Apple TV’s Glossy Programming, ‘The Pitt’ S2E5, and How ‘True Detective’ S2 Explains the World

I need support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com and joining me in the studio woefully behind on his charting, it's Andy Greenwalds! Honestly never related to anything in the medical profession. Let's go! we're gonna talk about the pit today we are gonna talk about the muppets we are gonna talk the disdain in your voice about uh we're gonna talk a little bit about steel we're gonna talk about some apple shows that are coming in the spring and summer and i i'm embarked on a project that i want to discuss with you phoebe needs to come home uh i i re i'm re-watching i'm almost done my re-watch of true detective season two this is because i think it was a canary in the coal mine. I'm really excited because you've blanked me every time I've mentioned this to you. You're just like, I like the idea. No, because I keep saying like, I'm trying, look, should we pull back the curtain a little bit? You guys don't like it when we do that, you in the room, but I think the listeners and watchers do. You were presenting to me an idea for something you wanted to talk about. And I generally am supportive of you and your work. Yeah, you're noncommittal, but you are supportive. But I was, I continually did ask, is there anything actionable here? You know what I mean? I'm like, is there something that you would like? Read the notes. It's all actionable. You didn't send me the notes. You were like, not really. No, I was trying. I didn't want to add to your heavy load. Okay, I appreciate that. We're load managing you. That's working out for Joel Embiid. Question. Yeah. I was just going to do some housekeeping. Is this going to take us into a different part of the podcast? It is. So why don't you do the housekeeping? Thewatch at Spotify.com. Email us. To watch us. You can do it in two ways that I know of. You can go to YouTube. It's disturbing. I used to watch soccer on a website called Iraqgoals.net. So we might be there too. I don't know. I haven't gone to that website in a long time. Your computer is riddled with viruses. You can watch us. You can go to YouTube and you go to ringer-tv or you can just search the watch. Okay. Or search ringer-tv. I think it would come up. There's lots of keywords. That's where we are to watch on YouTube. You can also watch us on Spotify where I hope you listen to us. But I imagine we're available on lots of different audio platforms. uh and is there anything else oh the watch pod underscore on instagram yes and after that it's really up to you guys the discourse about this podcast about andy it happens all over the place you know about me about me nobody talks about me no people find you fascinating but they're generally supportive yeah i hope so the difference i hope so um i wonder if the cr heads will comment on first of all you look great today i already complimented this is kind of a this is a great shirt uh a quasi canadian tuxedo oh but i don't think they can see our bottom halves on the unless you pay for youtube premium iraq goals and the camera is just fixated it's just yeah that shot in i'm x yeah james cameron's vision hoit van oidema is just like just brought to life okay but i did want to say you are wearing red white and blue and i wonder if that could be interpreted as just like a sign of patriotism of a quiet resistance or of full-throated support i hadn't really thought about that uh you know i i just got dressed today uh okay but sometimes the colors find you in the moment you know and they don't run you know there wasn't any like big entertainment industry news per se obviously disney changed uh announced the the successor to bob eiger after oh yeah that always works out so i think this will be going well park's head Josh DeMauro is taking over. Dana Walden's portfolio expands at Disney. I don't really have a ton of interesting things to say about that other than it will be interesting to see in the coming 18 months what happens with some of their big franchises. Because I saw a note in one of the trades where Bob Iger was like, we're done buying IP. Yes. Which is fine by me. But where are they going to go in a post-Secret Wars... doomsday which now sounds like it might be three movies and what's going to happen with star wars after mandalorian with feloniverse so did my first question about this is did you have a dog in this fight were you dana or josh yeah were you on the poly markets did you support in like an outsider candidate did you think that this was fait accompli i think that i think i guess i was pulling for dana walden i don't really have an opinion one way or the other about josh tomorrow I do note with interest that I think the parks business has been very successful for them. Even in the face of everybody being like, you are literally bleeding every cent I have in my life out of me when I go to these things. You have to pay to get to the front of the line to get a turkey leg and stuff. But that's America. That is the takeaway. I mean, that is the takeaway. The takeaway is that it is a recognition, I think, by the board that the live experiences and the parks is the most consistent and potentially still most expansive part of their business. Yeah. It is a it is a more of a bet, I think, on the Avengers Doomsday IR experience in Florida that they are inevitably building than it is on what Kevin Feige is going to pull out of his hat in three or four years. Just give me the X-Men. you know what i mean they're being so coy with that i know i'm sure that they will pop up in the doomsday movies or the well we know they are yeah but like not the old ones then like a new version of them right why this campaign against kelsey grammar is just bizarre to me mckellen has just only got so many innings left did you see him on colbert yesterday he's gonna be in the hunt for golem he i mean he's just just standing up and reciting shakespeare well he's incredible and also i think we got him with that i mean you know like you know because he was doing like what did he do richard the third no he did thomas more about like protecting immigrants and he he did the stage and colbert like hugged him and in the words of our parents after watching chris hayes in april 2025 got him got him i think we really got him yeah no he he that was incredible i think people should check that out um so there was that yeah and and i and i think the other thing about is just the the imagineered optics of it like they definitely wanted to avoid a chapex situation and there was a lot of well obviously this is a unanimous decision and everything's fine and though we of course considered a woman for the top job we wouldn't actually give it to her and considered co-co's yes but they wanted they wanted everything to be as tidy as possible so we'll see uh they dragged my boy ted sarandos up in front of the senate ted cruz asked him some some hard hitting questions ted on ted ted talks uh but that was about the merger etc um josh holly was like yeah go on i don't even know i you know they they were just being dicks you know like the senate that's what they do now that's that's their brand they pivoted to that remember when it was like the most like august body of deliberations in the world yeah that was so they said my days when jesse homes was just cooking as the most august body uh did you see your guy david ellison in london being like the monopolization of media spearheaded by the evil netflix corporation shall not stand that guy's freedom fighter um and then that's it for news except for a bunch of apple shows because apple did one of their i think it's their first ever apple tv press day were you there no but uh you know not a ton of news came out of a bunch of teasers i only ask since we have the kimono open already apple loves sharing its shows with you and every time there's a new show you're like oh you should check this out it's interesting and then i have to email a variety a changing have you ever once said it would be great in your press dealings have you been like you can just add me automatically yes and then you know respectfully they didn't but now i just every time i have to email a different woman named kate to request access to something that you've already watched i i don't know the struggle is real yeah okay go on everybody in america yeah sympathizes with i think it's a top five issue i'm not saying it's number one front of mind but i do think it's top can i sorry can i just state something for the record yeah kaya please um i've been kicked off my parents hbo max account whoa now why didn't we leave with this just now um just this week by your parents no by hbo okay first of all casey listens casey hook up kaya please but can you do it you can't have like a family password so you can't do that they're just like ip addresses they're like what location are you watching and would you like a travel pass oh yeah yeah travel it's it's over for me i went to go and watch industry they're like what is your location oh my god really Really? Well, I know someone on HBO named Kate who could hook you up with the screeners. I have industry screeners. They don't let you screen mirror, so I had to watch it on my laptop. You could get an app for that. So I think... I don't want an app. I just want to be able to mooch off my mirror. I think this is top seven concerns. Iraqgoals.net I'll have to look into it. the big piece of news that i saw come out of there was a variation on what vince gilligan the creator of pluribus basically said to us which is we are working working real hard on season two uh don't hold your breath so it wasn't like in a very bad way but i feel like we gave uh severance a lot of grief about taking a long time to come back he's like we're moving as quickly as we can but this is not x files where we can just bang out like a bunch of adventures of the week and then come back to the main story and all that stuff this is 2027 is what we're saying yeah and not early 2027 not early 27 when it it came out in august of 25 no is it it was later later but but uh they're just getting together now it sounds like so okay it's a bummer but you know sure we're We're used to different schedules. Yes, but since we have given a lot of shows a hard time for taking their time, I'm not giving Pluribus a hard time because I want it to be good. And because they came on our podcast, and it's a backscratching business. It's true. So we had some teaser trailers from some shows coming out. Two of them come from Jonathan Tropper, who I would not go as far as say is like house Apple style, but I wouldn't say he's not. I think between him and Bill Lawrence, they are responsible for a healthy slice of the apple tv pie and in some ways are illustrative illustrative of like the aesthetic and the the image that apple tv wants to project to its viewership however many people there are watching those shows we don't know unclear uh so friends and neighbors season two is coming back in june i believe already received season three renewal And adds James Marsden to the cast. If you watch the teaser, it feels like kind of soft resetty to the extent that the first season ended in any kind of resolution. This one seems to bring back the gang, add to the gang, and put Jon Hamm squarely back robbing folks in his neighborhood for the thrill of it. With a new square-jawed neighbor. James Marsden. The Marsden stance continues. There's your X-Men. Yeah. He plays Cyclops. I know. Any comments on Friends and Neighbors season two in the 50 seconds that we see of it? Only to say that I have higher hopes for the second season than the first season. Okay. What makes you say that? I think that the show found more of its voice as it went along. And I think that the people who are involved in the show are generally smart, good creatives. And so I feel like there's a chance. I'm not staking my reputation on it, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I didn't love the first season. I'm going to make a bold... But also, I like Marsden. And if the show can be the tone... I think the show is at its most successful when it is the kind of clubby, glitzy tone of this trailer. Yes. As opposed to the deep, deep ruminations of incredibly rich people in a gated, siloed, rich community. I noted with interest that Munn is walking the streets in this teaser. I was surprised Munn was back. And I thought she had been arrested for murder. in the show. And it feels like a soft reset in the sense that we don't want to get rid of Olivia Munn, so let's figure out a way to have her on bail or whatever. I would be concerned if you felt that a white-collar rich criminal getting pardoned and back on the streets was like, that's the deal-breaker of reality for you. The other thing I was going to say is, and I say this in front of you and God and our listeners and Kaya, if this season starts with a flashback you're out. I'm out. 100% agree if you start your second season with a big event and then go six weeks earlier I'm fucking out and I don't care if it's like succession reunion I'm out how did Shiv Roy move in next door to James Marsden six weeks earlier. Well first of all I love this I think it actually would help clear some of our viewing docket if we just made outrageous we should do that yeah the watch commandments if the side if silo comes back and they're still in a fucking silo forget it done i will be very interested to see if paradise how paradise handles that now right like all their flash forwards and flashbacks um because a lot of that obviously was built around like these slow reveals and it's like well i mean how many reveals are we going to be doing on season two or is it just going to be more like sterling k brown looking for the truth out there. I can't tell you. Okay. All right. I feel like you're asking me for some inside information. Another show. Do you want me to do the Windhorse Fingers about the fate of Sterling K. Brown's wife? I don't know. Another show coming from Tropper and Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine via Candle Media, one of my favorite media companies. Absolutely. It's Lucky, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening, Ingenue Ellis-Taylor, Timothy Oliphant, Drew Starkey, and this one is about a con artist on the run after a heist goes wrong um and they're the con artist being played by joy is pursued by the law and the lawless in the crime boss played by annette binning which i would not have guessed uh that's her role uh this looked slick and cool great trailer great teaser trailer yeah very visually dynamic in a way that i i'm not mad at that like i think there's good ways to spend apple's money and the log line of the show is one thing but then seeing the sort of visual razzle dazzle of the teaser made me made it made me more interested yeah i have a thing i wanted to ask you about sure anya taylor joy yeah odd career since queen's gambit since being on this podcast i think it's anya i think she's told us that my bad yeah uh anya taylor joy i apologize to you personally and i also think that you've had like an interesting strange career since you broke big with queen's gambit so that's 2020 let's just take it from the the pandemic you know last night in soho well first it was new mutants new mutants which lost to history in time but was supposed to be a thing and she played magic iliana rasputin sister of colossus you had her government a name right in your ear you only like like humans with brains you only use five percent of me on this podcast anytime you want to dig deeper i'm a veil um did she pop up in powers of x yeah how's it she does dude she's important yeah big old sword that's right yeah yo she's it i've she's in a cool scene in that comic book yes she's an important character last night in soho and egger wright joint kind of came and went yeah has its believers has its attractors but did not do well at the box office northman she's incredible on that the menu she's great in that yeah that did well okay so we have those two right there amsterdam david o russell abomination dune part two she's cool she's in the end uh spoiler she'll be in part three furiosa amazing and then these last couple where she's like in the gorge and sacrifice and an apple tv show which it's just i guess that's just where we're at you know the super mario brothers erasure right sorry she also has been doing that was like a billion dollar movie okay but like people do that where they're like pratt still opens movies and i'm like nobody knows that's chris pratt these people most of the people have barely formed pro-cortexes. Wow. First of all, I've been in the audience for these movies. I'm the one with the weakest frontal cortex in that theater. Everyone else's amygdalas are cooking. Especially after the candy hits. Second, I will let you know that Chris Pratt isn't like Lorenzo Music with a voice actor without parallel. He's just Chris Pratt. Nobody in the audience is like, it's Chris Pratt. But everyone in the audience is like, oh, Mario sounds like Garfield, sounds like Star-Lord, sounds like Andy from Parks and Rec, sounds like the guy singing at the church up the street. It is not some dexterity. It is 100% Chris Pratt. Good or ill? All right. I'm glad we cleared that up. I think the thing that's interesting about that career, if I may, is that... About Chris Pratt's career. or and you're telling the only thing that interests me um two at least two of those movies were out were the kind of things that every person on her team probably fought tooth and nail to get her into and the fact that they tanked disrupted everything and that would be last night in soho which was a very hotly tipped movie sure uh and furiosa furiosa i mean i think is actually underrated at this point. Which is fine, but it was catastrophic at the box office. And nobody was like... And not only that, I think she got a lot of the blowback for it because what was memorable about the character was the performance. I haven't even seen the movie, but I'm saying that she did take a hit for that. You would like Furiosa because your boy Tom... What's his name? He was in Black Bag. Oh yeah, he's good. He's awesome in Furiosa. You know what I was going to say about Anya Taylor-Joy is I wonder if... almost like Queen's Gambit is the outlier in terms of something that's like this mega huge success. And then the films like she she is now on a post Queen's Gambit, like going slowly up the stairs of stardom again. I don't know. Well, I think she's I think there's a there's also a difference that is hard to parse and then hard to capitalize on, especially in this like, you know, very divided media landscape between interesting and charismatic. the fact that she might not be a movie star does not make her less interesting or less talented but but she's been positioned to be both and that can be a tough place to be imperfect women is also coming i believe that's a little bit sooner than these other ones that might be in march and then there's margot's got money and margot's got money so annie weissman who did physical uh created imperfect women with elizabeth moss carrie washington kate mara also joel kinnaman who hilariously was like i accidentally bought a house in malibu he literally said this he was like i bought a house in malibu and now i can't say no to things because i have to pay for it that that's i don't like i can't remember where i read that good for him but spiritually it feels true yeah because he's just like i if i'm avail you know like if you guys need me for a day for a week whatever margo's got money troubles is what you're saying um and cory stole and leslie odom are also in this uh i believe that's based on a book you're probably right devastating crime has an impact on decades-long friendship that is the long line that is our fortune that is our future what's the crime gonna be i couldn't begin to say i'm gonna rug pull a meme stock that's what my crime is gonna be that'd be so sick i don't know any of that means i mean either uh margo's got money problems comes from david e kelly stars his wife uh michelle pfeiffer and l fanning who And Nick Offerman. It's a great cast. Yeah, it's a great cast. Also a book. Also a book, and that one is the one I think I'm most excited about. I would say so, too. But I will say what was remarkable about this, and as you said at the top, these were all rolled out concurrently as part of an Apple Press event, which maybe speaks a little bit to how similar they all feel, because they probably played very consistently in the room. But it was, as a branding exercise, this is remarkable. because i absolutely can tell you as i think anyone who watches these trailers can tell you what an apple tv show is now in terms of its glossiness in terms of the frenetic pace uh often based on pre like beach read type material big names in the cast huge names like just spilling out into like the B level and C level of the cast people just showing up. Incredibly slick, incredibly glossy. And I have to say, I don't, the takeaway from this event was a feeling of big tech inevitability. I'm not commenting on the merits of each one of these shows because they were each made by distinct creators and actually in the viewing might prove themselves to be interesting or worthwhile or arrhythmic to this larger beat that they're trying to sell. But the feeling of just flooding the market, every one of these trailers was like, March, April, March again. We are just going to have this shit available to you at a pace more frequent than macOS updates. Well, closer to Netflix than to HBO, I think. Closer to Netflix, but also at a much higher price point, because I think Netflix floods the zone with stuff. But half of the stuff, not half the stuff, but large tranches of it is international or reality or acquisitions. Apple is just like, we are selling the high test Peruvian flake and we are flooding the market with it. Just to pull an analogy from potentially an Apple show. um it it felt i felt i felt beaten down by it to be honest and and and it it did make me feel like here is a style of presentation of television that that definitely creates space for i don't know if it creates space financially but it creates space aesthetically and culturally for the more slow food approach that we often resonate that often resonates with us when it's coming from other networks. I'm not setting this up to say we hate these shows. No. I think there's something, you know, we will judge each of them by the merits, but the, just the, the tsunami of this content was wild. I'm not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person. I agree with you. And I am not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person, but there is a certain kind of person who talks to me about Apple shows the way my mother-in-law talks to me about CBS shows. Okay. Where it's almost like that is, that is like their happy place. And it's like, if stick is on, shrinking is on, if, margot's got money problems is on that is just the show that is on right now it's an easy interface yeah they they advertise within the app very well like you turn it on and yeah that's smart there's idris elba being like ah i've been hijacked again you know like that's not the twist but don't spoil it yeah speaking of have you kept up with i know i was gonna say i thought about it and then i i i'm gonna be very honestly the last thing i want to do at the end of a work day these days is descend down into the Berlin subway station in winter with Idris Elba. So maybe Apple's onto something with a sunny disposition, or at least the color palette of its other shows. Because I don't... Chris, I don't want to watch that show. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's what we're all about, let's be honest. But that's... We don't sign contracts with the shows, we sign a contract with each other. It's written in blood 20 years ago. Is that what that was? Jesus Christ. Did you want to watch Hijack season two? I lost interest. Yeah. I think similarly, like, perhaps the visual kind of the overall atmosphere of it. Tell me about the Muppets. You want me to? Well, it's better that you do this now before True Detective. I don't want you to think that this was, like, reactionary. It wasn't like you started email, started texting me about True Detective, and I was like, oh, boy, here we go again. Fucking meme. Oh, shit. that I was like, well, I need to counterbalance this with a take on The Muppet Show. No, you were like, I'd like to talk about The Muppets. But just a small, whether it's from Daddington Island or whether it's just nostalgia, they brought The Muppet Show back again, but weirdly for the first time, maybe since the late 70s, early 80s, they brought it back just as The Muppet Show as opposed to all of these weird permutations over the years, like the 90s version was like Muppet TV, and they're running a whole suite of programming on a network or the i think honestly as memory hold as what was the thing you just mentioned that's been totally memory hold the new mutants movie yeah that briefly the straight to hulu new mutants movie briefly there was a muppet reboot that was a single camera mockumentary uh show that that briefly was on i believe abc um 10 years ago so seth rogan who is just really on one right now is responsible for bringing the show back. And they brought it back as a variety show. And it's very entertaining. My kids loved it. How's it being released? Is it once a week? No, they made one. Oh. And hopefully they'll make more. I don't really understand if that's a vote of confidence these days. It's on Disney? It's on Disney. It was on ABC. Oh, no. Yes, I think it aired on ABC this week. But it will then live on the Disney Plus platform. But Seth Rogen is on it. Sabrina Carpenter is the musical guest, which got immediate buy-in. from my children uh my rudolph makes an appearance and the thing that people i don't know many people i don't know did you grow up on the muppet show did you watch it when you know what i mean i just think that what happens is if you don't have kids yeah the things from your childhood kind of start to recede in the rearview mirror but did it matter to you when you were like five or six i i liked animals in the muppets this is this is amazing he is in the muppets he is a muppet he's the drummer right the muppets aren't a band he's in dr teeth's electric mayhem band he's the drummer yeah he did drums he's animal statler and waldorf like i like them but it's just like i don't i have never had a reason to go back to the muppets they're great yeah and if you watch the reruns which now are all available streaming it's deeply weird and like i remember watching the show when i was a kid and i was like ah this is this is children's television but it was just like incredibly delicately specifically choreographed puppet performances of like 1930s Americana standards and then Carol Burnett or John Cleese would wander into frame or do a solo and the most specific late 70s, early 80s type of celebrity as well, which really burned its way into my retinas. And I think that what was really smart about this new version is they're still doing the Variety show and they still do very, very intricately choreographed performances of now contemporary songs. Like Songs by the Weeknd and stuff, but it works because it never really made sense. And everyone involved is very game. The only thing that I bump on, and this is a very tired and what are you going to do about it argument, is that other than Gonzo, no one sounds right. Because Jim Henson is no longer with us. It hasn't been for many years, but also the person who then kind of has been doing Kermit for 20 and 30 years, who also wasn't Jim Henson, because no one could be, he was let go. And so there's a, I think he's the fourth Kermit. Okay. And at this point, they're just like, just trust that it's a frog. It's like, you know, it's like kind of Kermit. You just kind of have to accept it. But the spirit of it is really good and really true to what it was. And it was really fun to watch it with my kids who no longer like they definitely were raised on watching Muppet movies and Muppet show. But they were like, we actually like this. My almost 13 year old is like, that's actually good. Really? Yes. Great. She's inherited a little bit of her father's. You know, when that happens, are you secretly proud that she that she liked it or that she's just like, that's actually good? Like, you know, no, then I then I then I know. Like, what have I done? No, absolutely not. I don't want you think I want to give this away. Why don't we do the pit first and then I'll talk about Trudy at the end. OK. Oh, and what about steel? We got to talk about steel. We can do pit and steel. OK, I can summarize like the various patients and what's going on. But I want to cut to the to the chase here. Let's talk about Robbie. I have found this season totally cool and enjoyed it. And there are some thrilling moments and there are some clunky moments. But it's a TV show that is giving me week to week a lot of joy. The most interesting character on this show is now fully the main character. Because he's really the one, I think, where everybody else is pretty much explicitly saying how they're feeling and what's on their mind. And the benefits of generative AI in the workplace. He's the only one who's kind of tall, dark, handsome, and complicated. Yeah. And we'll see what happens with Langdon. Robbie's the only one who is in a traditional TV-type framing on the precipice of something. Yes. So he's on the precipice of leaving. As we've seen last year, he might be on the precipice of some sort of breakdown. Right. he is obviously got like a kind of secret but not so secret love affair going on with the woman who handles the insurance and the like the patient sort of accounting side of of things for the hospital he is ping-ponging around the er kind of i think not happier but like feels a little like he's like it's my last day you know um and if challenged he will do something reckless and extraordinary at the same time but for the most part is like getting through the day kind of laughing when they're trying to talk shit about al hashim last week he's just like not like shutting it down but also not engaging yeah it feels very much like we've got a couple more days yes and then when it comes to langdon obviously is doing all of everything that's happening is happening like behind a scrim of professionalism but he is obviously not being very professional by the way he's punishing him in certain ways because he feels wrong by him and then he cuts that lady's leg to let the infection flow the one who has MR MRSA is that what they call it? Well then they started saying neck fash don't google that that doesn't get you what you want but because surgery is like oh she needs another scan and another scan and he's like if we wait for the scan she's gonna like lose her leg if not her life he doesn't just cut through her skin he cuts through red tape bureaucracy the scalpel is sharp um and i i you know maybe that moment will just be like a crazy robbie moment where he like flips a guy's lung with his bare hands or whatever but i thought it was indicative of a guy who's like i'm not coming back to work tomorrow yes so you know bring me up on charges or don't but like did you think that that that cut that doing that was like especially reckless on his part well it it's not just reckless because i think that it's it's been proven that he's a miracle worker that he is the best of the best and is almost always right which is baked into the show i think that um what it what it suggested was a complete lack of patience you know he's just he's kind of done with the structures and regulations and then and the naysayers and the haters and the losers who are keeping him from being great um look i mean the show is many things and we praise it week to week for its triumphs but it is never particularly subtle nor do i think it needs to be considering the type of drama that it is the show begins with Chekhov's motorcycle you know and and what surprised me about about that opening scene was that there was any conversation at all about it like do you think that was intentional that Robbie's not wearing a helmet it's like he had no shit yeah like the show is telling you everything you need to know about this character's mindset as you go into it now does that mean he's going to be in a catastrophic wreck and become a patient before the season is over maybe or it's just giving us a little bit of a flashlight into where he's at in terms of like how much he's caring about whether he yeah and where he's going so i i enjoyed it and i also think that one of the things that they do so well is consider the big picture so you're right that they are hyper focused on the main character as our tour guide through this day but one thing that is slightly different at least so far through five episodes i believe so yeah so the first third of the season is that Thus far, it feels less like we are on the edge of a catastrophic event like Pit Fest, which we could feel coming in a lot of the tension of the first season was in our bones. Because once that kid was like, I'm going to Pit Fest. Do you want to go to Pit Fest? I can't make it to Pit Fest. And that we were like, well, they chose this day. So what is going to happen? We kind of knew. And that informed our viewing experience. This season feels like it is intentionally doing more of a frog in boiling water type of thing. That's the other hospital sending all their patients. So there's just a constant twist of the dial. The temperature is going up, up, up in a different way. And that's just really smart, right? It's a different way to change the temperature of the show. And it may be that it is an ideal way to showcase Dr. Robbie the Frog's reaction to suddenly being boiled alive. there's an interesting thing happening where uh in the course of a work day it would not be strange for robbie to have yet addressed his issues with langdon it's only been four or five hours or whatever it is but it has been more than a month in our life yeah and so his kind of neglecting the situation or avoiding the situation feels more pronounced i wonder when they're writing certain storylines how much they account for that oh for the disconnect between right will watch this show week to week over the course of months so for us i see it's almost agonizing that langdon has been standing around for five weeks being like are you going to notice me but it's only been four hours one of the one of the correctives to that is dr ahashimi saying i'm glad you're back and i'm going to be your boss that was the other person i wanted to talk about yeah they got they got i hope we get a looser version of this character as the day goes on. Not like, I really have a problem with the performance, but it's too much of a direct foil to Robbie. Yes. I don't really understand why everything she's doing is only in relationship to what Robbie is doing. I would say that one of the sophomore struggles that the show has encountered is, no one is questioning the idea that they would need to add new ingredients to the pantry. But the nature of the show is such that we just fell in love with what you were cooking in season one. And choosing what to add to the mix is very delicate, especially when everyone else is working in such a beautifully choreographed unit. So far, the new additions are not hitting the way that I think I would like. It doesn't matter. It would be Joy. Well, Joy is interesting. And the way they slow play the reveal. I thought that was well done because I wrote in my notes, what's the deal with it? Like, why? Why Joy? Yeah. And then you see that she has some in her life. Her reactions are given a little bit more context in this episode that she's had her own struggles with the financial realities of the health care system. Yes. Thus informing how she behaves and how she responds to all this stuff. I get that. There also just seems to be like, do you actually want to be a doctor? Or do you want to be a doctor because you don't want anyone to go through what you went through? Right. Like, what is motivating your family pressure to become a doctor? The al-Shashimi thing is just really tough so far. Because, again, it is not a criticism of the performer or even the performance. There's very little to work with. And so much of what it takes to be on the show is to be able to convey great oceans of inner life while you're saying things like bring in a crash tray. And the fact that she just continues to sort of be a looming administrative presence, ultimately not that different from Gloria last year, in that she just sort of keeps popping up like Clippy on the old Microsoft Word being like, may I interest you in generative AI? Like, that's tough. Do you use Microsoft Word? I do, but I've disabled Clippy. Okay. But I don't, yeah. I do. I'm old school. Yeah. You know, proudly old school. Do you write scripts or do you use Final Draft? Final Draft. Yeah. what do you use for my scripts google script generator true detective season two part season 2.5 that's yeah yeah i and then and then you have her like she she basically then has every so often they sprinkle in a moment for her to express some humanity and she talks about humanity the way steve carell talks about women's breasts and 40 year old virgin where she's like i would rather spend time with my son you know so that's it's tough it's tough to sort of bend human behavior into the tightly choreographed demands of the show because one of the other pleasures of watching it even this episode is as the you know this the ambient noise of case after case is building up there was a moment when i kind of stepped back in my brain i was just watching the way they do handoffs two people walking out of one examination room and then someone else walking by giving a look and always aware, like the court awareness, if you will, of this space. It's all 22 of it. It's elite. It's really remarkable. And easily something that, I'm not going to say normals will overlook. I'm overlooking when I'm trying to watch it. So I think that in and of itself is remarkable. But do you feel, just to put a bow on it, like you're pointing out the Robbie journey and some of the maybe unnatural feeling friction of some of the other characters. Is this taking away from your enjoyment or is this just we're a third of the way through the ride and you're noting? I think more the latter. It's not really, I'm not down on the pit. I'm not selling any pit stock. I'm not, are we sure it's good in it? It's just like, okay, like I think that this season is more about long-term sustainability of the project than it is about like every time this show starts, your heart's going to break and your brain's going to leak out of your ears because it's so intense and i think i'm just basing that off of the last five episodes of the first season rather than the totality of the experience of watching the pit it's also like really enjoyable to watch every week um it's my favorite thing to watch i haven't gotten super into a patient yet unlike ogilvy no uh there's just way too much flying shit on hbo right now i wanted to get you to this point yeah you know you have historically had a very kind of highbrow sensibility you know you don't you don't you don't go for the bathroom stuff i just it's not something i'm dying to watch on tv are you um yeah finally i gotta be honest with you yeah i got into this business like like joy got into medicine for one reason only it's finally to see big tall nights take dumps by trees yeah or or see big tall residents you know digitally extract yeah uh excrement from an elderly woman's uh rear not my favorite uh did you know i just want to throw this out there because this is something that i've known for a while did you know that 70 percent of doctors get exposed to tb um do you you did say something to me off off mic that i thought was interesting which is he's like they're not masking yes i thought that was pretty but but also it's a television show with actors that was sort of my initial reaction to that's why robbie's not wearing a helmet is because i'm like because that's the star of the show and it looks cool yeah but maybe obviously they've brought it up multiple times as as like no wiley on talk shows has been like take note of the fact that he is not wearing a helmet no but like they are so so so dedicated to showing the real life hand skin trauma of being an ER doctor of just like how many gloves and how much Purell they're using but they're not masking because they are actors yeah pretty expressive faces uh except briefly when exposed to tv in one room once yeah I don't know I gotta be honest tuberculosis is one you cool with it no but that's like what Doc Holliday got got him right is that like consumption essentially it's not the same thing probably but I think that's a great question because listen as the person on this podcast who's maybe read the most books where people die of consumption it's a great question yeah i thought it was more of a general like lung issue like if you if the pneumonia happened like yeah i don't know but why is it so it's wildly contagious or yeah it's bad yeah it's bad there's a book out recently called everything is tuberculosis i didn't read that well did you read disappointing i read about it yeah there you go and i'm telling you about it in the world of the pit even characters as dismissive of authority as santos just has a little bag of stats you know that you could just reach into and just throw on the table to educate uh the prisoner who is cuffed who is basically a symbol of the dehumanizing impact of the carceral state on humans i want to talk about that sure you know what put me on kai clip this if you need to if you have to i hate when you do the breadcrumbs it's not gonna be honestly Probably all it does is it just means like less representation for me on Instagram. Oh I want you to be the face of this comment I going to make Okay I think generally in the cases of violent criminals I think you can keep the handcuffs on when they around scalpel But they don't know what he's in for. I'm just saying, call me anti-woke, okay? Call me old-fashioned. But I thought that the prison guard being like, we keep him cuffed for a reason. Yeah. And meanwhile, Whitaker is like, you know, you are not needed here. Hannibal, Hannibal, how are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? i'm just saying yeah yeah what's the harm the man is they've given him morphine she's he's his senses are dull he's sedated but when they were sewing him up and he has the skin of an 80 year old man well who among us the la son is unforgiving but when he's out there you know they're stitching him up his fingers are like i felt like they were reaching for the knives a little bit i was wondering about that i really hope that doesn't happen yes but i'm just saying just because those are my homies in there i don't want them to get scalpeled up but like it seems like that would have to be a classic pit zag but also it's a little bit like the scorpion and the frog parable you know where the guy's just like i gotta be me i gotta cut people up or he is like already it's like a wee bay in the in the wire situation oh he's just like i already got like i'm never i'm never leaving prison i will now take credit for 16 other murders in exchange for a pit beef sandwich that's right so i'm just saying a lifetime of television shows what's the pittsburgh sandwich the pramancy brothers one with the fries on it yeah that's a great sandwich yeah we haven't seen a lot of that i think my my guess about that and i'm sure our pittsburgh-based fans and or aaron rogers could chime in about it i feel like they haven't done it because this show is so respectful of pittsburgh with like with references and needle drops that we didn't get from apparently very important local bands that it would be like a philadelphia-based show being like ah gino's cheesesteak for lunch again the best thing to enjoy like that might be a little too on the nose and there's probably more like regional specialties or more specific you know that they want to appreciate we'll see we'll see if they bring them in the late stage cancer patient with a loving husband and a death doula my note on that was a lot of mckay like a lot of the other thing i was noticing this is not a brilliant observation but i was appreciating and noting the way the show gives us information about its main characters with limited real estate with camera cutaways and lingering shots so that whole i'm caring for my wife in this terminal awful pain riddled state every time there was a moment of like whatever you need you know i'm there for you they would cut to mckay and she's just sort of taking it in but i also thought it was javadi's sort of alarm or shock at the death duel it was notable i don't know why that didn't yeah that did i i didn't think that's that outside of the realm of i agree but javadi was like what like when they were like kind of being very direct about this probably being the end of her life i think she was just really she's young no i think she's she realized she's missed an opportunity for going viral like dr j could be like you know what's in what's up gang time to die yeah and and langdon let's talk briefly about him okay patch ball uh just just um punching the clock waiting for robbie to to notice him he had the mercer patient and also the dry ice brothers side note on the mercer patient the other robbie off the handle off the rip was when he grabs the phone from her and it's like i will oh yeah she will sue you if you fire her yeah uh please continue that's it i mean like um i anxiously await their their showdown their emotional showdown um the mercy patient that's that's just a tough beat that was scary i don't even know how that happens like what happens you just have an infection the i don't want to know i gotta say don't answer me like i just want to live naively in in this world it's better when you don't know a lot of things well i know too much about certain things so when it comes to infections let's just let the dice roll i i thought it was i think it's a remarkable testament to the uh intensity and specificity of the show that a red skin infection line going past an artificial blue marker was terrifying like jaws like that was that was yeah quite scary and and what's like the expanding like bruise that she's got like would you rather this is a terrible would you rather i'm going to say this going in would you rather be brought into the er with like a oh a refrigerator fell on me that hurts and the bones are broken and they're going to fix it or be brought in being like i've got a rash and then over the next two hours have everyone slow motion freak out around you that would really freak me out i think i'd rather just be i think i'd rather have my acl blown out and everybody's just like you you does seem like you'd blow your acl out because you're so good at sports you know and then be like actually i will continue to compete in the olympics we gotta talk about that what's up doesn't she she's like the terminator like isn't she she's gotten into many accidents correct she's 41 yes she's the greatest downhill skier in women's american history probably are you asking me you're putting you on the spot do you not know about women's skiers i know about iliana rasputin's tortured history um i don't know i don't know i don't know about that there are certain injuries yes yes where they're like you can't fuck it up more i am always dubious about that but like in football you will hear about like they send them back out because they're like we gave him the choice he's not gonna hurt him he can't break it more the best example we have is from our beloved philadelphia eagles lane johnson the iron man of the offensive line yes uh during the super bowl season that we lost the super bowl a few years ago right tore an adductor muscle yeah which you know as someone who's passionate about pilates i'm like really attuned to the core and the what it does for me but like it i can only imagine two americas i can imagine what about kaya's losing her parents subscription yeah three americas yeah same america i can only imagine the absolute agony of this injury but he was like i can have surgery to stitch my muscle back together or i can go back to my day job stopping 300 pound men from hitting jalen hertz it's already right yeah as awful as that sounds i can think my way through that jason peters used to do that too where they'd be like his ankle has essentially been destroyed but he won't pop his achilles again you know so he's gonna go back out there why didn't they try that with achilles yeah like maybe christopher nolan will answer that for us my question about lindsey vaughn is i just didn't know you could opt out of an acl injury i didn't know you could be like thank you yeah i'm good i will continue skiing down mountains. I think it hurts a lot. But do you have the structural... I don't know. I mean, honestly, also, once you get locked in on the skis, what else is there to do? Stand up on them. The skis don't lift your body. But you're not moving... You have to step, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if about the human body... There's four Americas. It's people who are used to downhill slaloming in Europe. Yeah. Anyone? Kaya? No? You ever ski, Kaya? You're from Northern California. I like to snowboard. Yes. Do you think you could do a blown out ACL or ACL? No, absolutely not. And this is actually a subject in one of my group texts right now. My friend just tore her ACL while skiing and she's like, how is your friend Lindsay Vaughn? No. Okay. She's like, how the fuck am I? How the fuck is she doing this? Basically. Jesus. So the symptoms include a loud pop at the time of injury. That's what everybody's always like. That's what freaks them out the most. Immediate significant pain and swelling. Sure. Feeling like the knee is giving out or buckling. Yes. Loss of range of motion. Pain and discomfort when walking. I think my wife tore her MCL once and that was, she checked all those boxes. I don't know. Okay. You've already won so many medals. Who? Lindsay. Oh, I thought you said me. Lindsay. I thought you were like, I did. I mean, I did win a lot. Swimming in Philadelphia. That's it. Ogilvy had to clear out that lady. There's tuberculosis. Okay. Any other broader notes on the pit aside from Al Hashimi, Robbie? I respect its willingness to let the elder millennials or older make a MacGyver joke and then have younger people not get it. Not get it, yeah. We are getting to that point. A lot of stuff from our youth. We'll reference LA Law. Nobody's going to know what we're talking about. Oh, you mean like the show? Yeah. Not like the breakdown. We are downtown. All right, brother. You want to talk about... Let's talk about Steel briefly. You join me. This is a show on Amazon Prime that I checked out last week. Andy watched one and a half. I only watched the pilot, but I did enjoy it. We had a boisterous conversation about Sophie Turner in the process of discussing this. I wanted to see what you thought of the first episode, which is a stylish, cool little, I thought a really well-done heist show. Yeah, it's very entertaining. I don't know if you have it called up, the name of the writer-director. Yes, Satyrus Nikias And it is like many Some of the episodes directed by Hedy MacDonald Who did Howard's End a couple years ago That I liked a lot Oh, the one with Matthew McFadden That was really good I see An incredibly entertaining show thus far About a wildly high stakes Robbery in full daylight Of a financial firm A bank that manages Pensions pensions and a number of reasons to like this. One, imagining that this is in the industry shared universe and that somehow all the Starks have just remade themselves into financial crusaders. Genuinely, the similarity with industry that is most compelling to me is like, it's really nice seeing these kids freed of chain mail. Sophie Turner seems not unlike Kit Harington, just relaxed and relieved. Not that the characters relaxed in these high stakes circumstances, but she's a fun and charismatic performer in a way. Not that she was bad in Game of Thrones, but that show doesn't allow a certain range of motion. Yeah, I noticed that when you say that, as soon as she comes onto screen, you're like, oh. You're a person. Yeah, and she's like, I'm hungover, I'm showing somebody around, I am the lens through which you're viewing the show. It's just really, I don't want to give too much away because I think part of the thrill of the pilot is the unfolding of the heist. I will say, I thought pensions had some safeguards around them and that it wasn't as easy as being like, I have a gun to a guy's head and he's going to give me your pension. Do you still believe in guardrails, buddy? The thing is, I don't really believe in pensions. So it's like, they're not there, are they? Yeah. I also think that the show... Nothing will make you think this country is cooked more than seeing your late parents' pension payments. Oh, like that old TIA cref when it hits? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, you just taught for a while, like a while, 30 years. Yeah. And then they just keep paying you. Yeah. That's cool. That's so sick, right? Couldn't be us. You don't think that like at some point, like you're going to get called to Sweden and they'll be like, Chris, in recognition of your many years of service to the podcasting industry. Here is a sweatshirt with the logo on it. Like many of these British shows that we've been covering and enjoying, like there's just such a wild bench of performers. and I just want to shout out the lead robber is played by Jonathan Slinger who is an actor that I saw on stage in London and I was like man this guy's incredible you dropped something and I think I can drop a Jonathan Slinger reference just a great actor and compelling and charismatic and surprising Gato with Ben Whishaw he was really good did you not make it? No I couldn't I didn't see that no that's too bad you know the thing about the West End is Yes, the restaurants are good, and the feeling, the energy on the streets is remarkable. I was too busy re-watching the Western Book of the Dead. Fair. I'm enjoying Steel. I want to watch it six episodes. Seems fun. Great. A question I had for you that I think I actually have a preloaded answer for, but I'm curious about this is, we have been enjoying, and not just because we like to travel there or work there recently, but we have been enjoying a lot of very specifically London shows. And when we review things and talk about things like Steel or years ago when we were talking about Slow Horses, stuff like that. I made a story, but specifically Slow Horses comes to mind of like they are very, very physically grounded in a place. Like now they're by the Barbican. Now they're on the 55 bus line. And like we've been there and we understand it. But I think anyone watching these shows, whether they use their active mind to appreciate it or not, understands that these shows are elevated by location shooting and being in a place. And particularly in steel, there are a lot of drone shots of all the new towers in the city by the Bank Street station that are like, well, this is a transformed landscape and we are going to play with the scope and scale of it. And I was, that made me think, and I actually don't know if you have an answer for this, when the last time was that we had a American show that celebrated specificity of location it's great question august of 2015 true detective season two okay we're gonna get there no but i'm just saying like that was one of the things that leaped out at me as i was like that's that's the that's broadway in downtown los angeles where they're standing this is a good segue then i mean i we have noticed it in terms of like like wonder man filmed in highland park sure but that's not exactly what i mean like that wonder man is notable because it does like do establishing shots of Pacoima, which matters. It's not just the volume or not just Toronto or Atlanta. Most of the time what happens now is like you will see drone shot and then a whatever the scene is could have been shot anywhere in the world because they are usually in like shallow, shallow focus of it. Like the actors are in focus. Nothing really in the background is happening. And so it can be shot in Vancouver. It can be shot wherever they're shooting it. I think there are a few recent examples of productions using the New York City tax. Nobody wants this. Takes advantage of Los Angeles, I think, to some extent. Yeah, a very specific sliver of it, but that's true. Like when they look for parking spaces. Yeah, or they walk from skylight to in front of the movie theater where the light is good. It's a nice third of a block. A few shows have used the New York City tax credits well. like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for example, a few years ago, or Black Rabbit, was very much a sort of slick vision of New York that is legitimate. But these shows that do the—I guess what I'm chasing is something that I think reveals one of the major infrastructure problems of the American industry, which is that because production has cratered in traditional production hubs, often shows have to be written to be so deeply location-nonspecific that by the time you are told where you will be going to shoot, which over the course of a show's development could move from Louisiana to Vancouver to Budapest, you cannot make the place a character. And I think that the shows that we are making are suffering from it. And not just like the great HBO shows that we always lionize, but even like maybe the more marginal entertaining apple shows or peacock shows like i think there's also something going on like i've asked you about this and i've talked about this there's something going on with like the use of extras and the use of uh background action where like even law and order and svu now when you watch it it just feels a little bit more canned and it feels like the way that people look yeah like whereas like if you watch early law and order it seems like they're kind of running and gunning out on Central Park. And that's probably just really good ADs getting really good extras to look like people jogging through Central Park. Oh, that's a really good question. I also don't know whether this is what happens to every human brain where at a certain point they're just like things just seemed more authentic 20 years ago. Well, I do think that there was a more robust everything's budgets were bigger, shooting days were longer or you had more of them and you could let it let it rip a little bit probably like you could take over a larger quarter of central park west max mingham and cal penn talked about how that opening scene of the two of them walking through london and industry the people in that shot do not know they're on industry so i don't know whether there's a different law about who has to be like you have to go then go up to people and be like you're going to be on an hbo show i have to imagine you do but i i just feel when I drive by in LA and they're shooting something, even if they're shooting something in LA and the three blocks are blocked off and they're shooting something outside the Friend in Silver Lake or Los Feliz or whatever, it still feels very canned and safe. Were they shooting there because they're doing documentary footage of your 40th birthday party? Like recreating the night? I think also, no, she went to Tenants of the Tree, so I was going to say Charlie XCX had her birthday there as well but she was you did both have past cigarette towers if i remember correctly um my point isn't even so much the um it's just that like if if you're shooting it would be nice to see things that are if you're shooting in atlanta which people are not doing anymore make it in atlanta one of the triumphs of the vince gilligan cinematic universe is the celebration of albuquerque as the place not albuquerque as something else yeah and it's been notable that the English television shows of the moment, industry accepted, industry for price point and budget reasons, shoots in Wales. But just the fact that like some of these clearly spendier English shows are taking advantage of the city that they're filming in. And I miss, it's lacking in our American shows. This is a good enough segue to talk about True Detective just because of the, you know, I was talking about like, does your brain reset after a few years and think that just things that happened 10 years ago were like the way like we are shedding skin so that we are ship of theseus is in ourself every seven years that's a very big theme of uh true detective by the way this season i just was like you know as i kind of read about epstein stuff over the last couple of days obviously um you know i was almost like looking to pair it with something i was like what is like this feeling that i'm having that i think is a very shared feeling of like am i losing my mind as i as i read the news or as i go beyond the news into piecing things together and like i think that everybody has to like kind of have their own uh limits as to how much of that that they can take on um as a uh a man with no children whose wife is currently traveling my limit might be a little higher there might not be a limit In a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a church mouse and 10 being Ray Velcoro, what was your behavior yesterday alone in your home? I have received documents from websites from Jason Concepcion that require translation from Russian to English. But those were just like consent forms to view Liverpool goals. Epstein basically was like a Russian agent for FSB. but you know and who knows isn't gatekeeping this stuff no i mean i'll share it with you i don't know whether or not my computer is going to explode in five minutes i'll just watch it on your screen i was kind of thinking about things from the last 10 15 years that had been either reflective or predictive of the moment that we're in and one of the first things i was thinking of was like true detective season one in carcosa this idea that a show or a piece of art or anything could be solved in a community online um you know and i remember around that time of true detective I can't remember the exact time, but like the first time I ever really noticed this was after the Boston Marathon bombing and people like sleuthing online. Obviously, this happened with serial a lot. People like taking it upon themselves to piece things together. True Detective, I think, is very reflective of and predictive of of like that kind of behavior is the idea that there's like always another layer. There's always another conspiracy to be found. Now, the reason I went to Traductive Season 2, so I'm pretty familiar with one, and also two is about human trafficking, a cabal of sexually deviant demons living in and around, you know, Bohemian Grove. It's also about the environmental and financial rape of California. And when it came out, I think both of us, certainly you, but even I was like pretty out on it. you know like if i remember correctly like i don't know if i was out out but i think i was like this is humorless this is a chore carrie fukunaga obviously brought a different visual sensibility to it i think we were my relationship with it was i i was frustrated with it because i liked the cast particularly colin farrell yes and there were in a way it was like the uh non version of Taylor late period Taylor Sheridan in that I was I found it compelling and frustrating in equal measure Yes Because there was a lot of good there and then it was very, very seemingly insistent on walking itself off a cliff. So in the first season of Trudy, Woody and McConaughey are doing their version of his words. And then Fukunaga is shooting it in such a way where the magical realism, there's like the tracking shots there's the incredible compositions it's very well shot the comparison i would make is social network the film in the sense that you had two people who are very very very um strong in their fields in terms of like a noisy written style and a noisy camera style colliding and having it make something that is somehow maybe i think it's fair to say greater than the sum of its parts. I mean, I love Fincher generally, and Sorkin and I can often take or leave, but together, it shouldn't work, but it worked. It certainly did. And I think that even as someone who is famously or infamously not a big fan of season one of True Detective, the alchemy of those two was the best work that either of them have done. The second season, even though Justin Lin directs the first two, I think Giannis Metz directs the third one, and then jeremy padezwa directed the fourth one i haven't watched the last few yet because you know life but um you can feel the authorial vision is coming from pizzolato because the primary directive seems to be like say the words the way i want you to say them and and and we're using all of the words yes scenes go on for much longer uh there is less riffage you know there's less kind of like it's maybe what he wrote but i'm gonna put like the mcconaughey spin on it or the woody spin on it or the whatever you know yeah it's like four people who are being instructed to act like they are dead like they are in purgatory yeah like the vince vaughn taylor kitsch uh rachel mcadams who's awesome in this show yeah and colin farrell who's fucking incredible in this show he is this show honestly four episodes if this show came out this year it'd be a top five show for me i love this this is so fucking good and i can't believe i didn't like see it at the time but maybe you just need i don't really re-watch a lot of television just because there's just simply too much new stuff to check out but i kind of i wonder now like how many seasons of tv are out there that i'd be like man that was actually insane now part of what's good about this season is remembering broadly what happens but not the details of it yeah so it's been really cool like you get to the part where velcoro grabs like beats the shit out of the bully's father in front of the bully yeah he's like you can't cry look at what you did to your dad look at the beating he's taking it's the happiest you've been on this podcast in months and um thematically i think it's just like a very resonant show right now uh but i so my so this is what's interesting to me is that when you were texting me and i was being non-committal which is par for the course because you know i sent you 19 things before you woke up and you were like cool so i felt like turnabout is fair play uh i thought you were saying that true detective broadly but specifically season two was interestingly predictive of our current television moment but you actually feel like it's predictive of our larger cultural moment i i think that it was it's also yeah i think it's the former the the latter i feel like in some ways it's just forgotten to time and i don't think people make shows this absolutely devoid of redemption you know and like any of the qualities like all of these characters are just absolutely incinerating themselves and they're so miserable they're they all their vices are completely taking over their lives their repressed feelings are destroying them in the case the taylor kitch's cast uh character um it's so cynical about the world it's so like the putrid disgusting shit that comes out of the woman's leg and the pit when they cut it you know that's what this show is yeah but then if you look at a certain if you look at the world now through a certain lens you're like it's way more right than it is wrong well it's interesting because the idea of a cabal of disgusting, rich, you know, pedophilic monsters is a real chestnut of American entertainment. Remember the guys in Squid Game? Sure. It's almost cliched. Now, as we've learned, the real black mirror of the last 10 years of American life is like, no, no, it's actually that stupid. It's actually, the things we thought are just like too beyond the pale and basic actually that's what's been going on i think what's missing is the level of almost like dark cartoonish humor of the fact that like it's not just that the conspiracy theories seemingly are were dead on it's that the people involved went on to 4chan and invented an even more cartoonish conspiracy theory to muddy the waters of conspiracy theories generally and to get people off the scent like that's the thing that's the level of like malevolent almost like armando iannucci scripting season 15 of veep level of cynicism that's something like true detective which ultimately is about boy scouts finding out the world's broken maybe in the first season the second season is not about that well they are no longer they're hollowed out because they had reasons for becoming civic leaders or cops or whatever but reality like yes Even the Velcro character in season two is presented as this beautiful kind of kind man whose life is destroyed when his wife is assaulted. Yeah, so I think that the missing, the third heat that's missing for me is any kind of recognition of the dark humor of it. What's compelling about a lot of what Pizzolatto writes is his absolute micro-targeted fixation on the swirling around the drain, but it's also that drain is located on his navel. Sure, and he's definitely like, this is the... This is like Sirianni after the Super Bowl. He's getting to call his own shot here. Season 3 Kevin Petulo's offense. No, I actually liked season 3. I will say that I forgot that one of the central plot drivers of the second season is the corruption and financial malfeasance surrounding a California rail line that will connect the Central Valley, the North and the South. We still haven't built that. well, maybe with redistricting, we'll finally get there. Like, I, I, I think that it's an, first of all, I, I love the history lesson. And I think it's fascinating to look at shows that were, you know, maybe misunderstood at the time, but I, I still think that in, in entertainment and like out at the bar, a guy sitting next to you being like, you actually don't understand how bad it is, is not that compelling to me. I need something else. I would almost be curious if you watched the first one yeah if you would be like oh actually this feels a little bit more quaint in retrospect yeah because pre-trump it's pre like it's like if you go through the last 10 years like we have and then you look back and you're like oh these were four like damaged but well meaning people it's also i think one of the things there's you can look at it one of two ways like in those first three seasons there are hall of fame level performances from mcconaughey harrelson farrell mahersthala rachel mcadams and like in the service of were pieces that to some didn't hang together yeah what's your feeling about that you know it doesn't discredit their work sure um i wish i i definitely found myself more like i wish that it was in the service of something broader and grander but there's also talk about like there was a feeling particularly at that time that because the doors had been blown open in the medium of television that the work that was being made now in this golden into prestige era whatever you want to call it would be not just interesting compelling entertaining meaningful but would be significant and lasting in a way that we look at cinema. And I think maybe with a few exceptions, TV is still TV. Like we keep shoveling. It doesn't, I don't say that to say that like Sopranos wasn't great, but I do think that the way we talk about individual performances and shows still somehow is diluted because of the quantity. Because to say Sopranos is great versus saying, I don't know, pick a, pick a great movie. I don't remember any. I mean, even something like versus like Goodfellas. Right. It is a different commitment and a different aperture of how much you have to take in. Goodfellas is a long movie that would take two and a half episodes of Sopranos. What will you do next, historian? I don't know. Also, I would be curious to see how you felt about the David Lynch-isms of season two on Second Pass. I had a hard time with it in season one. Because they got the city manager with his eyes burned out being driven up the coast with the bird head i i i remember that very well yeah i mad as fuck about that yeah because as as this podcast number one david lynch gatekeeper there's a reason why i was like many have tried but none have succeeded maybe with the exception of tim robinson on the chair company because david lynch is funny as hell and you just you just cop the moves you know but not the spirit it's it's a very very different with me on Mulholland Drive when I was shooting in the gym what about speaking of David Lynch did you see that there has been some movement in terms of sharing his final work his screenplay so there were I know Toby Jones said that he was supposed to be the star of the last movie right is that what he said so so the lead there were a lot of rumors and then more than rumors there was more than just smoke like that he was prepping a massive project for netflix it was under the working title of wisteria there are people that have talked about it publicly there are people that i know that auditioned for it and were going in and there were there was some information going around about it but that broadly speaking it was understood to be like a like twin peaks the return like a massive movie that's going to be chopped up 15 16 hours and then later it was revealed that it was the actual title was unrecorded night and then he was and it seemed like netflix was willing to do this with him but his health precluded even getting it into production and then strike and COVID and all the other things that delayed production generally so it was never realized but that his daughter Jennifer is saying that they're going to publish the scripts wild to think about. Do you want to read those? I desperately want to read them but it's painful because it's not like in the same way that Le Carre's sons are writing new smiling novels or there's a lost Chandler book that was finished by a contemporary crime writer like no one can do what he did yeah i have a very strange relationship to the sort of legacy acts not even the legacy acts but like i was thinking about this because i was on the plane back from boston i was watching now you see me three are you a completist have you seen the first i have now i've seen all of them like on planes wow i don't know nothing about they're they're fully entertaining but like actually insane uh dominic sessa is in the third one i first of all that broke containment, that trailer, which seemingly gives away the whole movie, played in front of every children's movie in theaters for a year. He's playing young Bourdain in the upcoming movie. I'm a big Sessa head. I like Dominic Sessa too. I love the holdovers. It's just like we are now in what are different ways to continue to put out Anthony Bourdain's stuff in the absence of him. And I like Half of me is like, yeah, I'm going to be there day one. I can't wait to see it. Oh, this is a story about Bourdain. I thought you were going to tell me about the Magic movie. No. Okay, sorry, go on. He is playing young Bourdain. Yes, in a... Would you describe yourself as like, I can't wait to see that? Do you think that there's a similarity between paging through a never-to-be-filmed David Lynch? No, because this is a biopic. Yeah, but like... Which is different than Parts Unknown Season 15, hosted by Dominic Sessa with generative AI helping him. Sure, sure. but is the question like do I feel like I'm done it's just things that I don't know that the artist would have wanted I don't know that David Lynch would be like look at my unfilmed screenplays I don't know that Anthony Bourdain would be like I really want my youth to be biopic I don't know the answer I think my interest level varies I think that there is something for the Lynch thing there's something incredibly bittersweet about it because no one can do what he did and but in terms of my curiosity and interest in these people that meant something to me sure these two examples but i haven't read no disrespect to nick harkaway but like i haven't read his new his new smiley book the silver what was it no that that was the last look how to finish there's like a book called smiley something that is credited to nick harkaway it's just a new smiley book do you but is this how you feel about true detective night country no continuing nick pizzolato's work without him no i i had i had a lot of time for night country it's i don't i don't think i i think it was like just i i would like to see that project continue i think it's a really interesting and fun for me uh world to live in is these sort of like occult investigations i think by broken detectives but i think the thing that the show and look i my criticism of this franchise has been well criticized and that's totally fair but i think one of my recurring things about it is weirdly true detective didn't go further far enough in either direction i know what you're saying is really compelling that he was onto something obviously that he was feeling and was inspired to write about and that does chime with the world maybe even 10 years in advance but it didn't go all the way there like this should none of these did they teased this actually i think three maybe touched it the most. Yeah, well, 3 has an explicit moment of tying in the series. Very brief, right, at the end? Yes, but it's also like, it's where the character winds up is the most, I think is the most spiritually true thing that happens to any of the characters in this show, in this entire franchise, is the fate of the Mahershala character. What's weird is i'm almost arguing for a more conventional structure in which like a prestige network like hbo hires a and i think it's fair to say regardless of how you feel about the output like a prestige creator like nick pizzolato who works in a certain manner and expects his words to be performed and said in a certain way but it's macro engineered like the x-files in the sense that like nick pizzolato's broken men characters are perpetually lifting boulders up a mountain that they can't carry but at the top of the mountain is the fucking cigarette smoking man sure and he's always you know emailing people to get tickets to see howard stern or whatever whatever the case may be you know like it it would almost be and it's very indicative of something about tv that i like so i want to be careful i'm not i'm arguing against myself here but the fact that it doesn't really stack up to something is okay like not everything could be engineered but it's almost interesting that, interesting purely in hindsight, that if there had been some macro story that he was going to keep running at from different vantage points in America, from different character vantage points, different casting, maybe even different eras, one thing that you could explain, not just Carcosa and Flowers. And something a little bit more specific, and thus maybe more heavy-handed than The Evil That Lives Within All Men. I think if you were to go back and watch season two, you would be surprised by how much you like it because it is like a level of quality of television that I think is absent from like a lot today. That's the way I feel about Miyazaki's very personal The Wind Rises. I can see where this is going. In the sense that like I do think there's something in there that you would respond to because it is a film about tuberculosis and smoking and airplanes. Where are we at? 11.45. You gotta go? No, I was just thinking about whether we should do any... Is this After Dark? This has been After Dark ever since you brought out your notebook. Would you like to weigh in on South? uh like because of all the creamy just allen long time other stuff i do follow a lot of guinness content long time eagles offensive line coach and run game coordinator i'm ready for it i don't really care okay let's go hear about it uh sports i'm gonna paint a little portrait of andy okay andy's a guy yeah yeah who doesn't just need sports but he needs the sports that he cares about to to work out in a certain way to reflect yeah to some sort of goodness yeah to reflect like a certain chemistry a certain uh togetherness humanity and yeah like i think you're looking to sports to to right some wrongs in the universe not you to be the best of us yeah and so when bad things happen or like you know locker room drama spills out about the eagles and he's like the last to believe it very upset yeah yeah he's always just like i trust how he will will take care of like all of this stuff and blah blah blah and i i love that about you yeah but this is one where a very like long-serving and beloved and perhaps best at his job in the world offensive line coach 13 years has chosen that he would rather not work for the eagles anymore than work for the new offensive coordinator or nick sirianni anymore he doesn't like how he was treated last year whatever the reports are and he and this is the one that seems like it may have broken you a little bit well i did spend my drive in listening to our friend shiel and our old friend ben so i talk about this in ways that did remind me of vince vaughn's attitude towards justice in true detective season two i would not say it was a sunny thing yeah in my in my defense um shout out vic fangio i have noticed that there is an inversion that happens in in season and out of season whereas during a football season, I am a reactive lunatic. Where every single snap is catastrophic. And then when the season's over, I'm like, trust the process. I like these moving pieces. It could work out. Whereas you and Zach, I think, are much more granular in your nervous systems during the offseason. I'm much more level-headed during games. There's an element of it that's just beyond our control. Yeah, and I'm more level-headed in the offseason because I trust the great man theory. i trust jeffrey who's the great man uh tbd yeah tbd no this is this is this is a bad one this is a bad one the sense of like if they can't actually make this work what are we doing here yeah it doesn't feel good how do you feel about jared mccain getting traded uh i'm mad i mean while we we've been recording for quite some time now while we have been doing so there may have been like another trade that was coming seems like it was just a text i did not like that yeah i know we have to sign some of our guys on two-way contracts, but I'm glad Eric Gordon has a warm seat on the bench for life for the Sixers for some reason. Do you think if we go to the Comcast Infinity Shineheart Wig Company arena, they will have up in the rafters, they'll have Dr. J's jersey, Iverson's jersey, and skirted the first tax apron, 2026 jersey? I was thinking about bringing that sign to the game tonight because I'm going to go see the Sixers fly the Lakers. Oh, nice. I'd be like, proud of you guys. You're under the threshold. Greenwald, it's been amazing to deal with you today. Deal with me? Not deal with you. Deal with the world. Deal with the files. Do you want to show people your work? I did. Look what you did. I'm trying to be more present in my thought. Yeah. And write out my thoughts longhand because when I'm on my computer, I'm just all over the place. I'm just like, oh, let me listen to some shoegaze. Look at this. I like this. Industry and Night of the Sand Caves go up on Friday. We're not going to do a show until Monday, though. So don't get your hopes up. And we'll talk about the Super Bowl, some ads, state of the world, state of the birds, state of Greenwald. I'm just putting all my eggs in the Sam Darnold basket. Thanks to Kaya. Thanks to Kai. Thanks for listening.