‘Star Wars’ Announces Another Chapter of the Skywalker Saga. Plus, ‘Lioness’ Season 3 Finale With Van Lathan.

30:00Andy Greenwald:but I, but I think that runs counter to what he may be, Chris, which is a, a manhunter style QB. in which you just methodically locate the weakest link in the defense and pick on it, right? Isn't that what a Manhunter does when he or she arrives in a town? Yeah. So it's like, it would basically be like, you know, locating who Adoree Jackson was covering on last year's Eagles. You know what I mean? No disrespect. I'm just saying. How about - I'm just trying to make it make sense. I send you off with some questions that need answers heading into the finale, or I hope that we have these answered when we get out of the finale.

30:32Who killed Hal Jordan? Do you have a clubhouse favorite? Obviously, Hallogram is worried about Carrie.

30:40Andy Greenwald:I thought that was an interesting steer, but probably because it became a plot point that was then walked back slightly with the suggestion that maybe the Hallogram said that because he was avoiding what the darker secret that might be underneath it, which is that it was suicide. I think it's probably safe to say that those were red herrings. If your theory about Noah being a mini Manhunter is right, than it may have been him. Yeah, that's in the mix. And maybe that's the echoes that Hallogram was feeling from Carrie was like, it's the right family, it's the wrong person. Second question, why was Sinestro stuck on Anton's planet?

31:22Who put him there and how did he get out of jail?

31:25Andy Greenwald:I mean, I think, again, that was the Red Skull on Vormir. I feel like you should rewatch. I know Endgame is in theaters now, so I feel like you could probably Yeah, in between Mississippi State and Florida games, I went to Endgame in theaters two times this weekend. We all choose to do the work that we have in front of us in our own way. I did see Primetime this weekend. I'm jealous of that. We're not talking about it because I don't want to spoil it. Okay. You can do it on the other parts of the podcast. What? I heard you broke up a child sex thing. It all worked out. And you got renewed. This is a question I even don't want to speculate on because I love it.

32:04Andy Greenwald:Because I am just excited about the way the show has used Sinestro thus far as a supervillain, but as someone haunting it, maybe attempting to Machiavellian style, Machiavelli style, like control things. But I was also curious, is he just addled? Was he not looking? Could he not see through his beggar's robes that he was grabbing Hal Jordan? You know, because I think that that's his son, kind of. So I'm curious about what he thought was happening. that's the Jordan boys legacy is a distinctive musk. Uh, here is a question I need an answer to because I need to see whether or not this was a pointless distraction or not.

32:43What's up with this waitress and her blackmail. And I should say survivor of, of the siege of Rushville. Like, but, uh, I thought it was weird that John was just like, yeah, for sure. Let me go get you 300 grand.

32:59Andy Greenwald:And then he gets the approval and gets the voice note. He gets it. and I he's more liquid than I thought honestly I think the reason why I just don't find like her being like I'll tell Sheriff Kerry that you punched Hal Jordan in the nose to be like so what like we've all done some things and see some things so I want to see where this leads because otherwise it feels like a kind of pointless red herring can I ask you a question what is the number because you and I are only children as we know so but in a way we are we We are brothers to each other, I'd like to think. It's really nice. I call you from New York and say, listen, don't ask questions, but I need X amount of money wired to me in the next 24 hours.

33:47Andy Greenwald:And his brother is just like, I'll think about it and hangs up on, which is, I think is a fair response. But then he does come down on the side of, okay. Well, you're asking two different things. What is the number? I think John, that's John's money. I apparently a fabulously successful architecture firm if they have 300k and liquidity to sitting around. Are you asking if they're if they're 2026 is the same as ours? I think that there is a it is a boom time for panic basements. Right. And so if your question is, is there a watch slush fund that I can wire you money from? The answer is no. If the question is, will I send you my personal wealth to to bail you out of some situation that you are not explaining situation because i have a bad feeling that i would send you this money and then you'd be like posting pictures from the delta one lounge you know like i wouldn't post i don't post the pictures but i do send you some live looks i would i would i would i would write i would cut the check you know i would cut the check i appreciate that you're also famously liquid so i think that you'd be the guy i'd call I do question that there's not a slush fund because all I know is I started working in New York and then Kaya mailed me these just like crispy new microphones.

34:56Andy Greenwald:I got a ring light the size of Saturn in here. Like I think that we have more at our fingertips than I believed possible. So we should investigate that. Are the Manhunters really extinct? This kind of, you know, this has been a running conversation over the course of the season is that Zoe was not the last one. Is Hal really dead? Like the Hal? It strikes me that it would be difficult to write Kyle Chandler off this show if they were going to do more seasons. You know? No way. I do think that just as an appreciation for what has been a really surprising and I think unique journey of a first season of a show that, as we've said many times, had so many different mouths to feed, I think it's worth appreciating that should the show return, which I think it is likely to do, certainly the characters will return in the larger gun verse and i think aaron pierre is officially in the superman sequel um it's worth just noting that this might be our last go around with this flavor of lanterns yes which isn't to say it wouldn't be good going forward it might retain the core cast it might retain the same sort of relationship to the larger dcu but i think you know the odds of this power trio running the show and really wrestling with what it would mean to take the time to introduce characters in this way i think uh i I would be surprised if a second season even attempted to do that.

36:18Yeah, just because of the amount of firepower that they had in that room.

36:21Andy Greenwald:And then the connective tissue that will be required coming out of a Superman sequel and whatever else is going to happen. So just a moment to appreciate what we got, which is pretty remarkable, I would say. It is in a really, really strong place for a finale, which even two weeks ago, I don't know if I would have said, because we were marveling over the fact that they basically ended the season already with the big Rushville incident and restarted. Well, I want to end this segment with you because I want to let you get back to work. It was great seeing you. Are you going to stay up to watch the Eagles tonight?

36:51Andy Greenwald:Yes. Okay. My entire day is based around that. I'll eat lunch then. Are you kidding me? And you'll eat dinner on the bones of Case Keenum. Yeah. And I'll eat dinner next time I get to the Delta Lounge thanks to your largesse. Thanks Greenwald. I'll talk to you on Thursday. We'll do a little bit of slow horses and hopefully get to some East of Eden pretty soon. That's coming out. We'll do a bigger show Thursday. Thursday evening on Netflix. Great to see you, man. Talk to you soon. I'm joined by Van Lathan. We needed to do this, even though we're a week late on the Lioness finale. You were in Sweden, so we couldn't hook up and talk about the final op.

37:35Dude, what a season of TV. Yeah, for sure. And one that you and I have enjoyed together. And we didn't want to leave people without getting in the cage one more time. If it's okay. If it's okay. If it's okay with Tracy, we'll talk about line-ass. I don't want to do that right now. Okay, let's not do it. This is the watch. This isn't the big picture. We can save it for the end. We can talk college football and Tracy - We're chopping it up. Yeah. What did you think of the end of the season? I thought the finale was a tad bit underwhelming. Okay. It's a tad bit underwhelming. Okay. Can you set the stage of where you watched it?

38:08Did you watch it in international travel? I watched it in Sweden. Okay. Which changes the experience totally. Sure. Right? Because, you know, you're looking around. It's in Swedish. Yeah. Yeah. So you're watching. So look, so I watched it while I was traveling for the Spotify summit in Sweden in a very nice hotel room. It's a diplomat in Sweden. Oh, nice. Nice. And it was one of those situations where you are removed from your comfort zone and you feel like you have no distractions. when you're traveling, no distractions. Everybody knows kind of not to call. You're in a different time zone. It is you and the goddamn show.

38:48So I was locked into Lioness, the finale. And after the highs of this season, which saw Joe in such harrowing situations, it just kind of felt like they ran out of gas to me. It felt like there was an idea of where it should end. and that Taylor Sheridan, the guy who obviously created and wrote this series, was like, I want this to tie together to the first season. I want to bring back some of the villains of the past season's villains is a relative term. And I want to emphasize that the war has come home for Jo. All the way back into her actual home where she's been, there was an attempted kidnapping or attempted murder, a kidnapping, and now her husband has left her.

39:36Right. And then we get this finale where we find out that this guessing game that's been going on for the last couple of episodes of who's behind Joe's kidnapping is finally we find out it's Aaliyah from the first season. It's the daughter of the man that Cruz, the original lioness of this series, or I guess the second lioness, takes out. Basim Yusuf. What? Basim Yusuf. Yes. And they had that and they were like, okay, like that's the idea that we want to end on. But they did so much complicated shit in the beginning that like getting there was like if you watched the route the car took to get there, it was it was so wild.

40:15And I think that's embodied in what is both my favorite and least favorite moment of the entire season. Martin Donovan, who plays Nicole Kidman's husband on the show, Caitlin's husband. Do we ever get his name? I don't know. I think we do because. Is it like Ellis or something like. Well, he says, well, you know what? When Kelly calls, Michael Kelly's character, when he calls, he says, does he say, let me speak to your husband? Or does he say the character's name? In any case, it's Martin Donovan. Right, Martin Donovan. Who is very good at playing dudes like this, you know, like kind of like shadowy executives.

40:55He was like this in Tenet. You know, Joe has been rescued by this point by Cruz and the crew in Texas. We'll get to that. And Martin Donovan does this thing where he's like, you know, you and me, Caitlin, we don't really ever cross a line in terms of sharing information and in terms of asking each other about each other's work. And Martin Donovan is an analyst of some kind who works for like probably a hedge fund, a data driven hedge fund. Seems like he's connected to the intelligence community or the State Department in a private sector capacity. one that makes a lot of money one that makes a lot of money but also is privy to a lot of intel yeah and then he's like so the state department asked us to like basically run an analysis of what just happened and figure out who did it and the way that he tells her about this it would be instant divorce he obviously has like the conclusion that he has come to which is that Ukraine is behind Joe's kidnapping.

41:59And he's like, who could have benefited? And she's just like, I don't know, like maybe Afghanistan, maybe this, maybe that. And he's just like, but who would have the wherewithal? And she's like, well, I don't know, maybe Russia, maybe China, maybe Iran. He's like, but who would be able to activate agents? And he's like, tell her! You know the answer! A CIA agent just got kidnapped on American soil. But is he not supposed to say it like that? is there some sort of conflict of interest. It's not like he's like, she came to the conclusion by himself. He says, we're going to break the sort of barrier that we have between us where we don't share information.

42:36And he immediately puts himself into it. Here's the thing though. He's fucking wrong. He's wrong. And there's never anything, there's no acknowledgement that the world's smartest man who sits there and is just like, the Qataris are taking over our universities. But that's not what really scares me. AI scares me. This dude is wrong. It was Aaliyah in a bathtub calling in favors with two phones. Which, by the way. Joe Dumars style. Somebody should have been able to peep that. Somebody should have been like, okay, who are all of Joe's enemies that are left on the board from ops gone by? Dude, she's the lioness.

43:19Who have the lionesses taken out? Right. Who are their family and friends who are still in action? Right. Do they have a lot of money and a grudge? Right. But they're so smart, they're dumb. They go through this entire elaborate thing, then gets our Ukrainian bae killed. By the way, I got to say something, man. I got to say, in this episode, As Shot Sheridan TV is back. Just straight As Shot. I know. Just like such a long, her getting out of the shower. Right. We just, Sheridan's like, hey man, she's about to go. You're not going to see her again. Before she goes, I'm going to give you guys a little something.

43:59Enjoy. Okay. Ass shot. Aaliyah, ass shot. End of the season. A couple of strip clubs in this season, right? Exactly. Just ass shot Sheridan. Give you the ass, right? Then she's out of here. That character dies when she legitimately was trying to protect her country. And America. And America, the entire failure of the intelligence community summed up in the death of one character. But not only that, carnage in a random cafe place where African diplomats are killed. Yeah. All because Joe is strung out on her grief. And they're still giving her the playbook. And they're still giving her a playbook.

44:37You're called. You're Davis Webb. It's okay, brother. She legitimately just came home from kidnapping. But she's like, you know what? Go for it, Joe. Green light. Green light. Do whatever you need. And she makes that wrong call. People die. This episode and all that stuff would have worked if it wouldn't have been so scattershot. It just didn't seem like all of that connected to the grandiosity of the plot throughout the entire season. Because remember, there was who is the mole? Is there somebody giving information? Yes. Why do we know so much about the way Joe is moving around? uh the kid is it iran is it ukraine it's like we go to cube we go down to guantanamo bay and when we go there it's just luck that some guy sees joe that they toured like but not torture i mean tortured earlier in the season yeah right some guy sees joe it's like hey you black woman Irish name.

45:37I'm like, what the fuck? So we get to the end of it. And I like, I actually like the thread of next season being about her chickens coming home to roost. I think that's actually awesome, right? But it just seemed like more work should have been done throughout the season to get us here. Still a fantastic season. This legitimately was the only episode where they missed. Yeah, because the penultimate episode, the one where they get her back, I'd put that shootout up against almost anything I've seen on TV in the last 10 years. Like up there, maybe not up there with like the True Detective season one shootout, but as far as like action set pieces go in a non-genre, like non-fantasy, like Game of Thrones, Last of Us kind of way, that shootout in Texas was incredible.

46:24Like with the helicopter coming in and everything. See, I love that shootout. I still like the shootout from which season was it where Taylor Sheridan once again comes in, they cross the border. Mexico. Huh? It was the second season. Ugh. Right? Ugh. I feel like it was the second season as well because that's when the congresswoman had gotten kidnapped. Yes. Right. So those two are the crowning jewels. But all of that stuff, it was working in this season. And at the end, this almost seemed like a backdoor pilot for the next season of the show. Like, we're going to temp you down. Well, it was, so this has been like a huge thing that people have been talking about after the Emmys and a bunch of studies that have been like, people are losing interest in TV shows if they don't come back within a year of their final episode.

47:10Like if you make people wait two, three years for stuff, there you'll have, every once in a while you'll have a severance that people are like, I'll wait because I need to know everything. I need to find out what happened. But that, what happens is most of the time is like even for something like Widow's Bay, which obviously just won a bunch of Emmys, I'm sure Apple gave a second season relatively early in the process, us but not so early that katie dipple when she came and talked to us was like i haven't started writing yet you know like when she talked to us after the finale she was like i have not started writing the second season yet taylor is like one of the only dudes out there who's kind of got like this you can make as many seasons of this as you want you know and so he at least was able to make an authentic cliffhanger in the fourth in this third season which we usually don't get those kinds of things anymore.

47:59People feel the need to wrap everything up because they don't know if they're coming back. This also was a season where the show became distinctly about Jo. Like this season is about her. Other seasons in the show, she is the eyes and ears by which we observe this world. But there's a new lioness. There is the ragtag group of people. There's a new enemy this season is about her and then it expands the show around her she's kidnapped her family all of the bodies she's laid the red in her ledger that is what this season is also like a very big zoe saldana season because they could have told this story in a linear fashion where she gets the attempted kidnapping or the attempted assassination early does all her shit and then midway through the season gets kidnapped and then she's basically off the board for the second half of the season because she's getting moved around.

49:01And instead, they're like, no, let's tell it in these two timelines so that we can max out Zoe Saldana. And she's doing action shit, but she's also in danger. She's doing detective stuff, but she's also still like this mysterious kind of rabbi to these lionesses and like showing them the way. So it's like a good use of her, if perhaps a confusing way to tell a story. Hot button issues openly monologued about, but not really discussed or debated this season include foreign, largely Chinese, Russian, and Qatari influence in the American university system and media. Corruption among the Ukrainian political class was a late breaking curve ball from Latinx.

49:46The origins of COVID, China pushing disinformation to pit Americans against one another the evils of AI and very very very briefly a real world mention of America's invasion and toppling of the Venezuelan government yeah you did the same thing with Venezuela is what the Russians tell us and Morgan Freeman is basically like touche yeah he goes hey we shouldn't have done that it's interesting that like what do you think of that collection of of stories that they're talking about like it's not quite Fox News right and it's not quite I don't know it's not conspiracy so can I give you the the cynical read the cynical read is obviously it's propaganda being pushed by the political worldview of the creators of the show yeah but there's also another read and I stretch my brain to consider this read as well that what they are trying to do is legitimately give us the mind frame of these people, of these people who have to believe in the single virtue of America, American freedom, and not just that, but American domination.

50:59So in order to put your life on the line for the country, you gotta believe you're fighting for something bigger than you are and more important than you are. Right. But like, not just American freedom, which is what she sells to her children. America first, not in the America first way that we see thrown around in political spheres now, but that the world is better, the greater hand that America has in it. Right, American exceptionalism, perfect way to put it, better way to put it, the way that it is put. And in order to do that, you have to believe in the shadowy enemy everywhere else and in the fact that they hate us because they hate us.

51:36So every single country falls into that sort of designation. So everything you hear is, number one, the things that America does and has done aren't really so bad in the context of the entire history of the world. There have been assassinations going back to Jesus Christ and all of that. That's right. So every once in a while— There's assassinations. The first assassin is in the Bible. Right. Every once in a while, you got to take a motherfucker out. We didn't invent it. We just got to do the same thing that they did back in the day. Right? And then the other side of it is our way of life that we've tried to export and change the world is under constant threat.

52:12And you watching this show, you get up and you go to work and you come home. But somewhere there's somebody who their entire job is watching the wall. Yeah, the few good men speech. Right, exactly. And that person has to take these threats seriously. Right. I think the reason why it's confusing, however you want to describe the political and social and ideological viewpoints of the characters, because I think you're exactly right, is that if you were going to do this job, you would have to look at the country as a thing worth defending, saving, promoting, believing in. so a lot of what they're talking about is that the things that are wrong with america are seeded by outside evil forces right ngos with shadowy financing uh university students graduating and believing in socialism and communism um hysteria over a cold which is kind of the attitude the show takes towards COVID and getting involved in what they deem non-essential or non-beneficial armed conflicts like the Ukrainian fight against Russia, stuff like that.

53:27Which is the genesis of Joe's entire strife in this season, or so we think, right? She gets involved in that and it actually complicates something that she would be able to see. Think about that. thematically, if not for her getting involved in that op, she probably would have been able to see the actual problem, which is her past. But because she got involved in that war that really has nothing to do with us, it complicated everything else, things that we should be able to see. And that to me is kind of like a microcosm of how people feel about the Ukraine situation. And I went back and rewatched bits of the first episode of this season.

54:04And they're actually, I mean, the Ukraine stuff is pretty well rendered. It's very, very good action stuff. And I forgot that she basically turns to Cruz after they get the Russian general. And she's like, what the fuck are we doing here? This isn't even our fight. And I'm like, this is where you're drawing the line? Like, you've been going around hiring women to assassinate people all over the world. Like, you think this is like the... And I guess it's kind of good because it illustrates just how almost futuristic the Ukrainian conflict has become, like drone warfare and everything like that.

54:40But in any case, there's something that happens with all these discussions of these topics where people usually say them. And in most dramatic writing, there would be an opposition force. There would be somebody being like, I don't know about that. I think that you're wrong about that. or here's why I think something that you don't think. And in this show, in this season, there's no pushback. Now, we made jokes about this where somebody would be in the office and be like, what? What did this motherfucker just say? But it is kind of like either a flaw or an attribute, I can't decide what, of his writing that people are, like, they're just unchecked.

55:20And it makes more room for their, like, their detailed rundown of how the Qataris have ruined Princeton. Right, yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know what? A lot of people ask that know my politics, like how I can enjoy this show. How can you watch this, yeah. And the answer is very simple. It's because I believe in my politics. I actually believe in them. Sure. So them being challenged does not bother me at all. As a matter of fact, other people's perspectives on them don't bother me at all. The only thing that bothers me is when people lie about what it is that they're doing. Right. This show is truthful in what it is trying to do.

55:56Now, a lot of that stuff, is bullshit that I don't agree with. But the reality is I share my community with a bunch of people who do believe that. So I'm pretty confident in the way that I view the world. Therefore, this show doesn't really bother me. I mean, before, I'll go watch Avengers Endgame, where a billionaire saves the universe, right? Like where a billionaire, a guy who's, he's a smart guy with a bunch of money, saves the entire universe. He's an arms dealer. He's an arms dealer. He saves not just this world, but he saves trillions of lives, right? He's talking about, you know, propaganda.

56:32So, like, none of this stuff really bothers me that much, especially if they're real about it. And this show is. This show is honest about what it is and who it's catering to. And something else. There's enough of a human dynamic here, like, at play around this stuff. Like, when Nicole Kidman and her husband are going back and forth, the thing that I think about more, even then, should I say, the information is what must that marriage be like? Like these people who are connected to Jo, they call her boss, this maternal fucking connection that they have to her. Throughout the entire season, they were really going through it when they thought they would never see her again.

57:12Yeah. And all of that human stuff is really well done in the show. All of the connections, the little, do we like Kyle? Is Kyle a hero? Is Kyle a villain? that's a really good character all of that stuff do you want to see the kyle and africa spinoff uh definitely i definitely want to see the kyle and africa spinoff it almost seemed like they were setting it up they kind of did yeah when michael kelly was just like you know what's gonna happen now we have to go intervene in molly you're gonna go i was like

57:43um yes i i think that there is also something unique about this series uh whether or not it's entirely intentional or not which is that a lot of moments get no sold for people who don't know that's like a it's like a term when like if van is like i have an incredible idea theory about star wars and i just like i'm like cool and then i just move on to the next topic which is the worst thing you can do in a tandem performance in wrestling if you know sell something yes they'll actually kick you in your fucking face because you're supposed to sell somebody else to make somebody else but there are a lot of moments that get tossed out for instance like late breaking in this season i think cruz becomes kind of like fixated on being the one to save joe because she is like this person made me who i am and i actually like who i am now um and so much so that she does multiple solo prayers begging for the opportunity to be the one who gets to assassinate the people who've taken joe right right um that's really just like moved past you know like like Obviously when she rescues Joe and Joe's like, I owe you now.

58:53And Cruz is like, you don't owe me anything. But can I tell you something? The end of the show made that stuff make more sense to me. Yes. Well, now that you know Cruz is going to be in the jackpot next season. Cruz is op to get Aaliyah. Yeah. And not only the op, they were opping the shit out of each other. So that's like an example of something where it's like, oh, that's cool. Like you can then read into the super story, like the macro stuff. the stuff that gets kind of no sold is when they murder a Ukrainian woman who's done nothing but help the United States and then as if we're just like god damn I wish I had that as if we didn't realize that they killed her because they come back to the meeting room and Joe is like what happened everybody else was like oh shit she knew too much yeah you fucking she knew too much it's like they look this is good fellas everybody else was like hey man can't make an omelet without you know yeah and so we know that right and that's like oh shit that sucks we like that character then we have to see her dead body as ringo the dog finds her yeah and i'm like okay man yeah now they're really letting us know the cost of existing inside of this world i'm not so sure they got there with that character what that actually did which is another thing that i have to give the show credit for because everyone in this world extols the virtue of who they are and what they are doing it's like they were corrupt they're wrong and they murder an innocent person which is what morgan freeman says to michael kelly he's like don't ever think it's anything but murder right like like it you can tell yourself whatever you want about military action or this or that but it's murder so these super powerful people murdered somebody with their incompetence, which is another thing that the show kind of does every once in a while that lets you know that despite all of the political packaging of the show, there still are consequences to existing inside of this world.

1:00:53So season four will be, I mean, this happens in action movies, especially where the villain has an opportunity to get their revenge, but they want their revenge and the exact circumstances that they want it, that they've imagined. Aaliyah has like 150 opportunities to kill Joe. Yeah. But she wants the entire Lioness team. She wants to get them all. To come to her. Yeah. I don't know how she's going to do that now that she's done the kidnapping bit. But it will be interesting to see. I'm sure he has an ending in mind. I bet this is going to be the last season. It would line up with when he's leaving for Peacock, when Taylor leaves for Universal.

1:01:39But this is such a weird show that I'll never stop watching this. We're getting robbed of the entire Lioness universe, which I would love to see. I know. Right? But as somebody who's gone through the Taylor shows not written by Taylor, it just doesn't hit the same. Okay. Well, I get it. Oh, well, because I haven't tried Yellowstone. There's like Marshalls. He wrote Yellowstone for the whole thing, somebody else's writing Dutton. Yeah. So she wants to kidnap a senior CIA case officer. Not just a senior CIA case officer, but one that knows where all of the bodies are buried, that the American government will go through incredible lengths to get back.

1:02:24And she's going to keep trying. The question for the next season is, number one, is she going to get the opportunity to kidnap Joe, which you almost think that she would have to for this to make sense, right? Is Joe going to hit the bottle? Like her family's gone. What's Joe's going to be into? Is Joe going to hit the bottle because her family's gone? She's by herself. She's got fucking - She starts hitting more low, a little hard. Going crazy. People are like, Joe, you're spiraling. You don't fucking know what I've been through. Giamatti and sideways style. Exactly. She's drinking. She's pouring the bottle on her rancid toe, the whole fucking shit.

1:02:57She's only got nine toes now. Right. Yeah, and I'm telling you, right there. is Aaliyah from the first season a compelling enough villain like that one singular thing that's not what the show is about this show is about layers upon layers upon layers of political espionage yeah I thought that the idea that like basically there's a black market for like ops right you can go out and hire Belarusians and Iranians and all these people to do your dirty work that was a pretty cool world to go into pretty interesting world to go into I don't know if Aaliyah is the one that I've been like that's the Joker that's the person I want to get to eventually there was one more thing I wanted to ask you about this was it about the butt shot of Aaliyah?

1:03:39no we're going to do a separate pod about butt shots and lioness? and all of them by the way a lot of guys this is the ass shot show of our time I really can't get like there have been some phenomenal he loves the ass shot he really does I was just trying to think of like if he does this on a lot of his series but I he loves to get people naked you know another thing he loves and I wanted this is what I was going to ask you what 42 % of this show I did the math takes place on tarmacs oh airport shit I've never seen a guy who loves fucking flying private more than Taylor Sheridan there's nothing that gets him off more than a private jet rolling up and then just being like, yeah, wheels up.

1:04:26Wheels up. Let's go. I'll let you know where we're going when we get there. Not just that, but the jet rules. Yeah. Like this is the altitude you have to fly at to be under radar. How much fuel are you carrying? How much fuel are you carrying? Yeah. The jumping off points. It's like, we got to get to fucking Mexico because when we get to Mexico, it's fucking done. Yeah. We can't be seen anymore. It was really funny when they were like, then they're in international airspace and, you know, they're gone. And it's like, I don't know, you guys go into like international spots all the time and assassinate people just blow the plane out of the sky.

1:04:56You went to the Ukraine. Do you think, because he shoots a lot of this stuff in Texas, like on his ranch now. Do you think that Taylor has his own airport on that ranch? And that all of that stuff is shot like at his spot? Oh, it could be. Because the airport in Cuba and the airport in Baltimore and the airport in Mexico are the same airport. Same airport, yeah. I mean, it could be. I like the fact that he uses his own shit. I definitely think that Ukraine is Texas, but with a Ukraine filter on the camera. My question is probably all at the big rancher he has. My question is, what would be your version of this?

1:05:36If there was a CR show, and the show was essentially about some other shit, but really wrapped up in all of your interests. My passions? Your passions. Because his passions are guns and horses and asses and airplanes and lesbians. Those are the things that he loves. This is the reason I like the show so much is I can't think of any other passions I have.

1:06:00Maybe that's what we're getting to is this deep psychological profile that I didn't know existed for myself. I don't know. Nobody wants to watch a TV show about used bookstores and being bad at golf. Yeah. Pick up basketball show. Nobody wants that. Anything else before I let you go? You got higher learning. And you're back and you jet lagged and you did the show with me. And I appreciate it. I'm fine, man. Like, I'm good. Like, I tell you, I have to say this. Once again, I have to go. Oh, you want to do a little bit of behind the scenes. So go ahead. I mean, look, we're talking about Lioness.

1:06:32And it seems as if Tracy Letts doesn't like that idea, man. He doesn't like the idea of us talking about. I think he's fine with us talking about it. I just don't think he's interested in joining us in any kind of capacity. So you didn't feel played by what he said on the big picture? I had reached out at Olive Branch last time, I think when I was on Midnight Boys. I think I posited an idea of like, why are us three guys fighting for scraps and being third chair? Like, why don't we think about making something, owning something, being part of something together? Three chairs. Right. And Tracy said, that's loser shit.

1:07:07And that sounds like the idea of a loser and the philosophy of a loser. and that you and I, I believe you compared us to Pat Buchanan and Lyndon LaRouche, two failed politicians, to say nothing, to say the least. Said that we were chopping it up. Yeah. We were chopping it up about Lioness. I mean, cool. He's off my Christmas card list. You know what I mean? I'll be honest with you. I don't like that shit. I'm going to be all the way real. It was funny because, like, you know, let me keep it all the way real with the audience. Let me keep it all the way real with the audience. I realize that the big picture is like the Bushwood Country Club of the ringer.

1:07:45I do. I get it. I am the Rodney Dangerfield. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are the Bushwood Country Club of the ringer. Lovable people that we love to talk movies with. But I know that the audience over there is not thrilled to see me on the podcast. Okay. Right? That I go in there to rabble rouse and to rough shit up and what we have in common with each other. And to say this Star Wars movie was good. And say, guess what? The Flash fucking ripped. Did you do that? No, I did it on Midnight Boys. It was one of my great regrets. Anyway, it did not rip. But now it's caught up in a moment. They put Christopher Reeve in a movie.

1:08:22Anyway, so look. So I get that. I understand that. And that's like an unspoken deal that I have with the fans of the big picture. You know, they know this. Sure. They know what we have in common. Everybody knows what they're here for. Everybody knows. They know that I'm there to rough up and be the rabble rouser about comic book movies, but we all love movies. We love Sean. We love Amanda. Okay? That's the fucking deal. So when I said that I wanted to be third chair, that was really for them. It was facetious. It was to get them going. Let's is holding on a little too tight. I gotta be honest with you, bro.

1:08:58Let's is holding on a little bit too tight, bro. Do you know what it is? I just think that's a dude... Who I love. I really do love him in the short time that I've known him. And I just think his banter comes from another generation. That's the thing. The thing is. You're hitting a little close to the kidneys, Tracy. That's the thing. The thing is, you know, he doing something you're not supposed to do. You're not supposed to fall in love with your side bitch. You're not. The big picture is Tracy lets his side chick. That's a two-time Pulitzer. that's his side check you're not supposed to fall in love with your side check even if she make you feel young again I think this just speaks to the allure of podcasting and Sean and Amanda creating such a warm hospitable home for so many of us he called me Lincoln LaRouche and I felt like Kevin Hart in the 40 year old version like I don't understand the words that's coming out of your mouth but I'm gonna take them as disrespect you know what I'm saying I'm gonna take them as disrespect what the fuck you chopping it up grandpa if you ever go see your ass down somewhere LaRouche?

1:10:00I knew who that was, but I'm just saying, like, the, I like, I looked at that and I'm like, hey, man, look, now we gotta do the thing where we really start to kind of get at each other a little bit. Don't, don't, don't play with me, Tracy. Like, sitting down there talking with Sean. Look, it's all love. It is. But don't fall in love with your side chick, Grandpa. Don't do, don't do that. Where would you rank the watches, your side chicks? What you mean? Like, in your, in your, I think, I think, you are a man who is so ever present on so many pots. I don't really understand the romantic hierarchy of your podcast.

1:10:37Oh, but see, that's the thing, though. If you don't fall in love with them, you can treat them all the same. I see. You know what I'm saying? Like for me, I'm a part, for better or for worse, whether you like it or not, I'm a part of the Ringer podcast family, baby. There we go. So I'm going to be around having fun with my bros. Exactly like Predator. Exactly. It's exactly the same thing. predator after they've both had atrophy. Like I'm having fun with my bros, man. But I don't want to be third chair. I don't want to be third chair. There is no such thing really as a third chair. We're all just hanging out.

1:11:10Okay. Podcasting. Don't get over your skis though. Okay. Don't, don't do too much. I feel like this is your Oppenheimer moment. What have I done? Because you really ramped it up when you threw your hat in the ring. It was, yeah, it was like, yeah, it was, we're having fun, but like, you know, man. That's what I'm saying. What the fuck you threw me off? Who you talking to? Oh, my God. Thank you for coming in. No problem. Love it. Lioness, what are we going to click up again to do? East of Eden. I don't know what the fuck. I'll talk to you soon. All right, peace.