Is ‘Widow’s Bay’ Too Good? Plus ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’ and ‘Top Chef’

29:56So I'm going back to the pilot episode

29:59Andy Greenwald:of a beloved series, all the way back to 2007, when a little show called Mad Men began with a young woman coming to Don Draper and saying, we would like to hire your firm to do the advertising. for our department store. And Roger Sterling said, why don't they get a Jewish firm? Reader, I listened. Jewish mad men? Mad mitzvah, baby. It's just the ad game with guys who - The Krumholtz? It's 100 % Krumholtz. Who else is it? I didn't do all the homework here, but I'm sure we could probably find a couple Jews in Hollywood who are ready to act on a television show. Krummholtz is obviously the heavy.

30:46Andy Greenwald:He's the draper? I don't know if he's, no, he's not the draper. You need more of like, if we're looking for a young, half Jewish stars, at least like you need like a Chalamet energy to be the young person. But Krummholtz is like, Krummholtz is definitely the Sterling, Roger Sterling. It's his family firm. And, you know, basically everything is the same except you can't mix meat and dairy. That's it. You can't mix it? No. Keep kosher, you can't. Do you keep kosher? You don't do that, right? No. Yeah. How long have we known each other? You love having a steak with a glass of milk. I had one right before this podcast.

31:21Andy Greenwald:You can tell by my energy. Okay, so that's like, we'll get back into Star City on Monday. That was fun as hell. You love a game. I do love a game. I don't know that we didn't really award each other points, so who knows who won. But if you guys have your own ideas for Star City shows, hit us up. Also, if you have any ideas over who won, make that very clear. In the emails, I won't see them. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with FanDuel Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner.

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32:30Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. services not available in all areas would you like to do maximum pleasure guaranteed first or would you like to do Widows Bay first

32:46Andy Greenwald:you call it man we're staying on the Apple platform you know what here's the problem with Widows Bay which is this will be the first problem it is now getting is Widows Bay too good you know like I almost is that your concern well you know I hate being like you texted me this because people aren't privy to this but you were like so it's just showing off now and this episode Your Baggage which aired on I think Tuesday night right here this week written by Emma Ketchum and directed by Andrew DeYoung Andrew DeYoung did the Mushroom Trip episode from a couple of weeks ago he directed the Tim Robinson movie Friendship and their big chair company vibes in this episode basically is about every character confronting their past Patricia with the boogeyman Evan and Tom trying to come to grips with what happened to Evan's mother and Tom's wife and Wick kind of going over a childhood trauma that split him up from Jerry, who works in the historical society and now has a nice enough but annoying husband.

33:49And, you know, this was obviously a bit broadcast when the previous episode ended with, we got him. It's all good. And there's a great moment at the beginning of this episode that kind of reminded me of Pulp Fiction when they're in the diner and they're kind of like the banana slugs t-shirts and they're like you know just kind of at peace before there's an armed robbery but I almost am like getting to the point with this where I'm like I don't really have any notes man you guys are able to every week do an homage to a great American other subgenre or explicitly a film the monster of the week thing continues to work seamlessly the running time of the episodes makes none of them a chore uh there is legitimate like this would be among the best slashers i have seen in years if they just made this into a movie right but also is the funniest thing i have seen in a long time is watching kate o 'flynn run from an incredibly slow but persistent slasher who is the incarnation of jason voorhees and michael myers Yes.

35:01What did you think of this episode?

35:02Andy Greenwald:I want to I feel like I loved everything about it. I am not historically a fanboy of any kind, but I believe I wrote hell yeah, Patricia in my notes like I was on Twitter in 2014. Yes, queen. When she had the shotgun because it felt so good. Yeah. And then her holding the shotgun on the hopefully dead, not undead body of the boogeyman throughout his cremation process was incredible. so I am just loving it and I am a fan full stop but I always want to engage with the show also in the myriad ways in which it just fucking impresses me and a moment ago I was half kidding but I was talking about showrunners saying how do we make it story because you can have all the good ideas in the world and you can have all the speculation and thematic dream making but how do you communicate it practically because that's actually what the job is and so two examples of this episode are just remarkable to me.

35:58Andy Greenwald:And what Katie Dippel, who's the creator and showrunner, is able to accomplish by making these decisions that seem obvious or seem simple once they're done well, but actually many, many shows, good shows, struggle to find them. Week to week, it dazzles me. So one, number one would be where are we in the real-time story and how can we take advantage of that moment? So you could look at the fact that they've dispatched the ancient evil, supposedly, at the end of the last episode, and think of it maybe in a way where you're greedy to get onto the next thing, you're worried about a lull, you want to show the audience, but no one's seen the show yet, so this is entirely in your own head.

36:40Andy Greenwald:And the fact that she and her writers were like, no, let's let them sit in a moment of happiness and peace, and what does that look like? And more importantly, not just what does it look like in terms of the comedy, what does it look like in terms of storytelling opportunity? What can we explore? Second point was the past, your baggage. I think I saw an interview that Katie did this week, or one of the writers, I believe it was Katie, saying that - Is this the script notes one that she did? It could have been. I didn't listen to the whole thing. I just saw this as a takeaway. But the big shift in the episode that made it click for them was that they were going to tell Patricia's story with a boogeyman in flashback, and then they realized not to do that.

37:24Andy Greenwald:and that unlocked everything in the episode because it connected it to the forward momentum. It's a smart choice after back-to-back episodes, one of which was a giant flashback and one of which was about an ancient evil. But then the execution to make Patricia in real time complaining about her takeout order and then running, screaming out of her house from a masked killer with a knife, make that feel both like tonally and emotionally and narratively consistent with Tom and Matthew Rhys' really affecting performance, him weeping over the fate of his deceased wife. Yeah. How do you do that in a way that, but they do.

38:04Andy Greenwald:It does not feel like whiplash to go between those storylines. There was two really lovely surprising in the hands of another show would not have maybe gone this way moments that I wanted to throw at you. And I think it ties to what you're saying here. The Matthew Rhys, the Tom and Evan conversation is something that you could draw out for episodes. And for all I know, because of the thunderstorm and the terror of the island, like, Matthew Rhys is gonna go, or Tom's gonna go back on his promise to take Evan to Boston. I assume he will. I'm glad it didn't happen in this episode. But Evan basically being like, I get it.

38:44Like, when his dad explains to him what happened, And he's got these letters and he's like, you shouldn't have hid this from me. And Tom is like, it would make me sadder than I already am for you to know what happened to your mother. And Evan kind of forgives him. And also they have like a hug. Like there is like a genuine moment there. And most other shows would be like, now these two are angry at each other. so Evan is going to put himself in danger so that Tom has to save him so that they can realize the true spirit of Christmas. So that's one thing.

39:20Andy Greenwald:The show has the confidence and fearlessness of something. Like, they're not afraid to resolve stories. Yes. Because there's a belief that they carry, rightfully so, that there is more story to mine. There's also, like, the kooky Patricia stuff. When she shows up at the book club, and Chrissy, is that who it is, I think, who, or Chris, gives her, like, the riot act and is like, you're just insane and that's why nobody's your friend and like you're just so fucking weird and bye, bye. And then Patricia tases her and she's like, I'm sorry, she's the worst. She's just the fucking worst. It's just great that you give a character like Patricia like full-bodied POV to be like, I know I'm weird, but like she is a bitch.

40:01Yeah, she sucks.

40:04Andy Greenwald:Sometimes the other lesson I think from Successful Rooms is sometimes all of the work that you do is in pursuit of the simplest solution. Yeah. And you can feel, in the same way you can, top chef judge, can taste when dough has been overworked, you can tell when a show has been big-brained too much. And I'm glad you mentioned the Tom scene. I circled that. Like, the line about the pictures, they make me sadder than I already am, is a thunderclap. Like, that is such simple writing. But it is everything. It's all you need to know as an audience. It's all Evan needs to hear. and I also think like we are under when we've been praising I know we've praised him last week we've been praising all the great character performers but Kingston Rumi Southwick who plays Evan has such an interesting affect as a performer where he's very soft spoken and he underplays things in a way that is so refreshing for young actors A but B it allows him to both express the anger and the resentment and the surprise and joy that was more childlike, but then more than anything else, it allows us, I think, to understand the forgiveness coming off of that line.

41:16Andy Greenwald:And all that story, that resolution for now, was started seven weeks ago. Well, and also, when you think about how this show started, this is another example of what we're talking about in terms of knowing how to pace character development rather than story. Yeah. A lot of other shows would have Tom and Wick at odds for like four episodes, five episodes. six episodes of like Tom is this buttoned up new money trying to like modernize the island. Wick is this myth believing old wacko who thinks that the fog carries a demonic spirit and he is going to do everything he can. He's going to keep setting off like the storm sirens and you know like that could have been the tension of these episodes for three hours, four hours.

42:08And then And you could be like, now Tom believes, and now the second half of the season is going. And instead, Tom's pretty much in like, he's like, I don't really love the way we're going about doing this, but I believe by the end of the second episode.

42:19Andy Greenwald:Good character writing is yes anding. Yes. So to your point about Patricia, she is crazy, but also Chris is the worst. Wick is right, but also he's a weird, sad, lonely guy. Yeah. Tom is a kind of a prick, but also deeply, deeply hurt and sensitive. And, you know, all of these things can be true. And if you embrace that, again, all this comes from a level of confidence. And I hope we can talk to Katie about it. I'm sure I've never met a showrunner who says I was quite confident about this. Yeah. No one ever will. But it strikes me more than anything else that this show is the product of enormous creative confidence.

43:01Andy Greenwald:And on the part of Katie, but also on Hiro Murai and Andrew DeYoung and every other director and performer we've called out. Whatever the secret sauce is, they all understood the assignment. Do you know, do you understand the macro what is happening here? Because you were able to kind of be like, ah, yes, you know, there could be another and the lineage of the Warren family might actually extend to Evan or Patricia or whoever it is that we might be. I am so dazzled on an episode to episode basis of with the not only the monster of the week but the homage of the week and how they are like doing a Jaws episode or doing a Haunted House episode or doing a Halloween episode or doing a Wicker Man episode that I am actually a little bit behind on my so what is going on here?

43:56Like Richard Warren made a deal with Satan but maybe not to protect this island and now his lineage is cursed but...

44:03Andy Greenwald:And so the curse will continue as long as the lineage lives on the island. And they thought they ended the lineage with Richard Warren but now it would seem that did not happen. No, so my assumption is that Evan is the lineage and this creates an issue of Tom wants to take him off the island which will kill him but Wick and others may want to kill him. And that would be challenging. So Evan being the part of the lineage would indicate that Tom is not, it's that his mom was? Yes. Okay. And then - A matriarchal line, if you will. Just in terms of the way that these different spirits get activated.

44:39So for the boogeyman, that's just like, hey, every day that goes by, something is going to happen until you guys end this.

44:48Andy Greenwald:The less I know about the TikTok of that, not the website, the clock, the happier I am. I don't want an answer as to why the boogeyman was activated the day after Richard Warren. You know, I don't even even as we reach the point in the series, which is probably the same time it would happen in a movie where the metaphor goes away. You know, like I think there's it's a it's a it's a trope of this sort of storytelling where it's like the boogeyman does represent, you know, adolescence or insecurity or whatever. and no one believes in it, but until it starts slashing everybody and then it just becomes an action movie, we are at that point.

45:28Andy Greenwald:But I don't really want to know and I'll be very curious to see how the show handles a resolution in the short term while still being invested in this being a Boogeyman of the Week next week. Fair enough. I want to ask you, before we move on, what made this, in your mind, an excellent evocation of the silent, slow masked knife killer. I think it's the setting. There's something very Haddonfield about the streets of, of Widow's Bay. The way DeYoung kind of shot that scene where it's got evocations of, I think definitely the first Halloween and maybe even the second, maybe the second where there's, there's a lot of like screaming and crying and banging on doors and people turning their lights out and people like ignoring the the hysteria happening outside their house kitty genovese yeah and and a little bit of that life and i thought that the um just when you think he's dead he's not he pops back up stuff the you know the the scene with the ambulance drivers was amazing it's like hey welcome back pal he's like slashes at his throat so there was just a real the thing that you would be the biggest hallmark is the slow methodical pace of the slasher right that seems to always keep up with the running screaming victim um and then patricia turning into the final girl in the in the last few minutes and hilariously holding a shotgun on him in the ambulance and then in yeah it's amazing um not sure exactly how that cleared all all barriers of like investigation to the point of cremation that night but i'm okay with it i'm all for an expedited municipal also bashir was on painkillers um that's right you know the little character moments of him in the convenience store being like i have to eat this year and my wife doesn't want me to like there's just a humanity that exists in every frame of the show that's not just serving the how can we frame this correctly but because i'm a relative novice which is to say i'm too scared to watch those movies i didn't know that it would be possible for no one to be inside of the mask oh yeah it's it can be a spirit do you know what i mean like because there's the scene the wick scene is interrupted or it ends with him seeing that someone has broken in and stolen the stolen the murderer's mask which is a cool thing to have on display so i my mind was wondering i thought maybe someone had been either had always been the boogeyman and re re-energized or someone had been like uh captured by the spirit so i didn't know if the mask was going to come off and she'd shot dale yeah you know or someone from the office yeah i'm glad it wasn't that hill or something yeah that's dale that's what i meant that's what i thought was going to be in there um oh i got confused with dale dickey that's why dale dickey who play i did the same thing who plays rosemary yeah did you have any comments on shell bashear's late breaking pregnant wife who is about to give birth and hopefully not on the island and patricia's like we got to get you off the island.

48:29It's just, it's just But there's a thunderstorm coming. It's just good plotting. Did you know about one in three people with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis which causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

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49:33This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Buying something for dad usually goes the same way every year, guessing, second guessing, ending up with something that collects dust on a shelf. Here's a better idea, WeatherTech. It's the kind of gift he'll actually use. WeatherTech offers unmatched vehicle protection from floor liners and seat protectors to the cup phone and cargo liner. And no, a gift card isn't a cop-out, it's just practical like WeatherTech. Skip the guesswork this year, visit weathertech.com to get your Father's Day gift today. Let's talk a little bit about Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, which Blink and You Miss It is now up to episode four.

50:08And we missed it.

50:09Andy Greenwald:We were behind. Yes, on Apple TV. This is a new series from... David J. Rosen. David J. Rosen, who's worked on Hunters, has worked on Citadel, has worked on Sugar. Who wrote the novel I Just Want My Pants Back. I don't know that one. 20 years ago. What is that? It was like a young adult novel about living in New York and hooking up with chicks. And that was turned into briefly into an MTV series executive produced by Doug Liman. Oh, okay, cool. Does he get his pants back? I can't tell you that. You might watch it. This one stars Tatiana Maslany as Paula, a magazine fact checker going through a rough divorce and custody battle.

50:48Blows off steam one night having cam sex with a guy named Trevor. Not one night. Seems like it's ongoing. I think that's, I'm saying one night. Oh, you're setting up the pilot. She happens, yeah.

50:57Andy Greenwald:Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. You're accurate. I was like, don't, put some respect on that relationship. And during this experience that they're having together through their screens, he gets attacked on screen and Paula sees this, but it becomes apparent that this attack was part of a scam. And then it becomes apparent that this scam has gone haywire and Trevor has been killed. Paula investigates and pulls at a thread that undoes her life. So you watched two of them? I watched two. I watched, I'll say three. I started the fourth one. What did you think? I really, really enjoyed what I watched, especially the pilot.

51:39Andy Greenwald:David Gordon Green directed it and I really appreciated, I really appreciated something that I think is hard to pull off in this contemporary moment of TV, which is that it was highly stylized. It is screen dependent. I would say that this may be the most successful product integration show that Apple has had in a number of years. And I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment. The show correctly uses the most annoying Apple ringtone to be annoying. The show does depend on FaceTiming on MacBooks and having your phone available at all times in ways that feel relevant. But I think it's a hard needle to thread to have something that is frenetic and highly stylized and about, you know, the collision of crime into a normal existence, but also feel like someone is keeping, someone's touching grass in terms of trying to remember at all times who this character is and who she wants to be and what her relationship is with her ex-husband, played by a friend of the pod, Jake Johnson, with her TikTok trend dancing daughter, Hazel, and her coworkers and her life.

52:51Andy Greenwald:So I really appreciated the entry point for the story, the style in which it was done, but mostly the fact that I felt like it was focused on the right half of that equation throughout the first episode. I'll also say that another very contemporary thing that I see with a lot of these shows is we collectively are getting better and better at premise and asking cool questions. And then when pilots become series, that's when the real work starts. And so in watching episode two, I was like, okay, now I see the shape of the storytelling taking place. And that was a bumpier transition, but it's harder work, you know, to go from one to the other.

53:32I think I see what you're saying. You know, the rest of the episodes almost feel closer to like whatever the Apple version of the Safdie brothers is, you know, like where I think it's more or less like 80 % to 20 % unrelenting tension, anxiety. How the hell is she going to get out of this situation? You've got an interesting, so visually and tonally, I feel like it really ramps up in the second, third, fourth episode. They also weirdly, not weirdly, but they are trying to have kind of a couple of different treatments of the mystery story. For one thing, Murray Bartlett plays, quite obviously i think the killer i would assume i mean we don't know yeah we don't know we don't

54:15Andy Greenwald:know more but he is introduced one way and then pretty quickly established as the other yes um murray bartlett from looking and white lotus fame great actor great in this um it's it's cool how they split the mystery quote unquote or the investigation to the extent that there is one so So Paula is trying to get to the bottom of what's just happened with Trevor. But Murray Bartlett's Frank character is trying to investigate Paula. And so you've got these sort of two convergent mysteries. There's two things that I think are not rubbing me the wrong way, but I'll be interested if we continue with this show to kind of check in on.

54:55one is there's a little like apple expansion pack happening as the episodes go on where we keep bringing in supporting characters yeah um and and now it's like we're up at like eight you know now i would say that the show seems pretty cutthroat so far in terms of endangering people uh and having stakes and it's pretty cool so there's that and then there's also just they're playing around with flashbacks and you were talking about the widow's bay thing with the idea of showing patricia's boogeyman experience as a flashback and instead doing it in the present always if you can do that they're doing a lot of like cliffhanger and then flashback to explain the cliffhanger not a lot but they've done it a couple of times on maximum pleasure and i don't know if i love it because it turns into a little bit of like we're built we're wrapping the story around um the concept of a cliffhanger rather than wrapping the story over how a cop would find out about information or how somebody would be like i'm in a tough situation i need to be transparent about this but obscure that and instead it seems like i'm on a tv show so wouldn't it be cool if at the end of an episode you found out this isn't my first dead body that i've encountered or wouldn't it be cool if we found out like you think that this woman is like this but she's actually like that because we went back.

56:20You know, it's just, it is a way of telling a story, but it hasn't quite worked for me on this one.

56:25Andy Greenwald:It's funny or it's annoying, depending on your perspective, to be TV-brained enough, as we are, and maybe many of our listeners are, to see things come in and out of fashion narratively. I think, and how long it takes for the messages to be sent. Like, the tipping point of exciting scene six weeks earlier, the amount of time it took for creators to realize a everyone else was doing it and b audiences were rebelling against it there's a long tail because then it takes years of producing things to move on from that similarly like something like DTF which you know we engage with briefly but like enough to say there is a similar there's some similar things at play here um in terms of a surprising maybe not a murder in the way you think told through flashback with quirky cops in that case um it was richard jenkins in this case it's dolly de leon who was in triangle of sadness yeah um there is a uh we are in the midst of a golden era of um cam content and only fan stuff for sure um both i i meant we are margo maximum pleasure and euphoria yeah but also what we've been up to well only for the two of us though we're just straight straight hey man yeah we don't exactly the watch after dark is actually just andy and i camming what's fun is that like there was a period of time when sam sml wouldn't text he would only communicate over signal because he was worried about you know being hacked and so that's why we have stopped texting and calling we only communicate over cam soda that's right just the two of us remember chat roulette remember i got i'm still holding on to that anyway um yeah and so i i would say that I appreciated the use of screens as mitigating factors and intimacy and the chat stuff on the show because it is a well because a the relationship that um that Paula has with her cam boy is gentle and there's other layers to it to be unwrapped but it is like emotional and interesting and surprising and then there was a great scene where she's talking to her colleagues at work and it's one of those like hinge moments of like what do we gain by spilling it what do we gain by withholding and she's like, I was being scammed by a camera that I had come inappropriately connected to.

58:40Andy Greenwald:And they're like, oh, that's the most interesting thing you've ever said. And they hug her. Do you know one of those, the boy is the Julia Louis-Dreyfus' son. I didn't know that. You know, I'm on Nepo Watch. He's good. I'm just watching. Is he in the campion kind of like, I'll allow it? He seems like he was raised right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll, thank you for asking. I'll allow it. But we are monitoring the situation. Then the Times did a piece about or maybe it was Wall Street Journal did a piece about Leon Black's son who's in charge of like a shadowy but very important like United States government investment fund kind of thing.

59:15Andy Greenwald:And I was like, how did he get that job? Just, you know, he worked harder than everyone else. Yeah. Yeah, I'll swing back to the positive. But the other thing that I was the only other thing that I was slightly bumping on and this is not this is actually not criticism. this is a reflection of getting a show made for Apple TV, which is I struggled with Tatiana Maslany being a woman who is struggling with all aspects of her life, including her appearance. She is a lovely charismatic person who reads as young. She's certainly plausible as a 40 year old woman who with a child, like I'm not arguing her acting chops or whether I could buy it, but in a different world, this is the Melanie Linsky show.

59:58Andy Greenwald:And, and I'm like, I, it clicks into place a little bit more, but that's not Apple's business model. I have not, you know, she obviously broke onto the scene with Orphan Black. You haven't really seen her very much, huh? Tat. Should I have? I'm just saying, like, there are actors who are big, but if they are big on shows, like, I don't think you were big. I watched Orphan Black for, like, a season or two. I did. I thought maybe you were Orphan Black and She-Hulk ignorant. I am She-Hulk ignorant. I find that she has, like, the appropriate kinetic energy for something that's this show. A million percent.

1:00:27You know, you need. The rhythm of the show she's got. She's athletic and there's things that demand her climbing through skylights and jumping off. I mean, the first episode, or is it the second episode where she gets the tin can in her arm is crazy. Cool. It's a cool show. You know, with everything, there's like, do I urgently feel the need to keep up with this? Or like, is this something? I don't really know what the alchemy is anymore of like what eclipses that was fine watching it for three or four episodes versus like this is now what I'm watching for 10 weeks

1:01:04Andy Greenwald:I think this is this one for me stands out a little bit because of there's a surprise like I think Jake is playing slightly against type and I think he's doing a great job I think that one of the hard things to navigate in you know the last 30 years of television which are essentially shows about people with families is being drawn to the dark side is how do you balance the family stuff. I think the stuff with, is it Hazel is the daughter's name? Mm-hmm. I think that's being, I think it's pitched at the right place for me to believe that so far anyway through the episodes I've seen, it hasn't tipped fully into genre.

1:01:40Andy Greenwald:It is still attempting to be someone, the most fantastical elements of the show so far aren't the crime and violence. The most fantastical elements of the show so far are that A, she drives around New York all day and B, she's still employed as a fact checker at a magazine. Do you think they shot this in New York? Yeah. I think so. Not my New York. Why not? Your New York included magazines. Yeah, no, I don't mean that. It's just like the traffic situation seems pretty relaxed. Is it set in Ridgewood? It's Queens-y. Yeah. Okay. Keep an eye on that. Aren't you happy to see that magazines are still employing a vibrant fact-checking department before Barry Weiss takes over as editor-in-chief?

1:02:18Andy Greenwald:I am. I thought that was cool. I hate to do this. It's a fun show. The only thing I was thinking while I was watching it, because I think there are several shows, I just can't think of one off the top of my head, that take this kind of unbelievably tense premise, and they're just like, and now let's tell it over the course of 10 episodes. but I was watching this and you know as I think about how Widows is employing monster of the week or how the pit is doing a medical procedural but with durational storytelling over the course of a day so you can have some new school ideas about making tv I almost feel like I'd be more curious about the version of this show that is Paula solving this whole thing in an episode.

1:03:07And then the rest of the season is Paula, private detective, helping people who have been scammed.

1:03:12Andy Greenwald:Wow. Look at you. Look at you. I wonder if that's a more durable, repeatable idea. Or is that something that David J. Rosen has considered if he gets to do a season two pitch? And I think because of Widows, I have been looking at different TV shows and being like, was this written for TV? And was this written to be something that's exciting to watch every week other than how is the story going to end? Well, 100%. I mean, it is Katie Dippold of Widows Bay worked in Parks and Rec. And I think it is one of the enduring legacies of Mike Schur's television shows is that he found a sweet spot. it's different in the 30 minute realm or the now the 35 minute realm a sweet spot of um you can you can tune it you can tune in week to week but there is a larger spine of a serialized story and i'm not afraid of pushing towards it um but you're not going to be you're never going to see an episode that's just connective tissue whereas at least on one episode um maximum pleasure guaranteed is more of the new school approach of we are going to light a match in the first episode and it will burn through yes and dynamite happens in episode but within that framing the show that made me think of speaking of another person who could have started in it is run which was the the one season phoebe waller bridge show with donald gleason and merit weaver and that show started with similarly like an enormously grabby and exciting premise but i didn't feel like and i feel like the marketplace agreed with me it didn't have the conviction or the gas or the horses to make it a season to to earn that that beginning this maximum pleasure guaranteed seems more successful to me for that fair enough uh let's hit tc real quick top chef uh before we get out of here i just want to tell you a personal anecdote since oh it's culinary corner it's culinary corner before it's top chef okay so i've been kind of seduced by uh these instagram and YouTubes of like clean out your pantry pastas or clean out your pantry like hey do you have keepers and this look what you can do so I was like I have some like fly by jing instant noodles what's in my pantry slash fridge that I can like get going into and and create like I'd some rotisserie chicken and emulsify with pasta water uh why we'll get to that okay I mean I know that that's supposed to happen do you do that with like ramen too well I don't make ramen I don't make ramen at home i only go to like a true like kotowari shop where like each ingredient is made but this isn't about me i'm fucking out this isn't about i quit i don't want to do this show um so i was like okay i'm going through it and uh i was like okay i got the rotisserie chicken i'm looking for like kind of a an acid maybe like a pickle kind of thing yeah but i was like i could use some green in here and i came across some frozen peas at our freezer okay um my wife historically uh this is i'm not violating hippo by saying she has a bum knee and often needs to ice her knee and these peas are her knee knee peas on reddit these are so i go on reddit the expiration date for these peas is november of 2025 oh it's not it's not as bad as i thought and i should note that they have been thawed out upwards of 25 times okay so that's kind of like what is like what is your age versus your real age yeah and so on reddit of course you can be like these peas are past their expiration date should i eat them can i eat them and everybody's like yes that's just a suggestion and they've been frozen and i get like pretty deep into the process the you have your mise en place and your prep and your and and you know i've kind of like scraped the freezer burn off the peas and individually no but like i kind of like washed them a little bit to calm out a little bit and i go back to the reddit thread now i was like it seemed like that went on for a while let me see what they're talking about and apparently there's a whole thing about boo-boo peas.

1:07:25Peas that people keep just for access. Oh, this is a thing. Yeah, and they're like don't eat the boo-boo peas because that's where listeria can get in when you're thawing out and freezing and thawing out and freezing. So just as a public service announcement I stopped this. This was an incredibly boring dinner because I did not have a green and I didn't really have a pickle or an acid for it. It was just basically chicken with sweet and spicy ramen noodles. I'm not mad at this. But I would say that it was dull and I almost got listeria. And my wife was pretty pissed off that I used her boo-boo piece.

1:08:03Yeah, how's her knee?

1:08:04Andy Greenwald:That's a bigger question. But she was like, you gotta get next time you go. She finished this dinner you cooked for her and tried to stand up. Oh no, she didn't. It hurt. She was out. This was a solo like. She didn't. If you ever eat frozen peas, they cycle through real. you know like on the other videos we watch on Instagram where people are seeing how the Guinness is drinking this evening when they're just like people have been hitting it so it's like it's fresh on the tap and the lines are clean. Yeah, you want to let 12 guys go first. When that like giant dude prime mutton is like the lads have been drinking it into form and I'm like what is the form?

1:08:38Andy Greenwald:Is it physically your form? Because that is what I'm most worried about despite my love of a fine stout. Oh my God. Anyway, that... The lads. The frozen peas in my house are constantly eaten into form because, and you're going to say this came from me with my Kotowari ramen, but it did not. My children, who have relatively conservative palates, I would say, i.e. they're just kids, normal kids about this. One of their favorite snacks is frozen peas. Not heated. They like bowls of frozen peas to just pop in. How's that texture-wise? Is that good? I mean, have you ever had a frozen grape? Yeah, that's not my favorite.

1:09:15Andy Greenwald:No, so I don't share this passion with them, but I'm just letting you know that the peas are eating into form constantly. So if you need a bag for any purposes, or if he needs one. Will they hit some frozen peas, roll it back up, and throw it back in the freezer? No, no, no. Or do they kill a whole bag on a sitting? First of all, this presupposes that they are helping themselves and doing anything independently, despite their advanced age. I have noticed. Yeah. You've got some notes for your kids recently. Sure. About their contributions to the house. And let me tell you, they are receptive to those notes.

1:09:52Andy Greenwald:There is nothing they like more than when old pop says, maybe you could have picked that up. Do you think when they go out into the world in a couple of years, like, the light switch is going to flip and they're going to be like, I know how to do this. This is what we all hope. Yeah. This is what we all pray for. I don't I try to think that like because because when you're like one one thing that young parents come up against a lot is like their kids come up from school and they act insane. And then there's a worry that they are acting this way in school. And then good teachers or lying teachers will say they behave they behave all day.

1:10:25Andy Greenwald:And then being home is like then the shackles come off. It's Mardi Gras. They get it all. They get it all out. Yeah. You know it's rum spring every day at 4 p.m. so my hope is that they would not let's say leave chip witch wrappers decorating the windowsill in the homes of their friends or people they respect I don't know but all the way back to your point about the frozen peas no no I take the bag out frozen I pour some frozen into a bowl back in there seal it up put it back in okay good to know Top Chef the penultimate episode of season 23 which Andy and I have had a fair amount of notes for yeah I don't have a ton of like nitpicks about this one.

1:11:07It was my favorite episode of the season, I think. Yeah, fair. I realized that it's sort of like the Matrix where you're like, you're using your eyes for the first time. I felt like the judges were basically like food. Like they were so delighted. They liked everything. That they were like finally real cooking. So we got down to Sherry, Lawrence, Rhoda, Jonathan. Yep, that's your final four. They were asked to do basically a plating exercise where they could choose these sort of exotic or funky delivery systems for their.

1:11:43Andy Greenwald:This is after the stupid 20 questions thing. Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed it because it just seemed funny that they would be like spinach. And he's like, no. And they were like, I'll put some spinach. I'm paying very close attention. And it was very funny that they all got mad at Jonathan for asking questions that they thought were stupid. Those questions were dumb as hell. Well, I don't really even know what, like, it didn't seem like a big deal that he asked if it was a side dish, but, like, I am often the person who asks a question where somebody's like, why are you fucking asking that? Who does that?

1:12:10In interviews? No, not in interviews.

1:12:13Andy Greenwald:Well, Jesse Armstrong once. No, I'm just kidding. You've never done that. It just seemed like, based on the judges' reactions to the food, that this was at a high, high, high level. And they pushed each other. even Jonathan who as soon as he was like I am making bread and butter I was like thanks for playing but also I want to put a pumpkin on a candlestick well the only tension for the episode was really like is Lawrence going to accidentally fuck up his rice wrappings his sort of the rice rolls because he's making Carolina and it didn't steam and all that the issue was that he the episode implied or at least tried to create drama from the implication that there was some fuckery with the oven not intentional jonathan used it first and it lingered on jonathan being like i set it up for you bro and he's like it's all good it's gonna take a few minutes to cool down to the steaming setting and then you're good and then lawrence walked back over like five minutes later and was like this this thing is not so then he had to kind of like rather brilliantly like ad hoc multiple trees steaming and pots and And they just made it a little bit thicker, I guess.

1:13:20Yeah, that was the drama. I thought that each one of those winning dishes or the dishes that passed through to the final three were amazing looking. Rhoda's especially on the tree bark. I don't know that I would want to eat off of tree bark, but it looked really cool.

1:13:38Andy Greenwald:Someone hasn't been to Noma. Certainly not. You know what I mean? What an ally. So I stand with my brothers on the line. What did you think of this episode? I mean, you're right. It's a shame that it took 14 weeks to get to an episode in which the challenge is creative and is met with an elevation of execution. Like, that's what the show is supposed to be. Yeah, and it wasn't like, and you have 12 seconds to do it. But also, like, it was challenging and they elevated their game. They rose to the challenge, which hadn't really happened consistently. And I generally say a version of this every year, which is like unlike some more drama forward competition shows, excellence begets excellence on Top Chef.

1:14:24Andy Greenwald:Like the best episodes are ones where Tom is happy, where everyone has done a good job and the conversation is more about like nitpicks rather than like how obvious it was that someone just face planted. That said, it was obvious Jonathan was going home even when it was revealed he did a very good job because the ambition of what he was doing was so much less than what everyone else was doing and the plating was kind of silly. Do you think Tom's been a little cranky this season? Well, I think he should be. I think there's every reason to be cranky. But the counterpoint is when he's really happy and Kristen's like, oh, happy Tom is here.

1:14:53Andy Greenwald:And he seems quite engaged. He still can be engaged when it's all going well. I think the criticism remains the criticism, which is there is something that just feels claustrophobic and off about the penultimate episode to send people to the finals. And I'm not even sure if they traveled for the finals. Usually they're like, next week, or they tell them like, you're going to Paris or you're going to Grand Teton or Star City if we can get a brand activation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they didn't say anything about where they were going and it looked like they didn't do, they used to take a long break, like four to six weeks.

1:15:28Oh, I think they take a break because I think I noticed, I always enjoy when people come and they have a slightly different look. Yes.

1:15:34Andy Greenwald:That said, it will be another Windhorst Fingers if they just didn't travel and they're just still in the Carolinas somehow about the budget things because this is the penultimate episode and we're supposed to be this crowning achievement before we get to the obviously challenging but also the known quantity of make the best meal you've ever made. And in the episode to send people to that great opportunity, they played 20 questions in the studio and then picked out plates in the studio and then filming picked up in a relatively claustrophobic restaurant with the great John Yao of Cato here in LA being like, you did a good job.

1:16:13Andy Greenwald:yeah it feels so small and that's a bummer and maybe that's as i say every week like that's the reality of it now um or maybe you tell me maybe this is just a nitpick when the execution was i think that the when when the cooking feels like it's push like i feel like those three those four chefs but specifically the three that advanced were actually pushing each other yeah i think that there is even there's this awareness that rhoda has momentum and that she's won a bunch of things there's like i think sherry is actually like beyond her cooking like an interesting television character who clearly has a lot of self-confidence and is a little bit i don't know is she prickly i don't know i mean my kids hate her sorry sherry but like i'm watching this season for the first time finally with the key but i think she's like i think i can win this and I'm going to kind of operate from that assumption.

1:17:10This season has had a lot of false starts. It's had a lot of pratfalls. It's had the weird last chance kitchen situation. It's nice to see it ending with three people whose food I would want to eat and who I think are pushing each other. We should wrap it up there. Thanks to everyone for listening. and we'll be back on Monday with some Star City

1:17:35and maybe like a couple of other surprises, but I'm not exactly sure.

1:17:39Andy Greenwald:Well, there's stuff we haven't, like we haven't, we started Legends, we didn't finish it. There's a couple other shows that I'd like to check out, like Amadeus. So there's things in the ether. Oh, I have a really hot recommendation for you. You've watched something? I did. I don't know if you can handle it. I mean, that's fair. Are you watching Dark Wizard? Oh, I should watch that, yeah. So first of all, it's seriously scratching my 100 foot wave itch. Yes. Same filmmakers or just HBO documentary? HBO documentary about a mountain climber, a free solo climber, Dean Potter, and his rivalry with Alex Honnold.

1:18:12And just in terms of like the aesthetic of Rudy's wearing Patagonia and climbing in Yosemite in the mid 2000s, it's awesome. I will say no more, but it is fucking tense.

1:18:25Andy Greenwald:I can probably handle it. I was knee jerk avoiding it because... My wife's like palms were sweating watching it. You just get frozen peas on them. Just Dr. House. Get those booboo peas out. I selfishly was like, I feel like I've done enough with Potters and Dark Wizards and HBO recently. But I said that glibly, not knowing it was a documentary about mountain climbers at all. So I think that's a good rec. People have been talking about it. Okay, so we'll see you guys on Monday.

1:18:59We'll be right back.