‘Widow’s Bay’ Is One of Apple’s Boldest Swings Yet. Plus, ‘Top Chef’ Restaurant Wars.

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, looking for the next Martha's Vineyard, it's Andy Greenwald! I'm excited for today's show, kind of a genre zag. It is a genre zag, especially from the Scaredy Cat across from me here. Andy, we are going to be talking about Widow's Bay, which is a new show on Apple TV. We're going to talk about Top Chef. We have a little bit of news at the top. We have some, a grab bag of popular culture that we're going to hit on. From the world of movies and music and television. It's great to see you. It's Thursday, we can keep, let's let our hair down. If we have hair, let it down. You want to unveil something? Yeah, probably my trip to Turkey. Is this time? It gave fucking work down. Can I ask you a quick question before we get into it? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Can I ask you a quick question before we get into it? Yeah. About podcasting. As always, I am a dedicated follower of your appearances across the podcasting space. And I really was enjoying your appearance on the Bill Simmons podcast. Until? The other day. There's no bug. But I was, so you kindly went on the Bill Simmons podcast. You had an invitation to come on, I think, in the assumption that you would be there to be. So, I will say this. Two bills credit. Yeah. I was on Bill Simmons's pod the other day. I have gone on and humiliating moments in Philadelphia sports. And sometimes it feels a little humiliating for me personally. Sure. That being said, days before Bill was like, you haven't been on in the NBA playoffs, have you? And I was like, I have it. And then he hit me up on Tuesday and was like, are you around? I was supposed to do the mailbag with them that morning, I think. And instead came on for the night shift with late night house. Which is a great team. You guys are great together. I thought that you guys were going to suggest some local, like, kill rock stars bands to be cheap half-time entertainment. Did you get to the late part of the pod? I'm getting there. But here's my point. I want to bring this relevant. This is not just for the sports heads out there. So, you came on feeling good about the Sixers, had a really nice victory. And he wanted to talk about Derek White and how he was slightly disappointing. What is the TV equivalent of that? If I came on here and I was like, Chris, I have season two is everything I want in a TV show this year. And you were like, Ali Wong kind of didn't show up this year. And I just kind of focused on what she was doing instead. Like, how could we do that for TV to each other? I don't mean to throw this back at you, but is it kind of like talking about euphoria without ever having watched euphoria? Yes. However, now you're giving me ideas that what I could do instead is just talk about how I spent my Sunday nights in 2018 and 2021 or whenever the show came up. Yeah. Made a nice dinner. I was wondering if you heard the Greenwald bait at the end of that whole segment. I haven't made it there yet. Okay. There's something in there for me. Well, because I believe this argument started during the LA Confidential taping that you were obviously a part of. But there has been like this like rolling debate between me and Bill and others about REM versus the replacement. Oh, I heard that you touched on this. And I did. You heard? Yeah. Oh, like in the Washington Post? No, what I do is I talk to people who listen to the podcast. I just have like, remember Varys on Game of Thrones? Like I have a little army of what do you call them? Little birds? Master of whispers. Yeah, I've got some podcast birds. Little birds. And we, you know, a lot of the problem with this argument is that the parameters of the, what are we arguing about is not quite clear. Like I can tell Bill wants to just say REM is better than the replacement, which he's more than welcome to say. But his point is more like, you guys think that the replacements were bigger, but REM was the biggest. And I'm like, I have no doubt. That's true. I was there. That's objectively true. But REM briefly was the biggest band in the world. But I can imagine you are REM over replacements guy. This is a head versus heart thing. This is tough. I, you were one of the biggest REM fans. I know REM is my gateway. REM is my everything. Like, here's, you know, prior to this moment, I think the most revealing and nerdy, the nerdiest thing I've ever said about my own self-loror on this podcast was talking about the Twin Peaks fanzine I made on dot matrix printers in my middle school. It's nice that you think that's the nerdiest thing you've said on this podcast, but that's okay. About my past. Everything since then, when you were watching Euphoria is fair game. My, my best friend, Lara and I were so into REM in like 1990. That we made our parents take us to Athens, Georgia. We begged to have a spring break trip to Athens, Georgia, just to be in the town they were from. And I believe, unconfirmed, 30 plus years later, I believe maybe we met their manager's mother. Oh, that's nice. How did you do that? Did you walk around Athens being like, REM, REM, please come out. I mean, you know, you have to do it more in code. You know, you have to sort of do like, like sing little scraps of song, song H like into bushes and then maybe some people come out. No, I was like, you know, you would, one had read in a magazine that like Michael Stipe enjoyed the vegetarian hot dog. You did drove down I-95 to Athens, Georgia. No, we flew. Okay. It must be nice. Yeah. It was, listen, the economics were different then. You know what I mean? A family of four could take a trip to a college town without bankrupting the whole year. Were you doing it under the auspice of an early college visit? I was 13. There would be? No. No, it was purely, I can't believe this. Like now I'm on the other side of this. And if my children were like, please, please take us to the home of the creator of the amazing digital circus, the weird cartoon that's on Netflix, I would say, I would say, who's this? Why are you texting me? But they, but my, our moms took us on this trip to do relatively nothing. If I, if Faust came to me, you know, wait, is Faust the guy that they devil makes a deal with, or is Faust, they think? I think if Faust came to you, he'd be like, don't take the deal. Okay. If I was offered a devil's deal where I had to do something terrible, but I got to know what your life would have been like if you had attended the University of Georgia. First of all, drafted by Howie Roseman. I would have been, I would have been a 11th year senior water boy. Still have eligibility. Still have some eligibility left. No, but to your question, red-shirting for anxiety every year. Can you red-shirt for anxiety? I'm sure. Now you can. Can I do it right now? Because I feel a little exposed. The, so ARIAN was like my gateway drug to all indie music and was my favorite band when I was a kid. And then from there I went to other places, including discovering the replacements, who became much more important to me, like high school and to college. Okay. So I kind of can't do it. But if the argument is who is objectively bigger, it's unquestionably ARIAN, but the replacements whole, the reason we love them is because they were so self-defeating and such a giant mess. Yeah, I think also there was like a definitive cutoff point where ARIAN obviously stopped touring. Bill Berry left the band. They made like one or two more records after Bill Berry. Even without Bill Berry? They continued to make records and tour for 14 more years. Well, I guess I got my facts wrong there. I just was, there was something about like the, the replacements had a little bit more like mythology, not mythology, like there was a little bit more like, do you think they'll ever get back together? Do you think they'll ever tour again? And then they did. And then they did. Did you go to that show? I didn't. But I'm not actually a big reunion show guy. You just, you know what I was doing at that moment? I was slowly pulling in the high ground, like I just won a big-handed poker and you just yanked the tablecloth. No, it's not that. I just, I've seen, I think of the reunion shows that I've seen. Yeah. Mission of Berm is still by far the best. Cool. Do you go to my Bloody Valentine show? No. I think that I have structural damage still to my sternum. Wait, which, which era? Rose land, like, I don't know, 15, 16 years ago. No, I didn't. Do you still have like bad hearing because of that? Huh? Sorry. I felt it in my bones. This is, by the way, we haven't had like a meeting with the higher ups in Sweden recently, but I imagine this is doing numbers. Like this is the best way to start. I think it's okay to open with like a little bit of chatter. That's my, as an, the executive producer. So are you and House on the, on the, is your point that like you like the replacements more or they've lasted longer? I think we were more like, Bill, Bill was sort of trying to say like, I have great music taste and House and I were, I think a little bit rejecting that. House also referenced Minor Threat and Fugazi, which I think might be the first time those bands have come up on any of Bill's podcasts and in the 20 years he's been doing it or whatever. I think the words minor and the words threat have a big impact. The words threat have appeared. Yeah. They might be like Franz Wagner is a minor threat to get 18 points tonight. That's what I'm saying. But I mean the band Minor Threat. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about. The Chicago front office strategy is Fugazi right now. How is that? That's right. See I can do it. There is no front office. Okay. Okay. There's not a lot of TV news this week. There's some culture news. We could do this, which is Laura Dern is replacing Helena Bonham Carter. We talked about that on Monday on White Lotus. Laura Dern replacing Helena Bonham Carter, Graham Plattener replacing Janet Mills. Who you got? I mean she's not replacing her. She just ran out of dough. Yeah. Well. So what happens when you run up against a socialist? All of those small donations, you know? That's how I get by. Every guy gives me a buck. Yeah. Every guy who sees you. Yeah. Awesome. That's great. Laura Dern, Mike White, reunited. The question is, you know, the White Lotus, the Natasha Rothwell character, the Jennifer Coolidge character, obviously, connective tissues multiple seasons. Laura Dern voice acted in season two. Oh, yeah. As Dominic DeGrasseau is Michael and purely all these characters' wife. Do you think Mike White got in his bag and was like, she's coming to France. I think that's an option. That's a very cool idea. That hadn't occurred to me. I mean, there's something about the immediacy with which this happened, you know? Yeah. I mean, if you were like, I have to create a whole new character out of a whole cloth and why they're here and what their role is, because it did sound like he was like, we're scrapping that character. Don't you think it's a little bit like when we needed a first guest for Stick the Landing and somehow you got the call? Was I first? Well, on our list, yeah. Oh. We actually changed the scheduling a little bit, so you didn't, you know, we don't want to get into. Behind the scene stuff. But you know what I mean? Like, they clearly have a deep connection and creative relationship. Yes. So, in some sense is that they are currently filming. And what's interesting, you know, that was an easy call to make. I think what's interesting is, what you said is the most interesting thing. Slightly below that was just in the release that he was writing an entirely new character for her, which suggested like, I lazily assumed that that character was in some way connected to Steve Coogan's character. Yes. Like maybe they were a couple. Two Brits. My other favorite thing is the white lotus is like normie famous now in the way that like I saw there were tabloid photos of like Helena Bonham Carter in first photos since shock white lotus exit. And it just looks like Helena Bonham Carter. What periodical was this? The Tatler. I don't know. What was it? Was it Daily Mail? Probably. I mean, I saw this on the internet's front page, Reddit, but like she's just, she just looks like Helena Bonham Carter. She's probably just like going to Prett, you know? Genuinely so. But she did not look particularly troubled or different. Yeah. That's cool. Now the interesting of the Daily Mail and the New York Post and whatever gets like involved with like set photos of white lotus, if it's achieved that status. I'm sure it actually has. Yeah. You don't want to be in that paper. It's never a good thing if you show up in the New York Post. I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think the alternative of that. Like if you, if you hit a game winning home run for the Mets. That's possible. Right. But like, is that possible? Nine, come on, don't tempt feet. Nine times out of 10. If you're in the New York Post, it's a bad thing. Yeah. I think that's right. That's right. Have you ever been in the New York Post? Kind of. I think I appeared in a story that my wife was wrote in like 2002, 2003. Was it about Subway surfers? No, honestly, it was about the smoking ban and whether it was still being enforced. Oh yeah. And so it was, you mean like it, 2002? Whenever it was new. Mike kicked it in. When did you do that? You're saying it was like on the heels of the ban. I feel like he let us smoke after 9-11 for a little while. When did he ban the cigarettes? No, it was Giuliani through 9-11. Yeah. And then Bloomberg comes in and, oh. No, no, that was, and the backdrop of 9-11 was the mayoral election. That's right. You know. Well, I just remember Rudy at Yankee Stadium. Mark Green would have let you keep smoking probably. Um, was he another candidate? He was the presumptive next mayor of New York until 9-11 happened. And then Giuliani was like, I got to stay mayor. Oh, right. You're such a custodian of New York political history. I think it's important. Um, okay. So we have the law adjourn thing. Sorry, were you pro or con in Phoebe's article? I was, I, no, I did research. I like helped her. You ate it. What were the places you went to see if they were going to? We were up on like the Upper East Side. And it was like going to different bars. And I, like we all, we kind of split up 25 bars, which in New York is like three blocks. And you, that's rookie numbers, by the way. And you just walk in and you'd say to the bartender, like you'd have it, you'd order, you'd have to order something. And then you'd be like, oh no way, you had to get a drink too. Are we allowed to smoke? And you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't expose them, but you would be like percentage wise. You know, in this sample size, like this is how many people are still letting you smoke. Are you willing to do that again? I don't think anybody would let me do it, especially not out here. All they care about is wellness. Would you try that? Uh, no, I mean, there's, I don't really smoke that much. The legend is better than reality. I don't know how to segue to this. You don't want us to talk about a music video. Oh, I just thought it was great. Can you set it up a little bit? I didn't have in front of me, but like this is no young lean video Swedish rapper turned crooner, I guess, in some ways, young lean, talented fellow did a song with a, I think producers named generation or producer. I'm sorry. I don't know. And he put out like a two part epic single and remain govrous. That's your man. I like his film making quite a bit. Is he Costa's son? He did. He is. Is that an Epo baby to you? Sure, he's out. Okay. It's heavily, heavily influenced by Toshi Aki Toyoda's blue spring, which a Japanese film from a while ago. It's basically about a bunch of prep school kids beating the shit out of each other and treating each other terribly. But in this young lean video, there's like a last 14 second mark, a Kota, like a kind of four, five minute endpoint where it's just got this incredible choreography and you texted me last night. I mean, I was partly joking that we should talk about that as a main text. You didn't say I'm joking. You said, let's talk about this tomorrow. That's probably, that does sound like me. You got me. That's my classic straight down the middle. This has become going to be a big thing on the internet though. Yeah. I just thought, I mean, it just, it just filled me with joy because choreography is the best special effect in the world. And it was incredible to see something. It just felt really exciting to have all the things that are thrown at us and like all these harrowing images of Helena Bonham Carter shopping, untroubled by being fired from a television show, to see something that was so viscerally thrilling, exhilarating, shocking, magnetic. And it's just, it's just dancing. And it's an incredible one shot and we can still make stuff. And that's pretty much where I was at with it. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was a fabulous filmmaking. And I also just like really love it. Like every couple of years, maybe every year, you know, you get an example of the music video is like a still really viable form, which is really cool. And the pot's called the watch. We tell people what to watch. They should watch this. Or we just say what we've watched. Yeah. And I think people draft off us, you know, like they're like, where could we go that these guys have been? I think they use us a couple of other pods and they make a consensus big board and then they watch what they want to watch. Should we get to the main event today? You're being very silent on the Mando and Grogu numbers. Talk to me about that. No, I got nothing. They just like it hit tracking and it's now projected to make $80 million over Memorial Day weekend, which is quite a large amount of money. I guess like in retrospect, I don't know what I thought would be a, I did not think that this movie was going to perform out to expectations. I may be, I would be very curious to see if it gets over. What is it? I think consider the Star Wars Mendoza line, which is solos box office numbers. I think the argument that they are going to make, which I think will be interesting to watch the spin will be, we didn't spend that much on this. And ha ha, we got you to watch a TV show in the movie theater. They won't add the ha ha part. That's me editorializing. There will be an enormous amount of spin on background and on foreground saying this is actually different. You dummies don't get it. This is a different strategy. Because it's a part of like a huge like multi-platform storytelling initiative. No, that we just didn't spend very much money on this. And so our, we spend more on marketing and the number we got to is profitable for us. Whereas even if it makes the exact same amount of, and I would believe this, this isn't necessarily if it makes the exact same amount of money as solo, I would imagine this movie is going to be more profitable because solo was a famously tortured development process in which the director was replaced. Directors were replaced like two thirds of the way through. That was it going to lose money regardless to a degree that we probably will never know the full extent of. Whereas this maybe won't, but all of that is them spinning the fact that this kind of just looks like a Verizon commercial. Is there any interest in your household in seeing this? But they also have no interest in Star Wars. Right. They were just like Grogu's cute. Nope. No, no interest in Star Wars. No interest in Harry Potter. It's weird the way that they're uninterested in specific properties. Are you? That their father couldn't care less. One day we'll figure out what the common denominator is. Yeah. I mean, the anticipation for this, I think I've gone from like, I won't be seeing this to like, I'll see this out of professional obligation, I suppose. Yeah. All right. Does that mean Sean begged you to see it? No, nobody begged me to do anything. I mean, it's just nobody does. I mean, it's not like anybody's just like, please see Mando. Josh, tomorrow on the phone. It's either I'm going to have to cut 1300 more jobs if you don't go see Mando. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when prime same day delivery as your back getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery. It's on prime. Visit amazon.com slash prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas terms apply. All right, let's get to the main thing is this is an exciting. It is. We are not stalling. Widows Bay is a new show that's on Apple TV. The first two episodes are already up, although I believe the list of release date was the 29th. I think it went up maybe a little early. Maybe I don't know how to really read release dates. It's created by Katie Dippold who is a pretty accomplished screenwriter who did a pretty hilarious Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy movie that he worked on the Ghostbusters reboot, worked on Parks and Rec. And is responsible for one of the greatest tweets of all time. You're the key master of social media. You told me. During the time that I dressed, my friends were having a Halloween party and I dressed up as the Babadook and it was really more of an adult drinking wine situation. And isn't there a picture of her dressed as the Babadook with everybody else's dress normally? Liv's rent free in my head forever. And weirdly that tweet I think is more relevant to this show than some of her other credits. So it's created the first episode written by Katie Dippold and then it's directed by I think in its entirety. Not in its entirety. But you know, it's Hero Mariah, the great Hero Mariah, Atlanta. Mr. Mrs. Smith, Station 11. But the other directors on this are Andrew DeYoung who did friendship and works with Tim Robinson, T-West who I think has done some... Ty West has done some films that you have seen and I have not. Hero did I believe five of the ten. The logline for this is quote, a skeptical mayor of a New England town refuses to bow to the superstitions of the residents who claim that the place is cursed. It stars Matthew Reese, a pod favorite as Mayor Tom Loftus. Kate O'Flynn, now a watch favorite who plays his colleague Patricia in City Hall. She's a British West End favorite. And was in a show that I loved a lot called My Lady Jane from about two years ago. Yeah. And she's fantastic in that. And then it has basically a that guy character actor, all-star team. Take the cast conversation, put it down the road a minute because I can't wait to talk about that. This show is awesome. Yes. These first two episodes are fantastic. I think this is the best use of Apple's money because I think it looks like they bought a town. Like they bought an island. Yes. That I've seen since the iPhone 14. The MacBook Neo is pretty cool. I saw it in the store the other day. No, this is what I want Apple TV to be doing more of and to be trying more of. And when you see what Katie Dippelton, here I'm right, do with the first two episodes, you're going to be like, why does everything else look like and feel like what it looks like and feels like? And why is everything else written the way that it's like? I think this is phenomenal. This is we are we are suddenly in the clover here because I love Beef Season 2. And I think this show is astounding. Like I this is going to mean something to you. I watched the pilot twice. Did you? I don't watch anything twice. That young lean video, I barely remember it. I think this should start sending me like 18 things you want to talk about on the podcast and then be like, oh, I wasn't serious about hockey. That's hockey is the one thing I don't text you 18 times a day about. That was cherry picking. I text you constantly. I thought this was just like a revelatory, joyful experience. And one of the places we should start. And I want to get in the weeds with it because all of the small details are so expert and it's not just the production values of where it's shot. It's the filters on the cameras that heroes using to make it look and feel a certain way with such taste and asceticism and specificity. But also in watching the pilot, what I was finding myself admiring so deeply was the very, very classy and subtle ways and efficient ways that Widows Bay achieves exposition. Where in the flurry of action that opened the show in the first six or seven minutes, there's a phone call to the police chief who's another one of these great Mount Rushmore. That guy's Kevin Carroll, who we loved on the leftovers. And in their first interaction, Kevin Carroll's chief of police says, why do you want to be? Why are you mayor of this town if you hate everyone in it? And it's just another little brick to build a character in the flow of the show. Yeah, but the biggest thing we have to talk about. I'm sorry to cut you off is the fact that this show walks a tight, a genre tightrope that I did not believe to be possible. It is possible. But you have to educate me on this. So this show mixes comedy and horror. And there are comedies that have scary moments and there are horror movies that have funny moments. But blending the two genres seamlessly is difficult. I'll give you a couple of examples that I think did it well. Cabin in the Woods. I think you could make the argument that there are elements of scream, the scream franchise that where they indulge in like a kind of meta horror comedy. Awareness of the tropes. Yeah, commenting on what's happening. I mean, there's plenty of examples. I like Fright Night. People might even consider Ghostbusters to be like a little bit of a comedy horror, although I don't think it's like super scary. I mean, it's a library scene. Yeah, but it's a difficult thing to pull off because it's if you're being funny when you're being scared, you wind up either not being funny or deflating the fear, just deflating the scares. And I think sometimes it can be a pressure valve release for people, but like for the most part, when it comes to horror, I like it treated fairly seriously. Like I want to I want to lose myself in the moment and really feel like what's happening on screen could or is happening. You know, it's like that that's part of the joy of it is the visceral kind of like present tense of it. Not to muddy the waters, but you had me watch the Resident Evil trailer just a moment ago. And I will not be seeing the film, but I was able to admire exactly what you're saying in that trailer. It was intense and it was visceral. And there was a seemingly as much attention paid to like the physicality of like bodies dropping or tentacle, like whatever. It is in reality. So what you see and feel visually is incredibly captivating and present. If if the main character of Resident Evil in the trailer like turn did a Jim Halpert face to the camera, it would definitely make me relax more and would undercut the whole point of it. And this show is not that's not what Widow's Bay does. So with the path that it chooses feels unique to me and fair and quite artful. Yeah. And I would say that most of the comic moments or the punchlines in this or the comedy moments are very situational so far. So they are not glib kind of mugging everybody's sort of talking like their James Gunn characters kind of comedy. It's everything is about like there's a specific character that Matthew Reese is playing and he has very specific people working around him and all the comedy becomes out of character. Yeah. All the comedy comes out of like this guy is like this, this woman is like this and there's like these funny interactions that they have. But on top of that is the possibility that these people are all living in like a Stephen King nightmare where there's fog rolling in there there could be zombies whatever would have you. I joked about the tweet. Parks and Rec is a huge huge huge foundational piece for the show. What should we call this Parks and Rich? What should we do? We can workshop that. The point being I would say Parks and Rec and the Treehouse of Horror episodes of the Simpsons. Paranormal and Rec? Yeah. Let's keep going. Yeah. This is a safe space and we can always ask them to cut our bad ideas. Right guys? No. The town of Widows Bay is a the island of Widows Bay. It is somewhere in New England. I thought it was like Massachusetts. It might be Maine. A Jace. But it is a island that has not been discovered, has not become it has not gone viral for its aesthetics. It is not a vacation hub. It is not really anything. And the mayor Tom Loftus played brilliantly by Matthew Reese. Again, like the casting. Get someone who can be a compelling emotional actor, but also knows his way around a joke. He is essentially the mayor Leslie Knope of this town who wants what's best for everyone, even if they don't agree with him. And he is very motivated to publicize this place and bring it drag kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Among the things keeping it in the early part of the 20th century is that there is no cell phone service. There is no Wi-Fi. It is all connected by landlines. Everybody knows each other, etc. etc. In the first moment, you are introduced to this absolutely wonderful rogues gallery of locals who have quirks in the way that aren't like, again, not making fun of people, but it's just a familiar type of single cam comedy that we've encountered before. And then on the third level, there's also this deep, deep bench of fake history where there are funny headlines like the way there used to be murals and parks and rec. And there's even funny paintings. There used to be murals and parks and rec like, you know, about dead man found by horse and things like that. Yes. So it is elevated and it's funny. But what's incredible about the turn, and I did want to talk to you about my ability to just not only not only watch and endure things that are scary, but just love them, was that the show understands something that I think maybe you do too, as a fan of the genre, that like the emotional line between laughing and hysteria and crying out in shock or fear. It's not that much distance between those two emotional responses. Yeah. Heroes talked about that in interviews. So there is that kind of like hysteria, literally, that can veer from one to the other relatively quickly. And it's just on that line in a way that feels really, really natural to the piece and really captivating because I was like, man, we can. The I'm not joking. The reason I sang the young lean video was I was like, look, I've just watched Widow's Bay and now I've watched this and we can still do stuff. Yeah. The old stuff still works if you recombin if you recombine it in a new form. I think you're absolutely right. There's also a really good they're they're playing some cool tricks. You're right. This the cell phone thing is a very slick way of saying you can't ask the questions of why won't they just text each other to say don't go into the fog is coming. Yeah, right. So now you've got like a kind of 90s, 80s sort of level of like communications with people. There also are you were speaking about the exposition. We're not doing exposition dumps, though. They're exposition hints. Yeah. So there is, for instance, Stephen Root. Well, again, another like you guys got Stephen Root. This is going to be watchable. Stephen Root plays a very agitated old timer who is the antagonist of the mayor, Tom Loftus, and may have been a mayor himself at some point, the place guy named Wick, I believe. And, you know, he is insisting that the island has, quote, awoken because there was an earthquake. The as the episode opens or as the season opens, there's an earthquake and that this island has now got like kind of like a curse that's been activated by this earthquake and that there will be things that happen over the next couple of days that like to portend for really bad shit coming. But the way he kind of puts these breadcrumbs out is not in an annoying like, oh, so let me guess, I have to watch like four hours of this before we get to an answer about this. Like you can kind of tell there is an old wives tale about this island that nobody who's born there is allowed to leave. And then if they do leave, they die relatively quickly after reaching mainland. And there's something going on with Tom Loftus's family where the mother is not there. We don't know where she is. And the son who is natural native to the island, Tom Loftus was born off the island, but summered there. His son was born on the island and his son is a little bit of a juvenile delinquent. But there is obviously a motivating fear, but also drive on the part of the mayor to be like, is this is this old wives tale? Is this piece of folklore true? And is my son ever going to be allowed to leave this island? And he says he has. But I don't think I did not believe him. And if he did, I imagine it was quick, you know, or something like that. And it just produces an anxiety around it. And I love, you know, look, we all grew up with run past that house, don't walk. And hold your breath by the graveyard. Yeah, just like all sorts of little like old wives tales that we probably adhere to longer in our lives than we even admit. And some people still do these days, you know, like some people don't like walking over cracks in the sidewalk. Some people, you know, it doesn't matter. But the show really effectively plays on that psychology. And it's like, do I really want to find out whether my cynicism is going to get me killed? Yeah. So it's really, really, really effective in that way. I found. I'm trying to think of any of a comp for what Matthew Reese is doing in this. First of all, let's just take a second to admire what he has done over the last 10 years. Right. So you've got the Americans, one of your favorite shows. We were big fans of Perry Mason. I was a very big fan of him in Beast and Me. Oh, yeah. I was a fan of him in Beast and Me. And those are several different performances. Yeah. He is kind of, I would say, like always got a degree of. I got a kind of suave literacy to his performances and to his characters. This is another guy. This is another kind of color for him. And he is playing point guard in this show because he's got 10, 11 people to pass to at any given moment. You know, he's the star of Presumed Innocence season two. And Presumed Innocence. I did not know that. Like there's a scene in the second episode where he has a long interaction with Tim Balls from from Righteous Gems. The names were saying I want to say them all at once at some point, but yeah. It's it's the ingenious like invention of this show is to just like put a very, very, very competent leading man in moments where he's throwing passes to the best character actors. That Hollywood has that TV has. I mean, what were some of your favorite supporting performances? Well, I want to get into that, but I just think you're right to point out. Like what Reese is doing is astonishing and you understand why. The town loves him, even though he is not super famous, because there aren't many people who can do what he can do. The type of performance he's giving is this like fever dream combination of Ted Danson and Steve Carell. It's really good in that like you are a talented actor who has charisma, gravitas, suave, suavity, charm, but you can get down in it and you can you can laugh too. And also you can become hysterical, you know, but there's a generosity of it where he just seems to be enjoying the note that he's being asked of the notes he's being asked to play while everyone else gets just like, you know, hit the laugh button time and time again. So Cato Flynn is amazing. He's hysterical. As Patricia, who like when the the the plot of the pilot is that New York Times reporter played by another icon of this podcast, actor we love Bashir Salahuddin from Southside and Top Gun Maverick. What a CV plays a New York Times journalist who's, you know, it's Tom's dream to have the Times write about the island. And he just needs him to say, this is the next Martha's Vineyard. And like the entire fortune of the island is going to change. And we're introduced very quickly to the idea that this is a place that's resisting the outside world. And because of that, the infrastructure of the town is kind of falling apart. Patricia, the first thing she asked Tom about the reporter is, did you tell him about my paintings? Kevin Carroll, we mentioned from the leftovers, Dale Dickey as Rosemary in office associate and gossip. Tom Gossop, you won't recognize her name, but you will recognize her face and her voice almost instantly next to her in the office is Jeff Hiller, who won an Emmy for some somebody somewhere and was just on Pluribus. Steven Root, Evan, Tom's son is played by Kingston Rumi Southwick, who was the son on presumed innocence. He won. That presumed innocent coaching tree, really. It's giving. His sister was Chase Infinity in that. I mean, remarkable, remarkable stuff. Nancy Lenahan, who was just brilliant and funny in limited minutes on the paper, is Jerry Timbalt's from Righteous Gemstones. The bald guy in the band from Righteous Gemstones is one of the guys on the island. Neil Casey, who's a funny actor, who's in the Ghostbusters reboot, the great Toby Huss from Haldon Catch Fire as the reverend. Like the thing that I'm trying to communicate is not how amazing these people are. And it's not even like what Katie and Hero have done here is like a dream of like anybody who has the opportunity to make television. These are the people you want to give jobs to and you want to work with because they make everything better. And how fun would it be to be on an island with all these creative people? It's that they came into this with the strength of material, strength of point of view to tell Apple what's best. Now, I'm not, it's not fair to suggest that like any one streamer or network is monolithic and that there's some like internal pushback to good ideas or interesting casting. But if you don't come in as the creator with a backbone and a point of view and some institutional or historical reputational muscle, you are going to get moved off your square in the margins. And in the margins, I mean, like I don't know what the arc is for Patricia and for Tom, but in a traditional sitcom, that's the couple that's going to happen. And once that's maybe the possibility, which I don't know if it is, and I don't know if I would want it to be, Kato Flynn is the person who will get like the respect, the respectful nods in the meetings, but won't get the part. Everyone, it seems like that they wanted to got the part in a way that feels cohesive. And it's the same way with like, what would this show be if they hadn't filmed on location somewhere in Massachusetts? Sure. It's not half the show that it is. Look, I am not going to comp it to shows that don't do this well, but I can think of a dozen off the top of my head where when you're watching, you're like, nobody here chose their outfit. No character woke up in the morning and put their clothes on. You're you're you're onto something. And in this show, it's briefly mentioned that Tom was coming to the to the island as like kind of like a rich kid from the mainland, right? Like and that like he would come and hang out with the townies, but like always got to go back to his nice life. And while this is kind of been brought up, I noticed like how Tom was dressed, which is kind of like J. Crew spring, summer, like well put together nice pair of jeans. Button down tucked in blazer. And, you know, he's being very earnest. Like he seems like he wants the best for the island, but you're right. Like the way you communicate difference can be in whether a guy talks to shirt in or not or what kind of print he wears. How the corduroy jacket fits him or doesn't. Exactly. And it's like a guy who has like three really good outfits, you know? And everybody else is kind of like I'm wearing a rain slicker or like I I'm still allowed to smoke indoors. You know, like I thought of you. And it's just an attention to detail that I associate with hero Mariah stuff. And that I think it's easy in TV to kind of be like, here's the scripts, here's the set. Like put them in beige or gray and have them talk. And you can get much deeper than that. And these episodes are about 38 to 45 minutes long, which I think I am going to keep banging this drum that that makes a huge difference. Sweet spot. And you can just see that there's like a real depth of vision and artistry going on in like all the departments. So I want to talk about briefly the one other small triumph in this show that we clearly love. I can't wait to watch more. The first episode, the pilot works brilliantly and does something that surprised me in this day and age, which is it walks us to the precipice of what the show is about and then pulls it back. Smart smart TV making. There's more road ahead. Let's enjoy it. And then when it does something even more remarkable, even in this day and age of changing production models and things. Second episodes are still a bear. Second episodes, despite the fact that we are not in the other than the pit, we're not in the let's churn it out, keep it going production model that we used to be in that caused the reputation of second episodes to dip in which it was like people's second albums, like you have a lifetime to make the first, then you have two weeks to make the second. So the second episodes are generally the pilot again while you find your footing with a new people, group of people in writer's room. Second episode of Widow's Bay is a completely different look into the show. It's a haunted house episode. And it every moment is packed with the kind of detail and possibility that you're describing. It gives us the show's first, I believe, genuine jump scare and also like a real taste of the supernatural. Yes. But within it, it also has some of the more two episode sample size elite jokes thus far, like when spending the night in the local inn in advance of the tourists coming as a dare. Well, just to prove it's not haunted. To prove it's not haunted. Tom is there at the honor bar and then he looks at like he opens the cabinet that all B&B's have of like Dick Francis, paperbacks and like self-help books and board games and the board games that he finds include Daddy's home, which he plays later and then two looking like small box, like Uno card games. One is called Teeth inside of it is just like a teeth extracting wrench. And then the other one is called Run. And it is a deck of cards that he flips through. It says don't run. It says not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet run. I will carry the beauty of these jokes with me for quite some time. When this show was first sort of getting promoted, they did so with a VHS quality. I guess like travel ad for the island from from earlier, like from decades ago. And it was like a guy basically standing on a on a rocky beach being like, welcome to Widows Bay, like come along. And then like the guy walks away, but the camera doesn't move. And it has a real like a little bit of a Twin Peaks vibe to it. The thing that the second episode made me think of and about the viability and maybe perhaps the legs of the show and with Apple as as foundation and silo and many other shows and season five of from in time, they will let you finish the story. So the second episode, though, I was like, is this X files? Yeah, what could they do like Monster of the Week? But we're never quite sure it was real or not. Because it is not as the first episode implies. Oh, it's not a zombie show. It's not like one thing is happening this island. This island is fucking weird and weird stuff happens here, much like, you know, funny, heartwarming stuff happens in Pawnee. Yeah. And that's engaging, but it's also viable for long term if you have that kind of creative grip on what the thing is that you want to do. The thrill of the second episode actually came early on before the scares come. Is I realized that much of my chagrin that the New York Times writer had left because I love the character and the actor. Yes, but it took away any kind of like false time frame or yes, or anything where it was like, we have to solve all of this so that this guy, when he leaves the island, will write well about us. It's like, no, he's already left. We're OK now, but we're not, you know. And it's it's really cool when a show is like, why don't we do like each episode has its own vibe rather than each episode is essentially people coming back and forth and talking to each other. And then there's like a false cliffhanger at the end. But we're only doing this over the course of three days or whatever. That's where I see the other two influences that I would throw in there. We talked about Parks and Rec a lot clearly, but Mike Scherr, who is Katie Dippold's boss on Parks and Rec, is the reigning champion of classic sitcoms that have a little bit of the wire-esque mutability and serialization, enough to engage modern audiences, but enough of the old stuff to keep you keep things a little bit lighter and make it so that these shows don't sink under the weight of their own plot or premise. The other show that I was going to throw out there is, do you remember the third day? Yeah, of course. Third day was a pandemic. Did you ever watch the live episode? So this was a pandemic era HBO co-pro experiment starring Jude Law made by essentially experimental theater people and directors that at the midpoint of the season, there was a day-long theatrical happening that was live-streamed, that in some way advanced the plot. Did we spend our day doing that? I mean, it was the pandemic. Like I read the Magic Mountain for sport. I probably did watch it, but it's pretty good. But not Dr. Faustus, clearly, though, in terms of my, you know, I guess I just never really thought about his Faust, the guy, the Faustus, the guy who makes the deal or Faustus, what they call the devil. No, gotcha. The devil's like, doctor, you know what I mean? He's like, please call me Faust. I believe that's the translation from German. You and our friends. Let's talk. What do you want, Faust? The anyway, it's it's a tough watch, that show, but it was engaging. And I wonder, I want to ask if we get the chance, Hero and Katie, if they ever watch that show, because it there is an element of things don't work the same here. And are you trapped here? I don't know. Are you? Yeah, the kind of like brinksmanship in terms of like how far is this thing really going to go? That was very engaging on that show, too, because there was a mania to it and a creative, like full creative commitment to the bit. The, you know, the the font of the title car is it'll make you think of Stephen King, but it's not explicitly Stephen King font. And I guess I would leave it there, which is that there are are some things that like where their influences on their sleeve or in fact lead with their influences in order to like kind of create a mood board for it. And I'm sure that they did that here, but it was just different enough for I was like, cool font, look, the cool show, you know, like the story of the agony of influence of in our contemporary era is, I think, a divide between the properties and projects that are just clearly attempts to recreate entertainment from the creator's childhood. Sure. Versus ones that are like I was raised in a circulating bath of Amblin and Spielberg and 80s, you know, Ghostbusters and that informed who I am. And now I'm going to do this with it. And the more successful, to my mind, the most successful things do that, you know. I'm actually curious, like what I just described, which category do you think Stranger Things falls into? You watch the whole thing. Well, by the end of it, I think you'd probably be surprised, but still like bored by the fact that it turned into like James Cameron at the end. Like it's also 80s. Yeah, but it is essentially like closer to Terminator and Terminator 2. And almost like the never ending story and like, you know, sci-fi epic. It's all in a blender. Yeah. Whereas the first couple of seasons are very much rooted in like Goonies and and and that kind of thing. I think that's it for What It Was Bay for me. I mean, like I honestly don't have any critiques of it. I don't I didn't I didn't really have like everything that like my brain would be like, oh, let me guess, you're not going to tell us like why this. I was like, no, this is like really working. And I think part of it is the runtime, the pace and the production is just so fun to be in that you're not really sweating the like the little things. So look at us. This is the predator handshake meme of comedy fan and horror. Well, I'm curious because, you know, I think we were probably like mixed towards not happy about Margot's Got Money Troubles. And I cannot say that I'm looking forward to the revival of Ted Lasso. There's a couple of sci-fi shows that Apple has, like obviously for all mankind silos coming back, I think they'll do the last I think they're ending foundation now. I don't even know if it's being promoted or not. Or I don't know. But this Star City, which we talked about, glowingly, at least its trailer last week and maximum pleasure guaranteed, which is coming soon with Tadeon Amizlani, which looks pretty gritty and friend of the pod, Jake Johnson, yeah, and looks like kind of a provocative, interesting, modern thriller. I'm kind of curious what they're doing over there. I think what I was saying before is probably fodder for a larger conversation about the state of the streamers. Like Apple has so much money and its goals are so wide that you kind of can't make a declaration about what they are doing or not doing. They are essentially doing almost everything. And I think that I would love to get under the hood and try to understand what's working for them, what's working for audiences and where any disconnects may have been in the creative process. Because for whatever problems we had with Margot's Got Money Troubles, we are in the minority, I think people just casually like industry, not industry. People are really enjoying it. And I think it's because it is from the production design to the performances, like it's really, really well made. That strikes me as something that is meeting its goals, what it was set out to do. And if the vibe of the story of the book didn't work for us, then that's not necessarily the adapters problem. I think that we've seen other examples of Apple shows where it feels like someone knotted off at the wheel on one side of it or another in terms of the notes they were or we're not giving or in terms of just like the unfettered. Maybe just like how production worked out. Like where stuff didn't come together. But not everything good. Like when you think, when we talk about like the famous development processes of like these, the two remaining titans of like really, let's get in here and develop, which are HBO and FX, I mean, they're grinders. They are incredibly demanding. I have seen the notes and the notes are brilliant and the notes are extreme and intricate and not everything turns into a diamond if you squeeze hard enough. Yeah, that doesn't work for everyone. Some some creators and they don't do that for everyone. I don't mean to pretend that that's what they do, but it's too facile to be like Apple just shrugs and writes the checks and HBO obsesses over every detail. Broadly speaking, that's kind of probably true, but there are their outliers on either side. And there's also good quality from either side. I wish that Apple's stuff was a little more focused for the consumer, but it almost doesn't matter if they do. Whereas like Peacock, for example, I think what's fascinating about Peacock's recent choices editorially is it's very hard to imagine a consumer and maybe I'm wrong. I'd love to push back on this, but like the average Peacock consumer who watches NBA, OK, so far we're in Top Chef, we're in the larger Bravo universe, not necessarily me, the Burbs, the Copenhagen test and miniature wife. Like that is that's a very broad brush. Apple can get away with it. Apple can be like, do you like F1? Yes, do you like slow horses? Sure. Also, here's this quirky horror comedy. And then they sell 100,000 more MacBook Nios. Yeah, I you know, there has been some speculation about whether or not Tim Cook's resignation or stepping down will lead to up, sure, step to heaven. Where's it going? No, I think he's taking on like a larger title, but he's no longer the CEO data. Yeah, I mean, but the whether the new CEO will be like, why do we have this? You know, now, I think probably you could make the argument that it's been a net positive for Apple to be so forward facing in culture by being a part of things like F1 and Ted Lasso and putting Killers of the Flower Moon out or what have you. But I'm I'm curious to see whether there's ever any like, hey, season five of that really? Like, yeah, any curtailing of it, any changing? It's funny, though, it's because the one thing for all the criticism that people, fair criticism, I think people lobby at Netflix, Ted Serendos's like love of Hollywood or love of SNL or the things that he loves isn't questioned. But then they're like, but is this good for like there's Tim Cook? This is not shot against Tim Cook, but it's just like I saw a thing that was like the only time he's ever seemed really enthusiastic or happy is when he's crossed paths with Lana Del Rey, which respect. But it's funny that like you would think that someone who devoted so much capital to the sprawling entertainment wing of his company that continually does feel a little bit unmoored from strategy. It's amazing what you can do when you don't buy data centers. Yeah, there you go. You can make shrinking. There you go. Right. But you'd think that he would be a little bit like, how fun. I visited set and I do love this. You know, he doesn't seem to be that interested in that, which is also fine. But the behavior of the company would suggest that he was like in the same way like Jeff Bezos moved to Hollywood, you know, and he's just like, I like this. And then he moved to where there are no taxes. There's a world in which, you know, I mean, Apple obviously is one of the more one of the richest companies in the world, one of the most valuable companies in the world. There you go. Glazing them again. But if Steve Jobs, the movie written by Aaron Sorkin, tells me anything is like sometimes there's competition internally for what's getting resources. And if they decide we haven't made something new, something really truly mind blowing since Ted Lasso season two. Since Ted Lasso's no sophomore slump. No, like there's often like a concern troll thing about Apple where it's like, where's the new iPhone? Where's the thing that's going to change culture entirely? Well, there's also nothing more to do with a phone. Like now there's four lenses on the camera. Yeah, exactly. But like would you argue that like maybe there's too much money being spent on TV and movies that could be going towards product development or could be going towards whatever else is core to their business? Not if the alternative is like an AI companion, you wear around your neck. Like, yes. And then you can hang yourself with it. Like I don't I think that that that this is not. I don't I don't like read Bloomberg in the Financial Times. This is not some like big brain zag. But the things that I have heard like just casually that they did, you know, they they went down the path of like, maybe we will make an Apple car or maybe we'll make an Apple TV that's also the screen. Yeah. And I think that the the this proved to be smart that they were like, let other people make those things, we will have our phones be the software for the car. You know, so in that world where there isn't that much more iteration to do in the hardware space, having a studio, is it the worst thing? I don't know. But I but I think your question, maybe this is the map more of a map, Melanie, the town type question is like the soft power of producing content. What does that mean to the bottom line and how how how committed are they to it? Because if they if they stopped, well, then yeah, you get you might I mean, I know we're like the arc light hasn't reopened, but like if Apple stopped making TV, this whole thing that I saw, which it was admittedly a tweet and I did not then interrogate the truthfulness of it, was the announcement by that like the Kyoto. Yes, yes, Kyoto is going to shut down. And this is if you're driving around Los Angeles, you see these trucks that say Kyoto on the side and it usually means there's a shoot going on. And I still saw them, you know, even in the dark days that we've been in, but them announcing that they're like they're out on Hollywood. It was a weird announcement and a depressing one at a moment when and it's not just like, you know, happy headlines coming out of like the, you know, there's no right or strike that things are moving. There has been a slight drum beat of it's coming back. Like there's more production happening. Netflix just bought the old CBS Radford lot. There's another big soundstage going up on Santa Monica. So there was so that that was maybe more of like a who knows. Is that is that an outlier? Is that an indicator of the real economy? Well, let's take a quick break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about Top Chef because restaurant wars happen this week. OK, we're back and talk about Top Chef. I want to talk to you more broadly about something rather than we're going to get into the details of this episode, which was restaurant wars. Do you like restaurant wars? I was like, like this is this is the backbone of the show. This is what like like the merge and survivor. This is what it kind of all builds up to. And then the game changes afterwards and it really usually I think functions as like a mile marker to be like we're entering the home stretch here with these chefs. But I was curious whether or not you think restaurant wars is a barometer for who's good at Top Chef versus who's good at cooking. I think I'm of two minds of it. I think generally it is a very good benchmark midpoint of the season, partly just because of the nature of it. We're twenty three seasons in, I believe it's been a part of every season. And the chefs are aware when they get to eight what they're going to be doing. And they maybe have had some strategy and some thought and the history of the show comes to the fore in a way that's fun in that they're aware of the pitfalls of being in front of house or whatever. I also think that it's one of the few times to your point where like we actually see what these contestants might be like in a real world professional setting. Yes, as opposed to the heightened manic creative nonsense of the show. So I think that's really, really good. I also do think the front of the house stuff is incredibly revealing and incredibly important because as you and I talk about all the time offline when you're not texting me about hockey is like restaurants are mostly good or bad because of the service and the experience. Sure. And that is under looked by a lot of these. And it's also basically divorced from the reality of Top Chef. So I like all that. The thing that bugs me is they can't stop fiddling with it. There have been seasons when they go shopping for decor like this season and there have been seasons when they don't. I think the ones where they don't are better, where they explain their vision and then they have to make do with it. But like I don't think these guys are necessarily good at shopping. Clearly, in this case, some of them weren't. And beyond that, if they're just giving 24 hours to throw some cloth up in an abandoned Carolina warehouse, it's not really going to sell the deal anyway. So focus on the other stuff instead. And I felt the same way about the this year iteration of takeout orders too, which is just like I understand you want to try something new and that certainly is part of restaurant life post covid. But it was just ultimately was distracting and it's a split mission. Like if you only have 24 hours and you have to have a dish that travels well, like I think you're setting them up to a fail in a way that doesn't showcase their talents or reward the viewers of the show. So it's interesting you bring up this twist that happens in restaurant wars, which is essentially like trying to recreate the panic of the bear within an already tense situation with with restaurant with like starting and and serving at a restaurant over the course of one night, two sittings with only like a day or two of prep. I was watching Survivor last night, Survivor 50. This is a spoiler for this last episode of Survivor 50. I hope you don't mind, but you know, they have successfully introduced a bunch of like twist here until now, never seen before twists. Last night, they get their customary letters from home, which is always a really emotional moment for the survivor of people. They've been out there for like three weeks and like they get these letters from their loved ones and they all cry when that happened. They also brought out Mr. Beast. OK, Mr. Beast walked out with a briefcase that said beware and said he would be back at Tribal Council to like reveal what the beware like chaos was going to ensue. And people know who this guy is. Yeah. I mean, he's probably the most famous YouTubers in the world. I wonder if your older daughter knows who Mr. Beast is. OK, but like in the same way that like, you know, when we were in the 80s, I was like, oh, that's Valerie Burton, Ellie. You know what I mean? Like I wasn't a fan. He does things where it's like I gave away two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You just had to spend a night in Alcatraz for it. You know, like it's it's a little bit running man. It's a little bit seems good games. He did the squid game. Beast games. Is he running for mayor of LA? Is that a better plan than Karen Bass's plan? I'm listening. His twist basically like upended Tribal. And while I think Tribal sort of ended in a very entertaining place, it's not it's not pure survivor. It's not pure survivor gameplay. Right. And I thought that the take out thing. Was an interesting wrinkle and ultimately did not. I think the right team won restaurant wars, which was Dwen's team. Yes. But it was kind of like either commit fully. Yes. And fucking go like somebody has to work to go window. No, what what I would suggest, maybe this is coming and maybe they talked about it. And this is actually a bad idea in practice. Do a ghost kitchen challenge where you have to create a ghost kitchen that's going to appear on the app. So you can get they love getting branded, get the apps involved. And then they have to see like how many I'm sure all these people have dreamed their whole life of getting to a ghost kitchen and making Goop Kitchen Teriyaki bowls on top chef. It's a fair point. But if also if we're being like, what is the industry now? There you go. You see like New York Magazine covered the New York arrival of Goop Kitchen the way they once covered like the greatest French chefs like daining to set foot in the island of Manhattan. I did not see the New York Magazine. Very cool. Yeah, it's it's a sign of the things like we can't have it both ways. We've been praising the season for some feeling the editorial hand more from time to time, which is appropriate when you are on season 23 or in case of survivor double that, that didn't work for me because we had chefs and certain and teams that were more than capable of doing this in ways that were compelling on their own. Now, they can't count on that. Like if these chefs had like totally shit the bed or like not been mismatched in ways that didn't work, then we may have been complaining about wishing there were more wrinkles to it because they were all bad at doing the one thing they had to do. But I felt a little bit disappointed with the extra distraction because ultimately what the takeout thing did was give them a chance in the edit to say Dwen's team and her performance was clearly superior. But some people lacked cutlery, which was not as dramatic. Well, because I think that the thing that I didn't understand was that these people are just going to go outside of the restaurant and eat. So that's why I guess the cutlery was important. But I was mostly like when they're like, do you need cutlery? I'm like, no, I'm taking it out and going home with it. So I'm fine. You know, the one other thing I made major note I had from this was that, you know, when this season began, I think my excitement and I'm still really into this season. My excitement was largely around the separation from the pack of Rhoda, Anthony and Lawrence and the ensuing competition that would come out of that. Because I was like, you know, sometimes you have a Buddha and it's just like wire to wire. Nobody's going to beat this guy. This was like, oh, and if there's like a big three and then there's like maybe a late breaker and you could have like a pretty tight like it's anybody's ball game going into into the finale and now it's kind of been like that. But not as good as I thought it was going to be because Lawrence and Anthony have kind of come back down to earth and Rhoda has been in last chance kitchen the entire season. Yes. Seemingly. So I was curious whether or not you even had a feel for what these people are cooking right now. I thought, I mean, one of the things that can happen in a way that I really enjoy in Top Chef is that you could be thinking someone is mid for weeks and then like Oscar. And then not only is he charming enough in front of the house, he makes the best dish of restaurant wars and that everyone was like, well, that's that's exceptional. And you like to see it, you know, I like seeing people rise to the occasion and prove why they're there and make it seem as if they could be competitors, even though I don't really think that's the case. Right. We should mention we failed to mention since we talked about it a lot last week, like Seeger was back. Yes, they did. They did the thing that we thought they were going to do, which is Seeger just didn't go to last chance kitchen because obviously they shot Yeah, two days or three days of the show before they did an LCK. So they just had Seeger like kind of wings. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a bummer, but just in terms of like it is, I don't know what fair is, but OK, he's back. Yeah, I don't know if those guys were in a competitive disadvantage from his where he was head was at and then making him executive chef was a choice. True. I think I could be wrong, but I don't know if I will be. I think that there are only three potential winners of the season unless something bizarre, catastrophic happens. You got them. Rota is now back. Sorry for the last chance kitchen spoiler, but Anthony and Lawrence and they are the best chefs and seemingly the best competitors, although Rota clearly had a pretty spectacular slip up. I don't see the path for everyone else in terms of whether it's their abilities or their consistency, which is kind of a bummer. And even if like it's been interesting this season, my daughters are all in finally took 23 seasons, but they love watching the show with me, which is quite meaningful for me. I love doing that, but they love Brandon. They like the twins, but they were super into Brandon, I think, because he made ice cream for this is our challenge to speak their language. But like I don't even know if he was a contender because real contenders who know how to play this game don't do what he did, which was essentially make himself invisible and put his name on something lacking. Like that was just such a weird strategy fail in in the one episode every year that they know they're going to be in. Remind me, Brandon was the one who came and helped his brother when his brother had kind of which they showed like he's an incredible. He was an incredible sous chef. He clearly is a very talented, very fast and backstopped everything. Yeah. When Jonathan was like, oh, I haven't cut any herbs and services about. But then what did he make for his own dish was a gloopy rice pudding with four soda raisins on top. Like that's that's never going to win. Yeah. And it was weird lack of focus. And I think that that focus is the thing because you could criticize people like Lawrence and Anthony for like playing down slightly to the competition or playing it safe. Well, having immunity in restaurant wars. Also like kind of like, well, you can just go do XO. You can do executive chef and then he also made a hideous, like insanely weird looking choice to make a dish that was like one thing. And then he just poured something else on top of it, which is he also put ochre in it, which is like you're just tempting fate with slime on slime. But but playing it safe in a field like this kind of makes sense. I thought I just going back to your first question, like when was so good at front of house and made it seem easy, which is what good restaurants should feel like. I was actually I thought that was a really nice showcase for her and her ability. Yeah, I thought she was quite good. I was worried with the edit that they were giving her when she was like, the thing about me is I'm super organized. And I was like, this is either you're calling your shot or this is going to be the like your montage. Let me tell you something. It is really fun. I recommend this for you with your ward or whomever, like to watch reality TV with young minds that I don't know about hero edits and stuff. Exactly. So they think that I am some like no stradom. I'm Bill James, like I'm pointing out the inefficiencies on the field in ways that they have never understood and they want to bring me into the front office. They look at me like I'm a wizard when I'm like, that person is going to win or lose. No question about it, you know, or like I'm predicting the winner. She's good that it's going to be central is going to be her. Yeah. OK, well, that was that was pretty much all I had for top chef. Great. You have anything for after dark today? Anything? Yeah, I'd love to address what an amazing sports week this has been. I look first of all, the light change. This will probably be going up. By the time this goes up, I think the Sixers will will be playing a game six in Philadelphia against the Celtics. But I just want to talk to you about hockey. Yeah, but it's me with a rake. I'm going to watch this game and I know what's going to happen. I am not. I have to go to a dinner. I can't get out of it. And maybe I don't even want to get out of it. Are you going to be are you going to be eyeing your phone? I try not to do that. That's good. But I wanted to know how you felt about the Flyers over time. One nothing went over the penguins in the NHL Stanley pop by offs because you never commented on the thirty seven text messages that me and Zax sent last night. First of all, I was knee deep in my rewatch of Widows Bay. Don't regret it. I did respond to you with a share from four minutes, 14 seconds clip of the Young Lean video. So I was in my bag. You know what I mean? I felt fine. I don't watch the highlight. No, because I don't want to experience FOMO. OK, I think I've made it. I've made a decision. I'm going to stick with it. I did feel like Zach was putting on a little bit thick with his text saying, oh, my God, I can't believe hockey is like this. I've never felt so alive. Like I thought like I felt like Gary Batman was like paying him a little bit. Some some some spare loonies. He influence you just to be like maybe he's texting that to a lot of people. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, he works for a culture magazine. Maybe he's setting the tone. I thought it was great. It was and it's just been an electric week when it comes to athletics. So the I mean, it's like soccer in the sense that like this is like sudden death feeling of like, oh, my God, anything can happen in this moment. When the improbable happened and the Flyers won, what sort of how would you characterize the noise that came from your body and how did you behave? Was it? Yeah, well, it's fucking low. Yeah, the truth is these moments reveal and I tend to go real high. In those moments, I don't think I do well. Like when good things happen in sports and the true. Spirit comes out. That was a heck of a slap shot. Touchdown fellows. Yeah, like I but you you went. Do you guys want to get some light beer? Gosh, 2.5 percent is my limit. Yeah, it's not awesome. It's not awesome. I'm I'm I'm impressed that you that, you know, you got anything for me for for after dark. Characters revealed in those moments. No, no, I'm not I'm not prepared. OK, you got me watching Resident Evil trailers, you know, like I'm just I'm kind of on your street today. I'll see what I can do. We're going to be back on Monday. We're going to be talking about before you. We're going to be talking about. Culture, I think probably culture. Here's a question for you. Yeah, big movie this weekend coming out. Devil Wars Prada 2. I've seen Devil Wars Prada 1. I can't say it's the most rewatchable movie of the century. According to the. Yeah. I like that movie. Good movie. I like Emily Blunt in that movie. I I wasn't like this. The story needs to go on. But why not? You know, I'll I'll eventually see it. It's not a first weekend for me. Because you hook him this weekend without him, Scott. Oh, that isn't like horror movies set in an Irish hotel. A lot of things that interest you. I this is a big movie in my household. This is a Devil Wars product to yes, my children are very, very, very. Have they seen the first one? No, they just love fashion. Yes. Yeah, they yeah, that's a like if I'm not trying to tell. I'm not trying to tell Hollywood what to do. But like if you want to really engage with specifically my children, eleven things I hate about you would be a billion dollar box office hit judging by the continued enthusiasm. If they just if they just like remade it, or do you think like if they revisited some of it? No, I don't know. I just mean like the maybe this is a conversation for for for the big picture or something because like the the passion, the selective passion that my daughters have for the few movies that they like is so intense and not really because they have those options. They I think it has limited their interest in checking for new things. You know, like why go see that one? We could just to why go see the Christopher's when you can just watch Devil Wars Prada one again. Yeah, or clueless again. But but this is a but there's a big 12 months of Tom Holland content coming. So that's going to that's going to do numbers like the Odyssey. Well, my older daughter loves three things in this world. Greek mythology, Tom Holland and Zendaya. So yeah, we're going to be there. Now, do you think this is for after maybe this is for the future for the summer? Maybe we should have an episode where Uncle Chris makes his Uncle Chris explains Christopher Nolan to a 13 year old. Your mind is the scene of the crime. She'll become an in cold. To his particulars that it is being. Yeah, I'll give it some thought. Thank you. Thanks to Kaya and Kaya for producing today. And we will be back on Monday. Everybody have a great weekend.