Creator Eric Kripke on Ending ‘The Boys.’ Plus, ‘Top Chef’ Season 23, Episode 10 and ‘East of Eden’ Trailer.

18:02Andy Greenwald:No, the cartoons did. The point is Terminalist premiered to great fanfare in the year of our Lord 2022. July 1st, 2022 is when the premiere episode of The Terminalist debuted. Okay. Season two has now been announced to premiere, I believe, in October of 2026. This is a four-year gap between seasons one and two of a show. For a show that, I mean, who watched that? Chris. This is where we can talk about it. Right. Well, I mean, this was also part of what appeared to be Amazon Prime's successful strategy of doing pulpy, right-leaning. The Jack Ryan-esque. Manosphere-type things. Yeah. Reacher. Reacher.

18:48Andy Greenwald:Especially with movie stars. In the Terminalist's defense, there was a spinoff series, prequel series, starring Taylor Kitsch that did premiere last year. So the list was growing over the past few years. But four years is an insane amount of time to do between seasons. Similarly, Ahsoka premiered with my beloved Rosario Dawson in 2023. Okay. Dave Filoni, the now head of Lucasfilm, said that, first of all, he said that of all the Star Wars characters, Ahsoka, his own creation, is his favorite character, which is a bold choice. He announced that season two will be coming in early 27, putting it right in that sweet and entire college career window of four years between seasons.

19:35Andy Greenwald:And I guess what I wanted to say was, what are we doing? I understand Chris Pratt's a big actor and has movie commitments. I understand that Chris Pratt at one point was a big actor and has a lot of voiceover commitments. I understand that Disney shows require a lot of post-production, although I didn't think they needed this much since they do a lot of it in front of the volume, which fills in the background as you're filming. It just does not seem to me to be a successful strategy to delay that long between the first and second seasons. Yeah. I mean, we're going to be talking to Eric Kripke soon, and there were delays between seasons of The Boys, but there was a global pandemic and a strike.

20:16Andy Greenwald:They still managed to get the show out on time. And now that they are able, I'm watching them crank out the pit. Yes. Literally like year after year at the same, like there's a new season every year. Yes. I'm just like, so what, why can they do that over there and not do that? You can make the point, you can make the argument. I won't, but someone could, that these specific shows are in genres that are challenging to reproduce on the old television model. There's a reason we didn't have action stars starring in these types of global action shows every year back when it was must-see TV on Thursday nights in the 90s or Star Wars on TV.

20:54Andy Greenwald:That's harder to do. The problem is, like with everything else in this country, we have so radically abandoned the middle, the middle class, that the glaring delays here really, really stand out. Well, and in the case of the Terminalists, Why are you making a spinoff to your show before you've even made a second season to your show? I don't know. I think you could also say my understanding is that this has been in the can for a while and that you could point to institutional changes. That Jen Salky departed Amazon. Peter Friedlander took over the programming slate at Amazon and maybe took some time to make decisions about Windows and releases and what the overall plan was.

21:35Andy Greenwald:but it's a real problem and it's a problem that trickled down to like we you just did we would do it all the time to point to the pit as the example of what you can do i worry about that a little bit because the pit perfected the broadcast television show for the modern streaming era what seems to be the market inefficiency now is the good ongoing drama now this has been something that's been an inefficiency for a while, it's not easy to say like, hey, we found a succession. We found Mad Men. Like that's not hard to do. If it was, we would be living in a very different universe. But I do feel like attention strayed so far from those things that we just lack that backbone to our television in a way that isn't, obviously those of us who do a weekly podcast are really feeling it, but I think audiences are feeling it too.

22:25Yeah, it's just, we need to get a little bit more serious here.

22:28Andy Greenwald:We have to get serious. Talk to your camera when you say it. I think it's okay. You have standing here. We have to, have to, have to get more serious here. But I'm happy for Chris that his beloved terminal list is finally returning. He loves it. Did he actually like it? I mean, I think that, I don't want to put words in his mouth. Yes, first of all, I want to put words in his mouth, but I don't feel qualified here. Chris is a pretty easy sell for shows about guys wearing non-branded baseball caps carrying guns. Yeah. I mean, it's not that complicated. But I was looking at like the 10 year shift in drama series Emmy nominations and just to realize the way that event series, genre series and anthology series have just eaten the heart out of what used to be the bread and butter of our television viewing experience.

23:20Andy Greenwald:10 years ago, for the purposes of the Emmy conversation, I went to 2015, so we could do 2025. The 2015 Emmy nominees for Outstanding Drama Series were Game of Thrones, big genre show, still managed to make it come out mostly on time, House of Cards, which at that moment was still a year-to-year show, Downton Abbey, year-to-year show, Better Call Saul, year-to-year show, Mad Men, the last great year-to-year ongoing drama, Orange is the New Black, year-to-year ensemble show, and Homeland, the same. Like, that was what we were used to having. And you can argue the merits of each one of those shows, but you understood what they did, what your relationship to them could be, and on and on.

24:04Andy Greenwald:So fast forward 10 years, and the nominees are Andor, one of the greatest shows of the century, but always two seasons and done, with a significant gap. Slow Horses, year-to-year show. hey and they are real they're almost like clockwork they have the trailer for the next season at the end but i would argue a slow horses 10 years ago would not have made it into that category yeah it would be like a nice thing to enjoy it would not have been considered the stake the backbone of the drama category the pit which we just discussed deserving the diplomat which i think quality wise you may vary on but i think that there is a there's delays but it is a good faith attempt to like have something going.

24:48Andy Greenwald:Severance, see you in 2028. White Lotus, not the same show year to year and not, you know, and also you can't always count on it schedule wise. Paradise, lots of fun. Deserving? I don't know. And The Last of Us, big genre show, couple years in between. And what's the runway? Like, it's, it's created to end. So some of this is obviously presaging the conversation I'm going to have with Eric, which is just like, He's really good at making a show that isn't trying to answer a question, but it's just trying to keep it going. But I don't know. Am I drawing too wide of a net here by pointing out these long season disparities and then railing about the Emmys?

25:30And that's another point, too, is that everything is like eight episodes now. And it just seems like somewhere along the way, everything got way more expensive and also way more inefficient, which is not. But I don't know, and I'm sure it's a combination of lasting COVID effects and lasting strike effects. But it just seems so confusing to me that it just takes so long to do these things. And also they cost a lot of money. And then also you get the East of Eden trailer and everything's dark. And filmed in New Zealand.

26:07Andy Greenwald:Voice of the people on this one. I think there are a lot of reasons that go into it. And one of them is, of course, like budgets when you, if you have the Apple strategy, which seems to be like, if we can get an Oscar nominee to do it, we'll do it. If we can get three Oscar nominees to put in one scene together. Exactly. Then we'll renew it. Like Margot's Got Money Troubles, which apparently is an ongoing series now. That raises the price. If it's a Star Wars show, if it's a Game of Thrones show, that raises the price and it raises the post-production time. Yeah. All that's baked into it. I continue to think one of the biggest problems is we skipped a generation in terms of teaching people how to make television.

26:47Right.

26:47Andy Greenwald:This deeply speaks to some of like the Writers Guild stuff a little bit in the weeds. Yeah. But in terms of. Yeah. I mean, I remember that was one of the big discussions the last round of negotiations. Yes. It was like, let's have, can we have writers back on set? On set to learn how to produce so that you don't have to hire people who have never been on set to run shows. And then you ship them to Budapest in control of a hundred million dollar budget and they inevitably fail. and then you have to bring in more people to back them up and then you have to shut down production to rewrite the scripts.

27:13Andy Greenwald:And I'm not necessarily looking at you, Dune Prophecy, but it could be any of the many Dunes, prophecy out there that this is not really sustainable. I think it's really notable that the pit, we're holding up with good reason and celebrating it and the guys who make it, I'll have a little gray in their beard. And literally they are the guys who made ER. And they were on the shelf for, I mean, John Wells was never on anybody's shelf, But like Scott Gemmel was like, give me a chance. I'll do it again. Or you have something like Widows Bay right now where you have someone who had lots of reps on Parks and Rec and now Katie Dippold is making a really good show.

27:50Andy Greenwald:It's a really good example. And I wish I could sit here with you and talk about this week's episode. But I had to watch so many episodes of The Boys to catch up. It's OK. I also wish I could sit here with you and talk about this week's episode. But you have watched it. I am. OK, fair. The last point about the ongoing show thing, I think it's worth discussing, is when networks, streaming services do stumble on something that is working, they cut it short. Today, this week alone, Netflix announced a fourth and final season for The Night Agent and a fifth and final season for The Lincoln Lawyer. Neither of these are shows that I watch.

28:25I watched the first season of The Night Agent. Did you?

28:27Andy Greenwald:Did you like it? It was good. The phone rings, right? Yeah, the phone rings. And he has to go save the girl. So it's a horror show. Nothing is worse than the phone ringing. I would say it's a thriller. Okay. I was going to say, when has not watching a show ever stopped me? What I can tell about these shows is that they are working in the sense that people enjoy them. They understand what they are. The audience is good and consistent. Production seems to be flowing well enough. They get the shows on the air with regularity in the model that we're talking about. And yet they're ending. and I think that's when we talk about the inexperience on the writers or production side.

29:08Andy Greenwald:It's not inexperience on the streamer side. It's just a disparity in goals. Yeah. Netflix reaches the fifth season of something and even if there's more creative road or if there's, you know, like in the old days, NBC would be like, this is one less problem for me to keep something going and to keep people tuning in and guaranteeing advertisers a certain thing. And Netflix is like, well, now we have five years of the show and we're done. And we'll get to sit in our library forever. Exactly. It's never leaving. Yeah. They don't have to do any kind of costly renegotiations with cast or crew for second contracts or reflecting the success or whatever that may look like for them.

29:49Andy Greenwald:And also, it's this weird brain space that they're allowed to occupy, which is we're not, we can be concerned about our current audience of the Lincoln Lawyer and we feel bad for them. but we are also measuring their sadness and engagement with the untold millions of future viewers of The Lincoln Lawyer who will be in our systems, in our ecosystem, discover a show and be like, sick, five years of it. Yeah. Probably in their algorithms, that's more millions later. Yeah, like how many people are waiting for the next season of Lincoln Lawyer? Versus how many people might discover it and be excited to find it.

30:23Andy Greenwald:And be like, oh great. Another reason not to cancel this month and that's cheaper for them. So anyway, all of this was this segment of the show that I like to call everything is bad we're screwed everything is bad but um everything is bad and nothing works anymore 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's same day delivery has your back getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so that you can actually join in on the moment instead of watching from the sidelines.

30:59Same day delivery. It's on Prime. Visit amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply.

31:08Andy Greenwald:Before we bring in Eric Kripke, Kaya, your silence on Top Chef has just been too much. We need to talk about Top Chef. I really enjoy this season. Tell me where you're at with it, and then we can talk specifically about this week's episode. I will call up the specifics. I don't know why. I was trying to figure this out last night. I don't know why I'm particularly enjoying this season more than others. I think it's because there's not like a very clear front runner. Yeah, there is. You could argue after this week there is, but I know what you mean. There's not someone who is doing donuts, not literally making donuts.

31:44Yeah.

31:44Andy Greenwald:Dunking on everyone week after. Yeah, exactly. Like there's not a Buddha where it's just like, and like that can be fun to watch where you're like, wow, this guy is just like a master of his craft. And like he's just like dominating. But I mean, the key to reality TV competition shows is kind of that you need to not know what's going to happen next. True.

32:09And also I like I feel like there's like Anthony and Lawrence who are kind of like the two front runners. Tier one. Tier one. And then everybody else below them is kind of having like a mid off.

32:21Andy Greenwald:Let's call it the Sherry zone. Yeah. Cherry might be the most mid-contestant in the last decade of Top Chef. Yeah, but like that's almost because there's so many mid-contestants, it's almost fine, I guess. I don't know. And then you have like Rhoda who's just like… Very inconsistent, let's say. I think I'm struggling with it and I'm trying to identify what the major problem of the season is. because there's a bunch of stuff that we could list, including the clearly reduced budgets that they're dealing with in these last few years. They got outside. They got outside. They got outside. The de-emphasis of the quickfire as something that has anything to do with what, again, this week was different.

33:06Andy Greenwald:This week did lead directly into the elimination, but broadly speaking, the quickfire is just brand management and cash winning, which is not really related to the larger competition. Maybe this is just like the glorified bubble that I allowed myself to exist in because this is the only competition show that I watch. It did feel in many years that we were seeing some sort of real-time conversation about what greatness in American cookery might look like. Like when Chef Eric shows up with West African ingredients that the show had never brought in before. And I'm like, oh, this is now a new line of conversation has entered the chat.

33:45Andy Greenwald:Or Buddha's like absolute technical excellence versus, and I'm not going to be able to name contestants off the top of my head anymore. But like versus like, but like there were people like, well, what I do is more soulful and homey versus technical brilliance. And what does that look like? And are we entering the era that I think Chris has talked about, like the survivor era where there are people who are students of the game coming to the show. And that's kind of what Buddha was. He's like, I know how to win this. I know that he cooks at a restaurant in New York and people enjoy it, but I don't think he's going to be the face of cuisine.

34:16Andy Greenwald:he's the face of competitive cuisine, which is a different thing and was, you know, maybe not my favorite either, but interesting to watch in the dynamics. The fact that this week felt so crushing because we lost Dwen, who was by far the most engaging television personality, but failed to cook the fish properly in a fish challenge was kind of emblematic of where we're at. Well, and lost your nemesis. I've heard that Seeger stands are big in our emails right now. Yeah, there's a lot of justice for Seeger. How many burners do you think Seeger has right now? I mean, he looks like a guy who would have a few.

34:52Andy Greenwald:Who would have a couple? But I feel like that was, I don't remember the last time that happened where I was like, the show is going to be worse off for losing a personality. Right, I see what you're saying. As opposed to worse off for losing culinary excellence. Maybe that is why, maybe that's a component of why I'm enjoying this season more is because maybe the personalities are outshining the food. Like I genuinely like most of the people on the show. And like, I think each, I was sad to lose the other, the brother. Yeah. And I was really, I've been really enjoying that dynamic. Yeah, that was nice.

35:25But yeah, I mean, I think I would agree that as a whole, the cooking on this season has been poor.

35:33Andy Greenwald:Not up to snuff. And then I think you notice then, I've said this every week, I just think editorially they know what they're doing in a way that is confident and good. And the judging panel, those three are phenomenal. And when they bring in old friends like an emerald or something, it does elevate it. But it feels so small week to week. Like even when they went outside, you know, to go fishing, the challenge was just like using these small fish that they or their associates managed to catch and serving them to a very small table of people. And it's like in a way, I mean, maybe in a way it's representative of the world that we never recovered from COVID because there's an element of the season that feels like it's still a little pandemic-y.

36:15Andy Greenwald:like we can't let that many people in and we can't let them go out they came out of COVID so strong so strong with that global all-star season yeah and I wondered if what's happening now is kind of also parallel to what's happening right now in like the concert industry where people came out of the pandemic and they were so ready to like be with other people again and so it led to like a huge surge in like tours and like ticket prices and blah blah blah and now people are kind of like, okay, I did it. Like I was with the people again. And now I can't really justify spending$400 to go see like a mid-level person.

36:57Andy Greenwald:Plus if you're out there, your kid could get snatched by Jodi Comer. Exactly. Gotta be careful. That's what I was thinking about too. I knew you were thinking about that for me. But I wonder too, if it's now with the same thing with the restaurant industry where post COVID people were so eager to be out and like at restaurants and trying food. And now that's kind of waned. And what we're left with is really, really high prices. And like, it's kind of like, do I need to go spend$200 on a meal? Like not - Listen, our podcast where we just talk about how mid all Los Angeles restaurants are and also how sad our politics are.

37:31Andy Greenwald:I don't know if it would do numbers, but like the experience of staring at the ballot we got in the mail and then staring at Postmates and being like, man, we are cooked. Like, I don't want anything on either of these lists right now is a real, real problem. Everything is expensive and nothing really works anymore is kind of the general theme. A hundred percent. I have a question for you. Does it still mean something to win Top Chef? If you are a chef, does it still mean, like, does that still carry a lot of weight, do you feel? It's a great question. I think, broadly speaking, it doesn't in what we might have once thought of as a career.

38:11Andy Greenwald:But I think that long ago, the traditional path for restauranteurs and cooks diverged where the first few seasons, the first 10 winners of Top Chef, I think almost to a person, immediately opened a restaurant with their winnings in their hometown. And some of those restaurants thrived. Some of them, like we're recording at Spotify, there's a Girl and the Goat, which is Stephanie's restaurant here. A lot of those restaurants closed because most restaurants close. And really the path open to winners is to become professional media chefs. Yeah. And the migration from the Top Chef universe into the Food Network universe, like immediately start competing on those shows, immediately start hosting things over there.

38:53Andy Greenwald:Yeah. When those used to be a much thicker firewall between them, that's vanished. Or like Buddha, who immediately went on to the Padma's Rival show to compete on that. So you just do a circuit now. That's what he's good at. We also get a lot of emails about how your silence is noted on Padma's cooking show. The reason for that, that's just like I don't have time to watch it. And then it was like six weeks in. I'm interested. I mean, she got good cooks to be a part of it. I've heard that the competition level is really good, but that the production for like the first season of a show has been spotty in terms of like actually executing it.

39:34Andy Greenwald:I don't know. I mean, it was interesting. So Dwayne got kicked off and she was a sparkling personality. Yeah. Two personalities at times. When she asked Jonathan. Wrote to Dwayne. Yeah. When she said to Jonathan, do you want to call your brother? Was low-key one of the most savage things ever said on this show. But she immediately did, went on her Instagram and once the elimination aired and did an AMA. And of course all the questions are about like would you go on Tournament of Champions on Food Network? Would you come back for an All-Star season? Would you do that? And she's like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

40:09Andy Greenwald:I think that the brand is the front of house person that she did more than. Right, I see. Yeah, because her cooking was never particularly. I mean, it seems like it's what I would, I would want to eat those things. But either you, to do that, you either move to a smaller town in America and open the restaurant that does that and devote yourself to that life. If perhaps Widow's Bay needs some Vietnamese flavors or you become the public face of something. And that's also not something that every chef can do. I mean, I do think it's interesting that like, like Brandon is in, I think he's in Montana.

40:44Andy Greenwald:Like some of these rotas in Hawaii, that they're pulling chefs who are able to make their life and their restaurants work outside of the major spotlight cities. But what it means, I don't know. I mean, I don't watch any other competition shows. So do you feel like, is Top Chef still meaningful and entertaining if it is just another Food Network tournament of champions where a bunch of interesting people run the race? You know, it definitely always succeeded, you know, in terms of the reception because it was like, well, Tom Colicchio is here and we get Danielle Balud to drop in and this is like the gold standard.

41:22Yeah.

41:22Andy Greenwald:Does it matter? Is your pool of contestants getting smaller and smaller because less people are incentivized? incentivize like your best chefs are like i don't really need to do that anymore it doesn't really mean a whole lot then that might be the reason why season after season like the we're getting less of an interesting cast yeah um i mean i my theory with reality tv shows is that they're almost always best at the beginning when you're not especially and this is like less for like reality competition shows and more for just like a housewives type of deal but like like love is blind really faces this where like it was really great at the beginning when it was like lesser known and so people in theory were more on the show to actually find love and now people are just on the show because they want to like launch their influencer career yes and it just gets all a little too meta and like a little too boring yeah people go on top chef they know what the score is at this point and it's you know every so often you'll get a sous chef who's like my boss was this champion and now I want to come on and do the same thing and like they're sponsoring me almost to have my chance to do it.

42:27Andy Greenwald:But otherwise, there's also these just changing trends in dining where like 10 or 15 years ago, like Voltaggio Brothers would be like, or Richard Blaze would be like, the assignment is to make a cheesecake. I will reinvent cheese and cake. And that was a certain type of energy and a certain type of show. Trends in dining are definitely more like how much homeier can we make this? how many ways can we do a smash burger? How many ways can we do fried chicken? How many ways can we do an elevated Chili's? Exactly. And that or all restaurants want and they should want to be Houston's or Hillstone Group, which I love, but you kind of want to see the imagination.

43:04You will not find me bashing.

43:05Andy Greenwald:It's as good as it gets, but I don't know if I want to watch that in a competitive setting. That gets boring. And so bringing it full circle to this season, like what Lawrence did this week, I would pay money any night to eat what he made. like the classic Chinese style steamed fish with the rice inside. Like that is exactly, that is my favorite thing to eat as Chris loves to mock me for. You like a steamed fish? I love a delicate fish over rice. But it is reflective of where the show is at that he seems like on a glide path to certainly the finals by just executing something very, very, very well.

43:41Andy Greenwald:Or like - No shame in that, but - Was it Rhoda who just gave them like the fried fish over like a pureed - Yeah, she cooked it perfectly. And that... And so, yeah, at like whatever week we're at, is that... It's right. That's a great point. That's a great point. And is that a fault of the challenges and the ingredients and the budgets? Or is that just where they're at, where they are like scrambling to stay alive? Where if Dwen had just cooked the fish, it was uncooked, not only would she be safe, she would have been in the top three because she did something that is from her perspective, from her culture, everybody liked, and it would have been done well.

44:18Andy Greenwald:What was exceptional? Yeah. Nothing really. Yeah. Damn. So where do you think they're going to go next? What, place in America? Yeah. Whoever gives them a tax break. Like, there's always someone on Reddit who's just like, I have looked in the city records of Charlotte, and I see that they got$1.3 million to film there. So that's also why they will likely never, I mean, you know, we'll see if I'm wrong, and maybe Gail can talk about this if she comes back on, but I don't think they will ever be back in L.A., New York, Chicago. people are like will they obviously I would like this why don't they go to Philadelphia which has truly great restaurants right now and the answer is Philadelphia does not have a from what I understand there's no line item budget for attracting they do have I do believe they have some Hollywood tax breaks and credits but I think I read that they do not pay productions outright to come as part of like civic boosterism bummer I know they're too busy just letting people park in the middle of the street and you know sell their tickets to Knicks fans.

45:19Andy Greenwald:I will say as a whole, I want to read it. I am really enjoying this season and I love Top Chef. Oh yeah, but it wouldn't be a podcast. I know. If we didn't pick Knits. Yeah. Kaya, thank you for sitting in with me. Of course. It's always a pleasure. Wow, we went right up to the wire. Right up to the wire. And we didn't even get to BookTok. So we'll have to circle back to BookTok. Great. Did you read Playworld by Adam Ross? No. Okay, well maybe you can. Well, Chris made me read it, so it's good. I know. That's what all the dudes want to read right now. It's true. All the dudes? Man, I got a zag.

45:54Andy Greenwald:All right. We'll go offline. You'll give me a book that the ladies like. We'll get right back to it in my interview with Eric Kripke. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphaya, proper training is required. Tremphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

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47:45Andy Greenwald:I am thrilled to be joined once again by the showrunner, the developer, the lead voice behind Amazon Prime series, The Boys. Eric Kripke, welcome back to The Watch. Hey, thanks for having me. Very happy to have you. Because we are talking at a fraught, not vought time, we have just watched the penultimate episode of the series. the seventh episode of season five. So we will at some point talk about the events of that episode and the season and look ahead to the finale, which I have not watched. But I kind of wanted to, instead of starting at the end, start at the beginning, both to avoid spoilers, but also I'm really, really curious about this journey.

48:23Andy Greenwald:So if you don't mind, I want to like make you send your mind all the way back. I realized this morning that The Boys was announced as a TV show in April of 2016. Correct. Which was a decade ago. That's 10 years of your life. And the world has changed enormously since then, both politically, culturally, and specifically to our conversation within the industry. It was announced as a Cinemax original, I believe at the time. Could you talk a little bit about what drew you to the project then, what you thought was cool, interesting, and relevant 10 years ago, considering how much all of that must have changed since?

49:03Yeah, I came into it... First and foremost, as a super fan of Garth Ennis, the author of the comic. And for my money, Preacher is one of the two or three best comics, period.

49:22Andy Greenwald:Did you also have the experience I did, which is inappropriately reading it as a teenager and having your mind blown, but in a way that you could never explain to anyone around you? I did, except I was like 22. But yes, close. But it's fun. Like, what's great about his comics is, like, you really can't read them in public. You know, you really have to shoulder it in case you get arrested for indecency. Which is great socially for 17 and 22-year-olds. Especially when you're on a plane and it's your job to read that issue of The Boys and you're sitting next to a kid. Well, Eric, you've done that to me because I've had to catch up on The Boys while traveling.

50:03Andy Greenwald:And so my laptop is open with unspeakable things. So thank you. And now you can't go 500 yards within a school. So I was really into just Garth Ennis. And so I found the boys as a comic and read it voraciously. And then I was talking to a producer friend of mine, or he Marmer, um, who had the rights. And I just, I just jumped all over it. Um, around the same time, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were coming on board as well. So we all met and just kind of came on together. And, um, we started with, um, it would really be fun to take the piss out of celebrities. Right. You know, um, um, Seth's, uh, pitch, uh, when we first went around town was, um, what if Iron Man was Robert Downey Jr.

51:09Good pitch. And, and then I, and then I would pitch the story, but, um, so it started with like almost in a proto the studio way, which is Seth Beth and Evan know an incredible amount of insider knowledge about celebrities and the industry and how celebrities are packaged. And we're going to put all of that into a superhero show and make the world's most realistic superhero show.

51:37Andy Greenwald:But it's interesting because at the time, like taking the piss out of celebrities, sort of knocking superhero culture down a peg just as Marvel was ascendant. That was enough, I would imagine, to get you some interest and maybe a green light. at a certain point in your development process reality began to outpace fiction I think in ways that probably surprised all of you was there a moment that you point to as like an inflection point where things that you may have thought were extreme or wild or fun in the comic or in your writer's room were suddenly becoming plausible and you may have to rethink some of them there's more of like a couple small moments I mean you know We took it out and pitched it before Trump was elected, for example.

52:26And when we first started talking about it, he was the insane dark horse candidate that no one took seriously, if you can go all the way back to that. And so it was a few things. It was, I had dinner with Garth Ennis and I was picking his brain about what he liked about, like what inspired him to make The Boys. And he said something, and again, this was before the election. And he said, you know, he's like, I was thinking about how terrible some celebrities behave, but ultimately they don't have that much impact on the real world. You know, he said, but what if they had the impact of politicians?

53:14So what if you crisscrossed celebrities with authoritarians? What would happen? At the time, honestly, it washed right over me. I was like, wow, that's a kooky sci-fi concept, my man.

53:29Andy Greenwald:Are we ordering desserts? Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, and then obviously Trump was elected around when we were initially developing, you know, I may have written the pilot, but we were, you know, starting to put a room together and really develop what's this show. and that sort of came back to me and I was looking at the characters and and I said yeah they really are you know forward-facing celebrities and reality tv stars with the souls of authoritarians and fascists yeah and suddenly that was happening in the world and and you know i said to one or two of the other writers i said did we accidentally stumble into the metaphor of the moment um and we sort of felt like we were talking about the current world we were living in maybe more than any other show and most importantly we were way ahead of everybody else.

54:42Andy Greenwald:Yeah. Right. Like, like people were only then just starting to take out pitches and stuff. And we were heading into pre-production, you know, so I'm like, we can get first to market, which is part of the game too. Right. And we can get first to market with maybe one of the most current shows on television. And wouldn't that be amazing if our superhero show could also be a satirical metaphor for not just the celebrity world we're living in, but the political world. I'm also curious if you can think back the major differences. Again, this is from the 10-year window of like, okay, you're talking to Seth and Evan and you're pitching something to Cinemax versus you are bringing this ship to a close for Amazon Prime in a very different world.

55:29Andy Greenwald:In terms of what this, I'm wondering if you have an ability at this moment to reflect on what the show became versus what you initially thought it could be your own expectations, what has surprised you and its role within like what it means to make a, this is very broad, but I'm specifically like what it means to make a show feel so significantly different 10 years on post COVID post strikes post so much. I think this show frankly succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams. you know all the years on Supernatural so I've been on a show that has gone years and years and granted I left it after somewhere in between seasons 5 and 6 but we should note that it ran another 10 years yeah then it ran another 10 years but we always said the whole time like it sure would be nice to be a hit instead of a cult hit.

56:35And the boys, just to be on a big, fat hit, and it captured the zeitgeist, and it captured politicians' attention, and Barack Obama is telling people to watch it. And it was incredibly gratifying because it was the first thing I'd ever done that was genuinely me. Because I was, you know, I had network standards and practices for anything I did for Supernatural. But to be able to completely do my sense of humor, my influences, which is like half Sam Raimi and half the movie Network. and, um, you know, what I find important and interesting and funny and to be able to do it all without any restrictions and then to have it hit, you know, it's like a very lovely feeling when you like really put yourself out there, uh, is weirdly the most personal thing I've done.

57:46and for it to have this reaction is mind-blowing. I mean, it's never going to happen again,

57:54Andy Greenwald:but it was a nice ride. Well, first of all, we don't know that. As your show has proved, we don't know a lot of things about what's to come. One of the things that I admired and always commented on and complimented year to year was that what it felt like watching the boys was for all of the forward-facing, as relevant as looking at the news ticker stuff that you were playing with, like as the fissile material, the show had old bones in the sense of like, these characters are on this story, these characters are on this other story. We will tell a story this episode that will build into a larger jigsaw puzzle, et cetera, et cetera.

58:28Andy Greenwald:And I love that about the show. And I wondered if you could, thinking of that sort of how to make the trains run on time element of TV that you learned in the trenches of your previous jobs, how do you approach a final season? Because I think inevitably when you end a serialized show, you choose the answer and you choose the question that it was asking the whole time. It's no longer about all the fun things that you could explore. It has to be about one thing. How did you decide to make that turn into the final leg of the race? What was interesting to you to settle on as it was time to wrap it up?

59:08Well, what was really challenging and interesting was we had spent the first, you know, four seasons talking about pointing out everything that was messed up in the world. Right. Nothing but naming problems. We were naming problems for years. and then finally in the fifth season we all look at each other and we're like we actually have to say a solution so you you started having conversations we had never had before which is like you know where do you find hope in the world how do you think we make things better how do we get that in the show without being deadly earnest right because it's a show that sort of lives on its, I wouldn't call cynicism, but it sort of has this irreverent, sarcastic vibe.

1:00:06So you can't suddenly become, you know, Jimmy Stewart, Mr. Smith goes to Washington. You have to couch it in its tone. So how do you get all that across was a big thematic concern for us. Um, and then how do you properly service 15 characters in a way that feels satisfying and emotional? Um, and that was, you know, our attack, you know, look, finales are hard. Uh, people, what I've come to really very much realize as we've been airing it is everyone has a very distinct idea of what they want the finale to be.

1:00:58Andy Greenwald:Always, yeah. And when you're not doing the thing that they had in their, the vibe that they had in their mind, they're very vocal. and and but but i approached it and the writers approached it of like it's we've always put the characters first like we're just going to keep doing what we're doing in that we're going to track you know through every episode and then those as you said through every episode and then puzzle pieces into the season. We're going to track these characters to their conclusion. And if we get that right, then everything else is gravy. I think it's such an interesting point and I want to drill down on it.

1:01:49Andy Greenwald:And so this is, I'm going to jump into some spoilers for the season through episode seven on this, but specifically when you're talking about what, what, what fans want and the way fans engage with the show and the way audiences broadly engage with the show. I think it's interesting to like, let's carve out like what happens with Kimiko in episode seven, which is like, you can look at it in terms of like the plot of trying to expose her to radiation to give her a power that might kill Homelander. That's not something that was seeded, like that emerged in this episode. But if you watch it as the A plot or the A side of the record that is about the end of her relationship with Frenchie, then it becomes something quite different.

1:02:26Andy Greenwald:And so I think it's interesting to consider the way an audience who is gaming out a season and gaming out character and plot might bump up against something that I would imagine, not to put words in your mouth, and I'd like to hear your perspective on it, you were building from the other side of that wall. A few things. I mean, one is, you know, obviously we were building towards, spoiler Frenchy's death. And so we wanted Kimiko to be, you know, we wanted to talk about this episode as if Kimiko's, we were trying to put in all the, the, the clues and breadcrumbs that Kimiko was going to die by the end of the episode, um, to try to take a little bit of the attention on Frenchy.

1:03:07I think with frankly, uh, middling success, I think, I think, I think once Frenchy starts talking about his future.

1:03:14Andy Greenwald:I was going to say, it was a McBain Simpsons moment when he's like, we can adopt a dog. The three kids, sure. Yeah. Yeah. When Scoey is going to have by the boat called the live forever. Exactly. Right. No, for sure. But, but, you know, there's also, there's also something like you're watching this slow motion car crash and you know that it can't be averted. And, um, so we wanted to do that. We actually went back, um, uh, because we always do like one big value of streaming. I'm sure you know it on the shows you work on is most of them are written before you shoot. And so you could really go back to episodes, you know, once you really have a better handle of how the ending is going to work, you can really go back and seed them in.

1:04:05And so, you know, as early as I think episode four, Butcher is having witnessed Soldier Boy depower that guy in the wall. And you see that his wheels are turning. He's watching the Soldier Boy video. In episode five, he's carrying all this weird equipment into the back. And he says, me and Frenchie are working on something because proper planning and preparation. You can start seeding in all these things that they're actually in the background of the show. They've been doing this all along. Um, and so that was valuable, but yeah, to me, the moment is about the end of the episode. You're, you're just, you're building to ripping those two apart.

1:04:48Um, and, and really showing that if there's going to be any victory, it's got to come with terrible sacrifice.

1:04:59Andy Greenwald:There's no way to get too granular on this answer. Cause I think our audience is interested in what goes on in, in writer's rooms. generally. I wondered if you could talk about the process, especially for this final season of like addition versus subtraction. And what I mean by that is I wondered if you had a whiteboard where you wrote every single dream thing that you and your team hoped to get on the screen, whether it's bringing back PJ Byrne or killing Seth Rogen or giving finally the dog vomit POV that, you know, the audience had been demanding versus all the things you have to winnow away to, as you said, service 12, 15 characters.

1:05:34Andy Greenwald:So I don't know if it's, it's worth talking about just in terms of like the whiteboards themselves or looking at a character, if it's easier for you, like looking at Huey or something, like all the things you want for someone versus how much you have to take away and trust that like in the Coco Chanel line, less is more. Well, I mean, a lot of it came, it's a good question. And a lot of it comes out of the first five, six weeks of the room. Um, cause that's when we're really more than anything talking about the overview of the characters. And I think the thing we were most clear on was like the last 10 minutes of the finale.

1:06:15You know, after the big fight and explosion, we sort of knew where we wanted every character to end up. um so we have you know columns on the whiteboards for every character and and you know call it beats one through ten or whatever that stretch over the eight episodes sometimes it's more sometimes it's less and we had that last beat of all of them um and so then it became all right well what's the first beat? What do we think is in the middle? How do we make it feel so that they're moving and growing and turning to get to this ending that we want to get to? And then whatever didn't service

1:07:12that, usually that was a good clue that it had to go away. I mean, we throw in jokes and moments and satire and our usual nonsense. But the spines were always looking at what they needed to go through to hit the beats that we needed to hit. Like there's a written on the board for episode seven was we need to remind Huey and remind the audience that Butcher will murder anyone who gets in his way, on his way to his ultimate goal and to beware. You'll see in episode eight that that becomes an important piece of information. So, you know, they're all like built of a piece. The other thing we did, and because I heard anecdotally that this is what Breaking Bad did, and I liked the idea, is we had our writer's assistant go through every single loose end every single character that was alive, every single storyline that we left on the floor, and they had an entire board filled with it.

1:08:25And so it's sort of a good buffet, right? When you're looking for what's the story that we want to play or what's a character. We're like, well, let's go to the board. Is there something we can pay off that we set up seasons ago and then we'll look like geniuses because we did that. And so that's where like bringing out Eagle the Archer again and, you know, yeah, like Adam Bork and, you know, all those things came out of just having like a menu that we could we could play with.

1:09:02Andy Greenwald:internally what is the reaction like in the writer's room when someone suggests a uh gold christ-like statue of homelander versus two weeks ago in your writer's group chat when someone sees the gold christ-like statue of donald trump that everyone is prostrating in front of that that seems like a full circle moment it's not a good feeling like no one no one is sending each other the high five emoji. Yeah. Yeah. It's only like, this is really creepy. And, and what people have to remember is we wrote it two years ago, right? We wrote it before, uh, uh, he won the second, his second term. So we're trying to come up with, here's what's really scary and unsettling.

1:09:47I think we weren't even reacting to the shit that Trump pulls like we had in previous seasons. That was not what we were studying. We were studying countries that had authoritarian creep and what that looks like in its early stages. You know, that golden statue is a Saddam Hussein thing. That wasn't, that's where we got it from, you know, and going into sanctuary cities and, you know, starting to claim yourself as thereby divine right. And we were, if anything, we were really looking at history because the truth is, and I think some fans I've seen are expecting like, oh, it should have been this apocalyptic, you know, battle like deep into World War II or something.

1:10:44And that's just one, we can't afford that. But two, that's not the story I wanted to tell. I wanted to tell the story that like the fascist creep to we're building camps and we're moving people into camps. What's scary about it is it looks like the world you're in. There's no moment where the switch flips and Thanos is there and suddenly it's some big, you know, apocalyptic fight. It's your world with groceries and reality shows and soap operas and the people in charge saying, oh, this is absolutely the patriotic right thing to do, you know? And so I wanted to show that world, but, you know, wanted to show not, you know, uh, uh, Berlin 1944, I wanted to show Berlin 1938, you know?

1:11:40And, and so you, I can't tell you how unsettling it is that when every one of these things come true and it's based on something we found in Eastern Europe or Germany or one of the banana republics, because they're all warning signs. Yeah. You know? And so when everyone's like laughing, like, oh my God, they did it. I'm like, no, you guys, like you feel a little bit like the dude at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Like you're running up and down the street and you're like, no, these are warning signs. These are not good, funny things. These are bad, bad, bad things. I'm as powerless as anybody.

1:12:18I think if anything, the show has demonstrated an unbelievable ability to not change anything.

1:12:26Andy Greenwald:What a legacy. Right? Right? Exactly. We can't talk about the gold statue without talking about the man and the actor who inspired it. Because as a longtime holder of Antony Starstock, as one of the world's biggest Banshee fans, I knew that this guy could do anything. But even I didn't know he could do this. And I wonder what the experience has been like writing for an actor who almost, well, I think is deeply underappreciated in this role because people just think that's what he's like or that's what he's doing. But he is capable of pushing it. He finds new layers to this very, very complicated, flawed monster week to week.

1:13:03He's astounding in the role. and if there's any television academy listeners, like, please give this guy an Emmy. Like, I don't need any for me. But give Antony Starr an Emmy, for Christ's sakes.

1:13:22Andy Greenwald:The thing that will convince them is the dog POV sex dream where he offers his ass to the dog. I feel like if you can get someone who's for your consideration to consider that part of him. Well, if nothing else, we could put up that clip as he's going up to accept the award. Absolutely. I mean, what more does this man have to do to earn your respect? But to answer your question, it's an incredibly collaborative process where we'll write what we, you know, need this story to be. And then I have a lot of, you know, really in-depth conversations with Ant where we go over every line. And I completely welcome it.

1:14:08You know, like I actually love that process when somebody is as locked into the character as he is like he never says like, you know, the cliched actor things of like, well, why don't I do the cool thing or why don't I have more screen time? And he's only like, you know, I'm really trying to prove to my dad that I'm a real man. So maybe when the president offers me a glass of milk, I get really mad and puffed up and I ask for a Manhattan instead. Like, that's the type of conversation. And that came from him, you know? And I'm like, that's amazing. We're definitely going to do that. And so, and then he'll say something.

1:14:54I'm like, well, I don't actually think that's where we want it to go or this is going there. Maybe that's too far. And we'll just go back and forth. And I'll end up rewriting their live as he and I are just talking about the psychology of the character. And so then he gets really locked in about it also helps him understand the character beats one to one to one. And so when he gets on set, he knows exactly where he's moving through a scene, which he really needs to know. I mean, that's something that he likes to be prepared.

1:15:34Andy Greenwald:It's so subtle. I was watching Singing in the Rain again with my daughters, and I was watching Gene Kelly in the beginning. And I was like, oh, my God, there's some of this in Anthony's performance. The bar was saying dignity, always dignity, and the lights are blind. And like he's pulling on so much to play a character that in the wrong hands could be so one note. It's amazing. In the spirit of, we were saying like, where is hope in this universe? The one thing that I was noticing, and I was curious your thoughts about it, was this season, as much as anything else, has seemingly been about the limits of fear as a cudgel, which is another thing that I think might be, this is a more positive thing that you could send around in the group chat, where there's like a whole article in the New York Times about how some European leaders aren't saying how high anymore when our president tells them to jump, and how small that is, but how the effect it can have on bullies.

1:16:24Andy Greenwald:And we saw it in A-Train or Frenchie just not being scared of him to his face. Now, it didn't work out well for them. Did work out well for Paul Reiser, which I think was great because you can't kill Paul Reiser. You're not going to kill Paul Reiser. Maybe Homelander loves mad about you. But I did wonder if you could speak on that a little bit as a theme. Yeah, there's a couple in there, which is, one, the fact that if you take away his power, and if you take away the power of a lot of autocrats, they've got real glass jaws, you know, real thin-skinned, insecure, narcissistic, ego-driven. Like, take away their power and they're the most pathetic kid in your history class.

1:17:25And we all make this sort of pact of like, well, I guess they're all in power. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, you know? And I think that's a point we're making with Homelander. And I think you'll really, no spoilers, but really be driven home in episode eight, which is characters keep saying to him, you know, Soldier Boy, A-Train, They keep saying to him, like, you're nothing. And that's a point we're making. The other thing is, you know, this thing that, you know, where he's, there's an emperor's, you know, new clothes factor to this. Where for the first time, his people are saying like, oh shit, this guy's really crazy.

1:18:09And so what do we do? and most of them acquiesce. But the point is, there is a point with which most autocrats eventually go too far. You know, the famous McCarthy, like at long last, sir, have you no dignity? There's a moment with which the fever breaks. And they're exposed, yeah. And you're exposed. And the crowd is like, oh, this person is insane. And that's another thematic that we're trying to head for, which has precedent in history. And it's hopeful. It's a little wishful thinking, maybe.

1:18:54Andy Greenwald:I do want to end with a thought about the finale, but before we do, I did want to point out the other artful, if not downright acrobatic thing that you guys have done this season is you are setting up the prequel series, which I believe is, is it 27 likely? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Early, uh, or first half of 20, rising. And I've never, maybe this has been done before, but I've never seen an example of a show introducing a character at the end of their story, knowing that we have a lot of beginning of the story. I mean, I guess, broadly speaking, that's Saul Goodman on, but that was not the intent. Whereas bombsite shows up at the, I would imagine, if not the end, close to the end of his adventure.

1:19:36Andy Greenwald:and there's a lot of road to come in the new series in which he is a regular. How did you do that balancing act? A balancing act is exactly right. How do you do enough that you can touch on it but not so much that you feel like it's homework or you feel like it's just a commercial? Where it really came from, honestly, was we had this notion of this V1 MacGuffin and we knew Soldier Boy was going to be a character this season and just like, well, why is he immortal? And why is Stormfront immortal? And what is it about, you know, whatever they had, right? And so once you come up with V1, we didn't start it with like, we got to get bombsite in there, guys.

1:20:29We got to set up our thing. It's just more like Paul Grelong, who runs that show, his room is down the hall, you know, and so we're hearing in our room what's coming out of that room and we're like excited by it, you know, and so and we got to hear what he was doing with bombsite, this character, and it was all very cool. And so when the question comes up in our room of like, well, who ultimately has the V1? You know, is it just some rando old hero that you never will see again? Or should it be one of those characters? Because those characters are so badass. That's how it kind of evolved. It was pretty organic.

1:21:12There wasn't like a lot of craven, you know, commercialism in there. It came from a spot of it's a full universe and we have these pieces. And so if we're able to use them, why not? Without spoilers, what would you like to set up for the finale?

1:21:33Andy Greenwald:Like, what would you hope people are excited about? What you hope they will take away from it? anything that you'd like to give to the adoring public in the days before they learn everything? Right. I would say, I hope they like it. I would say most confrontations that they're hoping for happen. We really did the exercise of like, what does the audience want in this finale? And let's make sure we give it to them and don't do that rug pull thing, which is like, it's more artful to not give you the thing you're counting on. Like people love that. Yeah. Yeah. Like I just like, give them the thing that they want.

1:22:19So the things happen that I think they will want to have happen, hopefully in some interesting and surprising ways. Um, and I want them to, you know, walk away feeling like what we've been saying throughout, which is hope is hard and it's difficult to make the world a better place. And it comes with incredible setbacks and it comes with lots of failure and it comes with a lot of sacrifice. But if everyone just tries to do it a little bit every day, then we have a chance to save the world.

1:23:07Andy Greenwald:I think that's beautiful. That's better than the legacy. What was the previous legacy you had? Which is, I hope they like it. I think that's a stronger act out. Okay, I'm going to go with this. That's my note. Last thing, a week ago, you had a number of celebrities, clearly fans of the show, some executive producers of the show, guest star. All of them had the privilege of having their bodies ripped apart by a super speedster literally running through them with just the most, what is the Foley's like to, for the exploding body sound? It's really resonant. Um, it's an, it's a lot of, um, stakes getting ripped into.

1:23:42There you go. Okay. Um, and I think there's some smashed melons in there as well.

1:23:47Andy Greenwald:There's a little frisson of Gallagher that I noticed each time. Um, okay. So they all got that, that, that privilege, that honor on screen. Eric Kripke, the developer, or the showrunner of the show, if you did your Hitchcock moment, maybe you did, I haven't seen the finale yet, what would your preferred, gruesome, explosive, destructive death be? Because truly, if you want a second legacy, the grossest deaths maybe ever on television. I'll happily take that. You know what death I always really enjoyed because it really creeps me out? You know that moment when someone is surrounded by zombies and the zombies start ripping out their intestines and eating them while the person is still alive.

1:24:33Yeah. That's what I would want.

1:24:35Andy Greenwald:You'd want that moment of like awareness. Yeah, like where you see that it's happening and your lower intestines are being pulled out, but you're not dead yet. And that feels like the type of movie death I would want. It's not like - I want to be super clear. Yeah. I don't want that death in reality. but I feel like you were projecting a little bit with Seth Rogen who has half of that is aware that his body is ripped up and then someone brings up the pickle movie he made so I wonder if right if can I just can I hat on a hat you are attacked by zombies you see them eating your appendix and your whole body and then one leans over and says supernatural season three was kind of mid like yeah I enjoy that I think no I think that's the I think that's the bow on the whole thing perfect as a perfect bow as I can come up with Eric thank you so much for your time congratulations on all five seasons of The Boys and we'll look forward to the spinoff and maybe we'll get another chance to talk.

1:25:28Thank you. This was a lot of fun.