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

7:59Chris Ryan:What do you mean?

8:00Andy Greenwald:You know how, like, you know how... Oh, because he was doing, like, Richard... What did he do, Richard III? No, he did Thomas More about, like, protecting immigrants. And he did the stage, and Colbert, like, hugged him. And in the words of our parents, after watching Chris Hayes in April 2025... Got him. Got him. I think he really got him. No, he... That was incredible. I think people should check that out. So there was that. Yeah, and I think the other thing about it is just the imagineered optics of it. Like they definitely wanted to avoid a JPEG situation. And there was a lot of, well, obviously this is a unanimous decision and everything's fine.

8:37Andy Greenwald:And though we, of course, considered a woman for the top job, we wouldn't actually give it to her. And considered co-CEOs. Yes, but they wanted everything to be as tidy as possible. So we'll see.

8:48Chris Ryan:They dragged my boy Ted Sarandos up in front of the Senate. Ted Cruz asked him some hard-hitting questions. Ted on Ted. Ted Talks. That was about the merger, etc. et cetera. Josh Hawley was like, go on. I don't even know. I, you know, they, they were just being dicks, you know, like the Senate. That's what they do now.

9:07Andy Greenwald:That's, that's their brand. They pivoted to that. Remember when it was like the most like August body of deliberations in the world? Yeah. That was, so they said,

9:17Chris Ryan:my days when Jesse Holmes was just cooking as the most August body.

9:22Andy Greenwald:did you see your guy David Ellison in London being like the monopolization of media spearheaded by the evil Netflix corporation shall not stand that guy's a freedom fighter

9:35Chris Ryan:and then that's it for news except for a bunch of Apple shows because Apple did one of their I think it's their first ever Apple TV press day were you there? no but not a ton of news came out of a bunch of teasers I only ask

9:48Andy Greenwald:since we have the kimono open already Apple loves sharing its shows with you. And every time there's a new show, you're like, oh, you should check this out. It's interesting. And then I have to email a variety, a changing...

10:00Chris Ryan:Have you ever once said it would be great in your press dealings? Have you been like, you can just add me automatically? Well, they used to. Yes.

10:06Andy Greenwald:And then, you know, respectfully, they didn't. But now I just, every time I have to email a different woman named Kate to request access to something that you've already watched. I don't know what to tell you. The struggle is real. Yeah. Okay, go on.

10:18Chris Ryan:Everybody in America... Yeah. sympathizes with you. I think it's a top five issue.

10:22Andy Greenwald:I'm not saying it's number one front of mind, but I do think it's top five. Can I, sorry, can I just state something for the record? Yeah, Kaya, please. I've been kicked off my parents' HBO Max account.

10:32Chris Ryan:Whoa. Why didn't we leave with this? Just now? By who? Just this week. By your parents? No, by HBO.

10:39Andy Greenwald:Okay, first of all, Casey listens. Casey, hook up Kaya, please.

10:42Chris Ryan:But can you do a, you can't have like a family password, so you can't do that. They're just like IP addresses. They're like, what location are you watching and would you like a travel pass? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:51Andy Greenwald:Travel pass.

10:52Chris Ryan:It's over for me. I went to go and watch industry. They're like, what is your location? Oh, my God, really? Really.

10:59Andy Greenwald:Well, I know someone at HBO named Kate who could hook you up with the screeners.

11:03Chris Ryan:I have industry screeners. They don't let you screen mirror, so I had to watch it on my laptop.

11:10Andy Greenwald:You can get an app for that. So I think...

11:13Chris Ryan:I don't want an app. I just want to be able to mooch off my mirror. I think this is top seven concerns. Times are tough. Iraqgoals.net. I'll have to look into it. A big piece of news that I saw come out of there was a variation on what Vince Gilligan, the creator of Pluribus, basically said to us, which is we are working real hard on season two. Don't hold your breath. So it wasn't like in a very bad way, but I feel like we gave Severance a lot of grief about taking a long time to come back. He's like, we're moving as quickly as we can, but this is not X-Files where we can just bang out like a bunch of adventures of the week and then come back to the main story and all that stuff.

11:59Andy Greenwald:This is 2027 is what we're saying. Yeah. And not early 2027.

12:02Chris Ryan:Not early 2027. When did it came out in August of 25?

12:06Andy Greenwald:No, it was later. Later. But they're just getting together now, it sounds like. So that's a bummer, but, you know. Sure. We're used to different schedules.

12:18Chris Ryan:Yes, but since we have given a lot of shows a hard time for taking their time, I'm not giving Pluribus a hard time because I want it to be good.

12:27Andy Greenwald:And because they came on our podcast, and it's a backscratching business.

12:30Chris Ryan:It's true. So we had some teaser trailers from some shows coming out. Two of them come from Jonathan Tropper, who I would not go as far as say is like house Apple style, but I wouldn't say he's not. I think between him and Bill Lawrence, they are responsible for a healthy slice of the Apple TV pie and in some ways are illustrative of the aesthetic and the image that Apple TV wants to project to its viewership. However many people there are watching those shows, we don't know.

13:02Andy Greenwald:Unclear.

13:03Chris Ryan:So Friends and Neighbors Season 2 is coming back in June, I believe.

13:07Andy Greenwald:Already received Season 3 renewal.

13:08Chris Ryan:And adds James Marsden to the cast. if you watch the teaser, it feels like kind of soft resetty to the extent that the first season ended in any kind of resolution. This one seems to bring back the gang, add to the gang, and put Jon Hamm squarely back robbing folks in his neighborhood for the thrill of it.

13:29Andy Greenwald:With a new square-jawed neighbor. James Marshall. The Marsden Sons continues. There's your X-Men.

13:34Chris Ryan:Yeah.

13:35Andy Greenwald:He plays Cyclops. I know.

13:37Chris Ryan:Any comments on Friends and Neighbors season two in the 50 seconds that we see of it? Only to say that I have higher hopes

13:46Andy Greenwald:for the second season than the first season.

13:47Chris Ryan:Okay. What makes you say that?

13:51Andy Greenwald:I think that the show found more of its voice as it went along. And I think that the people who are involved in the show are generally smart, good creatives. And so I feel like there's a chance. I'm not staking my reputation on it, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I didn't love the way I didn't love the first season I'm gonna make a bold but also I like Marsden and if the show can be the tone I think the show is at its most successful when it is the kind of clubby glitzy tone of this trailer yes as opposed to like the deep deep ruminations of incredibly rich people in a gated siloed rich community

14:29Chris Ryan:I noted with interest that Munn is walking the streets in this teaser I was surprised Munn was back and I thought she had been arrested for murder in the show and it feels like a soft reset in the sense that like we don't want to get rid of Olivia Munn. So let's figure out a way to have her on bail or whatever.

14:47Andy Greenwald:I would be concerned if you felt that like a white collar rich criminal getting pardoned and back on the streets was like that's the deal breaker of reality for you.

14:58Chris Ryan:The other thing I was going to say is and I say this in front of you and God and our listeners. And Kaya. If this season starts with a flashback you're out.

15:09Andy Greenwald:I'm out. 100 % agree.

15:10Chris Ryan:If you start your second season with a big event and then go six weeks earlier I'm fucking out. And I don't care if it's like succession reunion I'm out.

15:22Andy Greenwald:How did Shiv Roy move in next door to James Marsden six weeks earlier? Well first of all I love this. Yeah. I think it actually would help clear some of our viewing docket if we just made outrageous

15:34Chris Ryan:We should do that.

15:35Andy Greenwald:Yeah. The watch commandments. If Silo comes back and they're still in a fucking Silo, forget it. Done.

15:43Chris Ryan:I will be very interested to see how Paradise handles that now. Right. Like all their flash forwards and flashbacks. Because a lot of that obviously was built around these slow reveals. And it's like, well, I mean, how many reveals are we going to be doing on season two? Or is it just going to be more like Sterling K. Brown looking for the truth out there? You know?

16:02Andy Greenwald:I can't tell you. Okay. All right. I feel like you're asking me for some inside information. Another show. Do you want me to do the Windhorst Fingers about the fate of Sterling K. Brown's wife? I don't know.

16:12Chris Ryan:Another show coming from Tropper and Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine via Candle Media, one of my favorite media companies, is Lucky, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening, Ingenue Ellis Taylor, Timothy Oliphant, Drew Starkey. And this one is about a con artist on the run after a heist goes wrong. and the con artist being played by Joy is pursued by the law and the lawless in the crime boss played by Annette Bening, which I would not have guessed that's her role. This looked slick and cool.

16:49Andy Greenwald:Great trailer. Great teaser trailer. Very visually dynamic in a way that I'm not mad at that. I think there's good ways to spend Apple's money. And the log line of the show is one thing, but then seeing the sort of visual razzle-dazzle of the teaser made me more interested.

17:09Chris Ryan:Yeah. I have a thing I wanted to ask you about. Sure. Anya Taylor-Joy.

17:14Andy Greenwald:Yeah. Odd career since Queen's Gambit. Since being on this podcast. I think it's Anya. I think she's told us that. My bad. Yeah.

17:21Chris Ryan:Anya Taylor-Joy, I apologize to you personally, and I also think that you've had an interesting, strange career since you broke big with Queen's Gambit. So that was 2020. Let's just take it from the pandemic, you know? Last night in Soho, well, first it was New Mutants, which lost to history and time, but was supposed to be a thing, and she played Magic.

17:43Andy Greenwald:Ilyana Rasputin, sister of Colossus.

17:47Chris Ryan:You had her government name right in your ear.

17:50Andy Greenwald:You only, like humans with brains, you only use 5 % of me on this podcast. Anytime you want to dig deeper, I'm a veil.

17:57Chris Ryan:um does she pop up in Powers of X yeah how's it hell yeah dude

18:03Andy Greenwald:she's important yeah

18:04Chris Ryan:big old sword that's right yeah yo she's she's in a cool scene in that comic book yes she's an important character last night in Soho and Edgar Wright joint kind of came and went yeah has it's believers has it's attractors but did not do well at the box office Northman she's incredible in that the menu she's great in that yeah that did well okay so we have those two right there Amsterdam David O. Russell Abomination Dune Part 2 she's cool she's in the end

18:33Andy Greenwald:spoiler she'll be in Part 3

18:35Chris Ryan:Furiosa amazing and then these last couple where she's like in The Gorge and Sacrifice and an Apple TV show which it's just I guess that's just where we're at you know

18:47Andy Greenwald:the Super Mario Brothers erasure right

18:50Chris Ryan:sorry she also has been doing that was like a

18:52Andy Greenwald:billion dollar movie

18:53Chris Ryan:okay but like people do that where they're like Pratt still opens movies. And I'm like, nobody knows that's Chris Pratt. These people, most of the people have barely formed frontal cortexes.

19:04Andy Greenwald:Wow. First of all, I've been in the audience for these movies. I'm the one with the weakest frontal cortex in that theater. Everyone else's amygdalas are cooking. Okay. Especially after the candy hits. Second, I will let you know that Chris Pratt isn't like, he's like Lorenzo music with like, you know, a voice actor without parallel. He's just Chris Pratt. Yeah, but nobody in the audience is like,

19:29Chris Ryan:it's Chris Pratt, right?

19:30Andy Greenwald:No, but everyone in the audience is like, oh, Mario sounds like Garfield, sounds like Star-Lord, sounds like Andy from Parks and Rec, sounds like the guy singing at the church up the street. It is not some dexterity. It is 100 % Chris Pratt. Good or ill. All right. I'm glad we cleared that up. I think the thing that's interesting about that career, if I may, is that...

19:50Chris Ryan:About Chris Pratt's career. Or Andy Taylor's career. The only thing that interests me.

19:56Andy Greenwald:at least two of those movies were the kind of things that every person on her team probably fought tooth and nail to get her into and the fact that they tanked disrupted everything and that would be Last Night in Soho which was a very hotly tipped movie and Furiosa

20:16Chris Ryan:Furiosa I mean I think is actually underrated at this point

20:19Andy Greenwald:which is fine but it was catastrophic at the box office and nobody was like And not only that, I think she got a lot of the blowback for it because what was memorable about the character was the performance. I haven't even seen the movie, but I'm saying that she did take a hit for that.

20:35Chris Ryan:You would like Furiosa because your boy Tom, what's his name? He was in Black Bag. Burke. Oh, yeah, he's good. He's awesome in Furiosa. You know what I was going to say about Anya Taylor-Joy is, I wonder if, almost like Queen's Gambit is the outlier in terms of something that's this mega huge success. And then the films, like, she is now on a post-Queen's Gambit, like, going slowly up the stairs of stardom again. I don't know.

21:02Andy Greenwald:Well, I think there's also a difference that is hard to parse and then hard to capitalize on, especially in this, like, you know, very divided media landscape between interesting and charismatic. the fact that she might not be a movie star does not make her less interesting or less talented but she's been positioned to be both and that can be a tough place to be

21:27Chris Ryan:Imperfect Women is also coming I believe that's a little bit sooner than these other ones that might be in March

21:33Andy Greenwald:and then there's Margot's Got Money Troubles

21:35Chris Ryan:and Margot's Got Money Troubles Annie Weissman who did physical created Imperfect Women with Elizabeth Moss Kerry Washington, Kate Mara also Joel Kinnaman who hilariously was like I accidentally bought a house in Malibu. He literally said this. He was like, I bought a house in Malibu and now I can't say no to things because I have to pay for it. I can't remember where I read that. Good for him. But spiritually it feels true because he's just like, I'm a veil. You know, like if you guys need me for a day, for a week, whatever.

22:07Andy Greenwald:Margot's got money trouble, this is what you're saying.

22:09Chris Ryan:And Corey Stoll and Leslie Odom are also in this.

22:12Andy Greenwald:I believe that's based on a book.

22:14Chris Ryan:You're probably right. devastating crime has an impact on decades-long friendship that is the long line that is our

22:21Andy Greenwald:fortune that is our future what's the crime gonna be i couldn't begin to say i'm gonna rug pull a

22:28Chris Ryan:meme stock that's what my crime is gonna be that'd be so sick i don't know what any of that means i mean either uh margo's got money problems comes from david e kelly stars his wife uh michelle pfeiffer and l fanning who and nick offerman like it's a great cast yeah it's a great cast and it's Also a book. Also a book. And that one is the one I think I'm most excited about.

22:48Andy Greenwald:I would say so too. But I will say what was remarkable about this, and as you said at the top, these were all rolled out concurrently as part of an Apple press event, which maybe speaks a little bit to how similar they all feel because they probably played very consistently in the room. But it was, as a branding exercise, this is remarkable. Because I absolutely can tell you, as I think anyone who watches these trailers can tell you what an Apple TV show is now in terms of its glossiness, in terms of the frenetic pace, often based on pre-existing like beach read type material. Big names in the cast.

23:25Andy Greenwald:Huge names like just spilling out into like the B level and C level of the cast, people just showing up. Incredibly slick, incredibly glossy. And I have to say, I don't, the takeaway from this event was a feeling of big tech inevitability. I'm not commenting on the merits of each one of these shows because they were each made by distinct creators and actually in the viewing might prove themselves to be interesting or worthwhile or arrhythmic to this larger beat that they're trying to sell. But like the feeling of like just flooding the market. Every one of these trailers was like March, April, March again.

24:05Andy Greenwald:Like we are just going to have this shit available to you at a pace more frequent than macOS updates.

24:12Chris Ryan:Well, closer to Netflix than to HBO, I think.

24:15Andy Greenwald:Closer to Netflix, but also at a much higher price point because I think Netflix floods the zone with stuff, but half the stuff, not half the stuff, but large tranches of it is international or reality or acquisitions. Apple is just like, we are selling the high test Peruvian flake and we are flooding the market with it. Just to pull an analogy from potentially an Apple show. It felt, I felt beaten down by it, to be honest. And it did make me feel like here is a style of presentation of television that definitely creates space for, I don't know if it creates space financially, but it creates space aesthetically and culturally for the more slow food approach that we often resonate, that often resonates with us when it's coming from other networks.

25:11Andy Greenwald:I'm not setting this up to say we hate these shows. No. I think there's something, you know, we will judge each of them by the merits, but just the tsunami of this content was wild. I'm not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person.

25:21Chris Ryan:I agree with you. And I am not trying to pathologize a certain kind of person, but there is a certain kind of person who talks to me about Apple shows the way my mother-in-law talks to me about CBS shows. Okay. Where it's almost like that is, that is like their happy place and it's like if stick is on, if shrinking is on, if Margot's Got Money Problems is on, that is just the show that is on right now. It's an easy interface. Yeah. They advertise within the app very well. Like you turn it on and there's Idris Elba being like, ah, I've been hijacked again.

25:53Andy Greenwald:That's not the twist, but don't spoil it. Sure, yeah. Speaking of... Have you kept up with hijack? No, I was going to say, I thought about it and then I'm going to be very honest with you. The last thing I want to do at the end of a workday these days is descend down into the Berlin subway station in winter with Idris Elba. So maybe Apple's onto something with a sunny disposition or at least the color palette of its other shows. Because I don't... Chris, I don't want to watch that show.

26:19Chris Ryan:Okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's what we're all about, let's be honest.

26:23Andy Greenwald:But that's...

26:24Chris Ryan:We don't sign contracts with the shows. We sign a contract with each other. It's written in blood 20 years ago. Is that what that was? Jesus Christ, man. did you want to watch hijack season two i lost interest yeah i think similarly like perhaps the visual kind of the the overall atmosphere of it tell me about the muppets you want me to well it's better that you do this now before true detective i don't want you to think that this

26:51Andy Greenwald:was like reactionary it wasn't like you started email it started texting me about true detective and i was like oh boy here we go again fucking meme oh shit um that uh that i was like well i I need to counterbalance this with a take on The Muppet Show. No, you were like, I'd like to talk about The Muppets. But just a small, whether it's from Daddington Island or whether it's just nostalgia. This is show and tell right now. Just they brought The Muppet Show back again, but weirdly for the first time, maybe since the late 70s, early 80s, they brought it back just as The Muppet Show as opposed to all of these weird permutations over the years, like the 90s version was like Muppet TV, and they're running a whole suite of programming on a network.

27:30Andy Greenwald:I think, honestly, as memory hold as, what was the thing you just mentioned that's been totally memory hold, the New Mutants movie.

27:35Chris Ryan:Yeah.

27:35Andy Greenwald:That briefly...

27:37Chris Ryan:Like the straight to Hulu New Mutants movie.

27:39Andy Greenwald:Briefly, there was a Muppet reboot that was a single camera mockumentary show that briefly was on, I believe, ABC 10 years ago. So Seth Rogen, who is just really on one right now, is responsible for bringing the show back. And they brought it back as a variety show. And it's very entertaining. My kids loved it. How's it being released? Is it like once a week? No, they made one. Oh. And hopefully they'll make more. I don't really understand if that's a vote of confidence these days. It's on Disney? It's on Disney. It was on ABC. Oh, no, it's, yes, I think it aired on ABC this week, but it's been, it will then live on Disney Plus platform.

28:20Andy Greenwald:But Seth Rogen is on it. Sabrina Carpenter is the musical guest, which got immediate buy-in from my children. Maya Rudolph makes an appearance. And the thing that people, I don't know if many people, I don't know, did you grow up on The Muppet Show? Did you watch it when you were kids? You know what?

28:33Chris Ryan:I mean, I just think that what happens is if you don't have kids, the things from your childhood kind of start to recede in the rearview mirror.

28:41Andy Greenwald:But did it matter to you when you were like five or six?

28:43Chris Ryan:I liked Animals and the Muppets. This is amazing. He is in the Muppets.

28:49Andy Greenwald:He is a Muppet. He's the drummer, right? The Muppets aren't a band. He's in Dr. Teeth's Electric Mayhem band. He's the drummer.

28:55Chris Ryan:Yeah, he did drums. He's Animal, Statler, and Waldorf. Like, I like them, but it's just like, I don't, I have never had a reason to go back to the Muppets.

29:05Andy Greenwald:They're great. Yeah. And if you watch the reruns, which now are all available streaming, it's deeply weird. And like, I remember watching the show when I was a kid and I was like, ah, this is, this is children's television. But it was just like incredibly, delicately, specifically choreographed puppet performances of like 1930s Americana standards. and then Carol Burnett or John Cleese would wander into frame or do a solo. And the most specific late 70s, early 80s type of celebrity as well, which really burned its way into my retinas. And I think that what was really smart about this new version is they're still doing the variety show and they still do very, very intricately choreographed performances of now contemporary songs.

29:46Andy Greenwald:Okay. Like songs by The Weeknd and stuff. But it works because it never really made sense. And everyone involved is very game. The only thing that I bump on, and this is a very tired and what are you going to do about it argument, is that other than Gonzo, no one sounds right.

30:02Chris Ryan:Because Jim Henson is no longer with us.

30:04Andy Greenwald:It hasn't been for many years, but also the person who then kind of has been doing Kermit for 20, 30 years, who also wasn't Jim Henson, because no one could be, he was let go. And so there's a, I think he's the fourth Kermit.

30:15Chris Ryan:Okay.

30:15Andy Greenwald:And at this point, they're just like, just trust that it's a frog. It's like, you know, it's like... Kind of Kermit. You just kind of have to accept it. but the spirit of it is really good and really true to what it was. And it was really fun to watch it with my kids who no longer, like they definitely were raised on watching Muppet movies and Muppet show, but they were like, we actually like this. My almost 13 year old is like, that's actually good. Really? Yes. Great. She's inherited a little bit of her father's, you know.

30:46Chris Ryan:When that happens, are you secretly proud? That she liked it? Or that she's just like, that's actually good?

30:52Andy Greenwald:No, then I, no, I'm like, what have I done? No, absolutely not. I don't want, you think I want to give this away?

31:01Chris Ryan:This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us. The intersection of interest that inspires a run crew. The support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like analyzing plot twists, TaxAct guides you step-by-step to make sure you get your maximum refund. Get tips along the way, add expert assist to talk to tax experts, or let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service.

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32:17Chris Ryan:Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. It can be hard to do your own thing when everyone else is following everyone else, but that's what some of the best films are about. An outcast striving to make their own way in the world. And this is your sign to be that outcast. From us, from VW, from the other outcasts out there, take a chance. Make the most of every day and don't be afraid to veer off course every now and then because if you don't do it now, then when? Learn more at vw.com. Why don't we do the pit first and then I'll talk about Trudy at the end.

32:52Andy Greenwald:Okay. Oh, and what about steel? We got to talk about steel.

32:55Chris Ryan:Yeah, we can do pit and steel. Okay. I can summarize like the various patients and what's going on, but I want to cut to the chase here. Let's talk about Robbie. I have found this season totally cool and enjoyed it. And there are some thrilling moments and there are some clunky moments, but it's a TV show that is giving me week to week a lot of joy. The most interesting character on this show is now fully the main character because he's really the one, I think, where everybody else is pretty much explicitly saying how they're feeling and what's on their mind.

33:28Andy Greenwald:And the benefits of generative AI in the workplace.

33:31Chris Ryan:He's the only one who's kind of, tall, dark, handsome, and complicated.

33:36Andy Greenwald:Yeah. And we'll see what happens with Langdon. Robbie is the only one who is in a traditional TV-type framing on the precipice of something. Yes.

33:47Chris Ryan:So he's on the precipice of leaving. As we've seen last year, he might be on the precipice of some sort of breakdown. Right. He is obviously got like a kind of secret, but not so secret love affair going on with the woman who handles the insurance and the patient sort of accounting side of things for the hospital. He is ping-ponging around the ER. Kind of, I think, not happier, but like feels a little like he's like, it's my last day. You know? And if challenged, he will do something reckless and extraordinary at the same time. But for the most part, is like getting through the day, kind of laughing when they're trying to talk shit about Al Hashimi last week.

34:34He's just like, not like shutting it down,

34:36Chris Ryan:but also not engaging. It feels very much like we've got a couple more days before we're done. Yes. And then when it comes to Langdon, obviously is doing all of, everything that's happening is happening like behind a scrim of professionalism. But he is obviously not being very professional by the way he's punishing him in certain ways because he feels wronged by him. And then he cuts that lady's leg to let the infection flow. The one who has MRSA? Is that what they call it? Well, then they started saying neck fash.

35:08Andy Greenwald:Yeah, there's a lot of terms. Don't Google that. That doesn't get you what you want.

35:11Chris Ryan:But because surgery is like, oh, she needs another scan and another scan. And he's like, if we wait for the scan, she's going to lose her leg, if not her life.

35:18Andy Greenwald:He doesn't just cut through her skin. He cuts through red tape. Bureaucracy. The scalpel is sharp.

35:28Chris Ryan:and I you know maybe that moment will just be like a crazy Robbie moment where he like flips a guy's lung with his bare hands or whatever but I thought it was indicative of a guy who's like I'm not coming back to work tomorrow yes so you know bring me up on charges or don't but like did you think that that cut that doing that was like especially reckless on his part

35:50Andy Greenwald:well it's not just reckless because I think that it's been proven that he's a miracle worker, that he is the best of the best and is almost always right, which is baked into the show. I think that what it suggested was a complete lack of patience. You know, he's kind of done with the structures and regulations and the naysayers and the haters and the losers who are keeping him from being great. Look, I mean, the show is many things and we praise it week to week for its triumphs, but it is never particularly subtle, nor do I think it needs to be considering the type of drama that it is. The show begins with Chekhov's motorcycle, you know, and what surprised me about that opening scene was that there was any conversation at all about it.

36:41Andy Greenwald:Like, do you think that was intentional that Robbie's not wearing a helmet? It's like, yeah, no shit. Yeah. Like, the show is telling you everything you need to know about this character's mindset as you go into it. Now, does that mean he's going to be in a catastrophic wreck and become a patient before the season is over? Maybe. Or it's just giving us a little bit of a flashlight into where he's at in terms of how much he's caring about whether he— Yeah, and where he's going. So I enjoyed it, and I also think that one of the things that they do so well is consider the big picture. So you're right that they are hyper-focused on the main character as our tour guide through this day.

37:18Andy Greenwald:but one thing that is slightly different at least so far through five episodes I believe so yeah to the first third of the season is that thus far it feels less like we are on the edge of a catastrophic event like Pit Fest which we could feel coming and a lot of the tension of the first season was in our bones because once that kid was like

37:38Chris Ryan:I'm going to Pit Fest do you want to go to Pit Fest? I can't make it to Pit Fest

37:42Andy Greenwald:and that we were like well they chose this day so what is going to happen? we kind of knew and that informed our viewing experience, this season feels like it is intentionally doing more of a frog in boiling water type of thing.

37:55Chris Ryan:Yes, that's the other hospital sending all their patients in.

37:58Andy Greenwald:And so there's just a constant twist of the dial. The temperature is going up, up, up in a different way. And that's just really smart, right? It's a different way to change the temperature of the show. And it may be that it is an ideal way to showcase Dr. Robbie the Frog's reaction to suddenly being boiled alive.

38:20Chris Ryan:There's an interesting thing happening where in the course of a work day, it would not be strange for Robbie to have yet addressed his issues with Langdon. It's only been four or five hours or whatever it is. But it has been more than a month in our life. And so his kind of neglecting the situation or avoiding the situation feels more pronounced. I wonder when they're writing certain storylines, how much they account for that. Oh, for the disconnect between, right. Most people will watch this show week to week over the course of months. So for us, it's almost agonizing that Langdon has been standing around for five weeks being like, are you going to notice me?

39:04Chris Ryan:But it's only been four hours.

39:05Andy Greenwald:One of the correctives to that is Dr. Ahlashimi saying, I'm glad you're back and I'm going to be your boss.

39:12Chris Ryan:That was the other person I wanted to talk about. I hope we get a looser version of this character as the day goes on. Not like I really have a problem with the performance, but it's too much of a direct foil to Robbie.

39:25Andy Greenwald:Yes.

39:26Chris Ryan:I don't really understand why everything she's doing is only in relationship to what Robbie is doing.

39:33Andy Greenwald:I would say that one of the sophomore struggles that the show has encountered is it is no one is no one is questioning the idea that they would need to add new ingredients to the pantry but the nature of the show is such that like we just fell in love with what you were cooking in season one yeah and choosing what to add to the mix is very delicate especially when everyone else is working in such a beautifully choreographed unit so far the new additions are not hitting the way that I think I would like My exception would be Joy. Well, Joy is interesting. And the way they slow play the reveal, I thought that was well done because I wrote in my notes, what's the deal with it?

40:17Andy Greenwald:Like, why? Why Joy? Yeah. And then you see that she has some, her reactions are given a little bit more context in this episode that she's had her own struggles with the financial realities of the healthcare system. Yes. Thus informing how she behaves and how she responds to all this stuff. I get that. There also just seems to be like,

40:34Chris Ryan:do you actually want to be a doctor? or do you want to be a doctor because you don't want anyone to go through what you went through? Right. Like what is motivating your, is there family pressure to become a doctor?

40:46Andy Greenwald:The al-Shashimi thing is just really tough so far because again, this is not a criticism of the performer or even the performance. There's very little to work with and so much of what it takes to be on the show is to be able to convey great oceans of inner life while you're saying things like bring in a crash tray.

41:06Chris Ryan:Yeah.

41:06Andy Greenwald:And the fact that she just continues to sort of be a looming administrative presence, ultimately not that different from Gloria last year in that, you know, she just sort of keeps popping up like Clippy on the old Microsoft Word being like, may I interest you in generative AI? Like, that's tough. Do you use Microsoft Word? I do, but I've disabled Clippy.

41:27Chris Ryan:Okay.

41:27Andy Greenwald:But I don't, yeah, I do. I'm old school.

41:30Chris Ryan:Yeah.

41:31Andy Greenwald:You know, proudly old school.

41:32Chris Ryan:scripts or do you use final draft

41:33Andy Greenwald:final draft yeah what do you use for my scripts Google script generator true detective season 2 part 2 season 2.5 that's your shit 2B

41:44Chris Ryan:yeah yeah I

41:45Andy Greenwald:and then you have her like she basically then has every so often they sprinkle in a moment for her to express some humanity and she talks about humanity the way Steve Carell talks about women's breasts in 40 year old version where she's like I would rather spend time with my son you know so that's It's tough. It's tough to sort of bend human behavior into the tightly choreographed demands of the show. Because one of the other pleasures of watching it, even this episode, is as the ambient noise of case after case is building up, there was a moment when I kind of stepped back in my brain and I was just watching the way they do handoffs.

42:22Andy Greenwald:Two people walking out of one examination room and then someone else walking by, giving a look and always aware. Like the court awareness, if you will, of this space.

42:31Chris Ryan:It's the all 22 of it.

42:33Andy Greenwald:It's elite. Yeah. It's really remarkable. And the easily something that I'm not going to say people, you know, normals will overlook. I'm overlooking when I'm trying to watch it. So I think that that in and of itself is remarkable. But do you feel just to put a bow on it, like you're pointing out the Robbie journey and some of the maybe unnatural feeling friction of some of the other characters. is this taking away from your enjoyment or is this just we're a third of the way through the ride and you're noting?

43:02Chris Ryan:I think more the latter. It's not really I'm not down on the pit I'm not selling any pit stock I'm not are we sure it's good in it? It's just like yeah okay like I think that this season is more about long-term sustainability of the project than it is about like every time this show starts your heart's gonna break and your brain's gonna leak out of your ears because it's so intense and I think I'm just basing that off of the last five episodes of the first season rather than the totality of the experience of watching The Pit. It's also really enjoyable to watch every week. It's my favorite thing to watch.

43:36Chris Ryan:I haven't gotten super into a patient yet.

43:41Andy Greenwald:Unlike Ogilvy.

43:43Chris Ryan:No. There's just way too much flying shit on HBO right now.

43:48Andy Greenwald:I wanted to get you to this point.

43:50Chris Ryan:Yeah.

43:50Andy Greenwald:You know, you have historically had a very kind of highbrow sensibility. You know, you don't go for the bathroom stuff.

43:59Chris Ryan:It's not something I'm dying to watch on TV. Are you? Yeah.

44:05Andy Greenwald:Finally. I got to be honest with you. I got into this business like Joy got into medicine for one reason only. It's finally. To see big tall knights take dumps by trees. Yeah. Or see big tall residents, you know, digitally extract excrements from an elderly woman's rear.

44:27Chris Ryan:Not my favorite. Did you know,

44:29Andy Greenwald:I just want to throw this out there because this is something that I've known for a while. Did you know that 70 % of doctors get exposed to TB?

44:36Chris Ryan:You did say something to me off mic that I thought was interesting, which is he's like, they're not masking.

44:43Andy Greenwald:Yes, I thought that was pretty, but also it's a television show with actors.

44:47Chris Ryan:That was sort of my initial reaction to that's why Robbie's not wearing a helmet is because I'm like, because that's the star of the show and it looks cool.

44:54Andy Greenwald:Yeah.

44:55Chris Ryan:But maybe, obviously they've brought it up multiple times as has Noah Wiley on talk shows. It's been like, take note of the fact that he is not wearing a helmet.

45:03Andy Greenwald:No, but they are so, so, so dedicated to showing the real life hand skin trauma of being an ER doctor, of just like how many gloves and how much Purell they're using. But they're not masking because they are actors with pretty expressive faces. Except briefly when exposed to TB in one room once.

45:22Chris Ryan:Yeah, I don't know. I gotta be honest tuberculosis is one you cool with it? no but that's like what Doc Holliday got him right? is that like consumption essentially? it's not the same thing probably but I think

45:35Andy Greenwald:that's a great question because listen as the person on this podcast who has maybe read the most books where people die of consumption it's a great question yeah I thought it was more of a general like lung issue like if the pneumonia happened like yeah I don't know

45:48Chris Ryan:but why is it so it's wildly contagious or

45:51Andy Greenwald:yeah it's bad Yeah. It's bad. There was a book out recently called Everything is Tuberculosis. I didn't read that. Well. Did you read it? It's disappointing. I read about it.

46:02Chris Ryan:Yeah, there you go.

46:02Andy Greenwald:And I'm telling you about it. In the world of The Pit, even characters as dismissive of authority as Santos just has a little bag of stats, you know, that you can just reach into and just throw on the table to educate.

46:15Chris Ryan:The prisoner who is cuffed, who is basically a symbol of the dehumanizing impact of the carceral state on humans.

46:22Andy Greenwald:I want to talk about that.

46:23Chris Ryan:Sure.

46:25Andy Greenwald:You know what? Put me on, Kai, clip this if you need to. God. If you have to.

46:30Chris Ryan:I hate when you do the breadcrumbs. It's not going to be... Honestly, all it does is it just means like less representation for me on Instagram.

46:38Andy Greenwald:Oh, I want you to be the face of this comment I'm going to make.

46:41Chris Ryan:Okay.

46:43Andy Greenwald:I think generally in the cases of violent criminals,

46:47Chris Ryan:I think you can keep the handcuffs on when they're around scalpels. Like they don't know what he's in for.

46:51Andy Greenwald:I'm just saying, call me anti-woke, okay? Call me old-fashioned. But I thought that the prison guard being like, we keep him cuffed for a reason. Yeah. And meanwhile, Whitaker's like, you know, you are not needed here. Hannibal, Hannibal, how are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Are you hungry? I'm just saying. Yeah. What's the harm? The man is, they've given him morphine. His senses are dull. He's sedated, yeah. But when they were sewing him up. And he has the skin of an 80-year-old man. Well, who among us? The LA son is unforgiving. But when he's out there, they're stitching him up. His fingers are like, I felt like they were reaching for the knives a little bit.

47:32Chris Ryan:I was wondering about that. I really hope that doesn't happen. Yes, but I'm just saying. Just because those are my homies in there. I don't want them to get scalpled up. But it seems like that would have to be a classic pit zag.

47:45Andy Greenwald:But also, it's a little bit like the scorpion and the frog parable, where the guy's just like, I got to be me. I gotta cut people up. Or he is like already, it's like a wee bay in the wire situation.

47:56Chris Ryan:Oh, he's just like, I already got life in prison.

47:58Andy Greenwald:I'm never leaving prison. I will now take credit for 16 other murders in exchange for a pit beef sandwich. That's right. So I'm just saying, a lifetime of television shows and entertainment. What's the Pittsburgh sandwich?

48:09Chris Ryan:The Pramanty Brothers one with the fries on it? The fries in it. Yeah.

48:12Andy Greenwald:That's a great sandwich. Yeah. We haven't seen a lot of that. I think my guess about that, and I'm sure our Pittsburgh-based fans and or Aaron Rodgers could chime in about it. I feel like they haven't done it because the show is so respectful of Pittsburgh with references and needle drops that we didn't get from apparently very important local bands that it would be like a Philadelphia-based show being like, ah, Gino's cheesesteak for lunch again, the best thing to enjoy. That might be a little too on the nose and there's probably more regional specialties or more specific that they want to appreciate.

48:46We'll see.

48:47Chris Ryan:We'll see what they bring them in. the late stage cancer patient with a loving husband and a death doula?

48:51Andy Greenwald:My note on that was a lot of McKay. Like a lot of... The other thing I was noticing, this is not a brilliant observation, but I was appreciating and noting the way the show gives us information about its main characters with limited real estate, with camera cutaways and lingering shots. So that whole, I'm caring for my wife in this terminal, awful, pain riddled state, every time there was a moment of like, whatever you need, you know, I'm there for you. They would cut to McKay and she's just sort of taking it in.

49:23Chris Ryan:But I also thought it was Javadi's sort of alarm or shock at the death duel. It was notable. I don't know why. That didn't, yeah.

49:32Andy Greenwald:I didn't think that's that outside of the realm of, I agree.

49:35Chris Ryan:But Javadi was like, what? Like when they were like kind of being very direct about this probably being the end of her life.

49:41Andy Greenwald:I think she was just really. She's young. No, I think she's, she realized she's missed an opportunity for going viral. like Dr. J could be like you know what's in

49:50Chris Ryan:what's up gang

49:51Andy Greenwald:time to die yeah

49:53Chris Ryan:and then Langdon let's talk briefly about him okay Patrick Ball just just punching the clock waiting for Robbie to notice him he had the MRSA patient and also the Dry Ice Brothers

50:06Andy Greenwald:side note on the MRSA patient the other Robbie off the handle off the rip was when he grabs the phone from her and is like I will she will sue you if you fire her yeah please continue

50:16Chris Ryan:That's it. I mean, like, I anxiously await their showdown, their emotional showdown. The Mercer patient, that's just a tough beat. That was scary. I don't even know how that happens. Like, what happens? You just have an infection? The - I don't want to know. I gotta say - Don't answer me. Like, I just want to live naively in this world. It's better when you don't know a lot of things. Well, I know too much about certain things, so when it comes to infections, let's just let the dice roll.

50:43Andy Greenwald:I thought it was, I think it's a remarkable testament to the intensity and specificity of the show that a red skin infection line going past an artificial blue marker was terrifying like Jaws. Like that was quite scary. And what's like the expanding like bruise that she's got? Like would you rather, this is a terrible would you rather, I'm going to say this going in. Would you rather be brought into the ER with like a, oh a refrigerator fell on me that hurts and the bones are broken and they're going to fix it or be brought in being like i've got a rash and then over the next two hours have everyone slow motion

51:23Chris Ryan:freak out around you that would really freak me out i think i'd rather just be i think i'd rather have my acl blown out and everybody's just like you you does seem like you'd blow your acl out

51:35Andy Greenwald:because you're so good at sports you know and then be like actually i will continue to compete in the Olympics.

51:41Chris Ryan:Can we talk about that? She's like the Terminator. She's gotten into many accidents, correct? She's 41.

51:50Andy Greenwald:Yes.

51:51Chris Ryan:She's the greatest downhill skier in women's American history, probably. Are you asking me? I'm putting you on the spot. Do you not know about women's skiers?

51:59Andy Greenwald:I know about Ilyana Rasputin's tortured history.

52:03Chris Ryan:I don't know. I don't know about that. There are certain injuries where they're like, you can't fuck it up more. I am always dubious about that, but like in football, you will hear about like, they send them back out because they're like, we gave him the choice. He's not going to hurt him. He can't break it more.

52:20Andy Greenwald:The best example we have is from our beloved Philadelphia Eagles, Lane Johnson, the Ironman of the offensive line. Yes. During the Super Bowl season that we lost the Super Bowl a few years ago, right? Tore an adductor muscle. Yeah. Which, you know, as someone who's passionate about Pilates, I'm like really attuned to the core and what it does for me. But like, I can only imagine.

52:43Chris Ryan:It's really two Americas here. I can imagine.

52:46Andy Greenwald:What about Kaya losing her parents' subscription? Yeah, three Americas. We're in the same America. I can only imagine the absolute agony of this injury. But he was like, I can have surgery to stitch my muscle back together or I can go back to my day job stopping 300-pound men from hitting Jalen Hurts. It's already ripped. as awful as that sounds I can think my way through that Jason Peters used to do that too

53:10Chris Ryan:where they'd be like his ankle has essentially been destroyed but he won't pop his Achilles again you know so he's going to go back out there

53:17Andy Greenwald:why didn't they try that with Achilles? yeah like maybe Christopher Nolan will answer that for us my question about Lindsey Vonn is I just didn't know you could opt out of an ACL injury I didn't know you could be like thank you I'm good I will continue skiing down mountains

53:33Chris Ryan:I think it hurts a lot but But do you have the structural... I don't know. I mean, honestly, also, once you get locked in on the skis, what else is there to do? Stand up on them. The skis don't lift your body. But you're not moving. You have to step, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if about the human body... There's four Americas.

53:52Andy Greenwald:It's people who are used to downhill slaloming in Europe. Yeah. Anyone? Kaya? No?

53:58Chris Ryan:You ever ski, Kaya? You're from Northern California.

54:01Andy Greenwald:I like to snowboard, yes.

54:03Chris Ryan:Do you think you could do a blown-out ACL? Or tore an ACL? No, absolutely not. And this is actually a subject in one of my group texts right now. My friend just tore her ACL while skiing. And she's like, how...

54:14Andy Greenwald:Wait, is your friend Lindsey Vonn?

54:15Chris Ryan:No.

54:16Andy Greenwald:Okay.

54:18Chris Ryan:She's like, how the fuck is she doing this, basically?

54:21Andy Greenwald:Jesus. So the symptoms include a loud pop at the time of injury.

54:26Chris Ryan:That's what everybody's always like. That's what freaks them out the most.

54:29Andy Greenwald:Immediate significant pain and swelling. Sure. Feeling like the knee is giving out or buckling. Yes. Loss of range of motion. pain and discomfort when walking.

54:37Chris Ryan:I think my wife tore her MCL once, and she'd check all those boxes. I don't know. Okay. You've already won so many medals. Who?

54:50Andy Greenwald:Lindsay.

54:51Chris Ryan:Oh, I thought you said me. Lindsay. I thought you were like, I did. I mean, I took me a lot. Swimming in Philadelphia. That's it. Ogilvy had to clear out that lady. Their tuberculosis. Okay. Any other broader notes on the pit? aside from Al Hashimi, Robbie.

55:07Andy Greenwald:I respect its willingness to let the elder millennials or older make a MacGyver joke and then have younger people not get it. Not get it, yeah.

55:15Chris Ryan:We are getting to that point. A lot of stuff from our youth. Like, we'll reference LA Law and nobody's going to know what we're talking about.

55:22Andy Greenwald:Oh, you mean like the show?

55:23Chris Ryan:Yeah.

55:24Andy Greenwald:Not like the breakdown? We are downtown.

55:27Chris Ryan:All right, brother. You want to talk about, let's talk about Steel briefly. Yeah, set it up. You join me. This is a show on Amazon Prime that I checked out last week. Andy watched one and a half. I only watched the pilot, but I did enjoy it. We had a boisterous conversation about Sophie Turner in the process of discussing this, but I wanted to see what you thought of the first episode, which is like a stylish, cool little, I thought like a really just well done heist show.

55:53Andy Greenwald:Yeah, it's very entertaining. I don't know if you have it called up, like the name of the writer, director.

55:58Chris Ryan:Yes.

56:00Andy Greenwald:Satyrus Nikias. Yes. And it is like many...

56:04Chris Ryan:Some of the episodes directed by Hedy McDonald, who did Howard's End a couple years ago, I liked a lot.

56:09Andy Greenwald:Oh, the one with Matthew McFadden. That was really good. Yeah. I see. An incredibly entertaining show thus far about a wildly high stakes robbery in full daylight of a financial firm, a bank that manages... Pensions. Pensions. and a number of reasons to like this. One, imagining that this is in the industry shared universe and that somehow all of the Starks have just remade themselves into financial crusaders. Genuinely, the similarity with industry that is most compelling to me is like, it's really nice seeing these kids freed of chain mail.

56:48Chris Ryan:Yeah.

56:49Andy Greenwald:Sophie Turner seems, not unlike Kit Harington, just relaxed and relieved. Not that the character is relaxed in these high stakes circumstances, but she's a fun and charismatic performer. In a way, not that she was bad in Game of Thrones, but that show doesn't allow a certain range of motion.

57:04Chris Ryan:Yeah, I noticed that when you say that, as soon as she comes onto screen, you're like, oh.

57:09Andy Greenwald:You're a person.

57:10Chris Ryan:Yeah, and she's like, I'm hungover, I'm showing somebody around, I am the lens through which you're viewing the show. It's just really, I don't want to give too much away because I think part of the thrill of the pilot is the unfolding of the heist. I will say, I thought Pensions had some, safeguards around them and that it wasn't as easy as being like, I have a gun to a guy's head and he's going to give me your pension.

57:33Andy Greenwald:Do you still believe in guardrails, buddy?

57:35Chris Ryan:The thing is, I don't really believe in pensions. So it's like, they're not there, are they?

57:40Andy Greenwald:Yeah. I also think that the show...

57:45Chris Ryan:Nothing will make you think this country is cooked more than seeing your late parents' pension payments.

57:51Andy Greenwald:Oh, like that old TIA Cref when it hits?

57:53Chris Ryan:Yeah. I'm just like, you just taught for a while, like a while, 30 years. And then they just keep paying you.

58:00Andy Greenwald:Yeah.

58:00Chris Ryan:That's cool. That's so sick, right?

58:03Andy Greenwald:Couldn't be us. You don't think that like at some point, like, like you're going to get called to Sweden and they'll be like, Chris, in recognition of your many years of service to the podcasting industry, here is a sweatshirt with the logo on it. Like many of these British shows that we've been covering and enjoying, like there's just such a wild bench of performers and I just want to shout out the lead robber is played by Jonathan Slinger who's an actor that I saw on stage in London and I was like man this guy's incredible you dropped something and I think I can drop a Jonathan Slinger reference just a great actor and compelling and charismatic and surprising Gatto with Ben Whishaw he was really good did you not make it?

58:45Chris Ryan:no I couldn't I didn't see that no that's too bad

58:50Andy Greenwald:you know the thing about the West End is, yes, the restaurants are good and, you know, the feeling, the energy on the streets is remarkable.

58:57Chris Ryan:I was too busy re-watching the Western Book of the Dead.

59:02Andy Greenwald:Fair. I'm enjoying Steel. I want to watch it. Six episodes. Seems fun. Great. A question I had for you that I think I actually have a preloaded answer for, but I'm curious about this is we have been enjoying, and not just because we like to travel there or work there recently, but we have been enjoying a lot of very specifically London shows. And when we review things and talk about things like Steel or years ago when we were talking about Slow Horses, I may destroy you, but specifically Slow Horses comes to mind of like they are very, very physically grounded in a place. Like now they're by the Barbican.

59:39Andy Greenwald:Now they're on the 55 bus line. And like we've been there and we understand it. But I think anyone watching these shows, whether they use their active mind to appreciate it or not, understands that these shows are elevated by location shooting and being in a place. And particularly in Steel, there are a lot of drone shots of all the new towers in the city by the Bank Street station that are like, well, this is a transformed landscape and we are going to play with the scope and scale of it. And that made me think, and I actually don't know if you have an answer for this, when the last time was that we had an American show that celebrated specificity of location of a city.

1:00:18Chris Ryan:August of 2015, True Detective season two. Okay, we're going to get there. No, but I'm just saying, like, that was one of the things that leaped out at me. I was like, that's Broadway in downtown Los Angeles where they are standing.

1:00:28Andy Greenwald:This is a good segue then. I mean, we have noticed it in terms of like Wonder Man filmed in Highland Park. Sure. But that's not exactly what I mean. Like, Wonder Man is notable because it does like do establishing shots of Pacoima, which matters. Yeah. It's not just the volume or not just Toronto or Atlanta.

1:00:46Chris Ryan:Most of the time what happens now is like you will see drone shot and then a, whatever the scene is, could have been shot anywhere in the world because they are usually in like shallow focus so that like the actors are in focus, nothing really in the background is happening. And so it could be shot in Vancouver, it could be shot wherever they're shooting it.

1:01:06Andy Greenwald:I think there are a few recent examples of productions using the New York City text. Nobody wants this,

1:01:12Chris Ryan:takes advantage of Los Angeles, I think, to some extent.

1:01:14Andy Greenwald:Yeah, a very specific sliver of it, but that's true.

1:01:16Chris Ryan:Like when they look for parking spaces. Just get that, yeah.

1:01:19Andy Greenwald:Or they walk from skylight to in front of the movie theater where the light is good. Yeah. It's a nice third of a block. Yeah. A few shows have used the New York City tax credits well. Like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for example, a few years ago, or Black Rabbit, was very much a sort of slick vision of New York that is legitimate. it. But these shows, like these shows that do the, I guess what I'm chasing is something that I think reveals one of the major infrastructure problems of the American industry, which is that because production has cratered in traditional production hubs, often shows have to be written to be so deeply genre, not genre, location non-specific, that by the time you are told where you will be going to shoot, which, you know, over the course of a show's development could move from Louisiana to Vancouver to Budapest, you cannot make the place a character.

1:02:15Andy Greenwald:And I think that the shows that we are making are suffering from it. And not just like the great, you know, HBO shows that we always lionize, but even like maybe the more marginal, entertaining Apple shows or Peacock shows.

1:02:27Chris Ryan:I think there's also something going on. Like I've asked you about this and I've talked about this. There's something going on with like the use of extras and the use of background action where like even Law & Order and SVU now when you watch it, it just feels a little bit more canned. And it feels like...

1:02:43Andy Greenwald:Like the way that people look?

1:02:44Chris Ryan:Whereas if you watch early Law & Order, it seems like they're kind of running and gunning out on Central Park. And that's probably just really good ADs getting really good extras to look like people jogging through Central Park. Oh, that's a really good question. But I also don't know whether this is what happens to every human brain, where at a certain point they're just like, things just seemed more authentic 20 years ago.

1:03:06Andy Greenwald:Well, I do think that there was a more robust... Everything's... Budgets were bigger. Shooting days were longer or you had more of them. And you could let it rip a little bit, probably. Like, you could take over a larger quarter of Central Park West.

1:03:24Chris Ryan:Max McHale and Cal Penn talked about how that opening scene of the two of them walking through London and industry, the people in that shot do not know they're on industry. So I don't know whether there's a different law about who has to be like, you have to go then go up to people and be like, you're going to be on an HBO show. I have to imagine you do. But I just feel like, you know, when I drive by in LA and they're shooting something, even if they're shooting something in LA and, you know, the three blocks are blocked off and they're shooting something outside the friend in Silver Lake or Los Feliz or whatever, you know, it's not going to, it still feels like very canned and like safe.

1:04:00Andy Greenwald:Right. Do you think is that, were they shooting there because they're doing like documentary footage of your 40th birthday party, like recreating the night.

1:04:08Chris Ryan:Which is, I think also, no, she went to Tenants of the Tree, so I was going to say Charlie XCX had her birthday there as well, but she was at a different part.

1:04:14Andy Greenwald:You did both have past cigarette towers, if I remember correctly. My point isn't even so much the, it's just that like, if you're shooting, it would be nice to see things that are, if you're shooting in Atlanta, which people are not doing anymore, make it in Atlanta. One of the triumphs of the Vince Gilligan cinematic universe is the celebration of Albuquerque as the place, not Albuquerque as something else. Yeah. And it's been notable that the English television shows of the moment, industry accepted, industry for price point and budget reasons, shoots in Wales. But just the fact that like some of these clearly spendier English shows are taking advantage of the city that they're filming in.

1:04:57Andy Greenwald:And it's lacking in our American shows.

1:04:59Chris Ryan:This is a good enough segue to talk about True Detective. just because of the, you know, I was talking about, like, does your brain reset after a few years and think that just things that happened 10 years ago were...

1:05:11Andy Greenwald:Oh, like the way we are shedding skin so that we are ship of Theseus-ing ourselves every seven years?

1:05:15Chris Ryan:That's a very big theme of True Detective, by the way, this season. I just was like, you know, as I kind of read about Epstein stuff over the last couple of days,

1:05:28Chris Ryan:obviously, you know, I was almost like looking to pair it with something. I was like, what is like this feeling that I'm having that I think is a very shared feeling of like, am I losing my mind as I read the news or as I go beyond the news into piecing things together? And like, I think that everybody has to like kind of have their own limits as to how much of that that they can take on. I think so. As a man with no children whose wife is currently traveling, my limit might be a little higher. There might not be a limit.

1:05:58Andy Greenwald:In terms, like scale of one to 10, one being a church mouse and 10 being Ray Velcoro. What was your behavior yesterday alone in your home?

1:06:10Chris Ryan:I have received documents from websites from Jason Concepcion that require translation from Russian to English.

1:06:20Andy Greenwald:But those were just like consent forms to view Liverpool goals.

1:06:23Chris Ryan:Epstein basically was like a Russian agent for FSB. But, you know, and who knows? Is Jason gatekeeping this stuff? No. I mean, I'll share it with you. I don't know whether or not my computer is going to explode in five minutes. I'll just watch it on your screen. I was kind of thinking about things from the last 10, 15 years that had been either reflective or predictive of the moment that we're in. And one of the first things I was thinking of was like True Detective Season 1 and Carcosa. This idea that a show or a piece of art or anything could be solved in a community online. um you know and i remember around that time of true detective i can't remember the exact time but like the first time i ever really noticed this was after the boston marathon bombing and people like sleuthing online obviously this happened with serial a lot people like taking it upon themselves to piece things together true detective i think is very reflective of and predictive of of like that kind of behavior is the idea that there's like always another layer there's always another conspiracy to be found now the reason i went to true detective season two so I'm pretty familiar with one.

1:07:22Chris Ryan:And also two is about human trafficking, a cabal of sexually deviant demons living in and around, you know, Bohemian Grove. It's also about the environmental and financial rape of California. And when it came out, I think both of us, certainly you, but even I was like pretty out on it. You know, like if I remember correctly, like, I don't know if I was out, out, but I think I was like, this is humorless. This is a chore. Carrie Fukunaga obviously brought a different visual sensibility to it.

1:07:58Andy Greenwald:I think we were, my relationship with it was, I was frustrated with it because I liked the cast, particularly Colin Farrell. And there were, in a way it was like the, uh, non clown face version of Taylor, late period Taylor Sheridan in that I was, I found it compelling and frustrating in equal measure. Yes. Because there was a lot of good there. And then it was very, very seemingly insistent on walking itself off a cliff.

1:08:26Chris Ryan:So in the first season of True D, Woody and McConaughey are doing their version of his words. And then Fukunaga is shooting it in such a way where the magical realism, there's like the tracking shots, there's the incredible compositions. It's very well shot.

1:08:44Andy Greenwald:The comparison I would make is social network, the film, in the sense that you had two people who are very, very, very strong in their fields in terms of like a noisy written style and a noisy camera style colliding and having it make something that is somehow, maybe I think it's fair to say greater than the sum of its parts. Yeah. I mean, I love Fincher generally, and Sork and I can often take or leave, but together, it shouldn't work, but it worked. It certainly did. And I think that even as someone who is famously or infamously not a big fan of season one of True Detective, the alchemy of those two was the best work that either of them have done.

1:09:29Chris Ryan:The second season, even though Justin Lin directs the first two, I think Giannis Metz directs this third one, and then Jeremy Padeswa directed the fourth one. I haven't watched the last few. yet because you know life but um you can feel the authorial vision is coming from pizzolato because the primary directive seems to be like say the words the way i want you to say them and and and we're using all of the words yes scenes go on for much longer uh there is less riffage you know there's less kind of like it's maybe what he wrote but i'm gonna put like the mcconaughey spin on it or the Woody spin on it or the whatever, you know?

1:10:11Chris Ryan:Yeah. It's like four people who are being instructed to act like they are dead. Like they are in purgatory. Yeah. Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch, Rachel McAdams, who's awesome in this show. Yeah. And Colin Farrell, who's fucking incredible in this show. He is. This show, honestly, four episodes. If this show came out this year, it'd be a top five show for me.

1:10:30Andy Greenwald:I love this for you.

1:10:31Chris Ryan:This is so fucking good. And I can't believe I didn't like see it at the time, but maybe you just need, I don't really re-watch a lot of television just because there's just simply too much new stuff to check out. But I kind of, I wonder now, like, how many seasons of TV are out there that I'd be like, man, that was actually insane. Now, part of what's good about this season is remembering broadly what happens, but not the details of it. Yeah. So it's been really cool. Like, you get to the part where Velcro grabs, like, beats the shit out of the bully's father in front of the bully. Yeah. And he's like, you can't cry.

1:11:09Chris Ryan:Look at what you did to your dad. Look at the beating he's taking.

1:11:14Andy Greenwald:This is the happiest you've been on this podcast in months.

1:11:17Chris Ryan:And, um, thematically, I think it's just like a very resonant show right now.

1:11:24Andy Greenwald:Uh, but I, so my, so this is what's interesting to me is that when you were texting me and I was being noncommittal, which is par for the course because, you know, I sent you 19 things before you woke up and you were like, cool. So I felt like turnabout is fair play. But I thought you were saying that True Detective broadly, but specifically season two, was interestingly predictive of our current television moment. But you actually feel like it's predictive of our larger cultural moment.

1:11:49Chris Ryan:I think that it was... It's also, yeah, I think it's the former. The latter, I feel like in some ways it's just forgotten to time. And I don't think people make shows this absolutely devoid of... redemption, you know, and like any of the qualities, like all of these characters are just absolutely incinerating themselves. And they're so miserable. Their vices are completely taking over their lives. Their repressed feelings are destroying them in the case of Taylor Kitsch's cast character. It's so cynical about the world. it's so like the putrid disgusting shit that comes out of the woman's leg and the pit when they cut it you know that's what this show is yeah but then if you look at a certain if you look at the world now through a certain lens you're like it's way more right than it is wrong

1:12:48Andy Greenwald:well it's interesting because the idea of a cabal of disgusting rich you know pedophilic monsters is a real chestnut of American entertainment. Remember the guys in Squid Game? Sure. It's almost cliched. Now, as we've learned, the real black mirror of the last 10 years of American life is like, no, no, it's actually that stupid. Yeah. It's actually the things we thought are just like too beyond the pale and basic. Actually, that's what's been going on. I think what's missing is the level of almost like dark cartoonish humor of the fact that like it's not just that the conspiracy theories seemingly are were dead on it's that the people involved went on to 4chan and invented an even more cartoonish conspiracy theory to muddy the waters of conspiracy theories generally and to get people off the scent like that's the thing that's the level of like malevolent almost like armando Ianucci scripting season 15 of Veep level of cynicism.

1:13:58Andy Greenwald:That's something like True Detective, which ultimately is about Boy Scouts finding out the world's broken.

1:14:04Chris Ryan:Maybe in the first season. The second season is not about that.

1:14:07Andy Greenwald:Well, they are no longer, they're hollowed out because they had reasons for becoming civic leaders or cops or whatever, but reality.

1:14:14Chris Ryan:Yes, even the Valcoro character in season two is presented as this beautiful kind of kind man whose life is destroyed when his wife is assaulted.

1:14:23Andy Greenwald:Yeah, so I think that the missing, the third heat that's missing for me is any kind of recognition of the dark humor of it. What's compelling about a lot of what Pizzolatto writes is his absolute micro-targeted fixation on the swirling around the drain, but it's also that drain is located on his navel.

1:14:50Chris Ryan:Sure, and he's definitely like, this is like Sirianni after the Super Bowl. Like he's getting to call his own shots here.

1:14:59Andy Greenwald:So it's season three Kevin Petulo's offense?

1:15:02Chris Ryan:No, I actually liked season three. I will say that I forgot that one of the central kind of plot drivers of the second season is the corruption and financial malfeasance surrounding a California rail line that will connect the Central Valley, the North and the South. We still haven't built that.

1:15:23Andy Greenwald:Well, maybe with redistricting, we'll finally get there. Like, I think that it's an interesting, first of all, I love the history lesson. And I think it's fascinating to look at shows that were, you know, maybe misunderstood at the time. But I still think that in entertainment and like out at the bar, a guy sitting next to you being like, you actually don't understand how bad it is, is not that compelling to me. I need something else.

1:15:49Chris Ryan:I would almost be curious if you watched the first one, if you would be like, oh, actually, this feels a little bit more quaint. In retrospect? Yeah. It's pre-Trump. It's pre, like, it's, like, if you go through the last 10 years like we have and then you look back and you're like, oh, these were four, like, damaged but well-meaning people.

1:16:12Andy Greenwald:It's also, I think, one of the things, you can look at it one of two ways. Like, in those first three seasons, there are Hall of Fame level performances from McConaughey Harrelson Farrell Mahershala Rachel McAdams and like in the service of pieces that to some didn't hang together yeah what's your feeling about that you know it doesn't discredit their work sure um I wish I definitely found myself more like I wish that it was in the service of something broader and grander but there's also talk about like there was a feeling, particularly at that time, that because the doors had been blown open in the medium of television, that the work that was being made now in this golden into prestige era, whatever you want to call it, would be not just interesting, compelling, entertaining, meaningful, but would be significant and lasting in a way that we look at cinema.

1:17:07Andy Greenwald:And I think, maybe with a few exceptions, TV is still TV. Like, we keep shoveling. It doesn't, I don't say that to say that like Sopranos wasn't great, but I do think that the way we talk about individual performances and shows still somehow is diluted because of the quantity. Because to say Sopranos is great versus saying, I don't know, pick a great movie, I don't remember any.

1:17:36Chris Ryan:I mean, even something like versus like Goodfellas.

1:17:40Andy Greenwald:Right, is that it is a different commitment and a different aperture of like how much you have to take in.

1:17:44Chris Ryan:Goodfellas is a long movie that would take two and a half episodes of Sopranos. Yeah.

1:17:51Andy Greenwald:What will you do next, historian?

1:17:53Chris Ryan:I don't know. Also, I would be curious to see how you felt about the David Lynch-isms of season two on Second Pass.

1:18:00Andy Greenwald:I had a hard time with it in season one.

1:18:01Chris Ryan:Because they got the city manager with his eyes burned out being driven up the coast with the bird head.

1:18:08Andy Greenwald:I remember that very well.

1:18:11Chris Ryan:You were mad as fuck about that.

1:18:13Andy Greenwald:Yeah, because as this podcast's number one David Lynch gatekeeper, there's a reason why I was like, many have tried, but none have succeeded. Maybe with the exception of Tim Robinson on The Chair Company. Because David Lynch is funny as hell. And you just cop the moves, you know, but not the spirit. It's a very, very different thing.

1:18:34Chris Ryan:You weren't with me on Mulholland Drive when I was shooting in the gym.

1:18:36Andy Greenwald:What about, speaking of David Lynch, did you see that there has been some movement in terms of sharing his final work?

1:18:44Chris Ryan:His screenplay?

1:18:45Andy Greenwald:So there were...

1:18:46Chris Ryan:I know Toby Jones said that he was supposed to be the star of the last movie, right?

1:18:49Andy Greenwald:Is that what he said? Yeah. The lead. There were a lot of rumors, and then more than rumors, there was more than just smoke, like that he was prepping a massive project for Netflix. It was under the working title of Wisteria. There are people that have talked about it publicly. there are people that I know that auditioned for it and were going in and there was some information going around about it but that broadly speaking it was understood to be like Twin Peaks The Return like a massive movie that's going to be chopped up. 16 hours or whatever. 15-16 hours and then later it was revealed that it was the actual title was Unrecorded Night and then he was and it seemed like Netflix was willing to do this with him but his health precluded even getting it into production and then Strike and COVID and all the other things that delayed production generally.

1:19:35Andy Greenwald:So it was never realized. But that his daughter, Jennifer, is saying that they're going to publish the scripts. Yeah. Wild to think about. Do you want to read those? I desperately want to read them, but it does, it's painful. Because it's not like, ah, you know, in the same way that like, you know, Le Carre's sons are writing new smiling novels or like there's a lost Chandler book that was finished by a contemporary crime writer. Like no one can do what he did. Yeah, I have a very strange relationship

1:20:00Chris Ryan:to the sort of legacy acts. Not even the legacy acts, but I was thinking about this because I was on the plane back from Boston. I was watching Now You See Me 3.

1:20:09Andy Greenwald:Are you a completist? Have you seen the first two?

1:20:11Chris Ryan:I have now. I've seen all of them, like on planes. Wow. Do you like them? I know nothing about them. They're fully entertaining, but actually insane. Dominic Cessa is in the third one.

1:20:24Andy Greenwald:First of all, that broke containment, that trailer, which seemingly gives away the whole movie, played in front of every children's movie in theaters for a year.

1:20:33Chris Ryan:He's playing young Bourdain in the upcoming movie.

1:20:37Andy Greenwald:I'm a big Sessa head.

1:20:38Chris Ryan:I like Dominic Sessa too. I love the holdovers. It's just like we are now in what are different ways to continue to put out Anthony Bourdain's stuff in the absence of him.

1:20:55Chris Ryan:Half of me is like, yeah, I'm going to be there day one. I can't wait to see it.

1:20:58Andy Greenwald:Oh, this is a story about Bourdain. I thought you were going to tell me about the Magic movie. No. Okay, sorry, go on.

1:21:03Chris Ryan:He is playing young Bourdain.

1:21:04Andy Greenwald:Yes, in a...

1:21:05Chris Ryan:Would you describe yourself as like, I can't wait to see that? Do you think that there's a similarity between like paging through a never-to-be-film David Lynch?

1:21:11Andy Greenwald:No, because this is a biopic.

1:21:14Chris Ryan:Yeah, but like... Which is different than like Parts Unknown season 15

1:21:17Andy Greenwald:hosted by Dominic Cessa with generative AI helping him. Sure, sure, sure. But is the question like, do I feel like I'm done?

1:21:25Chris Ryan:It's just things that like, I don't know that the artists would have wanted. I don't know that David Lynch would be like, look at my unfilmed screenplays. Yeah, because I'm a filmmaker. Yeah, I don't know that Anthony Bourdain would be like, I really want my youth to be biopicked.

1:21:43Andy Greenwald:I don't know the answer. I think my interest level varies. I think that there is something, for the Lynch thing, there's something incredibly bittersweet about it because no one can do what he did. but in terms of my curiosity and interest in these people that meant something to me sure these two examples but I haven't read no disrespect to Nick Harkaway but like I haven't read his new his new smiley book

1:22:07Chris Ryan:the silver what was it

1:22:09Andy Greenwald:no that was the last look how he finished there's like a book called smiley something that is credited to Nick Harkaway it's just a new smiley book do you but is this how you feel about True Detective Night Country no continuing Nick Pizzolatto's work without him no

1:22:24Chris Ryan:I had a lot of time for Night Country. I don't think, I think it was like just, I would like to see that project continue. I think it's a really interesting and fun, for me, world to live in, is these sort of like occult investigations by broken detectives.

1:22:41Andy Greenwald:But I think the thing that the show, look, my criticism of this franchise has been well criticized, and that's totally fair. But I think one of my recurring things about it is weirdly True Detective didn't go far enough in either direction. I know. What you're saying is really compelling that he was onto something, obviously, that he was feeling and was inspired to write about and that does chime with the world maybe even 10 years in advance, but it didn't go all the way there. Like, the show teased it. They teased this larger mystery.

1:23:14Chris Ryan:I think three maybe touched it the most.

1:23:17Andy Greenwald:Yeah, well, three has an explicit moment of tying in the series. Very brief, right, at the end? uh yes reference like but it's also like it's where this the character winds up is the most

1:23:30Chris Ryan:and i think is the most spiritually like true thing that happens to any of the characters in this show in this entire franchise is is the fate of the maherjala character what's weird is

1:23:43Andy Greenwald:i'm almost arguing for a more conventional structure in which like a prestige network like HBO hires a, and I think it's fair to say, regardless of how you feel about the output, like a prestige creator like Nick Pizzolatto who works in a certain manner and expects his words to be performed and said in a certain way. But it's macro-engineered like the X-Files in the sense that like Nick Pizzolatto's broken men characters are perpetually lifting boulders up a mountain that they can't carry, but at the top of the mountain is the fucking cigarette smoking man. Sure. And he's always, you know, emailing people to get tickets to see Howard Stern or whatever.

1:24:19Andy Greenwald:Whatever the case may be. you know like it would almost be and it's very indicative of something about TV that I like so I want to be careful I'm not arguing against myself here but the fact that it doesn't really stack up to something is okay like not everything can be engineered but it's almost interesting that interesting and purely in hindsight that if there had been some like macro story that he was going to keep running at from different vantage points in America from different character vantage points different casting, maybe even different eras, one thing that you could explain, not just Carcosa and flowers.

1:24:57Andy Greenwald:Like some, and something a little bit more specific and thus maybe more heavy-handed than the evil that lives within all men.

1:25:03Chris Ryan:I think if you were to go back and watch season two, you would be surprised by how much you like it because it's, it is like a level of quality of television that I think is absent from like a lot today.

1:25:13Andy Greenwald:That's the way I feel about Miyazaki's very personal The Wind Rises.

1:25:17Chris Ryan:I can see where this is going.

1:25:18Andy Greenwald:In the sense that I do think there's something in there that you would respond to because it is a film about tuberculosis and smoking and airplanes.

1:25:25Chris Ryan:Where are we at? 11.45. You gotta go? No, I was just thinking about whether we should do any... Is this After Dark?

1:25:31Andy Greenwald:This has been After Dark ever since you brought out your notebook.

1:25:34Chris Ryan:Would you like to weigh in on Stout?

1:25:37Andy Greenwald:Like because of all the creamy punts of Guinness? Jeff Stallone, long time... Other Stout. I do follow a lot of Guinness content.

1:25:42Chris Ryan:Long time Eagles offensive line coach and run game coordinator. Do you think people want this? I'm ready for it. I don't really care. Okay, let's go. I want to hear about it. Let's go. Sports corner. I'm going to paint a little portrait of Andy. Okay. Andy's a guy... Yeah, yeah. ...who doesn't just need sports, but he needs the sports that he cares about to work out in a certain way.

1:26:01Andy Greenwald:To reflect, yeah, to some sort of goodness.

1:26:04Chris Ryan:Yeah, to reflect, like, a certain chemistry, a certain togetherness. Humanity. And, yeah, like, I think you're looking to sports to right some wrongs in the universe. Not you. To be the best of us. Yeah. And so when bad things happen or like, you know, locker room drama spills out about the Eagles, Andy's like the last to believe it. Very upset. Yeah. Yeah. He's always just like, I trust Howie will take care of like all of this stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I love that about you.

1:26:33Andy Greenwald:Yeah.

1:26:34Chris Ryan:But this is one where a very like long serving and beloved and perhaps best at his job in the world, offensive line coach. 13 years. has chosen that he would rather not work for the Eagles anymore than work for the new offensive coordinator or Nick Sirianni anymore. He doesn't like how he was treated last year, whatever the reports are. And this is the one that seems like it may have broken you a little bit.

1:26:58Andy Greenwald:Well, I did spend my drive in listening to our friend Sheil and our old friend Ben Solak talk about this in ways that did remind me of Vince Vaughn's attitude towards justice in True Detective Season 2. I would not say it was a sunny thing. In my defense, shout out Vic Fangio, I have noticed that there is an inversion that happens in season and out of season. Whereas during a football season, I am a reactive lunatic where every single snap is catastrophic. And then when the season's over, I'm like, trust the process. Sure. I like these moving pieces. It could work out. Whereas you and Zach, I think, are much more granular in your nervous systems during the offseason.

1:27:47Chris Ryan:I'm much more level-headed during games.

1:27:49Andy Greenwald:Yeah.

1:27:49Chris Ryan:There's an element of it that's just beyond our control.

1:27:52Andy Greenwald:Yeah, and I'm more level-headed in the offseason because I trust the great man theory. I trust Jeffrey Lurie. Who's the great man? TBD. Yeah. TBD. No, this is a bad one. This is a bad one. In the sense of like, if they can't actually make this work, what are we doing here? Yeah. Doesn't feel good. How do you feel about Jared McCain getting traded?

1:28:13Chris Ryan:I'm mad. I mean, while we've been recording for quite some time now, while we have been doing so, there may have been like another trade that was coming. Seems like it was just a tax time. I did not like that. Yeah. I know we have to sign like some of our guys on two-way contracts, but like, I'm glad Eric Gordon has a warm seat on the bench for life for the Sixers for some reason.

1:28:32Andy Greenwald:Do you think if we go to the Comcast Infinity Shineheart wig company arena. They will have up in the rafters, they'll have like Dr. J's jersey, Iverson's jersey, and skirted the first tax apron 2026 jersey. I was thinking

1:28:46Chris Ryan:about bringing that sign to the game tonight because I'm going to go see the Sixers play the Lakers. Oh, nice.

1:28:50Andy Greenwald:I'd be like, proud of you guys.

1:28:52Chris Ryan:You're under the threshold. Greenwald, it's been amazing to deal with you today. Deal with me? Not deal with you. Deal with the world. Deal with the files. Do you want to show people your work? I did. Look what you did. I'm trying to be more present my thought.

1:29:08Andy Greenwald:Yeah.

1:29:09Chris Ryan:And write out my thoughts longhand because when I'm on my computer, I'm just like all over the place. I'm just like, oh, let me listen to some shoegaze. Look at this. I like this. Industry and Night of the Sand Caves go up on Friday. We're not going to do a show until Monday though. So don't get your hopes up. And we'll talk about the Super Bowl, some ads, State of the World, State of the Birds, State of Greenwald.

1:29:33Andy Greenwald:I'm just putting all my eggs in the Sam Darnold basket.

1:29:35Chris Ryan:Thanks to Kaya. Thanks to Kai. Thanks for listening.