‘Spider-Noir’ Is Unsure of Itself. Plus, ‘Widow’s Bay’ E6-7, ‘Euphoria’ S3E7, and ‘Top Chef’ S23E12.

20:49Andy Greenwald:I just wanted to make it relevant to our young TikTok fans. They will have more to do this season based on. So if you were watching season one and you were like, Richard Gere's in like six scenes and Katherine Waterston's not on this show really. And John Magaro, like what's he doing? You know, they'll have stuff to do this season. It looks awesome. It does. Sugar. Okay. So, okay. I can't even. We can't have this conversation without spoiling an element of Sugar. Many people listening are probably like, what are these guys talking about? I haven't even heard of Sugar. Sugar came out two years ago.

21:19Detective show is set in California, like I mentioned. Stars Colin Farrell. People sometimes ask, do I have to watch the first season to start the second season? We have started to push the limits on what we are capable of with that. I would like to take five seconds of just staring at you and maybe vamping. Sure. And in one second, we are going to spoil.

21:42Andy Greenwald:Yeah, we are. A big part of what makes Sugar, Sugar. And you know why we're going to do it? Because fucking Tim Apple doesn't want you to know. He doesn't want us to know. This trailer hides the ball. And by the ball, I mean one of the great television bag fumbles in recent history. Do you know what I said when I watched this trailer? Are you having a fucking laugh? Yeah, because this is a trailer for the show Sugar Should Have Been. And let me tell you, it's not. But also, it's like, is this the first season of Sugar? Also, you can't just trailer your way into the movie you wish it was. We've seen this fail in movies again and again.

22:19Three, two, one. Colin Farrell's character on Sugar... Is a fucking alien! Yes. He's a blue spaceman! When does that come out? Like, episode five! Right.

22:30Andy Greenwald:It's excruciating. Did you know that, like, when you were watching it? No. And then he's an alien. Yeah, and then I stood up, went out for a pack of cigarettes. Never came home. Never smoked him. Did you, I think I stopped watching Sugar. Does his alienhood play a major role in the second half of the season? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, dude. Wouldn't it in yours? I don't know. This second season trailer makes it look like he loves boxing. Like, I don't know. Look, we don't know. I keep waiting for DJT to tell us what aliens love. I keep hearing there's a press conference coming. I know. And maybe it's like they love noir movies and aliens.

23:11A lot of people on the streets are like aliens right now.

23:13Andy Greenwald:Yeah. They're coming up to me with tears in their eyes. No, that's just the Alien Earth FYC campaign, which is all over town. Yeah, this is a huge twist in the show that they are not giving away in the trailer. Because it is a fucking anchor around the neck of what could have been good. But it is, I wish I had done the prep to prepare for a, the same thing, the fucking fish with feet. This is what we have here. Like, it's okay to do a small thing well. Yes. Like, Ina Garten made a whole career out of it. And she should work at Apple TV, frankly. Because you have Colin Farrell, one of the most stylish and compelling and charismatic actors of our time, looking incredible in beautiful suits, driving a sports car in a neon...

24:03It's Colin Farrell Rockford files.

24:04Andy Greenwald:...tinged, yes, but like also really embracing the idea of like what L.A. light looks like and what a noir would look like in bright color, not in whatever fucking rinky-dink technicolor they did to Spider Noir to try to appeal to multiple audiences at once. We'll get there. This is coming attractions for Andy's Spider Noir. I'm just saying. And that would have, in the great words of the fucking Seder dinner, Dayenu. Like, that would have been enough. Yeah. But instead, they were like, no, no, there's also a secret society because this guy likes noir movies because he's an alien. We don't needed that.

24:41Andy Greenwald:We don't need that. Do you think that Colin Farrell signed up for this to play a detective or an alien? I think Colin Farrell signed up for this for a chance to wear suits that weren't fucking fat suits in the back lot of Warner Brothers doing Penguin. Yeah. And yet, he does have to wear an alien suit at some points in the show. In a perfect world, this show gets renewed because they're like, just do the parts that work. We don't care that he's an alien. That's fine. And maybe they did lean into it because they beefed up the cast. Like you were pointing it out. Yeah, Shea Wiggum, Sasha Kaey, Tony Dalton, like a really great ensemble.

25:12Andy Greenwald:The plot already looks more interesting than the kind of... It looks like a detective investigating like a missing boxer and then Tony Dalton, Lalo from Better Call Saul plays a sheriff's deputy, I think. and Shea Wiggum seems to be a fixer. It's just so, so, so weird to me. And it, I don't know, like at a time when Widow's Bay is on the docket for us to talk about, like I'm kind of, I'm definitely giving, I don't really want to rail on Apple's development process for why this happened the way it happened. And even within the context of it's an alien show and a detective show, the big reveal being, just being slow walk to episode five was also such a weird fumble in season one.

25:55Andy Greenwald:anyway it's just a bummer because i watched that trailer and i was like this is a show i want and i think they're probably smart to do that and say like look all the stars are on apple and they're all kind of doing genre stuff and you'll have a good time with this listener i don't know if that's true well i can i can assure you that we'll we'll we'll at least give the second season a college try i'll jump back in yeah yeah you don't care anymore you don't care you showed me the way you led me down the path of we don't have to watch tv to talk about tv i was a trail Hellblazer in that field. Let's be positive.

26:26Okay. And let's talk about Widow's Bay. Widow's Bay released two episodes this week for a very clear purpose. These two episodes are linked in ways that I found, just like this series itself, surprising and delightful. Episode six is called Our History, and it's directed by Ty West. It was a big deal. Great horror director, directed Pearl and Maxine, and X, and he directed House of the Devil. Like, he's a great horror director. Also directed a really cool, like, Brian Jonestown kind of Jonestown-esque movie called The Sacrament that I really liked. Anyway, he directed this episode, Our History, which is set in 1702.

27:07It stars Betty Gilpin as Sarah Westcott, who comes to the Widow's Bay Island, betrothed to Richard Warren, who is the town, you could say, leader, savior, captor. And Richard Warren's played by Hamish Linklater, kind of in a sly nod, I think, to his Midnight Mass character, who was also a priest who worked on a rural island. And when we find these two uniting in 1702, a plague of violent insanity is kind of gripping the island. Reminiscent of what we saw in the fog in the premiere episode. That's right. and Sarah finds herself in the center of these proceedings and attempts to save herself and warns children as he and some of the townsfolk aim to stop her.

27:55Should we talk about these episodes separately or together?

27:57Andy Greenwald:I would like to actually take one, if I may, brief step back just to contextualize our conversation of these episodes. Just to talk about John Sugar and his journey. When they revealed that he was an alien, Widow's Bay is the best television show of the year to such a staggering degree. Look who's trying to get an FYC campaign. Let me try again. Which camera? Widows Bay is the best television show of the year. M-Andy Greenwald, primary host of The Watch Podcast. Whoa. That's for the poster. Primary. You were traveling. Okay. Of course, I was gone for a week, too. Anyway, my point is, this show is so good in a way that staggers, humbles, and delights me.

28:45Andy Greenwald:Like my experience watching it is such that I am enjoying it. I'm laughing. I'm riveted. And I can't stop thinking at every moment of all of the brilliant creative decisions that went into almost every frame of it. Before we even talk about these episodes, we can talk about like the directorial and cinematography and camera choices that are involved in a show this specific, this tonally and aesthetically specific that shifts. It's a period piece this week. Previous week, it was a crazy drug trip. There have been, I believe, four directors so far. Hiro Mirai, Sam Donovan, Ty West. Andrew DeYoung.

29:26Andy Greenwald:And Andrew DeYoung, who works with Tim Robinson a lot and is fantastic. There is no, there is no aberration from episode to episode. That's the kind of thing that you see in a long-running show where there's enough of a book on it and a style guide that when people come on, they feel comfortable knowing what it is they're stepping into. To do that from a cold stop is just remarkable. The tonal balance of this show to be legitimately scary, to be legitimately funny, and to be legitimately emotionally gripping is something I've never seen done before. And it's doing it in such a, it's subtle in the sense that this is not a giant, expensive, starry adaptation of something.

30:09Andy Greenwald:It is not based on pre-existing material. It is not, it was not presented to us as the next big show. The way that it was put together with just this like quiet, confident, uh, competence and, you know, occasional brilliance is wild to me. It's wild to me. I co-signed everything you just said. And every, and by the way, I know this isn't really a valuable comment, but everyone's talking about that. Like everyone, when I have conversations with people, someone will be like, oh my God, the editing. The editing is so exceptional. Someone will say, oh, notice Alison Jones, the legendary casting director, you know, Freaks and Geeks, Barbie, The Office, Veep.

30:47Andy Greenwald:She worked on this. And you can tell. Like, down to the guest stars week to week. I'm blown away. Well, and to your point, several shows that I've been from not engaged to highly engaged with over the last couple weeks have come out on Netflix and Amazon. Spider Noir, for instance, dropped its whole season legends we talked about like the burrows on netflix i talked about with joe last week um feels like in the sort of larger conversation their their moments already come and gone in some ways because you just your your engagement with a binge is individual and personal nobody's on the same page you can feel widow's bay uptick in group chats and in conversations at I'm sure school pickup or whatever, where it's like, what are you watching?

31:39Or like dinner parties or conversation is a restaurants. And it's like, people are picking up on Widows Bay. They are catching up on Widows Bay. They are excited about Widows Bay. I feel like there was like a, almost like an awareness that this is a special two-part event this week. Completely agree with you. There's also something like, you know how I, I always, I heard Sam Esmail in my head where it's like you cannot get mad at a piece of art for what it didn't do. He was talking to me. But you can't be mad about the choices that it makes. It's like you have to evaluate the choice it did make, not what it could have done.

32:13I think that's right. I want to just say that in less sure hands or in a less certain showrunner's hands, other than Katie Dippel, this would have been, this art history episode would have been drunk history. It would have been Betty Gilpin doing kind of Krasinski, Jim office faces while all this stuff is happening because she basically is doing a no perfect 18th century like Puritan woman, but also doing Amy Poehler in Parks and Rec. Like she has comic timing and she is giving it a modern sensibility. I think that is like, uh, as soon as I got here, I was like, what the fuck is going on? You know what I mean?

32:57Like she has like that kind of like, I know you're watching me and this is a break from this show's reality, but I'm going to be consistent with the way Matthew Reese reacts to things on the Island as well, even though it's 300 years apart. How did they do that? I don't know.

33:13Andy Greenwald:How did they do a 300 year flashback episode? with the confidence of a show that has been running for multiple seasons. Yes. There's these subtle choices that I'm dazzled by. Like, we watched the first episode and we raved about it. And then we watched the second one. And I think we took time to praise the fact that the show seemingly pitched itself in the first episode as here comes the big trouble. Like, this is going to be an event series, for lack of a better word. But then almost immediately it walked it back. The tourists did come, and there was suddenly more space for episodic situational comedy or hijinks of this type of horror film, this type of horror story.

33:56Andy Greenwald:And I was ready to settle into a perceived take of, that's pretty smart for a show that might run multiple seasons made by someone who worked on Parks and Rec, for example. Then I realized it was doing both at the same time. To make the commitment to do the flashback to the island's founder and then deal with that character and blow it up. This is exactly where I wanted to go. multiple episodes to go is a level of confidence in the larger story project that is remarkable. And it caused me to go back though and notice all the little smart decisions like the fact that episode three, Seahag, and episode four, Beach Reads, which is a contender for episode of the year, are happening concurrently.

34:38Andy Greenwald:So playing with time in a way to pre-address the idea. Beach Reads is the Patricia episode? Yes. Yeah. To almost pre-counter the criticism that it can't, that befouls a lot of television, which is it can't be the most important thing that's ever happened if we have time for a bottle episode or a side quest. All of these things are not amateur decisions. You know, they are not rash decisions. They are thoughtful, considered decisions that are paying off the story. And so all of that is preamble to say these two episodes were ballsy as hell. and I'm glad they dropped them together which is another smart decision when they were digging him up at the end of I think at the end of art history they start digging him up I was like that was cool and I'm sure they're digging him up to get the necklace right or something you know and then this is comic screenwriting that is being applied to a sort of chamber horror drama where it's like, what if he was still alive in that box?

35:47And then what if Hamish Linklater was just on this show for an episode? And what if instead of being unfrozen caveman lawyer, who's freaking out about like there being electricity and stuff, he's actually like, I've decided I need to die because I've been tortured for hundreds of years. And then he's like, actually, I kind of want to live. Can I throw one more what if at you?

36:09Andy Greenwald:What if our, our meaning the audience's, introduction to his resurrection, or he never died, the fact that he's still alive, is played entirely through the perspective of Tom waking up from one of the most hellacious 24-hour mushroom trips in recorded history, so that he shows up, and Richard is already upstairs. Yes. There is no jump scare in the coffin. And Patricia is rattled, and Wick has already cut his hand trying to open. Like there has already been all this stuff happening while Tom is like, I've been asleep for a day. That is another sign of filmmaker confidence, storyteller confidence that we don't need to hit every potential.

36:50It's funnier to have them be like, don't open that. We tried that already.

36:53Andy Greenwald:We already did it. We're behind. Our main character is behind the story. Yeah. So in Seasickness, which is directed by Sam Donovan, as Andy mentioned, who, you know, worked on Skins and Severance and The Crown and written by Dave Harris. I've seen this many people say this has got a lot of Jaws juice on it Jaws juice? Is that like Sea Chum? singing and kind of looking for something out there I thought this was a really cool episode and I really liked how even though it's basically all shot within the cockpit of Wick's boat the time it takes to be like here's the practical amount of space and time that needs to be covered he has to get to this buoy but wick can't go past the buoy tom can richard needs to to be evaporated into bones but you know like you never leave anything and it isn't an exposition dump but you do get a sense of like oh when's wick gonna get off the boat and how is or how is tom gonna be able to sail the dinghy and what's what are the rules yeah what are the rules and it's still only 40 minutes or whatever it is and it still flies by and has time for a b-plot of evan discovering that his mother at least didn't die during childbirth if not is i would imagine i'm starting to wonder if she's still alive somewhere right well i think are we now on to supposition corner i mean i i think i don't know if this is like supposition corner could be another recurring segment for us i don't know if it's going to go well for us.

38:28Andy Greenwald:I don't know. Not as good as your silence is deafening. That's a much, that was awesome. I'm a little spooked because this is the week because the Knicks swept their way to the finals. I don't know what you're talking about. It's a basketball team. That all of the video footage of NBA experts being like the Knicks overpaid for Jalen Brunson. And this is not the kind of signing that will get you to the finals. Oh, Becky Hammond being like, you'll never win with a small guard. I'm just saying, I don't want to, I want to be very careful now that I know that these takes live forever. I didn't know that until this week.

38:55Andy Greenwald:I didn't know that all of these podcasts remained on Spotify. Well, if you talked about anything of consequence, I think that might matter. But since we're mostly talking about, did you ever watch Iron Man? That dude was an alien. Okay, that's fair. No, so, okay, I could say this as a supposition corner or I could say it about the watching a show that is made by people who know what they're doing is just such a pleasure. But in the second episode, when Tom locks himself into the hotel overnight, we do see weird paintings and scary paintings. And we see that also in the first episode when he's touring Bashir Suleyman through the museum or whatever.

39:30Andy Greenwald:And I think when we saw that, we were like, well, Katie Dippold really learned from Parks and Rec about how funny historical shit can be. Yes, yes. One of the paintings in the hotel is of what appears to be a toddler loose at sea. And I feel like I'm not the only person. I've not read any coverage of the show yet. but like that is clearly Richard's daughter who received the brooch coming off of the boat, making it back to the mainland, and then beginning a bloodline that ends with Tom's son. Look at the big brain on Brad. This is probably the most covered idea. Damn, dog, that's my job is to go dig it in the crates for that kind of stuff.

40:11That just appeared in this crate. That was straight from my brain crate. There's many ways to watch this show. And you can watch it with a scalpel, or you can watch it and you can sit there and just marvel at the comic tone and the spooks and the creaks in the night. You know, it's great.

40:28Andy Greenwald:Yeah, I actually, I think, I mean this as praise. I don't care that this kid is related to the founder of the island. Like my enjoyment of the show is not dependent on lore. I've seen some people be like they should have thrown the bones overboard because I think they bring Richard's bones back. Oh, there's ways they should have behaved? That's a cool way to watch television. No, I mean, like that will probably come back to literally haunt them, that they did not get rid of Richard's bones. And his Vienna sausages. Yes. If you were Richard, and you're 330-some years old, isn't a gift shop blowing your mind?

41:06Aren't you just like, holy shit?

41:08Andy Greenwald:I'm on a t-shirt? Yeah. There's lights? I don't know. I was basically, you know, living alone. You're like, the Knicks have gotten how far with a small guard? Dude, I'm just like, I was living alone in London, one of the greatest cities in the world for seven weeks, and I almost lost my mind. Yeah. He was in a box for 300 years, and he came out pretty chill. I know. Take that, Nate. I'm just saying. Maybe keep it together a little. Chill out. Yeah, so I was okay with that. He's a little bit touched. You know, he's a little bit different kind of guy. Buried alive, having a moment. Yeah. Top five burials alive.

41:50Alive burials.

41:51Andy Greenwald:Don't list the other three. The Bride. Oh, you want to do the other three? Because this could burn us if there's another one we're forgetting. The Bride, the Ryan Reynolds movie Buried. Which was a remake of a Danish movie, right? Of course you know that, yeah. This is what it means to me. This is the international sign for being buried. How would you know that? Because the movie was in Danish and I didn't understand any of it except when the guy was like this. Who's another really good Buried Alive person? Nicky Santoro in Casino. Oh, yeah. Spoiler. Sorry. Nicky's barely alive when he goes in.

42:19Andy Greenwald:I don't think that's a distinction that's worth noting. Yeah, don't they hit him with a bat like 150 times? Yeah, but he's alive. I'm not saying he's alive for long, but... Burial's alive. Hit us up, thewatchitspotify.com. Let us know your favorite. That'd be good. Evan, now you've talked a little bit about the links you're seeing, the theories you're theorizing about.

42:49He is an example of another thing that this show does really well, which is it can have storylines that last 25 minutes and are deeply satisfying. It can have storylines that last multiple episodes, like say the mushroom trip, which obviously has after effects. If you were Tom and you had just tripped your balls off for multiple days, you'd probably be like, am I still high when you meet a 300-year-old man. Yeah. But it turns out he shares something in common with him because of the mushrooms spoke to both of them. The Evan plot is obviously, like, I guess would you call this a season-long runner?

43:25Is this guy's rebellion and search for self?

43:28Andy Greenwald:Yeah, and by the way, Kingston, Rumi Southwook, who plays the kid, is the presumed innocent cast having a moment? Yes. Him and Chase Infinity both having good careers. They are having a moment, yes. He's great. Yeah, I think that it's, again, it's just the smart construction where it is often rebellious teenage characters are created purely to exist as stress and plot creators for the main character but this kid is given the dignity of his own plot line like there's a tiny moment in the episode where he is you know called out or caught by Bashir the sheriff and yeah he says to him would it be cool if when I turned around to go back to my friends.

44:08Andy Greenwald:I yelled, fuck you, pig. Yes. And Bashir says, absolutely not. But then he but then the camera cuts back to him to smile about it. And it's like, that's a human moment in a show that would otherwise, you know, might not need to have room for that. I do want to digress again, which I know is off brand for this podcast, especially today. But as our resident pharmaceuticals expert, you were asking Tom's experience in the previous two episodes ago, was that similar or dissimilar to when we met for the second time ever on the streets of south i don't think my mushroom experience was nearly as intense of the guys i think that they were dealing with some serious shit mine was like four hours long yeah that night yeah and largely enjoyable other than seeing the death star in the sky oh and maybe feeling like i was in apocalypse now.

45:00Andy Greenwald:Somehow the Death Star has returned. And then my buddy tried to climb into like a two by two shelf in his closet. How'd that go? Didn't work. I mean, but he was like, I'm going in there. But what's weird is, and people who want the full story of this can listen to the Trainspotting episode of Rewatchables. I think we get into this great, great granular detail. We should create a lore playlist for... My memory of what was weird about my experience was that me and my girlfriend at the time were walking downtown towards Tower Records to buy the Tribe Called Quest record that came out that night. But we were stopped.

45:34Andy Greenwald:You do the work. I do the work. Hashtag ally before that was a thing. We were walking and we were stopped by. Is that the love movement? Or Beats Rhymes in Life? No, Beats Rhymes in Life. We were stopped by police officers from walking down the street saying, no big deal. Can you go around? There is a suspect on the loose on this street. And then a block later, I see your ass and you were just like, hey, what's up? Now, did you interact at all with the police activity? If I did. Because I think that would have freaked you out. I don't think I did. I was aware of that activity. But you were focused on the big picture in the sky.

46:12I also think Philly PD, they try to keep the crowds moving. You know what I mean?

46:15Andy Greenwald:They always say it. Yeah. Man, what a show. I'm so excited for these last few episodes. So 8, 9, and 10 still to come over the next three weeks. As a segue, because we're going to talk about Spider Noir in a second. And Spider-Noir does not deserve all these strays, but it's just, it's what we got this week. It is what it is. I want to uplift Widow's Bay even further just to say that this show exists because Katie Dippold was passionate about a story and a vibe and a tone and a type of show that she wanted to make. And she found incredible partners who were open-minded and excited to join in and bring their talents and Hiro Mirai and everyone else that she assembled to make the show.

46:51Andy Greenwald:It only comes from that relatively pure creative act. Yeah. Which is rare in movies and in TV these days, where a lot of what we see is an example of people doing their absolute best work to clear a relatively arbitrary bar that has been set for them by rights holders or development executives or network executives or whatever. That's part of the job. Yeah. And it can be done well. You guys are all free to write novels. Yeah, exactly. For free. To be subsumed by generative. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurts a day for two weeks and see if you feel a difference.

47:33With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced wifi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24 seven US-based support.

48:11millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. The AI. I think this actually segues nicely into Spider Noir, as you alluded to. So Spider Noir is a new show, executive produced by Lord Miller on Amazon Prime. Whole season's already up. It is a extension, I guess, or a riff on a character that Nicolas Cage played in Across the Spider-Verse, I believe.

48:44Andy Greenwald:Yeah, in the Spider-Verse movies, he voices a version of this character. I do think it's a sad sign of how cooked we are that all of the press for the show makes it clear that this is not the same character. Yes. Because it could be. This is another iteration or expression of the idea. It's really weird that they are making that. It's almost like they want to keep the sanctity of these animated blockbusters and do like a spinoff of it, but not explicitly because like, what if it doesn't work? We don't want to damage the brand. I don't know. Well, also that it's more, but it's even more than that.

49:19Andy Greenwald:It's that there is an established canon to these fanciful and honestly brilliant Spider-Verse movies that contain the idea that there are thousands of spider people and sometimes spider horses and cars and that each one has a very distinct identity. And so to protect the gentle souls of these devoted fans, they have to make it clear that this Spider-Noir is not the same Spider-Noir. There's just more than one. Okay, gotcha. Are you feeling better about that? Yeah, this is a show set after World War I. One. And it stars Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, who is this sort of retired Spider-Man, now private detective, investigating, an honestly like beyond synopsis set of missing persons cases and trying to track people down and trying to get blackmail and interacts with several, I would assume, canonical Spider-Man.

50:17Andy Greenwald:Iterations of them. Iterations of Spider-Man villains. It is an incredible cast. Truly. Cage, Lamorne Morris, Brendan Gleeson, Lucas Haas. Lee Jun. Lee Jun Lee. Lee Jun Lee. Cameron Britton Your guy Jack Houston Let's see him in a minute You ever watch Boardwalk? Yeah The whole thing? Yeah Do you remember Grantland? We used to do the damn thing back then We put seven shows up Yep And we talked about them Who put the shows up? The podcast? The TV networks They were like Here's seven TV shows this year Enjoy Oh yes And we were like Yes I wasn't I was like Actually this is problematic And people hated me for it Boardwalk Empire?

50:59Yeah. Was that the first time you snowflaked out? I didn't.

51:03Andy Greenwald:First of all, I've been snowflaking out since I first watched the triathlon in 1986. Who will think about the sea life that these people are disturbing? Oh, their legs are damp. Who wants to sit in a wet bike seat? That is actually like a pet peeve of mine. See? Wet, wet, swim shorts on a bike seat. Chafing. Thank you for speaking your truth. Usually you hang me out to drive with this stuff. But the way I say it sounds kind of cool and like normal. I know. It also suggests that your childhood was like fucking Goonies all the time. Yeah. And I was just alone in my backyard going like this because I didn't have a backyard.

51:39Andy Greenwald:Anyway, no, Boardwalk Empire, I was like, it was kind of like Prestige Karaoke. Yeah. It had some moments. The reason why Widow's Bay is able to pull off the two episodes that they did this week is because of choices and confidence in those choices and commitment to those choices. I think that nothing sums up how I feel about Spider Noir, the two episodes that I watched and sort of some light scrubbing through some of their episodes. Nothing sums up how I feel about it more than the fact that when you click play on the Amazon Prime Video app or site, you are offered a choice between true hue color or authentic black and white.

52:24now there's a probably a reaction some people have where they're like cool i love choice i want i want them to choose i don't actually like this present the show you want me to see and i think it's i think it's indicative of how i ultimately feel about this show that neither looks very good uh the black and white is not high contrast enough for my taste it doesn't have that atmosphere of old noir movies that I think it's looking for. It kind of has a monochrome to it. Yes. And the true hue looks like running Sin City through a colorization program to pop colors. And I kind of found it really distracting.

53:10And I have to say, I don't know if I've really ever talked about this. I'm not a huge Nicholas Cage guy. Wow. I like him. Yeah. I like him at his peaks. I like him at his Lynch weirdness. I love Raising Arizona. I love Wild at Heart. I love... Moonstruck. I love The Rock and Con Air. But I am not like everything this guy does is so fascinating and awesome. And do you feel like he's kind of playing with one hand behind his back in this game? Or something? Like, I don't know, why am I like, I'm like way more into Brendan Gleeson and Lucas Haas in this show than I am Nicolas Cage. I feel like I'm going to meet you halfway on this.

53:58Andy Greenwald:I think that Nicolas Cage being the star of the show and making the choices that he makes is probably the most interesting thing about it. That said, I agree that it ultimately is not that interesting. I think it's fun seeing an actor who, I think this is not a controversial opinion, hasn't had laser focus for swaths of the last two decades in terms of his career choices. Got some notes to pay off. It's true. So to see him kind of like relatively locked into something that he could do quite easily is amusing. And there are moments, like there's a moment in the second episode when Ben Reilly pretends to be a plumber and so it's Nicolas Cage pretending to be someone, pretending to be someone, and you feel the liveliness of it that pops even in the, I agree, the kind of cloudy black and white sidebar.

54:48Andy Greenwald:Like if you want to see an argument for black and white in the 2020s, watch Ripley, which is every frame is so beautifully considered and composed that there's no other way that you could imagine seeing it. And I would say, I don't think this is... Goat season. But it's also, it's not anecdotal to say this. This was like Garrett Bash, who's the producer of that and producer of many, many other FX shows, works with Taika Waititi a lot, basically said that they just shot it one way and then they told Showtime who they were making it for. That's what we did because Showtime was like, can you give us options?

55:20Yeah.

55:20Andy Greenwald:And I think giving options is a hallmark of a successful contemporary creative career, but it is not necessarily the quickest or straightest path to great creative solution. So in the case of the show, Oren Uziel is the showrunner, and I think that he has done a really, really, solid job doing something that I'm not sure is possible to do in a way that would satisfy. And what I mean is he is clearly a talented writer and clearly a talented storyteller and clearly confident in the ways that are necessary to get something like this over the finish line and get it made. But some of the things that are most on display here is a very contemporary writerly skill, which is tightrope walking, which is finding or trying to find a healthy balance between the two great flavors that don't always necessarily taste great together.

56:13Andy Greenwald:You can see the indecision in the options of how to screen it. But for me, the most damning indecision of the show is, is this a noir show or is this a superhero show? And I know which side I find more interesting. And I found it as I watched a couple episodes of it, the constant safe return to the home base of, but actually that guy's the Sandman. Actually, it's just going to be a superhero fight. If he gets pushed off the roof, you can always sling some webs. I found that, I don't even know what the word is. It's not disappointing. I just found it non-elevating. I think that because of the dominance of superhero and comic book stories over the last 20 years, you and I have often said, like, use it as a Trojan horse to make the thing you really want it to make.

56:55And I don't back off of that. but if a guy gets shoved off a building it's supposed to be a dramatic moment where you're like is this it for this character or even if he's just at the edge of the building because that's a place I'm sure there's dozens of more moments where a guy's got a gun on our hero and he's standing at the edge of a roof and it's like what's going to happen I think that if you can throw webs from your wrists to save your own life it kind of just robs the dramatic moment and that's something that comes up a couple of times in these two episodes that I've watched. I also, I mean, as noir storytelling goes, I have found it a little bit too in between one long story and episodic stories of like, and now I have another case this week, you know?

57:44It's a cool idea, and I applaud them being able to do it. There's also a little bit of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff happening here where I'm like, you guys, is it Spider-Man or what? Like, you know, like... Choose. Just, just, if this is, like, let these guys cook. Like, let them have the toolbox or don't.

58:04Andy Greenwald:To me, what would be interesting, I hear your point about, like, it just, it's kind of a cheat code to reduce stakes if everybody can survive anything. The thing that I was disappointed to see but not surprised to see was that the, that everyone has superpowers. Yeah. But what's interesting to me about the concept would be about a guy who's a private eye who is basically cursed with abilities that other people don't have. And then what do you do with it? Like the idea that he could, I mean, because it is a classic trope of detective fiction and noir that the detective takes more damage than anyone could possibly survive and keeps coming.

58:41Andy Greenwald:He would have maybe a more legitimate reason for being able to get back up again despite the bruises, but the first person he encounters in his detective mission can ignite himself on fire, which immediately makes me just, to me, that flattened the stakes. If there's going to be two shows where there are the normals, and Lamorne Morris is doing a great job playing Robbie Robertson and another canonical journalist character from the Spider-Verse, he fits into this world like a glove and is having a lot of fun, and the scenes with him and Nicolas Cage pop for me. Yeah. But he's existing down here with the normals and Ben Reilly's up here with the super-powered freak shows and that is less, I find that less interesting.

59:20Did you like the stuff with Gleason and Haas, the Silverman stuff? I like those actors. Yeah.

59:25Andy Greenwald:I like those actors. I think my biggest disappointment is... And as television shows budgets have gone up and visual spectacle has gone up, the opportunity to really to to make the writing, for lack of a better word, more muscular and kind of the star has gone down. And certainly there are plenty of things that are overwritten. But the idea of the writing being the star of a show is not really in vogue. Everybody wants to have room to have the banter that goes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And then the scene starts. But that bang bang is noir. That's noir dialogue. And so I wish there had been more opportunities to play that out because instead, it kind of fell flat to me.

1:00:11Andy Greenwald:You have the trappings of what it's supposed to be with Lee Jun Lee as an ingenue. Femme fatale, yeah. Femme fatale. And you have Ben Reilly as the put-upon. Gumshoe. Gumshoe wanders into her place of business where he doesn't belong and he's declassing the joint. And then you have dialogue where he's like, well, a singer has to know all the numbers. Maybe a detective has to know all the answers. That's not that snappy. That is a simulacrum of snappiness. But again, there are a lot of mouths to feed when you have a show like this. And I want to be transparent because we touched on this when we brought up the trailer.

1:00:46Andy Greenwald:This was something that I pitched on and I was involved in. And I don't want this to sound like sour grapes because I did not get this job. I did not deserve to get this job. And Oran New Zealand did a much better job than I ever would have. But it was interesting. to be inside of the process of how stuff like this gets made. And truly, the way stuff like this gets made is off of the success of the Spider-Verse movies. I think that anybody who works, most people who work in 2026 probably know the experience of, wow, there's a lot of people on this Zoom now. How did this happen? You know what I mean?

1:01:19Yes. And it's like, it's not a bad thing. Nobody involved probably has ill intentions. And, you know, the way that those things kind of bloat is natural, but there, you could probably do like a hard, a clear eyed assessment of like, what's this person? What's the, like, what is the reason why this person is now giving me notes about this stuff or whatever? And it's, you're right. Part of the job of the 21st century screenwriter showrunner is to please all the different stakeholders.

1:01:51Andy Greenwald:And because the genesis of this is Spider-Verse was a big hit. And so Sony and Lord and Miller sold a package of Spider-Verse shows, Creatives Unattached, to Amazon. Yep. And the first one, which was Silk, went through two or three showrunners over a period of years and eventually frittered out and never got made. The process that I was a part of for this one frittered out years ago and was stopped and then restarted a year later. And then this was the development process of it. But even in my limited experience, like Lord Miller are, I mean, I think they're geniuses with what they do. No one does what they do.

1:02:32Andy Greenwald:And it's incredible to watch the final product of. They are also creators. So to walk into a process that's like, we have these toys. What do you want to do with them? Because Amazon's going to make the show if we hit the target that we haven't been able to fully articulate yet. And then you also have the stakeholders who wanted a superhero show and the stakeholders who wanted to be involved, but maybe not as involved. And then there's the Marvel presence and then there's Amy Pascal. And like, that's really, really hard. So I bring that up not to spill personal stuff, just to say like, to get this show on the air looking really good is fucking amazing.

1:03:09Andy Greenwald:It's just ultimately not something I think we want to spend eight hours watching. And it's incredible that it's there. All these good intentions, good performance and good thinking that went into it. What do you think is the logic behind making it a binge? I have no idea I mean the only thing that I would say is maybe like if you watch The Boys or if you remember how The Boys was released yes 3-1-1-1 but the first season was a binge oh yeah so I think that Amazon has some internal metrics that are like for this type of genre show or this fan base it's better to give it to them well it seems like yeah if I remember correctly I think Off Campus which is a big hit for them went up as a binge I imagine any successive seasons of off-campus, I could see that being pulled back.

1:03:59I think the summer I turned pretty happened. I mean, it's been interesting to watch that network. I wouldn't say stumble into, because I'm sure it was very, very conscientious, like kind of owning YA and owning like young female romance stories. They have like a whole vertical there where it's like obsession is in session. And it's like, not only is it a bunch of originals, but they've curated all these like movies that they think fit into this aesthetic. I wonder whether or not they'll continue to do stuff like that. And Peter Friedlander, you know, who we remember from Netflix, is in charge over there now.

1:04:37But like, it'll be interesting to see if that streamer in particular becomes less about release dates and more about like centers of interest, verticals, basically.

1:04:49Andy Greenwald:I think that's a, I don't know if it's smart. I think it is a clever and defensible programming strategy. But I would say that the executive mandates and executives themselves have moved around so much that a lot of these streamers and services that even what we we have done podcasts where we were like, ah, Paramount Plus's central argument for existence is coming into focus. Yes. It's working for them. They found a couple things that work and they're building from them, mostly Taylor Sheridan and the shows that fit into that aesthetic. Taylor Sheridan's gone under the new leadership. I mean, Dutton's doing very well.

1:05:31No, I mean, he continues. I think he's going to finish out a couple of shows, but yes. For sure.

1:05:34Andy Greenwald:Dutton Ranch is a huge hit. I'm just saying that he is now moving to Peacock. And so what will Peacock do? Similarly, Amazon seemed like it was finding some fertile ground with the YA stuff and then also the ma stuff the terminalist and reacher and jack ryan and like dad stuff and we don't fully know what their direction is going to be under peter freelander but i thought it was but i noted with interest we talked about this briefly with with kaya not the show itself but the release strategy that terminalist i think has been on the shelf and is finally getting a release date for its second season um in october so if they wanted to keep pumping that well until it was they haven't really done it.

1:06:15Andy Greenwald:And that might signal that that's not what they're doing. So I don't know. They just want to get terminalists closer to midterms. Oh, yeah. Are they trying to read the electorate? Do you think that the plight of the white Afrikaner farmer is going to be a real driving issue in Maine? I just wonder, this is probably a topic for a different show, but I wonder if in... I know that when we've talked to Casey Bloys, when Casey came on the show, he talked about how he was like, I'm on 20... spring of 28 yeah i'm i'm planning out hbo has that thing where there's this baton pass from one show to the other over the course of year there's usually like a couple of weeks of like docs or event programming or whatever but you know you usually have like a sunday night like show that to hang your your laundry on and i just wonder whether or not as people increasingly find themselves detached from the cable bundle and also watching things almost entirely on their own schedule and entirely up to their own tastes in the same way that like, I know Drake put three albums out last week, but in some ways I don't feel like that happened, you know, because in my algorithm, it's just not a huge deal.

1:07:29Do you basically get away from the release schedule as a paradigm for television and make it more about like, what we want is to have stuff there so that when people have found a vibe that they like, they can continue to watch things. Netflix has explored this for sure. But Amazon and their really strong links to the publishing industry, I think is exploiting their kind of ability to be like, this book is hot, make it into a show. This book is hot, make it into a show. So it'll be interesting to be talking about this deep into the Tallarico administration, you know?

1:08:03Andy Greenwald:I can't wait. I think that one of the less talked about in terms of the front-facing, like actually watching TV show storylines is are these streamers better serve programming for untapped viewers who will sign up for the service? Making deep obsessives of the people who already have it. Yeah, and I think that was the Star Trek strategy that Paramount was doing for a while of like our floor is the however many people watch everything that says Star Trek on it. and we know that they'll pay for our service because that's what we have. There was some really interesting reporting in the last month and also a good episode of the Town podcast about this, which is like Peacock saying, we're getting closer to profitability and then looking under the hood and what does that mean?

1:08:43Andy Greenwald:Yes. And the most interesting thing about that to me wasn't the rise in subscribers and what the NBA has done for them. It's the fact that like, I'm paraphrasing here, but that the churn rate was still very, very high. Of people signing up and then like, they sign up for the NBA season and they sign off. Cancel after NBA. And so maybe the tier isn't the subscriber number, it's the stability number of like how many people you maintain from the people you get at hot times. It's one of the reasons why I've always been confused when there seems to be overlapping Taylor Sheridan shows because I'm like, couldn't you just spread these out so that there's 12 months of Taylor Sheridan shows and you don't have anybody ever trying to cancel?

1:09:20Andy Greenwald:That sounds like a YP. That's a neat. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP in making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer. unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably gonna step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana.

1:09:54Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list, not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com, enter your license plate or VIN, and get a real offer down to the penny. No back and forth, no surprises, just an experience you can trust. Like your offer? Accept it. Schedule a pickup, and we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your timeline, your terms. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today.

1:10:19Andy Greenwald:Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Problem. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Top Chef and just do some After Dark, huh? Yeah, do you want to, so we, should we just wrap up Euphoria? Oh, yeah. Next week? You can keep Euphoria. I like After Dark for Euphoria. It mirrors Nate's last moments. Well, should we, I mean, we could touch on it. I feel like we should hit it harder next week. Yeah, but let's just, I wanted to just say I am up to date on Euphoria, as are you. I am up to date on Euphoria. I like to text you to let you know I am. This is the penultimate episode of the season, and likely the series, I would imagine.

1:10:54and for the first time perhaps in this show's history I was bored I've been using that as a bit of like a little bit of a metric but I just found despite the intensity of the episode I felt like I had seen these scenes before like there had been we were repeating a lot of beats and I thought cinematically there was some brilliant stuff in it I would watch Coleman Domingo and Zendaya as I have in the special that they did where the two of them talk about addiction and spirituality and salvation and redemption extensively. I think that their relationship, Ali and Ru's relationship is fascinating.

1:11:34And I thought Ali's, you know, sort of origin story and him going through the pandemic, losing people that he's the sponsor of was heartbreaking and fascinating. Not only heartbreaking, one of the things,

1:11:47Andy Greenwald:I mean, this is a compliment about this season of television is that there have been a number of fully formed, pretty compelling television shows just tossed out on the table, like stuff you find in your pocket. And the shooting, like Natasha Lyonne makes a cameo as a prostitute living with Ollie for a while. Like the cutting and like the banter and the energy and the electricity coursing through that yeah is absent when maddie is on like page like like the 70th iteration of i'm a pimp but i'm also a manager's assistant but now i'm a pimp again and i i think ultimately like levinston probably had to like unite the threads in some ways i didn't know he was going to try honestly lexi narks out everybody and then maddie narks out everybody thing i i just really hit my against that.

1:12:42I was like, I don't think these people would be that naive. I don't think Maddie would be so naive as to like idly tell Alamo that Rue is now working for the DEA.

1:12:52Andy Greenwald:Yeah. That's fucking crazy. But didn't you feel it coming when she just brought it up, when Rue blurted it out? Yes. And I felt it coming when that scene went on for a long time, being like, obviously this is going to get away from Lexi as she just passes this along. And not to carry water for it, I was starting to feel like in this episode, there is a version of, or there's a defense of the show baked into the idea that the Hollywood writer from the comfort of her very nice apartment with beautiful old film posters that she clearly bought it on Posterati, great place to browse. No ads, but I like it.

1:13:29Andy Greenwald:That all of this madness is springing from her imagination. Well, that was a season two element. It was like Lexi writing a play about season two. So, okay. But yeah, I think I had, the last time we talked about euphoria, I had sounded the alarm that, or maybe when I was kind of monologuing about it, at which point I - On the podcast or in your life? On the podcast where I mistakenly said that Jesus Christ saw the burning bush and not Moses, which goes to show you what Quaker education does for your biblical studies. Was that the light within? Yeah. Was it the burning bush? I just thought that the crime stuff was starting to reach its, it was getting a little high up in the atmosphere and losing oxygen and I think this has been proven true like bringing together Alamo, Nas, Nate, Maddie, Cassie and by extension Rue and the Laurie stuff I just think it's just like he has to do that to end the show but it just didn't feel as graceful as some of the other moments of this series has for me.

1:14:37Andy Greenwald:I think the biggest compliment you could give the show is that it is a wildly expensive, wildly audacious, improvisatory exercise by someone who had, not a blank check, but had a lot of open road and a lot of big stars and a very small window in which to get them all together and to see what happens. It's diminishing returns in terms of just compelling entertainment, I think is fair to say. I do want to just circle back to the idea that Coleman Domingo is so alive in everything that he does And the show, I don't know if it's a full show, but about a recovering addict who has become a sponsor trying to keep people alive during COVID, I would watch that show.

1:15:21Andy Greenwald:And the short story version of it we got was incredibly compelling and also has something. This is not really a fair audience thing to do, I think, consistently. but it's but sometimes I feel like you can feel a creator lean in you know to things that that are touching the third I mean the Alamo origin story too I'm sure you I know that you were like probably rolling your eyes a little bit at that but I thought that had energy and I thought it had POV it had like it had juice yeah it had juice and so and that is a marked uh distinction I would say from the scenes that increasingly to me feel like outtakes from like a Bugsy Malone movie where kids are playing dress up.

1:16:04Well, and then you get to the Nate part, which is just like, I suppose on one hand I can make a defense for it where it's like, you know what, like there is no such thing as character armor on the show and or plot armor or whatever the term is. But like, just because it's Jacob Elordi doesn't mean that he's going to escape from a burial. You know, That was one of those character arcs that makes you, frankly, wonder what the relationship between the creator and the performer is.

1:16:35Andy Greenwald:It's aggressive. Because he doesn't really have a lot to do other than get mutilated this season and then he dies. And I need your context for this because we touched on this. Not watching the first two seasons, I am completely unaware of his— That character is a bad fucking guy. And you could say— So was this justice? But that's the thing is that as Rue and Ali talk about redemption and, you know, how do you feel about like the fentanyl you've brought over has killed people? And what what is what is salvation and redemption in the eyes of that? Like, you know, obviously, Nate. I think that might be what they're trying to say is that like this is a guy who didn't deserve to get out of the hole.

1:17:17I don't know. I mean, like that is also like I would be very curious to know what Sam Levinson said about that. You know, maybe at the end of the season, he'll talk a little bit more openly about some of this stuff. You know, you can also speak to Lordi's popularity as an actor and his busy schedule and wonder how much of this was like we have X amount of time with Nate. It doesn't work. He's not going to be able to show up at Lori's house with two guns to save Cassie or something like that. Here's what we're going to do with it. But that felt like a very small plot, like a subplot that just got extended for seven hours.

1:17:53And it was an unsatisfying conclusion to an end of a character's, but on the show the entire time, I thought.

1:17:59Andy Greenwald:I hate the Maddie and Cassie story more. Okay. I find it just completely torturous to watch and so deeply uninteresting, especially because it just kind of, this episode just undoes everything that happened in the episode before. It's like the, she's popular on OnlyFans. now she's going to be in a TV show now she's not on a TV show now she's going to go back on OnlyFans and it's like I don't I don't find that particularly compelling drama for characters that I'm not there's also just something missing there where so like was I thought Cassie was sending Nate money was he not using that money to even put or had she stopped because during the brief respite she was like this is awesome I'm getting so much money but I'm still living in like a courtyard apartment I didn't really but maybe the money stopped concurrent with the brief pause on her OnlyFans account oh like people canceled but like she would have made I don't know I just don't understand like what happened there.

1:18:48Andy Greenwald:I don't either. And I will say again, you know who is giving one of my favorite performances on the show is Sharon Stone. Which is like, you're right. Who gives a shit? Yeah. Brian Grazer cameo. Yeah. There are a lot of, I mean, there are a lot of good ideas and good performances tossed out here. But what is it building towards? And I guess it's building towards like most entertainments, a massive shootout. Yeah. You know, I thought it ended with like a really good, like, fuck cliffhanger. Like Faye, you know, a little out in front of her skis intellectually, probably. As a character being like, I don't really know who to trust.

1:19:31I feel betrayed by Rue. I'm going to wake Wayne up now. There's going to be like this drama. So excited for that. Excited for the finale.

1:19:37Andy Greenwald:When you're faced with a choice between an old friend and a Nazi, what can we do? It's kind of like voting in a Texas senatorial race. Let's do Top Chef. Crash out season. Wow. This is spoilers for the most recent episode of Top Chef. Yeah. And I would say this episode was so upsetting, Kaya's not even here today. Yes. She has taken a personal day to just think about Seeger and what he went through and whether that moose killed anyone. The chicken liver pate. The moose, yeah, not the snake. I enjoyed this a lot as television. Okay. Did you enjoy it as Top Chef? his, well, his behavior? In the, after the elimination cook, which takes place over the course of several, multiple days, but then ultimately they have to cook in the woods in the heat.

1:20:25Andy Greenwald:Yeah, it didn't bother, that part didn't bother me at all. Like, I'm excited to talk about it. It was unexpected, especially for a show that has increasingly trended towards, actually, we can all get along. Actually, I am here to make friends. So to see someone behave in such an unconsidered way was almost refreshing. I do think that the emails we got back, like asserting that Seeger is actually a pretty cool guy. All of them came from, I guess, Chef Seeger. No, there were people from, I think, Chicago who were like this. That was actually not representative of who he is. I would say that it is.

1:21:01Andy Greenwald:He still could be a good guy. I think he just has a temper. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, I would say so. And so to see him crash out was a burst of energy in a show that hasn't had a ton of adrenaline this season. We haven't had a moment like that in years. In years. And the judges were shocked by it. And it was such an insane hill to die on because as you alluded to, he served melting chicken livers on a hundred degree day. Yes, and I think that if he goes back and watches this show, whether he thinks it's edited against him or not, I think he would see, you know, pride comes before the fall. And there was several moments where you know whether it was the whole hog cook that sent him home the first time or uh this particular one where he was so confident that the gelatin was going to make his chicken liver because he's done it before but probably not in the woods with coolers of ice which one was left open at a certain point and then i think like him trying to like in fact let's go to the tape on them that was wild uh hasn't never worked in the history nobody's ever done that like i don't think anybody's ever have been like, let's look at the bylaws of Top Chef.

1:22:09Andy Greenwald:Also, he is still trying to take Jonathan down with him. He's also a good cook. He might be a good guy as his friends attest. I don't, this is a TV show and being a good cook and a good guy doesn't have anything to do with winning the very specific peculiarities of Top Chef, which involve cooking a dish to the rules, but also to the technical specifications and arbitrary likings of a well-established panel of judges, let alone Vox Populi of like a bunch of people showing up and being like, I don't want to eat that. Yes. You lost on that alone, even if it was well executed, I think. So that that was wild.

1:22:44Andy Greenwald:And it was particularly wild because, as you just alluded to, he shouldn't have been there anyway. Like the show messed up earlier by giving him a glide path back onto the show that almost no contestant has ever been granted the grace of. I don't even know if it was really that much of a glide path. I just think it is the way that they edited the series this year to allow for Last Chance Kitchen to have suspense. Also meant that there was like a three week liminal space of is Jen on this show? Is Seeger on the show? Who's in Last Chance Kitchen? They were caught very off guard by their own rules of a different sort.

1:23:20Andy Greenwald:And I think Daniel Feinberg and The Hollywood Reporter has a pretty good blow by blow of the screw up. but basically like continuing to tell Jen that she could hang out for as long as she wanted to, even though she couldn't perform on the show and also wasn't really lighting the place on fire anyway, created a circumstance where Seeger is outright eliminated, skips Last Chance Kitchen, where he probably would have been defeated by Rhoda, and then acts in this episode like he is entitled to his spot in the finale. Well, Justin could have taken Seeger's spot. You know, Justin could have just been like, yes, I will go instead of Jen.

1:23:51Andy Greenwald:So all of that, but the bigger issue, is the show's clearly just ravaged budget is really, really showing up on the screen now. And I know that we spent time two weeks ago being like, they never go outside anymore. And then they were literally outside sweating, watching their parfaits melt this week. But there's different versions of outside and being outside. And a week in which they go to Asheville, which in some ways is the show at its best, being like, as chefs, we have a unique role. The Asheville part was fantastic. The Asheville part was okay. And here's why. The Asheville part made me want to go to Asheville.

1:24:30Andy Greenwald:100 % successful. Yeah. So if that is the goal to both highlight a place that looked awesome and also highlight its recent struggles and suggest what we can do and why we shouldn't forget about it. So mission accomplished. In terms of the flow of Top Chef, I would say an episode in which they're like, we're not going to do a quick fire. you guys are going to get into unbranded vans because we lost the BMW sponsorship and drive two and a half hours to a town in which you will drive by three to four interesting sounding restaurants and eat snacks at one with no judges or the host present felt pretty rinky dink to me.

1:25:07Andy Greenwald:Like, have the courage of your convictions and fucking film there. Or tell Kristen to get in one of these cars and go there too. Well, it's strange too because... And don't be like, drive by... I mean, this is what I do when people visit LA where I'm like, that's a pretty cool small plates restaurant and my guests are like should we go there i'm like no we couldn't get in like what what purpose does that serve for anyone other than my own ego do you know what i mean like that was insane and then later if you want to eat at 4 45 or 10 p.m yes you're welcome to it but i'll be in bed at both those times weirdly um but like then when rhoda's like i made filipino food because i was inspired by this restaurant that's my restaurant like okay, could we see it?

1:25:47Andy Greenwald:Oh, you couldn't afford to show it to us? It's a strange thing because a lot has happened this season where I feel like they have been battling the elements. As my wife pointed out the other day when we were chatting about this, she was like, you know, it goes back. You remember the finale of Denver where like people's bread didn't rise because they were cooking on the top of a mountain. You know, like... I think about it constantly. This is not the first time the Top Chef has made elements of an element of the show. The rain in the Portland season. And there's also, you know, I think I am being a little bit more easily annoyed by, you know, and now everybody switch foods with the person to your left or.

1:26:26That was despicable. You know, and now mystery diners are voting and we're not. Or now, like, there's a lot like.

1:26:33Andy Greenwald:Remember when they were like, and now let us bring out our guest judge for quick fire, a guy no one's ever heard of. Congratulations. Yes. You really, you really, you really did it. The strange thing to me is that Canada, which I know was a passion project for Gail and I have the show go there, was in my memory largely shot on a soundstage. Yes, it was. And North Carolina and South Carolina, which seems hot as fuck, has been 10 shots, like 10 shoots out at a NASCAR track or in the middle of a public park or in Asheville in the forest. Or not Asheville in the forest because they went back to Charlotte for the forest.

1:27:09Andy Greenwald:They went back and they cooked out on the Appalachian Trail with a snake. that just seems like why'd you guys do that? I mean I guess maybe they listened to us and we were like get the fuck outside and they were like you asked for it now it's hot as shit and nobody's congeals like I guess we should take some accountability there not that we can dictate what Top Chef does but I just feel like there's been and Feinberg and Hollywood Report it's a really good piece writes about these two institutions that he like I agree with Dan I wish every Monday had a top chef and every Wednesday had a survivor.

1:27:43I would be a happier person if it was like a 12 month a year thing.

1:27:47Andy Greenwald:But... And which night are the Sheridan shows running in this 12 month scenario? They just run on my Vision Pro. There you go. I think that in some ways like they've iterated too much to keep up with maybe perceived Joneses. I don't think it's the iteration. I think, I just think there's a there's a budget thing going on that we're not qualified to talk about or even ask about and I think that the answer to the question if you ask it too loudly is you still want the show. And, you know, it is the only reality show left, competition show left. No, it's the only competition show on Bravo. It didn't used to be.

1:28:20Andy Greenwald:I mean, Project Runway and... I was still a fan of Work of Art, the art world one with Jerry Saltz. Couldn't Magic Leaves sell it to Food Channel? Like, Food Network? I have no idea. It clearly still works on some level for the Bravo Comcast brand. Yeah. It's just they want it to work in this way. And I think you can see the... Like, this is a small thing because we watch it. We either watch screeners or we watch it on Peacock. But currently, this season, the show is premiering on Bravo Linear on Mondays at a time TBD each week. So much so that I saw Kristen on social media being like, don't forget, we're on at 930 tonight for some reason.

1:29:00Andy Greenwald:She said that? Yes. They're not loving that aspect of it. Because it's getting swallowed up by, like, Summer House stuff, right? I would assume. but I do think it needs a rethink because this host and these judges can make worthwhile television and the finale still could be good. It's not their fault that they tried to iterate by having brothers and a couple and it amounted to nothing. Yeah, I find that the judges have been marginalized this season too. There's way too much noise going on around them. I don't feel like I'm hearing... The thing that I love about this show and probably my greatest engagement with it was this sort of run where I think they encourage chefs earlier in the season to cook, quote, their food.

1:29:41And you can think it's cheesy to be like, I'm telling a story or this is about my background, but it actually produced compelling televisual storytelling to have somebody be like, I've grown up through this French culinary tradition, but now I'm really going to start cooking the stuff that my mother used to make me, but put my spin on it. or I'm bringing technique to something that traditionally is very rustic or whatever it is. I feel like Tom and Gail and Kristen and then at various points, you know, before Padma, were really like, you're on Top Chef, fucking impress us, like do it. And now I feel like there's just been way too many goofy things that have stopped someone like, Like, for instance, Sherry or Jonathan, who I just think Sherry is only now starting to be like, I'm making this fritter because this is this thing that and nobody's ever had this before or whatever.

1:30:38And, you know, even Lawrence, who I don't think is very like demonstrative about what's going on, but has been cooking this amazing food all year. I don't even feel like they're celebrating it. I don't feel like they're.

1:30:48Andy Greenwald:Well, because I think that the ceiling this season has just been wildly lower. Now, again, you cannot, this is the vagaries of a competition show. You cannot guarantee a Buddha, a Gregory, a Tristan. Survivor 50 just had this where it was like all the really great players kind of got voted off. And I think Aubrey's good. But like you just have like at the end a sort of weird mishmash of people. Yeah. And I think that there was a moment earlier in the season where we're like, oh, my God, Rhoda is another like a Melissa or someone who's just like Melissa King, like who's just like day one. Oh, my God.

1:31:18Andy Greenwald:You are rising to every occasion and you're surprising yourself. and we're on a generational run here, or, you know, you hope for someone like a Tristan who catches fire later and you're like, oh my God, the prince who was promised was here all along. You can't guarantee that year after year. But what we're creeping towards now is Lawrence is going to win, which is deserving. I don't know about that anymore. But what he has executed, what he has done is a very, very technically precise and satisfying execution of what you were talking about, which is like, I grew up eating this kind of food in a Cantonese household.

1:31:51Andy Greenwald:and I am going to be able to execute a version of it that is elevated. Yeah, like a fried catfish on a bow is really cool. And he baked the bread. That was awesome. That was an incredibly compelling performance on Top Chef in which you, the viewer who can't taste the food, sees the degree of difficulty and can just see that they nailed the execution, and that's satisfying as a viewer. The rest of them are just kind of stumbling their way to the finish line, and maybe someone will step up. But I find it very hard to imagine that there is going to be a level of excitement, exhilaration or inspiration in a finale for the way this season has played out and i don't i think it would be a mistake i think rhoda lawrence and sherry is a good final three it would be a decent final three still there obviously you know um the loss of anthony hurts that was a bummer that sucked but i think that it would be a mistake to walk away from this season and be like yeah you know what sometimes like uh was the guy that won denver like perfectly like joe seems like a really good guy, good chef, good on TV, but like not necessarily the heights of ambition or technical, you know, or maybe not the drama of Brooke and Kristen or whatever.

1:32:54So, okay.

1:32:54Andy Greenwald:So you can't guarantee that every year. There have been down seasons in terms of the excellence on display or whatever, but I think it would be a mistake to focus on that at the expense of the fact that the clear, clear, clear diminishment of ambition and budget is hurting the final product of the show. And I I don't know. I feel like that's the elephant in the room. I would like to also, like, at some point, we have gotten so many emails about the Padma show. Did they have budget? Maybe they did. I think it might be worth checking out a little bit more thoroughly to see. It's odd that it was running concurrently.

1:33:31Like, you know.

1:33:32Andy Greenwald:I mean, not odd. Aggressive. Aggressively. Let's wrap it up there. Yeah. Monday, this is the Euphoria finale. Yeah, and so there's a couple other shows I want to check out. Yes. I don't know if it'll be for Monday, but we have Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed on Apple. We have the Amadeus show that is on Starz. From Joe Barton. It was on the UK last year. Black Ops, yeah. I feel like there was probably others. I feel like... We need to also address the fact that, like, we're getting a lot of new shows. Yeah. And... It's tiring. It's hard to finish them. Did you watch The Burroughs? I did. I didn't watch all of it, but I watched, like, three episodes of it.

1:34:05Andy Greenwald:Is it weird to see actors that we think of as relatively young people be, like, in cocoon? Talk about this with Joe. This is just, like, yeah. Yeah. It's very well done, though. A friend was telling me about the show and was like, well, you know, there's a great scene in Bill Pullman's retirement home. And I'm like, I'm going to need you to stop there. It's true. It's true. Kai, Sarah, thank you. Kaya, thank you. Andy, thank you. Kaya's coming back for the Top Chef finale. That's why she's not here today. Thank God. We'll see you guys on Monday. Everybody have a great weekend. You have a great weekend.

1:34:34Yeah. I include you in that. Thank you. All the brand skills.

1:34:47Andy Greenwald:Turn it up. Storm has zero sugar and 200 milligrams of caffeine, so you can turn that workout up a notch. Good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life. Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees? Turn the temperature down with Blinds.com and get up to 50 % off custom window treatments like solar roller shades and more during the Memorial Day Mega Sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro handle everything, we've got you. Free samples, real design experts, and zero pressure. Just help when you need it. This is your last chance to shop up to 50 % off site-wide during the Memorial Day Mega Sale at blinds.com.

1:35:28Rules and restrictions apply.