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This episode is brought to you by the Focus Features film Hamnet. From director Chloe Zhao and producers Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendez. AFI Hales Hamnet lifts the audience high above humanity. And now the Golden Globe winner for best picture of the year has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best Actress Jessie Buckley and best picture of the Year. Hamnet. Our stories live forever.
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B
Ready?
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A
PG13 maybe inappropriate for children under 13 now playing in theaters everywhere.
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C
Did you know about One In? People with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling. Does this sound like you listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trymphy gusocomab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy. And for adults with active psoriasis, arthritis, serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or if you need a vaccine, imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trimfya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfya, including important safety information.
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D
Pain support staff to clear the room.
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B
Stand up and walk now.
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D
Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor@theringer.com and joining me on the other line, nobody expects the fsb. It's Andy Greenwald, my brother.
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B
Are you. Well, you're far away from me today.
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D
I'm doing okay, man. I just didn't want a wet cough on you. I have a little bit of a cold over the weekend. Weekend. My Valentine's Day just got a little wild. Me and my wife watched Eyes Wide Shut.
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B
Yeah. Which on Saturday night canonically is a Christmas movie, by the way.
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D
So it is a Christmas movie, but it's also about marriage. You know what I mean? It's about. It's about love.
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B
Yeah. It's about honesty. It's about revealing ourselves. It's about masks. It's about cabals. It's very relevant.
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D
We have a great show for you tonight. Today because we had a great TV night last night. A kind of quintessential, you know, throwback HBO night of two huge episodes of a television show industry and Night of the Seven Kingdoms. We'll be talking about both of those shows. You can reach us@thewatchpotify.com you can follow us on Instagram at thewatchpod. You can watch us on YouTube at the Ringer Dash TV. And you can watch us on Spotify, where I hope you're listening to us. Greenwald, how are you doing, man? It's raining in Los Angeles. You seem grumpy.
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B
Oh, I'm not grumpy. We just had a fire alarm here. There's like a lot of people the. Listen, I respect it. Spotify clearly does not recognize President's Day. And really, why would any of us?
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D
I mean, I honestly. We were free to take today off, but I just thought you'd want to get these takes off because of. Of the shows last night.
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B
I found it. Well, we, we'll talk, we'll get into the specifics, but that was a tough. Was a tough viewing block.
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D
Interesting turn taken in Hollywood today was the announcement. It's in Bloomberg. You can read Lucas Shaw's piece about it. He obviously understands this stuff way better than you and I do. But since we are about to wade into the vagaries financial world, we might as well start here with Paramount, Warner Brothers and Netflix. There seems to be another chapter to this story. Netflix and Warner Brothers had agreed essentially to their deal at a something like A$27 per share price. And now it seems like there are elements of the Warner Brothers board asking for negotiations to be reopened because of Paramount's improved bid. They had a $30 per share bid. And we can get into like, backstopping and who wants what and why this is happening. But what's your initial reaction when you hear that news?
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B
It's worrisome. I mean, I, I think that anyone who's been watching this story and who has better financial awareness than we do probably noted with interest that Paramount doesn't really. Isn't really in the business of listening to a. No. That David Ellison is basically having a borderline polite tantrum about this because he thinks that it should be his. And the. Ever since a few months ago, when Warner Brothers accepted the Netflix bid, he has been out there stamping his foot, writing open letters to European regulators, agitating, improving the offer, basically saying, we're offering you more money. We're offering you all cash. And I think that the, the pushback has been consistent from Zaslav and Warner Brothers saying, this is a more sensible deal for us for X, Y and Z reasons. One of the, one of the reasons being our businesses are more complementary to each other, that in terms of the employees of wbd, there are many of those similarly similar employees at Paramount because they also are a legacy studio with, you know, with a footprint in Hollywood and Buildings and a lot. But you know, this is the way that business tends to work, both maybe on industry and in our actual real life. Industry these days is the loudest, angriest voice wins. And it's. I, I don't know. I mean, I'm not, I'm. I, I try not to be in the business of cheerleading for business. I don't know if any of this is good, but I do think that the behavior of Paramount both prior to this deal and during this deal does not necessarily suggest a harmonious marriage and any kind of like consistency and fidelity to what Warner Brothers has been doing right up to this point.
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D
I, I do wonder what my reaction to this whole situation would be if David Ellison had hired like Jon Favreau to run CBS News. Do you know what I mean?
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B
Like, I have to, I got to stop you. Which Jon Favreau.
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D
Not Jon Favreau, the Mandalorian. John Favreau.
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B
Okay.
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D
Yeah, I mean like crooked media. I mean, I mean, I wonder whether or not like there would be so much hand wringing if essentially there wasn't this kind of like Trump appeasing bent to Paramount these days.
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B
Yeah, I mean I think that's, I think the, the conglomerate conglomeration of media into regime friendly apparatuses is terrifying. And sure, you know, it's not like, it's not like there are many companies that haven't bent knees or you know, other ass. Other parts of their bodies over the.
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D
Last buddied up three years.
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B
But there has been the sense that Netflix, you know, is, it's funny, we've talked about this. Netflix has been a villain in this town in a lot of ways over the last few years. But in terms of not being the Ellisons and not.
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D
And they come out as heroes.
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B
They come out as heroes and, and additionally saying that like, you know, we value at least lip service is being paid to. We value what the film half of Warner Brothers has done over the last year and a half. We value what Casey Bloys and his team at HBO has, has done. So I don't know. This is all C suite, way above our heads. But it is a little concerning.
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D
Which one of our Sunday night television shows do you want to start with? Because I think we'll have like quite a bit to say about this.
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B
I think we should start with Night of the Seven Kingdoms. But I do have a lot to say about both. You're right.
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D
So this is an interesting episode, the penultimate episode of the season, you know, and a little bit off book both in terms of the momentum that the show had been building up and also going away from, I think, literally the source material. There are suggestions within the novellas, apparently, according to Mal and Joe, and just my discussions with them that, you know, outline broadly and obviously spoilers going forward. Honestly, for Night of the Same King, Kingdoms and Industry, in case we make any jokes, there are illusions in the text about Rafe, about his life in Flea Bottom, where he came from, how he hooked up with Sir Arlen, etc, But to explicitly draw this connection between Dunk's childhood or Dunk's, you know, young years and how it shaped him and shaped maybe the way he felt about heroism, the way he felt about chivalry, the way he felt about what a knight is supposed to do, I thought it was okay. It was not my favorite part of the series so far, and this is a show that I feel like has made very few missteps. And even within this episode, it's a testament to the kind of cooking oil this thing has that they were able to still make two thirds of an amazing episode while also having a huge flashback second act that goes back to Flea Bottom and goes back to Dunk's origins. Tell me how you felt about the flashback, specifically.
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B
The most important thing for me to say first is, Chris, you can't use cooking oil. That will kill him. You have to use wine. So in terms of your metaphors as well, be very, very careful.
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D
Yeah, my bad.
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B
That's something all the maesters know. Although I have to say, like, just the sort of man on the street medical response did remind me of when I would be hungover in the early 2000s and you would offer some suggestions. It's just like, well, the chainmail seems to have stopped it. We'll just throw some hot Wesson on it and just, you know, we'll probably be okay. I thought this was a fascinating episode of television for what it was and for what it wasn't. Like, when the flashback started, I immediately started to get a feeling that it caused me to text you, which I try not to do in the middle of television shows. But I knew you'd already watched it to ask, do you.
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D
Do you try?
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B
Yeah, I didn't say I succeed. I just. I try. It's just like a policy, you know what I mean? A suggestion, a guideline, which was, is this invented? Because it felt. And, you know, very often one's spider sense about that sort of thing can be wrong. But it did feel so tonally different from what the show had been up to this point. And you Told me that it was. Which did make sense. Everything that was in the flashback was very, very well done and executed. You know, I have long wanted a Flea Bottom that, you know, where the smell and stench of everyone leapt off the screen. And I finally got that. Felt very rewarded for that. For my longtime commitment, you know, to the working classes of King's Landing. I thought that the storytelling made sense. The. I don't know how they found a little Dunk like that. I have to say that the show made a bet on itself in the early going that it was going to be so different from the Game of Thrones that we've come to know to respect and to occasionally be horrified by that. I was a little disappointed in the episode for backsliding into the nihilism of what has come before. It is completely in keeping with George R.R. martin's fictional universe. It is resonant and relevant to Dunk's journey as a hero that he would come from nothing and have a innate sense of unfairness and how the world is built. I get all of that. I have nothing structurally.
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D
It's an objection to the actual story that gets told in Flea Bottom that he is with this girl. It's his first love, and she's killed in front of him. That sets him on this path towards a kind of wandering, you know, like samurai. Or is it that we get. Because my. My objection was like, I just didn't think the show needed it. I think the show has done this remarkable magic trick of economy where it's going for 30 minutes an episode. And I'm learning more and feeling more than I have in years watching Game of Thrones, including, like, the end of this mothership series and all of House of the Dragon and my private viewing of the Naomi Watts Blood Moon episode just in my personal archives. Just kidding. Nobody's seen that.
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B
And.
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D
I just didn't think it needed it. I don't think that I hate the penultimate episode flashback almost as much as I hate the flash forward and the first episode of shows. And I think that it didn't trust us to just be like, this is obviously who this guy is, regardless of how he wound up here. And it's almost more magical and romantic to think about, like, somebody just being innately good rather than being like, I'm innately good, because I saw something really bad when I was a kid.
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B
You said, of course he did. You said it a hundred times better than I could. My first pass was like, I was just sort of bummed that it went back into the More familiar, nihilistic savagery. But I think your point is the stronger one. And I think I agree. I just, I think I was also processing that, which is origin stories are kind of boring. Origin stories are kind of redundant. And I think that's what I meant when I said that the show had made such a good bet on itself early on. Now, if you are going to pad the material, if you want to fill out a full six episodes, this is a fine place for it. And I thought that the aesthetic choices of having him pass out and then have this flashback and then being brought back into the action was expertly done. I didn't find fault with any of that. But yeah, I agree with it. And then there's just kind of a. Does everything in the end come to two guys clobbering each other? I mean, long term listeners of this podcast hope so. But beyond that, like it's.
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D
So you didn't actually even the Baylor fight you were kind of bummed out about?
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B
Well, I want to talk about that more specifically because, like, okay, so like, big picture for this episode. I said this to you when we were talking offline. I think that the direction on the series through five episodes is equal to or greater than any direction of a Game of Thrones series thus far. And I don't say that to like do a drive by.
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D
I don't say that lightly because Sapochnik and all those guys and exactly like.
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B
Mark Mylad Sapochnik, other people whose names I don't have in front of me, like, have did exemplary work in the original Game of Thrones, particularly on these big showcase battles, which is a different kind of filmmaking. That said, the way Ashford feels in the opening moments of this episode, from the mud and the fog and more specifically the colors, the muted color schemes and the extravagant armor of like the Baratheon horns and the gold. I don't even know what they are on the dudes with the mustaches. It's really, really evocative and it's really transporting. And it is fantasy in a way that I think Game of Thrones intentionally leaned away from in its early going, when the whole point was not that this is a fantasy show on hbo, that this is an HBO show in a fantasy world. I loved those details. So again, that setup made me a little disappointed that not that Dunk wasn't the best fighter. I thought that was well done. And I, and I like the disorientation and being inside of the helmet and everything like that, but ultimately he's just. They're Just. They're just pounding on people and he's just getting stuck like this.
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D
I think it's a different. It's not going to be Littlefinger or Tyrion outsmarting people or, you know, some great game of chess that they're playing. It's. It's. It's about. Might I. I've been really thinking about this element of the show that I don't know this. How explicit it is. I think it is relatively explicit in the text, but if you're just watching it episode to episode, it may have passed you by, which is that this is like a kind of backwater tournament. This is not. This is not the final four that they're in. Like, the Targaryens are kind of pressed to be there. They're not really happy about being at Ashford. Two of the Targaryen kids have gone awol. You can see Makar, in the beginning of the series is just kind of like, this is. Aryan is obviously a sadist, so he's looking for any opportunity to torture people and. And be a bastard, or not literally, but, you know, to be just a son of a. And there was something about, like, the mud and the muck that they were fighting in that really felt Second City or, you know, like, away game, you know, and I really liked that. And, you know, I. They've been building up to some sort of tournament battle the entire time. So I. I don't really know what other culmination this could come to other than, like, these guys are. These guys are fighting.
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B
I do love the fact that it's essentially like you. You. You have a few extra hours in the city and you go by The Rucker and LeBron calls out KD, and they're finally going to settle it there. And cameras haven't been invented yet. One of the other things the show has done so well is punched above its weight in terms of budget and production. Like when Casey gave the most recent interview that he gave about the state of HBO to Nelly at Deadline. Casey bloys. He always does. He consistently talks about Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as a creative success for them. But I think he is motivated and has good reason to be proud of the fact that they also, quote, unquote, made it at a cost to prove that not everything in their most value, valuable IP needs to cost hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Not that they cheaped out on it, but it's a different structure. The opening of the battle brought that home. I was like, this is just incredibly beautiful. I mentioned the good Direction. I should have said Owen Harris directed this episode. He directed the first two as well. And Sarah Adina Smith did the other episodes, and I thought they were exceptional.
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D
Block.
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B
Yeah, no, no step off at all. She's also done the finale that's coming up this week. When we got to the battle, of course it should be from Dunk's perspective, but did you feel cheated at all a. That we never saw our favorite Horny Baratheon do his thing? And not only that, like when they mention at the end, yes, two people died. I swear to you, I. I know this is my job to do this podcast with you. I don't know who they meant. I have no idea who actually died in the battle. Maybe there's a point to that. Or maybe it only matters if you are like, deep, deep book diver.
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D
Yeah. What is it like, Harding and Beesbury died. I think that's how casual you are with that.
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B
Yeah. Harding and Beesbury.
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D
I'm a big rule follower when it comes to pov. Like, I. It's. This is one of the things that really drives me crazy. And I think it's just a product of having watched too much television over the last 10 years. But I start to give myself, like, different neuroses. And one of them is if this is a show that's a story that's largely being told from whether it's Marty on Ozark or whatever's. Whoever's pov, there are certain things that they would be privy to. There are certain things that they would not be privy to. And one of the things that drives me crazy, especially say, in mystery shows, is when for the purposes of like, expediency or economy, they start telling you things that characters wouldn't know, you know? And I sure would love to have seen three more minutes of this fight with people saying, it's Lionel Baratheon in his horns and he's come and struck me with a mace.
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B
Wait, wait, I'm sorry, I have to stop you. You don't like breaks in pov, but in terms of like, narration and fourth wall, that's.
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D
That's what you're really saying, right? Is that like, I got a 15 minute fight? Yeah, it. It appears about midway through, he's like, oh, yeah, he's really fighting Aryan. If you re. Watch it, you can hear make our say my son. My son.
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B
And.
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D
And that Baylor and Lionel hold him back. It's at the very end when Makar is like breaking free from that hold that he hits his brother in the back of the head.
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B
With a mace.
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D
You know, a mace or whatever. And it's tragic. It's tragic that it happened at all. I mean, like, it's tragic that it's. It's. It's also. One of my favorite things I was saying to Joe and Mal about Game of Thrones is that there are elements of it that are prophesied. They're prophesied, whether it's, you know, the. You know, the prince who was promised and this idea that somebody is going to come back and save everything. And then. Then 95% of the show, though, or 95% of the story is this guy had the fortune or misfortune of standing here when this happened.
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B
Yep.
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D
And. And there's a lot of luck that plays into it. And I think that this story is a great combination of both, where you have fortune tellers and dreamers talking about where things are going to go. But ultimately this is a guy who happened to walk into a puppeting tent the wrong time and got mad because a prince was torturing a woman.
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B
And the entire scope of fictional history was changed by that action. It was changed by egg shaving his head and running away. Like everything, it adds to the majesty and grandeur of the show that everything is a butterfly flapping its wings. And it gives something that might otherwise just be. Yeah, like a fairy tale novella. That feeling of importance and stakes. And, you know, to the show's credit, to the universe's credit, to George R.R. martin's credit, like, one of the most compelling things about the series is the way that it rejects, not just rejects, the idea in most fantasy or sci fi entertainment that there is a prince who is promised that there is some sort of fate controlling things. Even though it may seem bleak or dire at different moments, but it does so in a way that is in tune with our own reality, you know? Yeah. And I know you're going to laugh. And I'm intentionally. I'm not intentionally bringing up my recent reading of the novel Effingers, I promise. The reason I bring it up only is because in what that book taught me about, like, German history that I didn't know, for example, you probably knew you're more of a history buff than I did, than I am, but like the Kaiser's son who was married to Victoria's daughter and was going to, like, liberalize Germany and give everyone rights, and then he gets cancer and gets to rule the country for 90 days.
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D
Yeah, he gets cancer.
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A
Okay, there we go.
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B
Yeah. It was before the FSB and Tender got involved, but Cozy Bear got involved. But the larger point being that history doesn't move always the way it's supposed to. And there are a lot of these what ifs, and it always does seem to be the relatively decent would be leader who gets a mace to the back of that.
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D
Yeah, it's like. It's like, we'll go back and we'll look at 50 years or something and be like, well, clearly, like, the trends were moving in this direction. And I'm like, yeah, but the trends were moving in that direction because somebody got in a car accident, you know, like it did there. There's. There's this incredible alchemy that happens when luck and happenstance hit fate, and Martin's a master of that. I was curious whether or not when Baylor walks back into the tent and they're counting up. Counting up casualties, and Baylor, you know, he looks okay at the beginning, and, you know, the NFL did not have an independent neurologist. That's right hand. Do you think we still have a Bailor? If they leave the helmet on? Like, what do you think? What did you think of the medical procedures? So do you think, like, he could just be Bailor, the guy who has.
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B
To wear a helmet all the time? So it's kind of like Tony Stark's little core thing. Like, if you move it one degree, there's no more Hand of the King.
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D
Exactly. Oh, my God. That's my favorite character in a long time. And Baylor is incredible.
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B
He's too good for this world when he comes out and he's just like, you are a good man, son. Like, okay, all right. I've seen this episode of McBain. Yeah. I think you make a good point about the medical support staff. There is no blue tent. There is. There isn't any Toradol that we know of. He does instruct them to take his helmet off. And it's. It is the kind of thing that you don't.
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D
He does.
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B
You know, the NFL is. Is. Has a lot of issues. But. But when Brian Dabel tries to go into the blue tent to say, jackson Dart doesn't really have a concussion, there are protocols that stop him from doing that. Whereas if Brian Dabel was, for example, heir to the throne, he could probably tell the Dodgers to fucking put that kid back in the game immediately so he can run him directly into the defensive line six more times. You know what I mean? Yeah. So. So it is a little bit different. It's a beautifully executed show. Um, and it proved that it could operate in different registers. With this episode, I Think there's just a part of me and maybe it's just like a stubborn part of me. But, like, I kind of wish it didn't. I didn't. It didn't need to. It just. I don't know if it needed to do that. But maybe, I mean, I. I don't know.
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D
The other alternative being like a 25 minute fight.
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B
I.
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D
Especially if they had told it from entirely Dunk's perspective and we wouldn't have really understood who was doing what at what given moment. I mean, I understand the problem. Practical reasons for breaking away from that, that would have been.
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B
Yes, I agree with that.
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D
Draining, you know, and it doesn't have the same dramatic arc. It doesn't have the same kind of like. And then this is going to happen, and then this is going to happen the way Hardhome does, you know, where, like when you're like, first they've gotten to this point and then the dead rise and then they chase them and then they get to the water, it's like these guys are all standing in field wailing on each other until people drop. So it's, it's a. It's a little to. It's visually less dynamic than some of the other big set pieces we've seen in Thrones history.
- [25:13]
B
Do you have any notes for Rafe? I feel like. I feel like she fucked around and found out. You know what I mean? Like, keep stealing.
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D
I thought that the most interesting thing about the Raven Dunk part was Dunk being like, what if there's nothing better than this? Why are we leaving? This is all I've ever known. And that was probably the most telling, the most interesting element of. When you think about everything he has done since then, and especially the choice he makes after Arlen dies and he's just like, I'm gonna decide to become something that I wasn't. It's the first time he's done that. So I thought that was just. There's just really good writing throughout this season. I just think that the flashback did take me out of it a little bit. I think if you watch it and you especially if you watch it in totality, if you were to say, like, I'm gonna put aside three, four hours and watch this entire series, I still think that that flashback would jump out as like, I. I knew everything about this guy. I knew everything I needed to know about this guy.
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B
When you said, put it that way about. I think that's, that's a good thing to latch onto, though, that that sort of the risk averse nature of him up to a certain point. It did remind me of the good old days of driving a 95 with you, where like every so often I might get a little like, what if we took this exit? And you'd be like, this is fine. There's a Cinnabon 65 miles from here. Let's just stay the course. You know you want someone like that by your side.
- [26:35]
D
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- [27:03]
E
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- [28:57]
D
While supplies last Where I want to Talk About Industry this is episode six, Dear Henry, directed by Luke Snellen and written by Mickey down and Conrad K. I wrote out a list of the industry's book of revelations from this episode. So I thought maybe we could go through these revelations one by one as a way of talking about the episode. Did you have any throat clearing? I want to make my opening statement to the jury about this particular episode. Or do you want to do it sectionally with me?
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B
I think we can do it sectionally. I think that I would preface this because this will come out clearly when we talk about some of the specifics that I found this to be the most challenging episode maybe of the series and it has inspired a lot of consideration and thinking about what aspects of this episode in particular in relation to the challenges of this fourth season and then the overall successes of the series. What might be contributing to that reaction. But it might be better to go granularly and then go widescreen.
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D
Okay, so I'm just basically going through my the book of revelations, my revelations while watching this episode and also the revelations internally with is one of the.
- [30:11]
B
I don't want to spoil it. Is one of them that you can be homo at school? Was that a revelation or was that just like you've been to England? Been to England. You know what I mean?
- [30:20]
D
Honestly, I've read enough spy fiction to know that that is. Yeah, that's a truism. Number one, Whitney and Ferdinand are in bed with the fsp. Perhaps somewhat unwittingly on Whitney's part though he is packing a Lithuanian passport and as I this did not occur to me while watching but when he's singing Whitney Houston to Harper. At one point in the episode several people noted like that could be where he chose the name Whitney if he is in fact a long term sleeper agent on the part of the FSB to infiltrate the western financial markets.
- [30:59]
B
A long term fan of past Gone Too Soon R and B queens.
- [31:05]
D
Yes, yes. It could be that he was just happened to be singing Whitney Houston but is really more into the health advice from stand up comedian Whitney Cummings.
- [31:14]
B
Oh that's really.
- [31:16]
D
And that's what that's where why you chose the name. This is a huge twist, revelation, added element. It it explodes the genre of the show to introduce the idea that this is actually an international criminal syndicate and international and and a nation States Intelligence Service working behind the scenes to do whatever they're doing. And we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about what Tender is up to and the idea that essentially that they're mining for data and that they're looking for opportunities to blackmail, leverage and expose the client base. And I thought this was such a huge gambit. It's like a real, like, are you either fucking with us or you're against us right now on part of the show? Because, man, they could have just done six, seven seasons of these crazy kids doing E and making trades and I think I'd be fine with that. But this is, this is a huge, a huge swing.
- [32:27]
B
I think that as challenging as that particular pivot within the episode may have been, granularly on a story level, I do love the show's. And by when I say the show, we're talking about Mickey and Conrad's creative and artistic willingness to engage in as big of a picture as possible. Because if the show up to this point is so deeply concerned with the essential nihilism of which is like the fourth time I've used that word in this podcast already, but it's 2026 of late period capitalism. Push it further. Yeah, Meaning it is interesting and gross when enormous profits are being made due to lack of oversight or due to an over indexing of narrative over substance or any of the other things that you could accuse Tender of or many other companies that still exist in our real world. But the next question behind that, and it's the same sort of question that one could bring and that some people in Congress are bringing to the Epstein stuff, is it's not just who profits literally in terms of money, but who is also profiting from the overall structural lack of oversight, who can fill that gap, who can take advantage of that. And very often the answers are extremely bad actors. And I don't mean bad actors in the cast of industry. I mean the Russian Secret Service or a cabal of sex criminals. In the case of what's going on in America right now, there's someone profiting behind the people who are more likely to take the fall for profiting. And I think the expansion of the aperture in that way is. You're right, it's a bold gambit in the show, but maybe this is also where a lot of our conversation about the episode is going to fall, which is I completely see this vision and I'm excited about the expansion of the terrain when we start talking about how it unfolds within episode six of Season four. Then I had more issues with it and how it is delivered. But I think it's an exciting place for the show to go and in many ways not an inevitable place, but a consistent place for it to end up, considering where it started and the trajectory it's been traveling on.
- [34:44]
D
I thought that that scene where Ferdinand comes out to Whitney and he's having a cigarette and is talking about how easily it is to. To rationalize becoming part of the Russian intelligence services because it cleared the path for him to become CFO of the Austrian bank that he had been working at. That, that that tender acquired was a wonderful, wonderful scene. And it's like just explicit enough, I think that I'll hear people out if they're like, I need to know explicitly, like, is Whitney a Lithuanian citizen who moved to America with these orders or you know, how much of his character is fashioned out of thin air you can get. We'll talk about the, the night out that he has with Henry and the morning after revelations for discussions that those guys have. But you know, they ride the, the third rail of like, how much do we need to show? How much do we need to tell for people to feel and to think, you know, like, they don't often will have. They will take. Here's. Any other show would do these four scenes and industry does it in two and those two might be scene one and scene four and you're missing the middle. And you get to the part where it's like exciting at the beginning and terrible at the ending, but you don't understand how you got there. I get that. I get how they do it and I like it a lot, but I can understand why people might bump on it. I think the reason why I like it so much leads me to my second revelation, which is that Whitney has become my favorite character on this show.
- [36:18]
B
What a turn by you.
- [36:20]
D
I don't know what happened, but here's the thing. I, you know, the, the obvious hybrid of. And there's something kind of wonderful about Max Mangella playing a Tom Ripley esque character when his father directed one of the great adaptations of, of Ripley. But I love the fact that this guy is not going full Henry Hill and staring out the windows at helicopters and that he is like, he is associated. Like, I don't, I don't even know what the diagnosis of it would be. But even when everybody confronts him, every time he gets, quote, caught every time you think he's. There is no. His back's not to the wall because there's no wall there. He's like, I'll just turn around and be something else. I'll just turn around and be something else. He never seems stressed. And there's something remarkably gentle and also honest about the way that Mingela is playing this guy. And I just find it absolutely fascinating. Maybe not easily trackable, maybe I couldn't draw your character's arc over the course of the series so far, but he has become. He and Harrington are the two most explosive things in the series this season.
- [37:34]
B
How did you feel about the moment on the PJ when he looks at the emergency exit? Briefly.
- [37:39]
D
Loved it. Loved it. But like he said, Henry by. By the. The canal, or he's just like, I'm not interested.
- [37:45]
B
I don't believe in it.
- [37:47]
D
I don't believe.
- [37:47]
B
And then he lies about the history of suicide in his family, just like he's lied about every aspect of his family, so. Right.
- [37:53]
D
But that's the thing, is that you're. If you're just constantly fashioning an identity, you know, I think. I almost think he was looking at it as, like, a sim. Like he was looking at the exit doors, like, more symbolic than he was. Like, what if I open this private jet door and just fall to my death?
- [38:08]
B
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that helps, I think, our enjoyment of the series and particularly our discussion of the series, is the raw fissile material that these guys are playing with is extremely potent. And the idea of fake it till you make it being a life strategy and a winning life strategy, particularly if on some metrics, you have already unshakably made it. And that's the case with, like, someone who's landed gentry like Henry, you know, the episode ends with the implication that Henry is now on the hook for one of, for now, two of the greatest financial catastrophes in recent British history. But his harpsichord room is still waiting for him, you know, like, they're still running tours through it if he falls from this height, because he's not falling that far. I think the. That there's opportunity, though, and I think this is one of the other things that I'm bumping up against. And maybe it'll be resolved in the last two episodes because some of the other storylines have been. Have been. Have fallen aside or been pushed out of the frame, and we'll talk about those specifically Eric. But the twinning of Harper and Whitney as American fabulists is interesting to me and I think clearly interesting to the show. But like, with many things that I've been interested in in this season, the Real estate simply hasn't been there to pursue it. And maybe this is all part of an end game to bring them together. Because that's what I don't mean bring them together romantically or even psychosexually as they've already been. I just mean to bring those storylines into harmony with each other in a different way.
- [39:48]
D
So I'm gonna move up one of my revelations. I had the next one. I was gonna talk to you about Eric's blackmail, but let's. I'm gonna take the last it here because you just sort of mentioned something fascinating. So much like Rishi several weeks ago, where we're like, I guess that's it. I guess that's it for Eric. And then Ken looked it. Ken l did a interview with Vulture the. The night of, like, on Sunday night. It was released fairly soon after the episode came out and was pretty explicit about the fact that he shot quite a bit of material that is not in the show. Now, I cannot wait to talk to Mickey and Conrad about this. I hope that they feel comfortable talking about it because I don't know if Ken was supposed to mention this, but he definitely seemed to allude to several scenes with the escort Dolly, with his daughter, with his ex wife, with Harper. Perhaps an entire kind of arc for his character that was a little bit more discernible. Instead, it feels like a guy who gets taken into the. It's basically like Tommy from Goodfellows to keep the Goodfellas stuff going. And he just is walking into his party and it goes, oh, no. You know, like right as he gets the recognition from his daughter, the love that he craves, the love that he wants. He looks down at his phone and what we are to presume is Whitney is blackmailing him, not only with video of his sexual encounter with this escort, but also proof that she's 14, 15, it's dark. She was born in 2011. So depending on when this is literally set.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah. And this is also speaking of. This is an even bigger McBain scene than poor.
- [41:32]
D
This is my best scene.
- [41:33]
B
Poor bailout.
- [41:33]
D
This is my best day.
- [41:34]
B
This is a direct quote. He's just had the quote, one miraculous run that makes you live again. Harpoon. You just gave me my favorite every day in finance. Well, we should be clear about this. There's no part of this interview where Ken Lung is like a fucking left.
- [41:50]
D
I'm mad that this got cut.
- [41:51]
B
Yes. I'm mad about what left in the cutting room floor. He's very matter of fact about how he considers. And we've talked to him like, he is a very, very thoughtful, intellectual actor who really intends intense about his process and what he needs to get to, where he needs to go. And so he's sort of helpfully explaining to the questioner about, like, his journey within Eric, this season may have been different from the audiences because about his process and his internal thought and decision making, but also because, you know, he's like, well, I did these different things that were steps A, B, C and D to get to what you saw.
- [42:26]
D
Yes.
- [42:27]
B
This is not an indictment. Every show cuts scenes whole cloth. And part of the artistry of making television and film certainly is remaking the show. I mean, you say you make the show three times and the script on stages or on set and in the edit room. And each time you start from scratch almost, and you rebuild it. That's how all great works are made. So it's not a problem that these things were cut, but it is another piece of evidence, I think, to my larger sensibility about this season, which is it's too much story. This is a. There's nothing wrong with the story. It's an exciting story and it's an incredibly ambitious thing. And it has felt appropriate to be watching the season of industry against the backdrop of the Olympics, where they're like, well, this guy is gonna spin six times. And then if he doesn't, you're not like, this guy sucks. You're like, holy shit. Imagine spinning six times. I cannot help but shake the feeling that this is a 12 episode season of television that has been reduced to 8. And I wanna be clear when I say this, I don't mean that they were given 12 episodes. I mean they were given the same eight episodes they've been given every time.
- [43:38]
D
No, I think, if anything, I would. Im. Imagine that they would laugh at the idea that they would want 12 episodes for a season. I think that, yes, they shot stuff and yes, there's a feeling like we missed something there, maybe. But I don't think that it's because, like, they were asked to reduce the episode count or anything like that.
- [43:54]
B
And also part of their superpower, and we've praised them for this before, is get to the good stuff. You know, don't Boris, get to the chorus. But a TV show, like, there's power in that and there's still. Even in this old prestige medium, there's still surprise in that. When this episode begins with Harper going straight to Yasmin to say, here's what I'm doing. You're sitting on a mountain of lies. It's like, oh, you know, she could have bought her dinner first. But no, the show is going right into this. But there are other things that I think that are suffer that have suffered this season because of the frenetic pace and the lack of real estate. For example, early in this episode, we're told that Tender has quickly become the Gen Z choice for banking. And like, I thought they've only been a bank for 10 days, right? That seems very, very abrupt.
- [44:48]
D
That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that.
- [44:49]
B
There's other things that are. You can see in terms of character arcs like, we praised and I will continue to praise Tahae Heaven, the show's fuck it bravery in being like. We have reached logical conclusions for Rishi and for Eric with the conclusion of season three and the wrapping up of peerpoint. But we want to work with these people more. We want our show to have them. So we will just figure it out and we will bring them back and we will try to be honest and be true to what happened to these characters in the past, but there wasn't enough room for it.
- [45:23]
D
I'm push back a little bit on those two characters because I think that there's something really interesting about the fact that they brought back two of the most beloved, beloved people on this show beyond maybe what the actual story structure supported. And they're almost like, this is what you get. This is what you get when you want these, like, guys to come back because you think Eric has badass lines or you think Rishi is a legend or whatever. I'm not saying that they're critiquing the viewer or that there is some sort of, like, meta conversation about, like, why, you know, that that often happened with succession where it's like, just so you know, these are bad people that you're doing cheering for, quote, unquote. I don't think that's what's happening here, but I think that this is a world and a job and a set of consequences that chews people up and spits them out fast. And when you lose a couple of miles per hour off your fastball like Eric did. Eric is a mess this season. He's fucking empty. He's an empty husk of a guy. We find him, he's basically spending his days playing golf. He's left his family. They bring him back. He doesn't seem to have the same fire. He doesn't seem to have the same acumen. He's basically propping this fund up with his own money. But all they can do is get meetings with these like kind of lesser known family desks of investments, you know, whatever. And then every time Eric is kind of needed or counted on, he's also in the corner looking at his phone, watching Sweet Peas OnlyFans video or dialing up a teenage escort, it turns out. And he is being seduced into a world that he really no longer is built for. And you can make the same argument somewhat for what happens to Rishi. And it's like watching these guys who we kind of looked at as like bigger than life in previous seasons get atomized is really fascinating to me. But I don't. I do agree with you. I agree with you about like the, the telling of the story though.
- [47:11]
B
Yeah, I think that, I think that what you just did is incredibly compelling argument for the treat. The fate of and treatment of those characters. And it takes nothing away from, you know, Cigar Radia and Ken Leung delivering arguably two of the best performances on the show this season. I just have the feeling that there was more there and there simply wasn't room for it. And that has continued this throughout. Like, I was trying to think about aspects of the show that have been sacrificed for the complete, you know, the grafting of an entirely new body onto an existing body of a show. There is a version of this season that I'm sure they, they've discussed or explored. We can ask them about this and there are reasons why they chose not to do this. But starting this season with the breakup of Jonah and Whitney, and Whitney taking over and then turning it into a bank, and then we are in real time as he's recruiting our characters into positions of power, all so the house of cards can fall down within an episode and a half. That's a lot of legwork. As opposed to starting the show with Tender, as, you know, too good to be true already. And then we join it and we suddenly have access to its inner workings. There was a choice there to start that from scratch with the season. Yes. One of the things that have been. Some of the things that have been sacrificed along the way in the service of this becoming a show about global finance and fraud and also international espionage and journalism is none of these characters have any home or personal life anymore. Now you could argue that like you did artfully. That's the point. They have sacrificed every bit of themselves to become these full time brain warriors in this arena that, you know, normal.
- [49:08]
D
Yeah, they've recreated Pierpoint inside of a hotel.
- [49:12]
B
It's smaller and smaller rooms and.
- [49:14]
D
But it's like, there's no separation between. Like, I'm going home now. Harper lives in a hotel. Eric lives in a hotel. Like these guys. Like, they are just now, these people who haunt these sort of. In between spaces of fork and home.
- [49:28]
B
There is a. It's incredibly bleak as a human being watching the show, to watch a show. And I don't think the comparison to the succession argument is you weren't making this, but I mean the larger argument that, well, these are bad people. I don't think these are bad people. These are husks of people. They're not good or bad. They don't have. They're not full lives. They don't exist. They don't do anything. Harper doesn't live anywhere. Harper doesn't want anything other than dominance. This is also where you start to feel the lack of a Rob who was too soft for this world. Ultimately, he was a romantic, as was Diker. It's where you start to feel the loss of the old Rishi voice. Remember, Rishi became a prominent character in the show because Mickey and Conrad discovered that with the ADR they could just pump jokes into an otherwise sterile environment. We've lost that voice and we've lost those jokes. It is hollowed out in a way that is quite bleak. And I know you have another revelation, but I just was feeling it so deeply in this episode that that pit, you know, I love that.
- [50:46]
D
I love that because I think it's really real. I think it's. I think that I've been searching for a foothold emotionally on this season. In the past, it's been. It's been evident in the past, it's been Rob's attachment to Yasmin. In the past, it's been Harper's sort of paternal obsession with Jesse Bloom, whatever. It's been like this kind of recognizable thing that you. You've seen in other shows and you've heard in stories. These people all openly being like, I am a construction and the only thing that's keeping me from self immolation is total victory or moments of euphoria or basically like women, sherbet and fluorescence, as Henry puts it, you know, and living in this euphoria, either of success or excess. And I think that that is an uncomfortable place to be for 60 minutes a week sometimes. But as like a. I love it as an idea.
- [51:46]
B
I love it as an idea too. I'm just. I'm struggling with the week to week execution. You're struggling with the week to week execution, particularly because an episode like this, which on the one hand feels like it's designed to be totemic and iconic and have these enormous mythological falls. I mean, there's a line that made me stop in my tracks. Cause I was like, wait. And there are many lines in the show where I'm like, like what? But then it dawned, you know, Then it slowly, like, what is the line about? Look at yourself. You're wavering at the scale of Valhalla. Like, these are elevated, you know, elevated stakes, elevated scale. But in practice, in the naughty busyness of these 59 minutes, I was experiencing it as one scene after another of characters making speeches to each other. And look, we have the tapes, we have the records. I am a huge fan of the way these guys write dialogue, of the way these guys construct seasons of television. I struggled with this episode. And the moment that was the hardest for me in the midst of it was Eric goes on CNN with Whitney. And under the harsh studio lights of what is meant to be the real world, you know, not their shadow world that they exist in, full of, you know, hotel club sandwiches and glory holes. Like, actually the klieg lights are on and they are doing the public story. They quote Sun Tzu at each other and say more. You know, Valhalla. Yeah, Shit. I was hungering for a moment of prose, I guess, to kind of like.
- [53:29]
D
Rather than the drive.
- [53:31]
B
At a certain point, these people continue to talk at each other and I want them to actually talk.
- [53:36]
D
Henry is off the wagon, realizing that life is not worth living if you don't have euphoria. He and Whitney go out to a nightclub, I guess, you know, a London sex club. Where did that? You dance, you stick your dick in some stuff.
- [53:56]
B
Did that differ from your experiences of London nightlife? Because I. I'm reading surprise here and that's not how I remember.
- [54:03]
D
No, it's just kind of. No show really does nightlife like this. No show does like these people getting after it and communicates the feeling of it. And honestly, no. No show really does Morning after this way. And I thought that their. Their canal conversation was a highlight of this episode. But I guess Henry's personal relationship to substances and his relationship to his sexual identity and his marriage and just Henry in general is something I wanted to discuss with you.
- [54:40]
B
He has plenty of middle class friends, which I thought was nice. Just while it's top of mind, the show does remain elite in its confidence in just dropping references to things that prove it's bonafides and confuse 96% of the listeners. Like, elite reference to Top jaw.
- [55:00]
D
I thought that was great.
- [55:01]
B
At the worst possible moment. You know, there wasn't like, there wasn't even time for.
- [55:06]
D
Do you think the top jaw guys were like. They mentioned us on industry, I hear.
- [55:10]
B
Let's see the exact moment when they do. Do you think eating with Todd is like, dodged a bullet there? Like, finally, really, really low key reference to Chiltern burning down, thus there not being anywhere to have fun anymore? Respect that.
- [55:27]
D
Yeah.
- [55:27]
B
The Henry thing, I mean, Kit Harington is phenomenal in the show. And it is interesting to think about all of the characters and all the performances in the light of the Ken Lung interview, because one of the things that I really have admired is that there have been moments in watching this season of the show where I am personally confused as to where and when these characters are in their emotional journey with themselves and with each. And the actors appear completely confident. Now.
- [55:53]
D
They seem to be.
- [55:54]
B
I mean, they're great actors and famously this is a very collaborative set and that Mickey and Conrad are very available to the actors and very close to the actors. So they're there to, you know, make sure they know what's going on. But clearly they. They understand where they are in the story, which is a. Which is a good thing and a helpful thing. As an anchor, do you feel. Does your more liberal attitude towards the speed the run of play here, does that apply to. Just to talk about Henry, to talk about where Henry has gone in this season in a relatively short amount of time and specifically the state of his marriage? Because the whisper down the line skepticism that opened the episode was interesting, but also to me felt a little reductive. That Harper tells Yaz and Yaz says, fuck you. Then Yaz tells Henry and Henry says, fuck you. And then Henry goes to Whitney and.
- [56:51]
D
He'S a little Whitney and Whitney's like, fucking A. Yeah.
- [56:53]
B
Well said. In terms of the Henry emotional storyline, performance, great depth that he contains, fantastic. But in terms of where he is and what he's doing and how angry he is at Yasmin, I think he's.
- [57:04]
D
Angry because he wants to be whoever he wants to be at that given moment, and he doesn't want anybody to tell him not to. And I don't think that. That he and Yaz are capable of being some. On any given Wednesday, we can. We can go out and have a normal night. Like they. They are either, like crying, making up with each other or fighting, but I don't think they're capable of being the couple that I want. I think Yasmin Projects out across decades of, you know, wealth and power in the UK aristocracy. I think she wants that. I think she wants to project forward a new stability that she lost with her father. And Henry is like, I can barely keep myself alive. And if I'm not feeling not only like the main character, but the prince who was promised, like, I literally have to be the guy who's out there saving the world with an apple, then it's not worth doing. Nothing is worth. I just don't even want to get out of bed. All I want to do is crush up pills under my combat boots and snort them off a harpsichord and die.
- [58:16]
B
One of the low key, brilliant things about the way the character is presented is he is always in costume. Not at his costume birthday party, which is telling. And that was his lowest moment, but he is always wearing the corporate swag. He was wearing the Lumi swag. He was wearing the tender swag. When he goes to the rough trade club or whatever that ends up being. He looks like he's always been there. You know, he always. And when he gave his speech, like, at the event in the previous week, he is, you know, the shirt is unbuttoned just so and the sleeves are rolled up. He always looks the part because he himself is, you know, terrifying.
- [58:56]
D
Yeah. I just think that, like, that scene where he's waking up, everything has sort of gone to shit because Harper's done her presentation and Yasmine has been calling him and she finally gets him and is just like, I can't believe you're doing this to me again. Tells you everything you need to know about their relationship.
- [59:12]
B
Where are you with the Harper of it? I think that the Harper card, this has happened before in previous seasons. I think that the Harper, the centrality of Harper to this season will emerge in the last two episodes. Stern Tao is now just Stern again. She's.
- [59:27]
D
And she has done what Eric prophesized. She has become a world killer. You know, she is able to stand up in front of people and just be like, I make it so I've declared that this is, you know, and the markets respond. I saw some people online critiquing the fact that there was no evidence. Evidence that she wasn't really presenting a lot of evidence. She was just like, it's a, you know, house of cards on top of a Ponzi scheme. And that was like, enough for people to be like, oh, okay. But I don't think that that speech that she gave, I think the whole point was that she was supposed to talk about like women in finance. And instead used it as a, A pivot to talking about, like, yeah.
- [60:08]
B
She said, I think, I hope you'll indulge me. Like, instead of talking about whatever, I'm going to show you a woman doing her job.
- [60:13]
D
Yes. Yeah, I don't really, I don't. The jury's still out on Harper Mahalo's performance. I'm not even talking about. I'm talking about the character and what she's doing this season because she is a little bit. I, I think that they have left her emotional or character journey a little bit to the side as they have focused on Henry.
- [60:38]
B
Yeah, there is no. I mean, it's all off screen. And look, we. I'm fully aware of the, the inconsistencies here. We started this podcast by saying, you know what? Dunk is dunk. We don't need to know his traumatic origin story. And then we get to Harper and Harper, a character who I quoted this last week, said, in the season, my trauma was traumatic. And that's enough of that. I admire that. I think it's a strong choice, particularly the way TV has gone the last 10 or 15 years. But you also have to deal with the consequences. And if everything that is emotional happens to the character off screen or you shred a card and you take a phone call, that's asking a lot of the performer and it's asking a lot of your writing to have enough ballast to support her in all of the things that she does. So sometimes I just don't. I'm confounded. There's a difference between someone, a character who surprises everyone by zagging, as Harper has done in the workplace. And then there's been moments this season where I've been actively confused. Like when Eric is delivering his speech on CNN and it cuts to Harper and she's like, wow. She's like, she's basically like, look at God. And I don't understand what he's doing. I don't understand what's notable about that. I didn't fully get the power of what he was doing and why it was landing on her. And we then ended in a place that again supports the nihilistic. These are shells who. I love the analogy you used. Who have lost their fastball. And this is what happens to failed men version of Eric. But it also, we have to say that this has been a four season, intensely intimate relationship that ends with a disappointment and rejection that felt. It didn't feel final, it didn't feel ultimate. It felt of a piece with ways that they have argued and fought before.
- [62:30]
D
You mean the last scene?
- [62:31]
B
I'm not. And I want to be careful because I'm not criticizing the choice. I don't think these characters were ever bound for a hug. You know, I don't think that that was the nature of it. And it also might not be done. You know, we said last season there's no way Rishi's on the show again. There might not be a way that Eric is on the show again. It is smart that they keep us guessing on that score. But I felt. I was disappointed that I didn't feel more in that parting because I wasn't on. I wasn't confident in my read of where everyone was in that moment.
- [63:07]
D
I think that the argument that I would make in favor of how that relationship concludes, even if it's disappointing for people who are. Who find Harper and Eric to be the most fascinating relationship in the show, of. Of which I've often counted myself as one of their number, is that the reason Harper is good at what she does, if you accept that premise, is because she is invulnerable, because she has nothing to be vulnerable over. There is nothing about her family. There is nothing about her love life. There is nothing about her past. I mean, yes, she. In previous seasons, she was trying to cover up her. She didn't have the degree that she said she had. Or maybe she wanted to hide certain aspects of her. Of her history or biography, but I don't think she's like that anymore. And I don't think she cares about anything other than winning. And she doesn't seem. We. We've barely seen her outside of the office. And when we have, she's with people from the office or doing things like having sex with Whitney in a scene that takes on a whole new kind of layer of symbolism from earlier in the season. She only exists to do one thing. She's a shark. And Eric, for as much of acumen as he may have and for the 10 million that he threw in and for all that stuff, he's vulnerable. He is vulnerable.
- [64:29]
B
Yeah. They can't get her. That's a great point.
- [64:30]
D
He has things to lose, and he can see right in front of him everything he stands to lose. If this tape comes out, the kid's never going to speak to him again. You know, and I think that that is how we may want the hug and we may want the catharsis between Eric and Harper, but it's an indication of, like, one's built different.
- [64:54]
B
Yeah, I think that's. You know, the more we talk and I appreciate your level headedness on this. I imagine that if and when I rewatch the season, I will be more enthralled by the possibilities and the expansion of the world.
- [65:11]
D
Well, you notice that everything that I'm saying, I'm like here's this theme or here's this idea or here's this way. I think this may be. I don't disagree that there are clunky lines, that there are times when I'm like this didn't quite connect or make sense. Like it's not a flawless series or season. But I don't think that there's a show on TV that makes me think.
- [65:29]
B
Well 100 I agree and industry does. There's even a, you know, essentially a throwaway scene where they get to also like get a couple shots off at Trump and there's the American guy there and Chloe Perry delivers this withering put down. And when you get a moment like that, I'm like the audacity of the show to be all the things that it's been and also in its own very specific British way takes something from the Wire in the sense of it's all connected and everything in this show. So the phones in peerpoint and the data lines are connected to every other building in London and in the world. And the audacity and imagination and creativity to say our show runs the length of these cables that it is connected. This isn't just about these people trying to get ahead or trying to get off or whatever the first season could be reduced to, I think is commendable and exciting. And so a scene like that, which we almost, we barely have a moment to register as the car zooms past it is really fascinating. And then you dig a little bit deeper into the metadata and you're like, so much of the season's ideas and themes are inspired by the real life wire card fraud that happened in Germany.
- [66:49]
D
The Bentaub piece from New Yorker, huge.
- [66:51]
B
Piece in the New Yorker about it that I remember reading at the time. And it takes on a different relevance after you've watched the show as well. You know, you can read that. And so much of it is about, well, Germany, like Angela Merkel walked this profoundly fraudulent riddled with Russian intelligence company up to President Xi and was like, you should do a deal with them because they're the pride of Germany, primarily because Germany wanted to be in the fintech space and they wanted to dwell and they want the narrative. So to read that article as Mickey and Conrad did and say well, what does England want and what would it be like in England and how does it become an English story? By tying in the aristocracy and tabloid culture and everything else that it did is remarkable and thrilling and works from a top level. So it is in the spirit of two episodes remaining. It is. It does feel a little peevish to be like, these things aren't working for me. But the project is remarkable.
- [67:55]
D
This show can be anything it wants to be, but there are costs to that.
- [67:58]
B
Look at you putting a button on.
- [67:59]
D
Stuff outside of my window. The Noah's Ark is about to happen. Yeah, there's like flash flooding.
- [68:06]
B
We just got flash flood warnings here in the studio. That's after the fire alarm stopped going off. So if this is our.
- [68:10]
D
I'll let you guys figure that out.
- [68:12]
B
This is our last show. What a way to go.
- [68:14]
D
You know, if people have questions about industry, I'd love to hear from our listeners about how they're feeling about this season. Send us your emails thewatchpotify.com thanks to Kai, thanks to Kaya, and hopefully I'm feeling better and I'll be in studio on Thursday.
- [68:27]
B
You're amazing. Shout out dayquil.
- [68:29]
D
That's what it was. It was dayquil. It wasn't that a weird hole in my bathroom that I went to go see you later.
- [68:44]
F
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- [69:06]
D
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