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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 editor@theringer.com 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 us@thewatchpotify.com 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 more@brooksrunning.com 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 more@vw.com 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
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Chris Ryan
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Andy Greenwald
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Chris Ryan
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Andy Greenwald
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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.
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.
“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)
“...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)
“That’s unusual... a real burn the boats kind of statement.” – Chris (30:19)
“Just because you have a passionate fan in something ... it’s hard to reboot things, and especially hard to do both.” – Andy (35:00)
“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)
“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)
“This is the kindest, gentlest, most romantic Taylor Sheridan show to date.” – Chris (72:12)
“I’m kind of shocked by the lack of an opposing force other than the force of loss.” – Chris (79:17)
Chris: “This season rocks, right?” (83:59)
“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)
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.
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.