The WGA’s Surprise Deal With the Studios, Bad Robot Downsizes, and the State of International Crime Thrillers on TV

Summary

The Watch – April 6, 2026

WGA’s Surprise Deal, Bad Robot Downsizes, and the State of International Crime Thrillers

Hosts: Andy Greenwald & Chris Ryan
Episode Theme:
This episode covers breaking industry news on the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) new deal with the studios, the closure of JJ Abrams’ famed Bad Robot production office in LA, thoughts on the shifting creative landscape in Los Angeles, and an in-depth dive into the current wave of international crime and spy shows. The hosts reflect on how streaming, labor relations, and global TV trends are reshaping pop culture.

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Episode Breakdown

1. Personal Catch-up & Setting the Table

• [01:03–02:58]
  • Chris welcomes Andy back after missing Thursday’s show. Banter about hair, protein yogurt, and birthday wishes for producer Kaya sets a loose, friendly tone.
  • The episode agenda is sketched: big TV news, Andy’s movie weekend, and discussion of two international crime shows.

Notable Moment

• [03:19] Andy: "Happy birthday, Kya."
• [03:53] Andy: "One of the ways to track Kya's age is she's the same age as our friendship."

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2. WGA’s Surprise Amicable Deal with the Studios

• [06:31–13:32]
  • WGA and AMPTP reached an unexpected, seemingly amicable four-year deal—unusual compared to previous fraught negotiations.
  • The deal’s surprise: only 10 days of negotiating after years of unrest.
  • Big ticket issues addressed: Health fund financing, AI protections, post services payment structures, and possibly “mini-rooms.”
  • Reflection on lessened drama this time due to absence of traditionally tough negotiator Carol Lombardini.
  • The WGA’s internal labor strife: the ongoing strike of support staff, with troubling moves like healthcare cuts for their own employees.
  • Christopher Nolan’s caution against overly long contracts is mentioned (per DGA leadership).

Quotes

• [07:37] Andy: “I'm happy and curious. So this was a surprise. Not that a deal was reached, but that it was reached so quickly and so apparently amicably.”
• [09:09] Andy: “One of the biggest challenges was arriving at the studio, like, during, not necessarily at the beginning of a shift. And all the only signs left would be really corny puns. And you'd be like, come on, we're writers, we gotta zhuzh it a little bit.”
• [13:11] Andy (on WGA support staff strike): “...word got out that in its own hardball tactics against its own staff, the [Writers] Guild...is cutting off the healthcare of its own staff, which is something that the AMPTP has never done to writers. So clean your own house up...”

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3. Bad Robot Downsizes & Changing LA Creative Landscape

• [13:32–19:12]
  • JJ Abrams is closing Bad Robot in Santa Monica and moving shop to New York.
  • Reflections on the end of an era: legendary creative offices, the demise of spaces like the ArcLight Cinerama Dome, and the shrinking physical and imaginative infrastructure of LA’s entertainment industry.
  • Contrasts between nostalgia for idea factories (like Bad Robot) and the reality of over-indulgent deals with low return on investment.
  • Broader industry context: Studio mergers, “quarter billion dollar” overall deals, and whether their results justified the hype.
  • Ambivalence: pain for creative job losses, but skepticism over past excesses.

Quotes

• [16:46] Andy: "I'm of mixed feeling…when you put it in the larger framework of the slow death of a creative industry, it is galling and heartbreaking."
• [17:31] Andy: "…the flip side of it is you could also look at it as a requiem on kind of the waste and indulgence of the last 10 years."

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4. Movie Weekend: ‘The Drama’ (Non-Spoiler)

• [19:21–22:44]
  • Chris discusses seeing Christoph Borgli’s The Drama—a Scandinavian-flavored film set in Boston, praised for its twist and post-cinema conversational value.
  • Emphasis on how some films are “better to talk about than actually see” with appreciation for lively discussion (“aprés cinema”).

Quotes

• [21:55] Chris: "I really enjoyed going out to dinner with my wife after seeing The Drama and then talking about the drama…It was a very engaged evening."

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5. The Pit: Reflections and Cast Changes

• [23:00–29:49]
  • The hosts analyze “The Pit” (the acclaimed TV hospital drama) and its recent episode.
  • Praise for: the show’s unpredictable pace, cast turnover, and how new “farm team” characters are promoted midseason.
  • Observations on how the series balances major and minor characters with unprecedented fluidity.
  • Speculation on which characters are “untouchable” and future directions with possible cast shakeups.

Quotes

• [24:12] Andy: “No other show has ever done this which is just like if you need a shot of…adrenaline, we have an entirely different cast of this show just ready to roll.”
• [28:16] Andy: “This show is built on turnover and you can't guarantee anything other than the fact that you are going to get a big boost out of whatever you do on the show.”

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6. International Crime Shows: State of the Genre

• [33:09–47:44, 51:28–63:54]

A. European "Dark Side of the Upper Middle Class" Wave

• Chris notices an uptick in shows about “seemingly perfect” people tempted by crime (e.g. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, DTF, Friends and Neighbors).
• Andy notes this is long-running TV territory, particularly post-Breaking Bad (“I'm a successful suburban science teacher. Wait, systems aren't working for me. I shall cook drugs.” — [34:51])

B. Privileges (HBO Max, France)

• [36:27–45:23]
  • Premise: Former inmate Adele joins a work-release staff at a luxury Paris hotel through a secretive program, placing her at the intersection of power, privilege, and crime.
  • Unique angle: The lead’s perspective is from outside privilege—unlike many American parallel shows.
  • Show described as blending biting tension (à la Uncut Gems) with “procedural” overload and overlapping blackmail plots.
  • Andy on Euro-streamer style: a growing "sameness" in visual language and tone (dubbed “elevated Euro trash”).
  • Sophie needle drops, snake heists, and international character tropes like “Mark Pepo” the American tech bro.

Notable Quotes

• [40:06] Andy: “...we need to start discussing this as its own genre…elevated Euro trash.”
• [44:42] Andy: “Mark Pepo is here. He has requested the cheap champagne.”

C. Unfamiliar (Netflix, Germany)

• [51:28–63:54]
  • Premise: Married couple/restaurant owners Simon and Merritt are secret safe-house operators for German intelligence. Old enemies and secrets return, with Belarus as the geopolitical hotspot.
  • Fuses elements of The Americans, Eastern Gate, and Homeland—with a distinctly German texture.
  • Admiration for pacing and binge-worthiness (six tight episodes, cliffhangers), but some “Netflix-maxing”—plot constantly restated and stakes engineered for efficiency.
  • The impact of “limitless formats” on show structures is debated.
  • Amusing “most German thing about it” awards: dark and brooding Jonas, DJ daughter Nina, and single earring as 16-years-earlier trope.
  • Real-world spycraft and technology: Underlying observation that advances like instant satellite imagery threaten old-school tension of the form.

Notable Quotes

• [52:47] Andy: “It's Netflix maxing in a way that…I watched the first one of this and I was like, here we go. This is my new favorite show.”
• [59:36] Andy: “Number one, that at least 40% of the cast in the show were also in the television show Dark…Number two, that…Simon has a single earring or…the fact that their daughter Nina is both newly 16 and an accomplished club DJ. That was German as fuck.”

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7. Globalization & Remakes

• [50:01–51:10]
  • Disney/FX are remaking The Americans as a North Korean spy drama set in ‘80s Korea.
  • Discussion of international format adaptation and how the “global language” of TV being exported creates both opportunity and sameness.

Quote

• [50:36] Andy: “...I think that's phenomenal. That's awesome. I think it's an exciting idea.”

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8. Industry News & Upcoming Prestige Adaptations

• [67:09–73:49]
  • Literary adaptations in the pipeline: Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (Cord Jefferson, Franzen scripting, Meryl Streep lead), Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities (David E. Kelley & Matt Reeves), and Lonesome Dove rights being reacquired.
  • Reflections on cycling through adaptation attempts and their fit to current industry logic.

Quotes

• [67:46] Andy: “From what I understand, Cord is directing and Jonathan Franzen is adapting his own book…This has been long-gestating.”
• [70:17] Andy: “Is it time? Are we ready? Is the time right to get the 80s right?”

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9. Closing & Coming Attractions

• [73:49–75:12]
  • Teases about upcoming topics: Euphoria premiere, Pit finale, new David E. Kelley shows, Beef S2, Widow's Bay, Devil and Silver (AMC horror).
  • Summer House drama on Watch After Dark (riff only—insider gossip, not recapped).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |---------------|-------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | 07:37 | Andy | “I'm happy and curious. So this was a surprise...” | | 13:14 | Andy | “…clean your own house up is what I would say. It's ridiculous.” | | 16:46 | Andy | “I'm of mixed feeling…when you put it in the larger framework..." | | 24:12 | Andy | “No other show has ever done this which is just like if you need...”| | 40:06 | Andy | “...elevated Euro trash.” | | 44:42 | Andy | “Mark Pepo. Is here. He has requested the cheap champagne.” | | 52:47 | Andy | “It's Netflix maxing in a way…” | | 59:36 | Andy | “...the most German thing about it...” |

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Key Takeaways

• WGA Deal: “Surprisingly amicable” four-year deal, but details and internal labor issues remain unresolved.
• Creative LA Shrinking: The shuttering of Bad Robot and beloved spaces like ArcLight signals the end of a particular creative and physical era in LA, both practically and romantically.
• International TV Trends:
  • Streaming-era European crime and spy thrillers are stylistically converging (“elevated Euro trash”), losing some national specificity but still producing compulsively watchable content.
  • Adaptations and remakes are cycling through Hollywood, TV, and international markets, with studios constantly revisiting the past for new hits.
• Hot recommendations: German series Unfamiliar (Netflix) and French Privileges (HBO Max); both good, neither groundbreaking, but revealing for the state of global TV.
• Meta-critical self-reflection: Andy and Chris are conscious of the ways news cycles, streaming, and “formats” shape what critics—even themselves—cover and care about.

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Upcoming Coverage

• Euphoria S3 premiere, The Pit finale, new David E. Kelley, Beef S2, Widow’s Bay, Devil & Silver anthology

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Tone: As always, conversational, playful, and wryly critical—mixing deep industry insight with irreverence and pop-culture banter.
For listeners: Whether you track industry news or just love international TV, this episode captures the moment, with personal warmth and sharp reflexive commentary.

Transcript

[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 Riot. I am an [e-mail] and joining me in the studio, he is Risen. It's Andy Greenwald.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's a reference to another charismatic Jewish guy with questionable hair.

[Chris Ryan]

What's wrong with your hair?

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't know. I get a lot of comments. From who? From your friend, your fans.

[Chris Ryan]

What?

[Andy Greenwald]

The CR heads.

[Chris Ryan]

They talk about your hair.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, well, I'm sorry.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, next time we have a meeting, I'll talk about it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Just listen. Control your people. That's all I'm saying.

[Chris Ryan]

Greenwald. Great to see you, bud.

[Andy Greenwald]

Great to see you. We have a lot to talk about.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. We missed you on Thursday. Joe was very nice to come by. We did a primetime programming grid. We talked about something very bad is going to happen. We talked a little bit about the pit news that I was going to see if you wanted to comment on.

[Andy Greenwald]

I do. I'm worried I missed the night shift discourse, too. I feel like that went over big.

[Chris Ryan]

It did. And it's. And it's just growing. Although I do feel like the Internet is now, like, just like scraping the. Like most casually tossed off, like, sure, that would be cool. Like Sean Hadassey quotes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

To be like, night shift is in development and the Russo brothers will abandon Doomsday to make it.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know. That's right.

[Chris Ryan]

So, yeah, like we said, by the way, today on the pod, you can.

[Andy Greenwald]

First of all, I'm gonna do your stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

I do three resets here. First of all, you can reach [e-mail] and you can follow us on Instagram @thewatchpod underscore. And you can watch us on YouTube @ringer-tv. And you can watch us on Spotify, where I think you're probably listening to us. But you can find us on lots of different podcast platforms. And on the podcast today, a few news and notes. A WGA agreement, the closure of a beloved production company in Los Angeles. Oh, yeah, My weekend at the films at the movies.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to hear about that.

[Chris Ryan]

And then we're going to talk about two international crime shows.

[Andy Greenwald]

Who Couldn't Be Us?

[Chris Ryan]

Friends and Neighbors is back.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'll get to it.

[Chris Ryan]

Andy's going to get to it, probably eventually. I think I. I've watched enough Friends and Neighbors in my life personally. But, like, maybe I'll check out second season a little bit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Are you doing the Dave Wasserman?

[Chris Ryan]

I've seen enough. I want to see Marsden. And then I will have seen enough. Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Can I come over the top with one? A block story for us today in the podcast?

[Chris Ryan]

Absolutely.

[Andy Greenwald]

Happy birthday, Kya.

[Chris Ryan]

Thank you. She keeps it really quiet about that stuff. Private. I know.

[Andy Greenwald]

And here I am blowing it up.

[Chris Ryan]

Is that why your sister was in town? Yes, it was.

[Andy Greenwald]

Whoa. Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

See, it's on Instagram. Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

She keeps it private. Tell me more about your family.

[Chris Ryan]

How was that Chablis, Kaya? Was it Okie or.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, not a real Chablis, then.

[Chris Ryan]

Happy birthday, Kaya. Thank you. Are you. Should I guess your age? Sure, go for it. 31. Close.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a big one.

[Chris Ryan]

30? You're 30 and you're here? Yeah. I don't really know why. Oh, my God.

[Andy Greenwald]

I know you don't remember that. One of the ways to know. Please forgive me. There are many ways to know, but one of the ways to track Kya's age is she's the same age as our friendship.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, exactly. Wait, is this the day we met today?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, no, no. She wasn't born. She didn't emerge into the world the moment we locked eyes at a Borders bookstore.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that would make sense that she was here. It was like we were. It's like in paradise. We've been on these roads together to collide. I feel bad that you're here on your 30th birthday. There's nowhere else I'd rather be. That's really nice. Than at the Watch. That's a great.

[Andy Greenwald]

She has a lot of plans today, but she wanted to know our thoughts on Two international spy thrillers just before she committed to the rest of her

[Chris Ryan]

literally dozens of other people, dozens of us. Was that the only A block news you had for me?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Although I'm still reeling from your protein announcements. Right before we started recording, Greenwald was

[Chris Ryan]

just crushing, like a nameless yogurt that trumpets its own protein offerings. And I was just speaking from personal experience that when I was the beginning of my wellness journey.

[Andy Greenwald]

Where are you now on your wellness journey?

[Chris Ryan]

I'm in the zone. Like, I know it's good for me, and really what it is is, like, you have to tune out, okay? All of the noise and lift weights. You have to get back to the back of the comic book. That's like, what's up, Pips week? Pick this heavy thing up 55 times. Chicks will dig it.

[Andy Greenwald]

To be clear, many parts of the comic book spoke to me, none louder than that page in the back page ads.

[Chris Ryan]

No, you just. I see that you got this thing, and I've been there, man. I've used to.

[Andy Greenwald]

Wait.

[Chris Ryan]

One time I put, like, way too much protein powder in some Greek yogurt, and I thought. I thought I could see God. Like, it was really disgusting.

[Andy Greenwald]

I want to just make a couple of things clear. I'm tired of the. I'm tired of the allegations, okay, that you're trying to promote here. I'm not into the supplements. I'm not adding powder. When you say I brought something in, I arrived. Some of us get to the podcast early. Okay. Once. And I was like, I'm early. I could get a snack. And our friends here said, you can go to the other turn right by the office named Danny DeVito, and there's some snacks. And they had. I was like, maybe I'll have a yogurt. The only yogurt they had is protein maxing. Okay. That's not me. My attitude towards all this stuff is just moderate.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Eat a little bit of this, drink a little bit of that, lift a little bit of weight.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do some stretching. You ever do that?

[Chris Ryan]

I do sometimes. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

You look great.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I just want to be clear. I was a little thrown. It's like a middle aged guy power thing where you sit down to go to work and you're like, you sure about that?

[Chris Ryan]

I just want you to be. I want you to be happy and healthy while we do this podcast and while we talk about the new agreement signed by the WGA that's going to

[Andy Greenwald]

keep me happy and healthy and the.

[Chris Ryan]

I always mess up their crazy language. The amptp that's them, the ampa, the studios. And I think the one thing I would mention about this is it seems like, at least in the initial reporting,

[Andy Greenwald]

it's a four year deal, unlike usually a three year.

[Chris Ryan]

Usually a three year. This is a four year. Some really interesting reporting over the course of the weekend about. I saw some quotes from Christopher Nolan, who's not only the director of the Odyssey and Inception, but is the head of the dga. And he was like, you know what? I don't like long deals, because if we had signed a five year deal in 2020, like, imagine how much this industry has changed since then.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is also. Isn't this Bill's advice, too?

[Chris Ryan]

Bet on yourself.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Yeah. Weird the way Bill and Christopher Nolan feel comfortable making that advice. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

As a member of the Writers Guild association, you must be happy.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm happy and curious. So this was a.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the best place to be, man.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's where I live. That's what makes me an essential cultural critic. Thank you. Happy, curious, full of protein.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

This was a surprise. Not that a deal was reached, but that it was reached so quickly and so apparently amicably, because negotiations have only been going for about 10 days. There was a lot of concern, as there always is. This is gonna blow your mind. Writers are a bit of a neurotic lot. So there was a lot of whatsapping, lot of whatsapping, and also a lot of just general ambient concern, because this is not me speaking for any ambient WhatsApp, but I think this is a shared feeling. Every three years, the Writers Guild makes a deal, and every three years, somehow we end up looking like Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy's football. Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

I think management and labor, that is generally how people feel. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So the fact that. And also, obviously, the last few negotiations were quite fraught. Not just the strike three years ago. The one before that was Covid. So that kind of got rubber stamped quickly. The one before that was like 11th hour and people were writing strike signs. So there was a lot of concern about that. When I think I write the money, I was like, which pun shall I scribe today?

[Chris Ryan]

But it would been in for like, 2018, right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. Yeah. Oh, it would have been. It would have been a lot of like, think about that. The President of the United States just declared war on science.

[Chris Ryan]

Nevertheless, I persisted

[Andy Greenwald]

the hardest. I mean, there were many challenges of the strike, but one of the biggest challenges was arriving at the studio, like, during, not necessarily at the beginning of a shift. And all the only signs left would Be really corny puns. And you'd be like, come on, we're writers, we gotta zhuzh it a little bit.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's whiteboard this workshop.

[Andy Greenwald]

Some of this. The reason I said curious is mainly because the details haven't been announced yet. What was announced by the studios and by the writers was that whatever this deal is that it addressed, this is easy for them to say. The two biggest items on the docket, the biggest one being the health fund, which I am apparently going to be in need of.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Due to my protein induced renal failure. But that. That there is a quite a big shortfall financially. The studio, we needed the studios to put more money into that pot, basically. And the other thing was just the vague AI protections and people have concerns about being paid for post services and things like that. So just some general ambient issues that apparently they did address. But we'll find out more details in the coming days. I think the biggest changes here, from what I understand is the absence of Carol Lombardini, who was, yes, the chief negotiator for the past few contentious sharp elbows. Apparently she was. She had stepped down, allegedly.

[Chris Ryan]

Carol, you might be a soft elbow negotiator for all I know. I was.

[Andy Greenwald]

Maybe she just ate the wrong thing right before she stepped into the room.

[Chris Ryan]

She was just like, I thought this was. I thought this was equal. I didn't know that this protein powder.

[Andy Greenwald]

So we don't know that. But. But the other way to look at it and is the other way to look at it might be. And this is 100% pie in the sky. And you can say this before details come out. It would be nice to think that there was some shared sense of we are on the precipice of really existential change to this industry. All industries, the American economy, America. And it would be great if we could find some common ground to not weaken each other at this moment. Yeah, I hope that's the case. But we'll see.

[Chris Ryan]

It seemed like the last work stoppage took several years to get over, you know, in terms of like getting things back on track. And for the production timelines, it was quite serving themselves.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. But it also was, you know, there was more detail to it than this. This is a broad brush, but like one of the things that we went on strike over was something. It's a little inside baseball, but mini rooms. Right. That there was a increase. There was a. It was becoming more and more frequent that instead of when green lighting a show, instead of giving a showrunner or creator, producer, writer a full room, they would hedge their bets and say, we will fund, you know, two weeks, three people see what you can get done. And then if. If what comes out of that mini room, whether it's one script or three scripts or more, is promising, then we will roll with it. And so it was important for the writers to guarantee some protections involving those mini rooms, which were sort of free floating and not necessarily. You couldn't necessarily apply minimums and things to those rooms. So we fought, we went on strike, we got concessions, and the studio said, cool, we'll never do those again. And the football used to do that. Went up in the air. Exactly. You would think that we would again, because it's weird. Writers do have some parent issues, I believe, as well. So you'd think that there would be some.

[Chris Ryan]

Not that it ever feeds into their work or anything.

[Andy Greenwald]

Never. So there was a lot of that kind of stuff. The other thing I'll say before we move on the topic, that is a black eye. This should be a great moment for the Writers Guild. I will say that it is an ongoing black eye that the Writers Guild support staff has been on strike from the Writers Guild. I saw that for a number of weeks, which is embarrassing and ridiculous. And then in the midst of this, before the deal was announced over the weekend, word got out that in its own hardball tactics against its own staff, the guild, of which I am a member, is cutting off the healthcare of its own staff, which is something that the AMPTP has never done to writers. So clean your own house up is what I would say. It's ridiculous.

[Chris Ryan]

That sucks.

[Andy Greenwald]

It sucks.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't know about the healthcare part. I knew that they were out on strike. Cause I think Seth Rogen made a reference to it at the Oscars or maybe at the. Or at the SAG Awards. He was like, we can't even have the wga.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, the awards. That's exactly right. The Writers Guild Awards didn't happen because of this ongoing strike.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, I was just bringing up the. The labor negotiations between the wga because over the weekend, there wasn't like, a ton of, like, hardcore entertainment news that we would need to pick over that much. But I did note that JJ Abrams is closing Bad Robot in Santa Monica, which is his production company, and moving to New York.

[Andy Greenwald]

Spielberg did this too. They made a big. They didn't write an essay, like my Leaving L. A essay.

[Chris Ryan]

So, you know, you can never really tell with social media testimonials anymore. And, like, whether this is, like a guy who stopped in and got a protein yogurt once and is now writing like a goodbye to all that about it.

[Andy Greenwald]

But the back half of this podcast

[Chris Ryan]

you did did see a lot of very similar kind of like bad robot had 3D printers and smoothies for all.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And a slide on the roof.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And it was a hub of creativity. And I don't know if anybody actually gives a shit, but this is kind of the version of the California dream that we thought we were moving out to. Like, I never thought I was gonna write Mission Impossible movies or anything like that, but I know that when you moved out here to be a screenwriter, there were a lot more places like Bad Robot dotting the California landscape. And I was driving home from dinner last night past a completely dark and abandoned Arc light, Cinerama, still complex. I saw even the Save the ArcLight social media account was like, I give up. I no longer am doing this. This is not gonna happen.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because from what we understand, and this is super inside baseball, but the Arc Light is a beautiful Cinerama dome. The most like this, this spread out, ridiculous fake town does not really have a central square other than maybe the fountain at the Americana. The arclight was that and is a great place to see movies and a historic place. It's been closed since COVID From what we understand, multiple people have attempted to open a movie theater there, but have been rebuffed because for whatever reason, the developers who own the site think it's more profitable not to have whatever the

[Chris Ryan]

write down is to have it, but not operate it. I have no idea.

[Andy Greenwald]

This economy works, ladies and gentlemen.

[Chris Ryan]

In any case, this is maybe not like the most relevant thing to people outside of the movie or television industry and the greater Los Angeles area. I thought it was notable that it does seem like at the same time that the studio landscape is changing with Paramount acquisition of Warner Brothers. Saw that you guys got your Gulf State funding, so Shout Out Dave came through right at the last second. That guy negotiates, you know, no matter what. I just thought it was an interesting, like, little mile marker on the road of like. Oh, yeah. Like there was. There was a time when like, the entire city was kind of dotted with like, shingles. Shingles that had, like, weird, like, you know, I think time sort of trappings.

[Andy Greenwald]

For what it's worth, there weren't many places like Bad Robot. Like, I've been there for a couple meetings and it is what people. I mean, it was a remarkably curated space. Everything was creative and whimsical and, you know, tactile with old machines and an incredible Chef. And people loved going to work there. And famously or honestly, infamously, when we look back on it, like moments from Force Awakens were shot in that office.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like they were just. Just playing around with some stormtrooper getups. You know, just run into this office. I mean, I guess maybe they probably green screened the office. It wasn't actually like, you know, Aeron chairs on the Millennium Falcon. But anyway, I'm of mixed feeling. I have mixed feelings about this because when you put it in the larger framework of the slow death of a creative industry, it is galling and heartbreaking. And it is a shame because that was a place that people were excited to do business with and to be involved with. And it did feel like an idea factory and was set up to sell the idea of an idea being an idea factory. I think the flip side of it is you could also look at it as a requiem on kind of the waste and indulgence of the last 10 years.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

Where I believe the deal that locked Bad Robot into Warner Brothers was in excess of $250 million. And that's not a check to JJ. That's to keep the company.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that's probably more also like the way NFL contracts work where you're like, whoa. And then it's like, actually, it's only like $6 million guaranteed.

[Andy Greenwald]

But, like, I don't think it's. That is.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, really? You think they got like the quarter bill but made Duster?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that from my understanding of these deals, and this is why we see there's two sides of it. Like, as a writer in this world who would love. Let me look to the camera. Would love another overall deal. We want more of those. That's good. In the same way that the players are like, no, Kyle Tucker's deal is awesome for all of us. Thank you. No need for a salary cap. But the flip side of it is when those deals had reached such a ludicrous point that based on name and past performance, this is why we always use. I don't know why we always go to baseball analogies, but this is why we go to the Albert Pujols analogy. Like, a quarter bill for J.J. abrams is kind of after the fact for Lost and Cloverfield, which doesn't mean to say his best days as a creative himself are behind him. But. But if you look at what that company produced for its TV and movie obligations in the last few years, and look, it's hard. You can't just flip a switch. And they had many antique steampunk switches. You can't just flip one and make brilliant successful stuff that connects with audiences. But the return on investment was relatively low. And maybe lower overhead might produce more better. I don't know. But anytime jobs leave here. Not great.

[Chris Ryan]

Not great. We'll find out when he gets back to the land of big Zoe.

[Andy Greenwald]

You think? You think he and Steven are just in the lab. Maybe they're going to do some more sketches with Curtis Lewa about cat health.

[Chris Ryan]

I wanted to let you know that I saw the drama.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. I had a question for you about it. I asked you over text but my. I want to know your thoughts. No spoilers. Because I want to see it. But I needed to know from you that the twist is not.

[Chris Ryan]

This is the funniest question you've asked me in 2026.

[Andy Greenwald]

Is it a horror movie?

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Andy Greenwald]

Then I'll see it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. It goes to show you how complicated it is something like this today. Because there is the version of it that you actually can't help yourself but click on everything about it and find out over the course of clicking what the film is about. And then there is like. I don't know if you are willfully not reading about it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. Or willfully.

[Chris Ryan]

We're like third hand being like if they are hiding something from me. Is it Satan's dog Comes Mephisto. Yeah. Comes flying out from under the bed.

[Andy Greenwald]

I saw the trailers and it is a wink wink marketing campaign. So I understood. But I haven't read past that. So my understanding was that there was a twist. You can't make a movie about a couple getting married with that framing and that. I mean everything in the marketing told you there was more to it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And all I want.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think it's not a horror movie.

[Andy Greenwald]

Then I'll see it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

You liked it.

[Chris Ryan]

It is a. So it's directed by this guy, Christoph Borgli. And it definitely has like some qualities that are very Scandinavian.

[Andy Greenwald]

He did Dream Sequence.

[Chris Ryan]

Dream Scenario.

[Andy Greenwald]

Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage.

[Chris Ryan]

This film is set in Boston, but in some ways like could be Copenhagen. You know, everybody's looking great and seems to have a socialized health healthcare. But it is kind of like the inverse of your preferred version of scandi drama, you know?

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Like say like sentimental value. Like the way like I know you respond to Joachim like in like the kind of emotional catharsis.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's. Cause he's a. He's a girl. Dad, have we mentioned that? Who?

[Chris Ryan]

Joachim von Trier.

[Andy Greenwald]

Huh? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Is that.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just watch the interest drain from you.

[Chris Ryan]

I like that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Must be nice.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. To have children.

[Andy Greenwald]

No dad. To be a girl dad. You don't care.

[Chris Ryan]

I care.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, no, no. You care about me. Yeah, but that is not a driving force.

[Chris Ryan]

I would care less if a director is a girl dad.

[Andy Greenwald]

I know.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know who else cares? Sean. Sean's with me on that one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. What about guy dads?

[Andy Greenwald]

I respect what you're doing. Go have catches. Like, we need good men in this world.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved the drama.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought it was quite good. But also you said you liked it. If I don't mean to blow you up here and do reportage on your text, sure. But it seemed like you liked the experience of seeing the movie a lot. And then you also liked the apres cinema. You liked talking about this movie. Yes. And I'm sorry, I can't back you up on it, but I was saying

[Chris Ryan]

I really enjoyed going out to dinner with my wife after seeing the drama and then talking about the drama. A bunch of, you know, what was little Justin Chang and being like, well, look what he says. It was like, feel. It was a very engaged evening.

[Andy Greenwald]

What was. First of all, you are both very engaged conversationalists about culture. It's enjoyable. What is off the top of your head? What was the worst post movie dinner conversation you've ever had with Phoebe? Was it when you, like, had to take her to see the Eternals or something?

[Chris Ryan]

No, it was like she, she. She tapped out on, like, going to movies that she knew she was going to hate a long time ago. I think we left the film 21 grams in the middle of it because it was giving her a panic attack.

[Andy Greenwald]

Fair.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't remember what we did afterwards. We might have gotten drunk.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's probably why you don't remember. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay. I wanted to see if you had any pit thoughts before we get into the international crime shows. Not necessarily about the episode or about. For sure about the episode, if you'd like. And also about the cast changes and the general state of the series as we enter. I believe the last two.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, I mean, I think that they're one of the things that I have just loved and I think I've been beating this drum pretty consistently for the last few weeks, is I absolutely love the way the show is surprising us and manipulating us in the best possible dramatic way with pace and expectation. The season is not going to end without something else big happening. I think. I don't think there's going to be Necessarily resolution to Robbie's Dark night of the soul. Dark day. Now into the night of the soul. But I think that story will be pushed more into the center of the table in one way or another. But the fact that this episode felt very like both at once kind of elegiac and like reflective for the day that was and people and you know, and Ogilvy has changed so profoundly over the course of these 12 hours. But everyone has been changed slightly by what has happened to have that happening concurrently with the show's honest to God superpower. No other show has ever done this which is just like if you need a shot of I guess not versed. The opposite of versed adrenaline. We have an entirely different cast of this show just ready to roll.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

Just to show up and give us completely new blood, new faces, new energy, new relationships, new perspective. It's unprecedented and it's so, so exciting. And of course the fact that it's so exciting is why people are immediately fan and wishing for spinoffs. But it also. This is what you're referring to in terms of the news. Makes sense that the show has. The other thing that it has that other shows have never had is a farm team of just characters that could be upstreamed to the main cast and be part of it. Which is what's happening with Aisha Harris, I believe.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Dr. Ellis.

[Andy Greenwald]

Dr. Ellis character who look all these night shift people from Dr. Shen to Jack, I mean these guys, Mateo, these guys all have main character energy and they are the main character of the non existent night shift show. But that makes a lot of sense. And again, it is unique to the show or maybe it's not unique to the show. There have been other shows that we've talked about that have a built in mechanism for cast turnover and the shows that have used it that well, they can do things where like I think that Dr. Mohan, who I. I'm a fan of the actor and the character. It seems it's. I don't think anybody watching the season was surprised that she may have. That story may have reached its natural end.

[Chris Ryan]

Her character was gonna go one of two directions. She was either gonna be like, I am going beast mode and now understand the pace and demands of this department or I'm a really good doctor, but I don't really want to do this kind of medicine, which I think is a totally. I think one thing that's cool about what the show does is it just gives you the viewer the information. When Whitaker is talking to Ogilvy and Ogilvy's like, I'm gonna do peeds or something. Whitaker's just like, this is the only place where you really feel like I feel like I'm making a difference in people's lives. And you see them on their worst day. That seems great.

[Andy Greenwald]

One thing that'll be interesting to track as the show runs two, three, four, eight seasons. It can be cruel isn't the word, but it can be swift in its determination about things. And they can say, I have no reason. Two things to say. One, I have no inside information whatsoever about the production of the show. That said, I believe them when they say that Supriya Ganesh is moving on because that character, for story reasons has reached the end of its story road and they're going to switch it up. Tracy aficour, who played Dr. Collins in season one, her departure that she never came back from her DND notice on her phone still strikes me as super odd. But they can say it's story reasons because this is turnover.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So I guess what I mean is that as we reach season five and season six of the show, new faces get announced. It's going to be a little stressful because it's not like being added to like it's all at will employment. People can be written off of shows all the time. But I think that people get. Usually when people get added to a hit show, they're like, awesome. I can settle in for a minute.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

This show is built on turnover and you can't guarantee anything other than the fact that you are going to get a big boost out of whatever you do on the show.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it'll be fascinating to see over the course of the rest of this season and is certainly into season three, which I imagine will air sometime early in 27, if not exactly when 20 season two started airing. Whether there become untouchables on this show. And I think that Dana and Robbie are and. And Whitaker and Whitaker might be. And Santos might be as well in some ways. And Mel, if that crew is like locked in or if there is still like it could be anybody. And I don't think they would make this show without Noah Wylie or I don't think the show is the same show without Noah Wylie. But you know, they are having these characters at a crossroads in their life, especially Dana and Robbie, thinking about like whether or not they can actually do this anymore. And so that's an interesting crossroads to arrive at in season two. And I don't know if you can return to the same crossroads in season three with the Same characters.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, what you can do, I think the thing that we keep, and certainly I do, I keep getting rocked and impressed by how nimble the show is in taking advantage of its uniqueness. Not just its uniqueness in terms of its setting and hours, but uniqueness in terms of its clockwork, old fashioned dependability. There absolutely can be a season of the Pit where Robbie doesn't show up until hour eight. There can be a season of the Pit where we get a lot more Dr. Shen and a lot less Dr. Santos. The show is built to contain that. And I also think the nature of it, where they are filming in LA at a certain time every year, I think that they can, they can take advantage of that. I think it's very different than telling an adult actor you need to move to Belfast for one to six years. Now. Stuff gets done like the, the, the travel departments of these networks, I can say are very efficient, terrifyingly so, at getting people to other countries in relatively quick turnaround. But I think that that that aspect of it, you know, it also that even that's a grandiose way of talking about the kind of familial thing that they are already creating where relatives and wives and partners of many of the cast members have already shown up. Yeah, there was no. Wiley's wife was this week or the previous week. She was the person who had too much turmeric.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh yeah, the Maha person.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Actually, I don't know that she's actually identified as Maha.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. Be careful, Chris.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, you're the one with the protein yogurt.

[Andy Greenwald]

Look, some of us are just curious.

[Chris Ryan]

You're the one with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Brand yogurt.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm not taking that because I'm hungry, by the way. I'm taking it because I'm very sick. And I've heard that that yogurt can.

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[Chris Ryan]

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[Andy Greenwald]

Y' all keep it coming. I like it. I like it when you're like, I have a number of talking points for you.

[Chris Ryan]

I was gonna ask you about the Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed trailer. This is an upcoming show on Apple starring Tatiana Maslany. The reason I was gonna ask you about it was because I couldn't tell whether or not we are in a. The throes of a. Of a. A wave of popularity about upper middle class curiosity about the dark side of life, or if that is just one of the most durable things to make TV about. Anyway. And I'm, I'm just imagining it because of DTF and this.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

And your friends and neighbors. It's obviously something that Apple is interested in. Is this seemingly perfect person. Just got a little bit dangerous the other day, you know, like, and this seems about to be about a woman who starts exploring her sexuality and then some various levels of crime start happening around that.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a slippery slope Karen.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's the genre.

[Chris Ryan]

Is her name Karen in this or are you just saying.

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I'm just saying that's the new genre I'm inventing. Slippery slope, comma, Karen.

[Chris Ryan]

Wouldn't Karen always be calling the cops? Right.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, well, we don't. We haven't seen the episodes.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but could be episode one.

[Andy Greenwald]

This won't do. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. It's ringing.

[Chris Ryan]

You guys are in so much trouble.

[Andy Greenwald]

Hold on. Yeah, you. You stay right there, young man.

[Chris Ryan]

They put me on hold.

[Andy Greenwald]

They've all been laid off.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you. But do you notice these kinds of things where it's just like, oh, for some reason we're making 10 shows. Like, for a while there, I felt like half the shows that would get announced or, you know, released were from the true crime podcast about the dentist who killed 50 people but also had six wives.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, like, I think that you can track middle class. Well, there's no such thing as a middle class anymore. Sorry. It's just a funny little joke. You can track a certain upper middle class, let's say malaise, through television and Breaking Bad, for example, which is maybe the greatest example of this. Of like, I'm a successful suburban science teacher. Wait Systems aren't working for me. I shall cook drugs. Yeah, that's how I remember the pilot that premiered. Maybe even the day. No, it premiered in January of 2008. So it premiered just as that presidential campaign was starting, but was clearly developed at the end of the Bush era of like just economic ruin and foreign misadventure. And I would say that you could track this. Like that's the canary in the coal mine. Especially at a moment when it's weird. It's like in the last year and a half, two years, TV got really interested in the plates of well off white people again, which is. Gave us some content. But I think you can track that. And I would be curious to see some of the. We've heard about announcements of some return to the family drama type shows and to see those Geiger counter wobbles institutionally, systemically happening to that sort of person. That is an. It's an endlessly renewable well, but seems to come up to the surface at certain times.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, you know what? This is actually a pretty good segue. We watched two international crime shows this weekend to get ready for the pod.

[Andy Greenwald]

You're welcome.

[Chris Ryan]

One is called Unfamiliar. I mentioned it briefly on Thursday. We'll get into that a little bit more extensively because I think that did more for us. But I do want to ask you about this show on HBO Max, called Privileges, which is a French language show or French show. And it is from. The creators are Marie Mong and Vladimir de Fontenay, who I believe were in attendance at the Eyes Wide Shut party I was at this weekend. I'm just kidding. Just sounds like kind of the, you know, the people with the cloaks.

[Andy Greenwald]

Tell us more about the party.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm just joking.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was it held in the abandoned Cinerama dome? Like we are failing as a nation thus.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

We must embrace perversity.

[Chris Ryan]

You get up to the door, you go tarantino. And they let you in. No, just, you know, I was just having fun at the expense of their names, but not fun at the expense of their show, which I, I actually, I think I enjoyed a little bit more than you. But the reason I'm conn to maximum Pleasure guaranteed is this is in and of itself a crime show. And there's basically two shows here in Privileges. It's about a young inmate named Adele who's a wonderful performance by this young actress named Manon Bresh. And she, as part of like a work release program, joins the staff of a luxury hotel called the Citadel in Paris. And it's a kind of secretive Program that the manager of this hotel, Eduard, runs, we are led to believe, probably because he himself has come from a rough patch in his life. Also, what happens is he gets these people to come aboard and they basically will do anything for him to stay out of prison or to secure some sort of release.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because Adele is returning to prison every night.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. You know, as he brings her on, there's this pilot episode. She gets used to being there, and then pulls off an extraordinary request of a pop star guest of the hotel. This hotel is sort of at the nexus of power, fame, money, and basically every single guest is either needs something, wants something, is doing a drug, is having an illicit affair or something. So you get a lot of good TV marrow out there. The thing I was gonna say is that they approach this world from the perspective of somebody who has nothing in this Adele character. Whereas, like, the ones you're describing in America are tending to be, hey, everything was going pretty great for me. And it does change your brain chemistry to watch a series where, you know, first of all, you can totally understand why Adele will in, you know, no spoil. Well, I guess spoilers for this first episode because it helps to be able to discuss it. There is an extraordinary sequence in the first episode of Privileges where Adele goes and fetches a boa constrictor for one of the guests. And it is shot like uncut gems, as is much of Adele's kind of behavior. And action in the show is very, like, handheld, incredibly tense, heart thumping. And it's. It's like you're cheering for her in a way that I don't think you cheer for Coop and your friends and neighbors to get away with stealing Rolexes from another rich guy. All that is to say, there is another half, or 75% of privileges that is basically a Fox procedural. Yes, and is 19 different black male plots overlapping. And even for my fluency in international crime, challenging to keep straight all the different subplots that they have introduced within 70 minutes of TV time. What did you think of the show?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, I mean, I have a larger take for both of these shows, and I do think we need to start discussing this as its own genre, which is, I think, elevated Euro trash.

[Chris Ryan]

Hey, it's okay, brother.

[Andy Greenwald]

Listen, I'm not. As someone who went to college in the northeast in the 90s, I was jealous of the elevated Euro trash. They knew which bars to go to. You know, they dressed great. Sometimes they would get me a cocktail.

[Chris Ryan]

CD singles seem to come out of nowhere for them.

[Andy Greenwald]

CD singles? The. But it's Also just about how the way these types of shows. And this is not just these two shows, this is a lot of the shows that we like. And I was thinking back to, like, Lupin and like all of these European shows made for international streamers. There's a certain language, visual language. There's a color palette. There's a lack of humor that is just shot through them all. And it's becoming a little bit samey. But I think that you're making a. But I did like the show, and I think it's a really, really smart and strong setup of this character coming into this world through the service entrance. And hotels are fascinating. Bizarre places that are great place to

[Chris Ryan]

do a TV show.

[Andy Greenwald]

Incredible energy and engine for plot and story because you have new people showing up every week. I think the way you're looking at it is really smart. We talked about this recently in relation to Taylor Sheridan shows and how I just. Maybe he's no longer. Now that he owns most of rural America himself, he's no longer the person to write the man of the People show. But I think that every one of the Taylor Sheridan shows I've engaged with over the past year would have been improved by like. Like Landman would be much, much better if it was about Boss's crew. And then the other characters were there, too, but they were fleeting, as opposed to. We have access to all of it. And we are as interested in the guys who literally got blown up as we are with Demi Moore's.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, to your point, for a variety of reasons, I think Laying man season one works better than season two. Number one is because Tommy works for somebody in season one.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a great point.

[Chris Ryan]

He is like, I gotta do what fucking Monty says. And that. That I might not believe it all the time. And I have to go sell it to this person and this person.

[Andy Greenwald]

And I think not to. I can't believe we're. You're finally letting me talk about international shows in other languages. And I'm like, the thing about Taylor Sheridan is this is. You really cooked me. That is so bad. But I do think that as much as, like, the Taylor Sheridan hero narrative of Taylor Sheridan is, look where he was and look where he is now. And that is the narrative then of all of his shows. And so that's probably why he can't. Unless young Taylor coming to CBS this fall. They did it for Sheldon. They could do it for him. He's like, I'm an actor, but I want to be a writer. And they're like, oh, Taylor, you never could be a writer.

[Chris Ryan]

Just get back on that motorcycle. Son of Vanguard.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'll show you. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Type, type, type, type, type, type, type.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then the Blackhawk helicopter said, women are sad sometimes. Anyway.

[Chris Ryan]

Honestly, in Lioness, they are sad sometimes

[Andy Greenwald]

with good reason, because they've taken out a foreign government. Hmm. Brownie face. Actually opposite of what you thought for me, because I love to zag. I thought the second episode of Privileges was better because it had settled into what it was going to be. I thought the first episode had so much to do to get Adele into this world and for us to understand the stakes and all the faces and the characters. And it was based on something that I found so profoundly silly, which is the snake heist.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. See, I like that.

[Andy Greenwald]

But it had some. But it wasn't. It should have been funny, but it was shot as if it was uncut gems, and there needed to be some absurdity to it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

I thought instead, it had, like, the most French needle.

[Chris Ryan]

And ebirding it now, right now, I like this.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, it had the most French needle drops ever, where it's just like some. Some old spiritual, like, sped up, you know, she's like, you must bathe in the water. And she's like, I'll rescue the snake. And it's a boa constrictor. But do you see the Foley guy in France just, like, lighting one cigarette off the other and being like, I will add the rattle of this snake. But boas don't have rattles. No, no, you don't understand. We have no snakes in France. This is scary. This is scary. And then it was like, also the scene.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a lot of snakes in that scene. She has to find the bow T shirts.

[Andy Greenwald]

Every time they wanted to remind us that she had the snake on her person, they were, like, adding the same sort of Polynesian jungle sounds they used to play at Epcot.

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't notice that, but that is really perceptive.

[Andy Greenwald]

So nuts. Anyway, by the time I got to the second episode, it's like, okay, now she's in it. And the stakes are, what? And now there's an international football star who wants to play PlayStation with her. And then there's also the larger. There have to be Russians. And then one of my other favorite things ever in these international shows is when they have to have an American person in the cast.

[Chris Ryan]

Mark Peppo is the name of the

[Andy Greenwald]

character, the American tech bro named Mark Pepo,

[Chris Ryan]

and they always refer to him as Mark Pepo.

[Andy Greenwald]

Mark Pepo.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Mark Pepo. Is here. He has requested the cheap champagne. And I do believe the actor who plays Marc Pepo is French, but maybe he was raised in two cultures, so he has, much like myself, one culture with you. One culture that is just really annoying and somehow we make it work. It was like the same thing. Like, remember the rich guys in Squid Game?

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

They're like, hey there, hey, honey, wipe my ass with an American flag. It's like the guy in the country who plays that part is just. He's available.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm really hoping some American CIA agent shows up on unfamiliar.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, that would be so sick. There's a lot of English and unfamiliar. We need to get to it. Anyway, I think it's a charming show and it's a good show. It has room to grow. I do wish that it was freed of. And we could segue into unfamiliar if you want, because I wish it was freed from this same privilege. Is HBO Max, but it is Netflix. Y and one thing just to contextualize all of this. Every nation, every nation once had a thriving.

[Chris Ryan]

So in the 18th century. Come on, Vladimir Lenin.

[Andy Greenwald]

The television set was invented as a tool for the worker to entertain.

[Chris Ryan]

When Tracy Letts began August Osage county. How could he have known?

[Andy Greenwald]

I think. I think Tracy listens. It's time for a rewrite, you know, September Osage County. Yeah, I so every country had their own TV services and they were making TV shows and they had more, I would say, distinct national or regional characteristics of how they made tv. Some good, some bad, some translatable and exportable, some not. I mean, one thing that is worth saying to contextualize what I'm trying to articulate is that when I've talked to people like, people in England, they're like, most of our TV has been dog shit for years and you would see the six things that were good. I think that's reductive

[Chris Ryan]

for us too, where like, we. There are 400 television shows on a year. You and I talk about 12.

[Andy Greenwald]

But now all TV shows are built to be exported because, like with cinema, the international market is incredibly lucrative and makes sense especially for these services that launch and want their own HBO Max system siloed.

[Chris Ryan]

Launched in England, stuff and part.

[Andy Greenwald]

And so part of launching internationally for an HBO Max to catch up with Netflix is to say HBO Max in France, HBO Max in Germany. What are our shows just imagining the

[Chris Ryan]

kit in HS where everybody is just like, that's taken care of, mate.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's taking an opening, Max. Imagine if it was. But if it was the Pitt NHS. The 15 hours would be someone being told they could come back for their surgery in three weeks. They'd be like, fantastic. You just sort of sit down, maybe get a pint. And then three seasons later it was like me gallbladder. It's gone.

[Chris Ryan]

It's gotten a bit bigger now. It's.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah, but great, great.

[Chris Ryan]

Sorry for the sign.

[Andy Greenwald]

Great pitch. But. But the international language of these shows is getting samey is all I'm trying to say. And I wish there was a little bit more of an idiosyncratic feel to these shows that it didn't feel like some of the edges of the.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a double edged sword. Right. Because like the Sopranos and Wire, influences on Libero are what probably makes it totally the fucking Bureau. And it makes it in some ways as good, if not as good as those shows that it was influenced by.

[Andy Greenwald]

And one of the things that this is also the opportunity that's given us is switching to unfamiliar, which is a spy show on Netflix. German language spy show created by Paul Coates, I believe is his name. Who I. Yes. And again, we don't know. I didn't. I wasn't able to track down the actual origins of the show, but my assumption is pro has now become a genre.

[Chris Ryan]

So I think multi country international co productions is now not just like a way of selling stuff, but it's like if Paul Coates, who's worked on spy stuff in England and also comes from writing, you know, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks and other shows, that sounds like I'm making up their names but are quite popular in England.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yep.

[Chris Ryan]

But he's a very accomplished veteran screenwriter. If he's going around and doing meetings and he meets with Gaumont or he meets with a German producer and talking about maybe selling the idea of a British show in Germany, this was something where like, I think he brought an idea of like, I mean it's essentially the. The Americans meets Eastern Gate and they were like, not only. Yes, let's set it here and we can get the BND to participate because of like a. Out of a sense of transparency with the German people or something like that.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, I think, I think I. My assumption is the BND being like

[Chris Ryan]

the, the intelligence service of, of Germany. It's a very cool building.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's very likely that, that he had this and it was either written or prepared to be pitched as in a show set in London and they said, well, why don't you just do it here? That international language is very cool and offers up different perspectives and also allows the show to be set in 2025, 2026's hottest hotspot, Belarus, which is. I would say what happens in Belarus stays in Belarus, but that is rarely the case.

[Chris Ryan]

No, they make sure it always catches up with you.

[Andy Greenwald]

It always catches up to you. It is a rough, rough. I mean, what is the current, like, fictional TripAdvisor ranking for holidays in Belarus?

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, I think. I think we should break our live show moratorium into a Belarus show, and

[Andy Greenwald]

then that's our last show and just give in to Mother Russia if you reclaim. But, oh, by the way, before we get into unfamiliar international translations, we didn't mention the fact that. That Disney, the larger global Disney umbrella, they're remaking the Americans as the Koreans.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Andy Greenwald]

And set in the 80s, but with North Korean spies in Korea. And I think that's phenomenal. That's awesome. I think it's an exciting idea.

[Chris Ryan]

Trying to think of some other stuff that we could set in different places.

[Andy Greenwald]

There are many things we could set in different places. Do you want to.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, I mean, we have been doing that anyway. You know what I mean? Like, which is without calling. It's like Mobland is just Sopranos, but

[Andy Greenwald]

set in England, you know, like, what about DTF Minsk? See what I did there?

[Chris Ryan]

Did you just look up cities in Belarus? Is Minsk Belarus?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, I did. I heard 100% did.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I was like, damn you. You typed and then you pulled Minsk out. DTF Minsk.

[Andy Greenwald]

I went jokes,

[Chris Ryan]

chatgpt.

[Andy Greenwald]

God, come on.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, we should do that.

[Andy Greenwald]

We should totally do that. That's a good bit for us. All right, set up unfamiliar. Let's talk about it.

[Chris Ryan]

Unfamiliar. Like I said, vibe wise, it's the Americans meets Eastern Gate. If you didn't watch Eastern Gate, it's the Americans meets a slightly more like, grounded, bournish action spy thriller.

[Andy Greenwald]

24 ish. You always were saying when we were watching it. Yeah, Homelandish as well.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

One of our favorite shows.

[Chris Ryan]

They got unprecedented access to shoot within the BND headquarters in Berlin. And it concerns partners and parents, Simon and Merritt Schaefer.

[Andy Greenwald]

Simon is a girl, dad.

[Chris Ryan]

He is.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, don't spoil it.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm not spoiling it. But no stolen valor for you here. Simon and Merritt are partners and parents. They have a teenage daughter named Nina. They run a nice little Berlin restaurant, and they moonlight running as like they are safe house proprietors for spies on the run or for intelligence operatives on the run. Their past catches up with them in the form of a Russian spy named Koliev, who is looking to settle a score from an operation 16 years prior that went wrong in Belarus. Yep, this one's cool, man. Six episodes on Netflix. The thing that will get you with unfamiliar. You watch two of them, they just that that last five minutes, they always are like, hey, but you want to keep watching.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's super. It's Netflix maxing.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

In a way that I unlike Privileges. Like, I watched the first one of this and I was like, here we go. This is my new favorite show. And I watched the second one and I was like, ah, yes, this will be fine.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

It is incredibly engaging the first episode because it just stacks scenarios on top of each other with an absolutely relentless pace. And from these people, they have a safe house. Oh, they used to be this. Oh, there's this thing in the past. Oh, it's connected. Connected to the highest levels of power. There's a almost brutal, dare I say, dramatic efficiency to some of it. There was a moment in the beginning of the second episode when Simon and Merritt, the married couple, are talking about the state of play. And I know that all the Netflix executives were like, we would never ask our creators to restate the plot every 10 minutes. Maybe they just do it for us. But yet I actually really admired the efficiency of that scene where Merritt is basically like, you're acting crazy. There's a corpse in the safe house and Koliev is back and now you're telling me this person is alive. And it was like, bang, bang, bang, let's get it done.

[Chris Ryan]

For foreign language films, for our purposes, it helps to have some resetting. I mean like the whole like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon being told to say what the plot of the rip is six times is probably overblown. Dan Lynn, who runs Netflix Movies, has disavowed that. I did think in the RIP that they overstated this like the circumstances. But in this show it's welcome because half of it is told in this flashback manner. I will just say that I thought the initial premise of this show of like we, we have a restaurant, but by night we have a safe house in any other world would just be like a really solid backbone for a long running TV show. To add on the A case from the past has come back to haunt us. Our daughter is in danger, Multiple factions of German and Russian intelligence are in

[Andy Greenwald]

play, and one of us has a slow moving health crisis that would not survive the bit nhs.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a hat on. A hat on whatever a German hat

[Andy Greenwald]

is like the little Kaiser Wilhelms Kind of do any.

[Chris Ryan]

Do even German people ever put a Kaiser Wilhelm hat on?

[Andy Greenwald]

I mean, I haven't seen SNL de yet, but I imagine some of the cold opens have that, don't you think? I mean, it's a rich country, you know.

[Chris Ryan]

They probably did a funny sketch on SNL UK this week.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was there?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Could you curate the best of the weekend's bits for me, like a newsletter? Could I? You probably could.

[Chris Ryan]

You want me to start like a substack and just start sending you stuff?

[Andy Greenwald]

Or an email. That's what substacks are, just for me. Oh, an email. Could you email me? I'm asking.

[Chris Ryan]

And what do I get out of it?

[Andy Greenwald]

I'd be like, you're right, that was funny. You'd probably feel good. You'd be like, wow, I picked a good thing. I made him laugh this weekend.

[Chris Ryan]

There was another thing I wanted to say about this, though.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that that's a really smart. Sorry, Siskel and Ebert. I thought that was a really smart observation because I think I agree with you. And I was responding to those rhythms. I think that I enjoyed. Decent setups are very, very hard to come by. And they're very hard to come by with funding and financing and good cast. And I can call up or you can like that. The actors in the show are really strong and really compelling. German. Sarah Paulson's great as Merritt. I don't know what her name is. She's awesome.

[Chris Ryan]

Spoiler. There is a point in the first episode this isn't really germane. I won't spoil what she's doing, actually, I will spoil what she's doing, but not to whom. Where she performs some advanced interrogation techniques. Performs?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

She looks pretty cool wearing like a full latex torture protection kit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was anyone wearing that at the ArcLight this weekend? And did you approach them casually, say, Karen, the password is slippery slope. And that's the last thing you remember until you were talking about the drama. Yeah, Suzanne Wolf is the actor. She's good, but just that it's hard to come by these scenarios. And so that is a multi running, that's potentially a multi season show for me. But that is not the business model for Netflix Germany right now.

[Chris Ryan]

And here's the thing that's funny. So we were talking about the Pit earlier. There's a version of the Pit that is less strict about its setting, that goes up to Gloria's admin office, that goes home with these people, that turns up the knob on their romantic lives outside of the office. Its adherence to its Format and its form, I think is 50% of the reason why it's successful. If there were subplots in the pit about funding crises, or if we were cutting back and forth between like the legal department and the cyber defense unit as they were fighting off some of the problems that this season had experienced, I don't think I would be as interested. I'm interested in these people performing their jobs. And so I think with Privileges and Unfamiliar, both are very easy to get through because they're watchable and they're six episodes. And especially with Unfamiliar, all the episodes are up, the privileges going week to week. So the third one comes up this week, Friday. Yeah, I just like. I think that there's a version of like there's either an Unfamiliar that's a movie and there's an Unfamiliar that's like a 12 episode long running TV show about people who run a safe house for spies. It's right in the middle.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. I think we've talked about this before, but I think one of the biggest challenges to making good stuff these days is you have potentially limitless formats or vessels to pour your story into. Picking the right vessel is 50% of

[Chris Ryan]

success and it might not even be your choice.

[Andy Greenwald]

And ultimately it might not even be your choice. Exactly. I think some networks and streamers are becoming a little more case by case and trying to. To make the best version of it. But there are many, many other examples of someone having a good idea and finding a potential willing buyer or partner. And that partner says we love it. But what we do here or what we need right now is world building is X or the opposite. We need a limited series right now. We need to dominate. We need a gourmet cheeseburger that will go around the world and be in our top 10. And then you pivot and you can still end up with something good. But I do think that sometimes that misalignment can stop things from being great. I want to ask you for Unfamiliar, what was the most German thing about it? And I'll give you three choices. Number one, that at least 40% of the cast in the show were also in the television show Dark, including Thomas Peachman, who plays old. What's his name? What was the kid's name, the main kid?

[Chris Ryan]

Wasn't it Yonas?

[Andy Greenwald]

Jonas. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And in this show he plays a guy.

[Andy Greenwald]

He plays a guy named Jonas who maybe could be the same one because he's also dark and brooding and operating within a plot that only he is privy to. Handsome guy, though. Happy to see him Number two, that the way we understand that certain scenes are set 16 years in the past is that Simon has a single earring or the fact that their daughter.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the Belarusian way.

[Andy Greenwald]

You know, it's just one earring. That their daughter Nina is both newly 16 and an accomplished club DJ. That was German as fuck.

[Chris Ryan]

I also thought it was pretty German that they took public transport home from the nightclub when they went and saw their teenage DJ daughter. Sabrina, the teenage dj.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. A million percent. A million percent. She also, I would say that anytime

[Chris Ryan]

that dawn breaking they're on a bus.

[Andy Greenwald]

And then when she goes on a ural trip, she wears like the uniform of traveling Germans for the past 40 years, which is. Is sweaters with zippers that they don't need to have like up to here. My only other note as a big fan of spycraft, spoiler alert. I don't know, I could be wrong. I don't know how they do things in Germany because as you know, Effinger's ended in the late 1940s. So basically the last 70 years of German history is a blank to me. Seems like it's gone fairly well. I don't think that spies call other spies and leave detailed voicemails about their. Where they're going, what they're thinking.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

And what they need to know.

[Chris Ryan]

There's another thing that I was going to bring up about and familiar. I. First of all, I just want to say, like, I enjoy watching this show and I will finish it.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's really good. But I did have that kind of like, oh, shit. Oh, okay.

[Chris Ryan]

This was one of the first series that I've come across where the technological advancements at the fingertips of at least fictional spies kind of kills the vibe a little bit. So there's one point where the Jonas character that we're talking about, who seems to work in like private security and is maybe playing both sides against the other, is like, let me call up my satellite imagery of this situation.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And then is like, pan left. And I'm like, so what the. Can we just see everything all the time now? That's not spying. The whole shows in a computer.

[Andy Greenwald]

The show begins like, let me find

[Chris Ryan]

out

[Andy Greenwald]

the opening of the show where a dark asset gets his way into the safe house to determine who these people are. Not only does he shoot himself in the knee to do it. Now, again, I'm no ballistics expert, but I feel like there are less painful places.

[Chris Ryan]

I think he goes a little bit above, I think at the fleshy part of the Thigh there.

[Andy Greenwald]

Oh, I thought he was trying to embed himself, like, permanently never gonna play 65 games again. That he then makes it to their safe house, enjoys their soup, which, you know, is a scene I really liked a lot. And then once he's unattended, goes into the control room of the safe house and just dials up the Internet, specifically

[Chris Ryan]

the Russian, like, back channel portal that

[Andy Greenwald]

to show them a thumbprint. Now he uses their technology the same way I used to use the Apple Store to check my emails on my Yahoo account 20 years ago. Like, that was very simple. And everyone there was like, sure, man. Do what you gotta do.

[Chris Ryan]

Everybody is meeting at library bar. I won't be joining them.

[Andy Greenwald]

The opposite. I was the one who would make my way to the Apple Store and be like, hello, friends, the temperature has reached 68 degrees. Shall we be drinking al fresco this evening? And before I hit send, Phoebe would be like, yes. She was my Kinect. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. I thought that, like, there's just technology is coming for all of us, even Spider, you know? Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

But I think the reason why we responded so strongly to Oliver Harris books is because he's using it in a way, very creative way that feels like it's still the spirit of this film.

[Chris Ryan]

And even he is like, I create, like, a character who lives in Dubai and just can break into any computer. Like, it is kind of a cheat, I think, a little bit.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. But then what are the consequences of

[Chris Ryan]

that and what are they Has a tough life.

[Andy Greenwald]

But that said, when I googled jokes about Belarus, it worked. You know, it crushed. I hacked into Paul.

[Chris Ryan]

Gave you a little taste.

[Andy Greenwald]

I hacked into Paul Provenza's laptop and I was like, I found the motherlode. Joke after joke after joke.

[Chris Ryan]

Any Watch After Dark topics first?

[Andy Greenwald]

No. I just want to say that this is. No. Do you think this is a lighting change?

[Chris Ryan]

Let's see. Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

One of my favorite things about changing to watch After Dark was that when we clipped Mina last week from the show, like, two of the clips were just normal clips, and then one clip was lit like this. But I don't think there was any explanation that it was different.

[Chris Ryan]

We do very little context clues on this show.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's true. It's really. We don't handhold like our favorite television shows.

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just wanted to let you know that this week is Euphoria, premiering this coming weekend.

[Chris Ryan]

This coming weekend.

[Andy Greenwald]

I wasn't kidding that I am ready to do this. Like, I am excited to enter into this show.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm arranging. So I'm doing Rewatchables live in San Francisco this week.

[Andy Greenwald]

Jesus.

[Chris Ryan]

And then next week, I'm happy to say I will be appearing at the Zach Lowe Live show in Denver.

[Andy Greenwald]

This is like the end of the Marin podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

I know.

[Andy Greenwald]

He'd be like, just for laughs, Providence, you are doing the itinerary of an

[Chris Ryan]

NL west punchline fest in Topeka. Will.

[Andy Greenwald]

It'll be, like, incredible.

[Chris Ryan]

But I'm gonna make it work so that we can do Euphoria together. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

[Andy Greenwald]

I. I really appreciate that. I. I just want you to know that if I enjoy this experience, I'm gonna be insufferable about this. That I have finally figured out how to engage with television after 15 years. Just do what I want.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Just chaos. Menu.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, for the purposes of this show, I don't know necessarily that that is always a bad idea. Like I have said, there have been a couple. I would even say today is a little bit of a dead day in terms of, like, what's on the docket, news and shows. I mean, like, not. I had a lovely time talking to you, but. But unfamiliar. And privileges are not exactly, like, headlines, succession, and, you know. But would it make sense for us to just be like, I turned on Dark Winds Season 4. I see what you guys are talking about. It's good.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's a great point. Because otherwise, you know what'll happen. We won't cover Dark Winds.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

So.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, I don't know why I said that. Like a threat. Sorry.

[Chris Ryan]

Anything else?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I'm excited about that. I want to watch the drama. What else? Do we have other big shows coming that we need to be checking for. You have your document. Chris is the keeper of the keys here in terms of what we ought to be covering.

[Chris Ryan]

So we got Euphoria coming up, and then the pit finale is the 16th. That's next week. And Margo's got money problems with David E. Kelly show. Elle Fanning is supposed to be very good Beef season two, but then that's a Netflix situation, so you're gonna have to watch all of it to have anything to say about it. Widow's Bay, I'm very excited about End of April.

[Andy Greenwald]

That looks like it has the Terror,

[Chris Ryan]

Devil, and Silver, which I need you to fucking nut up and watch that with me. Even though it's about. I fucking need you, dog. I'll never ask anything of you again. Just watch this AMC anthology horror series with me. I think it's more of a psychological thriller anyway.

[Andy Greenwald]

I can do that. Yeah, I can handle that.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm not sure about that. There is the Devil in Silver is the tagline, so.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, at least the devil is showing out. Yeah. Dressing up for the occasion we didn't cover. I think this is relevant. There was some literary news that I thought was gonna be part of your rundown. Maybe you covered it on Thursday.

[Chris Ryan]

Some big Ben Lerner interviews.

[Andy Greenwald]

No. Miss me with that.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you not like Ben Lerner?

[Andy Greenwald]

No, I'm not doing a drive by a Ben Lerner. I'm just like. My attitude towards contemporary fiction and Kaya could jump in because Kaya keeps up with contemporary books in a way that I don't. I don't know. If you do either, let me know in a couple years. That's my attitude towards new novels.

[Advertisement Voice]

Good.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Andy Greenwald]

There's a lot of old stuff that I still have to read.

[Chris Ryan]

What was the literary news that happened that you wanted to talk about?

[Andy Greenwald]

Two television shows based on beloved literary properties are now moving. One, the Corrections, has been announced.

[Chris Ryan]

I can't believe that. Yeah. Cord Jefferson is writing and directing an adaptation of the.

[Andy Greenwald]

From what I understand, Cord is directing and Jonathan Franzen is adapting his own book.

[Chris Ryan]

Really?

[Andy Greenwald]

That's from what I understand, yes. And this has been long gestating, I'm sure. I think it was optioned to be a film by Scott Rudin when the book was published 25, 26 years ago. It was infamously an HBO pilot overseen by Noah Baumbach that did not look.

[Chris Ryan]

Somewhere in a dusty shelf in Santa

[Andy Greenwald]

Monica, someone can see it. That was 10 years ago and now has been. It's happening a lot of whip producing, Paramount producing for Apple with Meryl Streep starring.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Have you read the Corrections?

[Andy Greenwald]

Absolutely.

[Chris Ryan]

I have not.

[Andy Greenwald]

Do you remember that my. I was. This is nothing to be proud of. I want to preface this, but I was checking for the Corrections because my father took me to see Jonathan Franzen read from his second novel, Strong Motion, at the downtown Borders. Because Jonathan Franzen's first book, The 27th City, which I also read and enjoyed,

[Chris Ryan]

is about St. Louis.

[Andy Greenwald]

It's about St. Louis. My dad's a Cardinal fan.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Franzen is too. Right?

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes. So a hardcover copy of Strong Motion says to Mike, go cards. And so I was like, ah, great American novel. I see all of you, Johnny Come latelys are now aware of the prosaic brilliance of the bard of the Midwest, Jonathan Franzen.

[Chris Ryan]

So you were there early. Did you like Early? Did you like the Corrections?

[Andy Greenwald]

I loved the Correction.

[Chris Ryan]

And what was the One that he.

[Andy Greenwald]

Freedom.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Andy Greenwald]

Purity.

[Chris Ryan]

Purity.

[Andy Greenwald]

I kind of tapped out at that point. Okay. But he loves birds.

[Chris Ryan]

Never did Franzen. It's not.

[Andy Greenwald]

He never did any friends. Never read the corrections.

[Chris Ryan]

It's nothing about it.

[Andy Greenwald]

Part of the corrections, one of the storylines is in Philadelphia and one of the characters goes to Friends Central School. There's a little Quaker school part of it.

[Chris Ryan]

And I did hear about that.

[Andy Greenwald]

You heard about that. There is a light within.com, the Quaker back channels, the.

[Chris Ryan]

That you track rquakerschools.

[Andy Greenwald]

So that's one. And then the other thing was the announcement that another. This is like. It's kind of like try again month in tv. Bonfire of the Vanities. Did you see this?

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. Who is writing this?

[Andy Greenwald]

It's wild. Your guy, everyone's guy. David Kelly is writing it. Matt Reeves of the Batman fame is going to direct this. And this is a. Would be, if this goes forward, a huge, huge do over to one of Hollywood's most legendary flops, Brian De Palma's

[Chris Ryan]

adaptation of Tom Wolfe's celebrated novel.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yes, Masters of the Universe. Is it time? Are we ready? Is the time right to get the 80s right?

[Chris Ryan]

I assume that this is going to be a period piece and not an updated for 2008 or 2026. Let's just see.

[Andy Greenwald]

Because all the spycraft would be way too.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm excited about that. You also didn't mention that Lonesome Dove rights to Lonesome Dove have been.

[Andy Greenwald]

I noted that.

[Chris Ryan]

Purchased.

[Andy Greenwald]

I was watching that with some interest.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And we. We do not have any creative attached to that yet.

[Andy Greenwald]

Would you like to be a part of that package? I'm putting together a small group of men with a particular set of skills.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm trying.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you actually say, like, hey, just

[Andy Greenwald]

like agents, like, first of all, you've correctly captured the tone of my email voice.

[Chris Ryan]

Hey, agents.

[Andy Greenwald]

Hey, team. I heard some guys just spent $100 million and are looking for someone to adapt their cowboy novel.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I've read it.

[Andy Greenwald]

I am full of protein and ready for service. And I love Unconditional sunlight and Jonathan Franzen. I definitely have raised my hand and then someone stepped on the back of my neck to take the ring.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know who's involved with it creatively. I just saw that the rights were purchased, which is the idea of having another go at that is very exciting. I saw also that they were talking about it in relationship to doing all of the Gus and Woodrow.

[Andy Greenwald]

I think that's right.

[Chris Ryan]

And that would be pretty cool. Although as we've discussed some of those books are darker than the others.

[Andy Greenwald]

The thing about those books, which, by the way, honestly speaking of contemporary novelists, I just kind of want to read those again. The order in which they were published chronologically of the story is 3412, which is quite odd. It's also the way I recommend people read them. But Lonesome Dove is one of the greatest American novels of all time chronologically. But that was first and is perfect. And you can just read that. Streets of Laredo, the sequel, is so dark, it is incredible.

[Chris Ryan]

It's McMurtry responding to the response to Lonesome Dove.

[Andy Greenwald]

You think I wrote a classic. Fuck you guys. Also, I forgot about trains and Mexicans. I gotcha. And then. Then what's it called? Dead Man's. Whatever. The next one.

[Chris Ryan]

Dead Man's Walk.

[Andy Greenwald]

Dead Man's Walk is unbelievable. And that is the origins of them

[Chris Ryan]

as young Texas Rangers of Gus and. And Comanche Meat Moon is such a cool like story.

[Andy Greenwald]

It kind of spackles the distance from when they were young up to the edge of Lonesome Dove.

[Chris Ryan]

I agree. I think it would be cool if they did all of them.

[Andy Greenwald]

I don't think there's any reason to do hey, we're doing Lonesome Dove again because as.

[Chris Ryan]

But if you were gonna do it chronologically, that would be quite a long wait to get to Lonesome Dove.

[Andy Greenwald]

Well, you could just keep spackling on the old age.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure. Just put Austin Butler in.

[Andy Greenwald]

Like, listen, I all I'll say this was never real. No one was gonna let me do any of it. But I was like, tommy Lee Jones actually is. Well, this was like six years ago. But I was trying to convince people that Tommy Lee Jones then was the age that call is in Streets of Royale.

[Chris Ryan]

He could still do it.

[Andy Greenwald]

You were like, he could do it. And also famously easy to work with him and horses. I'd be like, hello, I went to a Quaker school. What did you do? Oh, Harvard. That's cool. Is that a real horse, sir?

[Chris Ryan]

Why are we doing.

[Andy Greenwald]

I like French mystery shows.

[Chris Ryan]

Taylor Sheridan show sure did change my ideas about masculinity.

[Andy Greenwald]

He wrote the intro to the new edition of Lonesome Dove.

[Chris Ryan]

I am aware, brother. I'm across that a couple people sent that my way. Andy, great to see you, dude. Hey, let's figure out a way to podcast later this week. I know that I'm on the road, but I want to do pit with you.

[Andy Greenwald]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks. To Kai and Kai. Happy birthday to Kai.

[Andy Greenwald]

Was there anything we didn't cover that we should have covered for your birthday, Kya. How can we better.

[Chris Ryan]

Ooh, I would have loved to touch on the summer house drama just a little bit.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's for After Dark. Can I say something, perhaps unsurprising to get us going?

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Andy Greenwald]

I have no idea what anybody's talking about. Okay. Absolutely. I saw there was some stuff about.

[Chris Ryan]

I got some inside information for you.

[Andy Greenwald]

What do you got?

[Chris Ryan]

Great. I'm not gonna share it on the podcast.

[Andy Greenwald]

Were you saving it for Ringer. Ringer Dish? What are you doing?

[Chris Ryan]

No, I just. I'll tell Kai that's the best birthday present you could possibly give me.

[Andy Greenwald]

I just saw that everything was about Ciara.

[Chris Ryan]

But not Ciara. Not Russell Wilson Ciara.

[Andy Greenwald]

That's the only. That's. There's only one Ciara in my book. One Ciara. Ooh, Ciara month.

[Chris Ryan]

It kind of is Ciara month now.

[Andy Greenwald]

Now it's Ciara month.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks, everybody, for listening and watching. We'll be back on Thursday with the Pit and some Top Chef and some. Whatever. Whatever else. Greenwald, hold it down while I'm in the bay.

[Andy Greenwald]

Yeah. What do I have to do?

[Chris Ryan]

Nothing. Just meet me here at 2pm when I get back from the bay.

[Andy Greenwald]

I'm stressed.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, sure. Talk to you guys soon.