers. I think that these guys have just enough of a unique feel and vision for these worlds. Now, they also did stuff on Moon Knight, which we did not care for as much.
- [35:10]
B
Right.
- [35:10]
A
But this opening sequence is so weird and vibey. And I was like, I actually had to like, check that I was actually watching the right thing. You know, when they're having like a huge, like a get together at a New York City bar that actually kind of felt like a New York City bar for five minutes and then there is a blindingly violent confrontation between Daredevil and Bullseye. And it's just, it felt live, felt electric. A lot of this stuff feels like guys walking into a room and reading the latest rewrites off of a cue card and then getting stitched together with something they shoot six months later to stitch together with, like, whatever the end of the show is going to be. There was a feeling of like, I don't know, it felt like organic material for a little while here. Now it goes into being a pretty straightforward urban crime drama, which I'm not allergic to at all, but a lot of like, ah, so your girlfriend is also the couples counselor of Kingdom.
- [36:16]
B
Well, that's just rom com. That's, that's just a hilarious premise.
- [36:19]
A
I'd like a lot of the actors. So far, I, I, I, I've. Despite myself, I mean, despite my cynicism about this entire project at this point being Marvel, I thought it was pretty good.
- [36:31]
B
I think it's pretty good too. And I was pretty surprised that I thought it was pretty good for all the reasons you said. I think that one thing that is impressive is that on some level, this might be one of the more expensive examples of corporate humility that we have on record. So 10 years ago, Marvel Television was a separate entity from Kevin Feige's MCU stuff. And if you really want the nitty gritty of this, our friend and colleague Joanna Robinson's book, mcu, lays this all out. And they made these shows. They made a series of shows for Netflix. One of them was Daredevil with Charlie Cox, Jessica Jones, and yeah, and I'll say they were of varying degrees of quality. Daredevil was really, really good at the beginning and then settled into being pretty good. Jessica Jones, similarly, and Luke Cage, they were all pretty good. And no one talks about Iron Fist. The one thing that you can definitely say whether you love the shows or dislike the shows is that they were TV shows. They were made in a traditional American television manufacturing way with a showrunner writer's room making a season of television. And they were, I think fans thought they were successful and I think Netflix thought they were pretty successful when the Streams merged and Kevin Feige got control over the entire organization just in time For Disney to build its streaming service, the mandate changed completely. They weren't going to make television shows. They were making MCU extensions on the small screen. And their process mirrored that. And we've heard stories that are, you know, funny, quirky, surprising, challenging, infuriating, off the record or behind the scenes about how some of these shows got put together. Sometimes the results were surprisingly decent to very good, like Wandavision or Loki. Other times they were Secret Invasion. Yeah, or Hawkeye or any of these other shows that just didn't.
- [38:24]
A
Hawkeye, honestly, in retrospect, now seems to be good.
- [38:28]
B
Well, it had moments, but it wasn't.
- [38:30]
A
But it's crazy to watch Daredevil and have a reference to something that happens towards the back end of Hawkeye. I just admire the way that Daredevil is like, if you've seen that it works. If not, you don't need to worry about it.
- [38:42]
B
But all this was my way of saying that they did admit that they had stumbled creatively in TV and that they would now let showrunners make TV shows. And this version of Daredevil was initially a plan to be like the way all the other networks and streamers are doing it, being like, we're bringing TV all the way back. We're making a 15 or 18 episode season of this show. And then they weren't happy with the results. And then they brought in Darius Scarpane, who I mentioned, who'd worked on the Bridge and I believe he worked on the Punisher series that they did for Netflix as well, and they reconfigured it. But regardless, there is a clear, clear point of view here. There is a reason for these characters to be existing in relationship to each other. One of the hallmarks of the Marvel stuff that we got really down on was that you could kind of see the broad strokes of what a show could be. And then it just completely forgot that either due to rewrites or due to larger top down mandates of. We love what you're doing here, but we really need to introduce Florence Pugh. Yeah, and introducing Florence Pugh in the television show Hawkeye, that was the best scene in that series.
- [39:47]
A
I forgot that she shows up, but.
- [39:48]
B
The series itself made no sense with that other interesting thing carved out of it like melon ball right out of the middle of it. This show is like. I mean, Daredevil is the character for this Daredevil. I know you don't love canonically not your favorite character.
- [40:04]
A
I just haven't really spent a ton of time reading stuff about him, reading His. His books.
- [40:09]
B
Daredevil is the one that is, like, the most specific. It's a certain part of a certain area of New York, and it. And these types. And it has legal drama stuff, but it also has these sort of, like, grand Catholic tragedy, broad storytelling stuff that draws a lot of interesting creative people, writers and artists to it. And with this show, like, it's. It feels really, like, basic to say this, but when you watch the show, you're like, ah, Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk are both men trying to change. And they are at opposite ends of this. Okay. You could build something from that. Right. And you can just build a TV show around it. And it has a narrative propulsion that works. So I'm curious what you thought of having watched three episodes. The first, everything we understand about. They'll never talk publicly about what they did or didn't keep. The understanding I had. I was sort of joking the other week when I said they were making she Hulk again. But I do think that the mandate was to make a legal thriller.
- [41:02]
A
Right.
- [41:03]
B
Not a superhero show. And that they got pushed back from the stars, they got pushed back from focus groups. They got pushed back all over the place. So from what I understand, that opening sequence where Matt Murdock is very much Daredevil was added.
- [41:17]
A
I see.
- [41:18]
B
And that some of the legal stuff that we then see later.
- [41:20]
A
This is supposed to be a show about how this guy's trying to get out from under the identity of this vigilante hero and just being a normal lawyer.
- [41:28]
B
Right. Just like Wilson Fisk wants to just be a normal mayor.
- [41:31]
A
Right.
- [41:32]
B
Which New York is famous for having.
- [41:33]
A
We're just normal mayors.
- [41:35]
B
Just normal mayor after normal mayor. Definitely not criminals. So what did you feel about that shift? Because you were drawn in by. And I agree, like, I was drawn.
- [41:45]
A
In by the violence. Yeah.
- [41:46]
B
I mean, it is super violent, but it is violent in a way that is, you know, in the spirit of that famous scene in the third episode of the first season of Daredevil, which.
- [41:54]
A
Is six minute one, or of, like, the hallway fighting ass in the hallway.
- [41:58]
B
There's a brutality to it and an almost awkwardness to the way the violence is filmed. And it is setting an aesthetic. It has an aesthetic point of view.
- [42:06]
A
Yeah. I. I don't know. I guess, like, I'll have to see much more of it to understand whether or not that first episode is an outlier. As it is stands now. I think it's fine. I think there are parts of it that look like they were stapled in or like late editions, for instance, there's a action scene in a subway tunnel where a character gets hit by a subway train, and it really looks like Dan Aykroyd's Nothing but Trouble. Kind of like it. It's pretty poor, but there are parts of it that I find to be, like, really, really pretty compelling. I, against my own better judgment, despite how on the nose it is to have a former criminal who just tells it like it is become a political sensation, I do kind of enjoy the Fisk Bear stuff and especially Michael Gandolfini.
- [43:02]
B
That's what I was gonna call out too.
- [43:03]
A
So I just. I just saw Michael Gandolfini in a really, really cool movie the other night, and it's really awesome to see him emerge as, like, a performer. And he plays essentially an aide de camp in Wilson Fisk's mayoral office, who is kind of. He's a little bit banity. You know, he's like, pushing him.
- [43:23]
B
He's a true believer. Yeah.
- [43:24]
A
But he's like, if you get Staten island, you don't need Manhattan. Like, this kind of like, you know, like, speak. Speak to the populist.
- [43:31]
B
Speak to your voters.
- [43:33]
A
And yeah, like, I kind of enjoy. I usually am, like, not feeling d' Onofrio's performance as kingpin, but I kind of like him as Fisk.
- [43:43]
B
I think that's right. I was ready to just kind of have an allergic reaction to him doing this, but because it is full of ticks and bits and. And. And performance. But honestly, I don't mind a special effect being a human being trying something.
- [44:00]
A
Yeah.
- [44:00]
B
As opposed to the green screen of a train going by or of a city, you know, a city being dropped on the planet or whatever like this is. It's working for me within the confines of the show. I think that it. What I appreciate about it is, like, it's sort of hard to make something be the best version of what it is. And the best version of Daredevil comics do pay attention to the ground level stuff that's going on around the law offices of Murdoch and Nelson or what Fisk is doing when he's not beating people to a pulp. Like, it is a little bit more grounded. I recently. I don't know if we've ever. If there's a comic. We've mentioned more on this podcast, but there was a run of Hawkeye that I loved. Matt Fraction and David Ayya were the creators of it, and my daughter was looking through the. I have the little hardcover of it. My daughter was looking at it primarily because I told her there was an issue that's entirely from the perspective of a dog, which there was. And after a couple of those Italian loggers hit it. Makes perfect sense. One of the things that I love most that I'd forgotten about this comic is the first page of it. It says, and I'm paraphrasing, I wish I should have had this prepared. It basically says, a Hawkeye is a member of the Avengers. This is what happens when he's not doing that. That's all you need to know. And that's what the Hawkeye show should have been. It did adapt elements of it, like the Tracksuit Mafia and meeting the younger, the female Hawkeye, Kate, all that. But then it also had to address the blip, and it had to address the Steve Rogers musical and Florence. It was just too many things. This is a show about a MCU character who isn't in the Avengers and what he does. And they were incapable of or uninterested in telling those stories up to now. And I think it's just a much more modest. Even though clearly bloated and expensive production.
- [45:49]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think also when you're gonna have weirdly violence on the level that they have it on, which is extreme.
- [45:56]
B
It's pretty violent.
- [45:57]
A
It's pretty extreme. You can also push the drama out a little bit further because their stakes, either people are there for it or they're not. And so having a really vanilla drama, like you can. And they. I don't know whether this is a consequence of all the recutting and reshooting, but, like, they are doing away with characters. Like, nobody is really safe on this show, which kind of gives their. There's an element of danger to every interaction.
- [46:23]
B
Yeah. Because. And, you know, maybe for the purposes of our conversation, the best way to frame that is to say, I think for the first time, there wasn't a Marvel executive in the writers room leaning over and saying, actually, we need her for Secret Wars. Sorry. Right. Which, from what we understand, was the case in nearly every other Marvel TV production.
- [46:42]
A
Evidently, Foggy will not be in Avengers Doomsday.
- [46:45]
B
Oh, no, he'll be in Secret Wars. He's back. Everybody's back for Secret Wars. I mean, there are crazy things. Like Kamar de los Reyes, who plays White Tiger, the actor passed away two years ago and is fully on this show. So this is quite a long production, all those scenes. And I think a lot of that whole storyline was shot before the writers strike, before they reconfigured.
- [47:13]
A
Well, it's also like, you have to. I believe this is going to be two, nine episode seasons.
- [47:18]
B
Yeah, they split it into two seasons.
- [47:19]
A
And it was initially at one point going to be a week to week procedural that was gonna run for like 18 episodes.
- [47:25]
B
It was a long. It was going to be a long season of te.
- [47:27]
A
You know, Bernthal is obviously going to be in this show as Punisher. We've got a subplot of dirty cops who all seem to have Punisher tats.
- [47:36]
B
Yeah.
- [47:37]
A
What's up with that?
- [47:38]
B
I don't know. This is. The show does stake out some interesting terrain, which all police on screen other than the retired Clark Johnson are like gangsters.
- [47:49]
A
Yeah.
- [47:49]
B
It's bold. And the mayor of New York's a criminal. I guess the show, Marvel's not too scared anymore.
- [47:54]
A
That's the thing is I do feel like there's a degree of maybe not fearlessness, but to your point, a lot of the. Whatever is gonna happen with this show, I feel like it's gonna keep going in the direction of kind of being grimy. Cause I don't really know how you would pull out of the spin at this point with a lot of these other series. You just feel like, oh, all of a sudden this became a Christmas show, or all of a sudden this became about family. Or all of a sudden this became about raising the next generation of heroes. Right. And that's not what this is. Which is just a nice antidote. I mean, I'm not saying one is better than the other.
- [48:25]
B
No, no. But fundamentally. And there's an audience for this. But the Marvel TV shows were about Marvel and the larger Marvel construction and plan. And this is a show whether you like. You can like it or you can dislike it, but it is about these characters in this place. Like I. It's interesting that we're both sort of like. We both netted out kind of in a similar place. Like I. I kind of dig it. Like the scene, I think it's in the second episode when Murdoc and Fisk meet at a diner. Of all of the you and I, we're not so different, you and I scenes that we've watched over the last 15 years, this was up there, didn't bother me. You know, there was a nice sense of the moment in the.
- [49:07]
A
Yes. Two guys who missed the juice. You know what I mean? Two guys who just missed nights out.
- [49:12]
B
They should watch Taylor Sheridan shows. Do you think that would help them sort of turn the page?
- [49:15]
A
They should do a live Daredevil.
- [49:18]
B
Yeah.
- [49:19]
A
Okay, so we're. We're like, passively into this.
- [49:22]
B
Do you think that the show is an honest reflection not just of vigilantism, but of vlogging as journalism in modern day?
- [49:30]
A
That is the one part of the show where I'm like, they needed. They had to go back and do this to, like, be expository dumps about, like, what's going on at any given point.
- [49:38]
B
That doesn't bother me. So. So what we're talking about is that there's the character that the canonical character of Spider man and Daredevil is a journalist named Ben Urich. I don't remember if they dispensed of him in the Netflix show, but the character who is B.B. urich, who is his niece, has upgraded.
- [49:54]
A
Her uncle's picked up the family mantle.
- [49:56]
B
Of journalism, but now, you know, just doing it with a. With a cell phone and a beating heart, questing for children.
- [50:01]
A
I wish it was Sidetalk. You know, I wish it was.
- [50:03]
B
Yes. Can you imagine Bing Bong, Kingpin's back. Trey Young, he's so good.
- [50:12]
A
Do you think Trey Young exists in the. In the Hell's Kitchen Marvel?
- [50:16]
B
I think he's going to be revealed as the Big Bad at the end of this season of Daredevil, the person they hate the most.
- [50:21]
A
Those aren't Punisher tattoos.
- [50:22]
B
Those are Trey Young tattoos, for what it's worth. So the BB Urich character is a character who, like, gets led in by Michael Gandolfini into talking to the mayor and, you know, and she's like, but he was acquitted by a jury. Like, that is a little bit.
- [50:38]
A
Yes.
- [50:38]
B
Soft. But the interstitials that the character is supposedly filming, which is just like, man or woman on the street.
- [50:44]
A
Not bad.
- [50:45]
B
It's kind of fun.
- [50:46]
A
Yeah.
- [50:47]
B
Because they clearly did just go out and find people to say stuff that, you know, that's relevant. And I appreciate that. For as phony as most shows are about New York, especially when they're. Especially when they're the superhero version where they're like, ah, this town. We come together against aliens. You hear that, Thanos? Like, this is a little bit more.
- [51:06]
A
You should get the guy from Sidetalk who's like, I got a Subaru forester so strippers can give me Shape Ups in the back.
- [51:14]
B
We should have someone.
- [51:15]
A
He might be my favorite.
- [51:16]
B
What about the. What about the guy who would, like, they go to Coney Island. He's just sort of like. He's just talking about Joey Byron versus Wilson Fisk. Like, who's a better leader? These ideas are free.
- [51:28]
A
What's up with. This is very granular question in the first fight sequence.
- [51:34]
B
Okay.
- [51:35]
A
Bullseye throws, like, 40 knives into Daredevil.
- [51:37]
B
Yeah.
- [51:38]
A
What's up with that? A, is he not actually bullseye and not hitting his target? B, what kind of suit did Daredevil have that just was knife resistant?
- [51:48]
B
It wasn't. That was the thing.
- [51:50]
A
So he got stabbed, like, 40 times. Yeah, well, I would retire, too.
- [51:54]
B
Yeah.
- [51:55]
A
It's like Tiger rupturing his Achilles.
- [51:57]
B
You know, you're done when you're done, you're done.
- [51:59]
A
Yeah.
- [52:00]
B
I always thought you were going to be like. Because the other thing that the show did in the beginning is Daredevil was also like, he's Daredevil, but he's a little bit Spider Man. You know what I mean? He was just like, what's up?
- [52:10]
A
Was he always, like, so, like, web.
- [52:11]
B
Swinging with his little bolo?
- [52:13]
A
I thought maybe also, like, Daredevil can always hear really well, right?
- [52:16]
B
Yeah.
- [52:17]
A
But, like, what happens If Daredevil puts AirPods in and he could only hear Ezra Klein? You know, like, what happens if he's like, noise canceling? Right. Well, if he doesn't just miss out on Mad Crimes. Yeah, because of the one that matters.
- [52:32]
B
No, exactly. Because what he's focused on is how Democrats could run on a growth agenda. He's like, this will actually deal with all the problems. Sinkholes, Karen. Have you heard about abundance, by the way? Emphasis on Karen. Okay.
- [52:45]
A
This is some of our best work.
- [52:46]
B
The kitchen. The kitchen, Yeah. I think the consistency.
- [52:50]
A
Stiller is in shambles right now. I can't believe these guys love Daredevil.
- [52:53]
B
Damn it. Why didn't I put side talk in? Kir Bing Bong Lumon. Can you imagine Cold Harbor?
- [53:05]
A
What are we doing?
- [53:06]
B
Do you feel like Matt Murdock's blindness is consistently expressed on the show?
- [53:11]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Why do you feel like sometimes like it's Stevie Wonder, like sometimes you can see?
- [53:17]
B
Well, because he fucking can. Right? But he can't. Well, he can't. But he can. He can. What do you.
- [53:24]
A
What do you mean?
- [53:24]
B
What, Joe? Do you think I'm scared to say it? I've been muzzled.
- [53:28]
A
No, but is he like, I got.
- [53:29]
B
Infrared, or is he got infrared, sonar, all of his senses? So that's why he can, you know, be in a fight with Bullseye in a narrow staircase and not miss a.
- [53:37]
A
Step when he fucks those cops up. It's really cool. He's like, oh, no, please don't. And he's just like, I'm going to bust you guys up.
- [53:43]
B
Careful.
- [53:44]
A
No, it's a good scene.
- [53:45]
B
When you want. When he's rising up against the blue.
- [53:47]
A
The cop who keeps getting his ass kicked, too.
- [53:49]
B
Yeah.
- [53:50]
A
Is well cast. Like they're, they have a good eye for like the, the secondary characters. Like they, they've done. They got a lot of like, really like authentic faces. If you shout out to also Margarita Lavia.
- [54:04]
B
We love her. From the Deuce.
- [54:06]
A
From the Deuce.
- [54:07]
B
As Heather, Matt's paramore.
- [54:10]
A
Paramore. Yeah.
- [54:11]
B
Slash Wilson Fisk's couples therapist.
- [54:13]
A
Couples therapist.
- [54:14]
B
That's cool. Look, let's keep talking. I think we should keep talking about the show because I think it tackles a lot of our interesting in general.
- [54:20]
A
Yeah, I'll keep talking about it. I don't know if I want to do it like every episode. Let's get into the.
- [54:24]
B
Ok, Coward. You're afraid of the big ideas the show is suggesting about how to run a city.
- [54:31]
A
No, you got to talk about Top Chef. Went to the six. We got to do that. But let's do the pit first. Let's stay on narrative television.
- [54:37]
B
All right.
- [54:37]
A
Before we get into reality.
- [54:38]
B
Okay.
- [54:40]
A
Do you want to say anything else about Daredevil before I move on?
- [54:42]
B
I want to say so many things, but I'm just warming up. No, we're good. I'm going to keep watching.
- [54:46]
A
This episode is brought to you by Pretty Litter. Living with more than one cat means you've got double the cuddles and double the litter duty. But Pretty Litter makes things so much easier. Not only does it control odors and lasts longer than other litter, it also keeps you ahead of health issues. The color changing crystals actually flag fluctuations in your cat's urine. How about that? Plus, Pretty Litter ships free right to your door. So no heavy bags to carry and no last minute pet store runs right now. Save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at PrettyLitter.com watch. That's PrettyLitter.com watch to save 20% on your first order, get a free cat toy. Prelitter.com watch Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. CSIP for details. This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. Would you sell your soul for greatness? What would you be willing to sacrifice? This September, experience the horror event of the season. Him, the new Jordan Peele produced horror film. It stars Marlon Wayans in a role of a lifetime as Isaiah White, the greatest football player of all time. AKA the goat Tyreek Withers plays Cameron Cade, a rising star quarterback who Isaiah takes on as his protege. As Cam's training accelerates, Isaiah's charisma shifts into something darker, sending Cam down a disorienting rabbit hole that may cost him more than he ever bargained for. Directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Monkeypaw Productions, Never Meet yout Idols, him hits theaters September 19th. This episode is brought to you by the all new ESPN app. All of espn, all in one place, your home for the most live sports and best championship moments. It's the ultimate fan experience. Step up your game and get even more than before with no annual contract required.
- [56:42]
B
Level up.
- [56:42]
A
For More on the ESPN app or at stream.espn.com sign up now. This episode is brought to you by Bleacher Report. Football is back. And downloading the Bleacher Report app puts you in the middle of the action. Make Bleacher Report your go to this season for the fastest breaking news alerts covering NFL and college football. And don't miss a moment with highlights, scores and live reactions in the app. Get expert analysis on your favorite teams and the news that you want this season. Download the Bleacher Report app today. The Pit.
- [57:15]
B
This is really my favorite show.
- [57:17]
A
I don't have children. That was. That was a. About as vivid of a childbirth experience as I've ever seen in my life.
- [57:25]
B
Okay.
- [57:26]
A
I gotta be completely honest with you, man. I did. I did watch some of that through. Through like a hand over my eyes.
- [57:33]
B
All right. So. So did I. Yeah, that's okay. And I have. I have been a hashtag ally through at least two live births. Yeah, at least. You know, I don't want to. Don't want to put a cap on greatness. You know what I mean? I also want to be careful how we talk about this because there is a reason, I think, why I have.
- [57:56]
A
A reason why I brought this up.
- [57:57]
B
Oh, no, I do, too. But I think that generally the actual, sometimes violence and intensity of human childbirth is important to demonstrate and show and the risks. And I'm all for that. So what I would like to say is because I also did struggle with watching aspects of the scene. But I want to say, I want to be clear because I want to be consistent. I think sometimes people listen to the podcast and they're like, your arguments are inconsistent. And to you, I say, sir, no.
- [58:25]
A
Mr. Stiller.
- [58:26]
B
Mr. Stiller. How dare you. Bing bong, sir. Bing bong. I would like to just say that I have a blanket. A blanket discomfort with anyone's body being put into anyone else's body doesn't have to be a woman giving childbirth.
- [58:46]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [58:48]
B
Within the body cavity.
- [58:49]
A
Even Han Solo putting Luke inside of a tauntaun.
- [58:51]
B
Sure. Other than like some extremely tasteful European pornography, you know. That's right. You know, and not the German stuff. I'm just saying, like, that's where I draw the line. So that's just what I bring into the show, you know. You want to say anything or you.
- [59:07]
A
I was going to say that the reason why I brought this scene up first and I can't remember what time of day it is on. On the pit or what episode we're on here.
- [59:15]
B
Is this 1211 11.
- [59:20]
A
This was a sequence in which a woman comes in. She is the surrogate for several of her colleagues, her gay male colleagues who have. Who are having a child. It's a lovely snapshot of what real community can look like. And then it is a cascading series of near tragedies.
- [59:42]
B
Yes.
- [59:43]
A
First, it takes a long time. There's some complications with the delivery. When the child comes out, its heart rate is very low and they have to do some emergency services to get the kid breathing. I was terrified for our important angel, Dr. Melissa King, and that she would not be overseeing that. And then on top of that, the amount of blood loss that happens with the mother requires there to be emergency surgery there. So of like just a harrowing 10 minutes, 15 minutes of. Of screen time where it was one of those few times where I think because of the extremity of what we were seeing.
- [60:20]
B
Mm.
- [60:21]
A
I was like, I almost feel a bit manipulated by this show. Like this is. This is a bit of like a super tornado hitting this emergency room at this point.
- [60:29]
B
It was incredibly stressful sequence and I.
- [60:32]
A
Already can see the inbox and people being like, actually this happens all the time. I understand that. Yeah.
- [60:36]
B
No, I think you're not talking about it on a human level. You're talking about it also in a story architecture level.
- [60:41]
A
That's what I'm saying.
- [60:42]
B
And one of the things that really impressed me about this episode was, well, take one step further back. Like, there's a version of the show that I think is effective that isn't nearly as good or isn't nearly as smart just by the nature of it being a fast paced, frenetic, hour by hour, real time emergency room. You're going to just almost stumble into gripping stories and moments of distress and anguish and celebration.
- [61:09]
A
It's pure drama.
- [61:11]
B
But what they have done in terms of the larger story Scaffolding amidst the. The minute to minute insanity is really, really impressive and worth calling out. So you began by saying that you were child free the two episodes ago when there was the sisters in the pool. In an episode that I can't even talk about anymore. I could barely watch that.
- [61:29]
A
Yeah.
- [61:31]
B
To pull back like writer's room brain. Like they played a very strong card there.
- [61:36]
A
Yeah.
- [61:37]
B
That figures into the decision making on the creative side and on our investment as an audience too. And so we are scarred and we are leaning in, but we're also like, they can't do it to us again, can they? And then also this show is trying to address some version of reality and probability and they could do it to us again. All of that is at play here. And what I found even more impressive was not only the way that they balanced that they gave us the quite literally, almost heart stopping moment when we thought someone was going to. There was going to be someone not making it out of this. This room alive, but that you could pull back and have all of this play on Dr. Collins, on Heather, on her storyline and build it so that her moment of honesty about what happened with her miscarriage comes together with Robbie in a moment of two moments of honesty and the second one built on the back of this intensity that we just experienced. And it's a beautiful earned character moment. The kind of earned character moment that has to be manipulated to get to when it's all supposedly one day. I was very impressed how it all came together.
- [62:44]
A
This is probably at the end of the day, this is probably my favorite show that's currently on TV too.
- [62:51]
B
Me too.
- [62:52]
A
I think I'm probably also commenting on the childbirth sequence more because of how the episode ends, which brings home a long speculated eventuality that we, we had kind of teased that we, we. We had not watched ahead. I don't watch ahead on this show. But they had been making such hay about Pit Fest for such a long time.
- [63:14]
B
Oh yeah.
- [63:14]
A
And we've got, you know, at least one incel roaming the streets of Pittsburgh now.
- [63:20]
B
Will this be the same story? I don't know.
- [63:21]
A
But obviously there's a mass shooting incident at this music festival and that's the cliffhanger that this episode ends with. And Jake, Robbie's, you know, mentor's kid, is that right?
- [63:31]
B
I believe that's right.
- [63:32]
A
Is at the Pitfest and Robbie was supposed to have been there, I would.
- [63:36]
B
Say also again, like the show knew what it was doing because the feelings of dread and inevitability that were present early in the season and then kind of quieted as we got distracted by more immediate concerns like is this person going to bleed out in front of us in this scene was orchestrated just to perfection. This episode was filled with equal amounts of looming dread that what happens or what's suggested at the end of the episode was coming or was just around the corner. But also some real moments of like the Collins Robbie scene, like some moments of really beautifully staged.
- [64:19]
A
And the Robbie Dana scene that Robbie Dane has seen.
- [64:22]
B
Like all of this is these are cashing checks that were written in hour one. And it's being done so skillfully, you know, at an episode. We're talking about episode 11. Most TV shows don't make this many episodes anymore, let alone at this degree of difficulty or with this.
- [64:39]
A
Well, also this degree of intensity. Yeah, right. I want to talk to you a little bit about the continuation of the Langdon plot, which, you know, this episode picks up literally the second after the last episode ends. In the previous episode, Dr. Langdon, who had been one of the main characters of the season, is abruptly dismissed for stealing medication from Louis Librium. Yeah, and he has been weaning himself off some painkillers and muscle relaxers from a box. A back Injury, you know, Dr. Rabimovich takes the stolen drugs from Langdon's blocker. He alerts Dana to the extent that he's like do an audit of the medicine that he has stolen, but he.
- [65:25]
B
You know, that he's prescribed.
- [65:27]
A
That he's prescribed. And then at one scene early in the episode, as things are really starting to intensify, they're obviously short staffed. There are fireworks going off everywhere in the emergency room. Robbie goes into the bathroom to take a leak and it seems like he is about to maybe take a Liberium himself.
- [65:47]
B
He takes one out of the plastic bag, puts it in his pocket separate from the ones that he then returns to Louis.
- [65:53]
A
I read it as he thought about it, heard the person in the stall next to him thought better of it, goes to the sink and washes his face, does not take one.
- [66:03]
B
And goes to watch Taylor Sheridan shows instead to just get the same effect. Take the edge off. Yeah, yeah, that was a big question mark in the episode. In a way it's kind of interesting. Maybe we're making. Maybe it's not as subtle as we're making it out to be, but if, you know, if there are any criticisms of the show, it has at times been a little didactic and a little like expository.
- [66:26]
A
Yes, it's very literal.
- [66:27]
B
Like the Greek chorus of nurses being like, did you know, violence against nurses. So this scene being undone, this episode's.
- [66:33]
A
Version of that, was the long discussion about people who are addicted to opioids doing medication, seeking medication, and how they.
- [66:40]
B
Go about doing that and how they might actually be employed and be. Yes, the. So this was remarkably subtle for a show that doesn't really traffic in subtlety. There's also a way to look at this that feels of a piece with the inevitable whatever was going to come to pitfest coming, in the sense that when the show premiered, there was. One of the things that was underlined was that a being. Being a doctor in the ER is potentially mentally devastating. You remember, the show begins with Robbie meeting, taking over for his colleague who's standing on the roof. This is flagged as an anniversary of the worst day of Robbie's life. So the sense that he has had some darkness is there and that there's more darkness to come. He is also on. There are also different ways, some intentional, some unintentional, some conscious, subconscious ways of crashing your own car. And one of them might be telling everyone who you know, trust and is capable and who cares about you to leave. Now, there's reasons why he did, especially with Langdon, and certainly it's empathetic with Collins being like, this is at the end of the day and you've clearly been through enough.
- [67:57]
A
I hope for the sake of the ER that Collins is not yet punched out.
- [68:01]
B
Or because the one thing that was one thing too many, where he was like, turn off your phone.
- [68:06]
A
Yeah, I. Yes.
- [68:08]
B
Maybe he meant put your phone on personal, do not disturb, but make sure I'm one of your.
- [68:14]
A
I don't have those distinctions.
- [68:15]
B
You just put do not disturb or do not.
- [68:17]
A
I rarely put it on do not disturb.
- [68:19]
B
I put it on personal every night with just like a few key key numbers can get through. Like, my parents were in an emergency. This guy, you know, Sean, Amanda, if they want to, like, give us any feedback on the podcast.
- [68:34]
A
What about me?
- [68:35]
B
I just check in with you when I wake up, as you know. But you definitely. When I wake up at, like, six in the morning and I'm just full of takes, not only are you not awake, I know that you're not awake. Yeah, because you brag sometimes about being like, wow, it was 8 o' clock when I woke up. There's no indication whether your phone is on, off, near you.
- [68:54]
A
It's near me, but it's not being looked at until my peepers open. But what if I really wish I.
- [69:00]
B
Had buzzing With NFL free agency gossip.
- [69:01]
A
From me, I have it face down so it doesn't buzz. I think it. It's on, like, silent when it does that.
- [69:08]
B
Okay.
- [69:09]
A
I have a real problem looking at my phone first thing in the morning. As soon as I open eyes, I wish I had it in another room. I wish I greeted the day with serenity and positivity.
- [69:19]
B
You're not excited to see what's going on since you. Since you lay down at night, Things are pretty cool, pretty consistent, pretty steady ship right now.
- [69:27]
A
I. I just admire this show so much. The Santos plot line, I think, is one that has been debated by viewers, by audiences about, like, is she needlessly antagonistic just to give the. To give this situation any kind of internal drama? But I think that the exam, her doing morally the right thing, while professionally perhaps the wrong thing for her own professional prospects and how everybody is pretty much abandoning her, and even the people who are trying to reach out to her, she rejects. Like, Mel is, like, very well done.
- [70:07]
B
I also think that it's worth exploring and maybe even exploring more in future seasons that there. I mean, what Robbie does has done already on this day is he could be in the Avengers, like, in one day.
- [70:21]
A
Yes.
- [70:22]
B
Exploring that there might be some ego and adrenaline attached to that within some people who choose this is worth pursuing.
- [70:29]
A
Yeah. Love the show. Let's talk about Top Chef.
- [70:33]
B
Wait, last thing about this, because you mentioned this to me. Do you feel. Do you feel like Dr. McKay might need to pump the brakes a little bit?
- [70:41]
A
She's on the edge. She's.
- [70:42]
B
She.
- [70:43]
A
She's on the edge.
- [70:43]
B
She's crusading.
- [70:44]
A
I mean, when you think about it, it's. It's a. It's a tough collision. When everybody who comes into the emergency room, this is likely one of the worst days of their life.
- [70:54]
B
Although on this show, they. They remain very chatty.
- [70:58]
A
But for all of the doctors to also be going through it, which I know is probably indicative of. Of what we ask from our medical professionals, it's just really tough. So McKay, I find that character fascinating and really well performed, but obviously is really going through it, and we still have that human trafficking plot is out.
- [71:17]
B
There that's in the background. And I think the biggest potential tragedy, bigger even than human trafficking in the world of the show, is if Daena's.
- [71:23]
A
Really quitting, I'm fucking out.
- [71:25]
B
You're so out.
- [71:26]
A
If that happens, if she's not on this show, I'm out.
- [71:30]
B
Can I also say, as someone who doesn't really seek solace In Taylor Sheridan, I think that the guy who's walking his daughter down the aisle but needs a little something to get through it.
- [71:38]
A
Yeah.
- [71:38]
B
I think if I could just like, give him some notes. I think the real problem in his performance is when he was just like, doc, last time I was here, you know, they gave me something. I think it was called morphine. Morphine. I don't know what it was, but it was a miracle drug.
- [71:53]
A
I don't have a ton to say about the first episode of Top Chef because reality television shows, competition shows, in the first episode is such a, you know, parade of characters and you're like, who am I supposed to care about? Who am I supposed to watch? There are tons of little moments that I found amusing. Let's talk briefly about the Canada of it all.
- [72:13]
B
Yes.
- [72:13]
A
Our enemy to the north.
- [72:15]
B
Careful.
- [72:16]
A
What a time to be doing Top Chef Canada.
- [72:18]
B
It's wild.
- [72:20]
A
This is Gail Simmons's home turf. So I'm very happy for multi time watch guest Gail Simmons. And I personally have only been to Canada once and briefly.
- [72:34]
B
Oh.
- [72:35]
A
Like for a day. I think I was on a rafting trip.
- [72:37]
B
And you accidentally crossed over?
- [72:40]
A
No, we were there. Like, it was like super brief. Like, we stopped at like a Tim Hortons or whatever.
- [72:46]
B
Just grabbed some steel.
- [72:48]
A
So I don't have a lot of familiarity with Canadian cuisine. I always deeply admired the episode of Bourdain.
- [72:55]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [72:55]
A
Where he's hanging out with the Joe Beef guys and they take the train and eat truffles on their scrambled eggs and stuff. Like, it looks awesome. I hope we get some of that. We get 20 chefs. How many chefs is.
- [73:10]
B
It's usually 15.
- [73:11]
A
Yeah, 15. There were some where I was like, what?
- [73:15]
B
Yeah, I'm agreeing with you somewhere.
- [73:17]
A
I wasn't sure if they were ready for prime time.
- [73:18]
B
Yeah.
- [73:20]
A
And. And I guess that netted out at the end. That being said, the person who goes home, I've had their food.
- [73:27]
B
What?
- [73:27]
A
It's good in Maine.
- [73:29]
B
Did you really? I thought you were gonna say the person who went home. I have her hat. I thought that's what you were gonna say.
- [73:35]
A
No. What did you think of the first episode?
- [73:38]
B
So everything you said is true. This is a well oiled machine at this point. This is season 22, first episodes of this show. They've tried them in multiple ways. They've tried introducing human interest stories first. They've tried going right into the competition. They're always going to be chaos. We are never really going to get a sense of the majority of the cast's Personalities, their perspectives, their strengths, their weaknesses. It's just going to be a dash. This was no exception. Because I love this show so much and because I do feel like I have the time equity. Having watched every episode of all previous 21 seasons, I would like to just. Just lay down a concern marker here on a number of sides of the issue. I think the biggest one is the candidate of it. I say this as someone who has been to Canada and more than just Tim Hortons, and have had great times, great meals in Vancouver. Like, up on Vancouver Island, Montreal. One of the best food cities I've ever been to. Toronto, Damn.
- [74:45]
A
Go off, son.
- [74:47]
B
The breadbasket where I've eaten their famous red lentils. That's not true, but I thought that was funny. This is. This is like a legit, legit country and entire, you know, multiple regions of food and culture, and there's every reason in the world to put the show there. This first episode did not even attempt to make a case for why they did it.
- [75:08]
A
Did they go outside in this first episode?
- [75:10]
B
Really? No.
- [75:10]
A
Right.
- [75:11]
B
But there wasn't even a moment to say, you know what's often ignored in the North American continent? Trade law. No. Canada. And that was so lacking that it. And it felt so, like, off the cuff that I was like, are they here purely for tax reasons? Are they in Toronto for the same reason that shows that pretend to shoot a New Yorker in Toronto? I'm not saying this to ascribe, like, ill intent.
- [75:38]
A
I know what you mean.
- [75:39]
B
The show will be culturally sensitive and will make a case for itself as it goes on. But there is a Top Chef Canada. David Zilber's ex, Noma, who was on this episode, is one of the judges of Top Chef Canada. Top Chef Destination Canada just felt like, okay, now we're here. And guess what? There's sour cherries too. And that felt really weird because I think that the show.
- [76:00]
A
Well, even, like, there was some guy in the elimination. No, in the quick fire. Who chose maple syrup as his ingredient. They were like, nice job, maple syrup.
- [76:08]
B
A little bold.
- [76:09]
A
And I was just like, I don't know. At least he's, like, recognizing where they.
- [76:13]
B
Are, you know, There was such a strange absence of anyone being like, I'm interested. I'm curious. I'm gonna learn something. We're in another country.
- [76:21]
A
Yeah.
- [76:21]
B
Well, that felt really, really weird. And then you add to that two other factors that are kind of working against the show at the moment, one of which is just like, attrition at season 22. The second of which is, and we said this last year, it's really, really hard to come off of the All Star season and then the world, you know, world champions season that they did in London, that was Padma's last season and really felt like the culmination season 20. Like, okay, this is everything we've built towards. Everything since then to a degree, has felt like a retrenchment. And add that to the fact that there's just a couple little things of like, not nickel and diming, but like, you know, they don't say $250,000 anymore. They say a quarter of a million dollars to make it sound more expensive. Every single, I mean, it's long been a critique of the show that every single thing is branded.
- [77:14]
A
Yes.
- [77:14]
B
But holy shit, every single thing is brand.
- [77:16]
A
I mean, I can go back to watch episodes from five years ago when Pat was still on, and we're like, why is there a Minions challenge?
- [77:21]
B
Like, that's universal internal branding. But this is just like, they were like, the prize is Delta Medallion status. I'm like, I've won that prize. Can I be on the show? I mean, I guess I'm a top chef now. That coupled with the lack of sick.
- [77:38]
A
Brag, by the way.
- [77:39]
B
Listen, listen, I have to have some swag at this point, right? Just talking about European only fans to get you to laugh. I have a long way to go dig myself out of that.
- [77:50]
A
That's what she said. See, there it is.
- [77:53]
B
Kaya, we found our call out clip for YouTube. I really also would like. And this might be too. This is definitely too much for a first episode, but I'm just throwing it out there. And by the way, this is not constructive criticism. They've already shot the season. Yeah. But I kind of would like in the Chef testants some point of view of what it's like to be a restaurant operator or Cook in 2025 or 2024 when they film this. Because when we have championed the show in the past, in the recent past especially, we've been like, the show has sneaky been an incredible mouthpiece for shifts in a larger shifts in a massive industry. Eating out, eating in takeout, casual, fast, casual representations of family stories, ethnic stories, cultural stories and how they matter. And there's a sense the thing that I don't want the show to turn into is just like so many other things are at the moment, just like last chance cash grabs. Like, let's just, let's just go for this. Let's get this, let's get out there.
- [78:57]
A
I'm Very interested to hear you say all that. I think that there may be. It's. It's more of a product of gameplay than it is economics. So I do wonder whether or not it's just hard to, like, see 15 strangers and decide in an hour, like, I'm interested in this person. I'm not interested in that person. I. I wonder whether or not, like, starting at 10 and letting it breathe would be better. But there are a lot of people who are just watching for quick fires and eliminations, and they don't really care about the stories, and they don't really want to hear about, like, what. Why this person deserves it. Like, Buddha fucking make crazy shit.
- [79:38]
B
But we do know from talking to Gail and from just, you know, generally how the show, how the creators and executive producer producers have comported themselves, that, like, telling the larger story, making the show of substance beyond being a competition does matter to them. So I will be curious. I'm absolutely not gonna miss an episode, so I'm curious how that is folded into something. And I don't know if I would be feeling that critical if the show hadn't. If the show had been able to make a strong declarative statement for itself in the first five minutes of this episode, which is really bizarre to me that they didn't. And it's also worth noting, you know, people have bad days. People have bad cooks. This is stressful. I don't know if we've. I don't remember the last time we.
- [80:21]
A
Saw this many mistakes in the first cook or catastrophe.
- [80:24]
B
Like the one that sent it was Mimi home, I believe. Like, they called two people out to be like, yeah, yours wasn't good, but, like, there wasn't even any preamble.
- [80:32]
A
No, there was not. Like, this tough decision.
- [80:34]
B
You have to go. That wasn't even food. Yeah. Usually doesn't do that.
- [80:38]
A
We'll see what happens on Last Chance. You never know. Maybe it was a little jitters.
- [80:41]
B
You think it was jitters?
- [80:42]
A
I don't know.
- [80:43]
B
So who on this season you've had. You had. Had her food? I could only speak to having had Katiana Hong from Yangban here in la.
- [80:51]
A
How is it?
- [80:52]
B
Good. Good.
- [80:54]
A
I.
- [80:55]
B
Would you want to eat soup out of an apple?
- [80:57]
A
Would I want to see. Eat soup out of an apple? No, I am.
- [81:00]
B
Thank you for addressing that question head on.
- [81:02]
A
Curious about whether Kat can put it. Put it back together.
- [81:06]
B
I mean, listen, if she's worked for Billy Corgan, she's put up with some stuff.
- [81:09]
A
And, you know, the Anya character from Russia who's like, I opened a restaurant.
- [81:14]
B
Is she from Russia? Didn't, didn't come up. That was super weird. Like, again, I'm sure her restaurant.
- [81:20]
A
I thought this would be a bad time to open a Russian restaurant, but we did great.
- [81:23]
B
And I was like, what's the next, what's the B side of that story? She's just like, I'm from Russia and I made a restaurant about Russia in San Francisco the week Russia invaded Ukraine. Or did they? No, but it was like, it turned out it was great. I was like, and, and what else did we learn from this experience? I guess she, she really, she was into cabbage. I, I, I don't know. I, I, I'll, the only other takeaway.
- [81:48]
A
I hear you're the king of, of just flagging stuff.
- [81:51]
B
Yeah, I'm just asking the questions in my. Don't bury the messenger. I'll land on something positive. Kristen has assumed her full Phoenix form as host. No jitters.
- [82:02]
A
Yes.
- [82:02]
B
She's the host of the show.
- [82:03]
A
I also liked Tom's Canadian tuxedo.
- [82:06]
B
Did you like that?
- [82:07]
A
Yeah, sure. I like a denim denim look.
- [82:09]
B
You do? It works for you. Yeah, it works for you. So what you're pitching for yourself is denim denim, Mimi's hat, and a lot of dot RU subscriptions.
- [82:23]
A
I only subscribe to Pravda cooking, not, not NYT cooking. I like Eric Kim's recipes to go through the filter. Tas.
- [82:34]
B
Yeah, this is, there's a lot here.
- [82:37]
A
I think we did a great job today. I can, I can feel Kaya's approval.
- [82:42]
B
As we ruined two shows that she was looking forward to watching tonight.
- [82:46]
A
I don't know even. We ruined them, you know, because they're so good.
- [82:49]
B
They're so good.
- [82:51]
A
Thanks to Kaya, thanks to ct, thanks to all of our listeners. And we'll be back on Monday, believe it or not, and we're going to be talking about White Lotus and Severance and maybe I'll have you watch an episode of Adolescence.
- [83:05]
B
Okay. People are saying it's a searing watch.
- [83:08]
A
I don't know if it's a feel good time at the movies.
- [83:10]
B
No. For what it's worth, that when I flew home last week, that was the front of the arts section of the.
- [83:16]
A
Guardian and where they were like, this is fucking incredible.
- [83:19]
B
There's actually a subhead. And then it was like, this is the headline was this is fucking incredible. Then subhead, it said, andy, you can't handle this. To be clear, I was very tired, so I may have made.
- [83:30]
A
Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching we'll be back on Monday.