‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Finale, ‘Top Chef’ S23E6, and ‘Bandi’

Blowing out budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in... Dashboard Confessions! I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't. Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend 200 pounds on your first campaign and get a 200 pound credit. Go to linkedin.com slash lead. Terms and conditions apply. The End of the World I need support to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now! Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Rye and I am an editor at theringer.com. And joining me in the studio, now his day shift has ended. It's Andy Greenwald! How are you? Good brother, it's been a minute. You're back. I am back, yeah. I was in San Francisco, I was in Denver, I've seen the west. Yeah, what do you think? We're all doing great. Whoa, this is breaking news. Socially, economically, everything is solid. Yeah, good air travel, I think was good. You know, honestly, it wasn't that bad. They're keeping it together everywhere. Denver Airport did not see any Illuminati there, it's supposedly the headquarters. Were you doing your research for Paradise Season 3? I was. Did you see the horse? The horse? The demon horse that's out of the airport? No, that's the thing is like none of this, all I noted about the Denver Airport is, I think it could be closer to Denver, because in between Denver and the airport, it's just like a lot of Costco's, I didn't see much that was like, well, we can't have a plane land here. Right. But yeah, other than that, Denver, lovely place. This is your note. Go, you go to the CEO of Costco and tell him he has to move his five outlet stores. I don't think the Costco has been there for like 120 years. You know what I mean? Like it seemed like a pretty new build. You don't think it's a landmark? No. It's wonderful to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. I know, I've changed. How have you changed? You're going to find out over the course of this hour. I have some news and stuff for you, like from the television and entertainment world, but I wanted to just kind of fill you out. Did you say what we're going to do? We're going to do. We're going to do the pit finale, obviously. Welcome to where that happens. And also we're going to talk about Top Chef. We're also going to talk about an out of nowhere appearance of a new series from Eric Rochant, who is responsible for one of our favorite TV shows of all time. Yes. The Bureau. The Bureau. The French spy drama. He has a new show on Netflix. I had no fair, no fair warning, no, no heads up. Just saw it that it was trending on Netflix, that it was in the top 10, that I checked our email inbox. There were a couple of like, dude, is there a new show from Eric Rochant? I did a little bit of digging into this. It's an interesting story, but we can get to that. It's called Bandy. It's called Bandy. It's on Netflix. And we should also say at the top, we are going to cover two buzzed about new series on Monday, which are Margot's Got Money Problems. And Boof. It's the French adaptation of beef. Can I tell you? Yeah. Beef's getting grilled. That sounds delicious. The critics do not like beef. Really? Yeah. It was aged too long? I will. I mean, there's some diversity of opinion, and that's what this country is all about. You learned that in your travels of the West. But it's largely being disliked, being pant. Wow. How do you feel about that? Do you still take critical consensus as a directional for you? No. I do that with NFL draft coverage, but I do not do that with. I was going to ask you about this. We could save that for after dark if you want. I have a lot of draft thoughts. My big television headline, obviously, CinemaCon this week, so there's a lot of movie news. I have mixed feelings about CinemaCon. I'm very happy that Sean and Amanda are there. I'm honestly a little bit jealous. I don't know if I'd want to be in Vegas for four days, but it is cool that they get to see stuff. On the other hand, I don't know if I want to digest movies that like, here's a sneak seven minutes of the odyssey. See you in three months. Well, there's also, is there any world in which you are shown the first 10 minutes of apparently the saving private Ryan-esque opening of Dune 3? And you're like, it's kind of mid. Like it's designed to make people insane. The flip of that feeling, now I'll see it. Okay, you guys got me. So I think out of my feeling of inadequacy, of not being there, I'm also like, it's not for me. I wouldn't do it anyway, even if they invited me. I invented that move. But there's obviously a bunch of stuff coming out of it. Dune 3, the odyssey screen, some stuff. Sounds like it went very well. I saw that the Thomas Crown affair, some footage from that was played, that Michael B. Jordan remake of that. Starring your maxima, Adrienne Ariona. Which is not maxima. I think it's Wonder Woman. It sounds like it's gonna be Wonder Woman. Van is gonna comment and be like, get off my corner again, but I'm pretty sure. I was thinking I have to go to New York soon. You are just a man on the move. And I was thinking of seeing Jean Grey, aka CDC in Romeo and Juliet. I thought she was in London. I think that's in London. I thought it was in Broadway. Well, we'll find out when I show up at that really reasonably priced theater. And I'm like, one ticket for Romeo and Juliet, please. Maybe you could watch it. You know they have that thing in some cities where they have like the camera that's on it in another city. And you can like see, maybe they could do that for the West End. But for like really expensive Broadway tickets for West End. If you just peer into it, you could watch Paddington the Musical. Yes. And then I'm going to London to watch Berndthal on Dog Day. Might improve it. I have one or two TV oriented news bits for you, but did you want to say anything about the CinemaCon news? Do you have any advance, again, based on nothing that we've seen, but apparently they did screen a trailer or some footage of Tom Cruise's return to capital A acting? My only advanced knowledge about it is what Sean tweeted. Right. Yeah. Is this like the second screen experience where you want people to go to Twitter to see what he's doing? Sean's tweet kind of said it all. It was like, it seems like Tom Cruise is playing Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner, in a movie directed by Michael Bay. And I was like, well, that's going to take me a couple of weeks to process. It kind of perched. Yeah, exactly. Okay, there was that. And then so I think there's like that. And then what was the other one? Oh, for me personally, the most exciting news is that Gareth Evans, who did the raid movies, is directing a remake of a cult is my passport, which is a Japanese Yakuza crime film. And have you seen that film? No, Sean said that it looked like John Woo meets like set in Detroit. I feel like you're going to be first in line. I'm excited for that. I also have some breaking news. Sadie Sink is currently starring at the Harold Pinter Theatre on the West End in London. Okay. So I'd like to, I just wondered, would you like to revise your earlier comment in which you said, and I'm just paraphrasing, I have to be in New York soon to see Sadie Sink. Do you have to be in New York soon? Period. And while I'm there, I just didn't say while I'm there, I thought I might check in. My initial idea, we had talked about going to see Dog Day. Yeah. I want to see Giant too. You know what? I'm not a doll guy. Everybody's like, and then Giant opens. And I'm just not a role doll guy. I don't think, I don't want to brush your bubble here. I know it's not role doll, like a movie about a raging anti-Semite. So I don't think you should be like, big doll guy. I can't wait to see how his legacy has been protected on stage. But I just mean like, getting under the hood there is not in the top 100 things I want to pay $100. Yeah, but do you not see Hamlet? Do you not see Hamlet because you're not a big Danish monarchy guy? Come on, bro, that's not the same thing. It's not the same thing. But I'm not like, yo, this is as good as Hamlet. But I think that there's a part of you that's worried that there's going to be a chocolate factory on stage or a couple oompa loompas telling you half the story. That was, that crossed my mind. I know. There's no Giant beach. Whose plane is it? Lithgow? It's Lithgow. My colleague. Your boy. Yeah, that guy has a lot of energy. I would just say that if I had spent nine months filming a massive television show, I'd take a rest. Yeah. And I'm a lot younger than him. And our friend, Aya Cash, is in it. That's really good. That's cool. I don't know why we're doing theater advertising before we talk about that. I was just like, yeah. I just really feel like there's a little more meat on the bone of these. You announcing to your wife and colleagues that you must travel to New York to see Sadie Sink make her Shakespeare debut. Look, man, I'm just trying to figure out where you're at. So I'm throwing a lot of stuff up at the wall. You're looking where you're finding me. Hey, they announced what's happening on the White Lotus this next season. And I just thought I'd mention to you, season four will take place during the Cannes Film Festival. Love it. I think they're going to do some shooting there. That was some of the words, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. They're shooting currently in production. I believe it did start production. And it is going to be the first season of White Lotus that takes place at two White Lotus properties. Oh. So White Lotus High. One in Saint-Tropez and one at the Quassette in Cannes. Have you ever been to the South of France? Yes, yes, I have. Thank you for asking. What was your take? And what year was it when you were there? My take? Yeah. God. A model for Americans. Well, I don't have that. There's a ceiling on how much White Lotus like I can talk about. Now that urbanism has fallen, the real model for how our society should live is Provence. OK? That's my take. I had this. It's very, very beautiful. And beaches are cold. Were you in Cannes? Where were you? I was not in Cannes. I was there. Were you doing work for the British government? Why are you doing this? I can't say. Where were you? No, you fly to Nice and then you do a little traveling along the coast. I have fly to Nice. I took a train. Wow. Well, OK, Joe Biden. How was that for you? Do you think it would be funny if we just, all JD Vance did for the rest of his term, was go to different places in the world and fuck things up by trying to do the opposite? I think that would be funny. He's doing a lot of work there. No, I don't mean wars and stuff. I mean the Cannes film festival. Oh. He came up on stage and did a talk. And he's like, here's the reason why. And as vice president of the Cannes jury, he gives the palm door to Fokker-in-law. Yeah, exactly. I love that. I also, this is not really in our bailiwick, but I do love the fact that Mrs. Kirk had to bail out of a TP I'm more polite than you out of a turning point event. And her backup plan was the vice president of the United States. Yes. So good. So good. We are doing great. I think it's a beautiful place. I think it's a great, great location for the show and also a kind of a cool idea to tie it more firmly to something other than people's bettering themselves vacation. Do you think there will be any studio-esque cameos? I did wonder about that. We are definitely in a golden age of shows suddenly all seeming to have the budget to just do a week or two in Europe. Yeah. Well, isn't that because it's cheaper to shoot there than it is to shoot in the city of angels here? It is. But here's a genuine production question. I don't think that the studio decamped to Venice for six weeks because it was cheaper. I think they did it because they win Emmys and it's Apple and they have a blank check. But I am hearing more and more of shows that just do a little splinter unit and not a splinter unit into San Bernardino or something. Actually, they go to London to shoot the London scenes. And I don't understand how that is in any way saving money. I think it's just spending money and flashing cash, which is all right. There's been a lot of really interesting stuff on the trades this week about because I think a lot of the producers who were at CinemaCon have been asked about are you going to do anything to save Los Angeles? And I don't know why I've been thinking about this much because maybe it has something to do with this whole arc light protest that turned into a potential lawsuit that is now kind of everybody's throwing their hands up and it's just been like, looks like that's just going to that landmark to Cinema will just stand. If that was Nithya's whole platform, she would win. But there's also been a lot of talk about because I think some of the networks are in pilot season weirdly. Like, are you going to shoot this here? Are you going to shoot this in LA? Will you use the studios? And a lot of non-committal, like, well, we need a federal tax break and we need, you know, rebates on above the line talent. And I just don't know what happened to the game I loved. You know, like, I don't know how they fucked this up so much that they're like, well, we can't make it unless you guys pay for Johnny Gallickey to like be in the show, you know? That's the name, right? Yeah, you're good. Was that, is this like, this is just kind of a recycled NBA take that's too international for you now? No, it's, but it's just like, I don't know why scrubs is rebooting the reboot of Scrubs shoots in Vancouver. Like. It does also wild pronunciation there. You're still in Vancouver? Usually. Yeah, I like that. Vancouver. I think you're thinking of Van. Yeah. I think he's living right for you in your head. He is. Does it really? Yeah. That's pretty wild to me because I would feel like something like a rebate, because the only thing anyone spending money on obviously is what they believe to be safe bets. Procedurels. Procedurels and reboots of sitcoms and things. And I'm not saying that that Zach Braff was like turning down other offers to do this show, but I am saying that generally when people are asked to come back to fill a role that only they can play, they have enough cloud to say I would like a commute that doesn't involve a border cross. Yeah. There's also just not that big of a shortage of studio space in Hollywood right now. And yes. And we are hearing like from, you know, anecdotally from people that like people who are working on the lots, you can hear the wind rattling around in the empty offices. Johnny Carson's ghost. That's Johnny Galecki. He's like, this will be perfect. So anyway, that's cool. I hope White Lotus doesn't do the thing that everyone is doing again. Like it runs through this town like a virus every few years, which is like, I will entertain with a withering satire of the industry I am in. I think like we're good on that for the most part. That's true, man. So I hope that the White Lotus doesn't go too far in that direction, but great cast, great setting. It'll be fine. And Mike White, I wonder how being unsurvivorable affect, you know, his his production this year. You'd have to weigh in on that. Well, he was he's no longer on it, you know, on this season. I didn't know. And but he is jacked. Did I tell you that? You sent me a image. Yeah, I was like, how did he do this? To be clear, it's not weird. Chris has sent me pictures of Mike White each side for years. It's more of like an ongoing tracking. Yeah, it's not biohacking. Like we cannot become Mike White, but we can recreate his torso and aggregate. Oh, Christ. I have a question for you. OK. You jump in at any point. If you feel like you like to take us in different directions. I'm great. Look me in the eye. Take a sip of coffee and then and I'm going to ask the group here as well. OK. Yeah. Are you going to read Luna Dunham's memoir? No. Fame sick. I'm not. Have you been intrigued by it? Intrigued mean voraciously consume all content outside of. Why not read the memoir? Because you feel like you can get it's like reading literary criticism where you get both the book and the theories about it. That is a deep kicking and screaming reference. And I respect that. Oh, is it? Yeah. Right. Sorry. I just pictured a argument. Well, no, it's more like I am not. That interested, but I am also human. Yeah. That kind of thing. Where are you with it? I wasn't. And then I was like, I kind of would like to read about the making of girls. Yeah. It's a very specific moment in TV history. Also, just want to hear about Jemima Kirk and Zosia Mamet living together. And that apparently not going well. I obviously have read a lot of the the aggregated stuff about driver and about the making of the show. I don't know how much post girls Lena Dunham I need. Like well, in terms of like her memoir, how much of the memoir is dedicated to directing the pilot of industry during the pandemic? That's the problem. It's like I got to get control F industry, but then it'll probably be a lot of stuff about industries. Other industries, coal, shipping. I'm like, I've got to read this now. Damn it. Kaia. Yeah. Where are you, Kaia? Oh, I'm on the wait list at my library. I'm ready to go. So will you give us a report? Sure. Happy to. I like doing the audio book while she drives around. Did Lena read her own audio book? I think so. It would be amazing. It'd be funny if Jemima Kirk read it. She was like, wait, that's me, mate. That was your Jemima Kirk invitation. From Vancouver. It's Jemima Kirk. Jemima Kirk. I thought the, I thought her interview with David Marquesi in the Times this weekend was fascinating. And I, it does sound like for as much as it sounds like she's in a, in a healthier place. And certainly the perspective that she's bringing to this is on par with the kind of savage self-surgery that she's done for much of her career. There was something in the way that she was talking about what she felt she had to do and what fame did to her and what being an artist has done to her and what it continues to do that did make me feel on a human level. Cause this is someone that I've met and spoken to and liked a lot that maybe sometimes you should do something else or just direct or something. Like there, there is this constant. We never do, do we? No, look at us. We're on camera. But, but, but I found. And I'm directing this. You're doing great. I did find the like, the, it just felt, some of it felt really rough. And, and that is interesting to her to continue to mine, but I felt empathy more than lurid interest, I guess, if I'm going to be serious about it when I read it. What are you reading instead? What am I reading instead? Yeah. I've got a great book, man. I'm, I'm, it's over there. I'm reading this book called Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemon. Okay. It's awesome. Is it new? Uh, no, it's her first book from the 80s, but she has a new book out also from New York review books called Oyster Diaries. And she's, it's one of those things where like Jeff Dyer writes the intro and is like, eventually the long arm of time returns masterpieces to print. I'm like, yeah, let's go. So M Y R B, are you going exclusive M Y R B right now? After Avengers? I'm negotiating with them. I would like to get an exclusive look. I have never more desperately begged for a brand endorsement. Like I would wear that on my uniform. And they are Rwanda for the six. They are. Yes. And they are uninterested in that, this kind of sponsorship right now. I don't know why, but that's a great book. So why would they not be interested in you? You talk about M Y R B more than you talk about like, because I think, you know, what their beef, you know what I think their point is? And I don't know this because I've never spoken to the great men and women of N Y R B. Yeah. The York review of books. If we haven't said it, I don't think they need to pay me because look at me. Oh yeah. That's the problem. I'm giving it away. This is the problem with influencing is you have to withhold your influence until you're paid for. And you know me, I'm very generous with my influence. Well, one thing that I feel like we can take like the smallest amount of credit for influencing is the fact that the bureau has got like a degree of domestic. I look, I'm not saying that we were ever like the dudes who brought the bureau across the pond and we're like, sirs, what we discovered. That was our predecessors at the AMC network. That's right. Are we ready to announce or not yet? But the bureau obviously Eric or Sean spy drama from a few years ago. It's celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2025, I believe it did. Yeah. Yes. And it's still just an absolute diamond of a television show that I think about all the time is currently being remade as in an English language as the agency on Paramount Plus, which is a sign of a great source material where I'm enjoying watching the show again in English. Absolutely. I can't wait for the second season. I think it will improve on the first. And he's got a new show on Netflix. Now, I had initially started this as this is the problem with Netflix. They don't tell us about these things like where where it was the trailer. Where was the drumbeat of from the critically acclaimed creator of Libyro did a little bit of reading into this, although it was hard to come by. And it does seem like Rashad has had. He's got a production company called Maui and over the last couple of years has shepherded or kind of co-created or co-executive produced or whatever. Several shows, some of which like there's one that's on Disney Plus, I believe. And that like it's this is not like the first thing he has done, you know, since the Bureau went off the air or anything. Just to interject, like I do think the reason we're talking about him is because for the same reason we talked about Pluribus, in the sense that like when people who've created truly great art within this medium that we cover do the next thing. It's worth our attention. And then so I like I said, I got an email in our inbox about Bandy. I saw that it was the number seven and now number eight show on Netflix. I was sort of surprised that I hadn't heard about what it was doing a little bit of research into it. It's created by Rashad and his daughter. Yeah, Capucine. Capucine. And it is in his own words, self-consciously, a effort on his part to make something in the top boy, peaky blinders, Netflix genre, you know, of sprawling crime drama, intergenerational one family moving through like a cityscape. So obviously, top boy set in London, peaky blinders set in Birmingham. This is set in Martinique and is about the La Fleur family. A rather large family in Martinique. Eleven kids. Yes, ranging from like six or seven to early 20s who are grappling with a family tragedy and deciding where to go with the family in terms of the legitimacy of like their family business. There's like a central kid played. There's a central kid named Killian, I believe. Kiki. Kiki, who's his like street name is Malord. And he is getting into the drug business and finding out about like the international drug trade out of Martinique. I watched the first episode last night. You checked it out this morning. What did you think? Yeah, I first of all, making a TV show with your daughter. Come on, goals. That's so sweet. So I'm already all the way in. What what if you were like, I don't like this kind of nepotism and I won't even watch the show. What if I was like that? Do you want me to do the rest of the show in character? No, but like if it was his son, would you be like, God, I'm not so not so into this. I did just feel my whole self go cold, just completely lost interest. I found, well, big picture. I think incredibly exciting any time Netflix's budget and cameras go to a place that we don't spend a lot of time. Absolutely. And so the show looks beautiful. It's in Martinique, a place that I would like to spend more time in. And it is taking us in back streets and homes and bars and just bringing a place to life in the way that international crime fiction can do and international crime television can do that I found really, really exciting. I think they've managed to find some really exciting charismatic actors, at least even through just one episode and many non-professional actors. Yeah. And I am intrigued. I would say that for people who are hearing all of our raves about it, I would reset expectations just to say that one of the things about Libiro that was really, really remarkable over time is Ruchant's again, not unlike this is the one thing that I would compare it to Vince Gilligan. Very, very interested in minutiae and bureaucracy and process. And so the show is very A to B to C to D about introducing huge swath of characters in a place you've never been. And a lot of the potential is ahead. So it really does a yeoman-like job of setting the groundwork for something that it could be interesting. And but I'll say that I didn't find this episode to be like, I didn't feel energized and exhilarated at the end of it. There's not a lot of wit or surprise or verve. What there is is a lot of solid story building and a lot of promising leads and a canvas that I would like to see him build. In the first episode, if you watch a lot of like criminal underworld TV or even a fair amount, like a lot of very familiar meets, you know, a lot of like one brother who was going one direction and another brother who's going another. There's like the sort of mysterious drug lord who takes my lord under his wing. There is, you know, a lot of just basically like, you know, mechanics that you would be familiar with. If you've watched like Power, if you've watched Top Boy or whatever it is, I think that the thing that jumped out at me wasn't really and this isn't really a critique because I think it's a really interesting gambit. But I do think that working with a lot of nonprofessional actors puts the show in a little bit of a disadvantage if it's also going to be a little bit cliche in its story. Yeah, it's a good point. Now that being said, like if you watch the first episode of the Bureau, you might say like this is a lot like a lot of spy shows I've seen before and obviously a change. So I'm going to keep checking out episodes of Bandy. But yeah, it was a little bit of a let down in so much as I had five minutes of knowing it existed before I checked it out and then was like, oh, OK, maybe this isn't like on the level of the Bureau yet or whatever. And maybe that's not the intention. You know, it also is a show. You know, the other thing that we might be responding to slightly, I think everything we've said about it is probably that's the top line headline and is valid. But I do think that we are still, despite our interest in international shows, we are increasingly unused to seeing pilots that don't have to make the case for themselves within the first 50 minutes. This is a episode of television that was clearly written knowing there were going to be seven more and potentially 20 to 30 to 40 more due to his stature or due to his confidence. I mean, it's not hasn't been renewed. But but then what pilots are required to do these days in this country, in this industry, is set off the entire sky full of fireworks. Blow people's minds. Like the pit had to do. Yes, like Paradise had to do. And yes. And then it leaves everyone who's making the show being like, well, now what's the series because I burned it all in the first 56 minutes. This show does not burn it all in the first 56 minutes. And I respect that. I was going to mention that there is still talk that he is going to return to the world of espionage in a 2025 interview I read with with Rashant. He was talking about a show called Secret World, I believe that he was working on, which was going to be about agents from five different countries. But he spoke very eloquently in this interview about how the paradigm of spy fiction and spy stories has essentially shifted and is changing almost faster than a TV show can capture. And that, you know, like, essentially, you know, if you went back six months and were like, what's the state of AI last in October versus today, it would be so different. And even the global, you know, the global stage and the changes that have happened in the Middle East, like it would be very difficult to document that or to reflect that in a TV show. So I think he's maybe not struggling with it, but is is adjusting to it. I mean, it was interesting. I think now five, six years ago, he had a pilot, the China, the Chinese room that was going to be a return to the spy world. And it didn't get made for whatever reason. I was at Peacock. I think that I'm not sure if he was ever set up at Peacock, but I know it was being passed around. But the script was set around. Yeah. And one of the reasons he was doing it is because, you know, you could see in each season of the Bureau, he was like the aperture kept getting wider as he was both realizing and engaging with changing, shifting tides in the world. And the antagonists kept changing and who is actually behind it and who is ascendant in the world. And he hadn't really dealt with China's role in global espionage. No, I mean, the importance of the show is to interconnect like Russia and Syria and Iran. Yeah. So I hope we hear more from him. I think that to that point, I'm more from him in the spy space, but to that point, this is a subtle detail. But one thing that I appreciated in the bandy pilot is that the fact that all characters have cell phones is a part of the story in a way that doesn't feel intrusive. No. Time and time again, you will see pilots or probably movies too, where the writers are like, I yearn for a world where characters weren't constantly on their phones. Thus, I will create it on screen, except for the time my one character has to call the other character. Yes. And so you feel that artificiality. Sometimes it can be fine and you don't notice it, but I it's important, I think, to notice when it's done relatively casually and normally and easily. It feels very baked into the world. 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. That's it for news. The Madison has been renewed for a third season. I thought I mentioned that to you. Congratulations on your lobbying work behind the scenes on that. Yes. K Street really came through for me. Let's get to the pit finale. I think we should. One of the reasons why I wasn't tripping over myself to get to it is I loved it, but it also felt a bit like it was reiterating some of the stuff that had been saying over the last three weeks rather than breaking any new ground. Probably for the best. I don't know that ending on a cliffhanger or, you know, I don't know how many more fireworks this show could have. Literally. Let's start with Robbie's darkness, which has been obviously a growing concern over the course of the whole season, but especially in the last couple of weeks with his conversation, you know, his conversations with Dana, especially with Duke. And in this episode with Abbott concerning whether or not he is considering taking his own life, what the purpose of this quote unquote spirit quest is going to be his helmetless trip to the Dakotas. I thought this was an interesting place to start with this would just be, did you note or feel like he changed? He moved the goalposts a little bit. And what he was saying is to Duke previous week, he had said, everything in the hospital makes sense to me. It's everything outside of the hospital that I can't deal with. Then to Abbott, he was like, every time somebody dies in this hospital, a piece of myself or a piece of my soul dies to us. So what was your read on that? If you noticed it and where are you at with where Robbie ends? He also says, and I thought this was worth noting too, he says that, you know, every good thing he's ever done for the world is in the hospital, was in this hospital. I thought, well, broadly speaking, I really love the finale and I really love engaging with the show, both for what's on the screen and what I can't help but kind of try to mind read are the logistics and conversations and decision making that is happening behind the scenes in terms of what to push forward and what to pull back on. And this shows, I think, pretty active engagement due to its quick turnaround time with its audience and knowing what they might expect and how they could still surprise us. Broadly speaking, it is a bold gambit to build a season this way, that having educated us on one season about the craziest, most violent day in the history of the emergency department, probably, condition us for something similar and then kind of have that not really be the case. It's a day from hell for any number of reasons, but the long night of the soul is really internal and it's Robbie's dark night of the soul. One of the things, one of the downstream effects of that decision is that as things get quieter and we get closer and more tied to Robbie's head, we start to notice some things good and bad. And one of the potentially bad things is that he does have a version of the same conversation two to four times. Yes. I couldn't help but notice that. You also couldn't help but notice then that the show kind of asserted the primacy of this character, which is not a surprise and actually works for the show. If you watch the show under the impression that it is somehow an ensemble piece, I advise you to take a look at the series season posters for season one and two, both of which are pretty much one man's face. But the downstream effects of that are that some characters get nice little buttons on their season and some closure. Some characters get used for shock value, not in a bad way again, but like what's her name, checking out early for boundaries and joy, checking out early for boundaries or Jesse getting arrested by ICE. But then you also get things and you could probably put a pin in this and come back to it. But Dr. Mohan's goodbye essentially being all about Robbie. My one note about that was lovely seeing if they had not made a giant public announcement that she was leaving the show. I would not have thought of that as her last scene. Exactly. Ultimately, I really, really respect the gambit, what they did with the season. And I thought they landed it in a way that felt slightly surprising, but ultimately right. And the reason I say that is that when we live, like in our real lives, even those of us who are anxious and have like prone to catastrophizing thoughts, the worst, worst things, the most violent, horrible, hideous things often don't happen. And what you have to deal with is the margins and dealing with what your day-to-day is. The nature of the show means that at least one to 10 times per episode, the worst, most hideous, violent things happen in the margins, on the operating table or what have you. So what the show can do then is force Robbie to live with the margins of that, talk about other people's death and what it's doing to him, flirt with the idea of driving a motorcycle off a cliff like a buffalo, but really be stuck with himself and his best intentions, caring for a baby and his worst intentions, yelling at Dr. Alashimi. So to your point about it being the Robbie show towards the end of this season, I thought that that's why the Alashimi confrontation was better than just reiterating her or further explaining her situation, her condition, which is she has long had, she has historically had seizures, but through treatment has been able to get them under control, but experiences too on this her first day as the senior attending at the ED to take over for Robbie in his absence. And the implication for that is that we saw at least one of them on camera with the baby. She had one with baby Jane Doe and that she had one when she was looking at the kid who needed to be in the... Yes, and he caught that one. And he caught that one and kind of like sharks around the ED until he can get to the bottom of it. But it's her confession to him. It's her showing him her medical history and he's just like, Baran is this you? And then they have this nice conversation at first, although Robbie is starting to be like, it seems like you're trying to talk me into how this is all okay. And at the end of the day, she's like, so we're good. My neurologist said, I need to just try this different medication. And he's like, we're not good. You can't be the attending here if you can't do procedures because you can't always have another attending with you, which now explains maybe why she was like, I've decided we need two seniors on staff all the time. During their big fight that they have in that moment, she says, you're making this all about you. You're so narcissistic, essentially. And this is kind of an interesting thing that's happened over the last couple of weeks. And I can't help but also bring in a little bit of the outer pit discourse about Robbie as a good or bad man or boss because I don't really like let that affect how I watch the show at all. But it's the show's right on the line of giving us enough of other people's opinions about Robbie within the world of the show to have some distance from Robbie as a character while we watch it versus we're just watching this guy and it's like if it's just more guys like Robbie were in charge of the world, we'd just all be a better place. And you know, so a couple of people are like, you're a dick or you need help or you're a narcissist. But the show is about this guy holding a baby at the end of it and being like, you know what I mean? Like it's about Robbie. So it's like right up against like who's POV are we seeing this guy through? I think it's a really good point to make. But I think the show is more subtle than critics might suggest. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's certainly not subtle in some ways when it does direct the camera address. But I don't know if you know this. So Robbie says the only things I can control are in this room and that the human stuff is impossible for him. We see it in practice when a pregnant woman arrives in preeclampsia and distress and says, I don't want any medical care. I don't want any medical intervention. Here's what I believe. Here's what I want. And then as soon as she starts seizing, the doctors can doctor, you know, which is not presented as like a great outcome. It's an incredibly tense and dramatic scene. But it is an example. It's so crazy. And we should talk about it. Just on its own merits. But I'm just saying they the show knows what it's doing when it gives them a chance for things to get easy for them when it gets hard. And the show is also being its best self. I think when it ends with Robbie holding the baby and telling the baby that the baby he's going to be fine, that everything's okay, and that the baby's going to have a lot of love in her life. And I will say this is something that I've said as a parent. I'm sure Eric Roshant has said this to Capucine, his screenwriting daughter. But he doesn't know that. I've said it's a VJ Edgecombe and he doesn't know that either. I was just feeling my son. I think in that case, you're right. I think you have some certainty that it's going to be fine for him. So maybe you're choosing wisely. I just mean that the illusion of control at the heart of the show is woven more subtly through the episode than I think the Vue Maxers who are just like, what's bound this might appreciate. The subtle kind of details in Robbie's... So here's one thing that I thought was really interesting. The sort of action set piece of this episode is an emergency C-section where the lives of both the mother and the baby, you mentioned this woman who wants to do a wild birth and has refused all prenatal care and doesn't want any medicine and is like ultrasounds and Abbot asks her why and she's like, women have been giving birth for thousands of years and he's like at a 30% mortality rate. This is crazy. We have all this stuff for you. She starts seizing. She's preeclampsia. At that point, it becomes full-eclampsia. I didn't know that. Neither did I that that was a transition. And all the hitters are in the room. The night shift is rocking out and Robbie is brought in kind of like as the closer Edwin Diaz coming out of the bullpen. And I thought it was interesting. No, Durran. You're not keeping it. You're wearing the fillies hat today, but you're still keeping him guessing. You are appealing to all 50 states. He comes in and he sees what's happening and he's obviously been in and out of this room and he kind of has his own seizure. He has his emotional kind of like, I fucking can't make the last patient I see before God knows what happens to me is going to be the death of a mother and or a newborn. And he has like a moment where they're like, bro, like glove up, let's go. And then what they do is essentially the pit version of the heat bank robbery. I mean, it is the most gripping kind of, you know, stomach turning if you, you know, it's among the more visceral things that they've done on this show. It was a masterpiece of technique. It was like, I was like, I forgot to breathe for two and a half minutes. It was just one of the most. What was your Epgar score? That was blue. They bring the can. It's just an incredible scene, dude. I don't know if you were able to watch it. Like, oh yeah. Yeah. No, I as a girl dad, C sections are cool. Yeah. It feels like a nine or 12 year old. I'd be like, I can't watch this. But like, it's a nine year old falls in a pool. It's a sliding window. You know what I mean? I care about what I care about. Yeah. That's how you feel about rookies into the second year player. You're not interested in G league development guys. That's right. That's right. What did you think of the scene? Oh, I was just going to say like that they did not put to find a point on the fact that the very thing that Robbie is sort of saying is happening to Bron, which is you kind of are unable to do procedures almost happens to him. Yeah. I also just in that moment, I in that moment when I'm just watching the technical brilliance of the people who make this show executing something on such a high level with the choreography of the actors, the performance of the actors, the lighting, the camera movement, the stuff I usually don't even look at or care about like the how real does this look. Truly was unmatched. And I also really liked the way again, like it's just these little things that they decided to do, which is the last two episodes, we will focus very, very intently on one horrific, potentially bad outcome medical scene per episode. Last week, it was lying and resetting the guy's spine. Yeah. And this week it was this birth and look, it's a five tool player as a show. They're showing you what they can do in miniature as well as what they've done in the past with chaos. So, who do we, Ogilvy lost the patient, the teacher who was really nice. Yeah. Louis died. Yep. They had a pretty good game. Well, there's a, someone lost the leg above the knee. But it could have been worse. Could have been worse. Yeah. Could have been worse. Yeah. So, your stake on the day was pretty good, good game, guys. For all the adversity that they faced with the digital stuff, like, you know, everybody's really tired. They're charting while they're, while they're working and stuff. It's true. Well, let's talk about the show's relationship with catastrophe, because one thing that happens over time in any TV show, even not medical ones, is we just feel so close, so much empathy, so connected to characters that we really just want good outcomes for them and we want them to win and often shows start to service the audience as well. I thought one of the smart things that this episode did, and I, and I don't know, I'd be curious to ask if we get the chance to talk to Noah again, what they, how they discuss this in the writer's room, how much thought they give to perception. What I mean by that is, there were a number of moments in this episode where even, I feel like I have a pretty good read on how the show operates, but even I am not immune to being like, Dr. Al-Hashimi shouldn't be driving on a roof right now. Like waiting for the... This goes back to the old like Don and Sally Draper in a car and being like, please, please don't get in an accident. It goes back further to Diana Moldauer on LA Law as Rosalind, whatever, stepping into an elevator shaft. You know what I mean? Like, like, there was an even Mohan being like, well, is that her last scene? She's standing in the ambulance bay and those Ambo drivers get a little wild. They clip the edges sometimes, wondering if that was going to happen. I was wondering whether or not that like, the way that that ended left the door open for Supreme Ganesh to come back to the show. Well, I think the doors are always open for characters on the show. I mean, it's unlike ER, thus far, helicopters aren't falling on them. Yes. You know, like they are just medical professionals in other cities and the show, which is very smart, can be clever about bringing people in and out for short stays, long stays, callbacks, whatever. So I think that that's always, always in play. Even this season, not really, not ultimately that important for the storyline, but something to note that they might consider again is when the night charge nurse shows up, you know, 10 a.m. as a death duel, right? Or that people have other like Abbott, people have other jobs. Yeah, they have hobbies. And they can show up as patients as well. The Alashimi ending note of her and her car, I thought was very well done. And I thought that that's a character who has not been given a lot of like room to like kind of stretch out. Yeah. She's a very buttoned up character. Yes. And I even just like watching her like walk out with her headphones in like, I was like, this is cool to see this moment with this person. I thought they were setting it up for Robbie finds her, her like water bottle and is going to go like run after her and like apologizes to her at the car, or maybe she does have an episode and he saves her or whatever. So it was interesting that that was not how it ended. And that's just basically like this woman at a crossroads in her life. As are many of these characters, I was going to mention to you the, well, I want to talk about Langdon Orlando had a bad outcome. What happened to him? He fell off something that was too small, potentially for what he was trying to do. Robbie was kind of flipping about it. This is an interesting development of the second season is that, you know, from our Hawaiian death prayer to there's a dead guy in the waiting room and Orlando should have picked a higher place to jump from is like a little bit of a change of tone. A little gallows humor. We talked a little bit about Mohan. I like I said, wouldn't have known that she was leaving unless there had been 5500 articles about it. Yep. What do you think about the Greek courseification of Whitaker, Mel, McKay and Santos and like basically keeping them around for three episodes after their shift ends to sit at a computer and banter, but having little to no dramatic arc for any of them? Well, other than Mel's sister, I guess. There is, I mean, I think that's something that I would imagine they are going to try to look at in, they're just finishing the writers room for season three, but that they are looking at and what to do. Like Robbie is the main character of the show and he shares that distinction a little bit, I guess, with the ED itself and maybe Dana has one B. There's not a lot of a story real estate to go around on this show. And to that point, making the decision that he's now said publicly, which is a much shorter time jump. So it does sound like they'll be going from July 4th to winter-ish. Yeah. Yeah. We'll allow them to pick up these characters more rapidly and thus continue a story maybe that they've established this season. The attempts to give each one of these smaller characters some individual arc, I think was really hit or miss if we're looking back on the course of the season. I think that McKay wanting to have a personal life, great color episode to episode, she's giving great performance, but I don't think that really landed. Well, they're not going to go out on the date with her. So it's almost like she would have to have left at like eight o'clock and been like, I have a date tonight. Can't do it. Mel being forced to do a second deposition just doesn't really hit for me. Not if we're not going to see the deposition. Also, what was the case? What are the states? It's the case from the year before where I think her and Ellis did a spinal tap. It's from season one. Oh, it is. Okay. So maybe that's my fault that I can't talk about what I said, but I want to tell you like you're a good doctor. So that might come back since Ellis is now also being upstream to the day shift. Javadi maybe more successful because also that was the most ER in its small moments way. I think the most ER plotline because one of the challenges ER had was like, how will we keep these characters here and her becoming an emergency mental like emergency psychiatry. Yeah. So she's going to be on the show now. Obviously she's going to be on the show, but that locks her in. Yeah. It's like that dude, the pirates just called up and they was like, he played two games, Connor Griffin. And there are like two games. Like here's a nine year contract. The Tigers just did that too. It's a great time to be 19 in the MLB. That's so sick. You get eight years, 150. Did you know that like when did we start this pod? 2012? Like mid-2013, I went to Bill and I was just like, lock me up. Please. 10 year deal. He was like, no, bet on yourself. Yeah. Look where it got me. Still here waiting for that. Waiting for that payday. If the rule you followed brought you back to me. Anyway. Yeah. Like the difference I think with someone like Whitaker is that Whitaker's role really is mini Robbie. So what Robbie does now kind of reflects on him, how he is being a doctor, how he is showing up what he's. So it's interesting watching the show figure this out. And I genuinely don't, again, with no actual knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes, I really am exhausted by the assumptions by a rabid fandom that there's some conspiracy plot to get rid of Supriya Ganesh and Dr. Mohan. Like sometimes characters don't take flight and it's not about the actor. And I'm sure that people involved with the show would never blame her. They couldn't find a place for this character, a place for her to go. Yes. I also, I mean, like I enjoy the character. I enjoy the performance quite a bit. One of my least favorite things about TV shows is when they're just like, and we've also added six more people. And yet we're going to try and make room for the original six, the new six, and all the people in the background. I want to talk a little bit about Langdon, who who I was a bit surprised, got like the arc that he did this season, I suppose. And this is in relationship to the Greek core classification of those other characters that I mentioned, Santos especially, who I think was much more central to the first season. And in this season is more like, kind of like over it and also making a lot of jokes, but didn't really have like a huge moment other than her confrontation with Langdon, which I thought was quite good. But you, this karaoke erasure will not stand because they, they, they, they, they check it out and didn't leave the hospital. I wanted to see them rocking out and singing. You clearly turned off the show too fast. Did they go to karaoke after the fireworks? Yes. Oh, I did. I did. I was, I was testing you there. Yeah. Oh yeah. How's karaoke? What'd she sing? They sing, uh, you ought to know. Oh, that's good. She and Mel rocking out on stage together. And that's how the season, that's just a might be, you know, that's accountability. Listen, if the Marvel movies taught you anything, it's stay tuned through the credits. You get a little stinger. Yeah. It said executive producer. And then, and then you heard the music. Oh, come on. Yeah. Dude. What do you guys want from me? I'm, I'm grinding a lot of tape here. You know, you would have seen conformity gate too. If you had just kept it rolling. What's conformity gate? Isn't that the, that's the stranger things episode that came on after the finale. Yes. Well, I saw it. Some of my large language models are working on that right now. Some of my large language models. That's what LLM stands for, right? Sure. Type it into Google. I dare you. It's probably something quite, quite obscene. Yeah. They show karaoke. Anyway, Langdon did not get invited. He also took off, setting boundaries for himself. Well, actually he doesn't. He comes back down, has this fight with Robbie. I will say for a brief split second, I thought that dude was going to have some, some, some dirty work in his pockets when they were like, turn your pockets out. It's like, yeah, I have a perk. What's going on? Yeah. He did not, he did not. Viewer, he did not. He was cleaning sober and he does his drug test. Maybe it's a little cocky. Pun intended. Yeah. I mean, he does his drug test. He goes up, he sees that Mercilady lost her leg, but saved her life. Yep. Goes back downstairs and pops off at Robbie a little bit. He does. He's had enough. I don't know if that's in the steps. You know what I mean? I don't know if that's, that's part of the, the program, but he is just like, you don't like, you know, you, I'm doing the work. I, I, I came back, I showed, I belong here, but I could have paralyzed that guy. Like, I don't know what kind of teaching method this is now. This is the same teaching idea. And he's like, everybody knows you're, you're on the edge and you need to get help. You need help. I thought that was decent because one thing that you will notice if you have watched the last three episodes is that Robbie has not made much of a secret of his despair. You know, like he has talked to Duke about it. Dana obviously can see it, can obviously see it. If everybody's talking, you know, about this. What did you think of the Langdon arc? And what did you think of that moment with him? I've decided to double down on my number one criticism of the show, which is that someone's got to fuck his hair up. I, I, I thought I've done some time, I've done, I've done some work. I've done some reflection on how I just called that out a few weeks ago and the reaction it got frankly in this room as the least important thing I could possibly care about. And I've decided it does matter. And I hope that the powers that they listened to this note, because this man just worked 15 hours through, through savage back pain, which he's treating with wearing a Pittsburgh penguins hat. Right. Which would have had an effect on the look. I just want to see that he's been through the day that we've seen him be through, that we've seen him go through. Yeah. Everyone else that like little bit, they look a little bit worse for, yeah. I think it looks amazing. Okay. I genuinely, I would say I'm done. I turned off the episode after that. I know I think that the worst tendencies of the pit are the fact that within the structure that they've created and the way that they have to process time and story, that when the tide goes out and suddenly characters have a brief moment to, to, to talk, there's almost too much pressure on that moment to deliver something that feels as natural and humanistic as much of the rest of the show when it's at its normal cadence. That happened last week when Whitaker popped off at Langdon all of a sudden. And was it consistent with how he probably was feeling based on what we've seen? Sure. But we've never seen them talk to each other like that. And it felt kind of jarring. I felt similarly about this scene. It was meaningful. It had to happen. It was foreshadowed appropriately when Robbie had realized that he wanted to say something to him before he left and asked Dana where he went. It was better dramatically that it wasn't another learning hug at the end of the season. It gives us somewhere else to go. But also in the flow of the episode, as it was delivered to us, it was another one-on-one scene where someone tells Robbie a version of you need help, man. Yeah. And we've had a couple of those. It was a different tenor. It was a different relationship. Yeah. We've had screaming. We've had take accountability. We've had your narcissist. We've had, you've got to like, embrace the darkness. Like, like, we've had hugs. And I thought it was actually like on, in a total, a really amazing portrait of the importance of like, talking to people and the importance of like, you know, in some way, I think that this episode or the season has been Robbie's cry for help. And it seems like it's been heard a fair amount. I thought the, conversely, I thought the Abbott scene was pretty spectacular. Yeah, man. How does he blacken out in that scene? He's incredible. And it's the right level of intensity. And guys don't talk about feelings, but also some jokes, but also maybe guys do talk about feelings if they save two lives and like, just dump a bunch of pads inside of an empty stomach. You know what I mean? I wondered if you were going to ask about that. Like, that's just like, that's the crazy shit with doctoring where like, they'll be like, oh, we have to do all this elaborate. Like, don't do this to the vein and like move that. And like, we're going to do this crazy laser underneath. And then one part of it will be like, shove a ton of gauze into this guy's gut and let's see if we can stop the bleeding. And that is what they did during the Civil War. Like, you guys have to have developed different fucking techniques. Okay, now to be fair, they did not have gauze in the Civil War. We don't have starting pitchers anymore. Why are you guys still pumping gauze into people's stomachs? I also thought it's a little... And where did they get it out? That's what I was going to say. Did it dissolve? No, it's a little bit of a fun game for the friends upstairs. Yeah, that guy is like, you texted me 12 minutes ago. What the fuck happened down here? Also, where's all my gauze? Can I reuse it? I really liked... I liked the Avid line about, I'm your emergency contact and I do not want to be contacted. I thought that was a great line. And I just thought the way that they spoke... Am I your emergency contact? Uh-huh. Cool. We'll find out. I just wanted to find out. I got a motorcycle trip coming up. Cut your brakes and just to see. What if you got a call being like, thank God we've reached you, your Andy's emergency contact. Hippo laws prohibit us telling you much, but his entire midsection is bursting with gauze. I feel like it sounds like you guys saved it. He sounds like you got it. And then you'd be like that George Bush meme, you're like, now watch this drive. Just... We got probably, it sounds like a six month time jump coming. So it'll be interesting to see whether that is geared both because they want to get some autumnal slash winter disasters going. But maybe we can get like a hockey rink kind of situation, whatever. Penguins. Uh, but also like that would put Alashimi and Robbie on track to be back if they want to do that. Great season. Do you feel... We really loved it. Last thing, I, you know, there's two types of discourse that I... Well, there's many types of discourse that I don't like, but the purposes of the show, one that I really have no time for is to like give this man all the Emmys now. But the second one I also don't like is this blank spin off when that said this show is just heaving for a night shift. But like it is this episode when not only does it let Abbott take center stage, but he is leading his crew in a bespoke chance saying that they are night crawlers. This is my one prediction. Yeah. For season three is in the same way that they did. Abbott shows up briefly in the first half of the season and then runs like the last three or four is a much bigger presence. I do wonder if we get like three episodes, four episodes of Abbott and Alas finishing a shift. Yeah, I think we should, I think it would be great to start... Just because Alas is being brought up to... She can go. ...to main cast. And then that would be like, that would be really interesting if day shift has to come in and like whatever, what could happen in the morning, like a big tractor trailer accident out there outside of Pittsburgh. I don't think this can happen or will happen for a variety of like specific production-based reasons. But it has definitely at least been floated that if they could get the timing right, they could run the pit all year by alternating use of the set, by having a day shift... Could you handle that? ...as a viewer? Yeah. I mean, I think it wouldn't really serve anyone other than potentially future owner of the hospital, David Ellison. Like I don't... I think just in terms of the bastardization of story and attention, it's probably not worth it. But could I handle it? Yeah, like I actively... I feel quite sad that that was the finale because I enjoy this job, but I also just enjoy having a show like that to watch. It's... It's... It's unique. Close to the feeling of one of those monocultural shows that we know and love, where I feel like anticipation for the moment that I'm going to turn it on and excitement to talk about it afterwards. And just eagerness to turn it off, apparently, even before it ends. That's my bad. I thought when I got to R. Scott Jammel, I was all... I'm all clear. You just keep... There were little... the dulcet tones of Alanis Morissette. I'm going to start putting fake Stinger podcast moments where I'm just like, after you've left, I'm going to be like... You should. During the credits. Let's do Top Chef for a few minutes here. Okay. So that was the Pitt finale. Thumbs up. From the Pitt Hospital to the barbecue pit. That's right. Spoilers for Top Chef. And I will say, we're going to get a little bit granular here about Top Chef as a production. So spoilers also for Last Chance Kitchen. Yeah. We have to. I begin at the end. Is that okay? Do what you need to do. What happened? What happened there? So Seger loses on the show itself. You can debate whether or not his... He was... Was he falling on his sword? Was he making some great hero move to cook the whole hog himself and stay up all night and cook the toughest part of the pig? I don't know enough about pigs to tell you. I thought Lawrence did a great job. There were some good looking dishes, but for the most part, this seemed like a very difficult challenge. And also a complicated one in so much as it was two teams, a captain, but then there was Justin's cooking, but with Jen's milk bread that everybody seemed to love. Yada, yada. Seger loses. I wouldn't say he lost entirely gracefully. He seemed a little bit like... See fucking soon dog to everybody. They go to Last Chance Kitchen and Tom is like... Basically, I can't explain what's going on, but we don't have a challenger for Rota today. All will be revealed in next week's main episode, he says, basically. So the operating theory seems to be that next week... There's two main... There's two potential outcomes. Yeah, go for it. Jen will have to drop out of the competition before even a quick fire starts. And because of that, and because she's sort of been on warning about... She'll have to compete if you're going to be here. 65 game rule. They will pull her from the competition and Seger will automatically go back in, because he was the last one eliminated. What's the other theory? The other theory is that he threw a hissy fit and said, you guys all suck. I'm out of here. I'm not going to do your funny little after show, which has only ever happened one other time. Oh, really? The guy with the hat who got eliminated first the season two seasons ago, David, I think he made like garbage pizza was his business. No offense. But I think his business was literally like... Pizza but with everything on it. No, pizza with like scraps that other restaurants throw away. Yeah, he was like dumpster diving, right? And he didn't go to Last Chance Kitchen? Look at your face. You like people who compete. It's incredible. This really got your blood out. I could see both happening. And I definitely already begin... People do receive what's known as the villain edit often in reality shows. And I express my displeasure at Seger's attitude towards the children previous week. For example, I don't think you would like the show Bandy at all, because he's not interested in people who collaborate with adult children. But I also felt like the Top Chef is as far from the most people's baseline understanding of reality TV as it can get. I think it doesn't really go for soap opera. There's a lot of interpersonal dramas and stuff like that. And mostly, especially in the last 15 seasons, just generally uninterested in that. And I think that's to its credit. That said, whether it's the edit or just the guy himself, Seger was incredibly unlikeable over these last two weeks. I felt the way that it was cutting to him... One fun thing this season is I am watching it with my kids and them not really yet knowing the rhythms of the show in which... They don't understand that if you get the interview where they talk about their family or background, that means they're either winning or losing and you don't know which. So the way that Seger was like, I've trained with Rodney Scott and I've done all these things, was setting him up to lose. But TV can reveal things even if it's not necessarily a malicious edit. And he was so tight and so resentful and angry about how things should be done, that he was definitely set himself up for failure and set up for a potential. I believe his final interview in this episode didn't look like other final interviews have been, like he seemed to be in a different space, that potentially this was done... And that could be either because he bailed or because he had to film that talking headpiece separate from the normal talking headpiece because of whatever had happened. Yeah, I don't know exactly. I'd be curious to know, but maybe they wouldn't tell us about when they shoot Last Chance Kitchen in relationship to the episodes. I think in times it has been like this person walked out of an elimination into Last Chance Kitchen. I've also heard that there have been seasons in which they shoot Last Chance Kitchen over a course of like two days, closer to the end of production. Interesting. So it's basically like before they go, it's basically like you win Last Chance Kitchen over the course of two days and go right back into the regular show. I believe that's right. It catches you up to that point. Everyone who signs up for the show is committed to like a blackout. They have to be there for those four to six weeks. But theoretically, like Nana could have to sit in Last Chance Kitchen for two weeks or something like that. Yeah, or just in a hotel. Yeah, exactly. The strangeness in Last Chance Kitchen did create a pretty fun... I mean, I kind of liked the chaos of it because Tom was clearly like, I don't know what's going on. And then the nature of the challenge that they had come up with was so bizarre and specific and like he made them put duck heads into everything. But I also kind of liked the fact that there were two chefs there who were eliminated and he was just like, just come and try to win money. Yeah, I thought that was cool. I enjoyed it. I thought it was cool. I thought it just spoke to perhaps a flaw in the engineering of the television show and the production itself if like, depending on when they're shooting this and whatever. And like just the fact that you leave an episode of TV and you're like, I don't really understand what happened, but not on a cliffhanger way, more in a like Tom seems unprepared for what's just happened. Did you have any other big notes from the show itself? Another great challenge and what's been a good season. I really like that they made them do something incredibly specific and hard. There was no quick fire. It was a whole hog cook all night. People want a little nuts staying up all night. I definitely... Like what do you think is easier? Neither is easy. But do you think it's easier to stay up all night and then plate a delicious, you know, hog dish or stay up essentially all night and then deliver a baby and save a mother suffering from Eclampsia? The question is, like, have you ever done the like, my flight is so early, I'm just going to stay up all night? No, I can't do that. Yeah. That's the... I think in any situation, I would be like, I'm going to go get a couple hours of sleep somewhere. Yeah. Like my brain needs to shut down for a second. So I would rather personally, just for the memories, do the C-section, you know? That's not where I thought you were going to go. But I could be the God's guy because it seems like that's just like put a bunch of gods in the stomach. Did you, first of all, do you think... You mean there's technique to that? People don't know this about you. Edge, come up and under! You could be like, did you see the video of the kid who sunk the half-port for 10 grand at the sixes game? Yes. And then fucking Maxi and PG came out to over that. That's you. Even long-time listeners probably don't understand that there was a period about 20 years ago when you had spent a lot of time watching HouseMD and thus sort of fancied yourself a bit of an amateur medicine man. And anytime anyone was slightly ill or perhaps hung over, your suggestion was a towel of indeterminate temperature. Yeah, sometimes cold, sometimes hot. We turn to you, like the wise sachem, and be like, Chris, I'm suffering from these ailments, and you'd be like, hot towel around the neck. I don't think that was from House. You don't think? I think I was watching House, but I think it was more just like, I need you to rally, if you know? That's probably true too. Speaking of sports. Yeah. Switch it. I'm wearing Eagles green. And that's what I want to talk to you about. My wardrobe choices. Last night, during the Sixers play-in game, I first of all, I found you very quiet yesterday and not particularly chatty with me. That's fine. These days happen, but I didn't think that you were like engaging with me. You want to talk about that? No, that was fine because that's not abnormal. What I didn't like is that when Zach and I were texting about the Sixers' incredible performance against the Orlando Magic, the only sporting event that anyone cared about that last night, you were like, you guys are so loyal. And I was like, don't do that. This is a safe space where we talk about our obsessions and our fandom, and you're like, you guys really like the Sixers. And I was like, are you being held for fucking ransom? What is going on? My heart has been bruised too much. I'm in Provid mode with them. It's Wednesday night. What were you doing? Well, clearly, I had a full day. And the fact that it's driving you crazy, you don't know what I did yesterday. It's okay. It's okay. I was monitoring the situation. But I had eyes on the game. You are always such an abuelient, gregarious fan. You're just like, guys, because hello, brothers, what silly sporting event is happening today? You're like, you guys like this shit, huh? First of all, it was a bit of a brushback pitch because I have definitely sent a disproportionate share of Andrew Painter text slash, do you think we're going to get Kenyan Sadiq at 23 texts? And frankly, some crickets, some mock draft content I sent your way, no one responded to. Well, that was Barnwell being like, this won't happen, but what if it did? First of all, it wasn't Barnwell. It was NBC Sports Philadelphia dot com. So click the link. Anyway, this is why journalism is collapsed. This is why you're like, it's probably Bill Barnwell. I love Barnwell, but I was like, I saw that on ESPN.com and I was like, this is specular. You didn't even see it. You don't even know the fantasy situation that I was sharing with you for no reason on a Tuesday at 3pm. Okay. The fucking Sixers, man, like come on. Come on. You don't understand. It's Jekyll and Hyde, man. I do understand and every time it's Jekyll. And when Joe is out there, it's like watching a Brontosaurus like move across a pasture and you're just like, this is not fun. But when it's VJ and Maxi and playoff P, I know, but you're still trusting. Here's the thing. I love Dr. Jekyll. I am a patient of Dr. Jekyll. I make appointments to see Dr. Jekyll and then while he's examining me, I'm like, you want to hang out sometime? Yeah. I've gotten too close to Dr. Jekyll. Do you know what Dr. Jekyll is like when you get too close to him? Is Dr. Jekyll Joellen beating this? No, it's the fucking team because then I'm like, maybe this team has a chance. Then Paul George is suspended for taking drugs. Yes. And then I'm like, hey, Dr. Jekyll, you're looking good again. And then Dr. Jekyll is like, oh, my appendix is just burst before the playoffs have begun. I don't have the... Okay. Okay. I'm battered. I'm old. I don't want you to ever think that when I don't respond to your draft, your deep, deep, deep draft lore, that it's anything about like, it's not that I don't find it interesting. But I guess what I should do is be like, you sure do read a lot. Yeah. I do. I read a lot of New York review books, content, like the great Nancy Lemon book that I'm reading, The Lives of Saints, New Orleans Nades. Come on. You're going to love this book. I also read a lot of draft content. I'm very excited about the upcoming NFL draft. I am... I have a take too hot for you. I would also say that the reason why I was particularly salty about the Sixers is because I did peek in on our fight and fills. Oh yeah. And it's just... Hey, don't eat... You know what they say? Don't even check the standings until game 60. It's all noise. It's no signal. Who says that? The Rates and Barrels guy at the Athletic Podcast. Whoa. And they were like, don't even worry about it until game 60. He's like, yeah, you could have a disaster season in a game 60. You might not be in it, but it's all noise. The signal doesn't start until game 60. Okay. Yeah. That's very calm. Yeah. I love that. Do we have a rule about that for television shows? Because I've never found it. No. I mean, that's the problem with TV is that I'm not hanging out until game 60. It's too long. I honestly... I'll be completely honest as we're doing After Dark. I got... I realized why I don't like reading reviews is that if I get warned off a show, I'm not really looking forward to the prospect of watching eight hours of beef if it's not good. I'll watch anything that's a bad movie. I don't give a shit. Oh, for sure. It's a time thing. Yeah. But it's just like eight hours of like something that doesn't work out and is like kind of not focused. But who knows? Maybe the critics are wrong. And maybe we are the critics that matter. It's possible. Or maybe we are going to turn vegan from it. What's your hot draft take? I can't share it on a recording. What? I mean, I will share it, but like then we have to cut it. I'll be completely honest with you. This is sorry. Sorry. Don't mean to offend anybody. Beat this. This is gonna be great. But when... That was my draft take. And we didn't include it in the podcast because... Daniel Jeremiah could never. Thanks to Andy Greenwald. I thought you did a really good job today. Thank you. But I am just rookie numbers compared to what you've done today. Sarah, Kaya, Kai, thank you so much for being here. And thank you so much for witnessing my last pod if that tape ever gets out. And we'll be back on Monday. Euphoria, beef, Margot's Got Money Problems. Oh, it's a big show for us. Yeah. Big show. Big, big, big show. And we'll talk about, since I didn't realize you were so swayed by reviews, how engaged you are with Euphoria Season 3. The reviews? Well, no, you just were like, Rune reviews are bad. I don't want to watch it. Now you're like, it's Levinson time. Big Sam coming through. Nobody has his finger on the pulse of young America more. Yeah, honestly, you got a point there. Also, I keep going along for the ride. I love it. Thank you for riding shotgun with me. See you guys on Monday.