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- [00:01]
A
I need sports to have to clear the room.
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B
Stand up and walk now.
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A
Hello, and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor@theringer.com and joining me on the other line, the VJ Edgecombe of Prestige British mysteries, it's Andy Greenwald.
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B
That's the nicest thing you've ever said about me. That is such a compliment right now.
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A
What's up, dude? Oh, I. I feel pretty good, man. I'm feeling like, yeah, 90% happy right now.
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B
What percentage of the 90% is due to having a basketball team again?
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A
Well, 82, I think is probably, like, the feeling of having a 40 NBA team is pretty exciting.
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B
Feels pretty good.
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A
I'm fired up about that. I'm fired up about getting to see you in London next week, which I'm really excited about. I hate to tell you this, but I had a great night's sleep last night, so.
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B
I did, too. I do, too. Good. Okay.
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A
Andy's been having some sleeping struggles. You want to know what the 10% problem is? And I hate to use my. My platform here as a bully pulpit, but I have to address a major pharmaceutical corporation. Maybe. I don't even know if it's a pharmaceutical. I suppose it is.
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B
Wait, can I. Can I stop you? I feel like Tylenol's had a bit of a tough time already. Like, I just. Let them. Let them be.
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A
Okay. My preferred nicotine lozenge.
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B
Here we go.
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A
It's coating and, I think, chemical compound. So I need Trump and Xi to figure this out and get me whatever thing is in these things and take away this tic Tac sweet flavor that they've put on it. Bring back my mint and just bring back my. My milligram. Hit that. I need. Can I.
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B
Can I ask you something? Now? You know, you are. I can't speak to this world. This is. You are on your own journey.
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A
Yes.
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B
And I respect it from a healthy, literally distance. But I do wonder if you're going to be ultimately happier when you come over here to the uk because one thing that I do enjoy, and this is me trying to relate to you, is that. Well, no, it's going to be about Doritos.
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A
Oh, okay.
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B
Like, I don't know if we've talked about this. No. The fact that literally everyone here just exhales candy apple smoke from all sorts of USB devices into your face, no matter where you're standing at any time.
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A
Whether you're in watermelon bubble Yum flavor vapes.
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B
It's so crazy. No it's not that, it's that. So here, if you get a bag of like Cool Ranch Doritos, as one might. Yes. They don't taste like Cool Ranch Doritos do at home because due to, I don't know, laws, they can't put in the chemicals that they put into our Doritos. And they kind of zhuzh it up a little bit. But it's. At first it's very weird because it doesn't taste like it's supposed to. In fact, it just tastes about 60% less taste. And it's like vaguely like there's milk or dairy in it. And then you start to realize, like, oh, I. I am Neo in the Matrix. Like, I've just never used my taste buds before. This is pretty nice. So I'm wondering if you come over here and you start popping nicotine candies or whatever they are, you might appreciate a different flavor profile. Do you know what I mean? Like, it might be more natural to.
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A
Me, the 60% that you're talking about, that, that flavor that we Americans bring to the table. That's why we won World War II. You know, it's really true. It's really true.
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B
Do you know, I mean, I've heard it said three different ways by three different people about what they like about Americans.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And sometimes I don't think they mean it, but they're all basically saying the same thing. I've heard it phrased as enthusiasm.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I've heard it phrased as confidence. And I've heard it phrased as self esteem. And maybe that's the cooler ranch that we.
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A
But don't they know that Americans are all dying on the inside and crippled with like, anxiety and emotional distress?
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B
Yeah. I've been proving that to them for the last four weeks.
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A
I'm, I, I feel like when I, when I am on my, like, on the verge of going to England, I always have to like, do a few kind of meditative self sessions and just be like, take it down 10%, man. Because I think it's like I'm always on microphone, but also my natural personality is pretty effusive. And like, you know, do you remember.
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B
The story, like I was in.
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A
You just can't say what's up, man? To anyone in England.
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B
The problem is, I think New Yorkers do better because when we were New Yorkers, we were like many New Yorkers, which is just basically just about our business, like moving between places.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then I've talked about this how like, within eight days of moving to la. I became so soft that when I returned to New York, I went to buy a bottle of water at the bodega, and I was like, how's your day doing, friend? And the guy looked at me like I had just, like, asked to see pictures of his children nude. And I. I realize now that, like, the California part, that's the American part. So. So, like, I. When we were here. Oh, when we were here after we went to that Norway thing a year and a half ago, and we were out in the countryside, and I went. It was a small pub, and, like, was standing by the kitchen to, like, ask for. I don't even know what it was. Silverware or something. And there was a woman next to me, and she was talking to the chef, saying how she really, really wanted to get a pepperoni pizza, you know, but, like. But I was there first, so, you know, what did I. What did I need? Or whatever. Uhhuh. And I said, oh, I'm. I'm sorry. I'm just here to get a big bowl of pepperoni.
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A
Did you really?
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B
Because I thought. I was like, yeah. I was like, sort of. And she sort of looked at me and she went, you know, humor's a bit pushy, isn't it? It's like. I didn't know that. I thought we were all just, like. We're all just having a good time and. No, no. It happened again. I bought an umbrella the other day because. Newsflash, it's fucking raining.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And I finished up my interaction with the woman, you know, paid for it, and I was like, I'm. She said, please, you know, have a good day. And I said, thank you. I'm glad that this is the first time I've ever planned in advance for anything, but she just stared blankly at me.
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A
Do you think if we went into Rough Trade Records or Foyles Books or someplace in London and acted like the.
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B
Real mom and pop shops, but acted.
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A
Like a British person. Right. And first of all, I don't like your, like, slight disparaging of British institutions like Foils and Deshume. Like, when I go to dishoom, I feel like you roll your eyes.
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B
Second of all, I don't roll my eyes. Shroom is a treasure. There are other places, but go on. Yeah. All right.
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A
When you go in and you, like. Do you think if we tried to act more English when we bought something and we were just like. And then walked out, would they be, like, a bit of a prick, isn't he?
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B
I think they're saying that all the Time, regardless of it.
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A
Even if we're like, hey, thank you so much, man.
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B
By the way, this happened on the tube yesterday, the day before pack tube train coming back from work. And there was a couple. Clearly, there were. I think I was on one of the lines that goes to the airport, and I might have been the Lizzie line or whatever. And so there was this couple and they had suitcases and came to the stop and they were stressed and they were like, excuse us, excuse us. So sorry, so sorry. And they're leaving the train car. And the woman of the couple left her suitcase.
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A
Oh, no.
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B
And I said. And I said, sir, sir, you're. And this is how fast I was, dude.
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A
I said, your case.
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B
I didn't say your bag, because that's not what it is. I said, your case. And he looked at me for a second and the look on his face was, why are you bloody talking to me right now?
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A
And then did you say to him, sir, see it, say it, sort it, come on.
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B
I didn't say it. I lived it. He then saw it. He was like, oh, dear God, thank you. Thank you so much. And he carried the bag off. He wasn't actually the guy. I just. He wasn't Stephen Fry. But regardless, he took the bag and then I was just like, this is an incredible thing. Like, I saved their entire trip. Or foiled their terrorist plot.
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A
That's right.
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B
Either way, I won. And I don't know if I did that because I'm a pushy American and history will just have to judge me.
- [08:13]
A
We're gonna find out if you enjoyed this Cross Atlantic banter. Get ready, because we're going to both be in England next week. And also, this is thematically appropriate for today's episode, where we're talking about the finale of Slow Horses season five, as well as the first two episodes of Down Cemetery Road, which is the new show on Apple TV that is adapted from a MC Heron novel.
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B
Not the Heron verse.
- [08:38]
A
The Heron verse and stars Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson. And I was quite charmed by. I can't wait to talk about that. We also have the penultimate episode of this season, and perhaps the only season. I don't know of the Lowdown, but, Andy, first I wanted to just circle back, take the wagon back a few miles and talk a little bit more about Taylor Sheridan.
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B
Yeah, some more details. Some more reporting has emerged since our breathless coverage the other day.
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A
Yes, I have been greatly amused by the reporting about this to come out after Matt's initial. After Matt Bellamy's initial reporting because I think that you can detect a fair amount of, hey, we need to get ahead of this part of this or this part of this, both coming from the Sheridan camp and from the Paramount camp. So you've. Depending on what you're reading, you can almost feel the thumb being pressed down on the nerve center of the piece of, like, hey, make sure you know that he spent a lot of money. Or make sure you know that he didn't like that they took cast Nicole Kidman in this other show, it, etc. Etc. The. My favorite detail by far to come out of all of this is that Sheridan's deal with University is reportedly worth $1 billion.
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B
I mean, he watched Austin Powers recently, I think.
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A
So his agent is Dr. Evil. Like, he was like 1 billion. It is apparently contingent on him making 20 television shows.
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B
Seems doable.
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A
I wanted to know how many Taylor Sheridan shows do you think we could come up with right now?
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B
Oh, my God. I mean, I already said one. I said bowl of pepperoni five minutes ago. That's one down. Got 19 to go.
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A
Come on. I mean, because, like, it's. It's harder than it looks because every time he announces or a rumor comes out about a show that he's doing, I'm like, I can't believe. I can't believe he's doing this. This is amazing. But also, like, I, for some reason wouldn't have had the bravery or the courage or the creative foresight to do this. Did you know that there was a show that he had been working on at Paramount called the Correspondent, which was about a correspondent who is going to be.
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B
Hell, yeah.
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A
Covering the war in Afghanistan?
- [10:49]
B
Okay, that sounds good. What else? What else you got?
- [10:52]
A
I think that you and I would best. Our time would best be served trying to figure out different iterations of his Dutton family by the year, series or series. So Obviously he did 1883, which is, I think a lot of people still consider his best work. He did 1923, which had a kind of morbid, like, sadistic kind of vibe to it in my mind. But we haven't gotten anything else.
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B
But if you told me right now that one of his projects that was like, you know, had a. Had a blinking green light, as they say, was just called 89. And it's Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty sitting on a porch, like, I would believe that. You know what I mean? Like, that is the method, right? It's just like pick an area, as we say in the industry, a story area, and then throw money at famous people to enact it.
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A
I don't know. Like, you have to, like. We have to come up with, like, a Taylor Sheridan series generator as like, an app, kind of. Because you could basically say, like, take this character who has done this very specialized thing and is at like a kind of middle, upper tier of management of wherever they are. So the Zoe Saldani character in Lioness or Billy Bob Thornton in Landman, and then dump like, a ton of family stuff on them, as well as some extraordinary kind of, you know.
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B
Okay, right. So basically, like the comptroller, Right. And it's just like Dallas, Texas, and it's Charlize Theron.
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A
It's gonna be like Brad Lander's show or something. Who's the comptroller of New York City?
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B
Yeah, I would watch that show. I'm trying to help you help Taylor.
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A
Okay.
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B
So he takes middle management job. You're not the May, but you're also not on the city council and you control the book. So you're kind of the land coming from Taylor. Urban land Krasner.
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A
The story of a DA trying to disassemble the carceral system.
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B
Let me be clear. That is not a show that Taylor Sheridan would make. He would make a show about who's the guy that just. Our DA in la. Hawkman.
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A
Yeah, Hawkman.
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B
Right. Like one DA hired, elected to undo what the liberal DA did in the two years of. Right, yeah, yeah.
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A
A cab. All Cops aren't bastards.
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B
All cops are bodacious. This police show set in Hawaii in the 1980s. No, no, it's fine. It's. Yeah, no, yes, yes, yes. It's. Look, I, I, I. It's a smart. Who. If it's a billion dollars, but it's, you know, it's contingent. It is, you know, it's like the, the deal Embiid should have signed, Right? Where it's like you gave $200 million.
- [13:50]
A
We're all feeling good about each other right now.
- [13:52]
B
I'm feeling so good. He's such a cheerleader. I'm just saying that, like, it should have been maybe, like, tied to some achievables. And if, if he can deliver what he has delivered in the past, then, like, the amount of. The amount of money that he has made for Paramount is outrageous. It kind of makes sense. I also think, and we said a little bit about this the other day, that, like, you don't throw these deals to people who are good at making one show. You throw these deals to people who are good at making many shows that are clearly one show. You know, like, we all know if a show is Shonda Rhimes. We know when a show is Ryan Murphy. Like, there are things that are instantly recognizable or a vibe that you can slip on like a glove, and that is Taylor Sheridan. The details that I feel like we didn't hit on, in addition to the potential price tag. One was the sense, and this is, as you said, clearly coming from the Ellison camp, that it seemed like because he doesn't take notes from anyone and because there was a change of regime, that whoever had been in possession of the rubber stamps had perhaps left the company.
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A
Chris McCarthy was one of those people. Yes.
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B
Right. And that the other thing with the Nicole Kidman piece was that maybe the landman. Not the landman, sorry, the lioness. The late renewal was kind of like a here, look, let's fix this for you kind of renewal, which I feel like you should take personally because Linuses don't need your charity. The last and biggest thing that I don't know if we articulated clearly on Monday, though, was offering Taylor Sheridan a billion dollars and remaking the streaming landscape for product that will not arrive for another three, four years is a remarkable show of commitment to the Peacock streaming service overall strategy, buying NBA rights. You're right. Like they, they were pot committed, but that they just doubled the size of the pot. Like it is just an outrageous outlay. But you know, considering that we. We constantly made comments over the last year about like there being inevitable consolidation, that some of these streamers aren't going to continue to exist, this is a pretty radical line in the sand that there will be at least this one.
- [16:04]
A
I do wonder whether or not we'll see anything like even close to what HBO did with True Detective where they had a bake off to see if anybody has a take on what was Nick Pizzolato's series. And if that will happen with any of the Taylor Sheridan universe with saying.
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B
Hey, which is the one you would throw your hat in the ring for.
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A
Well, here's the thing is you basically have this series of. Of Dutton family stories told over the course of generations, year by year or decade by decade. You've got the. The poet laureates of the 1980s in the building already. Let the Duffer brothers make 1989.
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B
Whoa.
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A
The Dutton. You know, what was going on with the Duttons in the John Hughes era?
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B
That's so good. It's really good.
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A
A bunch of people sitting around talking about how good Reagan is.
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B
Yeah, it's just a bunch of people very satisfied.
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A
They're just like this Guy's awesome.
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B
This is awesome. All the hippies are gone.
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A
Yeah, this is. We did it.
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B
That would be.
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A
But it would be kind of funny if they just started letting people be like, okay, what do you think of. What do you. What do you have for. For like, a Yellowstone spin off? I don't know if they're allowed to because Obviously Sheridan and 101 probably had a pretty unique deal. I don't imagine that they can continue. I mean, do you think that that stuff is Paramount's ip?
- [17:33]
B
I think that would be really complicated. I don't necessarily think that's the case now.
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A
Okay.
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B
Like, True Detective was Warner Brothers production for hbo. It's in house. Right. They bought it.
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A
Right.
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B
And they made it. I believe, unless I'm forgetting some detail was anonymous. Maybe anonymous content is involved, but that's the case. But I don't. Yeah, I don't have an answer. There clearly are answers out there that we could find, but I think that his.
- [18:00]
A
Well, David Ellison has the chance to do the funniest possible thing by, like, I don't know, having Rachel Sennett, like, be the next lioness. I don't know.
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B
Or just rebranding the universe as, like, Hillstone. And it's just about, like, a nationwide chain of incredibly consistent good restaurants.
- [18:19]
A
That's right.
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B
With Kevin Costner back.
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A
All right, so we have a couple of shows here to talk about. We can talk about the new one, the finale that we got, or the Lowdown. I'm gonna.
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B
Why don't we do Horses Cemetery Lowdown.
- [18:36]
A
Did you find. Because you. You had sort of raised a few flags. You threw a few flags on the last episode of. Of the penultimate episode of Slow Horses. Did you find this to be a satisfying conclusion?
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B
I thought it was an enjoyable conclusion to an enjoyable season of television that did not necessarily do anything for my investment in the series. It has kept me at arm's length for this entire season. And that didn't really change up until the very last frame of the season, which I thought was both. Was clever and hinted at both a past and a potential future for the show.
- [19:20]
A
So spoilers for the finale of Slow Horses. But you're referring to the shot of Jackson Lamb's burned feet. Correct.
- [19:27]
B
It's just, I mean, first of all, usually, like, you know, you have to. You have to pay more to get celebrity feet like that. And what a relief. What a release. Yeah, that. So it conf. We talked about this the other day, but. Or when it came up, like, the moment, the hinge point for the season for me and honestly, my relationship to the show, not as someone who's gonna bail, but as someone who is just kind of enjoying it as a comedy versus something a little bit deeper than that was the long, gripping monologue that Gary Oldman delivers about an agent captured by the Stasi and the death of his love and his torture at the hands of the opposing forces and Standish eyes and then.
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A
Oh, is that you? And he was like, don't be daft, I made it up. Yeah.
- [20:12]
B
And it was a brilliant performance. It's a brilliant scene, a brilliant speech. And the end of the season confirmed for the audience, not for any of the other people in Slough House, that most likely it was true. That was his life, that is his background. The show needed that, honestly. And it did also need just another glimpse of something that I think did exist a little bit in the first two seasons, which is why he does any of this, why this is important to him, what he feels he is owed, what he sacrificed to get this far and what, you know, through a certain lens, the actual human emotion that he feels for the cast offs that he does think it's important to keep them for whatever reason, or at least safe, whether it's to keep them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sometimes from themselves. So sometimes you got to do that. Like it's just. That just felt like good brand management. Right. Like it can't all be one liners and Jaffa Cakes. So I appreciated that. And, and you know, the way that the finale unfolded with the terror plotline going one way, the, you know, the actual last attack going another, and then the sting of the bee, like that was. Well, it's all so well done that it continues to feel churlish to complain. But it was for me, this season started as a seven and ended as a seven, which is higher than a lot of shows get. Yeah.
- [21:33]
A
And I think coming off of the previous SE season, which was probably for slow horses standards of 5, you know.
- [21:39]
B
To me I think it's fair.
- [21:42]
A
I thought that this was really gripping. I've said before, and I apologize to our listeners who maybe find this to be not consistent with their experience of the show, that I watched this pretty much as a binge on the screeners and my experience with it was much more like a three hour thriller than it was or four or five hour thriller like, than it was a episodic week to week six week television experience. And I think that greatly aided the feeling of propulsiveness and also the consistency of the tone. So I found it to be just a remarkably tight and fun experience. But I think a lot of it did have to do with the way I watched it. I don't want Apple to start putting these up over the weekend and just like let people. It's cool that people get to watch Slow Horses over the course of a month and a half. And I think next season I will effort to do that that way. But I found it very addicting. I do think your point is really well taken though which is that the very things that sometimes are rewarding about a show can become a little bit of a liability. And I think part of why I like Slow Horses over the last couple of seasons or at least the first few seasons was that it didn't get weighed down in its own trump trauma motivations for characters totally. It was about people making mistakes. It was about people who perhaps were losers, you know, or self perceived themselves perceive themselves to be losers. And it was about an institution that for comic relief but also for purpose reasons that we don't quite understand need to keep this way station of spies around, you know. And when you get to the fifth season of that I think you just kind of wonder like why is why Jackson being such a fucking prick all the time, you know, like. Like what's the deal? And when you start to see even little glimmers of oh well, obviously Catherine's boss and River's grandfather and Jackson all had some Germany stuff going on and that's probably why Jackson's so mean to Catherine and was the meanest you could be to her boss and why he has this strange relationship to river because of what River's grandfather may or may not have done to him. In your imagination I think it starts to suggest a deeper experience of this show that I would like for them to lean into.
- [24:16]
B
Yes. I would add one other thing which is to your point about the things that our strengths can start to feel like overly familiar over time. One of the strengths of the show has always been and I imagine will continue to be the unsentimentality about the turnover. That said, I think this is. I think Slough House is a bit stripped to the bone right now. It is lacking internal dynamics that have helped past seasons. So for example, Shirley was a very compelling character to me last season when she was basically paired in a two hander with Marcus. Marcus is taken off the board last year. It's what happens with this show and she didn't have any. She didn't have a dance partner this year and she didn't really make much of an impression because of it. Roddy is an absurdity and a completely comic character who was, I think, probably overly showcased this year and who is he playing off of, other than everyone, in terms of being exactly the same?
- [25:17]
A
Sure.
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B
Similarly, what's her name? Leaving for this season but potentially coming back.
- [25:21]
A
Louisa. Yeah, yeah.
- [25:23]
B
Like the. I don't necessarily buy that she and river are like one true pairing, but at least there was some frisson of something of wanting, of neediness, of connection. And look, the benefit of evolving and fluid cast means that each season of Slow Horses theoretically has the right shape to fit into the plot that McCarron and now will Smith and whoever's taking over from him want to use. But I think I'd like a little bit more. Second point, I want to ask you, because I actually got some pushback on this from my English colleagues, which was that I did find. What's his name? Nick.
- [26:04]
A
Is this like your English colleagues? Like the guy who sold you a Brawley or the English colleagues?
- [26:09]
B
No, my work colleagues. In your community.
- [26:11]
A
Community of writers.
- [26:12]
B
Yeah. Okay. No, what's his name? The comedian from Ted Lasso who plays the mayor.
- [26:17]
A
Nick Muhammad.
- [26:18]
B
Nick Muhammad. I was like, I just. That was a choice to cast a small, pleasant comedian as the mayor of London. And it immediately took me out of any plausibility of those scenes. They were like, have you been. You haven't been in London long enough to understand that this is how our politicians work here on a civic level. Yeah. That said, I think I need to have more of. Like, I need to go a little more native or have it explained to me again. Because I just feel like if a city was roiled by a massive mass casualty gun violence attack, and then there was like a healing moment that the mayor came to. There might be a television camera there or some press or more than two security guards who are very bad at their job.
- [26:59]
A
Right.
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B
You know what I mean? Like, it's just the thing about the season is just like you, you've laid down a marker with Abbotts Field and then you just try to keep pushing that button, even though the rest of the season fights the credulity of that.
- [27:12]
A
For. For what it's worth, the season five usage of the. The terror plot being rooted in English colonialism and the intelligence services kind of cutthroat abandonment of people in Libya. And then I enjoyed the usage of Claude of the Whelan character. I thought like kind of playing on his self belief was a good piece of writing and I really enjoyed. Sorry, I forgot who plays Whelan again. James Salas.
- [27:51]
B
James Salas.
- [27:52]
A
Yeah, I thought he was quite good. This season. This next season of Slow Horses, as Andy informed me after his incredible piece of Googling, is based on not just one, but two McCarron novels. So it's Joe country and Slough House, and it features our boy Kyle Solar, Cyril from Andor.
- [28:13]
B
That's so sick.
- [28:14]
A
Some role to be determined. It looked good. It looks great. I. I still. I have season tickets, man. I'm so happy that this show is seemingly going to last for 10 seasons and 60 episodes of television. And I will be curious to see going forward whether they just reset the clock and say, here's another zany adventure of these people who don't really want to be in Slough House but can't, can't leave. Or if they continue to pull at the threads that were shown in the last frame of season five. Rivers near, like, seemingly like, commitment to leaving, et cetera, et cetera.
- [28:55]
B
One thing that I liked about the trailer, other than the fact that, God damn it, there's a trailer for the next season. We used to make things in this country and now they do it all over here, was the fact that from what I could gather from the trailer, having not read the books, the plot of season six is about action and plot related to Slough House, not Slough House getting incredibly lucky and solving all.
- [29:16]
A
The problems internationally of espionage.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah, that MI5 can't do for itself. You know what I mean? Like, it centers in the language, in the parlance of the day, Slough House, in a way that I think probably will be helpful for the story, because you can't, at least maybe not until season seven. You can't do another story where it's just like the fuck ups figured it out before you did. Again, dummies.
- [29:38]
A
Or they've inserted themselves into an international incident rather than one of their own has been taken or killed or whatever.
- [29:46]
B
Do you know the other thing that I love about these trailers is they show the trailer and I'm like, oh, everyone has a different haircut.
- [29:52]
A
I know.
- [29:53]
B
As if it takes longer than two weeks to change your hair. But there's something about it that makes Shirley's new hair.
- [30:00]
A
I was just like, okay, Shirley.
- [30:02]
B
I have come to equate hair changes with massive delays in production, that they had to just work with what the actor had done in the three years that they last filmed, as opposed to them just walking into wardrobe on day one and then being like, yeah, how about shorter? And then going, right, so it's Very exciting. Very exciting.
- [30:20]
A
Since we're on the topic of MC Heron, let's talk about Down Cemetery Road. The first two episodes of this show went out today, I think today, so we won't get.
- [30:30]
B
Well, we're recording Wednesdays heavily into spoilers.
- [30:33]
A
I think we can just. I think you and I agree. I recommend the show. Now, I was fascinated to see the little sprinklings of Mick Heron specifically. And this is adapted by Moana Banks who worked on. Who's worked on Slow Horses as a writer on the. On the Slow Horses staff, who is.
- [30:53]
B
Also, by the way, a quite well known comedian and the voice of Mummy Pig on Peppa Pig just for the daddingtons out there.
- [31:00]
A
Is she caking up off that, you think?
- [31:04]
B
I want to say yes, but you know, you never know with voice acting gigs. You never know what contract you sign.
- [31:10]
A
Because is Peppa Pig one of those things that has like 53 seasons?
- [31:14]
B
Peppa Pig is extremely enduring. Peppa just had a new sibling. Peppa's still cooking.
- [31:18]
A
Oh man. Way to go, Peps. So Marwa Banks wrote and I believe show ran the show. And Natalie Bailey directed the first two episodes. It's based on the Zoe Bohm series from the slow horses author McCarron. This is a private detective working in Oxford. It's played by Emma Thompson with a spiky silver haircut. This pilot episode or the first episode, and to some extent the second episode really grabbed me because almost six minutes in, you are deep within a conspiracy involving the Ministry of Defense, involving private detectives, involving the Oxford sort of community of hospitals and police departments. A strange explosion happens at night interrupting a dinner party being hosted by a woman named Sarah Trafford, who's played by Ruth Wilson. She's like an art restorer at a local museum and she's married to a finance guy. They're hosting a dinner for his work that is attended by a couple of like kind of hippies that they know from around Oxford. And it's not going very well. And sort of at the peak of the dinner falling apart with arguments about politics and woke cancel culture, there's an explosion that shatters their window and blows the lasagna everywhere. And it's a big moment and they run down to the explosion site.
- [32:38]
B
To be fair, the lasagna was already pretty blown out.
- [32:40]
A
It seemed like it was. It was singed. Yeah. But with that those British produce, you know, it may be it's persevering through that and they run down to this explosion site and there unspools a Mystery where Sarah basically gets it in her head that a girl who's been injured in the explosion is a girl that she had a previous attachment to after seeing her on the road. Yeah, yeah, a child, a little girl named Dinah. It kind of. The more you talk about this show or the more you try to explain the plot, probably the less sense it makes and the more far flung it feels. I just thought that this was expertly done and totally agree. Entertainingly written with just enough of the, I guess, MC Heron also by way of Iannucci, kind of spiky dialogue that elevated it beyond just a pulpy page turner. What did you think of the first couple episodes?
- [33:39]
B
I loved the show. I was totally charmed by it and I loved it for two reasons. One is just the sheer professionalism of it. Like, there are moments in the first 15 minutes of the show is a masterclass on how to make producible screenplays. And 2025, it starts with our main character at her job telling us about her. Telling us about what she notices and what she doesn't, setting the scene. And then she bikes home and we suddenly we realize we're filming this in Oxford, which is incredibly beautiful and at least to my knowledge. I mean, it's probably different over here, but like.
- [34:13]
A
And also some of the sound stages where they shot Criminal Record, I mean, there's like some of the interior.
- [34:18]
B
But when you see Oxford on screen as an American, it's either like a Harry Potter movie or it's a period piece. It's rarely like, oh, this is actually a college town. And that has these incredible structures in it. And she's biking home and she's basically the living embodiment of the TOAST catalog. Deep cut for English people who like clothes. And you know, there's a song, pop song playing and she has this interaction with a child that is clearly significant. And then she has a fraught conversation with her husband. And it is incredibly formulaic and it is incredibly successful. It introducing us to the world, this main character, and then literally blowing it all up. So it is the best case scenario of like, let's get exceptional high level actors, let's get a beautiful location and let's really, really give people a chance to get involved before we start spinning the wheels of a larger mystery. So I really liked all that. But beyond that, what I loved is, and this is why I kind of wanted to talk about this second to Slow Horses is that it almost feels like now I've heard. I've. I have not read these books and I've read some light commentary about him that even suggests that so far this show is more successful than the books, that a few changes have been made. I can't speak to that, but it does feel to me almost like a direct response to. Not necessarily my individual criticism of Slow horses.
- [35:36]
A
But yes, McCarran was like, I don't think so.
- [35:39]
B
No, no, I mean the makers of the show. Because what this show has is the wit and the verve and the professionalism of slow horses. And McCarron is just like a master level plotter. But it does have a really strong heartbeat of emotion and humanity centered in the performances of Ruth Wilson as Sarah and then Emma Thompson as Zoe, who, because of who she is and how we meet her, is Jackson Lamb. Ish.
- [36:07]
A
Ish.
- [36:08]
B
But. But has a very, very. Yeah, but she has a very specific. I don't want to say reason because I've only spent two hours with her, but I understand why she is the way she is in a more active, emotional way that I'm really, really, really, really enjoying. And I just think beyond that, like the plot and the levels of plot are pretty ingenious. It's a really exciting way to tell a smallish town mystery story, but one that has tendrils that go quite literally all the way to the top.
- [36:39]
A
There's sort of two shows happening within this series. There is the Oxford mystery with, with. With Sarah and Zoe. Then there is this sort of the Thick of It esque Ministry of Defense show with Darren Boyd. Who is he? Six foot nine? I don't know. But he's.
- [36:58]
B
For what it's worth, when you Google in the UK, it told me that he is 1.93 meters. And I'm like, you could have just printed this in Magyar. I have no idea what that means. But then I, I googled what is 1.93 meters and he's 6 foot 3. Which suggests that. That Adil Akbar, who's a great actor who plays Hamza, he might in fact be quite small. But either way it is a brilliant pairing between the two of them. That has a lot of power dynamics just in the visual imagery. Yes.
- [37:24]
A
There's just like bar after bar of great dialogue between the two of those guys. The other thing I was going to mention to you, and I saw the Vulture recapper, pointed this out in some way, but I fully agree and it occurred to me the sort of inciting event of the explosion happens. I don't know, six minutes into the show, seven minutes into the show, I was so nervous that it was gonna be like two weeks earlier.
- [37:52]
B
Oh, that was gonna do that? Yes. No, it didn't do it.
- [37:55]
A
At various points over the course of the episode, we were gonna find out that Sarah had. We were gonna get like a full flashback of Sarah's childhood. Because there is a really lovely exchange where somebody is like, why do you care about this girl so much? Is. Is it that she reminds me of. Reminds you of your child and you're like, okay, did she.
- [38:16]
B
Or the child you want to have? Yeah.
- [38:17]
A
Or did you lose a child or can you not have children? Like, what? And she's just like, no. It kind of reminds me of who I was. And I was like, great line. Says a lot about a character without actually saying anything. And we keep it moving. And this show just has a really nice rhythm to it that. And it's not tripping up by being like, well, we better show a black and white flashback of her childhood and her doing a similar activity as this girl so that we know why she's obsessed. She's obsessed now in the book, apparently she's. She gets obsessed with this because she's bored. She doesn't really have a lot going on in her life. She doesn't have this keen eye for detail that I think will come in very helpfully throughout this mystery. But I just really thought, like, it was good for the things it wasn't doing. I appreciated the things it didn't do.
- [39:05]
B
That's a great point.
- [39:06]
A
Yeah.
- [39:07]
B
I will also say I think you were right to frame this conversation as non spoiler, but I do want to shout out the great British actor Adam Godley, who plays Zoe's husband, who is kind of an extremely mild mannered, low stakes, jazz loving private eye.
- [39:27]
A
You may remember him as getting seltzer in his eye in succession on election night.
- [39:32]
B
Yes. Or you may remember, you may have seen him in the Lehman trilogy. Tony nominated. You may have seen him in Breaking Bad.
- [39:38]
A
I think more people probably saw him in succession than Lehman Trilogy.
- [39:41]
B
Well, but then I said Breaking Bad.
- [39:43]
A
Did you see the Lehman trilogy?
- [39:45]
B
No. I wanted to, though. Okay, does that count? Do I get theater? Do I get theater cred for that? I was just saying that, like, he's a celebrated. Such confidence.
- [39:53]
A
I'm like, damn, Andy saw the Lehman trilogy. Yeah. I mean, it's not beyond, brother.
- [39:58]
B
I'm a podcaster. Say things with confidence. That's literally the only job requirement. Be a man in his 40s who's confident about his opinions, the checks rolling. It's great. He. Yeah, he's Breaking Bad. He's Walter White's like business partner initially. And he was also really good on the Great. Anyway, he's always good. And when he shows up, it's just a reminder. Kind of like just a. The deep, deep bench of great actors here in the uk. But also like it's just choosing to fill every corner of the canvas. Shout out Sarah Trafford, art conservationist with color and with specific decision making also, you know, I'm just going to say if there was ever, I don't know if Apple's listening or if McCarron's listening. Like the adventures of a mild mannered, jazz loving, openly Jewish private investigator in Oxford. Like, that's a spin off that I'd watch again. I might have to fit it in between. It's true. Fucking true. Like they, they. There's a menorah on his shelf. I'm just saying.
- [41:06]
A
You fucking cracked me up, man.
- [41:08]
B
I might not, I might not have time with all my viewings of the Lehman trilogy in West End, you know, but, but if, if you were to greenlight that show, I would, I would happily watch it.
- [41:18]
A
Okay, that's. I mean, that's a glowing review of Down Cemetery Road. We'll revisit that. It's really good. Yeah, it's really good. Actually, I'm having a marital argument because my wife saves a lot of shows to watch with her mother and they like her mother in law. Hi Eileen. She sometimes listens I love you. She burns through British mysteries at an absolutely amazing pace. And so whenever I have a British mystery that I'm like, oh, this is really good, we'd enjoy this. To my wife, she's like, great, I'll.
- [41:53]
B
Watch it with mom, don't you think? So the argument is ongoing.
- [41:58]
A
Or I mean it's.
- [41:59]
B
I lost.
- [41:59]
A
I will not be. I have to watch Down Cemetery Run of my own time.
- [42:03]
B
Like it is kind of, you know, again, like one of the nice things. I know people have different opinions about it, but like one of the nice things about, from my perspective as an outsider about the UK is there's just like some institutionalized state run things that are good, like the NHS or whatever. Like, I feel like it seems like MC Heron television shows are providing a similar service for the great British actors of our time as they age out of Star Trek villain roles or whatever the fuck they get offered in movies. Because Emma Thompson, you and I are old enough to remember when Emma Thompson flashed across our cinema screens like a comet in the late 80s, early 90s and people were like, this is the greatest actor alive. Like, that is how she was considered. Yeah.
- [42:45]
A
I was rewatching the Katharine Henry V the other day. Oh, man. I was like, how fantastic. I mean, you know, the fifth. Pretty good.
- [42:54]
B
Pretty good. I remember seeing that at the Ritz. And she. So now she has a part where she can just be like, it. Let's go. I'm going to horse bath myself in.
- [43:03]
A
This private face with this towel. That was really good.
- [43:07]
B
Great shit.
- [43:08]
A
We recommend this. Okay. Do you want to hit low down penultimate episode? The reason why I had said to Andy before we got on was like, well, we could combine this with the finale is that as penultimate episodes go, this was not exactly like the Wire third season one, you know, like, okay, that's fair. I am very interested in Sterling Harjo's execution of the mystery side of this, of the action side of this, because those are elements that, even though Reservation Dogs have played in different genres, that he had even said to us or to me. Like, I. When I interviewed him and Ethan a couple weeks ago, he was like, that was hard. This was much more difficult than, you know, like, I can write people hanging out all day, you know, learning the mystery, learning the. The rhythms of a mystery, learning, like, how when to turn, when to show, when to, you know, give audience privilege versus what you know, what only the characters know. And so you go into this penultimate episode, which is called Tulsa Turnaround. Tulsa Turnaround, which also could have been a pretty cool name for the show. It's written by Walter Mosley, who wrote Devil in a Blue Dress and the Eazy Rollins mysteries, and is one of the great crime writers of our lifetime, me and Andy's. And so I had pretty high expectations. Cause penultimate episodes can be. They can be the knockout punch, and the finales can sometimes be the coda. And I felt like this was almost like the finale one A, you know, it was like that. Next week we'll continue to the extent that there is a cliffhanger in this loadout episode that is obviously going to be picked up immediately from, I would hope, immediately in the finale. This one was a little shaggy for me. It felt like it was pushing a lot of players into an area of physical space so that a lot of the plot lines of the season could get resolved. Now, I still liked it. There are still several scenes in this that I thought were delightful or really compelling, including a fascinating or a fantastically executed opening few minutes of the two speeches being given. Yeah, but what did you make of the penultimate episode?
- [45:22]
B
Here's what I'LL say, inside of me, there are two wolves. And by wolves, I mean openly Jewish and jazz loving. Yes. Or two different flavors of pedantic TV critic recovering. One of them watches something like Down Cemetery Road and admires the precision, the professionalism, the efficacy of doing things by the book. We're gonna. You know, like I was describing the opening moments of that show. The other part of me loves a beautiful mess. And if. And that's the jazz loving part, I guess. And if I like the players and I'm enjoying my time at the club, like you could play anything, and I'm going to enjoy it for what it is. I say that not because there was anything bad about this episode. In fact, there were moments of real beauty, I thought, and real profundity about the nature of America and land and who owns what. And relationship between races, relationship between white people and guilt and culpability and ego. And frankly, one of the most affecting father daughter scenes of recent memory.
- [46:35]
A
Yeah, it's really good.
- [46:36]
B
It's a beautiful scene. And it's really played incredibly by Ethan Hawke and Ryan Kira Armstrong, who plays Francis, where he says he's absent because he wants to be the kind of person worthy of his daughter's admiration. And she just shakes her head and says, I've always admired you, and walks away.
- [46:53]
A
But there's a great little exchange that they have where he's supposed to be at this PTA meeting that he shows up late for and his ex is there with her new fiance, I think, even though she had said that they had broken up and they. They're. They're doing it. And it almost feels like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence for him where he walks in, he realizes that he is actually going to be replaced to some extent and all for the better. And as he's walking out and Francis confronts him, he says, like, I'm not gonna be the guy who takes you to, like, soccer practice or whatever or shows up for every single thing. I'm gonna basically be the kind of person that I'm parenting by showing you what good values are. And I think throughout this episode, you know, it's interesting, Lee espouses very good values. And he talks about, like, I can't see an injustice take place without.
- [47:42]
B
Yeah.
- [47:42]
A
Speaking up.
- [47:44]
B
And he says this to two black men who live in America.
- [47:46]
A
He gets Graham Green's character killed, you know, and.
- [47:49]
B
And he storms into a church waving a handgun. Yeah. The scene with Francis was also perhaps affecting to me as someone who is working 6,000 miles away from his children for multiple weeks to be worthy of either admiration or to be able to pay for summer camp. But regardless of all that, what I'm trying to articulate also about the mess was that I know nothing about production, post production, anything about how the show got made or what the intentions were for this episode. But there are certain things that, as a viewer, if not someone who's worked in the industry, you can point to when something hasn't necessarily. Sometimes things can get better when they don't hit the initial target. But you can tell that something wasn't the initial target by certain benchmarks, one of which is a radically different runtime than the other episodes. And this one was about 10 minutes shorter than other episodes have been this season. One of them is an enormous amount of work clearly done in post, where scenes are laid on top of each other or there's adr. Things are combined in ways that were unlikely to have been combined at the script stage. Now, there are filmmakers who. That's how they make their movies. They find it later. And Sterlin is a filmmaker, but all of a sudden.
- [49:01]
A
So I think a good example of that for our listeners, if they're wondering what you're talking about, would be when Tracy Letts, his Frank character, goes to meet with Graham Greene at Whispering Pines. And Tracy's awesome in this. Like, I really like this idea of a guy who's just like, at once evil, but also in too deep. And everybody's got a boss in this show.
- [49:23]
B
Ye.
- [49:24]
A
He goes up to Graham Greene's door, knocks on it, says, can I come in? I think in the intervening moments and scenes, Ethan Hawke goes to, like, three different locations with Killer Mike and does, like, three different things. And then we pick up the action as if Tracy lets his. Frank's just sat down with Graham Greene's character. And it's that it's like a time. A time thing. And then Ethan Hawke and Keith David arrive almost in the nick of time to that conversation that would.
- [49:54]
B
And also, Keith David googles information about the church that then overlays the website over what he's looking at. And then he goes to a place and there's this very dreamy, like, someone's being tarred and feathered. And so it's complicated and there's a lot of stuff, and it's always interesting to me. Maybe we'll get to talk to Sterlin about it. Like, is this an example of an overstuffed script that ran too long? And so they combine things. Is it something they just found in the edit. Did they not get something that they had to write around? My point is when you're all in on on a show that has something profound to say and has an artistic way of saying it, I let go of the wheel man. Like I just think this is a really, really compelling show. I think it's a really entertaining show and I think that what he's doing is very affecting in ways that continue to surprise me. Like I didn't expect the episode that had the confrontation between native activists and Kyle MacLachlan's kind of well meaning but weirdly, not weirdly, but extremely inappropriate gubernatorial candidate. I didn't expect that episode that had that kind of polemic to be the one that had the father daughter scene that knocked me on my ass. But that's what this show is. So it made me excited for the finale and it also made me incredibly pre sad. If the finale is the finale finale. We don't know. I just really hope it's not.
- [51:18]
A
Yeah. I would love for this show to get to the point where I get tired of its not tired. I get suspicious of its the repetitiveness of the moves. Like we are with slow horses maybe. Or like you like you know, as you've pointed out, I would love to be four seasons into the lowdown and be like that Lee keep stepping in it, you know. But this has been such a gift and like even the moments that probably go by in a blink of eye. An eye or are just choices that they make. Details. The bar that Tracy Letts meets Gene Triple Horn in is so authentically Tulsa. The the like the way and I've only been to Tulsa once but I know that vibe of bar where it's broad daylight outside and you would not know it inside the bar because they have sealed all light from this place so that drinkers can feel like it's nighttime anytime. And it's just like those little things that it does are really, really effective to me. We can wrap it up there, man. I'm excited for the finale next week.
- [52:24]
B
How you feeling about your flight? You have this stuff preloaded on your iPad. Like what's your what's your strategy?
- [52:29]
A
I have a horse tranquilizer preloaded. I will be.
- [52:35]
B
Good for you.
- [52:35]
A
I'm excited. I can't wait to see you. We're going to have some shows next week. We might move the days around a little bit because we've got the lowdown finale that we want to cover. But we've also got a brand new show from Vince Gilligan coming on Apple next week.
- [52:49]
B
Apple.
- [52:49]
A
Just a show a week. Don't mind us.
- [52:52]
B
It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Who knows where they find the money, but they somehow. Exactly.
- [52:57]
A
As I look at my iPhone to see what time it is.
- [53:00]
B
Just like private investigator Zoe Baum, who does a lot of Google.
- [53:03]
A
Did you notice that? Art restorer Sarah Trafford, Big Airpod fan.
- [53:07]
B
Big Airpod fan.
- [53:08]
A
But we have Pluribus coming next Friday, and we have a great interview with Vince Gilligan that we're excited to share with folks about the first couple of episodes of Pluribus. So we got to figure out our days, but we'll be with you next week in some capacity. Andy, great to see you. Can't wait to see you in person.
- [53:26]
B
Sam.