‘Dune: Part Three’ and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Trailers, ‘The Pitt’ S2E11, and ‘The Madison’ Series Premiere. Plus, ‘Top Chef’ Season 23, Episode 2.

Summary

The Watch — Episode Summary (March 20, 2026)

Overview

Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan return for another episode of The Watch, tackling a variety of pop culture topics. This week, they break down the new trailers for "Dune: Part Three" and "Spider-Man: Brand New Day", analyze the latest episode of acclaimed hospital drama "The Pitt" (S2E11), discuss the series premiere of "The Madison", and review "Top Chef" Season 23, Episode 2. The hosts’ personal rapport, deep industry knowledge, and signature humor are on full display in an episode that flows from big-screen blockbusters to kitchen showdowns, with plenty of playful banter and sharp industry insights along the way.

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Major Segments and Timestamps

• Dune: Part Three Trailer Discussion
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day Trailer & Marvel Reflections
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot Drama
• The Pitt S2E11 Review
• The Madison Series Premiere
• Top Chef S23E2 Recap

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Dune: Part Three Trailer – Renewed Hype for the Blockbuster (08:10–17:02)

• Chris shares his excitement about the Dune 3 trailer dropping right after the Oscars, marveling at how it reset his "palate" after award season.

  “Listener, consider me seated. I am really blown away by this.” – Chris (09:32)

• Andy notes the change in cinematographers from Greig Fraser to Linus Sandgren and highlights Anya Taylor-Joy’s expanded role as Paul's sister.

• An enthusiastic exchange about the powerful trailer:

  “It’s incredibly sick. The score is wild. Every actor wanting to be a part of it is also pretty interesting.” – Andy (10:48)

• Rebecca Ferguson's cameo gets discussed (“I think they just brought her in. I don’t think her character’s in this book” — Chris, 12:53).

• Brian K. Vaughan is revealed as the screenwriter, with Andy expressing fandom for his comic work, especially "Saga".

• The hosts speculate on the darker, more ominous arc this film might take — likening it to "Empire Strikes Back" with a "Return of the Jedi" twist.

• On Dune 3 vs. Avengers: Doomsday:

  “I think Avengers should be more nervous about this than Dune should be nervous about this.” – Chris (15:38)

• Andy is impressed by the fast production turnaround and appreciates that the trilogy won’t overstay its welcome.

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day Trailer – Marvel’s Next Move (17:03–29:03)

• Chris and Andy break down Destin Daniel Cretton’s direction, the return of Tom Holland and Zendaya, and Michael Mando’s (surprisingly) significant role.
• Andy’s “context-setting reservations”: The original trilogy’s closure and contract renewals mean this new installment must justify itself creatively.

  “A clear desire... to age up the character, have him a little more brooding. I am on the record, we have plenty of dark and brooding superheroes. The magic trick of Spider-Man... he is not that.” – Andy (19:16)

• They discuss controversial comic arcs (originating with J. Michael Straczynski) influencing the movie — specifically Spider-Man as part of a supernatural lineage and the transformation storyline “The Other.”
• Keith David’s role as a possible mentor/antagonist is teased (22:06), and the hosts consider if the mystical “spider adolescence” plot will stick the landing.
• Marvel’s VFX and fatigue: Chris admits his standards have risen for blockbusters and feels “less wowed” by Marvel’s visuals compared to other recent films:

  “...moments where you’re like, holy, this is a really great movie going experience. And I just don’t feel that way about Marvel movies.” – Chris (23:19)

• Sadie Sink speculation: Is she Jean Grey or a new Mary Jane? (25:26–27:10)
• They playfully debate in-jokes, future plot logic (“Did Dr. Strange wipe himself too?”), and the exhaustion of MCU lore, with Andy joking about the complicated Faustian inspirations in comics (28:00–28:30).
• Ultimately, both see the real draw as Holland and Zendaya’s chemistry and Chris McKenna’s continued involvement as screenwriter.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot Drama (29:18–41:54)

• Chris breaks the “most fascinating story of the week”: Hulu not moving forward with Chloe Zhao’s highly anticipated Buffy reboot despite having Sarah Michelle Gellar attached.
• Inside the drama: Gellar’s unusually pointed public statement called out an unnamed Hulu executive for never watching Buffy, hinting at creative “roadblocks” (30:19).

  “That’s unusual... a real burn the boats kind of statement.” – Chris (30:19)

• Variety’s counter-narrative: The pilot reportedly lacked usable coverage and had Zhao’s trademark directorial touch, which didn’t mesh with TV’s demands or Hulu’s wishes (31:54).
• The creative conundrum: balancing fan nostalgia with a new slayer centric story starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong.
• Andy notes: Fan expectations, the difficulty of rebooting beloved IP, and the pitfalls of “trying to do it both ways” — both nodding to the original and breaking ground with a new lead.

  “Just because you have a passionate fan in something ... it’s hard to reboot things, and especially hard to do both.” – Andy (35:00)

• They critique the mismatch of feature directors in television pilots and suggest a more effective strategy would have been to let Zhao direct later “special” episodes after the format was established.
• Industry reflections: More generally, they warn against “jamming together” attractive ingredients (famous director + IP) if not natural fits.
• Both agree they’d like to see failed pilots released publicly, referencing Amazon’s experimental pilots season (40:22–41:10).

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The Pitt S2E11 – High-Stress Hospital Drama (41:54–69:26)

• A “jam-packed hour”: Both hosts call this one of the most stressful and best episodes of the season, with Chris noting, “The characters are deteriorating... in a really well written way.” (46:33)
• Andy flags familiar hospital drama tropes (exposition-heavy new patients, personal lives intersecting with the workplace), but praises how The Pitt keeps the tension uniquely high.
• The show’s structure—one day per episode—lets character arcs unfold under relentless pressure:

  “It’s not that anybody can be heroic once. It’s that pretty much every shift... presents absolutely superhuman levels of stress, demand, challenge.” – Andy (48:27)

• Standout scene: Roxy’s death happens off-screen, sacrificing melodrama for quiet, cumulative emotional weight (49:28–50:13).

ICE Agents Storyline (55:52–65:17)

• Dramatic pivot when ICE agents enter the ER.
• The sequence is lauded for its visual impact and tense atmosphere:

  “The way we, the audience, and the cameras see the looming masked agent for the first time was brilliant. That was like some Silent Hill shit.” – Andy (56:07)

• The hosts discuss production rumors about network interference, striving for “balance” in the storyline, and how the ending may have been softened but still packs a punch.
• Chris observes the show’s “minute to minute” nature means consequences may still unfold (65:05). Both agree the show is handling the limits of what doctors can control versus systemic injustice.

Langdon/Santos Confrontation & Ongoing Themes (67:04–69:26)

• Strong scene: Langdon and Santos finally clash over his past drug theft, contextualizing forgiveness and privilege in medical culture.
• Isa Briones (Santos) is called out as a performer getting overdue depth.
• Both reflect on how the show smartly adapts character arcs each season.

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The Madison Series Premiere – Taylor Sheridan’s Tenderest Show? (72:08–83:56)

• Andy and Chris react to the first episode of The Madison, notable for its “romantic,” gentle approach in contrast to past Taylor Sheridan dramas.

  “This is the kindest, gentlest, most romantic Taylor Sheridan show to date.” – Chris (72:12)

• Visually stunning: The Montana setting (“it looks like a billion dollars”) and director Christina Alexandra Voros are praised.
• Kurt Russell’s and Matthew Fox’s rapport as brothers is a high point, though the pilot’s surprise—killing them off early—shocks both hosts.
• Michelle Pfeiffer’s lead role is discussed; the narrative focuses on grief, midlife reinvention, and (so far) lacks an external villain:

  “I’m kind of shocked by the lack of an opposing force other than the force of loss.” – Chris (79:17)

• Both wish this story could have been a film (“a movie in a different era”), reflecting on Sheridan’s uncanny ability to blend TV and feature sensibilities.
• Andy needles the show’s “New York as urban hellscape” trope.

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Top Chef Season 23, Episode 2 – Spicy Talent and High-Level Cooking (83:59–91:39)

• Both love the new season’s energy and cast.

  Chris: “This season rocks, right?” (83:59)

• The Talenti quickfire is more interesting than expected as contestants cook savory dishes with flavor inspiration from the sponsor.
• The elimination challenge: a pepper “progression” with heat intensifying through the courses. The judges’ pain and the contestants’ ingenuity are a highlight:

  “Walking into that, watching the judges walk into that dinner, being like, are any of them going to be running out screaming of intestinal distress, or is this going to be like, Hot Ones?” – Andy (85:45)

• Chef Jassy is eliminated for a weak vindaloo despite Nana’s back-to-back mistakes; the deliberation is carefully analyzed.
• They discuss personal spice tolerance and the difference between enjoyable culinary “heat” and punishing extremes.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The most crucial aspect of survival is unlimited access to Econo-sized cans of beans and Sterno. ...And yet everyone is looking like their skin care regime is uninterrupted.” – Andy, on Paradise television logistics (04:49)
• “I just loved Cher.” – Chris, playfully conflating pop culture references (06:55)
• “I miss you all the time. I text you constantly.” – Andy, on the podcast duo’s friendship (27:35)
• “We've been conditioned to wait longer for these things. …I was excited both to see the thrilling conclusion of this trilogy and also for everybody involved to work on something else.” – Andy on franchise filmmaking (16:15)
• “Maybe every streamer should do what Amazon did: release the pilots.” – Chris (40:22)
• “It is the only show that I watch without any threat of distraction or second screening. ...It’s the most present I feel all week.” – Chris, on The Pitt (53:31)
• “Movie stars, man. They can make you feel anything.” – Andy, on Kurt Russell’s performance (75:52)

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Tone and Style

Andy and Chris’s signature blend of pop culture passion, insider industry knowledge, and witty banter carries throughout. Their self-deprecating humor and rapport (“You think you’d miss me, though?”, “I miss you all the time.”) add a layer of intimacy, while their willingness to critique even beloved or anticipated projects keeps the conversation grounded and honest.

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Takeaways for Non-Listeners

This episode of The Watch is a dense but rewarding ride through contemporary TV, movies, and media news. Major film franchise trailers (Dune, Spider-Man) are analyzed from both fan and industry perspectives; the ins-and-outs of reboot culture (Buffy) and creative risk on television (Chloe Zhao, Taylor Sheridan) are debated; and the increasingly ambiguous, boundary-pushing world of “prestige” hospital dramas (The Pitt) is lovingly dissected. Plus, a spicy Top Chef episode sends Andy and Chris reflecting on reality TV innovation. As always, the friendship, banter, and brains make for a session packed with sharp commentary and memorable laughs.

Transcript

[Chris Ryan]

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[Chris Ryan]

I need support staff to clear the room.

[Andy Greenwald]

Stand up and walk now.

[Chris Ryan]

Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an [e-mail] and joining me in the studio, ecstatic at a kinder, gentler portrayal of the Punisher.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's Andy Greenwald that's really reading the Room by Marvel.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, you know, I mean we have to soften the edges sometimes and who better to do it than Bernthal? Andy, it's great to see you. We're here on a Thursday. Today on the Watch, we're going to talk about the Dune 3 trailer. We're going to talk about the Spider Man Brand New Day trailer. We're going to talk about the fact that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not coming back.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

On Hulu, at least. And a little bit about that story. And then we have the Pit, we have the Madison, and we have Top Chef, episode two. For the watch. Maybe not after dark. Maybe we should call it the Watch Cooking on the Line or something like that. You know, no reservations to watch.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's nice.

[Chris Ryan]

Something like, for foodies to stick around.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's a long show, man. How you feeling? Why?

[Chris Ryan]

Do you want to leave? No. Did you have something else to do today?

[Andy Greenwald]

This is my whole day. I just want to make sure that. Did you have a good breakfast? Are you feeling.

[Chris Ryan]

I did. I had the same breakfast I have every day.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's right. You're a creature of habit.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And you. Not you.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. I just forage what's local and fresh

[Chris Ryan]

while you can. That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Before God's furious sun boils all the nutrients out of the water.

[Chris Ryan]

We went back and watched a couple of paradise episodes and took notes just to prepare. Yeah, just like, be. Like. Where would be like. We got an email, actually, in our inbox. Hello, everybody. You can write [e-mail] and you can follow us at thewatchpod, underscore on Instagram and watch us on YouTube @ringer TV. And listen to us on Spotify. And watch us on Spotify. We got an email from a listener who asked what, like, attraction or monument we would want to be at when the missiles fell?

[Andy Greenwald]

That's a sick question.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, because in paradise, they're. They're at Graceland. I was having a hard time picking.

[Andy Greenwald]

So, no missiles. Emp. Stop the missiles.

[Chris Ryan]

Right, Sorry. The EMP pulse that stops the missiles.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you.

[Andy Greenwald]

We get things right?

[Chris Ryan]

You got. You got to stop mugging, dude. You got to stop mugging.

[Andy Greenwald]

Why?

[Chris Ryan]

Because it's like some people just listen, you know, and.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, but they wouldn't have known. It's like a little treat, you know what I mean? For the people who just pour obsessively over the visual contours of our relationship.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a gift. You're welcome. Please go on. Are we talking about paradise today, too? Throw it on the fire.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Would you like to Franklin Institute? Like, where do you think?

[Andy Greenwald]

Inside the giant heart at the Franklin Institute. That would be so cool.

[Chris Ryan]

That would be metaphorical. But I also think you'd run out of food there. Like, I Don't know if the Franklin Institute has a really good cafeteria.

[Andy Greenwald]

First of all, respect to Aramark. They keep things running in our nation's concession stands. Okay, I.

[Chris Ryan]

Honestly, if. If I have to eat Aramark for the rest of my life, just go ahead and EMP me.

[Andy Greenwald]

There's a. There's a. There's a subtle. There's a thing that, you know, I feel like most podcasts are too afraid to talk about, including ours, because we don't like to work in this direction. But the one through line of this season's sort of exploration of people surviving the day on paradise is that the most crucial, crucial aspect of survival is unlimited access to Econo sized cans of beans and Sterno. Sterno and beans, yeah. And yet everyone is looking like their skin care regime is uninterrupted. They're looking amazing. This is like 10 people in a closed space eating beans for three weeks. I don't need to spell it out for you that we're adults. I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just asking the questions here.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's talk a little bit about some developments in the world of popular culture this week.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, you don't want to address the other elephant in the room?

[Chris Ryan]

What's that?

[Andy Greenwald]

Which was last on Monday, we just completely botched Soundwave versus Shockwave, two Decepticons of our youth.

[Chris Ryan]

I. I just don't care. No, that's a strong. I understand. So what we have to do is now make Andy is the watcher on the wall of comments and you bring me what you think is important.

[Andy Greenwald]

First of all, we found out Kya is the watcher on the wall. She only makes sure super good ones get through to my eyes, which. Thank you, two. I actually just wanted to point out that I think we're doing pretty well for older gentlemen on a diet of just beans and locked in the studio talking TV till the end of time. Also, I don't believe it. I think that we were right that Soundwave is the tape player Decepticon and Shockwave is Mandela effect. That didn't exist when we were kids in our dimension. That's what I think.

[Chris Ryan]

Honestly, I watched Mask more than Transformers, so I was kind of going, mask was so sick. Mask was fucking incredible, bro.

[Andy Greenwald]

And by the way, to be clear, Chris is talking about this incredible cartoon toy line.

[Chris Ryan]

Not the Eric Stoltz movie.

[Andy Greenwald]

Not the Eric Stoltz, which I also

[Chris Ryan]

watched, but it wasn't like a go to rewatchable for me.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's what I watched when I came home from school every day. I had the Mask toys. I had the Cher action figure that was like.

[Chris Ryan]

I just loved Cher.

[Andy Greenwald]

My son. My son. It's a collectible.

[Chris Ryan]

You're good today.

[Andy Greenwald]

But Mask is a forgotten. I'm about to say it's a forgotten character.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like a Transformers dupe. Yeah, Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

That said, I'm sure someone has been working on drafts after draft of the reboot of it, but all the guy. Like, it was. It was.

[Chris Ryan]

Guys, what did Mask stand for? Machines?

[Andy Greenwald]

Automated Serving Kisses. I don't remember. But, like, all the dudes had mustaches. And then they put on these masks. Not like Eyes Wide Shut, but, like. Like, then they could control their. Their. Their. Their vehicles. Right. Which turned into other vehicles. Not the way Transformers did. Like, you'd be flying a plane, and then the plane would turn into a helicopter because the wings would fall off.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

That was so fun.

[Chris Ryan]

It was sick. It was. It was. I honestly, and I think I prefer the toys to actual Transformers, which I often broke.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

In frustration at, like, fitting all the pieces together. Like, you know, getting them to, like, you know.

[Andy Greenwald]

What do you have to say about childhood diseases? Nothing.

[Chris Ryan]

What is that a share? Is that.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's up. Back to Mask, the film.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Okay. I honestly don't remember much about it except for, like, the major thing about

[Andy Greenwald]

it that wasn't the sixth choice for Crmont.

[Chris Ryan]

You guys will never know. Let's talk about Dune 3.

[Andy Greenwald]

MASK stands for mobile Armored Strike Command

[Chris Ryan]

with a K. I mean, that is literally like. Pete Hegseth is like, can we fucking bring those guys back into the rotation?

[Andy Greenwald]

Pete Hegseth is also like, a lot of great groups have K's in their name. Like, really good way to spell words differently is with a K. That's just like the. That's just tracks with his thinking.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, shit. All right, we're dead.

[Andy Greenwald]

We're fine.

[Chris Ryan]

Dune 3.

[Andy Greenwald]

We're starting with Dune 3. Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

I'd like to start with Dune 3, because here's what happens sometimes. Especially this year. I loved a bunch of the movies. In fact, I think I had time for at least all of the movies that were nominated for Best Picture. There wasn't a single movie that was like, get this shit out of here. Even Hamnet, which I know that you.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm not relitigating Hamnet with. You completely ignored Captain Lockjaw of the Dead Kid Brigade over here.

[Chris Ryan]

But sometimes, like, you get to the end of the award season and you're just like, ugh. I need a palate cleanser. I want. I want something to feel like we have turned the page of the calendar and I'm now into the new year. And the Dune 3 trailer did that first. Your. Your boy Timmy put up his character poster, like 10 hours, 12 hours after the Oscars, he posted that. And people were like, oh, shit.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, he had a long night, so he had plenty of time.

[Chris Ryan]

He's good, man. Don't worry about him.

[Andy Greenwald]

I am not worried. I'm just saying he probably had some thoughts.

[Chris Ryan]

And then I believe yester the Dune 3 trailer dropped and listener. Consider me seated. Like, I am really blown away by this. They switched dps. So Greg Fraser shot the first two. Linus Sanren, I think Sangren.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sangren, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Is shooting the third one. Anya Taylor. Joy has a bigger role. She appeared in the end of Dune 2. She is playing Paul's sister, obviously.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think Denny Villanova, which, by the way, is the greatest.

[Chris Ryan]

That's Bill. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's fantastic. I want to use that from now on. Do you think he saw J. Kelly last year and was like, this is the. This is the lighting that I need for my return? My return to.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't love the way J. Kelly looked.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, but that's Linus Sangrin.

[Chris Ryan]

I know. I'm just. But he's doing what the director tells him to. You know, it's like, generally. Or like he's working in collaboration with filmmakers. I like the way I thought that's what makes this podcast so electric.

[Andy Greenwald]

Crackling. It's crackling today.

[Chris Ryan]

Wow. One of us knows what mask stands for.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, what the K and J.

[Chris Ryan]

Kelly stands for, not command. What did you think of the trailer?

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, it's incredibly sick. The score is wild. Every actor wanting to be a part of it is also pretty interesting.

[Chris Ryan]

Pattinson looks so good.

[Andy Greenwald]

Pattinson.

[Chris Ryan]

And then I. Pete Hegseth thinks Pattinson looks good too.

[Andy Greenwald]

He looks like just the kind of soldier that he needs in his mobile armored strike command. Any movie that gives Isaac DeBankole his own poster is cool with me.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Jim Jarmusch, Legend. I think it looks really wild. I think generally I was.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you. Do you know what happens in this. In this movie? Do you. Are you. Did you ever read Dune? Are you aware of the story?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I. It seems like everything works out good, you know, for Paul.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, this is going to be complicated because I think the first two movies largely adapted the first book. The first book, maybe. Ish.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I would say that this is. How can I Put this. From what I understand about Dune, this is like if Empire Strikes Back was Return of the Jedi.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay. In that it ends.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I don't know how it ends. I don't know how they're gonna end it. I mean, I know how it ends. I know how the story progresses.

[Andy Greenwald]

But, like trying to unpack this so that the little pig guys who froze Han are actually Ewoks. Like Lando stays bad. What's the analogy?

[Chris Ryan]

The vibe is darker.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh.

[Chris Ryan]

Now I would say Dune is not a necessarily uplifting movie. If you're watching Dune 2 and you're like, this doesn't seem like it's going great, you know?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And Timmy looks like Stellan Skarsgard in the poster. Like he's going a little bit.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. He goes through a bit of a transformation.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. I'm here for it. I think it's incredible.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that's incredible stuff. I'm so excited to see basically the best and the brightest of the current movie industry that are also in the Odyssey. Some are and some are making a blockbuster on this canvas, like dealing with this kind of material.

[Andy Greenwald]

And all these people just showing up for. Just for a couple reps, maybe even a couple scenes. I think Rebecca Ferguson is on the record saying she's in one scene in

[Chris Ryan]

this film and she's not actually. I mean, I think they just brought her in. I don't think her character's in this book that they're adapting.

[Andy Greenwald]

What I read was that Denny Villanova was like, I have three scenes for you. And she was like, cool. And then she showed up and he's like, actually, it's one scene, but what she did was write the other two scenes on her face so that they would always be represented.

[Chris Ryan]

She's a really. I like her.

[Andy Greenwald]

I know you do. She's on your wall. Yeah, I love her. I was especially excited make it sound

[Chris Ryan]

like it's like a picture of Rebecca Ferguson is on my wall. Like Kathy Ireland was in sixth grade. It's not like that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Where is the picture?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, you just referred to like an ancient watch meme of like the wall of fame or the wall that we have for people that we like. And I don't know if some of our newer listeners know about it.

[Andy Greenwald]

You were worried that you instead that you had a bikini photo.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like 48 year old man is not putting pictures of Rebecca Ferguson on his wall.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, not in the main house. That's what the garage is for. Don't come in, honey. Just working on the car. The Screenplay credit on this is our guy, Brian K. Vaughan.

[Chris Ryan]

It's. I don't know him.

[Andy Greenwald]

But you don't know this.

[Chris Ryan]

You know him personally?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, I think he's been on the podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

That's awesome.

[Andy Greenwald]

Brian K. Vaughan, one of the great comic book writers of our time, most recently celebrated, as he should be, for this incredible sci fi space epic comic called Saga.

[Chris Ryan]

I love Saga.

[Andy Greenwald]

But other comics that he's written that have been adapted include why the Last man and Paper Girls, which didn't really get a fair shake at Amazon, imo.

[Chris Ryan]

And why the Last man was on fx.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And Saga, which I think we both highly recommend. One of the most incredible things about this, if you're interested in what comics can do. Brian wrote this comic because he had been frustrated. I mean, he's worked as a screenwriter. He worked a little bit on Lost. He worked a little bit on, I think on under the Dome a few years ago, but frustrated by adaptations. So he intentionally made a sprawling sci fi space epic that was like, let's see you try to adapt this.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's like Star wars, but unfilmable.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, Romeo and Juliet and Star wars, but completely unfilmable with like, TV robot aliens with TVs for heads and sex and animals and stuff. I make it sound great. I'm really selling it. The point is suddenly out of. To me, anywhere, nowhere. Dune Part 3, written by Denis Villanova and Brian K. Vaughn and Dennis Villanova and all three of them. I think that's really. That's pretty exciting for me, just as a fan of his writing and his vision for these sort of big stakes things. The other reaction I had, obviously, we're in the tank for this, so this isn't really like a hot take or a zag, but I was genuinely shocked at the turnaround. Now this movie's not coming out till December and is currently parked on the same release date as Avengers Doomsday, which is batshit.

[Chris Ryan]

And it's also like, I think Sean and Amanda talked about this, but I think Avengers should be more nervous about this than Dune should be nervous about this.

[Andy Greenwald]

Honestly, I think that's a smart take.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Avengers Doomsday has a little bit more to prove than Dune 3 does.

[Andy Greenwald]

Also Dune. My point is that it's. It's been two years, right? Yeah, that's really, really fast turnaround. And I think Denis has said that he planned to make another movie, but then it was like, oh, fuck it, we got to get the band back together and do this quickly because he got to Experience the reaction to part two as opposed to part one. Going straight to HBO Max at the time.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

So I found it pretty exciting. Like generally we have become certainly in tv, let alone in movies. We've been conditioned to wait longer for these things. And these series take up also a lot of just years, just time equity in the careers of filmmakers and actors. And I actually was excited both to see the thrilling conclusion of this trilogy and also for everybody involved to work on something else.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. Yeah. It did not wear out its welcome.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And I don't think was really. Dune Prophecy did not detract from my. I mean, to the extent that I watched an episode of Dune Prophecy and didn't care for it. But like, it's not like it was like sapped the way maybe Marvel kind of lost the plot a little bit with its streaming exercises and stuff like that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Speaking of Marvel and speaking of long waits, Spider Man, Brand new day dropped a trailer. This is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who takes over for Jon Watts. Tom Holland obviously back Zendaya back. Michael Mando is in this movie.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. But you didn't remember that he was in Hungary.

[Chris Ryan]

I really didn't. And that's a. It's indicative of the break that we've had since no Way Home. Is that the third. The sec. The third one.

[Andy Greenwald]

He goes homecoming.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Far from home because they're in Europe and failing Europe.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then that's Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio.

[Chris Ryan]

Mysterio, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then no Way Home was the third one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. Which came out kind of was one of the biggest. We're back from COVID movies. And this movie kind of. This will be an interesting look. Spider man is gonna make a boatload of money. I don't think anybody is trying to crowd Spider man out of IMAX screens.

[Andy Greenwald]

And this is already like the most watched trailer.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the most watched trailer. Most watched trailer.

[Andy Greenwald]

In my car, on the way to school, by my children.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you excited for this?

[Andy Greenwald]

Broadly speaking, yes. Because I am a fan of Tom Holland's Spider man movies. Would you like to. Shall we do prose and then reservations or context setting reservations first?

[Chris Ryan]

Ooh, context setting reservations first.

[Andy Greenwald]

The context setting reservation is those first three movies are a very, very successful trilogy and a play as such that kind of bring a lot of things to a resting place. A resting place that some might say set Spider man up for whatever inclusion they wanted to have for him in the multiversal wrap up storylines of the next Avengers movies. But all Those movies got derailed and put back together again. So a Spider man movie, a new Spider man movie is coming first. The other thing about this is I believe that with the conclusion of no Way Home, that was also the conclusion of Tom Holland's initial contract with Sony and Disney and Marvel to make these movies. So anything else was going to require a pretty big like Albert Pujols to the Angels kind of deal.

[Chris Ryan]

And also some, I would imagine, a larger creative input.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. And I think the other way that we see that manifested is in a clear desire for, by many the creative stakeholders involved to age up the character a little bit, to make him a little more brooding, to make him have a little more darkness. I am on the record, we have plenty of dark and brooding superheroes. The magic trick of Spider man that makes him perpetually popular is that he is not that. And so that gave me slight pause in the trailer when it's a lot about, you know, not just his regrets and his missing his friends and his not being known, he's going through spider puberty. This is the other thing that gives me enormous pause. Now, the beauty of Spider man is that it's a very, very, very basic, beautiful idea, maybe the most perfect superhero idea. And it has lasted forever. And it has allowed all these different spider men to bloom across the spider

[Chris Ryan]

verse

[Andy Greenwald]

and always kind of the same origin story, same essential personality. And that's fun and awesome. The nature of comic books is you gotta keep. It's like podcasts, really. You gotta keep grinding, you know, even if the moment has moved on, you gotta keep showing up and doing the work. And to the genuine. I give a lot of genuine credit to the writers over the years of Spider man who are always just trying to see how can we stretch this thing? Where can we stretch this?

[Chris Ryan]

The comic.

[Andy Greenwald]

You're talking about the comic book and the character, you know, and a lot of the ideas that we see on screen start chrysalis form, if you will, in the comics. The one area that has always left me completely cold and this is a storyline, a type of story that I think started with the writer, the Babylon 5 writer, J. Michael Straczynski, when he took over spider man like 25 years ago and has had different expressions, is the idea that Spider man isn't just like, oh, this smart kid got bitten by a spider. It's that somehow he is the inheritor of some like quasi supernatural spiritual spider avatar. And thus is part of a continuum

[Chris Ryan]

of spider Aztec action going in.

[Andy Greenwald]

If you saw Madame Web.

[Chris Ryan]

I did, and I know you did,

[Andy Greenwald]

because I sat with you and Damon Lindelof watching the whole thing. There was some of that in that movie. These storylines where there are these characters who are like spider people and want to reclaim Peter and Spider. He becomes more spider than man. And there was a storyline 20 years ago called the Other that they seem to be adapting for this. Oh, where.

[Chris Ryan]

That was controversial.

[Andy Greenwald]

It was controversial at the time. And that he. Yeah, he sort of has blackouts and dizzy spells, and he goes through this, like, transformation that leads to organic web shooters, which was controversial when Tobey Maguire had it.

[Chris Ryan]

That seemed to indicate in the trailer that he hits that.

[Andy Greenwald]

That it's happening. Yeah, yeah. And he didn't have to go into his garage with his posters of Kathy Ireland to achieve it. You know what I mean? So this is. And then Keith David being like, perhaps playing a character named Ezekiel, being like the spider. Adolescence is upon us.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you just hear his voice, though?

[Andy Greenwald]

We just hear his voice. All this could be kind of corny now. Is it a place to push the character? And the stewards of this iteration of the franchise have done a good job folding in things that might not have worked in other contexts and making them work for this character. Because at the end of the day, you have Tom Holland and Zendaya and you're gonna win. But it's a little bit of concern trolling.

[Chris Ryan]

I'll tell you my. What'd you call them?

[Andy Greenwald]

Controversial concerns or context setting reservations?

[Chris Ryan]

Context setting reservations.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is that the name of our new segment?

[Chris Ryan]

Is that.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's a good one.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the time that it's been since old Dr. Strange went poof. Made everybody forget Pete.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Did that in the comics. Your boy Mephisto did that in the comics.

[Chris Ryan]

Did he? Yeah. Why are they fucking. Why are they keeping him on the bench?

[Andy Greenwald]

He's not on the bench. He's in Ironheart.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah, that's right. He's Sacha Baron Cohen. I completely forgot that Mephisto is here. In the intervening years since the last Spider man has come out, I would just say that my expectations and my standards have been raised in terms of what I expect from blockbuster filmmaking.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whoa.

[Chris Ryan]

I think across the board, people are maybe falling out of love with the insane amount of VFX and the very comicy kind of style of the action in Marvel. Marvel movies. And without getting deeply into, like, the plot of it at all, I went. I got a chance to see Project Hail Mary earlier this week.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm jealous.

[Chris Ryan]

I have mixed feelings about the movie. I generally really, really liked It.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

One thing I will say about it, it is. It's got several breathtaking sequences that I will remember for the rest of the year, at least.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whoa.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, like, moments where you're like, holy, this is a really great movie going experience. And I'm going to remember the moment where this happened for a while. And I just don't feel that way about Marvel movies. And I really like Dustin Daniel Cretton.

[Andy Greenwald]

I really like directing.

[Chris Ryan]

He's directing. I generally really like his filmmaking. There's a lot of stuff online about these VFX shots don't look as good as Spider Man 2. You know what I mean? That Sam Raimi made or something. It's like, why is this stuff starting to look worse? There's also like, does it just look bad when you look at it on social media? Or does it. Maybe those VFX shots aren't done yet finished. Yeah, but there was something kind of flat, like, when I watched the little interaction, the little mini fight that he has with the Punisher in the trailer, I was like, I think I'm kind of like, I'm all good on. On these, like, really expensive fake fights that have no. They have no staying power.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well. And they have no stakes because it's like, there's a rhythm to these movies that's been established, and they have to have, like, a fight. Something gets crashed, something, whatever. There's very little in. In a lot of the recent Marvel work, there's not a lot of, like, visual wit or playfulness or connection to the storytelling.

[Chris Ryan]

It's, like, funny when Bernthal almost says motherfucker, but he throws the web on his mouth. Like, it's not, like, without its charm. I'm just saying, like, I don't need every movie to be the same. I just think that there is a style of, like. Like, weirdly muted color palette and, like, all fake action and all this stuff that I'm like, I'm definitely gonna see this movie.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I was just, like, speaking of muted. Yeah, they're hiding Sadie Sink.

[Chris Ryan]

They are hiding Sadie Sink. You want to say the words? Say the name.

[Andy Greenwald]

There's a rumor.

[Chris Ryan]

Say the name.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just. I can't be the one to report this. There's just a big rumor.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you want to say that the Watch is pushing out our boat, that she is Jean Grey, and that if she is not Jean Grey, we will stop podcasting?

[Andy Greenwald]

So we'll find out this summer, and then we could probably have August off.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, we would have it off in the sense that we no longer podcasted with each other.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just saying there's.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I'm not quitting rewatchables. That's the bell. Cow. Dog. I'm just here for fun.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is light work for a professional. Yeah. I continue to think that some days that I'm like, it's really nice that you guys showed up. These cameras don't work. These mics don't work. Just like, we've been here before.

[Chris Ryan]

Right? I was like, krasinski is around the corner. He is Reed Richards. They took him away from us.

[Andy Greenwald]

They took him away from you. No one cared more.

[Chris Ryan]

Multiple times being like, where is he? Let the devil let him out of the box. And he didn't let him out of the box until Ironheart.

[Andy Greenwald]

That was my favorite song in Sinners, by the way.

[Chris Ryan]

Let the devil out of the box.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that Sadie Sink. I don't know why you cast.

[Chris Ryan]

Who else would she be?

[Andy Greenwald]

No one that I. The only other person with canonically red hair in these comics is Mary Jane. Right? So is she playing a multiversal Mary Jane?

[Chris Ryan]

There's a shot of a person in this trailer with, like, a bag on their head doing some crazy stuff. Who do you think that is?

[Andy Greenwald]

That sounds fun. Is it, like a disgruntled.

[Chris Ryan]

There's like, a little scarecrow person? Like, what's that thing?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a disgruntled Saints fan from the early 2000s. Isn't that what they used to do before?

[Chris Ryan]

Sean, I gotta tell you, you're in the zone. Yeah, but you're not helping me. You're ducking the smoke. Do you think it's Jean Grey?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. Will you. Will you put any fucking sweat equity into this?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. I will let you out of your obligation to watch a Miyazaki film if I'm wrong about this.

[Chris Ryan]

Great, great. I'll quit.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I can watch my cartoons all day all by myself.

[Chris Ryan]

I probably would actually do well if you just did solo Miyazaki potting.

[Andy Greenwald]

You think that would do numbers?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

From the sound wave or the shockwave,

[Chris Ryan]

I think you'd miss me, though.

[Andy Greenwald]

I miss you all the time. I text you constantly.

[Chris Ryan]

Sadie's saying Jon Bernthal is the Punisher. Michael Mando's back.

[Andy Greenwald]

Tramell Tillman. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Tramiel Tillman.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's fun. Mark Ruffalo as Professor Banner.

[Chris Ryan]

But who does not know anything about Spider Man?

[Andy Greenwald]

They all got wiped.

[Chris Ryan]

Does Dr. Strange know about Spider Man?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think he's busy.

[Chris Ryan]

Did he wipe himself, though? Like, did he wipe his own memory? In the process of wiping all everybody's memories.

[Andy Greenwald]

That sounds very complicated. To wipe everyone and wipe yourself at the same time.

[Chris Ryan]

No, but you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean? You don't want to answer the hard questions I'm asking you about the mcu, but you're the only one who knows the answers. You've read all these.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is not based on. Like I said, Mephisto did it in the comics, and he wasn't about to wipe himself. He's the devil. He wants to take pleasure in this, you know? Right.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's more nefarious in the comics.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, in the comics it's Faustian. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, it's Faustian.

[Chris Ryan]

See, this is what, like, this is if Dune. If Dennis Villanova was directing Spider man, it would be.

[Andy Greenwald]

It would be Dr. Faust. Yeah, it would be. Yeah. Don't tempt me with good things. That sounds amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

God damn it.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just think that, like, we're spending too much time ultimately arguing about a movie that has a leg up on all of the other Marvel movies because it has two of the most compelling.

[Chris Ryan]

I guess we didn't say any pros. All these people are charming.

[Andy Greenwald]

And Tom and his lady wife, Zendaya. That's what we're here for.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I will note that unlike a lot of the other long running comic book series, Chris McKenna, who worked on Community and has written or co written all of these Spider man movies, is back for number four, along with Eric Summers. I'm ready.

[Chris Ryan]

One more thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is honestly the most fascinating story of this week to me, which is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot story. A while back, it was announced that after many attempts to get Sarah Michelle Gellar to return as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in some form or another, she had finally agreed to do so because she believed so deeply in a pitch she heard from Chloe Zhao about how to resurrect the character. Chloe Zhao, obviously director of Hamnet, no Man Land, the Eternals, and a very idiosyncratic filmmaker. That would not necessarily translate. The first thing you think of would not necessarily be like, episodic television. Turns out, at least according to some, that that wound up being a problem with the pilot. So the reason why I'm so interested in this story is the two sides of this story. Earlier this week, I think it was Monday. No, it was over last Friday, actually.

[Andy Greenwald]

They received. Apparently Hulu made the decision to move

[Chris Ryan]

forward, not to move forward.

[Andy Greenwald]

After doing the PM on Friday.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. And so Chloe Zhao on Oscars weekend and Sarah Michelle Geller in Austin presenting something. Ready or not, to found out that this was happening or not happening. Sarah Michelle Geller, I believe Monday released a statement that was pretty boilerplate. And it's like, I just want to thank the fans and I want you here for me. But unique in the sense that it said it specified a unnamed but specific Julio executive for never getting the project, being bragging about how he, like, never watched Buffy and being a roadblock in this entire process. And that's unusual. You know, it's definitely a burn the boats kind of of statement when it comes to this. I know. You know, because Fox still owns the ip. We'll get to in a second. Then Variety ran a story that seemed, I would say, you can safely assume was sourced from within Hulu or close to the production, that they were disappointed with the pilot and that Chloe Zhao did not shoot enough coverage, which means there was not a lot of options for them to fix things, given what footage she shot, that her sense of how to construct a television episode was not what they wanted, and that Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy character did not show up until the last moments of the pilot. And, you know, this is like a real. Like, focus groups tell us that if it's called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they want her in the right now. This is supposed to be focusing on a new generation, a new slayer, played by Ryan Cara Armstrong, who we liked a lot in the Lowdown.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yep. Daughter on the Lowdown.

[Chris Ryan]

How do you parse this story?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, it's fascinating and it's fascinatingly messy. Do you have a. Do you. Where are you with Buffy?

[Chris Ryan]

I like it a lot.

[Andy Greenwald]

You were a fan. You watched it.

[Chris Ryan]

I did.

[Andy Greenwald]

I didn't mean that in, like, a judgmental way. Apparently. It's amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

I.

[Andy Greenwald]

That is a blind spot for me. So I was not one way or another about the potential.

[Chris Ryan]

And it's interesting that this and Firefly are both. People are attempting to sort of iterate on Joss Whedon IP without Joss Whedon.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. And the Firefly thing seems animated. Yeah. But they're also trying to crowdfund a home for it or something.

[Chris Ryan]

I think they're just trying to get fan interest to a point where somebody is like, yeah, let's make this. Because they've already got, like, kind of showrunners and the entire cast is signed on. And.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, I. I thought this was an interesting. I mean, everything moved so quickly that I was actually prepared to come in here and, like, Be like, well, the voice of industry reason here. But that has now bubbled up as well because the take coming from Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was obviously stunned and heartbroken, was one that I think very much echoes the voice of the fandom who have been, for very good reason, trained at this point to expect getting exactly what they want all the time. More of everything. More of everything. The idea that this was maliciously or nefariously plug pulled and they had a rug pulled out from under them is a very click baity kind of take. And naming an executive who is, you know, potentially either Craig or Witch, who makes the programming decisions for Hulu generally, or Jordan Hellman, who's an executive who's been there for a long time, that gives, if not the face, since she didn't name either of them, but like sort of a chalk outline of a punching bag to blame.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

I feel pretty confident saying that when you have a piece of IP that is high profile and that has been curated for a number of years because you want to get it right, the margins for making this decision are not really that thin. Like you have to get it right. And if it's only a little bit right, they'll keep throwing money at it. If it's really wrong is when they make this decision. And I think that by all late breaking, or more recently breaking accounts, this didn't work, which is not an indictment on the creatives involved. It's really hard to reboot things, and it's especially hard to reboot things that try to serve when you try to do it both ways. Not just like a whole new version, but a hand holding. The old Buffy is here and there's a new Buffy as well. And one will have a relationship with the other, so it's not out of the ordinary. Lila and Nora Zuckerman are the sisters who TV veterans, very talented writers, worked on Pokerface, most recently on Poker Face. They were the showrunners, they wrote the script, they shot a pilot last year. People are now reporting about their experiences that they had while making the pilot because there are a couple of interesting actors who maybe it's cameos or not, but Chase, we wonders, is in the pilot. The comedian Alison Becker was in the pilot. Allegra Edwards, who is on my show and is starring in a new CBS sitcom coming soon, I think is also in it. And they were all like, oh, it was a great experience. It seemed like really positive vibes.

[Chris Ryan]

People generally come out of Chloe Zhao Productions feeling very warmly towards because of

[Andy Greenwald]

the Rihanna playing all the time.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I just think because it's like, I, I, I just like my, like everything you read about people who work with her are that if they connect with her, they connect quite deeply with her. And I think that this obviously, like, for whatever reasons, Geller was, like, opposed to doing this, probably for, like, very smart reasons, because she was a custodian of that character and the fan and didn't want it to go the way that, you know, it's not Melrose Place. She didn't want it to just be like, you can just reboot this constantly without paying tribute to what it actually meant to people. And that's the thing about this show, is that it meant a lot to a lot of people. I mean, Mal and Joe have been doing a rewatch and.

[Andy Greenwald]

But do people want something new or do they not? Well, I don't know. And I can fall on both sides of it, I think. It's not a clean cut story with villains. It seems like they shot a pilot in which Sarah Michelle Gellar appears, almost like a cameo at the end, to suggest involvement in the future that they would figure out in series. I'm sure they had a format, a pitch document of where it was going to go, or else she wouldn't have been involved. And whether they tested that and it didn't work or whatever, it seems like they went a little bit further down the road of rewrites to bring her more into the script proper. But ultimately, it does seem like they were undone by a pilot that just missed the mark. Not necessarily script wise, but because, and this goes back to the original point, just because you have a passionate fan in something that Chloe says that she grew up watching. Buffy adores it. I don't see much Buffy in her filmed work to date, which doesn't. I'm not saying she's faking it. I'm not saying there should be more metatextual laughs in Nomadland. I'm just saying it's hard to draw that connection.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

And if she brought the things that make her an A List Award nominated and winning Hollywood director to this pilot, that doesn't sound like the right fit to me.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I will also say from experience that when you have feature directors stepping into TV without a lot of episodic work in a feature, they're like, I run this show, I run this ship. What I film is the show. I don't need to do more. I don't need to get it from the other angle, because why would you use it? I don't want that angle. That's not how TV works, but it's especially not how tone setting pilots work. And if you don't have the footage, you might not have the show.

[Chris Ryan]

We have a course correction going on where. Now I think that a lot of feature directors have backed out of doing television. Especially like I'm directing every episode of TV. I mean, Steve Conrad's directing all the DTFs, but is an experienced television showrunner in that regard. I think we'd probably. What I would have suggested is weird. I think probably what would have been a great execution of this is that for the sake of the pilot and getting the show on its feet, you basically invert what happened and have some very capable, safe pair of hands start the process and shoot the pilot. You get it going. And then as a special kind of reverie, maybe mid season or whatever, Chloe Zhao directs two episodes of Buffy that's like her rendition of it. And I think that this would be actually like a much more successful version of kind of a tourist. Directors wanting to dabble in TV would be. If you did Tarantino coming in for late period CSI or ER episodes. It's like, yeah, like it's already established how this works. Everybody on set knows how this goes. I'm not creating the visual language for this show. It's pretty rare that shows can break from that visual language. I mean, they do. I think industry is like obviously, like deviated from the initial verite version of what Lena Dunham shot.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, but the creators taking the reins.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but I think that that probably, maybe that would have been a successful way of doing this.

[Andy Greenwald]

We were joking before about Transformers and mask toys and how we enjoyed playing. I wasn't joking fair. I meant the mask toys. I was joking about Eric Stoltz with the prosthetics. I think that it is time to move past, broadly speaking, 100,000 foot view. I think we need to move past the development phase of television where it is like us playing with Transformers and GI Joes at the same time. Just because you have one to four things that might work and that people like, doesn't mean it's somehow a value add when you jam them all together.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Hulu developing a show with Chloe Zhao. Great. Hulu developing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. Great. It doesn't exponentially increase the value of the property to jam them together if it's not a natural fit for the show that they're going to.

[Chris Ryan]

I would imagine that there's another issue here, which is like holds on actors were probably expiring And a decision had to be made here at some point.

[Andy Greenwald]

The other thing, Ryan, Kira Armstrong is a really strong young actor. We thought she was great in the Lowdown. And then some of the other feedback that has leaked to the press was that with her as the central lead, she's 15. When they shot it, it played younger than what they wanted.

[Chris Ryan]

That's all from Variety.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. But that speaks to another problem with a lot of this stuff, which is are we making this entertainment for a new generation of fans really, or are we making it just to sort of handhold the nostalgia crowd?

[Chris Ryan]

I'd like to see it. I would have liked to have seen the pilot, but like, I understand why it perhaps didn't work.

[Andy Greenwald]

You'd like to see it? I'm.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm kind of like, release the pilots. That's my. I, I think it would. You know, we've had Amazon used to do that.

[Andy Greenwald]

That was, that is under remembered as such a fascinating.

[Chris Ryan]

Amazon would basically have a. They had a season, pilot season where they would put up pilots and can't you vote? Or like, would they just use viewer data?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think they would use viewer data

[Chris Ryan]

and I thought that was cool.

[Andy Greenwald]

So we saw the Whit Stillman pilot, for example, that otherwise would have been

[Chris Ryan]

buried forever with Adam Brody.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, I wish that show got made.

[Andy Greenwald]

Me too.

[Chris Ryan]

This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Peaky Blinders is hands down one of the most iconic series of all time. And the gangsters are back in Netflix's new film, Peaky Blinders. The immortal man, Tommy Shelby, played by the Academy Award winning Cillian Murphy, of course, must face his own demons and choose whether to confront his legacy or burn it to the ground. I watched the movie and let me tell you, it's just fascinating to watch Killian on the other side of the Oppenheimer journey that he's been on, becoming one of our great actors. And he already was one of our great actors. But to become one of the major movie stars in Hollywood, this is perhaps his signature role, his iconic role. He brings like an even more haunted, weathered quality to it. And he's paired off with Barry Keoghan, who's just extraordinary in this and brings this youthful vigor and energy that the. The story greatly benefits from. Watch Peaky Blinders, the Immortal man, now on Netflix. Rated R. Let's talk about the Pit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

A show that did get made.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure did.

[Chris Ryan]

And it keeps getting made. And you sounded one small lonely bell of alarm last week. You said it was the weakest episode of the season. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So I start with you also because you're fucking cooking today.

[Andy Greenwald]

I might need a protein bar or something.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm not gonna ride you. We're going back to, like. You're like a 1930s pitcher. I'm pitching you fucking four days in a row. Do you remember? Eight men out. Strathairn's character is, like, on his ninth straight spot.

[Andy Greenwald]

He's just the pitcher. That's his job.

[Chris Ryan]

But he throws like 48 miles per

[Andy Greenwald]

hour, which is still more than I could do.

[Chris Ryan]

I could have been an incredible baseball player back then.

[Andy Greenwald]

You could have been an incredible baseball player for the first four pitches of every game. You poured your whole heart, soul, mind and body into your.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I mean, I could have hit 48 miles per hour.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh.

[Chris Ryan]

If that's how fast he was.

[Andy Greenwald]

But you were. You were cooking. You were getting up to like, 65. You were touching 65 on the outside corner.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but once it started breaking, I

[Andy Greenwald]

was out as a hitter. Yeah, I'm saying when you would go.

[Chris Ryan]

The first time I saw a slider, I saw my future. And it was dark. It was non existent. It was like Dr. Strange came and wiped away my baseball champion fisto, too.

[Andy Greenwald]

This will surprise no one. That like, generally 20 years ago, I would imagine it's still the same. Maybe it's not the same thing because, you know, we have a different. You have a different weightlifting regimen now. But, like, we would arrive at Citizens bank park and we would immediately just, like, part towards our happy places. I would get in the line of Tony Luke, so I could procure the roast pork Italian sandwich early, and you would go straight to fast pitch to attempt to remove your rotator to find out what.

[Chris Ryan]

What the mph was at. Now, I was not a pitcher, and when I did pitch, I was way more concerned with control than I was with velocity.

[Andy Greenwald]

So it was more of a Greg Matic's up here. Yeah, I get it. You strike people out with your mind.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder if this is Kaya's least favorite episode we've ever done. So far we've talked about competing Transformers, cartoons and toys, Eric Stoltzen, Cher's Mask. We spent a long time talking about Dune and Spider man, and now we're talking about 1990s pictures.

[Andy Greenwald]

Where are you with us these days?

[Chris Ryan]

I'm just glad you guys are having fun.

[Andy Greenwald]

See, this is all just for me.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but I love Dune.

[Andy Greenwald]

I love Dune. I'm a Dune head.

[Chris Ryan]

Whoa. Now, have you read the books?

[Andy Greenwald]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Kya goes to parties. She's not us. She's fine.

[Chris Ryan]

You sounded some alarm about the pit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

How did you feel about 5pm this

[Andy Greenwald]

was a very, very exciting and jam packed hour. I think that my concern last week was more concern is too strong a word. I'm interested to see how they attempt to experiment with and iterate the form that they have created for themselves. The box that they have made for the show, which is the action takes place in real time, more or less in this room or these rooms. And. And that's the extent of it. And the thing that I was flagging last week was the. The attempt to make a. Not to bottle off an episode, but it was an episode about mothers and relationships with motherhood. And it felt like as was this, by the way. And I felt like it. I felt the heavier hand of the writer's room in the episode for that. This, this week was a really strong episode. I did notice that there were a couple things that you just have to buy into and accept as part of watching the show and believing in it. One is the law and orderness of introducing new patients where in my thankfully, I'll knock on the table. Limited experience in emergency rooms when people come to check on me or the people that I'm there with, rarely do the patients say, you know what, Doc, I love baseball. Roberto Clemente is a legend here. You know, in the same way that like, if the police ever came up to me at my job, I wouldn't like. If the police had ever approached me at Borders Books and Music in Rosemont in 1996, I wouldn't have been like, sorry, I gotta keep filing These Soul Asylum CDs while I talk to you.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I would've been like, whatever you need, sir. Yeah. So that's just part of it. We gotta keep it moving. And the first introduction to a character in an ER is going to have to deliver a lot of expositional character stuff. The other thing is, in order to expand the palette beyond the workday, inevitably everyone from outside of these characters work lives, despite what Robbie says to Mohan, is gonna have to show up as a patient at one point or another. And it was Mel's sister. So we could have that scene. It's the day that Robbie is going off on this existential vision bike quest. His biker buddy comes in potentially with a tumor that day. You know, you have to buy into that and I do, but I was just noting it and I was feeling the construction more.

[Chris Ryan]

These past two weeks, I have not rewatched the first season of the Pit. So I may live to regret this statement. I'm finding this season more stressful, and I think it's because the characters are deteriorating in a. In a really well written way. They are being put under this kind of almost like institutional and practical pressure rather than the existential adrenaline hit of the mass casualty event.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And so watching them kind of have to go through this painstaking process of working in with Analog, charting the mistakes that are being made because of whether it's exhaustion or the, like, the gaps in between, like knowing what's wrong with somebody because you're waiting for X rays.

[Andy Greenwald]

The fact that most of them have side hustles and jobs when they're not on, including the Night Charge nurse, who is also a death doula, and Abbott, who is also Superman.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. And I think a lot of their personal lives are starting to really seep into their work in a way that's detrimental to both. Obviously, like, Mel has had this tough time with the deposition and then, like, feeling like her sister's probably got more of a life than she does. Dana's running a shrinking staff of nurses or employees who are scared of the presence of the ICE agents, which we're going to talk about in a second. The Mohan and Robbie stuff, I think, is, like, not heartbreaking, but it's like, so sad to watch. And, like, they're doing a very good job of showing, like, Robbie be like, nice to other people, you know, and not Mohan. And like, it's. They're like. I think that they're making it like a different kind of season this season where the characters are not angels and not, you know, undefeated, completely flawless people who only really, you know, take it out on themselves like they're taking it out on each other.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think the genius of the show, in a way, is that central conceit that it's just gonna be. Each one is gonna be a day. But baked into that is the hope and now the reality that we're going to have many days. And what the show can accomplish by doing that is proving it's not that anybody can be heroic once. It's that pretty much every shift and certainly every day that they choose to make a season of this television show will present just absolutely superhuman levels of stress, of demand, of challenge, of difficulty. And that. That's really the, you know, the grindstone that they are under, you know, and

[Chris Ryan]

we also, we lovingly knock the pit for its expository dialogue sometimes and people turning to the camera and being like, you know, this actually affects older men much more than, you'd think. But I thought some of the unsaid stuff in this episode was extraordinary. They did not show Roxy's death.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. I was grateful for that.

[Chris Ryan]

And there is a world where they could have just been like, the Hawaiian prayer over the old man last year blew everybody away. It's where I sort of fell in love with the show. It's clearly like, letting go and loss is something that Robbie is conversant in. And it would be a great moment. We put McKay and Robbie in there as the final beeps go. Nope. It's just. Not only did it happen off screen, but McKay missed it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yep.

[Chris Ryan]

And the moment that you do get with Roxy, which is Robbie looking at Javati and seeing, like, her welling up and just kind of like a quiet acknowledgment of, like, this is really fucking hard.

[Andy Greenwald]

I see you. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought that was a great way to show a different side of it, play it differently. And if a show's gonna go on for multiple seasons, as I expect the pit to, they're gonna have to think of new ways to peel the onion, you know, like. And it still has the same effect.

[Andy Greenwald]

I also appreciate the way that it is giving. You know, one of the great things about ongoing television is that you can respond relatively quickly to things that work. And the Mel Dana scene out in the bay, and there was a couple location shots in this episode are. When I say location, I mean, they do go to Pittsburgh, I think, once, and they shoot a bunch of scenes from different episodes in that ambulance bay in the park across the street to make it feel like they're in the place. I thought that was a very good scene. I think maybe this was on the stairs. This one wasn't outside. But Mel says, I've seen ELF 164 times, which is 163 more times than my kids are ever gonna see It. Hated it. Really hated it. Not me. I think it's funny.

[Chris Ryan]

It's okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm brave.

[Chris Ryan]

You can have your own opinions.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, here I can. Not at home. Anyway, that was for the Emmy voters, that scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And that's okay. That's cynical. It's giving these good actors a chance to cook with each other in a way that is isolated.

[Chris Ryan]

A couple of people have written in about the unlikelihood that Mel would have a deposition on July 4th while she's on shift. The Mel plotline, the fact that every other doctor is being like, where the fuck have you been? Like, what are you doing? Pick up more patients. Move faster. Keep charting. And that Mel is kind of free to interact with her sister, wander around kind of kind of beaten up by the day, getting very upset. Do you think that that is like a plot line that feels very written and. Or do you think it's a plot line that exists within the real? Like, would they just be steering clear and letting Mel have, like, a bad day?

[Andy Greenwald]

I waltz in here at 11:02 and everyone's waiting and nobody says anything. So maybe this isn't normal for workplaces, that there's always one, you know, who can just kind of get away with it. But I. No, I mean, I think that I feel bad that I started with what in the. In the framing it as if it's a criticism. Like, I really watch the show.

[Chris Ryan]

I hope you walk into the Harry Potter room, like five minutes, like, what ho any magicianry going on?

[Andy Greenwald]

I do that voice. But I get there incredibly early because I really, really respect the workplace and my co workers and I don't want to discredit them. This is just for fun, like you said.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Thanks. Everybody working behind the scenes here.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, they get paid whether it's us or the press box. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't have to be us.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's amazing. Okay, let's see. Brian and Shoemaker talk about shockwave and. Oh, they're exactly the same age as us. They could do it.

[Chris Ryan]

Two guys wearing glasses.

[Andy Greenwald]

I feel bad that I framed it as a criticism because I genuinely enjoy the show simultaneously on two completely different levels. It is the only show that I watch without any threat of distraction or second screening or I just lock in. I can't wait to watch it.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the most gripped I am in my life, honestly. Like, it's the most present I feel all week.

[Andy Greenwald]

In the main house. Not the garage.

[Chris Ryan]

No, second. But second, when I do Zane Lowe too, I feel like I achieve. Like, this is. It's like Miles Davis doing Kind of Blue.

[Andy Greenwald]

Let's do this. I want to revisit this. I have some questions. I have some thoughts. The second way that I watch the show I think is like I just really am fascinated by and inspired by and impressed by the writerly things. You can see the way that they are crafting this and the things that they get away with, they don't get away with, but the intention behind it. And one of those things to bring it back to what you were observing is they looked at what they did in the first season. They knew what they had with Taylor Dearden, and they were like, well, how can we make A different run at this character. And how can we differentiate her arc this season?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, because she's pretty resilient in the first season.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And so what can we do differently? And then I'm sure that they're already having the conversations about what they will do in the third season. And that's exciting. That's the way you should build this, with the added challenge of fitting it into this very, very specific box of driving story forward. Before we get to the big, big elephant story in the room, was interested to see Al Hashimi really having a lot more. As you said last week, she doesn't really get her hands dirty that often.

[Chris Ryan]

She hadn't.

[Andy Greenwald]

She hadn't. She did last week.

[Chris Ryan]

Then she pulls off, like, the. The coolest move in the history of emergency medicine.

[Andy Greenwald]

Dr. Alhashimi was a problem with a scalpel in her hand. But this week, she's back to being even more so. Like, the one who is communicating and teaching not just the residents, but the family members that come in, including then being so on the ball that she follows the kind of dissociating young mother out into the street and saves her life.

[Chris Ryan]

Right. Because Joy. Well, Joy had her pegged first. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, the. The. The. The. I'm happy we're steering away from the residents just being like, you're fat. What's that like? Yeah, that's a big mistake you've made. You're a bad parent. To now complicating it slightly more.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Ogilvy up. I think Ogilvy's, like, being called out on his, like, lack of sensitivity. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And it happened to the one patient he was sensitive with, the one who he gave a paperback to.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, let's do ice.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay. All right, Mark Wayne, let's do ice. What are your thoughts? I'll be Rand Paul. And let's really.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, those guys come in. There's two masked ICE agents, or one's masked, and the other one eventually puts his mask on.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can I just say, before we even get into specifics, we don't, because it's just. It's not really our. Our purview. But we rarely compliment the direction of this show, even though it is so, so challenging. Bryce Witch, direct, veteran director. The way that we, the audience, and the cameras see the looming masked agent for the first time was brilliant. That was like some Silent Hill shit,

[Chris Ryan]

because it was just a figure six, five or something. It's crazy.

[Andy Greenwald]

And it's not relevant to the scene we're in. At first.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought that was just really we

[Chris Ryan]

realize it as Robbie realizes it. And then I will say that the ability to get every single fucking person in this show, including Javati's mom, on the same page of like how agitated and fucked up this is. And also terrifying because there are two masked armed men in the. In the emergency room not respecting the processes of medicine. I thought it was really well done. Now this has been a pre or like an already kind of documented and preordained controversial moment for the show. Can you tell me a little bit about why that is?

[Andy Greenwald]

There were rumors, like industry rumors that the show and this wouldn't be. Actually, this could go be both a rumor and also a pretty safe prediction that a show that is so tethered to the moment and committed to exploring the realities of healthcare in this country that there would be an ICE storyline this season. There were rumors that the storyline had been controversial or had been rejected on some level by the powers that be. Not at HBO or HBO Max, but at the larger Warner Bros. Discovery network. And those rumors were kind of confirmed in a surprising way by John Wells, who's the executive producer and one of the co creators of the show. Direct quote from the Daily Beast saying, I don't want to be in a situation where it's a surprise basically because he went to and he says their response was. And he says their response I think being WBD writ large. I don't know whether that's the legal side of it or if it's Zaslav himself. Good story. Just make sure it's balanced and we're not just treating the situation as if it doesn't have other points of view. This is episode filmed in December shortly after the Netflix deal was announced or was about to be announced. Thus Wells felt it necessary to consult the parent company. Wells added, when we first pitched it, I thought, uh, oh, you know, I can say that all of us are approaching what's going on in this country right now with a certain trepidation and also awareness that there are possible risks to telling certain kinds of stories. Now what we saw on the screen was, I thought, very true to two different strands. Not of oppositional thinking, but two different strands of reality in this country. One, good, decent people doing their jobs are horrified by the presence of, you know, mass vigilante police force ripping people away without due process or allowing them to get proper medical care and disrupting everyone's lives in the pursuit of some nebulous goal.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Also I think that the Robbie's point of view was consistent with what he's Been advocating for all season, which is we can't heal the world. We have to take care of the patients and we have to take care of our workplace and the people we work with. So he was cautioning McKay and others not to upset anyone, not to try to push it or be extra legal with anything that they do. Which was consistent with the prisoner who was the patient earlier in the season as well, when Dr. Alashimi was suggesting that they do X, Y or Z there.

[Chris Ryan]

And Dana then kind of buys him

[Andy Greenwald]

a little bit more time on the scale now. And this obviously reaches a breaking point when they attempt to put a sling on the woman who's the patient. And our guy, nurse Jesse, intervenes and ends up in handcuffs himself.

[Chris Ryan]

Yep.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't know how you felt about this. We haven't talked about this. It did feel abrupt. I don't know if that's me filling in the blank thinking that there was more story there. Because some of the other rumors that are out there and I do not want to give them extra credence necessarily by blasting them on a podcast is if I have any. I don't have secret knowledge. I don't know if this is true. But the rumors wasn't just that they consulted as they were filming to tweak it and get it right so as not to upset anyone. The rumors were that they had been told to change something or to dial something down. So the idea was I probably did watch this episode looking for the missing pieces.

[Chris Ryan]

If I didn't know that or if I had never heard those rumors, which I don't think I had actually that part I had only read that they were asked to make it a balanced portrayal. I thought that the balance just being a viewer of the show and not reporting on like the production of it was from the plotline earlier in the year where there was, I believe,

[Andy Greenwald]

a

[Chris Ryan]

young boy with his sister, his parents had been deported, deported back to Haiti. And the social worker or the psychiatrist. The social worker is kind of like, yeah, like, like we, we can only do so much. And there is like a legal process for this. And if there was not the, the kind of like outrage or like fight that like maybe you would associate with a left leaning television show.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's a really good observation. And I.

[Chris Ryan]

So I thought that was going to be the balance part. I actually didn't know the ICE agents were coming into the emergency. I thought that was their depiction of. Well, immigration's a complicated story and like there's multiple sides of it and all that. And you Know that then it was like, when these guys showed up, I was like, holy shit, I wonder how far this is going to go, especially given, I imagine this was probably shot before Renee Goode.

[Andy Greenwald]

It says December. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's before Minneapolis.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. I think, first of all, I just think it's a very healthy and constructive lane for the show to be in story wise, to have our characters who can be. So say it again. Superheroic, minute to minute, patient to patient, feel the limits of their godlike ability to fix things as the world entrenches on them. And with that said, it's interesting to consider Robbie's comments to Mohan, which also sounded a little bit like, physician, heal thyself. When he's like, there needs to be a force field around these walls and nothing outside can get.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, everything Robbie is like, I thought this was the episode that confirms, like, I don't know if anything so dramatic as a attempt on his own life is gonna happen, but Robbie's coming apart.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. But I also think that speech about you keep everything out there, that you keep everything out there, that's the key. That's the difference between the best doctors and the ones who don't make it. That speech is more interesting when you think about ice coming in than when you think about Mohan being stressed out about her mother.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. But, like, he's also, like, probably also talking about it from the regards of like, you can't stop it from coming in.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, exactly.

[Chris Ryan]

You brought Duke in.

[Andy Greenwald]

You're. He is not heal lays off. He's not listening to his own medicine.

[Chris Ryan]

Jake came in and, you know, like,

[Andy Greenwald]

was and his mentor came in during COVID and didn't survive. I also thought that first that initial plot line a few weeks ago with the family when that. Because I was primed to that they were going to do something, I thought that was it.

[Chris Ryan]

That's not true.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought that that was the. They had taken something out and put that in. I felt the same way. I want to be really careful here because I'm not ascribing malign actions not just to, like, the Warner Brothers discovery team and David Zaslav with his $900 million payout can eat shit. But everything else, people are trying to make a good show here. And I don't think that the people who make the show would sell themselves out and sell out their creative whatever to appease powers that be for mergers. I think it's interesting to your point that the balance that maybe they sought was, how much can we do here?

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Their balance was. What good does it do to sacrifice our workers and our nurses to save one woman when this is an avalanche of injustice?

[Chris Ryan]

Because they're also losing nurses and employees. They're running like they're people leaving the emergency rooms.

[Andy Greenwald]

As Dr. Shamsi who says we have people who are TPS.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm down five.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Because they have TPS status, Temporary Protective status and they're not comfortable. And people leave. The people leave the waiting room, triage. I think that was really important because, you know, I don't. It doesn't take two guys on microphones to be like, there. There actually isn't both sides to like a home. A handmade Gestapo force running wild through the country. Fucking nightmare. Shit. So. But I did. I do wonder in the fullness of the season what we will think of this moment and how far the tendrils go. If there was more to be said. If this is it. I think it's not just me waiting on it.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think it's it because they took Jesse and I don't think it's it because, like this is still a minute to minute show.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. But they also said that the lawyers, the hospital lawyers are tied up with the cyber attack. And so that might be the end of Jesse for the season.

[Chris Ryan]

It might be. Yeah. You know, it's a weird one because they keep talking.

[Andy Greenwald]

He's the Dr. Collins of the season.

[Chris Ryan]

Multiple doctors in the show have been talking about how they only have two hours left, but they have five hours left on this season.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, they're starting to address that with like Dana telling her night charge replacement name. I forget, I'll stay until we get someone else. Alhashimi saying, does Robbie stick around after his shift? And then he's saying he'll wait for the CAT scan of Duke.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

So they're starting to line that up.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean. But doesn't look like Robbie's gonna make it five more hours. You know, let's talk about one more big moment from this episode, which was the Langdon Santos confrontation. Finally, this had been brewing. I thought it was great to see Isa Briones get more to do and kind of be a smartass and not that I feel like that's a limited. No, I don't think that's a failure of the writing. I just think she's been given what she's been given so far. There was the brief moment earlier in the season where we're shown her cutting scars like as she's like, you know, very quickly. And so there's Obviously, like. And she has often had very emotional reactions to certain cases in the first two seasons, but has been kind of like, dead to the world this year because of this charting situation, because of, you know, being underwater with, like, her second year stuff. And I thought that the way that this played out was wonderful because they've certainly put Langdon in the kind of preferred status lane of like, boy, isn't this guy just an awesome dude who's, like, really recovered? And for the most part, people are accepting of him, with the exception of Robbie and Santa.

[Andy Greenwald]

As Santa says, you're still the golden boy.

[Chris Ryan]

And he kind of is. And I thought that was really a great moment when she is like, you don't fucking deserve to be here. That's like, like, what do you want from me? Like, I. You stole drugs from the hospital. You should be disbarred and be in prison. And he does what lots of people do, which is like, I feel like I've suffered.

[Andy Greenwald]

I almost lost my wife. I almost lost my kids. I almost almost. She's like, that's what happened to the fuck up.

[Chris Ryan]

So Alashimi hears this or overhears part of this conversation. I didn't remember one way or the other. So it was. Do we. Are we aware that it was suppressed, that he was stealing from the hospital?

[Andy Greenwald]

That was that maybe that may not be news to people who closely or recently watched the first season.

[Chris Ryan]

I. I don't remember whether. I don't really remember how that played out. I remember Robbie being, like, apoplectic, but we didn't see how his. Whatever happened with, like, Langdon's discipline?

[Andy Greenwald]

Is he back because he copped to having addiction issues and went to rehab and they don't know about his.

[Chris Ryan]

And is now in a Doctors with Drug problems program. But only Robby Santos and Dana, I don't know, know that he was stealing benzos from the dispensary.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are you starting to side note on this? Are you starting to worry that the pit is starting to feel a little bit Dunder Mifflin in which like. Like Toby or Angela's always in the background being like, huh? Like, the timing is remarkable.

[Chris Ryan]

I get it. There have been also a couple of moments where I'm like, how come everybody is not seeing this as, you know, like.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I think everyone heard when the show, you know, put paid to the idea that all television characters can just have their joints, their elbows, whatever, shoulders put back into socket like they're fucking Murdaugh in Lethal Weapon.

[Chris Ryan]

I know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Or Xavier on Paradise Riggs and Lethal Weapon, actually, Murdoch. Oh, right. Murdoch's too old for this shit.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Roger Murray Riggs does it himself, too, constantly.

[Andy Greenwald]

To swim to freedom. Yeah, I'm with you on ISA Briones, who is, I think is a really strong performer, actually having some ground to stand on and not just be complaining. I thought that was a strong scene. And then we end with Cliffy, another example of potential assault on nurses.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. We'll hear all about it next week.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you want to speak up for the golf community in any way to defend that guy's actions? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder what drug that guy's on. I mean, it's not just white claws, you know, like, he's definitely.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's also. It's like, 100 degrees.

[Chris Ryan]

That doesn't give you, like, psychotic episodes, does it?

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, we should go through who you golf with. I think it's possible that there are a couple people. One last pit question for you before we move on, and I'm not making light of a news situation, but I'm curious how pit pilled you are, because news broke just as we were sitting down that Pistons guard Cade Cunningham suffered a collapsed lung pneumothorax. Because I'm not trying to. I was at this point so that.

[Chris Ryan]

You are pit pilled.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm pit pilled.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Cade's gonna be okay. It sounds like it's a minor collapse lung.

[Andy Greenwald]

Those words sound crazy, but we're not.

[Chris Ryan]

He's not gonna hit. There's worry now that he might not hit the minimum amount of games, which means, like, the mvp. I guess I'll probably be Shay, but it'll. You know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do I have a benchmark like that to be considered for podcasting awards?

[Chris Ryan]

I think you hit it. We do, like, 100 shows a year here.

[Andy Greenwald]

We do a lot of shows.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Two a week for 52 weeks.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

What's that come out to?

[Andy Greenwald]

104.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right. So it's 104 shows.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. About.

[Andy Greenwald]

Good for us.

[Chris Ryan]

This episode is brought to you by Brooks Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us. The intersection of interests that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like analyzing plot twists, TaxAct guides you step by step to make sure you get your maximum refund, get tips along the way Add Expert Assist to talk to tax experts or let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service. TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. It can be hard to do your own thing when everyone else is following everyone else. But that's what some of the best films are about. An outcast striving to make their own way in the world. And this is your sign to be that outcast from us, from vw, from the other outcasts out there. Take a chance. Make the most of every day and don't be afraid to veer off course every now and then. Because if you don't do it now, then when? Learn [e-mail] let's talk about the Madison. This is going to be a limited engagement, I think for two seasons. They've already shot two seasons of this six episode per season show.

[Andy Greenwald]

I read that the cast and crew are hopeful for a third.

[Chris Ryan]

This is the kindest, gentlest, most romantic Taylor Sheridan show to date. I think it looks like a billion dollars. It is a gorgeous piece of tv. These are all positives.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I also find it to be pretty well written.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, when you say a good it looks. Should we shout out Christina Alexandra Voros who directed all six episodes? Yeah, sure we should. We should shouting out the female director of a Taylor Sheridan show because I'm an ally, but go on, talk about how well written it is. Go on.

[Chris Ryan]

So well written that it made me think about all the movies we don't get from Taylor Sheridan. Sean brought this up on the Sicario rewatchables. Just talking about how this dude is a feature writer and the TV thing has obviously proved to be quite lucrative. But all of his great shows I think would make dynamite features. Now you could say like what would the world lose if they didn't have season three of Yellowstone? But a lot of these are conceived in a way that feel very featurey. You know, a lot of these shows and I think that there is a time probably like 20 years ago when a movie version of the Madison would have done quite well.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's actually written into the text of the show. In the pilot episode, the characters gather to watch a favorite film, Vance A River Runs through it and it has a more it has such an emotional impact on the characters, much more than I think anyone watching a Taylor Sheridan television show would have. And I'm not saying that that's not my first hit. That one doesn't count.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm just praising Robert Redfield when I said it was well written.

[Andy Greenwald]

And you went, hmm, no, I summon my teeth.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, so you engaged with this piece of work?

[Andy Greenwald]

I watched the first episode and I gotta be honest with you, I thought Kurt Russell and Matthew Fox are so charming and so delightful. I turned it off after 11 minutes because I was like, I don't need to watch six episodes of these guys lurking about.

[Chris Ryan]

So you've suggested something that would be a spoiler.

[Andy Greenwald]

Here come the spoilers.

[Chris Ryan]

Here come the spoilers. So if you have not watched the first episode of the Madison.

[Andy Greenwald]

If you have not watched a Taylor Sheridan show. Taylor Sheridan shows follow this format.

[Chris Ryan]

Was a pretty big one for a Taylor Sheridan show, even.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just saying, when they announce shows as two handers and you're like, whoa, the second hand seems awfully busy to be doing this show. You should trust your instincts, you know.

[Chris Ryan]

I have to say, though, I would great. Much prefer to watch Kurt Russell on a show like this than Monarch Legacy of Monsters.

[Andy Greenwald]

We're doing the positive stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Show looks beautiful. Montana. Not even a bit. A place I was recently and I loved is just stunningly be. I'm not even trying to be that guy. Have I been to the Bozeman airport? Yeah, I was there.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, when they. Because they get off.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, yeah. And the kids are like, what is this place? And I was like, that tracks. That's realistic. That's also what my children say. Just stunningly beautiful. And what I really did enjoy about the opening Idol, in which Kurt Russell, who plays a. We don't actually know yet through the first episode why he's so rich, but a rich New York City businessman of

[Chris Ryan]

some, I'm guessing, real estate, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is in his happy place with his younger brother, played by Matthew Fox Paul, who we've not seen on television quite some time.

[Chris Ryan]

Ker Russell plays Preston.

[Andy Greenwald]

They're fly fishing. They're roughing it in a place without plumbing. And I'm just sorry, there's plumbing. There's just no toilet. As Michelle Pfeiffer mentions repeatedly, they elevate the material. The setting elevates the material. They elevate the material. There's a moment early on when Matthew Fox's Paul says to his brother, you could put your bags in the plane and you could go home, or we could go fish at this incredibly rare fishing spot tomorrow that I've arranged for you.

[Chris Ryan]

That you have to camp to. To get to.

[Andy Greenwald]

And Kurt Russell, 75 years young, playing 65. That's the dream. Is so excited that he does, like, a little eager beaver dance around. And I'm like, fucking movie stars, man. They can make you feel anything.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

I was genuinely delighted by their rapport and their relationship.

[Chris Ryan]

It's fantastic. And it ends tragically when they die in a plane crash 10 minutes later.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, Cliffhanger.

[Chris Ryan]

I really got hosed on this one. I saw. I saw these guys doing press and talking about how great it was, and I really.

[Andy Greenwald]

You got Kingstown.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't get Kingstown. Well, I mean, that was the biggest one, but I was like, boy, this is a really tender, thoughtful scene between these two brothers. It feels like they're arriving at the end of a lifetime spent somewhat alienated by becoming much closer. And I wonder if Preston's like, I'm not gonna come back. You have to come out here to his New York family.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to be really clear with you about something. Television has taught me many things, but chief among them is I will never have a conversation with you about how I want to spend my final years. I will never say to you, when we reach a place that makes us happy like Lincoln Financial Field, I hope I never leave here.

[Chris Ryan]

You don't ever go to football games? What are you talking about?

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just thinking about.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because they never went to that fishing spot.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Also, football's kind of better on TV. My point is, this is the McBainiest fucking McBain that has ever. McBain.

[Chris Ryan]

In retrospect, shame on me. Okay, fool me twice. Taylor Sheridan. But, you know, they have an incredibly, like, thoughtful conversation about, like, what's a life worth, you know, if you spend all of it working to get to old age and then your body is too broken down to really enjoy it, you know? And Matthew Fox's character Paul is like, I enjoy every day. Every day. I make a memory. Now he's also a monk. It seems like he doesn't have a dog or a lover. Not in.

[Andy Greenwald]

That sounded weird, but okay.

[Chris Ryan]

In that order. That's what he says. He's like, get a girlfriend. He's like, no, I just. All I do is fish, work on my house, and then they die.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's true, by the way. Matthew Fox, still a great television leading man. If he ever wants to work again, he should. But 2. What a no brainer.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Fly to fucking Montana.

[Chris Ryan]

Two weeks with Kurt Russell in Montana.

[Andy Greenwald]

Awesome job.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Or however long it took to shoot.

[Andy Greenwald]

Although it does Suggest. The way the pilot's built suggests that there will be flashbacks.

[Chris Ryan]

And I've watched the first three and Kurt Russell appears in basically memory or as kind of the narrator of these journals that he leaves behind for Michelle Pfeiffer to read, not for her to read.

[Andy Greenwald]

He's like James Marsden in paradise.

[Chris Ryan]

The main storyline of this show is about Michelle Pfeiffer's Stacey character. She's a New York City socialite and mother of three, I believe.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think it's just the daughters. I think it's two, two, two daughters.

[Chris Ryan]

But then the extended family is there or whatever. No, there's three daughters, isn't there?

[Andy Greenwald]

No. As far as I can tell, there's two daughters that travel with her. One daughter is divorced, played by Bo Garrett. She has two young daughters of her own.

[Chris Ryan]

And then Ella Chapman is married to Patrick J. Adams, who's come along, the

[Andy Greenwald]

son in law, long time watch nemesis Patrick J. Adams.

[Chris Ryan]

I consider him a close, close member of the alliance.

[Andy Greenwald]

Soundwave, shockwave.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. And then it's just, it's a story about grief kind of. It's like, you know, Michelle Pfeiffer. It's a little bit of city mouse, country mouse stuff going on. Like, oh, like there's a snake over here or something. But like so far I'm kind of shocked by like the lack of an opposing force other than the force of loss.

[Pharmaceutical Advertiser]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Like there's not evil ranchers who want to take over the land or developers who want to put a condo on it, like in Yellowstone. It's kind of just this woman going through a midlife crisis that leads to a midlife reinvention.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to go back to what you said and what you were talking to Sean about. Like this could have been, this should have been a movie and I think would have been a movie in a different era.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Where you could focus, you could tell the story you want to tell and you could tell the reinvention in a way of one woman's journey. You could tell it in two hours without having to then, I mean, without predicting what happens. There are at least, what, 11 more hours of the show that I haven't watched across two seasons. Cause they've already filmed the show.

[Chris Ryan]

The second season has come out. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So there's going to be stuff thrown crossways to generate plot and friction. That's what happens. So Michelle Pfeiffer, luminous, one of our great stars. So exciting to have her back in our lives as a working actor. And there was a good profile of her in The Times where she. And this wasn't a secret, but she was just like, no, I'm trying to

[Chris Ryan]

get a Times reader.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sometimes they do good stuff, whether they're profiling Michelle Pfeiffer or reporting out, you know, Cesar Chavez. They can still get it right.

[Chris Ryan]

I know. It's just.

[Andy Greenwald]

Stay away from the opinions page.

[Chris Ryan]

I just. You are. You are entering that zone where you're just like, oh, saw this incredibly searing takedown in the Times.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whenever, if I ever call you, I'm like, Gottem.

[Chris Ryan]

But what happens when you text me Gottem?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's different.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Also Gottem was Cesar Chavez. No, I know Gottem.

[Chris Ryan]

They really got to the bottom. Michelle Pfeiffer's.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just trying to say. I was just trying to. Look, journalism is a struggling field right now. Okay, sure. And I align with the reporters and

[Chris Ryan]

the hard workers and the female directors. We know you're doing great today.

[Andy Greenwald]

I am signaling everywhere what I'm all about. She was like, I took a lot of time off to raise my family. Like, just pointing out that now she is working more regularly.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's on.

[Chris Ryan]

Margot's got money problems.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's still great. It's good that the show moves the way it moves because anything Montana based was at least beautiful and kind of fun or compelling. Despite the drive by on my alma mater.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm brown.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. I mean, that said, it does track that. Like, I definitely could probably cook the meat, but starting fires and avoiding snakes and wasps nests was not in my. I mean, it's a very open curriculum.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, you don't have to take anything, but I didn't really like it.

[Chris Ryan]

But don't your daughters mostly do camping trips for school?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So, like, you're probably familiar enough with the great outdoors at this point.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. I signed the permission slip. What are you talking about? I don't go anyway. The New York stuff was so putrid.

[Chris Ryan]

I guess I kind of forgot about that.

[Andy Greenwald]

There's a film focusing on the river. There's a filmmaker whose view of contemporary New York City seems mostly informed by Curtis Lewa campaign literature. Like a city in which a young blonde woman walking down the street is viciously assaulted and robbed and everyone else just moves on because that's the way cities just move on.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's not my experience with the city. Thank you, Zoran. I think things have gotten a lot better.

[Chris Ryan]

You don't live there.

[Andy Greenwald]

Here are the things that I'm a part of. Feminist movement, New York City, the loyal cadre of New York Times readers who support journalism even as democracy dies.

[Chris Ryan]

I know. It's just like, you care so much about who's the mayor of New York City. We live in fucking Los Angeles because

[Andy Greenwald]

we live in fucking Los Angeles. It's nice to see a city working itself out, you know?

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Look, you. Can you stand in for Karen? You want to talk about local politics?

[Chris Ryan]

No, I don't. I really don't.

[Andy Greenwald]

Anyway, I don't understand, other than the fact that Taylor enjoys his life as he should, why he's so interested in the. The. The travails of the incredibly, incredibly rich. And maybe that's just who he knows now that he. You know, we don't have a lot

[Chris Ryan]

of working class television, man.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, like, no, but shows about.

[Chris Ryan]

And his shows, too. Honestly, the. The Dutton family is rich. I. I guess the. The ladies and lioness have pretty nice houses.

[Andy Greenwald]

Tommy. Tommy is rich and Monty.

[Chris Ryan]

But it's not real money. It could go away in a second, you know, Landman season three, with oil prices like this.

[Andy Greenwald]

I can't wait, actually, now you just said, now I'm interested. Yeah, now I'm interested. When Taylor's two major interests, warmongering and oil profiteering collide, which side of the Strait of Hormuz will he be on?

[Chris Ryan]

I know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Fascinating to see. I can't wait. He's an incredibly talented writer and generator of material and incredibly unique in his volume and the way that he works. And it's also frustrating because he is long past the point where anybody is suggesting anything or editing anything, so he's constantly at the mercy of his own worst instincts.

[Chris Ryan]

All right, do you want to do a little bit of Top Chef Episode 2?

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

This is now after dark. This season rocks, right? I actually like the talenti quickfire.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did you have a moment where you had. Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. We're back in the studio, and we're back with sponsored products and all that stuff, which is like, everybody's got to pay bills. I get it. But I was just like, historically, I've not loved the talenti challenge in my mind. And I was like, holy shit. You know, like, this is. They're really, like, cooking at a very high level for a quick fire. And I thought that the challenge itself was interesting. And then you have something like the peppers, which could go just sort of, like, comically wrong. And I think it's a testament to the quality of the chefs this year that even though Tom and Kristin were. Gayle sweating to the oldies there, getting through those peppers, like, it seemed like they were really blown away by the food.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, I think that it probably does a disservice to the show to not lead with the fact that the caliber of the cooking is really high, and that must be such a saving grace for all their plans. But I genuinely think that something either changed or they had a different mandate, or they just really buckled down in their editorial meetings about how they wanted to shape the season, because they're not. They just seem completely reactivated. Having a talenti challenge felt like. Like you said, it felt like we're just gonna be sort of sponsored twaddle. But the idea is, like, we're gonna have an ingredient basket that inspired the flavor, so we're gonna be cooking savory dishes. Made it more interesting.

[Chris Ryan]

Even, like, the idea that, like. And, hey, just so you know, we're gonna take a bite at the end of the meal, so it has to, like, interlock taste wise with what you made. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then the pepper thing was just a wildly, like, it's such a risk. And I was watching them. Maybe this is just being older now, but, like, walking into that, watching the judges walk into that dinner being like, are any of them going to be running out screaming of intestinal distress, or is this going to be like, Hot Ones? Is it going to be a gimmick? It was really bold on the part of the show, on the part of the contestants, and on the part of the judges to get through it. And it was very impressive and also riveting in a way that I think early episodes often aren't due to the volume of chefs.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. Because you're just like. I mean, first of all, I found the quality of the cooking to be evidently so high that I'm finding it easier to identify chefs and even some of their. The way that they're going. Rota obviously is a badass, and, like, calmly and coolly, like, commanded her team in the elimination challenge, even though I believe she had immunity. Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

She had immunity, and it never came up again.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought that this was a really interesting challenge because spice tolerance is not something that people can like, really. I mean, you just have what you have. Right. Like, I really like Szechuan spice. I don't really like Carolina. Shit.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. Nor do I like. I mean, it's fine to watch it on Hot Ones, but I mean, like, the competitive extreme, like, let's see how far we can blow out our taste buds thing is not very pleasant for me, and I don't have a lot of interest in it as a fan of either cooking or of reality. Like, I don't need to see people compete that way.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

So the fact that they were able to steer out of that and that they're. And actually make something worth eating was remarkable.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought. And I would imagine if we talk to the producers and maybe we will at the end of the season, again, they must have. It must have been presented to them being like, this is actually a slightly rogue challenge to have because it'll be really good TV if one of them makes Tom ill, you know, but you have to be willing to take that risk. And I don't know whether they were willing to take that risk because it's season 23 and we gotta try something, or if they were willing to take the risk because they already trusted the ability level, like, the core competency of the contestants.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought so. The last. The eliminated chef is Jassy. Right. Who made a vindaloo. Can't remember which pepper he used, but he was the hottest. He was supposed to be the hottest in the progression.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And he is voted off instead of Nana, who had had a pretty tough first episode and then served a couple of pieces of undercooked fish in her judge's presentation. But not every judge had an undercooked piece of fish.

[Andy Greenwald]

So I think it was Malin. Loved her fish.

[Chris Ryan]

Tom and one of, oh, I think Ed were like, my fish is raw. And there seemed to be some debate kind of of like, well, this is two for two now, where Nana did something wrong. The age old question of, is it the cumulative cooking that this person has done or mistakes that they have made versus one bad or one good cook? What did you think of the elimination?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, first of all, it was interesting and the fact that. What's her name? Rhoda. Am I mixing it up? Her dish was so good that it completely made everyone forget about, I think, Lawrence's eggplant dish, which, like, up to that point, they were like, this is the greatest thing we've had on the show. And then it never got mentioned again. I think that they're being. I don't think that they're. It's unfortunate that Nana was the person involved in both of these mini debates, because I think that the Tom thing and the ring mold is one argument. But the decision in this episode was pretty consistent with, I think, the way the show has always been judged, which is that she had some cooking issues, which happen even to the great champions, but that the underlying idea of the dish and the way the dish met the challenge, which was the spice level in the Progression worked. Whereas Jassy took on the hardest one, which was like, let's make the spiciest dish. Failed at that. And then cooked a protein wrong so that it was bad for everybody. As Tom says, with something like that, you need to braise it. You can't roast it because it's just not going to break down that way. It made sense. Also, a weird flex to be like, I don't like spicy food. Despite cultural prejudices about Indian cuisine, I can't handle it. And I'm a two on a scale of whatever that.

[Chris Ryan]

He should have just gone earlier.

[Andy Greenwald]

He should have gone earlier because then he made a dish and everyone was like, this is not spicy. And they're sitting around, like, shaking hot sauce.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. They're throwing ghost peppers into it to try and get it back to upper levels.

[Andy Greenwald]

By the way, Pepper X, I think appears in Brand New Day.

[Chris Ryan]

That's good to know. I'm glad he's finally coming off the page. Yeah. So far, nothing but great things to say about this.

[Andy Greenwald]

How would you have fared in any of this?

[Chris Ryan]

Like I said, I think the spice thing is a real. I think it's like, what can you handle? And what do you like? I really love the tingly Szechuan stuff. I find, like, I'm probably a pretty novice baby when it comes to Mexican spice. Like, Mexican cuisine spice. And certainly, like, I don't really even know what I would do with the ghost pepper reaper stuff.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, when your ears are ringing and you, like, leave your body. I don't.

[Chris Ryan]

Doesn't.

[Andy Greenwald]

That doesn't sound fun for me.

[Chris Ryan]

Now, if you have somebody who's, like, balancing stuff really, really well, like, I do, I'd entertain it. Like, I'd love to have tried Rhoda's and Lawrence's dishes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to see the real edit of the judging. Because then at the end, Tom's like, also, it was 100 degrees in that.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, yeah, they're doing a lot of outdoor summer eating in the Carolinas.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just wanted it. Like, they definitely. All the judges are executive producers of the show, so they definitely were able to say, like, you can't use that one shot of me begging for a glass of milk while weeping. You can't do it.

[Chris Ryan]

They were, like, chugging the yogurt drink that got made.

[Andy Greenwald]

Thank you, sir. That's what Lawrence brought them rice. Right. Like, that was the kindest thing you could do.

[Chris Ryan]

We can wrap up there. Long show. We'll be back on Monday. I don't know what we're gonna do?

[Andy Greenwald]

You don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe you'll see Project Hail Mary. We can talk about that.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'd love to see that movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks to Kai, Kaya and Sarah, we will be back on Monday and you guys have a great weekend. At blinds.com, it's not just about window treatments.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's about you.

[Chris Ryan]

Your style, your space, your whether you DIY or want the pros to handle it all, you'll have the confidence of

[Andy Greenwald]

knowing it's done right.

[Chris Ryan]

From free expert design help to our 100% satisfaction guarantee, everything we do is made to fit your life and your windows. [e-mail], the only thing we treat better than windows is you. Visit blinds.com now for up to 45%

[Andy Greenwald]

off site wide plus a professional measure at no cost.

[Chris Ryan]

Rules and restrictions apply.