Super Bowl Trailers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Plus, ‘Industry’ S4E5 and ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 4.

I need supports to have 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, coming off the bench in a full suit of armor, it's Andy Greenwalds! I didn't know if you were talking about me or Patriot's offensive lineman. of Will Campbell. With Becca. We can do Game Talk if you want. Andy, it's great to see you today. Industry and Night of the Seven Kingdoms, the episode that came out on Friday. A little bit of Super Bowl talk because we got a lot of ads and trailers that we wanted to discuss. And we spent it together. And we spent it together. I will say that my favorite thing that I've seen so far is, there was a tweet that was Will Campbell quote that was like, I will die protecting Drake May. And then it said, Will Campbell now is just a picture of a coffin. remember the old don't get fired you hate to see it you know i'll just say that we are all cousin cell i think we're all devin witherspoon i wish we were yeah um yeah good good outcome yeah fine game you know like very defensive i i had a feeling it was going to be like a like steelers bearsy kind of like uh very uh was that a steelers bears or was that cults bears that year the vibe is correct even if the facts are wrong yeah i can't remember what your prince played a bears super bowl didn't he you're asking me like i'm gonna remember more than i watched it your apartment in brooklyn yeah but i was probably i was probably stirring the chili or something you know what i mean not a metaphor it probably was the watch at spotify.com if you want to email us uh the watch pod underscore if you want to follow us on instagram ringer dash tv on youtube if you want to watch us there you can watch us on spotify as well where you can also listen to us Let's talk a little bit about the Super Bowl as a piece of television. Can I just sort of do a quick temperature check on you? Because people who are not watching us on video will be surprised to know you have switched it up again. Football season has ended. The first thing Kai said to me was just like, what's up with the A's hat? So you're wearing an Oakland A's hat. Let me ask you a question. Let's take it back to core principles. First principles. All right. If the hat is cool, you can wear it. That's what we used to do in eighth grade. White Sox hats, Raiders hats. We weren't like, oh, I'm such a huge fan. this is a defensiveness of the Seattle Seahawks right now the ace hat is for this because Barry Zito erasure will not stand and I and I'm correcting historical wrong in Moneyball I also just like the ace hat they're no longer in Oakland not that I care I like Oakland but I feel like you're all like you really and weren't the ace traditionally like historically a Philadelphia franchise that's all I was you didn't even let me give you here's what I was going to do I was going to create guardrails for you I'm like a Republican senator just stop talking stop tweeting and i'll make it normal i was gonna say the philadelphia athletics totally fine also you believe in the normalization of steroids i'm tired of all these rules man bash brothers okay yeah so the ace hat i'm wearing an ace hat it looks great you're you're telling a green color story today sure green with envy for seattle's defense um let's talk a little bit about the advertisements yeah let's do it so let's do trailers first because that and then we can talk a little bit about being on hell's doorstep with some of the other commercials we were presented yeah uh number one i want to talk about adventures of cliff booth uh rare for a surprise ad drop i had heard that that was coming here we go no i just i i had heard gatekeeping the news again i had heard in between our last recording and when when you say you heard it did like an industry uh parakeet whispered in your ear about my sources oh okay great um more than i could have ever hoped for the synthesis of tarantino and fincher it looks so fincher to me that's the we have not gotten i do not think we have gotten a uh quality in terms of like the the video quality update like upload that we deserve yet so i think of the trailer criticizing like a certain flat look to it yeah but i do not think that these are like what it's going to look like um but the vibe the cast carlo ganguino on a beach in malibu staring out into the sun come on come on i i was surprised to get the trailer i was also surprised although no reason to be surprised that it 100 looks like david fincher directing a tarantino movie yes like that's what it's supposed to be I'm not this is not a trailer but it is very Fincher that's how Fincher cuts his teasers look at you just saying well I mean you are the third chair in a popular movie podcast I will defer to you on this I just mean that like it was interesting it was cool to see it in his accent so to speak it was it was glossier shinier more I mean I know it said in the 70s I believe but it still felt more futuristic looking with the way that he lights things than what Tarantino does yes it's also cool when a couple of people who have not been in either fincher or tarantino projects for that matter show up and elizabeth de becky great really commanding great commanding the entire frame scott khan even though i don't really even think we get to hear him speak looks awesome in this yeah uh yaya abdul mateen big fave of ours so i think he do you think he did it was able to do a double day at the highland park theater where he also shot wonder man i don't I don't know if they shot the movie theater sequence. It looked like the Vista to me. The inside. They were shooting on Figueroa. That would be great if it was just like, I'm here. By the way, this theater Kristen Stewart bought. Yeah. That's exciting. It's exciting shit. Yeah. Investing. You know what? Honestly, a really big glow up this weekend for the Highland Park region. You know, just shout out between Kristen Stewart buying the movie theater and VIA's Tacos being in the halftime show. That's right. Can I just ask you one other thing about the Cliff Booth thing? No official title, no official release date, but one unmistakable to dumb sound and a big red end at the end. Did you have any emotional reaction to that? Just because it feels it's like, oh, my God, Fincher, Brad Pitt, Netflix. Like, did that did we pass that? No, I'm past it. OK, first of all, Fincher's been working for Netflix for years. And the back scratching that goes on between the two is elite. Yeah. The movies that he has made for them make the killer. The fact that they even let him do what he did on Mindhunter. And I don't think that they were like no more Mindhunter. I think he was like, I just simply can't make 10 hours of TV in meticulous period detail. I think that's true. And also worth noting that like the idea that Netflix is somehow just resolutely anti art is not really the case. No, I mean, like it's not borne out. I understand that I would prefer that Fincher movies were in theaters for 45 days and then like an extended period of time. But and it's antithetical to a lot of what Tarantino obviously preaches in terms of like the theatrical experience and also the shooting on film experience. But but but few places would fund this film. Yeah. In the manner in which it needs to be funded for Fincher to make it. They shot it in L.A. I know there's going to be a lot of digital effects in it like there are in many Fincher movies. I mean, Netflix, we were talking about it last week. It's semi-unrelated, but David Lynch's last project, Unrecorded Night, was going to be made for Netflix. It didn't get made because of his health. It was not made because Netflix decided to. Netflix was like, can some of this be cake? Yes. They didn't do that. Yes. So, no, I don't have any reservations about it. If there had been a bidding war for this movie and everybody was like, we'll give you $200 million to make a shot in L.A. sequel or continuing adventure of the Brad Pitt character, maybe we can have a conversation about it. But it doesn't sound like there was much of a debate. And also Tarantino, not quiet as kept, but has also worked with Netflix in so much as Hateful Eight was basically recut into a miniseries of sorts for Netflix. And I do think that there is an ongoing relationship there. Okay. Well said. Disclosure Day, the Steven Spielberg aliens movie. Yeah. Well, I don't know. They didn't specifically say it's aliens, but I think we can. What do you think is coming out of the cloud? Exactly. Sorry, they didn't say. Do you think that's the new JetBlue route that lands Long Beach? I don't think I've ever actually had like a very long conversation with you about the films of Steven Spielberg. That seems like a weird lacunae in our 30-year relationship. But for a certain kind of Spielberg fan, the idea of him revisiting this kind of subject matter is... Exciting. Very exciting. I am that kind of Spielberg fan. Is it fair to say... Am I wrong to think that it's... Is this in the Close Encounters universe? Or is it just that anything about aliens that he does? Because the spaceship... But again, we don't know it was a spaceship. We don't know. That seemed... They'd look a little close encounters. Yeah. I mean, you know, more of the worlds, uh, great movie, close encounters. He's ET. He has, he has dabbled and engaged with the idea of extraterrestrial life over the course of his career and in different ways, like in, and sometimes in confusion and in mystery and in wonder and in innocence. And sometimes with fear and trepidation and, and you know what it would mean to the human population. This is interesting, too, because the premise of this film seems to be Joshua Conner's character, whoever he is, is in possession of a world changing piece of information that he decides he wants to share with everybody in the world. Yeah. Much to the chagrin of forces beyond his control of trying to stop him. So obviously, in today's kind of political moment and cultural moment, whistleblowing and revealing the truth about things is pretty top of mind. And it felt very similar to The Post. In a sense. No, I'm serious. I know. I found that actually very exciting. Do you like The Post? Yes. Also, I like the films of Steven Spielberg. Maybe I didn't say that. Sorry to be predictable. I'm not zagging on that. I find them thrilling and always worth engaging with. And I think that Disclosure Day seems to have found an interesting new lane for this type of film. if it does combine the political conspiracy thriller with actual aliens emerging from the clouds exciting good cast relevant um seems like democracy and other things may die in darkness in this film which is good because it's accurate um great cast uh josh o'connor emily blunt colin firth coleman domingo e fuston i think yeah so very cool i am ordering these in my levels of anticipation from most anticipated to the cast, which was a bad look for Eve Hewson. Do you think she's ever heard your Bono impression? No, but I'm sure she there is a chance that she's aware that we talked about the Nick a lot. That's true. Because I don't know that when we were doing that, there was a ton of people out there breaking down multiple episodes of the Nick. What are the odds and maybe a super fan could let us know that one of the episodes where we talked about Eve Hewson's performance on the Cinemax original program, The Nick, was also an episode where you did your Bono calling George Bush live on stage imitation. But I took that from you, I feel like. Yeah, but at a certain point, like when you ran, and I never could run, so it's yours now. Once you did it for Colin Farrell, it's yours. It's hung around your neck. The two times that I've actually just like really, really, really felt small in this world were when Bill encouraged me to do Wayne Jenkins for Glenn Powell and he had no idea what I was talking about. When I did Bono for Colin Farrell and he probably thought that was a racially motivated crime. Did you? I actually don't remember his reaction but it didn't seem to be effusive. Where did you go in your process when you realized that you have been pushed onto the stage you can't back out it's going to go probably a certain way. I work for Bill, not for Colin Farrell. So at the end of the day, you got to kind of like make sure that the check gets signed. Which is why you believe Drake May should have received Justin Herbert's vote for MVP. That's right. Project Hail Mary. There have been a couple of trailers for this. I don't I did not read the book. Andy Weir, writer of The Martian, huge fan of that story and that film. Did not read that book either. So I'm not trying to claim anything otherwise. but it certainly seems like they put the entire movie into the couple of trailers that they have released for this film yes i i hope it's not too disappointing because of that um but this looks fun and cool and lord and miller directed it and uh ryan gosling in the sort of i'm alone in space role that matt damon so ably acquitted himself at you excited for this one i i have this is one of those things like you've said about trailers where i'm like you had me Ryan Gosling in a charming space adventure? Okay, we're good. It is odd to me the degree to which its marketing campaign has been like Steve Jobs at an Apple convention in the 2000s. Every trailer is like, and one more thing, there's aliens. It is Amazon. It's an Amazon movie, I think. I believe so. I don't think they're great at marketing. I wonder whether or not that might have something to do with it. I wonder whether they're just sort of like, this is the same as the Tomorrow War to us, how we're pushing it. It is Amazon, you're right. Yeah. And so I encourage them to be a little bit more like David Fincher when it comes to cutting your trailers and get a little bit more creative. And in terms of cutting your staff at your newspaper. You know what I mean? Just brand it a little bit differently. Sure, yeah. The thing I am least excited about, and this honestly includes a bunch of stuff that we didn't talk about, like the Minions. the bottom bottom bottom bottom bottom seed here i'm gonna let you do this okay but i do want to say it did surprise me we were i believe in the kitchen when the ads were going at this moment and you like like uh a moth to a flame you were like oh that's a minion you seemed that's not what i'm talking about i know we're not going there that's not what happened we were sitting there and a minion appears distance like like the sun in lawrence of arabia and had a camel riding out of the you know the desert i've seen that movie uh a minion appears that's great i see him every day when i'm driving on the 101 oh yeah uh i don't have any problem with minions you just seem pretty i didn't expect that a minions phase um thankfully not a major one like i've had to sit through some of those movies in the theater which is quite aggressive despicable me is also minions part of the Minions universe, right? Yeah, so Despicable Me is the franchise and Minions is kind of the spin-off. I'd rather watch Minions in an AI version of a Michael Hanukkah movie than see The Mandalorian and Grogu at this point. Go, cook! Fuck this movie. Fuck this whole thing, dog. And it's not because I'm like, oh, you can't besmirch tauntauns by making them Budweiser Clydesdales. But if you're doing this, you have no faith in your project. That's right. If you're like, we need the nostalgia of Budweiser Clydesdales. Am I saying that right? With landman Sam Elliott narrating. Yeah. Then you have no sauce. Which word were you worried about mispronouncing? Clydesdale. Budweiser or Clydesdale? You know, it's just one of those things where I was like, is it Clydesdale? No, it's Clyde. Clyde. That's what I thought. Clydesdales. if that's what you are doing before the film comes out yes and you're like let's see and also why are you invoking beer this is a movie for like kids yeah right and then the trailer that was shown is just the one that they showed before yes with still no dialogue no story that ad was absolutely consistent with the rest of the absolute end times ai slop garbage spilling downhill that was most of the commercials sean mcnulty who does the wake up newsletter which is very good through the angler it's an excellent way to start your entertainment news morning as you drive under the looming shadow of a minion he put together this list of the advertisements from last night there were 14 tech ads including ones from open ai codex anthropic meta oakley Squarespace Microsoft Copilot Coinbase Google Gemini Ring the Ring one was diabolical OpenAI Farming Alexa Plus Salesforce Genspark AI Base44 And then there were a bunch of like you know get your prostate checked lose weight get a boner ads What's up, man? Can we not get back to what we used to be here? We are generationally cooked. I'd like to apologize to Kaya and anyone else below Kaya's age. Like, it's a wrap. If you'd like us to steer more into content where we talk about how much fun we had in the 90s and early 2000s. When Kaya buys her first house sponsored by WeGoV, this mortgage is brought to you by OpenAI Codex. The ad, I don't know why. It's a trillion Coinbase points to have this house. Which one was more disturbing? Like, really, like, genuinely, I'm asking the question. There's the ad that's just the lyrics to a Backstreet Boys song, and then it's like, Coinbase. Yeah. And then there's like the little disclaimer that maybe someone encouraged them to have, which is like, crypto is volatile. Have fun. Yeah. Like the end of a truth social post. Have fun. Thank you for your attention on this matter. The other one, the Duncan one, was absolutely from an unknown gate of Dante's hell. and i don't that was that was tough you know affleck has been a very articulate about ai and about its role in hollywood and sure the things he is nervous about versus the things he's not nervous about with that and i've really enjoyed his comments on it uh i do wonder whether some of that was like salting the ground for this commercial yeah um i am always like you know what The big thing is like McConaughey is doing this a lot. He's in a ton of ads. It seems like Bradley Cooper and him are doing an Uber Eats ad. When's it enough money? This is what I'm saying. And also, let me put it this way. It would be one thing if these guys were like, I'm in an Uber Eats commercial because then I turn around and I make sure that all community art centers stay open in Texas. And maybe they do. Maybe they do. Maybe Affleck was in a bidding war for the Highland Park Theater with Kristen Stewart. Do you know what I mean? He's really ready to give back to the community. He's running his company. Sure. But the idea of one for them, one for me, it doesn't seem to be what's happening here. Windhorse fingers. I feel like there's just something. Are you guys on the last train out? This is what I'm saying. Yeah. It's so evident that it is last call at the money bar for Earth. And no one's talking about this. Do you know what I mean? Like, remember when, for example, Young Innocent Us 10 years ago watching True Detective Season 2 the first time and we're like, ha ha, how fanciful. Yeah. A cabal of pedophiles. Oh, well. That's why we watched it. I know. I'm saying you were right about this, as was Pizzolatto. And we're like, anyway, Veep's back on. Great. No problem. We roll. We roll 10 years later. I'm just saying at a certain point, maybe we should take things literally and seriously. Yeah. why do they need so much money all the time yeah i just don't understand because like what happened it would just be cool if like that okay you're gonna go make uh um an ai like human resources or like office solutions ad like one a funny one haha yeah like ai can help you like book your trip then then go make like a fucking cool indie movie and give give a director like five million dollars to like get it off the ground or i mean i may and maybe they are doing that and not advertising that if that's the case you're doing a terrible job telling your story yeah because all i see is like you guys doing these commercials incessantly yeah so i don't know i don't it's just weird it's dd's answer duncan dignity well i don't get it you know that i i didn't hear that ad with the sound on for all i know it was really witty i just that looked it looked demonic to me it's all it's all I mean, this is the whole thing, right? Like, all of this is gross. All of AI is trash. Sorry, it's trash. And yet we're all just like, oh, it's interesting. I guess it's propping up the economy a little bit. Like, when are we going to speak up, Chris? If only we had a platform. I encourage people if there is an interesting, it's an amazingly well-written article and really fascinating. This most recent issue of The New Yorker, Michael Schulman wrote an article. This is usually my corner. about the scion of the you know saatchi family like saatchi and saatchi the uh the british advertising firm um is a film obsessive uh and he has essentially dedicated his professional life to restoring orson wells's vision for the magnificent ambersons using ai and is like shooting actors on sound stages to then like basically deep fake them into joseph cotton's body to be in magnificent but it's an amazing piece because it's also about how the work that this guy is doing is drawing from the like fringe historian film historian obsessives who are like i have assembled all the production stills from the magnificent ambersons we know the intent and the production screenplay and the notes from rko to wells right about like what's been taken out so there's this weird act of scholarship that's going on and because like this guy does not have the rights to magnus and ampersons it's for academic purposes okay quotes but it's an interesting article because i think like most of the time we hear about ai and we're like so you're gonna bring um you know it'll be like anthony bourdain hanging out in the field of dreams cornfield or something and it's like this is hell yeah but this is an interesting discussion about like what like what it means to like history and show history but not i don't i don't mean like respectfully that sounds like dork shit like that sucks but it's interesting yeah i wasn't trying to shoot you down like it's not my movie as someone who often references new yorker articles i just happened to read over the weekend like this is a safe space for that what's the watch's coverage plan for mando and grogu i'll tell you this is is definitely crossed my mind not to see this film I'm talking to my guys about it. Okay. Yeah. What kind of feedback are you getting from your team? Well, they're worried about what it means for us as a podcast, because I think people know we're the truth tellers. That's right. When it comes to Lucasfilm. That's right. Yeah. I mean, it fit in. It looked like cartoon slop. Okay. It fit in with everything else last night. Halftime? Halftime was great. Halftime was great. I thought that was a bad bunnies performance. I thought that was incredibly beautiful, surprising. I thought you were good. I thought we each picked one to watch. I thought we just self-selected. It's the categories. Conceptually, as a show, I was really impressed by it because I can't remember a previous Super Bowl halftime show that was as much of a like narrative, almost theatrical performance that was less about racing through the hits in a way that felt like cumulative or with some momentum this it was an incredibly smart um approach i think to a opportunity where he's the most streamed artist in the world and is incredibly popular but there's also a large swath of mainstream watching on nbc audience members who probably don't even know if they know about bunny song they might know one or two but they don't have that connection with the artist so in a way he was freed from the expectation of proving his uh proving that he deserve to be there via recognizable tunes and put on just like a absolutely i was shocked to say i found deeply moving um carnivalistic expressive exciting inclusive celebration yeah i thought it was awesome it was awesome as like a musical performance as awesome as a piece of theater i thought it was actually awesome as a piece of television the way yeah that they kind of moved through thrilling um the sugar cane like the the telephone poles with the electrical infrastructure issues obviously like it was just the symbolism of it but also just the actual fun and joy of it was just really palpable it was deeply political without having to do anything which i think is also a testament to important and interesting art and also all these fucking losers hating on it like it's these whiny bitches have fun you stupid hater losers like honestly clip that clip this grow up just like the fucking Vance's clapping along to Kid Rock screaming a hernia out except he's lip syncing I thought he was in Italy getting fucking booed oh that's right well they're all honestly who can tell they all look the same to me like you fucking wish you were invited to a party where people are having fun and loving each other. Jesus Christ. This take brought to you by Coinbase. Let's get into industry. So we're going to talk about these. Was there anything else you want to talk about with the game? It's different when your team's not in it. I mean, my heart rate was just incredible. We had a lovely time, honestly. It was very chill. A very enjoyable afternoon and evening that I did not spend spitting blood out of my nose. You know, like, it was just... I guess actually that last Super Bowl that we played was pretty awesome. But I also didn't even know what to do with myself because it was so awesome. Yeah, it's a real problem. That's a real relatable problem. Episode five of season four is Eyes Without a Face. It was aired on Friday night to get out from under the Super Bowl rush on Sunday, which I think was wise. Of the people I saw over the weekend, many people were talking about this episode. Kind of a, I was going to say like a side quest. I was going to say, I'm not a bottle, but like, um, you know, kind of a, I think the industry has now made a season of interesting, like basically like the episode is the sort of side quest episode is actually the main quest. Yes. I don't know if that makes any sense, but anyway, the episodes call eyes without a face. I thought, um, it could easily just been called the thing is nothing, uh, which is the, um, exclamation eric makes when he finds out that tender is indeed just like a ghost ship operating on false promises and scams that also is a great summation of the first 10 minutes of this podcast of us with us turning our gimlet eyes to the state of the american culture and economy so the show is relevant turning our gimlet eyes to eric chavez and miguel todd this is a great turn from you um you're gonna go up to sacramento to see some games in the I want to obviously talk about Accra and the Sweet Pea and Quibena trip to Ghana. But I want to start with Eric and Harper here. I think Harper is probably the most challenging gambit of this show. Yes. That the protagonist is unknowable in this way. Well said. I find that to be awesome. I like the challenge of thinking about television differently than I usually do, where a character is acting from a place of whether it's trauma or an old wound that they're trying to heal, whether they are stating outright what is their motivation or just clearly behaving as such. harper is just a mystery harper arrives on the scene you know she's described as like a world eater by eric in the first episode of this series um she's a little bit chameleonic in that she can adjust to working for like tory businessmen or being in like you know a kind of a german rave or something like that she can do whatever but she has a certain like quality that doesn't ever go away but you know this is an interesting episode for her because her mother passes away uh off screen off screen a woman we've never met we've met the brother and harper's relationship to eric and our conversation with him about uh her mother is really interesting because it's it's about like whether or not backstory matters to me yep and you know there's like kind of a little bit of a fake out where you're waiting for harper to be like i just wanted my mom to love me and that's why i'm like the way i am and instead she's like i wanted her to live long enough to bend the knee and see what a titan i've become and i wanted to ask you about like geolocating a character making that character consistent in the importance of that and whether or not you think is industry breaking a rule or following a rule here it's such a good question and i think you've identified something that is deeply compelling and at times deeply frustrating about the show which is that it is based around someone who is almost entirely opaque and um my sense of it is and this is something hopefully we'll get to talk to the the guys about at season's end but i think that they are motivated by a challenge that they've laid out to themselves i'm not saying it's a challenge they laid down in season one because they'll admit to anyone that they were just throwing their best up at this wall not thinking they there was no point in the making of the pilot of the first season where they thought they would be making the season of television that they are making now, which is a good thing. But I do think over time it has evolved into a challenge and like a marker laid down being like, we are not going to play the traditional television game of backstory and explanation of emotional motivation with this character. There's a moment, I don't think it was this episode, but when she says my trauma was traumatic. She's insistent that her childhood does not explain her adulthood. And she refuses it. And she shuts that down for the people in her life, including the people in her life who are the audience, which runs counter to the last 15 years of television storytelling, which I admire. But it's challenging when you say we are going to make this character an ongoing exercise in denial and counterintuitive storytelling thinking when you are trying to move, grease the wheels of narrative across episodes the way everyone who makes a television show has to do. And I will say that more so than in other seasons, her stasis, and it's not just, stasis isn't the right word, it's that we are stuck in kind of a doom loop with how she treats people, particularly people like Eric, is more frustrating this season than in other seasons. Now, one of the things that these guys have proven really skilled at is in the great mixing board of life, moving the dials in a way that you don't even notice it all coming together. So Yasmin doesn't appear in this episode. She does not. And she's had remarkable highs thus far this season that have moved her story ball forward in a way. So to your point about which is the A story and which is the B story, this probably isn't harper's showcase episode that's still to come so i'm willing to take it in over the course of a season but there were in the early going when she just unloads on eric in like ways that are so excruciatingly cruel and cutting which she's very skilled at doing to the point of he's left wondering why i keep doing this that is also a tough gambit where we in the audience are like why are we still doing circling this clearly destructive um relationship i don't i think we're in mid-process so i'm not judging it and i think that what the episode did to its great credit is that my holla got to play the other side of the coin in this episode uh because she they would gave her i'm not because it's not just the first scenes she does come back and they have a moment i also thought she was best and the show was best in the final moment when quavina is like doesn't come forward and tell her about sweepy after sweepy has told her and her performance in that scene when she's reacting yeah but doesn't say yeah which is restraint that the show sometimes like doesn't always show you know like they would maybe in another on another day have harper dress him down and talk all about like sex and relationships and business and what they're doing and what he should be doing and they kind of did that in the sushi restaurant when they were going out on a date and they've done it in bedrooms together where they've had these very explicit internal external conversations. You mentioned Yasmin. Yeah. She, to me, is the most classically successful character on this show because she has, her, her sort of backstory has gone from background to foreground and is now the text you know like her when you first meet her you just kind of like she gonna be the rich kid who actually shows that she got something to her you know and what we find out about her and what we find out about her childhood clearly shapes what she has done and is doing both to the powerful men and the less powerful women in her life yep uh and it all comes from her father and that is like the like that's how you do writing it's like you show how somebody is shaped and what they then pass on to other people but harper is like a little bit more of like a a sine wave or something where it's just like oh it's like this and now it's like that you know like i think you're onto something there too the the very best shows and it's industries in our top three every year that it's on so we consider industry to be one of the very best shows finds an interesting alchemy from the showrunner's perspective of chasing things that they are interested in and things that they clearly know in their bones. And not just the creators, the writers, the creative half of the behind the scenes creative half of the equation. And it's hard not to come away from the last, not just the season, but like the last eight episodes of the series and not think that these guys really have some deep and cutting and maybe even like experiential understanding of Yasmin, of Henry, even of Jim Diker in his final moments. Like that was coming from, I think that was coming from a soul, that speech. And I worry the Harper character and to a degree, Eric as well. And I wonder if it's because they're American. I'm not sure that it is. I don't know if they have had that same level of depth or rigor because they are often reactive or raging and the the level of complexity that henry muck's backstory was given you know in the grand barry linden style of the ghost story the fact that all of these people that you're describing have had i mean even rishi got to be so many different people on this show harper and eric are largely doing the same thing that they were doing in the first season with each with each other with each other but also like business wise i mean they don't work for an investment bank anymore like a large institution but they are essentially bloodhounds for bullshit and addicted to the deal and addicted to chaos and addicted to chaos and are still like kind of trapped in that hotel room ping-ponging off of each other and eric even at that you know in this episode has a vision that i think is fairly like has it in terms of like its empathy reaction in most people is fairly high of like even whether you're together with your spouse or not but like people that you love or have loved and your daughter sleeping soundly and peacefully and his response is non-traditional let's say in that moment well i think also you mentioned duiker the duiker speech is the thesis statement for this entire season yes it's a bunch of people who don't feel anything who know what they're supposed to be feeling at any given moment and don't have that. And so that's driving them insane. And they're self-medicating with their phones and pornography and drugs and risk. So do you think we are headed towards a moment this season where, and this episode did some of this work, so I don't want to imply that it's not the case, but where Harper and Eric come to an understanding of recognition, which exists in the subtext, but literally saying, I don't want a father, I don't want a daughter, but this works. Well, haven't they said that before? They've said versions of it. And is that enough to fill in the blanks? You know, because I think that one of the things that makes the show perpetually restless and perpetually interesting is Mickey and Conrad are contemptuous of convention and they don't want to be boring and they don't want to be standard. And that's fine. And sometimes when the show has veered, not just fine, that's admirable. i thought that the sweet pea episode and we'll get into that uh miriam peci's performance and everything in a moment because i thought it was excellent the coda of her storyline to me was conventional that she was absolutely harper-esque and like undeniable punch me in the face and i will still destroy your world and that but then once the doors closed on my like prefab fancy condo unit i cry like everyone else but i still found it to be ambiguous like what's she crying about sure you know what i mean is she crying because that's her body releasing all the stress of the last couple of days is she crying because she's thinking about how her mom won't ever bring up her only fans controversy is she crying because i because she's so happy you know like i love that there's ambiguity in it i would just i guess my question is more about i think i'm more on i we don't we don't want that version of harper you know behind the scenes she cries like everyone else i don't think that makes sense but there is a worrying opacity to the character especially this season that has removed her from the larger machine she is now she was always driving the story with her behavior but now she is completely driving everything and people are falling at her feet to go along with it that it is starting to to me like i there's not a lot of recognition i've never met anybody like this now obviously i haven't met a lot of a lot of people on the show but we don't really interact with a lot of people whose professional life requires professional death on the other side of a negotiation it's well said i i don't like that's the thing that i think draws a lot of the these characters are all damaged one of the reasons why i think they're damaged is that they are drawn to something where there has to be a loser for you to win i i think that's very well said i guess what i'm trying to articulate is this is not a frankly I think disqualifying argument that these people aren't likable like fuck that the challenge of making a show about people who quote unquote aren't likable is that you shade them with degrees of recognizable humanity so you don't endorse their actions but on some gut level you understand their perspective in it so you do that on a show like this by the Henry episode you do that in a show like this with as you said everything of the Asmund's father or with the Claire Forlani aunt character. It's just a passing thing that you carry with you. And then when she behaves like a monster to Haley, you're still carrying that. Everything with Harper is not just transactional, it is increasingly off screen. So the card from her mother that she shreds and then the phone call that leads her to react in a way that is familiar to people who've been watching Harper, I guess what I'm saying is in the practice of it on screen, maybe that wasn't enough. Sure. But it's episode five of an ongoing season, but I just am noting that disparity. But there are so many other worthwhile things in the episode that i don't want to harp on that one thing that i think we walked away from it i want to get into the uh across stuff but the way i want to do it is to talk about the thriller aspect of the show that's been really introduced in this season the idea of this corporate espionage thriller two episodes in a row where there has been a not totally unexplained sense of menace in the background of an episode so with dyker it's the guy who's in the flat with rishi and him and i've seen speculation online that he was either he was working that he was not just a random guy at a pub that he you know obviously and i think you and i engaged speculation on this pod yeah we we speculated that as well and i think there's been people were writing to us saying like that's actually an actor we recognize it's not just a day player so um and then in this episode sweepy gets assaulted in uh a bar a bathroom at a bar and she gets assaulted after letting the CFO of Tender, Tony Day. Know her exact location. Know her exact location. So you would have to assume... And he says the beach can get dangerous at night. You have to assume that either he ordered that or someone is listening to his phone because he does seem to think that his office is bugged. Where do you think this is... Where are the breadcrumbs leading back to? Is this Whitney? Is Whitney running a crime syndicate under the belly to this is the thing the show is in a successful place right now because we don't know and there's a sense of both paranoia which is earned and exciting but also a sense of like all these people fly too close to the sun all of the time and are they do they think they're in a movie do they are they're behaving like they're in some sort of dangerous thriller but it's also possible that she was assaulted in a bar unrelated to it so that's not a bad place dramatically for the show to be with three episodes left i'm curious where the where the cards are going to fall because the other option that i'm not as big of a fan of is that will Whitney Halberstram is just a really bad evil guy yeah who is clearly running a fraudulent company and is willing to assault or murder people who get in his way that's less interesting to me because it's less nuanced um it's better the show is better when it lives in the in-between space when the nathan mckay keys drop when they get to accra and they're filming it's beautiful and again this is exciting to see the show take advantage of location shooting, of vibrancy and cultural differences and the actors that they found to play these parts was thrilling. And I can't help but intuit a level of excitement on the part of the creative team of the show towards the storyline, maybe more so than what's going on back in London. Like the keys dropping and them being on this thriller and actually getting to write, Mickey and Conrad getting to write it and Joe Charlton, who's credited with this episode, getting to write this and the actors getting to play it. Yeah, they basically got to do the insider. And I don't blame them. Who doesn't want to make a Tony Gilroy, Michael Mann type thing? There was a disparity, I would say, in terms of what was driving the episode. That felt like much more of an interesting place. And I guess I'm curious about your perspective on the episode. Do you think it looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful, the actress played it really well. I'm still worried about what's there there. because the as i said like tender is just so clearly fraudulent from jump that i'm waiting for more nuance in the investigation if it is i want it to be more than this is clearly corrupt there is no there there the thing isn't a thing and harper being like why do we have to play by the rules like give me a little more the first 10 minutes of the episode that we just did we talked about a bunch of companies that have ingratiated themselves and burrowed in yeah to the economy at such a depth that their failure is not an option. And I think that if I had to guess what Tender is trying to do is to make themselves intertwined with the British economy or the global economy to a point where its malfeasance has to be overlooked because to take it away would affect the labor government, would affect the economic health of a nation. I think because I can see the thriller happening from both angles. Right. I understand like Whitney needs this aristocrat to sell his bullshit as a bridge to the life that he always thought was way out of touching distance for himself. As far as like the thriller aspects of it goes, I don't know that I need a gunfight or a death at the end of this. And we've already had one. Yeah. To make it count as a thriller. When you think about all the presidents men, when you think about some of the great political conspiracy thrillers of our lifetime, there's no dead bodies. There's just people getting spooked in parking lots or thinking that their phones are tapped or whatever. It's interesting. I do wonder how they are going to bring all of the threads together. But yeah, it's been such a remarkable genre shift within the framework of the show itself that I'm just along for the ride. No, the elasticity of the show is thrilling. This is a week-to-week argument for a return to ongoing series. because one of the arguments against them over the last few years and a much more like creator empowered version of the television industry which has shrunk a lot was that you know the auteurs got bored they didn't want to be locked into the same shows with the same production uh budgets and the same network executives they wanted to tell different stories and have more opportunities which is fine i mean people should be free to i'm pro who's was it kurt flood who was the first free agent like i'm pro yeah workers rights but there is something to be said for watching shows that um where the creators are like no we can do this here we can stretch this in ways that you can't imagine yes and and the if if what i'm if i'm being critical even of this episode i'm excited by what i'm seeing you know and if if if certain things aren't perfect why would they be perfect two years ago it was an embryonic version of a show. Now we're now we're watching something week to week that not just could be anything could be almost anything that we love traditionally. Yes. So the the best of industry, in my opinion, is Miriam Petchy showing up in a background role with a almost joke name of Sweet Pico lightly. And then everybody seeing something in each other and growing and growing and growing until she is Erin Brockovich in her way through Africa in this episode, holding the screen beautifully shot like that shot of her on the beach was the kind of artistic flourish that the boys didn't direct this episode but that felt interesting because that to me felt like a connection of the visual language of the henry in the um in the mansion in the manor house episodes visual palette into a completely different world um i thought that was really cool and the idea of um journalism and detective work and financial whatever it is that they do all becoming one thing in this fraudulent global economy is rich stuff no pun intended i really like that but um there's a lot these episodes are dense and it's been interesting to to engage with the episodes particularly this season, because they've all been very, very dense to digest. But the density of the commander and the gray lady is a fixed perspective. Sure. This is telling multiple stories in multiple locations, trying to advance them in a traditional narrative way, but then also getting really, really, really hooked into certain parts. And you start to feel the attention and what's being paid in different ways. portions different yeah locations yeah i don't know it it honestly probably bears a rewatch the episode itself yes and i think honestly also the season as like a statement all the episodes together will feel different than the week-to-week uh experience of it i i just i just want to call out the fact that like when it when it hits like the scene when when what's his name when tony day is like exploring pathways for me before the potential assault and it's just so well put together because that is an example of a creative team just knowing knowing the brief yes it is beautifully performed it's beautifully written it's beautifully shot and the fact that dyker's editor is still involved and is like when she's just like i'm sweet p go lightly and he's like you're what i know but then like a minute later he's like miss go lightly let me explain to you i'm like wow everybody is everybody is is just ready we feel like we need to talk about the fact that Eric leaves his ex-wife and his daughter in one bed after his daughter has been expelled from school for catfishing a colleague or another student. And he leaves them in that room to go to an escort. He begins the episode by telling this hotel worker, so to speak, not to call him. But then she takes his call. Yes, and she has a room. and yeah he invokes there's some language that's very like father daughter well look i know what you're asking me no no i wasn't asking you as a girl dad i have said this has been quite a year for girl dads on screen from sentimental value to one battle after another it's really been a championship season sure nobody goes 17 and 0 that's true is what i'm saying that's true and not even the pats this is certainly not this is uh that was a that was a tough one for me the eric storyline is still so entwined with harper and he but eric has been given more uh not just nuance to his struggles which are clear but like more screen time for them than we've seen and so it's hard to separate the two eric's pretty much stuck in that hotel which as a character well it that's one of the things that this is this is a sign of a a worthwhile show right because we could ask is this budgetary Did they have to shoot it all quickly because they were going to Accra Or are they making a comment on the kind of purgatory that he is stuck in Well that the thing that so interesting is that Eric when we see him at the beginning of the season, when he's like golfing and Trump is off on the green and he seems to have a beautiful girlfriend, he's living, it seems in the Hamptons or something like, uh, or wherever he is. And now he has chosen to live essentially in a bathrobe and eat, blts first get to the bad parts and look at pornography on his phone and or have sex workers visit him and pornography of his co-workers right isn't he's watching he's scrolling sweet pete yes yeah so yeah like is he just trapped or is it a commentary of like like perhaps at a certain point people prefer that version of excess and yes pleasure than the version that's like you get to golf every day. Well, it talked to people. It actually ties into what we were saying before of like how much money is enough. It's a question of what you think you deserve and what you're doing it for. And that golf sequence was an illustration of, in theory, whatever drove Eric from his more humble beginnings in New York City to London was to become a person who can golf like that, have proximity to powerful people like that, have a girlfriend like that, whatever. and he didn't like it. What he liked was... Feeling like the world was about to get swallowed up inside of a black hole every day he goes to work. Yes, and beating it back for one more day. Let's talk a little bit about A Night of the Second Kings before we get out of here. Okay. And not even a little bit. I'm in no rush. What a fucking awesome piece of TV that was. This episode was great. I never end these episodes like that was insignificant. You know what I mean? Like these 33 minute short stories that they tell or chapters of a story that they're telling are so beautiful so detailed so nuanced so well performed well shot and this is this i mean each of the last three episodes has been my favorite episode of the season so far um what did you love about this episode uh this was my favorite episode of the season so far without question it's called the seven um i'm going to start with this we used to get a lot of flack maybe some of it deserved back when we were we were really the we were the face of game of thrones you know commentary for a while people close their eyes think of game of thrones they think of us yeah it's a beautiful thing you're well two little dragons flying over philadelphia you're welcome or flying to la to film an after show yeah um and we got a lot of flack for not reading the books and thus are any time we would comment on like well you know clearly this is coming from george r martin or this is benioff and weiss's brilliant scaffolding of his story or whatever we didn't full i'll say fully know what we were talking about sure um i think that also likely blinded me to the strengths of george r martin as a writer and as a world builder because watching it purely as a tv show you're really just engaged with that narrative experience yeah this is a long and maybe unnecessary pro unnecessary prologue to say the simplicity of this show and the fixed perspective allows me to say to see this guy's a really good storyteller yes um the a to b to c of dunks long night again, no pun intended, from being in prison to suddenly about to fight next to the king-to-be. The hand of the king, yeah. Is he the hand? I don't know who's going to be. You and Mal can explain to me the details of it. But being basically at the All-Star game, the twists and turns are so grand and so natural and so not overthought or overworked that it's such a pleasure to experience them this way. Yes. Does that make sense? That this is like, there is just such a beautiful flow to a story that is not inventing any kind of wheel. It's just rolling. There was a version of this, and again, talking about what a show could have been when it's based on hugely successful novellas that millions of people have read, but there is a version of this where it's just like a knight from nowhere that wins a tournament. and gets renowned what we're actually seeing is this guy live the virtues of being a knight learn and teach the virtues of being a knight to others and basically bring out the best and worst in other characters over the course of these episodes where i thought i was going to get into it it was going to be basically like a george r martin version of a sports movie where rocky wins at the end and now it's like no this is like this guy being entered into a whole political and military and an interesting world of characters and you know like i just think that this version of the targaryens are so fucking entertaining and interesting so much more interesting and the three brothers like having such or not brothers the two brothers and and Arian is there as Makar's son. But having such interesting relationships to the pomp and circumstance of the realm is so fascinating. Baelor being like, it's all about history and respecting traditions and understanding all these little new aspects of it. And then Arian's just like, it's about fucking dominating and oppressing people. It's so much more interesting. If you say, or if people say about your work, that you have created an incredibly rich history, fictional history, that suggests the possibility of telling a Howard Zinn version of that history. Yeah, sure. Or a Brothers Grimm version of that history. And Star Wars has struggled with that, although the success of Andor is literally that. If this really is a series of events that have shaped stories, then we can come into those stories at a different place. We can explore the parts of them that usually get overlooked by the quote-unquote history books, aka the blockbuster films. And the fact that this show has been able to do that, just sort of dip in and tell something so small feeling, but epic within a larger world. It's also kind of fun to think about, to relate it to our world and be like, maybe I've never wanted to be in Westeros ever in 15 years of covering the show. But you gotta hand it to a pre or maybe they'll never get smartphones world where you could just be at Ashford, get drinking beer and all of a sudden the most interesting thing that's ever happened breaks out in front of you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. The Hand of the King joins a hedge knights team to fight his own brother. That is so crazy that that's happening and everybody in that crowd is going to tell everyone about what they saw. But the show communicates that sense of happenstance and grandeur in a way that feels pleasurable. And also just like, not to be corny, but like one of the talking points of Game of Thrones that was deeply successful, and it's reductive to say this was the show because the show was so big and so sprawling and so expensive and went on for so long. It contained multitudes. It had versions of every kind of story in it, which is why it's one of the most beloved shows of all time. but like this is a nicer show this is a show that has some room for reason or kindness or goodness within it and sometimes play the hits man like when when little raymond's like make me a knight so i can fight beside you yeah like that stuff works for a reason um again another really good finn bennett episode i thought in cracking walnuts and just being like i have I have the bylaws so we can just get right into that not the most efficient way of cracking nuts but also then this is the cleverness and the visual cleverness of the show is he's smashing the nuts and the nuts are going everywhere and then what's his that other dude just goes to help clean him up he's just like go get me that yeah go get that go pick that up great stuff um okay there was um I like the idea of uh what's the line cowering behind 6,000 years of and all foolery that he's just like no this is actually what we're gonna do again this is a you understand or again i haven't read it but i i think i understand the role these stories played and they are kind of fables but you know before you print the legend people had to live the story so the fact that everyone's rolling their eyes at this yes and can't quite believe it but then coming out of it it's gonna be like but then arian challenged him to so smart about undercutting what we expect from this world because when the dude of the the the bracken stands up and i was like oh i guess i guess i'm supposed to know who that is right and he just farts he just rips one yeah like that's it's funny in the moment but it's also i think having a bit of good-natured fun yeah there is no halftime speech that but no but that there's no homework even to watch the show because my first thought was i am gonna have to text mal and joe to ask who this guy is uh when in fact it's just that you know the diet of the time is just not agreeing with him which makes sense speaking of the diet of the time you know we've all had like in college and things we had stressful all-nighters we had work to do like do you do they have coffee in westeros oh my god because those guys stayed up all night stressed and then they're supposed to battle i know i know i don't know i don't know i mean i don't that's a great question was there any caffeine or or uh stimulant yeah like do they have like any like little leaf that they sniff you know what i mean just throwing that out there if they could just call rishi from the time slot previous and just say could you drop by uh i don't know only because it's like that's a lot to ask of some people i just think a lot of those guys are steaming drunk all day long and they're young you know sure it's different like they're younger anyway but like they you just don't want to overlook just the little details that you doesn't so the daniel character he's a baratheon um and he's like i just i'm doing it for the gram he's this hasn't happened in like a thousand years i'm definitely participating all-time character yeah and talk about like per like just his efficiency rating is off the charts but i think that even without being someone who reads and looks at scripts i think audiences at this point understand in their bones when scenes exist because of notes after the fact to backfill the impact of something that happens in a later episode. What I mean by that is when he shows up in this episode, it's the culmination of every appearance he's made thus far. But it feels natural. We're excited to see him. This tracks with a character we've gotten to know. But none of those previous scenes felt extraneous like that they were laying breadcrumb trails for this they were enjoyable on their own merits and so much of the tv that we watch these days is is things that feel a little misshapen and disjointed because they've been noted um in the spirit of helping things along and greasing the wheels of story but like i think that anyone listening to this podcast can notice it's interesting i feel like this i would say that this is obviously you speak from personal experience as a professional writer but this has been a consistent kind of fascination of yours over the course of pluribus and landman and maybe now this of like hey did this person have too much freedom yes or was this person not allowed to express themselves in like the proper way because they were getting noted to death on something it's kind of a fascinating well we can't really know you know what i mean it also speaks to the fact that like in the contemporary television moment, you can be incredibly successful as a writer, as a producer, and as a showrunner with very different skill sets. And I don't say this to diminish anyone or lift anyone up too far outside of their station. But like what Ira Parker is doing within the guardrails of this book that I haven't read, but I'm praising and the story and the actors that he was given and HBO's production expertise and how we can do this at scale is what he's doing within all of that is amazing. It harkens back to Weiss and Benioff in the early seasons. And it might be the best version of it on TV right now. Whereas I don't think, I think we'd be interested to see the Vince Gilligan or Matt Weiner version of a George R.R. Martin adaptation. But let those guys cook. Sure. Now, five years from now, when Ira Parker has his overall at Apple and is making his own show, and we're like, God damn, this might be the best thing on TV. Fantastic. Or he's making the Romanoffs. or he's making the Romanovs or he's continuing to prove that he is uniquely skilled, not uniquely, remarkably skilled at adapting something for a larger audience. Like that's, that's no small thing. Yeah. I think that there's a narrative that the reason why Martin adaptations don't work is when the showrunners are like, I'm deviating from Martin. whether it's like i am adding uh i'm embellishing or i'm speeding up or doing whatever and at least for now i know that ira parker has added some things and changed something not changed markedly but like embellished and and and flourishes in this but so far i think he is like kind of doing a very able adaptation because he is like i know i know why people like yes it's not because i'm me and it's not because this needed some sort of historical revision it's like because they really want to see the story that they've read adapting things successfully is incredibly hard and i think it requires a lot of different um it requires you to be successful in a lot of different areas one of the areas is and i and i have listened to you guys talk about it to get more insight into it is how you you're changing mediums so you have to change them you have to change the frame you have to change the scope. You have to tweak things and bring things more into line. And hopefully you have some flexibility of, well, that's really popping off on the screen. So that guy's going to get a little more time. You have to do that kind of changing. But you also, at the core, you have to be able to communicate why you, the adapter, loves this. There has to be some beating heart of enthusiasm for something that you love. Now, you can do a non-traditional adaptation, I think, hopefully and still communicate that love you're and you're you know you're taking that love and you're building a different skeleton around it but communicating that is part of the job disdain does travel sure or frustration or you know not to mind read in the case of the last season of game of thrones just like let's get this over with what are we gonna what are we supposed to do we have to do the best version of it that we can't they just felt like they were now stewards of a giant vfx project you know at the end i mean maybe the the place where they felt like this story was going to end really didn't have as much to do with what they were originally interested in. Well, it becomes the kind of projects that we've talked about with the rise of like Marvel and comic book storytelling, which is, are you making the best story you ever could make? Or are you making the best version of what this has to be due to the expectation, audience, IP, financial network requirements being placed upon me? And I think that, you know, we go back and I don't remember everything we said about that final season of game of thrones but i think there was a lot of like full of praise well were we sometimes i think you and i were probably a little bit of a lighter touch on it than yeah because it didn't yes it didn't betray us there were episodes like like what aria does and how the i'm not gonna spoil game of thrones but like how the night king storyline ends i think we were like that was it yeah but that episode was beautifully executed and exciting yeah it's cool um it was cool but that was different than what it was at the beginning and it's just what do you think you're on you're in you're out in these internet streets are people liking this show yes yes i don't know i don't think it's like a runaway blockbuster we need to get a lionel baratheon spinoff going kind of show but i think it's being very well received i think there are some people who are like this is fucking boring uh i think they'll probably change their mind as they hit the second half of this season but yeah it's a smaller story i think they they ably communicated that and i think that the half hour episode runtimes are are excellent in terms of a selling point for something that's new and different treason by puppetry that's right we can wrap it up there thanks to kaya thanks to kai next to andy we'll be back on thursday with some pit and some other chit chat about popular culture it's been great talking to you thanks to clint kubiak good luck in vegas that's right brother and to the a's good luck in vegas to them Love that.