In short
The Watch discusses two shows: Furious (episode 7, penultimate) and Lanterns (episode 2), then pivots to Lioness season 3 episode 4 with Van Lathan.
Guests
Chris Ryan (host; editor at TheRinger.com) and Vandy Greenwald (co-host/guest). Van Lathan is referenced as “beloved” but not present in the transcript segment.
Furious key claims
The episode is praised for sophisticated emotional manipulation (using empathy/dopamine), comedy inside high tension, recurring motifs (notably “We Found Love” returning), and meticulous character detail (Hope Davis’s character using her hands/soil as a trauma sensor; Emmy Rossum’s shaking hands). The penultimate centers on Catherine approaching Jay Easton’s house as the show replays the Epstein/Ghislaine-style relationship reveal.
Notable examples
Hope Davis’s garden/trauma moment; the solo confrontation between Hope Davis’s Emma and Peter McRobbie’s Jay Easton (safe-code tied to daughter’s birthday); Alice confronting Catherine in a hotel bathroom while a phone rings offscreen; Nora’s “we use people” explanation (CIA-like tradecraft).
Lanterns key claims
Episode 2 is credited with separating plotlines and delivering strong set pieces (town hall, hospital, car chase, space prison with Sinestro). The “Manhunter” speech is highlighted as disturbing and well-staged.
Lioness key claims
Season 3’s dual timelines deepen Joe’s character and tradecraft; political dialogue is heavy-handed but doesn’t derail narrative.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VODiscussing 'Furious' Episode 7
2:01 to 2:27
Analyzing the penultimate episode of 'Furious' and its themes.
“I want to get your thoughts on the second episode of Lanterns, although I imagine I'll talk about it a little bit with Van.”
Emotional Resonance in 'Furious'
2:38 to 3:56
Exploring the emotional impact and character arcs within 'Furious'.
“But I think that there's something very powerful about the recurrent theme of that song and also like this arc for this character, even if it does wind up being tragic.”
Thematic Depth in 'Furious'
4:00 to 5:14
Examining the themes of trauma and manipulation in the series.
“But playing with the same kind of like adrenaline manipulation that some of our favorite action movies do.”
Character Development and Symbolism
5:16 to 6:05
Discussing character actions and their significance in 'Furious'.
“I was struck by, you know, when Emma, the Hope Davis character, and now we know why Hope Davis took this role.”
The Directorial Choices in 'Furious'
6:06 to 7:59
Analyzing the directing style and visual storytelling of the series.
“Catherine can't feel things in her hands.”
Societal Reflections in 'Furious'
8:00 to 9:16
How 'Furious' reflects societal issues through its narrative.
“Ariel Marks, who we shouted out the first week, is the composer of the music.”
Key Scenes in 'Furious'
9:18 to 14:00
Highlighting significant moments and scenes from the latest episode.
“in the opening moments, and then Danny and Marshall's mother, who's played with outrageous ferocity and also specificity.”
Emotional Impact of the Show
14:00 to 14:50
Explore how the emotional depth in character portrayals resonates with the audience.
“lands on you in the audience like a fucking emotional anvil.”
Alice's Confrontation Highlights
14:50 to 16:20
Discussion on key scenes featuring Alice and their significance in character development.
“that's Emmy Rossum's like, Emmy highlight reel right there.”
Nora's Role and Themes
16:20 to 17:45
Analysis of Nora's character and the underlying themes of morality and humanity.
“I thought, this episode introduced the concept of Nora Oki, in which Nora goes and sings a meatloaf song wearing a Hawaiian shirt.”
Show all 26 chapters
Handling Sensitive Topics
17:45 to 20:50
Delve into the delicate portrayal of difficult subjects and character reactions in the narrative.
“eight episodes that we were not checking for and dropping on Hulu.”
Tropes and Narrative Expectations
20:50 to 23:10
Examine the show's use of tropes and audience expectations in character arcs and plots.
“or prove to be not the good guy that he seems to be.”
Lanterns Episode Two Overview
23:10 to 24:30
Analyzing how the second episode of Lanterns surpassed expectations and developed characters.
“if you wanted to just sound off on Lantern's episode two.”
Character Dynamics and Growth
24:30 to 28:01
Discussion on character dynamics in Lanterns and their impact on storytelling.
“Meaning, you texted me, you're like, oh shit, Kelly McDonald put the reading glasses on.”
Exploring Themes of Alienation and Stakes
28:01 to 33:10
The discussion delves into the emotional stakes and thematic depth of the show.
Conclusion and Farewell
33:11 to 33:30
A lighthearted conclusion to the previous discussion with a brief sign-off.
“The show you and Van do to talk about, um, me and Vandy Greenwald.”
Analyzing 'Lioness' Season 3
33:51 to 42:00
A deep dive into the structure and character dynamics of the latest season of 'Lioness'.
“Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG-13.”
Exploring 'The Truman Show' and Political Commentary
42:00 to 43:20
Discussion of a scene from 'The Truman Show' and its relation to current political narratives.
“Do you remember the Truman show when Truman's wife does that commercial?”
The Appeal of 'Lioness' to the LA Left
43:20 to 45:20
Analysis of why certain demographics, particularly women, resonate with 'Lioness'.
“That's actually the thing is nobody on any of these shows is ever like, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Espionage Tropes and James Bond's License to Kill
45:20 to 47:20
Discussion on espionage tropes in media and their implications in 'Lioness'.
“And you can kind of feel like the bones of that sometimes in this show of like people just being like, yeah, this is what COVID was.”
The Importance of Character Dynamics in 'Lioness'
47:20 to 50:20
Exploration of character relationships and their impact on the show's narrative.
“but his justification of it, while he hilariously like just downs a bag of almonds is, you know, the entire premise of what I'm talking about.”
Political Context and Absence in 'Lioness'
50:20 to 53:00
Examination of political references in 'Lioness' and the absence of certain figures.
“of people talking with each other, just the crazy shit they say, I'm like, I'm actually dialed in on this because I want to hear what nut bar thing Michael Kelly is going to say to a Russian diplomat or to whoever.”
Evolution of the Lioness Program and Character Development
53:00 to 56:00
Discussion on the development of the Lioness program and its characters over time.
“we just got to go in and do bad shit sometimes.”
Exploring 'Lioness' and Its Themes
56:01 to 58:25
Discussion on the themes and entertainment value of the show 'Lioness'.
“All of the tension was in, will they be found out?”
Character Development and Storytelling in 'Lanterns'
58:25 to 1:02:35
Insight into character portrayal and storytelling in the show 'Lanterns'.
“And so like a lot of the shit that I hear in this show, I'm like, that's probably not the way I look at that.”
The Unique Appeal of 'Green Lantern'
1:02:35 to 1:05:17
Discussion about the intriguing elements of the 'Green Lantern' series and audience engagement.
“What the characters expect to get, what they actually get, what they think they know, and then what they find out.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Andy Greenwald:The Colonel's cooked up a new$10 bucket of the day just for you. Monday, 10 wings for$10. Tuesday, 8-piece fried chicken for$10. Wednesday, 8 tenders for$10. Thursday, 10 wings for$10. Friday, 24 nuggets for... Ooh, you guessed it, didn't you? $10. Find a lick in the shade. The$10 bucket of the day deal. Every weekday, only at KFC. It's finger-lickin' good. Prices and participation vary while supplies last. Not available on third-party ordering platforms. Tax extra. Late night bites with friends? Already hard to beat. That first too hot bite of fries you couldn't wait for, followed by ice cold Pepsi.
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1:02Andy Greenwald:I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. Joining me in the studio, he would argue Christ was the first political assassination. It's Vandy Greenwald! What's up? What's up everybody? Monday for The Watch and we are going to be talking about lanterns. we're going to be talking about Furious, but we're also going to be talking about me and Van's beloved Lioness. They call this podcast Between Third Chairs. Wow. Between Third Chairs. Us. Yeah. In a really intense battle for Third Chair, the big pick.
1:43So what we're going to do is, I recorded with Andy a little bit last week so that we could talk about the Sunday shows, but Van, it's awesome to see you. Yes. And we're going to be back a little bit later in this podcast to discuss Lioness right after this. Andy, we're here to talk about the seventh episode, the penultimate episode of Furious. I want to get your thoughts on the second episode of Lanterns, although I imagine I'll talk about it a little bit with Van. Sure. Why don't we start at the ending of Furious? So obviously spoilers for this penultimate episode that aired last night. We've got the finale coming in a week.
2:22And triumph is a weird thing to describe to this series, like feeling triumphant at the end of it. And obviously, like with another episode to go, I think there are a lot more shoes to drop and probably a lot more tragedies to befall one, if not more of our characters. but as Catherine approaches Jay Easton's house as we've found out the Epstein Ghislaine relationship between Jay and his daughter
2:55and Rihanna's We Found Love begins to play again it's a testament to the show that I was like fuck yeah let's go Like that's not an emotion that I expect to experience while watching the series about what this is about. But I think that there's something very powerful about the recurrent theme of that song and also like this arc for this character, even if it does wind up being tragic.
3:22Andy Greenwald:When we talked last week about why the show is spectacular, we were talking about tropes. And I think we were talking about them in the sense of, well, you know, rip from the headlines, murder mystery shows have to hit these certain beats. And I think it almost could take on the power of defensiveness to trying to explain why some things about the show might feel familiar and why that's actually a good thing in this case. I think it's important then when you're talking about an episode as spectacular as this one which continues in my mind to elevate the show into the very top echelon of series of the year it's not just detective tropes that this is playing with it is playing with first of all comedy it remains incredibly funny and remains capable of dropping jokes like Choi's you know just face but also like his one liners or as incredulity moment to moment inside of what should be an otherwise incredibly tense episode.
4:19Andy Greenwald:But playing with the same kind of like adrenaline manipulation that some of our favorite action movies do. And this was based on an 80s movie. But the sense that like, oh, wait, they're going to team up now? Wait, they're going to tear down the patriarchy, just the two of them? Rip apart a system? Use people as Nora teaches her to do in a way that might get the kind of victory that only happens in TV shows and movies? it's incredibly canny and when she says when Nora says that to Alice it's what we do we use people I couldn't help but think that Liz Merriweather and her writers are a little bit thinking about what they do in a writer's room that's a really good point they're manipulating us and they're using our empathy and our interest and our dopamine to get us to feel certain ways about characters and scenarios that might otherwise appall or surprise us and I love it use me there's a level of sophistication to this show that I just think is really, really, really worth pointing out.
5:15I'm sure people could point to dozens of other shows and be like, well, they do this and this, but I'm just saying there are visual motifs, there are lines and images that the dialogue evokes that don't necessarily correspond to characters knowing that the other is talking about that, but they're bringing up these ideas throughout the episode or throughout the season. I was struck by, you know, when Emma, the Hope Davis character, and now we know why Hope Davis took this role. I was going to text you the same thing. Because often in prestige television these days, you'll be like, oh, okay. Like that seems like a kind of tiny part for such an accomplished actor.
6:01But I guess everybody... Everybody in New York's got to work. Everybody wants to work. And then you find out why. when her character and the totality of her character's complicity in her father's perversion and violence is made clear that she is in fact procuring these girls for him at this point she goes out into her garden when her father is doing whatever he's doing with a very young woman and she starts like putting her hands in the soil of her garden and like squeezing the dirt and hands and hands as a kind of first responder or sensor to trauma and to the brain not being able to totally process what's going on has been something that Emma has done, something Catherine has done.
6:50Catherine can't feel things in her hands. These aren't even my hands when she's in the shower with Alice. And Alice's trauma response to what Marshall did to her often manifests itself in her shaking hands when she's trying to get her anxiety under control. It's a little thing. You know what I mean? Nine out of 10 shows don't bother with a detail like that because yes, maybe one character can exhibit that, but you don't need to do it. It's just something that I was like, I can't wait to hear Liz Merriweather talk about this. I can't wait to hear about what it was and how the different actions of the hands between the characters kind of like connect to the character themselves.
7:38Andy Greenwald:And the needle drop in that moment is, I don't know if that's Loretta Lynn or someone similar, but it's a version of In the Pines, the traditional song that Nirvana sang in Unplugged that is deeply unsettling. And I'm running out of superlatives to talk about the way that everything is in concert with the show, why it's not just I'm like loving the scene, loving this performance, loving this episode. everything is serving the same type of storytelling. Ariel Marks, who we shouted out the first week, is the composer of the music. And the music has continually signaled to us to be disarmed, to be surprised.
8:11Andy Greenwald:There are moments when the score seems to settle into something more appropriate to like a tense moment or a family moment. And then it kind of mutates in a jazzy or surprising way and twists itself. This episode, and I believe next week's finale are directed by Corey Finley, who directed a movie called Thoroughbreds. and as far as I can tell like I don't know if this is someone that Liz knows or has worked with before but to step in to the penultimate episode. I think if I remember correctly Thoroughbreds has a very Liz Merriweather sensibility when it comes to like mixing comedy into these things.
8:44Andy Greenwald:So so so aesthetically a good hire and clearly simpatico and said the right things but still when you bring in episodic directors for hire for something as crucial as the final block you don't know what you're going to get. This episode begins with an absolutely elite framing of ambulances and cop cars swarming at the shelter through the streets of Manhattan. And I was like, god damn, this is an action show too. It's doing all of it. You know, it feels like kind of, I can't tell if it's a sign of like how excellent I think this is to focus on the blocking. But when both Alice and Marshall are brought to the hospital in the opening moments, and then Danny and Marshall's mother, who's played with outrageous ferocity and also specificity.
9:26Andy Greenwald:This is not a character we know or have seen by the veteran stage actress Constance Schulman. Like that collision is explosive and it's framed, you know, they blocked it so that both, it's like people, each boxer has their corner man who's in a hospital bed right now. And they're shooting the show, I think, with anamorphic lenses or like it's widescreen. It's taking advantage of like a probably modern standard that most people are going to have these very wide televisions and that you can play a lot with the frame where TV used to be a much more like kind of vertically framed aspect ratio. Speaking of taking advantage of New York theater royalty, Constance Shulman married to Reed Bernie, great stage actor who pops up in these shows time to time.
10:08Andy Greenwald:And they are the parents of Gus Bernie, who was one of the stars of Something Very Bad is Gonna Happen. I did not know that. How about that? I'd like to make the connections for you. You know, that little moment you mentioned at the beginning of this episode, I think is something that a lot of TV shows can learn from. I will sometimes find myself being taken out of shows when I feel like it's obvious there's supposed to be a riot going on as Homelander walks off out of this courthouse but there's 50 people there
10:40or maybe they've spent too much money trying to recreate what a traffic car chase is going to look like if you were making a future film of this episode you could have like so many different locations within new york city but all they do to communicate the chaos that is started from this shooting from katherine shooting marshall is the sirens going by and in new york city that is a real feeling of like you'll be like walking down the street or you'll be about to cross the street and all of a sudden five cop cars and an ambulance fly by and you're like oh shit i wonder where that is you know and then you go get your ten dollar latte right exactly um or in our day a two dollar reingold who can say whether we've degraded and fallen as a society um let's talk a little bit more about the eastern side of this one of the things that the show has done and it took me a while to maybe get my footing with it is it has been very plain about the mystery like it's very it's very oh the cards are up turned up
11:42Andy Greenwald:to to a point we still don't know who killed uh her friend no i know but like i meant We always knew who Catherine was, and we always knew more or less who did it to her. And it's been a matter of not who done it, but will the people who had it done to them get their revenge? And this was a twist. You know, I mean, obviously, like we said, with the Hope Davis character, you see her casting and you're like, she's going to do three scenes. and you know this is why you hire her is because they're seen in his safe room basically where he is still holding on to child pornography even after she has tried to rid the entire house of it as the cops are on their way and unbeknownst to them Catherine is on her way is just extraordinary and I mean I don't think I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that like that specific confrontation well also again it's a it's a level of confidence to know the totality of the story you're telling and how you want it to land to like you said you cast Hope Davis because you know the part has more room to run you cast Peter McRobbie who plays Jay Easton who's been in everything he's been in Brokeback Mountain and Daredevil you know he's a working talented actor but he's also perfect in the sense that if you cast James Cromwell or something the audience is going to be like I know him and I know he can be nefarious, so I know he's coming back.
13:14Andy Greenwald:The show played a really interesting bait and switch with audience expectations where we are told that this guy is hiding things, but because we're focused elsewhere, the level of malevolence isn't fully present because we haven't spent time with him. So you have to trust that you can make the investment to pay off later. And the scene between the two of them, and I believe this is the first episode where we've seen the two of them share the screen with no one else. Yeah, in the past, the only other scene that - Like Caleb Scott had been there, or Alice was interrogating them, or Danny was interrogating them, questioning them.
13:48Andy Greenwald:So you get a scene with two actors who have never been alone on screen before, and he tells her that the code to his child porn safe is his daughter's birthday. It's her birthday, yeah. And the entirety of the series lands on you in the audience like a fucking emotional anvil. That is not easy to accomplish with our not our normal avatars. And it's doing something that feels almost obvious in the sense that all of the women in this show carry water, carry trauma, carry sin for the monsters in their proximity. But to do it with a degree of artfulness and subtlety so that it can sneak up on us and then wallop us the way that scene did was masterful.
14:33Andy Greenwald:I thought it was incredible. Another scene I wanted to highlight from this episode was Alice's confrontation with Catherine in the bathroom of the hotel room, motel room. Also the phone ringing the other room. Awesome. Yes. That's been done before. I don't care. I loved it. That's to me was like, that's Emmy Rossum's like, Emmy highlight reel right there. Was like that, like her just being like, what if I let you go? You know what I mean? Where would you go? Would you go to his house? That was extraordinary. I thought, and like she has now like, fully become like I think she has synthesized all lessons of like humanity from Danny and manipulation from Nora and seeing how the game is played and does something that like she's like I'm already persona non grata in the PD and in the FBI and I'm going to get this case solved you know and it's personal again I don't mind that that we talked about what is going on with Danny and the video file and all of that it works for what the show is communicating to us.
15:40Andy Greenwald:You know, I think it is a sign of a failed fiction if it pushes the audience out enough to start nitpicking and questioning why things are connected. It's like when Tolstoy wrote a novel, he wasn't like, well, Levin and Anna will never meet and have nothing to do with each other. I'm just going to tell you two stories at once because that's more accurate to my experience in 19th century Russia. Anna and Levin, two stories that don't really interact. It sounds better when it's written in Cyrillic. I also, by the way, shout out to, obviously we're wearing the same clothes as last Thursday, but shout out to that podcast.
16:12Andy Greenwald:Alice, this episode also fully becomes me watching the Sterling Point pilot. And she's like, get these fucking pears out of here. So she's a good TV critic as well. I thought, this episode introduced the concept of Nora Oki, in which Nora goes and sings a meatloaf song wearing a Hawaiian shirt. And Quincy Tyler Bernstein continues just like an absolute tear. This is like catnip for, I would imagine for both of us. But in that bar, when Drunk Nora explains, really explains what it is that we do, it is, this is their FBI agents, but it is pure CIA. We love and talk constantly about spy shows and spy books and thrillers in which inevitably amidst the action and the global intrigue and chaos one character says some super sick shit to the other one like you know uh we are i wrote down we use people that's what we do we are inhuman in defense of humanity we become evil to fight reminded me a lot of the edward norton speech in born legacy yes yes and again that is the sign to me of a well-constructed fictional vehicle because there's room for nora to be painful believable but also sing in the middle of the penultimate episode and just drop intellectual heat rocks like that too.
17:39Andy Greenwald:It can do all of those things and very few multi-season shows can pull this off, let alone eight episodes that we were not checking for and dropping on Hulu. It's awesome. I was trying to think about how this one kind of came together. I don't think I've ever seen Black Widow. Have you? The film that it's based on? I wonder if this was just something that was sitting in some IP library that got developed that way I did want to ask you about one more specific moment from this episode because I thought the care with which it was handled but also the candor with which it was handled they had to have both and that's the sort of reveal after the end of last episode that there is this that there is a child pornographic video with young Alice on it and that Alice has been made aware of this by Danny when she kind of reaches across to be like take me let's get the fuck out of it let's blow this town let's go to the beach I think I love you blah blah blah and he's like I gotta tell you something and he tells her about the videos and he tells her and her reaction to it and the way that Rossum hardens but doesn't like it's just a very specific, like detailed, studied, rooted in the character reaction.
19:05And this is a person who I think even when they are open or even when they are vulnerable, I think it's in some ways a mask that they are wearing.
19:15Andy Greenwald:I mean, I want to talk to both all of the creators about it if we get the chance, but just to continue with that theme of what you choose to make up in a fictional story and what you choose to research and be right about. And I think that moment in the previous episode in 106 when Catherine was like, the thing about the shower, you weren't lying about that. Yep. I think that the beauty of the way this show is constructed is that there are things they are, quote unquote, lying about. I mean, there are, you know, Choi, you know, the way that Ed George smiles and walks through the office. His concern for people's wellness, yeah.
19:52Andy Greenwald:Sure, but also just like some fictional filigrees that make it a fun show, like some comedy moments. Yeah, all the stuff with Danny and Alden, you know. So, yes. And the flash drive. So it's lying about that. Or it's lying about maybe the coincidence of all of these cases stacking on top of each other in a perfect way to, you know, enrapture and to trap everyone. But it's not lying about how, to my view as an audience member, I cannot speak to the veracity of people's lived experience, but like the way that Emmy chose to respond and deliver that performance as Alice, being exposed in that way by the person she has just become vulnerable to struck me as not lying.
20:29Andy Greenwald:And I think that's a delicate balancing act. And also just, you know, we don't know where the last cards will fall and there might be more coming. But when we talked about the first three episodes, I think we were actively wondering how the show was playing with or not playing with familiar tropes and familiar expectations. And you were like, you know, I think you just casually threw out the idea that Danny, Scoot McNary's character, would either, you know, meet a terrible end or prove to be not the good guy that he seems to be. I felt like he had some live forever Evan Peters, Bear of Easttown vibes.
20:58He still might.
20:59Andy Greenwald:But if the only card left to turn between these two characters is that they love each other, but the ugliness of history, the world, expectation, and perception will forever keep them apart. It's almost more tragic. Yes. And a much harder bar to clear. Yeah. I mean, in that same case, plenty of things stories that we love culminate with somehow every character arriving on the scene at the same time. That is literally how LA Confidential ends. Yes. The way that they are doing it, I can't wait to see how they play that out. I legitimately have no guesses as to what's going to happen. How they want, what their final statement about the nature of justice and revenge is going to be what a conclusion for this alice character looks like i don't know they may very well be making another season of this i have no idea but they are doing another trope where it's like the criminal various factions of cops and the even bigger criminals are all waiting in a big spooky house you know and we're gonna have a showdown of guns drawn, but also we want to build a case and we want to get to the systemic issues here.
22:20It's pretty awesome that they're driving right into that.
22:23Andy Greenwald:I just think there's a really ahead of it, and we'll see how it resolves, but I just think there's a really important lesson here for writing in general, which is you could get together and you could try to galaxy brain a different box for everyone to go into at the end, a different shaped story. Or you could accept that there's one really really good shape and then try to surprise people with what they do once they're inside of it and this is the whole thing with like detective novels that we've been reading for most of our lives is like there's really just the one story you know and even within that story there's like kind of marks that you have to hit because that's what people buy these mass market paperbacks for it's how you execute those things and what you want to say in those familiar settings that really matters.
23:09I wanted to give you a couple of minutes if you wanted to just sound off on Lantern's episode two.
23:15Andy Greenwald:I just wanted to ask you to begin with, I didn't prep you for this, so I don't think you necessarily have to have an answer, but I couldn't come up with one. I think there are very, very few series in which the second episodes are just far superior to the pilot. Second episodes historically are - Incredibly difficult. Incredibly difficult because it's like second albums. You've had a lifetime to do the first, and you've got a couple weeks to pull together the second. And more often than not, second episodes are just retreads of the first, again, having cleared your throat and maybe with a bigger sense of who's recurring and who's a guest star and where you're going with it.
23:49Andy Greenwald:I'm not saying that was what happened behind the scenes with Lanterns, but what I loved about this episode, and I respectfully liked and was intrigued by the first episode, I loved the second episode. And the reason I loved it is because it relaxed into being what it's going to be in a way that felt really, really good and very, very exciting. Because this was an episode that had time for like, again, I understand now there's going to be eight episodes of this because they split Hal and they split John and they had different storylines and they had different challenges and they had different reactions to those challenges.
24:19Andy Greenwald:Helped me understand them better as characters and helped me understand how we're going to get six more hours of story out of this. But this was also an episode that had time for the incredibly mundane and incredibly ambitious. Meaning, you texted me, you're like, oh shit, Kelly McDonald put the reading glasses on. I am who I am. Amazing scene though. I was also like that both because I also was a 19 year old that saw Trainspotting in the theater and also because this is a woman who has a job who lives in a place and is choosing to engage with things in a certain way. But the other thing was at the end of the episode when it's already had one of my favorite scenes of the year which is the Paul Ben Victor do you know what a Manhunter is scene which we should talk about.
25:05Andy Greenwald:Hal Jordan puts on his special green suit, flies into space, goes to a space prison and fucking red skin mustachioed Sinestro is there and guess what? He's just a dude too. Well, but he's also like the real problem is your boy down in Nebraska. If you went to TV writing school, I feel like this episode, the last five minutes of this episode should be shown in a lecture format delivered by Damon and Chris Mundy and Tom King about how to best use the week-to-week deployment structure of an HBO show. But again... There's a flip side to that, though, too. Let's hit me. You're right. They did everything you're supposed to do with the second episode, which is to start to separate or untangle and let fly different plot lines.
25:58I thought separating Hal and John was so important. up until now we've only seen John with his parent his dad in a flashback and then the rest of it has been a enjoyable but somewhat repetitive conversation with Hal of alright Junior you're not ready for all that yet and one dalliance with Zoe in the truck
26:18Andy Greenwald:he keeps saying they slept together I didn't clock much sleeping to separate them I thought like pumped air into the entire series because then you get Hal is a different guy interacting with different people in different circumstances the ranch scene is incredible the uh hospital scene kelly mcdonald is awesome the town hall scene is awesome and then the payoff is john comes back and they're outside the motel and how's drinking beers and when john starts asking about manhunters you just get that great moment of how taking his his arm brace off so i just thought this is where this writing staff kind of is like this is why we're hall of famers is because those scenes of john at hal's house or how at this town hall like could be kind of boring like they or they could be kind of you know like all right just like i know what's going on like we're just trying to wait for this guy to get back he's going to get the lantern he's going to come back to nebraska um you really wind up enjoying the journey this way and not for nothing that was a really fucking cool car chase scene where they two guys fall out of the back of a van and race each other through the middle of highway traffic i will say the show is very bullish on the human body well although we find out not everyone's human but their ability to hit pavement jumping out of cars it's we're now two for two i don't know what's going on with either of those people well the aliens know but i do know that john I don't know what's up with him either.
27:55Andy Greenwald:I know they both have the sickest jackets in the universe and they never take them off and they never seem to scuff them in any way. But that scene where a bunch of bald aliens tie him up in a office and then, you know, veteran character actor Paul Ben Victor delivers a speech about how there is a creature that is the worst thing that has ever existed in the universe doing mini holocausts on every planet it comes to. and it's living in Nebraska was so, first of all, it was just beautifully staged, beautifully delivered, but it did the thing that the genre shows really struggle with, which was, I was all the way in feeling stakes, feeling spooked, feeling disturbed by it.
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28:37Andy Greenwald:And in that it was tying into, I think one of the other important antecedents of the show, which is X-Files, which is this idea that there are so many conspiracies laid on top of conspiracies and so many people here who know more than you do and they aren't talking to each other and there's layers to this so it's just such an expert way of handling ip where they're like yeah here's all this dc stuff and you can totally be like i've been waiting to hear somebody say man i've been a television show for my whole life or you can just be like cool so we get an agatha christie show where they're gonna have to find they have 48 hours to find a killer scooby-doo this guy and on top of that like all of the mechanical stuff that hal does with the dead bodies to be like huh this metal detector didn't go off when i walked through with a it's great piece of my car so now i'm going to feel like what is it detecting then it's doing something that is incredible each side of what it's each side of the divide that it's straddling is hard to do and they are believable engaging emotionally real superhero stuff and i'm outside of the matrix and i'm desperate to know what's going on inside of it kind of conspiracy thrillers it reminds me a little bit of this is a really really deep reference that i don't think many people will remember at all but 20 plus years ago the writer jeff jensen who uh wrote about lost for ew and then worked with damon later on uh on watchman he he wrote four issues of a comic from marvel that they called x factor in between x factor being just an x-men book and it was basically about government investigators investigating mutant crimes and it it was i remember being decent and admirable and they didn't really stick with it but it were i thought of it for the first time in 20 years watching this episode because it's like what does it it's you know the the the james gunn thing that he introduced for the dcu is like gods and monsters right and it's just like when you watch superman movie there is a delight in living in a world where these technicolor things and dogs can fly there's this flip side of it is that what how flew over is that the fortress of solitude part of the i didn't even notice like the big ice crack in the ice there i guess so i was just curious i was looking up to the stars like how but the flip side of it is you do a show like the boys where you're like this is debased and appalling and we have to be on the side of humanity here you know this show is doing something where it's like yeah okay so you plug in the ring with a lantern and there's a guy in a space prison okay but at the end of the day we're all just dudes here trying to make trying to trying to figure it out i also just love the fact that they're taking like I'm sure this is canonically accurate for the lantern stuff but I one thing that sort of played my adolescent brain in the last run I think of Marvel specifically is a kind of vagueness of power totally it's like I just shoot shit like purple swirl yeah exactly and I'm sure they all have like their logic to them but like when watching on big screen just like so like you just have power beams that you know like you just have like an aura or whatever like and i love the fact that he has to recharge the ring yeah who among us walking through a city but you can like hit the trunk and get like a little juice from it but like he has to he has to say his little his little poem too yeah his little his little credo cool you like lanterns i really like lanterns i was trying to think of um just to say to your point like WandaVision a show like WandaVision even if you know ultimately I don't know if I loved it but like what I admired most about it especially the early episodes was it took seriously the idea of having more time to think about something and give it some emotional grounding and investigate it and have an opinion about it and a point of view specifically this woman her powers what she can do with them and what they've done to her and also to the world around her and then you would see because you would see her in an Avengers movie and it's like oh no Ultron Wanda quick and she's like red beams or something because that's not what it's about it's about the fight and it's about whatever else is coming um lantern seems to understand the assignment that if you have time to think about it use the time and think about it and have an opinion about it not just like cool he can counterfeit money and also fly in space right right although both of those things are pretty cool do you let yourself get carried away into being like okay so then who who of what who we've met so far is alien, possibly an alien.
32:59Andy Greenwald:No, I just, I just stopped on the threshold of that's so cool that, that someone is bad. I think that's healthy. And they're, thank you. Yeah. I'm trying to change. Um, thanks so much for joining me on the watch. Yeah. The show you and Van do to talk about, um, me and Vandy Greenwald. Um, I think I like that more than he will like that. I think I'll enjoy it. You think? Yeah. I'm gonna try it out on him. Thanks for coming on. Uh, You know what? You're welcome. I hope you have me back sometime. See you two days. No problem. Can't wait. The perfect lunch combo. That first bite of your favorite sub, followed by ice cold Pepsi.
33:36Add a couple of friends, and now that's next level. Suddenly, the laughs get louder, the stories keep flowing, and the food tastes better. Because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun, and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi Zero Sugar today.
34:20Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. All right, brother, what's up? Thanks for joining me. No problem, man. You're the only person I can really talk to about this. Linus? Yeah, I think so. I mean, Andy tried twice, and I think we got a little bit derailed. Okay. I wish he was here today, though, because there's the first thing I want to talk to you about with this show, which has aired four episodes of its third season, is something that I think he would be adept at discussing, which is like the structure of this season. I think that this in some ways is the most successful season of Lioness because it's the season that has involved the most characters most directly.
35:00If there is a flaw to the idea, it's that they are running an agent who's doing most of the stuff in some far-flung place in typical past seasons of Lioness. now everybody is kind of in play right like and the way that they're dramatizing that is with this two timeline structure of this season which is honestly fucking bonkers the way they're running this yeah um on a basic level how is your tracking of this season going in terms of like this is happening now quote unquote versus this is happening six months prior so i'm not having any problem with it at all me neither because i think but we're we're close watchers We're close watchers.
35:42But I think the tone of the two different timelines is so distinct. Yeah. One is obviously Joe in this perilous situation where she's being tortured. And that's her name, Joe, right? Joe. Yeah. Where she's being. The lioness. The lioness. Yeah. Where she's being tortured. And, you know, she's away from her family and everyone's trying to get to her. And there's a tense, tense sort of almost powder keg of a situation that exists of a tone that exists during that time. Right. Because like her being captured by the Russians means everything can fall apart. And they really lay that out in this episode.
36:25In this episode, for sure. In the other timeline, she is free and at the focal point of trying to understand how deep the rabbit hole goes. So when they switch back and forth and they don't really tell you. No. They go boom, boom, boom. Like at the end of this episode, Nicole Kidman's character goes back to talk to the husband, which is a shout out to that guy. DVM fell. Yeah. Cause a shout out to him because he is playing the most sensitive, vulnerable. Yeah. And he's doing a good job of it, but he looks like he should be one of the Delta force guys. Right. When you, when you look at them and they don't, the only time I was like, huh, where are we?
37:02Is they don't tell you which timeline they're in. Yeah. You can only tell because in the six months prior timeline, the past timeline, they're living at like a military base. Right. But the house that they live at, at the military base is not altogether different than the house they look like in the suburbs. I think it's like, you know, Andy talks a lot about Taylor doesn't get any notes and that Taylor in his way is like, what happens when nobody is like, that's not clear. Hey, this is a little complicated. why don't you just tell this in a linear fashion I'll be really curious to see once this season concludes whether or not this dual timeline thing makes sense because you could just as easily at the 6th episode or at the end of the 5th episode be like we've concluded this first timeline and now as always Zaldana's been kidnapped you know like at the end of it and then the second half of the season is getting her back my understanding or at least my guess about this is that something is going to happen, obviously, in this earlier timeline, in this past timeline, where they're working with this Ukrainian double agent to assess what honey pot traps or whatever they've got going on with senators and professors and all these things.
38:19That's going to blow up in their face, and that's why she gets taken later. But, you know, I mean, in the meantime, the only thing that's hard to track is, like, at what point wouldn't it just have gotten out, kind of? So I don't know, but I have a bunch of questions about this season for you. So the interesting thing to me is how these two timelines relate to one another. Like at first I was thinking, did she allow herself to get captured? Was all it is like a ruse so she could get to the inside and learn something about? That seems to not be the case now because she seems pretty upset. She seems pretty upset about being there.
38:56She's getting Chinese water torture. And then the political blowback that could come from this is so severe. Like this geopolitical destabilization is so severe. It doesn't seem like they would play with that. Yeah. It would involve Iran, Israel and Hezbollah and all this stuff, according to the geopolitical world of lioness. Although I suppose plausible enough. Right. So the thing that I love about this season more than past seasons is I was actually getting sick of the, all right, we're going to take you, we're going to make you a lioness and you have to turn your back on everything you love.
39:31Can you do it? I was like, I didn't want to go back to that well again. Right. And so making this, orienting this around Joe and like how important she is, it kind of deepens your understanding of the character. How much tradecraft she has in her head, how important she is. Just the high stakes nature of what it is that they do mission to mission and how her family, even though we always knew that they were on the outside. they had this relationship with her almost like the relationship that I would imagine a wife has with an NBA player. Well, you know what happens on the road, but it's better off that you just don't ask because we need Nike contracts.
40:16And what happens when the girl on Instagram goes, guess what? In Portland after the game, now that's broken. Now you got to have the real family talk. And that's what's happening with her. What's happening with her right now is that the girl from Instagram came to the front door. And now the thing that the family always knew, the fact that she was living this really dangerous sort of soldier's life, they have to contend with it in the front of their minds. And that is also interesting. They do so, or Joe does so in the six months prior plotline, even though they are living on a military base, she gives her surgeon husband, like a Glock.
40:59Yeah, he said, go learn how to shoot. And he's like, we both took oaths. I took the Hippocratic oath and she was like, your oath is basically useless or nobody else has that oath in the world. And I was like, this is just like, I think the thing that's funny to me about this show. That scene is hilarious. Hold on for a second. Don't try to, like, we both love Big T, man. That's a funny scene. There's multiple scenes that are funny because the thing that's been happening recently on the show is that someone will just do like a prolonged podcast monologue and nobody is like what? What the fuck are you talking about?
41:37Yeah like when Joe's getting tortured and this dude is like we dropped COVID on you so that you would realize you had no freedom and now you want a fascist dictator and that's what that was the whole plan and Joe's just like you know but Joe has one as well so those are getting wants your country. Yeah. Those are getting much more pronounced. Do you remember the Truman show? Yeah, of course. Do you remember the Truman show when Truman's wife does that commercial? Yeah. And he goes, what the hell are you talking about? Yeah. Like, who are you talking to? Like, at this point, he knows that he's in the television show.
42:15They let, like, the Russian ambassador or diplomat that Byron goes and meets with in a restaurant at one point in this past episode where he's just like, just runs down the five talking points of Russia about the Ukrainian conflict where it's just like, that belongs to us. That used to be our breadbasket the whole nine. And just like, they're just corrupt like grifters over there. And Byron's just like, yep. I just keep waiting for somebody to go. Yo, man. What the fuck? What are you doing? Like, what are you? It would be great if we could be on this show as like data entry dudes and like somebody would be talking like Kyle would be like, and that's why I did an extrajudicial killing day.
42:56And we were like, what? What'd you do? Kyle, I forgot to tell you, you got to pay up for fantasy football. Did you say you killed a Russian diplomat in front of everybody in a fucking airplane? It's like, when she was giving him the whole, the world's always been like this, I wanted him to be like, I wanted him to just straight go, bitch, you're out of your mind. What are you talking about? I don't give a fuck, I'm a doctor. I don't want to kill. That's actually the thing is nobody on any of these shows is ever like, what the fuck are you talking about? Because. Or even I respectfully, I disagree with some of the things.
43:34Right. So, and then the thing about it for me is over the course of the season, it almost feels like, and this is the interesting thing with Lioness. The interesting with Lioness is I'm of the LA lefties. Sure. Like the true LA lefties. and they are loving this show. Like they are loving. The 92%, I'm talking about a lot of black ladies that I know that are going out. We talking about Kamala Harris, Jasmine Crockett, my sisters in the 92%, they love. You think Kamala and Jasmine like the lioness? I don't think that they do, but I think that a lot of the women that I know love them are loving this show.
44:17Number one, it has a strong black female lead who is in control of a whole bunch, who's busting ass. And number two, it doesn't feel like the world is too big for her. It doesn't feel like anything is too big for her. She always seems like she's in control. But it's interesting to me that the show is so heavy handed with its obvious, and we've talked about this before, ad nauseum, its obvious political programming, but it doesn't take away from any of the narrative of the show. You almost feel like this is the way those people would have to think. I think that, you know, it's funny because I was thinking the other day, you read a lot about what happens after Trump to the right and what happened.
44:56And it's like, I saw somebody be like, this shit all dies with him. There's nobody as particularly uniquely charismatic as him. And he's like this figurehead of this movement. And the second he goes away, it goes away. And I was like, I don't agree with that necessarily. But what I really don't agree with is that this sort of I know better because I saw something on the internet once like mentality will not go away. And you can kind of feel like the bones of that sometimes in this show of like people just being like, yeah, this is what COVID was. That's what Hezbollah does. And I'm like, where'd you read that?
45:33Yeah. You know what I mean? Maybe some of the things that they say may even have like a gradient of truth or interest. But like, I'm like, where are you sourcing this from? Can I ask you a question? Is there a part of us deep down, like take James Bond, for example, like James Bond gets told in the movie, your license to kill is revoked. And that's like a big deal. Yeah. We're like, oh shit, James Bond just can't kill anybody who he wants in the swords. He's got to get that back. He's got to get his license to kill back. Who is James Bond if he just can't kill somebody when he needs to kill him?
46:07Right. Because isn't there a part of us, no matter what we think, that believes that certain people like have to be like James Bond, that certain people have to be like Joe. They have to be like Kyle. This episode kind of articulates that. I think so that in the world of like espionage fiction and movies and TV shows, there's like a trope of, and I think it's true for a certain era of spycraft or whatever, where there were like London rules and Moscow rules and Berlin rules. And they were different. Like you didn't do certain things in certain cities because the governments of those cities or the governments of those countries would allow it.
46:45These were the things. Like if you go to Moscow, it's going to be like this. If you go to Berlin, it might be like that. But in London, we don't do that. It's all like following each other, but there's no hardcore violence that is beset, befalls upon people. And I think what this show is trying to do is that that whole, like a lot of other things, that order, those rules have been done away with by guys like Kyle who are operating with a green light from people like Caitlin to get what they need no matter what. And that, you know, like Kyle, like that scene is pretty electrifying as like a thriller scene, but his justification of it, while he hilariously like just downs a bag of almonds is, you know, the entire premise of what I'm talking about.
47:30That the idea of like the old rules are not applying to this. And also though, he, in that scene, I think that's a scene that illustrates what's so good about this season of the show. In that scene, he just knows more than they do. Because this show does something that I don't know that I've seen another show be able to do, which is separate the spheres of expertise between different levers of like the government. Right. So the Delta guys are there. And when you are like taking a guy in Ukraine, nobody beats the Delta guys. Right. But then the spy guys know the rules of the spy stuff. Yeah. And so then the soldiers who are essentially her hammer, those guys like Green Beret, Marines, all of us, they're in the dark there.
48:15Yeah. And then she's in the dark when the upper level government people are negotiating. Like, here's what we are and are not willing to, like, give up. Right. Like, and then the secretary of state is actually at his wit's end when he says we got to tell the president. Morgan Freeman. Morgan Freeman. We got to tell the president. Morgan Freeman's in this show. Yeah, but it pops up every now and again. He pops up a lot. They may have block shot him out, but like Morgan Freeman's in this show. Yeah. So he's like, got to tell the president. I disagree. The guy who's the director, the deputy director of the CIA.
48:49Yeah. He, I don't see how you keep up with all of these names. I give you credit. I know Byron. I know Caitlin. I don't know Morgan Freeman's name. I know Kyle, Caitlin, Joe. I know. I know Cruz. That I watched the show for. And Bobby. Right. So everyone has different jobs and those jobs run afoul of each other, but they're, they're playing together in this like, Oh, Josie's the other Linus. Oh yeah. I like that. Okay. Like playing together in this like brutal symphony to where everyone wears kind of each other, others mistakes and has to also make up for it. Like that scene from the last episode where the two Delta guys go to the lady's house and she's in the Ukraine and they're trying to extract it.
49:39Just the show is giving you. Sorry. Sorry. Um, if I could compare this, I realized this yesterday. Cause like, it's such a, I, it's so easy to watch this show. Like when I do it, I'm just like, I can't believe it's over already. And the, I was bothering you on vacation. Last time I felt that way where I'm like, I can feel my blood quicken as I'm watching a TV show. I think I haven't felt that from a TV show since 24. Oh, yeah. Where you're like, I wish there was another episode right now. I can't wait till next week, etc. But even in Lioness, when it's like stupid scenes of people talking with each other, just the crazy shit they say, I'm like, I'm actually dialed in on this because I want to hear what nut bar thing Michael Kelly is going to say to a Russian diplomat or to whoever.
50:33What's Caitlyn going to say to Neil when she's like, fucking man up, your wife's been redacted. The 24 comparison is interesting because 24 comes out in, I guess, the afterglow or the remnants of 9-11. The war on terror, yeah. And so you're wondering what would guys like that, guys that would save... What would Jack Bauer do if he could listen to podcasts? If he can listen to podcasts, right? Like, who are those guys, right? And then this show comes along. It's Kyle. Yeah, it gives you that. And in this situation, there's so much happening. So when you hear Iran, Hezbollah, Israel, Russia, the United States, at first we were talking about Mexico and Mexico's connections to China and all of this stuff.
51:25You believe this. You believe that, once again, this is how these people would have to be? The funny thing about it is that there's so many things where it's clear that whether it's because Taylor Sheridan wants to say something that he believes about the world or whether there's just there needs to be versatility. So you mentioned Hezbollah and you mentioned this and you mentioned that, but they never mentioned Trump. Like there is a there is a hole in the middle of this that is like, who is this? Like when it was written, Biden was president, like initially. and it's not that I expect them to acknowledge Trump by name because that would date the show in more significant ways than mentioning the Middle East or mentioning Mexico or mentioning China.
52:03But it is interesting that that is like skipped over. So it's interesting and I think it's intentional. Of course. Because I think that Trump's brand of politics in a way, even amongst conservatives, is still really singular. and it's transactional. It's transactional and toxic in a way that doesn't lend itself to, we are preserving freedom. This is for the greater good of the way of life of America. Trumpism isn't really that. So if you inject that into this, it becomes about the will of Donald Trump and not about the kind of bird's eye view that the show wants you to operate with. So this is really an appeal for old school conservatism.
52:52The neocons of like 1987 and in 1997, the people that said, you know, we just got to go in and do bad shit sometimes. This is like almost from their world. Like even in this show, they almost hearken back. In this episode, they hearken back to the Cold War. And when that woman's like, I don't remember the Cold War and Caitlin's like, me neither. It's just what I imagine it was like. I would imagine it was like, like I was in school when I was going, I imagine it would be like that, but it almost feels like they want that. Yeah. That's how they feel about it. Because it was like, that was one, that was a time when it was two ideologies that were very clearly like opposed to one another that were on.
53:32Like it was just like, you believe in this and we believe in that. And then like, we're going to do all this stuff globally to like have this chess game about it. In any case, I wanted to ask you about a couple of different characters on the show specifically the lionesses. They've been... I can't remember a show that's done this before where they'll have somebody be basically the focal point of a season of TV and then become part of the supporting cast. And so Josie, which is last season's lioness, and Cruz, who was the first season's lioness, are now just like, A, in love. Yeah. I'm happy for them.
54:15and be part of the crew that rolls around, even though Josie is just essentially the helicopter pilot, Marine girl. Yeah. And they go to a nightclub as part of an undercover operation. Sensual. Did you think Joe was like, what are they doing? Or was she like, no great acting. You guys are doing great. Like, is their relationship secret? I don't think it's secret. I think that the show, I mean, who would understand a lioness better than another lioness? You know what I mean? I think that we see them in their intimate moments. They're sizzling intimate moments. It's fantastic. And I think when Joe looks at the rest of her team, sometimes she looks at them as kids.
54:54And she's like, let them do their thing. Do you think that was an accurate representation of nightclub life? I don't know. I thought that when that scene first started, I thought that they were in Moscow. That looked like John Wick was about to bust that bitch. I'm like, where is that at? Well, the funny thing about this season is, of all the things that are confusing about it, the addition of longitude and latitude as if I need the longitude and latitude of Baltimore I'm familiar broadly with where Baltimore is and it's like even when you throw up the longitude and latitude of a Ukrainian battlefield I'm like I'm not going to Google Maps and entering that I believe you that's just like for the we're fucking soldiers bro this is the way we talk but even in that you know So the Lionesses and like Joe's crew and the things that they do, sometimes it almost feels like it's dragging the show down at this point.
55:51The show has such an energy that moves forward based upon, it's just not the same show it was from season one to season two. I think that's good. That's what TV used to do. Of course. All of the tension was in, will they be found out? Will this op work? Now, all of these things are so much broader and more dramatic. I could have swore that the lioness program was like, once you finish your mission, you're retired. It hasn't happened. Like they have to like, you have to disappear because it's so dangerous. Well, the first thing we see is Joe like blowing up. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, so like I didn't know, but now they just, they're collecting lionesses.
56:29It's an incredible series. It's an incredible show. It's problematic. It's also like one of the most entertaining things that's been on the last couple of years. Do you know that like, I don't know. You want me not to say it's problematic? No, no, no. No, no, no, no. Is that what you're going to say? I'm just saying, the show does feel like a release in a way for me. It feels like a vacation for me having to be either hypercritical or for preservation right now, being politically aware, I'm not discouraging that for anyone. But it almost feels like yeah it's like back in the day you're watching like my dad used to love westerns and the politics of a western aren't very good yeah but they are what they are and the fucking fastest gun wins the dude he kills the bad guy then that means he gets the girl right it's it's it's simple in its construction but you just like release into the world and i don't really think about a lot of these things when I'm watching the show.
57:38I'm educated enough to know that some of the shit that's being put out there is kind of Taylor Sheridan's bullshit. Like, he, like, I love Taylor Sheridan, but he made himself the most badass Delta guy. He also said to Bill, I fuck with people and I put this stuff in these shows to drive people crazy. You know, like, I think he has, I think he is just, like, in a unique situation where his success has given him the artistic freedom to basically make what he wants. And what he wants to make is a hyper-modern Hunt for an October type Tom Clancy show. I'll say it more concisely, which people always want me to do, but sometimes I struggle to do.
58:19I was unaware that I could still be confronted with politics that I didn't believe in or agree with and not be offended by them. Oh, that's good way to put it. It's just been so long since that was a thing that watching this show almost kind of reminds me of a time when someone would say something and I would be like, that's bullshit, but it wouldn't ruin my whole day knowing that they were around. Right. And so like a lot of the shit that I hear in this show, I'm like, that's probably not the way I look at that.
58:57but it doesn't mean i go d platform turn it off cancel paramount you know what i mean it's entertaining because it's a good thriller it's just it's weird that there's a thriller that has like about nine minutes per episode of just like they are going they did it like four times in this one yeah joe did it to the guy then it happens at the the dinner or whatever then it happens again joe gets one off to the russian torture guy and he gets one husband that like you don't know shit and you think that i'm some just deformity and this like disgusting outgrowth of like a military industrial system but she's like what about jesus what about how we killed this pharaoh you know like and it's just like i guess that sometimes i'm just like yeah you're right i just want to turn my brain off and be like damn they killed a pharaoh what about the The fact that she knows the complete human history of political assassination from the beginning.
59:52Does it does that ring more true or does that seem like some bullshit that would be in a monologue that like somebody like that would know? Because to me, when I looked at that, I'm like, well, if she truly believes this, it almost would make sense. That she has like justifications in her head. And I think that is what the characters tell each other, is that they are an essential component of a functioning society. Before I let you go, I just wanted to get your lanterns talk. Your thoughts. Two episodes have aired. Andy and I chatted a little bit about it. I thought this episode was fantastic.
1:00:29And I thought... I was curious whether or not you were surprised at anything about this show or whether or not there were elements of this show that you took any issues with or whether you're just blindly like, I'm all in on this. I legitimately, two things about the show. Two characters haven't had a handle on a superhero like this since Hugh Jackman and Wolverine. maybe Tony Stark Iron Man like this Jon Stewart and this Hal Jordan ring so accurate and true to me that the entire world of this show can be propelled by those two performances Aaron Pierre is something else bro like he legitimately does like small things in his embodiment of a character that just make you completely believe in the character itself the difference he's a very subtle performer Yeah, he is.
1:01:28And he's a great action star and he's a great actor. But I was talking to Andy about, you know, if they had kept him in Nebraska and the whole show is like this slow progression of him being like, whatever you say, sir, but kind of a little bit, you know, with an edge. I think that would have been fine. But the fact that they sent him out on an adventure and he came back changed and the way that he is performing those changes, I thought at that motel parking lot scene, was so good. The exhaustion, that he's like, I'm over you. I'm over your bits. You know what I mean? I'm over like all of this and whatever he saw that they showed him what the Manhunter did.
1:02:09Like, I just thought it's like, it was really expert writing, but it was even more so like a really wonderful, wonderful piece of acting. I think the decision in this show to ground it then makes the, you know, it makes the storytelling about relationships and expectations. And that is just how you get to know characters, man. It really doesn't matter how much CGI you have. Whatever story that you have, it's going to be about relationships and expectations. What the characters expect to get, what they actually get, what they think they know, and then what they find out. And it's difficult to do that with superheroes sometimes because you want to see the Green Lantern make a gigantic fist and then punch somebody in the face with you.
1:02:48But that's not what you want. You want to see the hero's journey of the Green Lantern and understand how that ring, which comes from this extraterrestrial space protecting guild, how that changes a person's orientation with the rest of humanity. And this show is starting there and working to everything else. The decision in this episode to have Hal's ring lose its charge. Yeah. And so, I mean, that's happened in the comics before. It happened in Greenland. He's like, go get my battery. Go get my battery. So you got to go get the battery to come and charge my power back up. Like that's your deal.
1:03:28How do you keep yours? Which is what he does with the bird the entire time. How do you keep your power by going to get something to charge up my power to exalt me? And then he's still got to be useful in the town without the ring. The ring is not a source of Hal Jordan's power. Yeah. His fearlessness, his guile, his wit and intelligence is. I just think the show is like operating in that way to a degree that I really did not expect it to be able to. Yeah. And you've got a collection of very experienced, very, very, very good writers. Absolutely. Who were able to make Hal and Carrie in the hospital room or Zoe and John at the diner or the Garrett Dillahunt character, making but i can't remember him on the horse and and how at the gates there those those scenes sing scene work yeah man it's just scene work doesn't matter how how fast you can fly scene work it's got to come first like and the fact that this show is actually like penetrating into a different audience and making people care about the green lantern it's doing really well right now yeah and i think also like for some people dc stuff generally but green lantern specifically is something I just, I honestly don't know anything about it.
1:04:44Like, I didn't, I don't have any priors, I don't have a Hal Jordan, John Stewart, anything, I don't have a favorite lantern. And so I'm watching this and I'm enjoying both sides of it. I'm enjoying the, like, stated true detective grounded mystery of it, but I also am finding the, like, extraterrestrial element pretty entertaining. So they're doing a great job with it. Thank you so much for coming by. Higher Learning, Ringer Tailgate, Midnight Boys, Van Lathan. Thanks for joining me on The Watch. We'll be back on Thursday. Thanks to Kai and Kai and Sarah and everybody for producing. Talk to you soon.
From the publisher
Chris and Andy break down the penultimate episode of ‘Furious’ and the question unanswered as we head into the finale (1:16). Then they break down the second episode of ‘Lanterns’ and the ways it improved on the pilot (22:12), before Chris is joined by Van Lathan for ‘Lioness’-watch and to talk about why this is one of the most exciting shows on right now (32:32).
Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald
Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady
Additional Video Production: Sarah Reddy, Oscar De La Luz, and Jon Jones
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