‘The Pitt’ Is Back! Plus, Our Most Anticipated Shows of the Year.

Summary

The Watch – “The Pitt” Is Back! Plus, Our Most Anticipated Shows of the Year (Jan 9, 2026)

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Overview

In this episode of The Watch, hosts Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan reunite in the studio to celebrate the return of HBO Max’s hospital drama “The Pitt,” break down notable news in the TV business (especially a new Emmy award), and share their most anticipated shows of 2026. As always, their conversation spirals through TV, industry developments, pop culture in-jokes, and reflections on the shifting culture around television and streaming.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Audience Interactions, Celebrity Likes, and Podcast Culture

• Chris and Andy muse about the podcast’s “fan inbox,” with Chris maintaining it’s full of thoughtful messages, while Andy admits his favorite new fan interaction is receiving screengrabs of celebrity likes—specifically, Travis Kelce engaging with their content.
• The joy of being “Taylor adjacent” (because of Kelce’s relationship with Taylor Swift) highlights how even podcasters become star-struck by pop proximity.
• Banter about whether Helen Mirren has ever heard a podcast (they conclude she probably hasn’t) pokes fun at podcast reach and audience demographics.
• Playful competitiveness emerges about credit and gatekeeping when their favorite shows get mainstream recognition ("you wasn't with us shooting in the gym" - [25:45]).

2. TV News: The New “Legacy Emmy” ("The Wire Award")

• Andy and Chris break down the announcement of the “legacy Emmy”—a new award to retroactively recognize shows that were overlooked in their time, widely understood as being designed to right the Emmys’ snubbing of The Wire.
  • “Are we trying to correct The Wire? ...That was not necessarily the intent, but it is obviously something that we see as an opportunity.” – Maury McIntyre, president of Television Academy (quoted at [09:05])
• Andy is optimistic, seeing it as long-overdue respect for television history, but Chris is sharply critical:
  • “Take the L with dignity. You didn’t recognize The Wire. You continue to not recognize great television. You’re not correcting a historical record… It needed those nominations when it was on, not now.” ([13:00])
• They debate whether such awards mean much to creators long after the fact, and whether celebrating shows years after their run can ever truly "rectify" past omissions.

3. Kate Winslet’s Mare of Easttown Season 2 Hints & the “Ingallsverse”

• Chris relays news from Deadline: Kate Winslet suggests “Mare of Easttown” Season 2 could shoot in 2027 ([20:00]).
• Andy is skeptical about the timing, given showrunner Brad Ingelsby’s current commitments, but both hosts are excited by the idea of a “Delco crime universe” or “Ingallsverse,” possibly with crossovers to Task and Tires.
• They reflect on how anthology series like Task are designed structurally to accommodate such expansions.

4. The Return of “The Pitt” Season 2

First Impressions & Tonal Reset

• Both hosts express excitement about “The Pitt’s” return and note the unexpected choice to “take the temperature down” after last season’s traumatic mass-casualty finale ([30:21]).
  • “The very thing that I thought was very smart about this episode is the only thing that anyone will have to say where it’s like, ‘huh?’—which is that they took the temperature down... much more calm.” – Chris ([30:52])
• The time-jump (about 10 months) allows the show to reset and avoid retreading last season’s chaos.
• They praise the show’s blend of traditional episodic “bones” with modern prestige pacing and layered characterization.

Returning & New Characters

• Robbie’s heading on sabbatical; Langdon's back, but quieter; Dana’s still trying (and failing) to quit smoking; Santos is eyeing a promotion; Mel is worried about malpractice, and Whitaker is teaching new ER staff ([29:00]).
• New face: Dr. Alhashimi (Sepideh Moafi) arrives with plans to integrate AI and efficiency measures, making waves among the old guard ([36:52]).

Medical Cases & Serialization

• Andy and Chris discuss standout cases—a young girl with bruises, an abandoned baby, and an elderly woman with a “12 weed cookies a day” habit ([29:42]).
• They recognize “The Pitt’s” unique pacing: recurring patient stories develop over several episodes, deepening emotional impact compared to classic episodic procedurals ([44:44]).
  • “Not knowing which case will linger and which one won’t… if you stretch it across four hours, it just hits much harder.” – Chris ([45:08])

“Cliffhanger” Debate & Binge vs. Weekly

• The episode ends with an ambiguous medical note about the abandoned baby, setting a "classy" suspenseful tone for the season rather than a cheap shock ([39:44]–[41:48]).
  • “Do you do a super dramatic cliffhanger… or you see a show like Task that is contoured in a way that doesn’t… drop you off the cliff and you’re hanging—you are perched on the precipice of something. It’s a classier kind of cliffhanger.” – Andy ([41:48])
• Both resist watching ahead with screeners, intent on preserving the weekly viewing ritual.

Tone, Style, and Transition

• The show’s blend of 1990s network drama spirit with current prestige TV sensibility is both nostalgic and refreshing, with Andy calling out the “corny” but fitting opening—Robbie riding helmetless with Gin Blossoms-y rock ([32:00]).
• Subtle character shifts illustrate the show’s commitment to realism and growth after trauma ([46:08]).

Memorable Quotes

• “The strong bones of this show are definitely from a different era...this is not a show made by young guns trying to change things, nor should it be.” – Andy ([32:55])
• “If the baby was a robot, I bet Alhashimi would be like, that's dope.” – Chris ([40:35])

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5. Most Anticipated Shows of 2026 (Hour 1:17+)

Chris and Andy scroll through their personalized lists of 2026’s most hyped new and returning shows, pulling from a raft of industry sources:

New Shows:

• All Sinners Bleed (Netflix): Adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s southern noir starring Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù; showrunner Joe Robert Cole.
• Criminal (Amazon): Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’ comic adaptation; co-showrunner Jordan Harper; “dark, interlinked urban anthologies.”
  • “I think that Ed Brubaker’s love of this form is very different than Frank Miller’s [Sin City]. Brubaker knows a good yarn in a different way.” – Andy ([58:30])
• The Terror: Devil in Silver (AMC): Victor LaValle novel adaptation; cast includes Dan Stevens and Marin Ireland; set in a psych hospital.
• East of Eden (Netflix): Major Zoe Kazan-led Steinbeck adaptation starring Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, and newcomer Joseph Zada.
• Pride & Prejudice (Netflix): Adapted by Dolly Alderton, starring Emma Corrin, Jack Loudon, Olivia Colman.
  • Kaya joins to share her excitement for Alderton’s writing and the slow-burn Darcy dynamic ([65:31]–[66:36])
• Blade Runner 2099 (Amazon): Michelle Yeoh, Hunter Schafer, Tom Burke; “way more first Blade Runner vibes than 2049.” ([69:09])
• Cape Fear (Apple): Javier Bardem as Max Cady, Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, from Nick Antosca.
• Vladimir: Campus drama starring Rachel Weisz, Leo Woodall; adapted from Julia May Jonas’s novel—explained by Kaya ([80:43]).

Returning Series:

• Euphoria S3: “We’re fucking back. Shot in VistaVision. I think Sharon Stone’s in it…” ([75:25])
• House of the Dragon S2
• Beef S2: New cast (Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, Kayli Carter); anthology format ([71:12])
• Lanterns (DCU / Max): Green Lanterns as “space cops” in “True Detective with power rings” mold; creators Chris Mundy, Tom King, Damon Lindelof and cast including Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre ([77:14])
• Scarpetta (Prime): Nicole Kidman as Patricia Cornwell’s iconic pathologist; Liz Sarnoff showrunning ([79:07])

Other Notables:

• Presumed Innocent S2, Task, Tires, more

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6. Classic “Watch” Banter and Pop Culture Deep Dives

• The hosts compare book-to-TV adaptation strategies, e.g., “Netflixification” of classic literature for miniseries, versus “event” series expectations ([61:37]).
• Food tangents: ordering risky dishes at Italian restaurants, toggling between vongole and chicken parm ([66:30]).
• Nostalgic asides about late-night cable, city teachers, and their mothers’ mystery paperback collections ([79:23]).
• Jokes and light jabs about podcast parties, who goes to them, and how celebrities must crave familiarity at events ([72:23]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments (With Timestamps)

• On the “Legacy Emmy” (‘The Wire Award’)

  • Chris: “Take the L with dignity. You didn’t recognize The Wire… You’re not correcting a historical record. You’re just bummed out because… people are constantly rewatching these shows and being like, damn, this is the best thing I ever saw. How come it doesn’t have any Emmys?” ([13:00])
  • Andy: “I think that… for all the things we’re saying about how familiar The Pit is…it is unique because the first season was so thrilling and the experience of watching it was so thrilling. But the charge of the show is we’re just gonna do it again in a different day.” ([46:06])

• On the Return of The Pitt

  • Chris: “The very thing that I thought was very smart about this episode…is that they took the temperature down. Last season ended in such a…viscerally ragged place… to start at a much more calm…place is smart.” ([30:52])
  • Andy: “When the season opened with Dr. Robbie riding a motorcycle helmetless…while sort of an anonymous Gin Blossoms-eat Rock song played, I was like, broadcast. We are so back, baby." ([32:00])
  • Chris: "If the baby was a robot, I bet Alhashimi would be like, that's dope." ([40:35])

• On TV’s Changing Landscape

  • Andy: “It is a testament to how much the medium has changed…Because even the suggestion of an award like this 10 or 20 years ago would have been absurd...work that was made in the past [now] could endure or re-enter the conversation.” ([10:06])

• On Anticipated Shows

  • Chris: “This is the kind of thing that gets me just like fired up to do this podcast is the prospect of talking about this show.” (on All Sinners Bleed, [56:25])
  • Kaya: “I just love Dolly Alderton...this is her first foray into television writing. I'm really intrigued." (on Pride & Prejudice, [65:31])

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• TV News: The “Legacy Emmy” – [06:42]–[18:19]
• Mare of Easttown S2 Rumors & Delco Crime Universe – [19:20]–[24:06]
• The Pitt S2 Recap & Review – [29:00]–[50:50]
• Most Anticipated Shows of 2026 – [52:26]–[80:27]
• Food Tangent / Pride & Prejudice Cast Hyping – [65:31]–[68:22]
• Blade Runner 2099, Cape Fear, Scarpetta, Vladimir, and More – [68:22]–[81:54]

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Tone & Style

The tone remains casual, irreverent, but genuinely invested in storytelling and craft—full of industry references, quick in-jokes, and a sense of old friends sharing their TV obsessions with listeners. Kaya's “producer cameo” adds another layer of insight and humor.

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For Those Who Haven’t Listened

This episode is a tour through The Watch’s signature blend: sharp, sometimes contrarian takes on industry news (the "Wire Award”), enthusiastic breakdowns of returning TV favorites (with “The Pitt” as the centerpiece), and the kinds of TV lists and cultural predictions that make this show a fixture for any serious television and pop culture fan. Mixing informed critique, trivia, and personal tangents, it’s a must-listen for anyone curious about where TV—and TV criticism—are headed in 2026.

Transcript

[Andy Greenwald]

This episode is brought to you by the Focus Features film Hamnet. From director Chloe Zhao and producer Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendez discover the untold story behind Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece. Winner of more audience awards than any film this year, Hamnet is a monumental cinematic experience and now it's nominated for six Golden Globe awards, including best picture of the year. Hamnet Ready PG13 may be inappropriate for children under 13. Now playing only in theaters. This episode is brought to you you by Peloton.

[Chris Ryan]

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[Andy Greenwald]

Stand up and walk now.

[Chris Ryan]

Hello and welcome to the Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an [e-mail] and joining me in the studio, scrubbing in again, it's Andy Greenwald.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do they ever show, like, shouldn't there be one hour of the Pit where they're just lotioning?

[Chris Ryan]

Is all that lotioning?

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, the alcohol, like the cleaning solvent, the stuff they're, they're, they're scouring their hands to stay clean.

[Chris Ryan]

Wouldn't it be that would be at the end of their shift.

[Andy Greenwald]

The end.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe the last, like, you know how like there's this conspiracy theory that there's a secret last episode of Stranger Things.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm very excited about this. Yes. Let's talk about this.

[Chris Ryan]

You do know about this.

[Andy Greenwald]

I do know about this.

[Chris Ryan]

Conformity gate.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to talk about this. And I want to pitch not off the dome, but the secret last episode of many shows.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. We could do that. Conformity gate for everything.

[Andy Greenwald]

So you're saying, and I love this.

[Chris Ryan]

So there should be a secret last episode of the Pit that's just about them doing self care routines at the end of the night.

[Andy Greenwald]

Hour 16 being like, I heard magnesium helps you sleep.

[Chris Ryan]

Those guys have better stuff than magnesium, I assure you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, but then you end up like Dr. Langdon back at work with seemingly no consequences.

[Chris Ryan]

Of course. Andy and I are talking about the return of the Pit on HBO Max. We are also going to talk a little bit about some of our most anticipated shows of 2026. We got a little bit of news at the top. Greenwald, it's great to see you. Uh, the inbox still watch thewatchpotify.com on Instagram is thewatchpod.

[Andy Greenwald]

How's the email box going? Chris Gate keeps it. Just FYI.

[Chris Ryan]

You're welcome to get access to it. That is the inbox is the most pure Andy fandom and it is the most really thoughtful people writing in nice long notes about what we mean to them and their thoughts on what we've said. So while you spend all of your time reading the comments.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, no.

[Chris Ryan]

A fair amount of time.

[Andy Greenwald]

30%.

[Chris Ryan]

If you just had access to the inbox, I think you'd be satiated.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know what my new preferred way of interacting with the fans is? Kaya Screen grabbing. Celebrity likes.

[Chris Ryan]

Speak on it, man. Go ahead.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, it was exciting because potentially soon to be retired Kansas City Chiefs great Travis Kelsey smashed the like button on one of our reels. And I think that what was most exciting is that I think you and I both thought it was a reel in which I just explain Landman. Landman with no, by the way. I just want to commend Kya and Kai for that too. Like, I wondered how you were going to chop that up and I was like, maybe they'll put in some commentary or a couple gags or maybe we made each other laugh. It's just me explaining the plot.

[Chris Ryan]

Yep.

[Andy Greenwald]

Which earned the biggest laugh I heard from you since 2006. It was very funny, so I'll take that. But anyway, yeah, so I, as it turned out, kill it at Kill a Trav was just watching the clip where we're like, Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe he was just like all of us disassociating, you know, it was just like flipping through Sprint.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't blame him. And, and for what it's worth, that screengrab that Kai sent me.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Got the biggest response from my daughter that anything related to my professional life or my personal life or me has ever gotten.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because of the potential, just like Taylor adjacentness of it. Like, maybe she had fallen asleep early and he was just sort of scrolling.

[Chris Ryan]

It's your version of me thinking Helen Mirren has listened to the Rewatchables because of the Proof of Life. Rewatchables and Proof of Life is directed by Taylor Hackford.

[Andy Greenwald]

You don't think she has. I think.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think Helen Mirren has ever listened to a podcast.

[Andy Greenwald]

Not intentionally, but I do think that we have household penetration sometimes. So these people who have maybe don't really engage in like the Bluetooth speakers, you know, and just maybe play the thing like the older listeners.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Just playing in the house, playing in the car. Not an issue for us in the Patrick J. Adams household, who remains an incredibly good sport and probably should come on the podcast sometime.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, he's got the opportunity. You got the new Taylor Sheridan. I got the Madison coming.

[Kaya]

I can imagine a world where Taylor is like, Travis, what are you looking at so intently on your phone? What are you so engaged in? And he says, well, these two really smart guys are breaking down Leo performances.

[Andy Greenwald]

Kai, that was so nice. That is 100% not how Travis Kelce would describe us. Just like off the rip, just like looking at us. That's not how it would go, but thank you.

[Chris Ryan]

For a second, I thought you were talking about Taylor Sheridan and Travis Kelce hanging out because I forgot who Travis Kelce was with or Taylor Hackford.

[Andy Greenwald]

Helen. So you and I shipped Travis and Taylor, but it's Taylor Hackford and director of Ray and Travis Morrison, late of the dismemberment plan.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right. There's never been a more watched statement made. Nice job.

[Andy Greenwald]

We're back.

[Chris Ryan]

Where should we start today? A little bit of news.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. And then I do want to leave time to the Golden Globes for this weekend.

[Chris Ryan]

So just so you clear, you do not believe that there is a secret episode of Stranger Things coming. You're on the record saying, no, there's not.

[Andy Greenwald]

There's 100% not. You can't do that. No, there is three years to make a.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you know, like, the idea that the, like, a group of, I guess, fans, I mean, they're fans psychically, are willing this to happen and are like, piecing together, like, the clues in the final episodes of the show to construct an alternative ending is so are you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are you asking if I find it in any way plausible that large groups of Americans are denying reality and if they dislike something that they see on their screens, they think that they can will into existence an alternate version of those facts?

[Chris Ryan]

That's what I'm asking.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that's possible.

[Chris Ryan]

Andy. There was a little bit of news in the TV biz this week that we wanted to talk about, which was the announcement that there is going to be a new Emmy added to the Emmy Rossum. That's the Emmy buffet when we get to the awards season. And this was an interesting one because, you know, I think I have been critical of the Emmys. I mean, I've also been told that my criticisms hold no water, but that the like or have no sense of logic. But that, that the Emmys somehow miss the zeitgeist of television that they like because of the sort of way that the, they're organized in terms of their calendar where it's like.

[Andy Greenwald]

You've been critical, do you think?

[Chris Ryan]

I think I have been critical of the Emmys, yes. And, you know, this, this new Emmy that they're introducing, the legacy Emmy, I.

[Andy Greenwald]

Believe this was announced this morning.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Which is going to be something of a lifetime achievement award, but for shows.

[Andy Greenwald]

For a show.

[Chris Ryan]

And is essentially like explicitly in the interview that the president of the Television Academy did with the Hollywood Reporter, by.

[Andy Greenwald]

The way, shout out to Hollywood Reporter guy who got the Emmy person on the phone. And the first thing he said was, first off, congratulations on this new award, which is really stretchy.

[Chris Ryan]

What's the name of the president of the Academy?

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't have in front of me it's Maury something, but it's just more like, it's just more like he's congratulating him on creating an award. Right. Which is beautiful. Go on, please.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's Maury McIntyre as the president, Maury Supreme.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think I'm wrong? What? They're both scrappy kids.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think it would be better or worse if Marty supreme was the President of the United States?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think it would be so much. What are you talking about? It would be so much better.

[Chris Ryan]

I think we would be involved in even more bad deals.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think he's a little bit more reactive?

[Chris Ryan]

He also would have been very much centering ping pong during these last several years.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's fine with me.

[Chris Ryan]

Anyway, Mory is introducing this new award and in the interview with Scott Feinberg at the Hollywood Reporter, it's explicitly kind of referred to as the Wire Award, not, quote, the Wire Award, but it's. The idea is that it's going back to correct Emmy wrongs to, to recognize shows that were criminally unrecognized during their time. And Maury McIntyre, quote, says, Are we trying to correct the Wire?

[Andy Greenwald]

He says that unprompted.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Is that what you're asking? That was not necessarily the intent, but it is obviously something that we see as an opportunity. So the idea here is that every year they're going to give out like this award to a show that had a profound impact on television. Now, I would imagine that that means that they will not be additionally, like, you know, throwing hosannas on Modern Family and Mad Men. Right. Like, I don't think that a show that has been recognized already is going to get A lifetime achievement award.

[Andy Greenwald]

So I was very, I'm very interested in this and I'm kind of excited by it because I think that every year, no matter which field you cover, people who work in the various arts industries are always fan casting, wish casting new categories to try to make, whether it's the Oscars, the Grammys, trying to make it a little more relevant, trying to spice it up a little bit. Rarely does it happen in one of the more established awards. Like I think the Golden Globes has like the box office achievement. Right. Or something. But like the good, the most money making award, which feels very.

[Chris Ryan]

There's like a fan. Oh yeah. Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

But so I like that the Emmys were talking to people about this. This guy Mori credits Perlina Igbokwe, who's the chairwoman of Universal Studios and is suggesting it. And I think it is a testament to how much the medium has changed. Because even the suggestion of an award like this 10 or 20 years ago would have been absurd. Primarily because TV was still considered to be an immediate medium or an almost a disposable medium. It did not have a long tail. People maybe had DVD sets or watch reruns, but there wasn't the sense that work that was made in the past could endure or re enter the conversation like say a suits the way that it can now. So I think that's good for the self respect of an industry that it's willing to say we didn't appreciate these shows in their time to the degree we should have, but clearly the influence is such that we want to rectify that. I think that's good. I was surprised that it is not a individual award because for example, David Simon is more than deserving of a lifetime Emmy award.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because the Wire is the best of his many completely ignored television shows. Right. So if you give him an award, you're also maybe giving it to Homicide or the Deuce or Generation Kill or all the things he did that were kind of ignored.

[Chris Ryan]

Show me a hero and we own the city. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

That said, I came around in the, what, 75 minutes since I learned about this, because I do think it's cool that we could celebrate a show after its initial window has passed. But it's a very wide net. And I'm, I don't. Because he says, is this the Wire Award? Yes, but also we could give it to Gunsmoke for really making westerns important on tv, which I'm like, I can't tell if Kai is laughing, coughing or crying. Should we just digress and Talk to Kai about why Westerns are important television. Like, you could make that argument and everyone would be like.

[Chris Ryan]

You could definitely be like, were it not for Columbo, we wouldn't have.

[Andy Greenwald]

We wouldn't have the chance of Poker Face returning with Peter Dinklage at some point in the future. Do you just, top of mind, have any other shows that you think would qualify for this? Because a lot of the things.

[Chris Ryan]

Can I just say what I think of this first?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Yeah, sure.

[Chris Ryan]

I hate it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whoa.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I hate it. Take the L with dignity. You didn't recognize the Wire. You continue to not recognize great television. You're not correcting a historical record. You're just bummed out because now people have become so much more in touch with the last 20 years of television, 25 years of television history because of the streaming services. So people are constantly rewatching these shows and being like, damn, this is the best thing I ever saw. How come it doesn't have any Emmys? So I appreciate the fact that we would maybe get an opportunity, especially as, honestly, like, we've had so many tragic losses from the Wire cast, especially recently, that there would be some sort of recognition of the Wire. I don't know necessarily how that would play without giving it this kind of award and this kind of recognition, but to me, I feel like this is. It's kind of. It's kind of. I feel like it's kind of bullshit.

[Andy Greenwald]

To be clear, the award. He makes it clear in this interview that the award will be given to the same eligible people who would have been eligible had it would not be Idris Elba executive producers and the showrunner producers, as determined by the people who make the show.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. So Idris Elba would not be. He wouldn't. He maybe would come to the awards ceremony. Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

If his plane doesn't get.

[Chris Ryan]

Perhaps he would be there for hijacker Luthor as well. Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think he's gonna be at the Emmys for hijack.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that they might want quite bullish Elba at the show to boost it. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Side note, just, you know, a little bit, like, talking about the talking about it thing. I just continue to watch with real admiration how you managed to correctly choose your targets. Because I'm sitting here singling out working day actors in Texas for their bad haircuts and just putting them on bl. And you're like, the television academy writ large is fraudulent. No, it's a victimless crime. It's impressive.

[Chris Ryan]

I just think that this is, like, you can't have it both ways. Like, you know, what you should be worrying about and thinking about is tweaking the way the Emmys work so that shows like and or do not get, like, completely overlooked. Now, I don't know how to do that. That's not my job. My job is podcasting. But I'm just saying, going back and being like, you know who should have won the Super bowl in 1998? This team. You know, that's bullshit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was that the year that Gary Anderson of the Vikings missed the field goal?

[Chris Ryan]

It probably is. I gotta say, I've been doing like a fair amount of podcasting with Bill and the amount of random football games that get referenced where I'm like, uh huh.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just want to say that I've been listening to you. The only person in this world who I listen to is Sheil Kapadia, who is just doing God's work regularly. And now I just listen to the NFL show every day too. And. And he was like, I'm not sure if it was the 2022 NFC championship game or the 2023 championship game. I believe the Eagles were involved in many, at least one of those games. I have no memory. But 1998, Gary Anderson, maybe there's no way of us checking that now.

[Chris Ryan]

And him were talking about like a Ravens Broncos game that they were referring to as if it would have been like, you were there when the man landed on the moon.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right?

[Chris Ryan]

You know, like, I was like, for sure. That was crazy when Flacco did that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, they were talking about like the time Tim Tebow won a playoff game. And I was like, I'm going to need 45 minutes to remember all of the.

[Chris Ryan]

But then there's like a whole swath of NFL history that I feel like I was kind of partying for, you know, do you know what I mean?

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, Sunday mornings, you just weren't. Well, it was, it was a long Saturday.

[Chris Ryan]

Bit of a blank spot for me. That's fair. That's fair.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, well, I hear you. I think that it, like, with many things, it comes down to execution. Like, I. Are they going to do this as like, is this going to carve out six minutes from an otherwise overstuffed or weirdly nostalgic broadcast to say, 25 years ago this show premiered and it was really important and we're giving them a trophy, or is it going to be like, run like, you know, another award? Is it going to be. Is it going to be part of the broadcast, like a retrospective?

[Chris Ryan]

We are giving. We are everybody Knows this is happening so that the casts show up to stand and applaud that there will be some sort of like Michael B. Jordan comes out and gives it to the Wire. We get Michael B. Jordan comes out again.

[Andy Greenwald]

He plays two parts.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And that would be the deal. I don't think it would be like you're in competition.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm open to your cynicism here, but for some reason, the fact that it is a show award, which is just acknowledging something that is great, which is relatively, to me, non controversial being in the same way, I'm like, this 1950s German novel is great. Like, that seems different to me than how inevitably at some point in the next one to five years, Tom Cruise is going to get an Oscar. That's a lifetime achievement Oscar.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, he just got the governor's. I mean it wasn't the lifetime achievement one, but he got a governor's ball Oscar that was like essentially his career capping speech.

[Andy Greenwald]

Governor's Ball. Like the concert in New York or whatever it was. The Strokes headlined Tom Cruise's receipt of the gov ball award.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right. Mgmt.

[Andy Greenwald]

Childish Gambino. Yeah, I, I, that, that, I mean, I, I think people deserve to be celebrated. But the one where it's just like, I won't give them one.

[Chris Ryan]

Fix the comedy section of your awards show before you worry about like making sure the Wire got its dap. You didn't give it to it. You fucked up.

[Andy Greenwald]

You fucked up.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the clip. You blew it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do it. Wow.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. One other.

[Andy Greenwald]

I like that you had no suggestions for this dog shit award.

[Chris Ryan]

I know. My suggestion is like, feel free to honor television history and do a better job telling that story.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

But don't be like, here we can just like kind of skate on the fact that one of the most groundbreaking, incredible, timeless television shows ever got zero fucking attention from us while it was on and needed it. It needed those nominations when it was on, not now.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, but is this like, would you. I feel like this is the same attitude you would have if the Grammys were like, but like Palace Music 1990 record in retrospect, you know, like, there is no one what will take care of you is the defining indie country.

[Chris Ryan]

No, because, you know, honestly, I bet, I bet ultimately David Simon has long since gotten over this. Yes, he got his Peabody. I think everybody, I think David Simon, if I had to guess, is like, I feel like I'm, I'm a made man. You know, do people respect my.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is. And we can let it go with this, and we'll see how they actually do this in practice. But that's why I think it is good that it is not a David Simon award. It is a the Wire award, because the community of people who made that show, both the empathy, cast and crew.

[Chris Ryan]

And just Baltimore, but they're not going up on stage to get it.

[Andy Greenwald]

They just lost John Harbaugh. Like, let these people get something, you.

[Chris Ryan]

Know, they got people onzo, though.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did they? Yeah. Is Mal happy about that?

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think she's very happy right now.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sorry. I love Mal. I have no comment. I want her to be happy.

[Chris Ryan]

The only other news I had for you is that there's a column on deadline.com by a British journalist named Baz, and his column is called Breaking Baz. And he'll sometimes get tidbits of information from any number of luminaries in the British cultural sort of scene.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is he. Is he legit, or is he like Jackie Harvey and the Onion?

[Chris Ryan]

He just. He's kind of a little bit of, like a throwback. Like, it. It kind of gives me, like, sweet Smell of Success vibes sometimes. Like his column where he's just like, I'm here at the West End debut, and Claire Foyer's radiant, you know, checks out.

[Andy Greenwald]

H is for Hawk. H is for hot. Is that what it says?

[Chris Ryan]

Anyway, he talked to Kate Winslet, and Kate Winslet was like.

[Andy Greenwald]

So he's like, us?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And he was like, what's up with mayor of Easttown? And she was like, I think we're Gonna Shoot Season 2 in 2027. Okay, paraphrasing, but that is basically what she said. This would be the first I'm hearing of it. I mean, we have heard of rumblings of. Did they ever have an idea for season two? How would it work? Brad Inglesby, obviously now working on Task Season 2, which seems to be going full steam ahead. It is, I think. Here's my question. Let's just say this is true, that they are going to do mayor, that they found a spot to do it in 2027. Do you want mayor task crossover? Do you want this to be the larger Delco crime universe?

[Andy Greenwald]

Let me give you two answers. One, I would love for there to be more mayor. I would love for Kate Winslet to play this part again and for there to be a larger Ingalls verse. I don't really have a problem with that at all. I think that sounds awesome. I think that we would have a lot of fun podcasting about it, discussing it, and also wondering what other Philadelphia set shows might be incorporated? Like, is tires also in this world?

[Chris Ryan]

I hope so.

[Andy Greenwald]

See?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Look how I Look how I cater to you.

[Chris Ryan]

Tyre Season two was awesome and it's.

[Andy Greenwald]

In the Ingalls verse potentially. All of that being said, I find this extremely, extremely surprising. And a little bit. You think Kate's fishing more than a little bit Unlikely. I think Kate would like to be doing that.

[Chris Ryan]

She's just casting.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's like, hey, Brian, I think Mare 2 is more likely than the Regime Season 2. And I think that. But just in the reality of these things. Brad Inglesby, friend of the pod, famously works. He works alone. Like Mary's kind of a loner. He is not one of the writers and creators of whom there are many. And this works for people who have multiple projects going. It doesn't seem to me like in multiple rooms. He doesn't use a room. He writes these shows. He is writing Task season two. HBO is invested in Task as an ongoing plank of. Is an important ongoing plank of their larger. I don't know if it's going to be year to year, but every 18 months strategy. So I think it would be very, very surprising if they are investing in Brad and in Task as a show that they. That matters to them. They would foreshorten the or just actively cut off the chance of a Season three in a timely fashion by telling him, now go do this other thing.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

It. I don't think it makes sense. It would be cool.

[Chris Ryan]

It would be cool. Yeah. I look, it was a great show and I'm open to it coming back. I think that it would probably need to be a different kind of series mayor going back through her back pages, quite literally, literally in terms of her yearbook, but in terms of her childhood experiences, her youth and her lifelong friends and the what transpires among them, that story's been told. So whatever the deal is, I think it needs to be something that's a little bit more outward facing for her. And I'd be curious to see where the character is now.

[Andy Greenwald]

Though it's also interesting to think about Task as a response to Mare in its creation because Mare was commissioned, written and filmed and released into a world where big stars coming to TV for event series or miniseries was the norm. Yes, it was released then it was received into a world where, well, why don't we just run this back? Started to become the norm as well.

[Chris Ryan]

You should say that in Nicole Kidman's accent, because that's who did it. She was like, I'll Keep doing it.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's what she sounds like. No fucking Paul Hogan.

[Chris Ryan]

She sounds like in here. Stories matter.

[Andy Greenwald]

She shaved the Byron Bay off that accent. You know what I mean? She did. She's sort of like international class. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Task hot break.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think everyone involved with mayor was hoping to go hot break.

[Chris Ryan]

Feels good in a place like this. Well, that's South African. My bad.

[Andy Greenwald]

Diplomatic immunity in a place like this. It's good, good stuff. I think that there was a moment when mayor was. Was rocking at the Emmys that everyone involved was like, let's keep this going. But the logistics of it were quite challenging. And task was designed to be anthology esque. But I think like the Mark Ruffalo character and his backstory and how he can step forward or step back on a show that is built to welcome in new casts around him. Every year is just a different. It's just a different scaffolding.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, let's be honest. I hope it's not a new cast every year. Cause that would be a high turnover rate for that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I mean, I just mean that like, who's going to be on this year's task force remains tbd. There are clearly players in the wind that could come back or not. But from what I. From what we've learned so far, Mark Ruffalo is returning.

[Chris Ryan]

Is returning.

[Andy Greenwald]

And anything else is up in the air.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I wanted to just take your temperature on something which is one of the favorite shows of our podcast industry is returning this weekend. We're very excited about it and I noted with interest everyone else in the world is also very excited about this, which is really good for the show for all the talented people who work so hard on it, for Mickey down and Conrad K and everybody who bet big on the show just have to say, I don't know how you feel about this, but in reading all of the five stars and hosannas, I do want to.

[Chris Ryan]

I have to say I have only read like headlines.

[Andy Greenwald]

I have not reading. Yeah, no. Mickey and Conrad are screenshotting the five stars as they should. So I'm seeing the response, which is great. I just want to quote disgraced Canadian rapper Aubrey Dre Graham when I say you wasn't with us shooting in the gym.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh. To all the other critics, I'm just saying. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Where were you guys?

[Chris Ryan]

Are you gatekeeping?

[Andy Greenwald]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you columbusing?

[Andy Greenwald]

No. Am I sailing towards something and claimed I discovered it?

[Chris Ryan]

No, no.

[Andy Greenwald]

Who's the Viking who really did discover it? No, no, no one discovered it. People were here first. That was A test. You failed. You failed. You are not recognizing whose land we are sitting on. I don't.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know what your question is. Do I feel weird about the fact that other people like industry now? Like, do I feel a little bit like you guys didn't. You weren't there in season one. Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, it was. It was a weird time. Right. Didn't that show come out during COVID Wasn't. Or like, right around. It was 2020 and, like, 2021. I still. I think I like season one of industry more than Conrad K and Mickey down to.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that's fair.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that I still find that to be like, this wild, punk rock kind of finding our footing situation and very strange and idiosyncratic.

[Andy Greenwald]

But you also like the first Modest Mouse record better than the one with Flo Donna on it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. See, look at your face. Well, are you talking about.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm just saying.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you talking about.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is activating our indie heads. This is already.

[Chris Ryan]

But, like, I think that. But I eventually was like, yes, Everybody should love this. You know what I mean?

[Andy Greenwald]

Is that famously what you were saying when you were partying? Chuck was like, you want to watch football tomorrow? And you were like, no, I must spread the gospel of Isaac Brock. Interstate 8 is good.

[Chris Ryan]

It is good. It is better than good news for.

[Andy Greenwald]

People, but bad news is fine, too. That was you. We had a lot of fun, Kai. You missed it. It was great stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

I had to stop down because I had to do five factor authentication to get back into my own computer. But let me just say, I did watch the first industry episode, and without giving anything away, let's go. They're fucking.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. We're so back. I'm not pouring water on that.

[Chris Ryan]

It's hibachi time.

[Andy Greenwald]

Let's go.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's throw it. Let's make an onion volcano. You know what I mean?

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, got it.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, it's steaming. You know what I'm saying?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's all classic volcanoes. There's steam.

[Chris Ryan]

Talk about Benihana.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I get it now. But then you said volcano, and I was like, the people of Pompeii were like, be careful. There's steam emerging.

[Chris Ryan]

Got a lot of historical references today.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I'm trying to take the long view of what's going on in our world.

[Chris Ryan]

That's true. Industry will obviously be hitting that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Really?

[Chris Ryan]

Hey, it's Brooklyn Adams, and I'm partnering with Abercrombie to tell you about the newest drop from their active brand, your personal best ypb leggings are made with buttery, soft fabrics that hug you in all the right places. And common Abercrombie's viral curve love fit designed to eliminate waist gap. Paired with sports bras and super soft sweatshirts, it's activewear that supports every part of my busy lifestyle and gives me my best butt ever. Head into the new year feeling your personal best. Shop active by Abercrombie in the app online and in stores. Hard on Monday. But let's talk about the Pit, which we delayed the release of this episode today to catch the premiere of Pit Season 2. The Pit. Season 2 Pit to its friends, though. You know what I mean? Well, if you. If you've been down as long as us, you can just call it Pit.

[Andy Greenwald]

We can call it Pit, but our new attending wants to change that.

[Chris Ryan]

Right? Let's talk a little bit about some new faces. But first, let's talk about the old faces. Robbie's back. Langdon's there. He's making amends. I'd like to know a little bit more about that process. Dana is trying to quit smoking, but she still working at the hospital? She's still working it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you think she should not be allowed because she's still working on quitting smoking? You said that in a way that was like. Despite her personal foibles, given the way.

[Chris Ryan]

The Pit usually goes, I bet by the end of the day she's going to have a couple heaters.

[Andy Greenwald]

Hell, yeah. She's earned them.

[Chris Ryan]

Santos is trying to get promoted. Mel seems a little wistful.

[Andy Greenwald]

She's worried about malpractice.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right. She's worried about malpractice. And Whitaker is trying to teach the new Whitakers as far as patience. We got a guy with a busted wrist with some cognitive problems. There's a young girl with a lot of bruises. There is an abandoned baby and a coterie of older people.

[Andy Greenwald]

You weren't moved by the old lady who eats 12 weed cookies a day?

[Chris Ryan]

I thought that was cute. And I recognized that actress, but I couldn't find the name.

[Andy Greenwald]

It looked like. Was it Lois Smith?

[Chris Ryan]

It might have been. Actually, I think it was.

[Andy Greenwald]

If it's Lois Smith, she's still acting at 95. She should have all the cookies she wants. I'm not sure if that was her.

[Chris Ryan]

It's great to be back. It is great to be back. I think that the very thing that I thought was very smart about this episode is the only thing that anyone will have to say where it's like, huh? Which is that they took the temperature down. Last season ended in such a sort of absolutely like viscerally ragged place after a mass casualty event in Pittsburgh where the hospital becomes the main hub of treatment.

[Andy Greenwald]

And there's now a memorial to that.

[Chris Ryan]

There is a memorial to that. So to start. What is it now?

[Andy Greenwald]

I GUESS it's about 10 months later.

[Chris Ryan]

10 months later. And to start at a much more calm. Much more like Hey, 7am Punching in. 7am there's nothing. It was a quiet night last night. There's nothing big going on because remember, the show started with an outrageous accident. Subway accident.

[Andy Greenwald]

So there's the woman with a debraded. You want to talk about that? You seem like you don't.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't like the. The term debriding at all. Do you?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, but I live in a household where I'm constantly mocked for not being able to braid hair. Oh. So I know it's not the same thing. But I always think fondly of my children.

[Chris Ryan]

When you're.

[Andy Greenwald]

When I'm watching the Pit season one ye.

[Chris Ryan]

What did you think of this first episode?

[Andy Greenwald]

We talked about it at length during season one. We talked about it during the brief off season. What a gift it was to have A, have the show in our lives generally, but B, have a show that was back to the way things used to be and on a yearly schedule. And I gotta say, my internal clock was off because when I fired up episode 201 I was like, seems fast. Seems sudden to be back here. At first I also felt in a real way and again, this is. I don't mean this necessarily critically, but when the season opened with Dr. Robbie riding a motorcycle helmetless through the streets of Pittsburgh while sort of like an anonymous legend Gin Blossoms eat Rock song played. I was like broadcast. We are so back, baby. And we would be ripping this like this was corny as fuck as an opening. Well, it was.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean he's a guy riding a motorcycle to work. What do you want?

[Andy Greenwald]

I want him to wear a helmet, first of all. No, I think it's telling us something about his mouth to be playing. Yes, but like the early.

[Chris Ryan]

You had your chance to watch you to rivalry with Wolf Parade's revival and you and you know, I had to beg you to do that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I'm capricious. You can't tell what I'm going to do.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, good guesses.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I just mean it was a reminder of the. The strong. I don't mean to use a medical analogy, but the strong bones of this show are definitely from a different era and the people who are so good at doing this show are also from a different era. Like, this is not a show made by young guns trying to change things, nor should it be. But that opening with that song was corny, which was okay for what the show is in. And then going back into it, it did take me a few minutes to remember just the unique alchemy of the old with this slightly juiced up, prestige pacing and opportunities to tell deeper stories. So it took me a minute is all I'm saying. Once the show, kind of. Once everyone was reintroduced and everybody found their rhythm again, I was all the way back. And then when the show. When the episode ended, on a little.

[Chris Ryan]

Bit of a cliffhanger.

[Andy Greenwald]

Cliffhanger. Note of, like, note passing. Yeah. I was desperate for more, and I was curious about that because I wonder if the Pit was very popular when it started airing last year. It has grown in popularity exponentially.

[Chris Ryan]

So it is an awards favorite.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's gonna win this weekend, I think, at the Golden Globes. I don't know the numbers. HBO does, what percentage of the Pit fans watched it initially and how many have binged it since. And if it's going to take some adjustment for people to be like, to.

[Chris Ryan]

Slow down again, it definitely took me an adjustment. So in the last few minutes, basically, if you've watched this show, the episode, and you're listening to us, you know that there is a plot point where this is Robbie's last day before he goes on a sabbatical to the Badlands.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, that sounded like a very cr. Coded sabbatical.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I had. I've actually been thinking about how I'm running out of time to drive across America, something I've never done before.

[Andy Greenwald]

Running out of time because we're not going to be free to move in the country anymore.

[Chris Ryan]

Don't really feel like my body. I'm sure I could do it, but, like, I feel like both in terms of, like, my energy levels and my, like, physical fitness and like, my ability to be in a car for six to 10 days. I just haven't. I haven't done a significant road trip since high school.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's interesting. Yeah, I did drive across the country once about 20 years ago, but that was like, pre podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you like it?

[Andy Greenwald]

Imagine. I liked the places that I saw and, like, the connective tissue of, like, oh, man, it just looks like this for seven hours. And then there's Salt Lake City or whatever. But even 20 years ago, this. I was like, well, we could stop at this subway or we could drive 15 more miles to another subway and get a sandwich like, I didn't really get.

[Chris Ryan]

But you didn't have eater back then. Like, you could find the. The Max and Helens of North Dakota.

[Andy Greenwald]

There was road food and there was Chowhound.com. oh, I was on the boards, homie. I'm just saying. It was just like, do you want to get scrapple here or eggs? It was not that.

[Chris Ryan]

Your buttermilk channel does it again.

[Andy Greenwald]

That was fucking you, dude. Like, you mean the restaurant downstairs from your apartment? You're like, can't help if I'm lucky. Proximity is king. No, I liked the places, but the in between. It wasn't exactly like the road trips of, like, James Crumbley novels that we like to read.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Kerouac. You weren't like, tripping the light fantast here.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Or like, you know, going into bars called the Slum Gullion and being like, oh, what's the fried chicken? Fried blank of the day, you know, it didn't have that same romance.

[Chris Ryan]

You ever read on the Road?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. Really? I. And I read, like, Dharma Bums and like, all the other ones.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Didn't seem. Doesn't seem like it.

[Andy Greenwald]

It doesn't seem like I read that.

[Chris Ryan]

You don't seem like the kind of guy who's read on the Road.

[Andy Greenwald]

I seem like the guy who was like, I'm interested, and then read it and was like, not for me. Not for me. I'd like to stay off the road.

[Chris Ryan]

Robbie. Red on the Road. Let me put it that way.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Dr. Robbie is red Kerouac, and he's on his way to the Badlands, to a UNESCO site hangout. And he's got a replacement. The replacement is Dr. Alhashimi, and she's played by Sebede Moafi from the Deuce. And she's got some ideas about integrating AI into the error.

[Andy Greenwald]

Love it. Let's get more letters in there.

[Chris Ryan]

Getting some efficiencies handled, upping those. Those patient scores and changing the name. She's a real big first hundred days person, you know, because she's shadowing Robbie. She's there before him. She's a disruptor, calling meetings, and she's implementing all of these new philosophies, all these new. You know.

[Andy Greenwald]

She learned about AI from her time at the VA and she wants to bring it to the er.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

And Robbie's like, n o clip that. Cowards. Come on, Say your next thing. Let's go.

[Chris Ryan]

You just can't with your relationship. To be clipped. It's just the funniest thing. It's just like this thing that you hate so much, but you clearly want it to happen five times per show.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't want it to happen. I want to control it. I want to happen. I want it to happen. Not at all.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you want to. Do you want to sit with Kai after this and. And go through the footage and be like, clip that. I look amazing there? Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like broadcast news. Yeah, go on.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't even remember where I was.

[Andy Greenwald]

Talking about Dr. Al Hashimi's arrival.

[Kaya]

Part of Andy's strategy, because I don't want to go for the obvious one. So every time he says clip that, I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna clip that.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, exactly. So then it's just you on a podcast and there's somebody who's blissfully still listening to us on audio somewhere. There's like, why is this show suck now?

[Andy Greenwald]

That's fine. I. Terrorist. This is light work for me. Come on.

[Chris Ryan]

I've completely forgot my point.

[Andy Greenwald]

You had a point about Dr. Alhashimi's radical ideas about the first hundred days and how it's being received by the rank and file.

[Chris Ryan]

She winds up being, you know, so she's mildly frustrating to the folks in the ER because she's got, like, this new stuff going on. But then they bring her into the fold by putting her square in the middle of this cliffhanger at the end of the episode. And I just wanted to ask you your read on that. So there's a baby is abandoned in the bathroom of the waiting room. They bring the said child back into the ER to do some examinations. It's her. It's Donnie. Is that the guy? The nurse's name?

[Andy Greenwald]

No.

[Chris Ryan]

What's the nurse's name?

[Kaya]

I don't know.

[Andy Greenwald]

But it's not that.

[Chris Ryan]

There's two nurses, and it's the tall.

[Andy Greenwald]

Guy with the earring. Love that guy. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And then the other guy, who's also got a newborn.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. And they're like, we'll get their names by episode nine, I promise.

[Chris Ryan]

This baby seems okay. And then there's like, a piece of paper.

[Andy Greenwald]

They get a quick. Like it's the initial results of some scan, I guess.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, it's a little bit confusing, and she's just like, oh, shit. But then it's unexplained, like, what's wrong with the baby? Why Ashimi's having this reaction more so than the. Her corresponding doctors or counterparts. And that is the magic of this show. But I agree with you. I wanted to smash the next episode button. You know what I mean? I. You did. You did do that.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I wanted to, and I resisted.

[Chris Ryan]

Because we do have screeners, but we're trying to watch it along because I want to create the experience that viewers are having and understand, like, the frustrations and or elation that you would have if you were waiting a week to watch this show. So I don't want to go ahead and find out that baby's a robot.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, like, in a way, it.

[Chris Ryan]

Was, but if the baby was a robot, I bet Alashimi would be like, that's dope.

[Andy Greenwald]

AI, that's great. Do you think that she made a fake baby? Yeah, she brought rep. She flooded the ER with replicants. And the challenge is to determine. I think that is Warner IP Blade Runner.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought that is where everything's going. That would be all right. I think that we're harping on it because in contemporary television, there's a choice to be made. Do you do a super dramatic cliffhanger, which is part of the algorithmic strategy of the more dedicated binge drop streamers like Netflix? Like, that's what you do if and when you get notes from those places, they are almost entirely about the first few minutes and the last minute. Yes. Or you see a show like. I mean, like, Task had big moments at the end of the episodes, but they are contoured in a way that doesn't. I almost don't know how to describe it, but they feel more sculpted and more considered. So it is not a drop you off. You're not dropped off the cliff and you're hanging. Yeah. You are perched on the precipice of something. It's a classier kind of cliffhanger. This one felt a little bit either or.

[Kaya]

Well.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I wonder whether or not, because traditionally, that's not how medical procedurals necessarily have worked historically.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. Dr. House would be like, it's Lupus. And then they'd.

[Chris Ryan]

All those last five minutes are, well, we've made it through another crazy day here. And instead, this is just the beginning. So the. For as traditional as the Pit might be, and for as much as it might be playing from sheet music that's 20, 30, 40 years old at this point, I think it actually does have a little bit of that. Like, we want people to stay engaged with this and want to watch the next. Feel desperate to watch the next episode.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. So let's talk about that. I think that's an interesting framing for this episode in the show in general, which is what's new and what's tried and true. I definitely. And I texted you this when I was watching it. Like, I was wondering how many musical notes are there in the hymn book. Because it's like, okay, well, some of these cases feel familiar. The new lost lamb nurse as opposed to a resident this season. The new hard ass coming in and shadowing and disrupting how Robbie likes to do things. This is not reinventing any kind of wheel, but the creators and showrunners of the show, which include Noah Wylie and R. Scott Gemmell, and they are very nimble, I think, in subtle ways, like bringing in, starting in the morning so we can have that little aftertaste of the night shift. My guy, Dr. Shen.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

The other charge nurse who works with Dana, whose name I'm blanking on as well. But you can you continue to build this larger sense of a world, of a community, of a cast. The other thing that shows. And tell me if I'm wrong if you remember any big examples of this. But the other thing that I don't really remember House, Maryland. Or ER or these shows being able to do would be have recurring patience on the rhythm of like a Louis. Like, Louis was a memorable character.

[Chris Ryan]

I think ER did have some stuff like that, if I remember correctly. I can't think of an example, but for the most part in my. I haven't watched Gray's.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

In a while. But, like, Gray's would typically wrap up unless it was a special. Like, it's the. It's that Jeffrey Dean Morgan guy who's on for like six weeks or whatever. Denny. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

He made a big impact.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. But like, otherwise it would be like.

[Andy Greenwald]

Didn'T they get married in heaven or something?

[Chris Ryan]

I think she marries. She has sex with his ghost.

[Andy Greenwald]

There you go.

[Chris Ryan]

Doesn't she?

[Andy Greenwald]

Hell yeah. Just stare at me until I believe you.

[Chris Ryan]

That's like. That's. Yeah, right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Kaya]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

She has. She has sex with his ghost.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kaya]

Yeah. And then she has a mental break.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Kai was quick to jump in on the question, did he. She have sex with last week? I'm like, what's etiquette in the room service menu?

[Kaya]

Faith in Shonda Rhimes. I don't have faith in Taylor Sheridan.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's fair. It feels like a double standard.

[Kaya]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

To your point, though, Yes, I do think that one of it, the idea of rolling slowly out like. And this is like, look, I didn't rewatch The Pit Season 1, but one of the sort of great miracles of that show was the prolonged exposure to the brother and sister who are working through saying goodbye to their older father. You know what I mean?

[Andy Greenwald]

And not knowing which case will linger in which one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. And if you want. If you want to do that in one episode of each VR, I think you would have a 60% as effective a feeling at the end of that storyline if you stretch it across four hours, which is probably like, you know, as far as you can take that without really punishing people.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yep.

[Chris Ryan]

It just hits much harder and it winds up being a much more effective storytelling device. So I still think I. I understand what you're saying where you're like, you're getting back into it and you're like, okay, like, I. I'm. I'm. I'm feeling my way through it. But. But they've got to lay the groundwork for. At episode five, when something happens significantly.

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure. I also think that I'll say we. But really I'll just say that I need to do. This is recalibrate. This is for all the things we're saying about how familiar the Pit is in its delivery system and the pleasure that it gives us. It is unique because the first season was so thrilling and the experience of watching it was so thrilling. But the charge of the show is we're just gonna do it again in a different day.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. And I think that that's.

[Andy Greenwald]

Which is okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Also responding to is that, like, I think they did a really good job of subtle differences in the characters who were returning after 10 months. Santos is not as annoying, you know, like, she's not. No, she.

[Andy Greenwald]

She. The banter is. Is kind.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the kind of banter you would have where she's like, this is my personality. But we've obviously spent more time together, and so I'm not going to absolutely bust your balls. Whitaker is now something of a leader within the er. Mel is now no longer, like, maybe perfect. Every single. Completely focused on the task at hand. She's got things that are distracting her. So I thought it was really nice. It obviously ramps up a level in the last five minutes. And, you know, we're completely sold on this show. So it's just. We're just waiting a week to find out what's going on with this show.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought it was interesting that they didn't. They held back the Sean Hadassee card. Dr. Jack Abbott. He won an Emmy for his brief appearance in the show. I think he is main cast, second season. So curious about how he'll fit into it. I, I, I, I noted with interest that apparently it is. It is a known medical description that a heart in distress is a quivering bag of worms.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't know that.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, did you learn from the show, or were you?

[Chris Ryan]

I have to admit, I watched this show in the morning and over breakfast.

[Andy Greenwald]

Interesting. So you had a quivering bag of worms in your mouth.

[Chris Ryan]

I usually don't get queasy at. At that stuff.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And I think it's more of a. Like, maybe a nighttime show for me, now that I think about it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Fall asleep thinking about how they were like, move his lungs horizontally to see if his heart.

[Chris Ryan]

You'll tear the lung off. And he's like, do it slowly.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do it more slowly. But also, like, they have cut. You know, I'm no thoracic surgeon, but they have cut the long way. You know how, like, when you watch how to Properly Cook a Steak videos, and they're all like, be sure to cut, you know, the right way.

[Chris Ryan]

We still don't understand what cutting against grainy means.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, they showed you last night.

[Chris Ryan]

They're like, you can see the grain. I'm like, I don't see the grain.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, they cut against the grain on that man. They went against the grain on that man.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you supposed to cut with the grain or against the grain?

[Andy Greenwald]

With steak? What are you. What are you doing with the steak?

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, I honestly don't really make steak.

[Andy Greenwald]

My point is. My point is they have cut against the grain of this man's body cavity. They have turned his lungs sideways. They have been physically massaging and then electric paddling his heart. At what point? And then they send him upstairs.

[Chris Ryan]

Can you.

[Andy Greenwald]

The secret episode of the Pit should be the team upstairs being like, what the fuck did you just give us? And what am I supposed to do with this? That guy's health journey begins now.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you know what I mean? That guy's in shambles. Shambles.

[Chris Ryan]

Any other notes?

[Andy Greenwald]

I hope that no one ever asked to drain my torso. I'm not saying it won't happen, but, like, that doesn't sound good.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I cannot believe that the guy who is like, this is bleeding so much, we can't even suction. This is alive.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, I don't mean that guy. I mean Louis.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, Louie. Yeah, right. Getting tapped. I hate that. I hate that for him, and I hate that the concept of being tapped. I don't like it.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. You pot all day, you have nothing more to give. Bill taps you all.

[Chris Ryan]

Langdon. Langdon. What about him?

[Andy Greenwald]

Him?

[Chris Ryan]

How you feeling about him? That's obviously Patrick Ball, very good actor and sort of a, I believe, a fan fave to some extent in terms of his character. I. I do believe that there is a road back for people who, you know, maybe have those experiences in the er. So I'm sure it's true to life. I thought it was effective to have somebody who was such a hard charging smartass the first season be a little bit humbled, but also not being psyched about being humbled. You know, like, you could tell he's like a little bit frustrated that Robbie's not giving him the time of day.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can I give you my one note about him? Because I think he's clearly a very talented actor and it's a good character arc. And the dynamic, the change in dynamic from the way he was with Robbie in season.

[Chris Ryan]

We're like Butch and Sundance to now.

[Andy Greenwald]

We're like, eh, it's good.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Not sure you should be here.

[Andy Greenwald]

Gotta rough him up a little bit. He's too pretty.

[Chris Ryan]

No, he's been out of the er. He's been getting some sun. He's been getting. He's been getting.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, he looks the same. He looks complete. Looks great. He looks very clean and handsome and fine and like, well rested as he did in season one.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm not saying he should have been like long night of the soling, you know, but he had the Penguins hat. He did. He did have the Penguins hat.

[Chris Ryan]

So do you think maybe he spent his entire rehab getting super into Penguins?

[Andy Greenwald]

Is he columbusing hockey? Because heated rivalry hasn't dropped yet. How do those words work out?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, that's a really good question. There is a world. These are both HBO Max properties, you know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, but the Penguins play. They don't. The Penguins don't play in Major league Hockey.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I don't. I'm sure there's a Pittsburgh team in major Major league Hockey, but I don't know what they're called and I don't.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, first of all, we all know they're the Pittsburgh Puffins.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, they have the New York Admirals. I mean, they would have cool names.

[Andy Greenwald]

They would. They would have a. They have a. Look, I am not denigrating heated rivalry or its achievement. I'm saying of all the hundred things, that Jacob Tierney is the man's name. What he had to do coming up with plausible wink, wink. We all know what team this is. Names was not. I'm guessing it wasn't number one on the list. So usually it's just like, well, I.

[Chris Ryan]

Have Jacob Tierney right here.

[Andy Greenwald]

Jacob Tierney is listening in the car with Patrick J. Adams right now. Being like this son of a bitch gets it wrong again. I'm just saying the names in alt versions where they don't get the rights are usually like one degree.

[Chris Ryan]

Right, right.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, okay.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm just saying.

[Andy Greenwald]

Falcons.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Langdon got super into the Penguins while he was away. Or maybe his character's always been a big, big, big hockey fan. I don't know.

[Andy Greenwald]

You want to comment on it?

[Chris Ryan]

I'm. I'm such a hockey dilettant, you know.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, no, you're, you, you're 20% of your entertainment now is the playoffs is.

[Chris Ryan]

Is where I, I fully check in. Flyers have been hot this year, though.

[Andy Greenwald]

Rick.

[Chris Ryan]

Rick Talkett.

[Andy Greenwald]

Talkett.

[Chris Ryan]

Remember him from playing days?

[Andy Greenwald]

No. I remember him from the headlines of the articles I didn't read in the Inquirer days. I was too busy reading Jack Kerouac to get into hockey.

[Chris Ryan]

Should we run through some shows that we're looking forward to in 2026?

[Andy Greenwald]

Sure.

[Chris Ryan]

What a fun episode.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think so of this pod. Do you think?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, this is how I like to pod.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are we going to air this one?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I don't know how much of it, but I organized this list by scraping from a bunch of very useful articles on the Internet, including websites like the playlist, rogerebert.com the trades, variety, Hollywood Reporter, all of whom have done their most anticipated lists. Here's the thing with TV is that the first quarter of this year, maybe the first half of this year, is relatively firmly scheduled. But more and more now I am finding scheduling to be fluid when it comes to our streaming networks. Many of these shows, or several of them at least, were filmed like more than a year ago. It's been really interesting to kind of read about the productions of some of these and find like, oh, like this has been on the shelf for a hot minute. And I don't know whether that signals like a return to full content coffers for some of these places. Whether or not people are trying to be more careful about when they drop stuff and building it up.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, I mean, I could speak a little bit to it. I figured you could. I think there are a number of reasons why I think that there is. As with movies, there are examples of TV shows that are in the can and are quote, unquote troubled and have a longer post production process, or they may order reshoots or they might not be confident about them and they want to move them out of certain high volume or high attention parts of the season. That's certainly true. The other thing, and I don't know how relevant it is for a bunch of the shows that we're talking about. But also like movies, certain shows and certain genres have incredibly long post production periods due to vis effects. Like a show that I worked on last fall which won't be on TV for another year. Yes. And then the third part of it is I think your you're bang on, which is like there is fine. The coffers are more full.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

And there can be some thought about or more intention about where we want to debut things, how we're going to handle the marketing, where we want it to fall in the run up to awards or whatever the case may be. And then the last piece being all of these streamers in their offices have their entire schedules as they want them through the end of 27 plus what they would like to see in 28. Yes, but. But it gets kind of wonky after they don't announce. They control when they announce them.

[Chris Ryan]

I will say too that two of the things that have been most mystifying to me is when shows are chosen to be released. You know, like how they decide that Night of the Seven Kingdoms industry and the Pit will all be on at the same time rather than spread out over the first three to four months of the year or whatever it is. And also like how Netflix goes about deciding like what's a June show versus what's a February show just because of the amount of stuff that they're putting out. Netflix is the streaming service behind the first show I wanted to talk to you about, and that is All Sinners Bleed, which I grabbed this morning. I did not know that this was planned to be a 26 release, but this is the nine episode adaptation of a writer that you and I both love a lot, a crime writer named S.A. cosby. And this one stars a actor that we're very into, Sope Dirsu.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is. I'm very excited. I didn't even. I don't know about this.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, and it's the. It's All Sinners Bleed is a great noir from Cosby and it's about a character named Titus Crown.

[Andy Greenwald]

Have you read this one? I've not read this one.

[Chris Ryan]

I have read this one. This is really cool. And he is the first black sheriff in like a Southern, small Southern town. And it comes from Joe Robert Cole, who had a lot to do with Black Panther, with the first Black Panther movie. So very pumped on that. Don't have a release date for it, but it is Netflix and it's the kind of thing that gets me just like fired up to do this podcast is the prospect of talking about this show.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think this one is further down the line. This was filming in the fall, so I think if it is 26, it'll be late 26, but it's definitely one to flag because that's very exciting.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Why don't you grab one off the list that you want to talk about.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to talk about Criminal, which I think was on your list too. It is an Amazon prime series. And for those interested in. For people who read comics, they're familiar with this Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips long running anthology series which has standalone stories. I am not going to pretend I've read all of them, but I've read the first two, I think. And Ed Brubaker is just a master of comic writing, but also this is the shit he loves. I think if he was a guest on this podcast, we would have a lot of fun talking about books that we love together. And it's essentially anthology. You could read each of them on their own. But there is a unifying conceit that some of these criminals hang out at the same bar, live in the same city, know each other, have other connections. And what's exciting about the series is not just that Amazon hired Ed Brubaker to adapt it and Showrun, they also brought on another low key watch mvp, author Jordan Harper, who wrote the book everybody knows that we flipped out about last year as the co showrunner, Charlie Hunter, Richard Jenkins, Adri Arjona, Ryan Bowden and Anna Flecking. Yeah, this is, this is pretty exciting.

[Chris Ryan]

Is this tonally in terms of the comics, Would you compare it to Sin City? Would you say it's more like a comic version of like Dime Store, Jim Thompson kind of stuff? Like is it, is it sort of.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay, it's like, it's contemporary, like urban, you know, I think, I think Sin City is correct, but I think that Ed Brubaker's love of this form is very different than Frank Miller's. Yes, Frank Miller's is very like catholic, like good and evil and almost like mythological level.

[Chris Ryan]

Like he mythologizes archetypes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Within like noir stories.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, Ed Brie Raker knows a good yarn in a different way. So I'm, I'm. I don't know. I don't, I mean, I can't speak to like how they adapted it or what they took from, but, but I just Think it sounds like a cool series we're going to like.

[Chris Ryan]

I will shout out the Terror, Devil and Silver.

[Andy Greenwald]

Another the Terror.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. So this is going to be on AMC starring Dan Stevens, Marin Ireland, who's one of my favorite performers, Judith Light, CCH Pounder and Steven Root. And I think you could make an argument that this is one of the more reliable anthology series of the last. What's it been, 15 years since the first terror came out out? There's only been a couple of them, so it's not like there's a. There's a ton. But this one is set in a psych hospital and is based. It's an adaptation of a Victor Lavelle novel. I'm very excited by this, not only because of the cast, not only because of the setting and not only because of the pedigree of this series in the first place. Christopher Cantwell, who did.

[Andy Greenwald]

He and his then writing partner did Halden catch fire.

[Chris Ryan]

Right. He is sort of showrunning this. And Karin Kusama is doing the. Is directing a bunch of the episodes and she's an incredible horror director. Director, full stop. So very excited for this. AMC largely in the the vampire business right now, but it's cool to see like a, and, you know, a show like this pop up.

[Andy Greenwald]

Speaking of books we read in high school, do you want to talk about east of East Eden?

[Chris Ryan]

Let's talk about east of Eden. I didn't read that in high school. I read that last year.

[Andy Greenwald]

Did you really?

[Chris Ryan]

24.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Good for you.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So it's more front of mind for you, I guess.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I mean, I had never read Steinbeck. I. It was just a blank spot for me. So I decided to, I would, I.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was a. I wrote a lot. I like Travels with Charlie. I was like, oh, damn, dude, you were getting Tortilla flats, the Interstate 8. Hell yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Of John Steinbeck.

[Andy Greenwald]

If there's one thing I love doing, it's reading about traveling through the heartland of America. If there's one thing I don't like doing doing, it's that.

[Chris Ryan]

It's that Zoe Kazan adapted this for Netflix. Friend of the pod. Tracy Letts is in this as well as Florence Pugh.

[Andy Greenwald]

The Christopher Abbott.

[Chris Ryan]

Christopher Abbott, the big role. The James Dean role. Cal Trask is played by a. A newcomer.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Joseph Zarda.

[Andy Greenwald]

Zada.

[Chris Ryan]

Zada.

[Andy Greenwald]

And.

[Chris Ryan]

And I am thrilled that this is happening. I think I'll be curious to see whether or not the expansive nature of Steinbeck's novel, the epic and very biblically tinged story of these Two brothers in the Central Valley translates to some of the Netflix y next episode Bingy. I can't wait to hit another one. Now, look, they have put up really, really, really, really good shit every year. Adolescence, Ripley, like shows that are routinely at the top. East of Eden is a different beast.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. And I think that this is what makes this so interesting to me. It's not. Everything about this feels like such an odd bet because I think Zoe. It's a passion project for Zoe Kazan. It was shopped, it was developed, it was moving around.

[Chris Ryan]

Is that Apple?

[Andy Greenwald]

For a while it's been. It's moved. I think it did. I don't know if it was Apple, but I know that it moved home. They shot this over a year ago in New Zealand.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a big, big, big swing. And you know, with something like Netflix, like, can they use their platform to be like, we are showing you greatness because we can fund it and we can put it in front of a lot of people? Or are they like, we took a swing and we're not really going to promote it that much and maybe it didn't work well. Or the third version is. You know, it's. Is it. Is it Netflixized?

[Chris Ryan]

Right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Are they.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think that there's not really. I mean, there's a couple of gasp moments in east of Eden.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But I don't know if there's nine of them.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. But, like, probably midway through when Professor X and Magneto play chess one last time.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Cal Trask will return.

[Chris Ryan]

Cyclops's glasses.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

We haven't talked about those. I can tell you're getting hype.

[Andy Greenwald]

Your back. I'm not. You're back.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I can tell.

[Andy Greenwald]

I like that.

[Chris Ryan]

Are fucking living for the mcu. That's you.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think. I think they might be fumbling the bag a little bit. I think they may. Like, they showed that X Men trailer. Everyone was like, that's sick. That's my Cyclops.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then the next trailer was like, the Thing meets Namor. Everyone's like, that's nice. I was familiar with their game. Anyway, it's so confusing how you switch.

[Chris Ryan]

Back and forth between what you think and what everyone thinks.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's how you can't pin me down.

[Chris Ryan]

I know, but you're like. Everybody's like, namor. Like, I don't know. It sounds like you have a Namor problem.

[Andy Greenwald]

Wow.

[Chris Ryan]

Wow.

[Andy Greenwald]

You think that's not my Namor, but that is my Cyclops. He's named Namor because. No, Amor, Remember That.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I don't.

[Andy Greenwald]

What's that? In World of Wakanda or whatever. Black Panther 2.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, I forgot.

[Andy Greenwald]

I know. Yeah. Coogler's like, I am this generation's true artist. I have made a movie on my own terms, and I will win Oscars, and I've made so much money. And now I shall return to Black Panther 3.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. All right, so.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I want to. I want to double down on your point about what Netflix's big miniseries strategy is, because this year we'll have. It's not just east of Eden from our high school. Sorry, my high school curriculum. But also Pride and Prejudice.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Which is with Emma Coren. Right. The cast is wild. This is Dolly Alderton, adapted version of the novel. And it's gonna be a miniseries. I'm not clear how many.

[Kaya]

It's extremely hyped.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I wanna talk. Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

So extremely hyped. Kya from the background.

[Andy Greenwald]

Let me name some names here. And then let's bring Kya in on this, because the cast is sick. Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennett. Jack Loudon as Darcy. Olivia Colman as Mrs. Bennet, fan favorite of my house. Lewis Partridge as George Wickham.

[Chris Ryan]

Hell, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

But here's the thing.

[Chris Ryan]

That dude's Daniel Olivia Rodrigo, right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Not anymore.

[Chris Ryan]

Fuck.

[Andy Greenwald]

Come on in, Kai. I'm bringing you in in one second. This is big in my house. The thing about this is so Pride and prejudice, the 2005 version with Keira Knightley, is my daughter's favorite movie of all time. Like, once a week we're watching this movie. Not me. Once a week, she's watching this movie. I have tried to, in my continuing attempts, to engage her in things that don't involve Kill a Trev. Accidentally liking one of our reels. Been like, look, there's a new one coming. Isn't that interesting? And also, I like these actors. And there's a lot of skepticism in my house because the bar is really high because of the previous movie. But also, she doesn't think Jack Loudon is, quote, hot enough. What say you? We're. Tell us about your interest level in this. Are we looking for a TV series?

[Kaya]

I just love Dolly Alderton. I love all of her books. And so I'm really. I think this is her first foray into television writing. And so I'm very intrigued. And I love Olivia Colman in all things. And Emma Corrin and Jack Loudon. He's cute. I think we can get him for Darcy. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, because he's not Supposed, like, because Matthew McFadden isn't, like, he's a handsome man and a good actor, but that's part of.

[Kaya]

It's supposed to be a slow burn.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's like The Pit Season 2 Slow Burn Slowly building up.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just also want to say I am pro this series, and I am pro Dolly Alderton, an English writer who. I've never read any of her works, but I am now especially a fan because on her Wikipedia page. Can I just share with you her personal life? This is a personal life entry of an established and successful British writer. Food is one of her principal interests. She has named spaghetti vongole as her preferred last meal. Wow.

[Chris Ryan]

Really?

[Andy Greenwald]

And is passionate about pickling and vinegar.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you like spaghetti vongole?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. We went out to. Am I passionate about it? We went out to our buddy Tyler's birthday dinner.

[Chris Ryan]

Huh.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's what I ordered.

[Chris Ryan]

And you did not like that dish?

[Andy Greenwald]

It was awful.

[Chris Ryan]

What I don't like doing is order. What is your attitude about ordering meals at restaurants that, you know, have a high variance in quality?

[Andy Greenwald]

I figured we were at a beloved and established Los Angeles Italian restaurant.

[Chris Ryan]

Trattoria.

[Andy Greenwald]

Nope. Spaghetti House, let's say. And I was like. Like, I feel safe here because of the volume. Like, how many people come here that like the classics, including, like, the classic that you got, and you got the chicken parm. I was like, you can get, like, I'm ordering the same dish that I would get, like, at. At the Italian restaurant Wilbur Pen. When I visited my grandparents, I felt.

[Chris Ryan]

Like I was in the Italian version of Deadwood. There was, like, whatever that protein was, there was not very much of it. And it felt like I got, like, the last cut. You know what I mean? It was tough. But I like to. At restaurants, you know, some people are like, don't order the chicken. You know, that's boring. I find chicken actually quite reliable at restaurants and interesting because I think there's so many different preparations for spaghetti vongole. Like, honestly, sometimes I'm just like, I'm not rolling the dice tonight with the clams. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I also don't think. And kind of. Again, feel free to jump in here about your girl Dolly Alderton's choice. To me, when done well, it's a perfect dish. But I don't know if that's my last meal. Cause you gotta get the. You got the shells and you're just.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you have a last meal meal?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think I just. I probably had it this morning at this rate. I ate the yogurt that Amanda gave us.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you really?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

No wonder you feel so jacked on protein right now. I am also looking forward to Pride and Prejudice. I'm also looking forward to. You know what? I'm open a little space in my heart for it. Blade Runner 2099.

[Andy Greenwald]

Wow. From Amazon, you're willing to give this a shot?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. You know what? I fucking love Blade Runner. I think I. I think I didn't really think about this that much. About my, my relationship to that world.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But those are two awesome movies.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. I agree there's been some really interesting animated stuff done around it, I believe. But this is the first real effort to expand the universe on tv.

[Andy Greenwald]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Scott Free is involved, so that means there's some tangential Ridley Scott relationship. But for me, it's the cast. It's Michelle Yeoh, Hunter Schaefer, and our boy Tom Burke.

[Andy Greenwald]

Tom Burke is.

[Chris Ryan]

And Tom Burke was like, this show is way more first Blade Runner vibes than 2049.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I'm curious, Tom Burke is low key British. Him. That guy's a really good actor who hasn't really had the part to burn Burke.

[Chris Ryan]

It's actually spelled T H O M Burke. And the H is for him. And it's not only silent, it's invisible. It's not in there. You know what I mean?

[Andy Greenwald]

I love that for him. I do want to take an opportunity to call maximum bullshit on you though, because everything you just said is verbatim why you didn't like Alien Earth. You were like, I care about this movie franchise. The movies have been pretty good. This is the first opportunity to expand it on tv and it can go fuck itself. That was more or less what you said.

[Chris Ryan]

I was like, it can go fuck itself because it's fucking around with the chronology and the timeline. And it's like attitudinally like.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's just like you are willing to take a gamble on The Blade Runner TV show because chronologically it is clear that it is 50 years later. Yeah. So not Sleepless in Seattle 18 months later, a full 50 years. The slate is wiped clean.

[Chris Ryan]

I. I don't really care about, like how things move forward in the Blade Runner reality. I mean, I'm sure we will experience the Blade Runner reality like any day now. But the Alien thing was way more about. First of all, I liked some episodes of Alien, but it made me mad as that no one really got torn to pieces by aliens other than red shirts in that show. And then also that they were like, oh, yeah, aliens crash landed on Earth way before these other movies. Like, that's not cool.

[Andy Greenwald]

I. I agree with that. That's.

[Chris Ryan]

Ridley Scott did that work, bro. He put David in space looking for them.

[Andy Greenwald]

Who directed this Blade Runner television show?

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's got a couple of different helmers.

[Andy Greenwald]

A couple of different helmers. I don't know. They could mess up the things that you liked about it.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what? This is the spice of life, is that you and I just. Sometimes we don't go two thumbs up at the same time. All right. Siskel and Siskel wouldn't have been as good of a show. I'm excited about Beef coming back on Netflix. This one is, like, now it's become kind of an anthology series.

[Andy Greenwald]

Would they announce April for this?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And it's Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Kayley Space. I'm in. Kaya nodding.

[Andy Greenwald]

You see Fishner, Your boy Bill Fishner involved.

[Chris Ryan]

This is the long calling young couple witnessing an alarming fight between their boss and his wife, triggering chess moves of favors and coercion in the elitist world of a country club and its Korean billionaire owner.

[Andy Greenwald]

That is literally what would have happened if Kaya and Nick had gone to this Spotify party tonight that you told me not to go to.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you want to talk about out?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, that's. But everyone should know. That's what's simmering underneath this podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

No, let's talk it out. It's fine. I. We're having a goofy little show here. You want to talk it out? You asked me if I was going about six weeks ago.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm also eager to watch Beef Season two. And now we're back.

[Chris Ryan]

And I said, I'm not. I said, no, I'm not going. And then yesterday, some of my superiors implored me to attend, and I said, who am I to deny them?

[Andy Greenwald]

You listen to the superiors, but not your. Your blood brothers here.

[Chris Ryan]

They cut the checks.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's right.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what I'm saying?

[Andy Greenwald]

What I didn't appreciate at the time was that this party. And I might not have the specifics correct. I believe Spotify is throwing it to celebrate Golden Globe nominee Kaya.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Essentially the awards. So.

[Chris Ryan]

But Kaya, you know, and I wonder when. When Kai was like, you should come. I don't have anybody to talk to at this thing. I wonder if that's how all celebrities feel, you know, do you think. Do you think Chalamet is like, God, I wish somebody would just come up to raping me about the Knicks at the Critics Choice Awards.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I was just reading about how he met Josh Safdie, where they were both at the same, like, after hours, like, bluefin tuna serving speakeasy. And Josh Safdie went over to him and he went, timothy Chalamet. It was kind of like actually how we met, where Chalamet and his buddy were like, that's cool, man. We're on mushrooms right now. So I feel like he's open to conversation.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, probably right. A couple more. You want to knock him out or should I?

[Andy Greenwald]

I'll do it. Go for it.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. I am in the same way of hurt me again, like Blade Runner. I want to see what happens with this Cape Fear on Apple because, yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I couldn't go there.

[Chris Ryan]

Javier Bardem playing Max Katie, Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as the couple he terrorizes. I don't know how you can improve on the first two iterations of this relatively straightforward story that I don't really know, like, how many different angles there were. Right. And the promise of Cape Fear, though not the promise, but the part of the attraction to Cape Fear is the compression and the. The nerve wracking thriller aspect. We doubted that they could do it with Presumed Innocent. And for one hour, they. They made us feel like perhaps they had cracked the code.

[Andy Greenwald]

But presumed innocent S2. Not on your list, but I'm checking for it.

[Chris Ryan]

There you go. So I. I am curious about Cape Fear. That'll be on Apple tv. You obviously are into that.

[Andy Greenwald]

They're claiming for Cape Fear. That. And this is Nick Antosca, who is.

[Chris Ryan]

Very good at Channel Zero, a bunch of other shows.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. That. The inspiration is drawn more from The John D. MacDonald book, The Executioners.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm here for more faithful John D. MacDonald adaptations. That is my political platform and I stand by it. Yeah. I don't know if you could find a more vanilla piece of couples casting than Patrick Wilson and Amy Adams, who I look forward to discovering are longtime watch listeners and whose hearts are breaking right now. But I'm pretty good on.

[Chris Ryan]

I guarantee they're not listening to us.

[Andy Greenwald]

That is like, if. Cause sometimes you could be like, okay, we'll have like, use some spicy mortadella, but we'll put it on white bread to tame things. But like, this is a mayonnaise sandwich.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. But they've got the mortadello with Javier.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, I guess he's gonna be cooking. That's an Italian sausage, so you know, he's a Spaniard.

[Chris Ryan]

A couple other things just to shout out. Obviously there's going to be a bunch of returning big shows. Among them, the one I am the most excited for and I look over to Kaya for, for verification here is euphoria, season three. I'm fucking back. We're fucking back. Shot in VistaVision. I think Sharon Stone's in it. Everybody who's in it is like, I don't really know what this show is about and I just know that I shot my parts.

[Andy Greenwald]

So that's like Gwyneth Paltrow talking about the Spider man movies.

[Chris Ryan]

It kind of is like a Lordy and Sweeney are like, yep, I'm done. Like, I don't know what the deal is here, but it's, you know, I mean, look, this show is fucking good.

[Andy Greenwald]

When you give Sam Levinson carte blanche, do it. Carte blanche. Do whatever he wants.

[Chris Ryan]

When you give him old cameras, what could go wrong?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, is it like Stranger Things where they're like these 35 year old adults are still in high school?

[Chris Ryan]

No, they've, they've, they've aged them up. It's like it's, it's, there's gonna be a time jump.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is there going to be a missing episode? A secret lesson?

[Kaya]

Sweeney an only fans now, I think in the show. Yeah, in the, in the show.

[Andy Greenwald]

Don't, don't do Bill like that. Come on.

[Chris Ryan]

You're the killer. Today Euphoria is coming back. House of the Dragon is coming back.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you know Presumed Innocent cast? Do you know that Brosnahan. It's Brosnan. And Matthew Reese, the hardest working man in.

[Chris Ryan]

Matthew Reese has like three shows this year.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's incredible, it's wild. But he's ready, by the way, to come back on the pod. Because up until last week, our guy Matthew Reese's Instagram and social media presence was still just his boat. Tour company. Oh yeah, Movable Feast ny. And he'd be like, here I am at the premiere and be like, dude, you're not a boat. You're actor Matthew Reese. Last week he became Matthew Reese. I'm proud of him. Good for him. He's promoting this shit. He's going to come back on the pod. He is. Oh, you won't be here. I just assume he will. He's a great guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Anything else? Anything else? Oh, the show that I'm. Oh, I'm really excited about these two new shows. We mentioned a couple of the returning things. Euphoria and House of the Dragon Beef's coming back and the two other new shows that I'm really pumped about. Lanterns Gotta Talk about lanterns. You talk about lanterns. Give me like, tell me what's coming here. Because it's obviously. This is a dc. Is it? I don't understand how this works anymore. Is it a DC Universe show?

[Andy Greenwald]

It is. I don't know the degree to which it was.

[Chris Ryan]

Created as one, but it's been connected.

[Andy Greenwald]

It has been connected because I think the genesis of this project predates the gunaissance.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

And it was pitched and greenlit as a very grounded more I guess in the spirit of Penguin show about green Lanterns. And in the comic books, one of the more interesting angles on a character that can often be cartoonish is that they are are space cops. Who doesn't love cops? So the pitch for the story, and I think that the thing that drew such an impressive creative troika behind it, it's Chris Mundy off of Ozark, it's Tom King, who is one of the God tiered genius comic book writers of our time and our friend Damon Lindelof was that it was going to take these galaxy powered superheroes and put them on Earth investigating a crime. And it's combining two canonical characters. Hal Jordan, played by one our favorites, one of television's favorites, Kyle Chandler. Kyle Chandler. And John Stewart, another canonical Green Lantern in this case played by upand cominging star Aaron.

[Chris Ryan]

Aaron Pierre.

[Andy Greenwald]

Pierre, yeah. Also what's his name?

[Chris Ryan]

Guy. What's his face?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Nathan Fillion.

[Andy Greenwald]

Nathan Fillion is wedged in there as another Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, who is. Which he played in the movie. So tonally very curious how that that performance, which was very funny, plays in this universe. But this is an attempt to broaden the tent of James Gunn's dcu. But they were actively saying like, this is true detective but with power rings.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm very excited for that. And the last one I was going to shout out was Scarpetta. Oh, just because your parents definitely have Patricia Cornwell novels.

[Andy Greenwald]

So many of them.

[Chris Ryan]

Scarpetta.

[Andy Greenwald]

Weren't they all A is for. B is for. For.

[Chris Ryan]

Is that her?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think so. I think so now. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Chris Ryan]

Scarpetta. Scarpetta.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm wrong.

[Chris Ryan]

Is her fictional forensic pathologist. Marry something God.

[Andy Greenwald]

Those are the books that were just lining the radiator.

[Chris Ryan]

There's also like a bunch of mysteries with cats that my mom had.

[Andy Greenwald]

I remember those.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, the, the stacks of.

[Andy Greenwald]

None of them. It's a shame our mothers never spoke.

[Chris Ryan]

None of them.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because as Philadelphia city school teachers who loved mass market paperbacks, they would have.

[Chris Ryan]

A lot to chat and had sons.

[Andy Greenwald]

Who had jobs they don't understand. I think they really could have bonded.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I'm very happy if you're happy.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are you still doing your radio show? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Kay Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist, and she's gonna be played by fucking Nicole Kidman, who just can't stop working.

[Andy Greenwald]

Addicted to the grind.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

And Liz Sarnoff, who worked on Barry.

[Chris Ryan]

And worked on Lost and many great things. Yeah. So I'm excited. Cause of the pedigree, because of Nicole Kidman and because I love a. I love a forensic pathologist.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can I throw one out here? In fact, you can see, it would.

[Chris Ryan]

Be cool if they had a forensic pathologist on the pit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, well, that would be the after show. That would be the missing episode where someone comes in. It's like, who the fuck moved this guy's lung? Why is this shit sideways?

[Chris Ryan]

This guy had a cold.

[Andy Greenwald]

Come on, relax. No, I wanted to ask about the show Vladimir, which I've never heard of until I was doing my thimble full of research for this podcast. It's apparently adapted by a book called Vladimir by Julia Mae Jonas.

[Kaya]

I'm so hyped for this one.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, okay. So maybe you can explain this to us. I'll just.

[Chris Ryan]

Fucking librarian over here.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought, this is like the true story of the birth of Putin. And I was like, I'm gonna watch it. And then I looked at the credits, and it's Rachel Vaes, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, and it's directed by Berman and Pulcini, who did American Pastoral. So what is this?

[Kaya]

I read this book a couple years ago, so I might be missing some plot details, but essentially it's a man and a wife who are living on a college campus. They're both college professors. The husband gets into a little something with the student. She decides to stay with him. And then as sort of like, not so much like an act of revenge, but kind of like, well, I'm gonna get mine, she starts kind of obsessing over another younger professor on the case.

[Chris Ryan]

Campus Rachel Weiss, or the younger professor I.

[Andy Greenwald]

Look, we love campus shenanigans. This seems fun. This seems fun. Sharon Horgan, one of the eps. My old classmate Miriam Silverman, who I now shout out on this podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

In the cast, she, not to spoil anything, makes a return to Landman this coming weekend. Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

I gotta tell I'm glad, because I definitely was, like, way out in front being like, look who's joined this show. And then, then a gas leak happened and I was like, well, I guess that's what's happening.

[Chris Ryan]

They brought her back.

[Andy Greenwald]

Great. I've been wondering how Ainsley's doing in her studies.

[Chris Ryan]

We'll find out this weekend.

[Andy Greenwald]

You clearly already found out. I'll be honest with you. I almost fired up this week's Landman last night. But the thing is, my obligation to the listeners of this podcast is so great that I didn't want that many days to elapse. I want the freshness of the fresh to be captured.

[Chris Ryan]

The fresh crude, sweet crude.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want a creed, the absolute worst case scenario for me this weekend in which I watch the Eagles lose on a last second fumble or something to the 49ers and then realize as the light fades in the sky at 3:30pm or whatever it is that I have to watch. Landman, like, let's really line up the nightmare Sunday.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, God. All right. Go Birds.

[Andy Greenwald]

Go Birds. You want to talk about that?

[Chris Ryan]

No, just go Birds. Thanks to Kaya, thanks to Kai, thanks.

[Andy Greenwald]

To Andy, and thanks to the listeners who remembered that we said right before New Year's that we would spend all this week talking about the Pluribus finale.

[Chris Ryan]

Did we?

[Andy Greenwald]

We did. We sure did.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't remember 2025.

[Andy Greenwald]

We've turned the page. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You guys get ready for beef season two, dog.

[Andy Greenwald]

Get ready for our favorite show.

[Chris Ryan]

Vladimir, get ready for industry. We'll be back on Monday to talk about industry. And Landman and everybody, have a great, great weekend. Go Birds.