The Best ‘House of the Dragon’ Episode Yet? Plus, ‘Star City’ Episode 7.

20:46Andy Greenwald:My point is the books that I haven't read are broken up and there's like a lot of Caitlin Stark perspective. Yeah, there's a Tyrion chapter. There's a Tyrion chapter and that brings you, you know, it brings you the subjectivity that I think is really, really appealing when you are reading a book, but also can be really, really precious when you're watching a TV show. Yeah. So my guess is that this is a meaningful episode, not just for the House of the Dragon super fan, but for the Westeros literati as well, because this is, I don't know if it's close, but at least is tacking towards what drew them in in the first place.

21:21Andy Greenwald:And I found it really, really compelling. and I also found it really, reassuring isn't the word, but like, and I think I actually, I'm going to say something and I'd like to punt it to the end of our conversation just because it really speaks to the challenge of adaptation at all from medium to, across mediums. Watching this episode, which had like, not just warmth and subjectivity and interesting and unique perspective, it also had flickers of wit. It had more thematic elements to it, political elements that I found really, really compelling. Like the sound design was incredible with like the ticking and the rat scratching and all that.

22:03Andy Greenwald:And I felt like what you could perceive in this hour of television was everyone in every department taking their shackles off and being like, no, no, we know how to do this in a more traditional or enveloping way. but we are making a show that has a god's eye fixed perspective and we are doing other things and to see them yeah the god's eye has to be very far away because you got to shoot the dragons and the dragon seems to be i think game of thrones was like the dragons are like the kind of um the the carrot at the end of the you know like down the line for and and the stick was sort of the brutal truths about families and and politics uh this show front-loaded dragons obviously and and like made the bet that it could take advances in VFX and depict the dragon warfare in a way that hadn't, they hadn't even been able to do in Thrones.

22:57I don't know if I agree that they've succeeded necessarily, but what really struck me about this, and I don't think I articulated this quite well enough on the episode that aired last night, was I kept saying tempo and it is a fast episode. People speak with a quicker tempo. but what I admired so much about what Claire Kilner, the director, and Sarah Hess, the writer, did with this one is in any other episode of House of the Dragon, a lot of these scenes would be conducted by two people standing in a static position in a room and the blocking was pretty vanilla and the acting was kind of almost like coming back to the direction of single single master like over the shoulder like conversation stuff and far be it for me to ask for like west wing set in westeros but almost every scene in this episode was either a walk and talk or someone moving around a room in a way that felt unconventional for the show yeah and even something like allison coming to visit rhaenyra and Rhaenyra's like, how did you make all these decisions when you were kind of operating as the real head of the state?

24:17I thought that Alicent wandering around the room and being like, this is so weird being here with you. Like we were best friends. Now we're kind of enemies, but I'm also counseling you. Like this is really strange. And Rhaenyra being kind of doubled over with menstrual pain and everything that's happening inside of her head and the paranoia that she's got. Even the staging of something like that, where it's just two people who remain relatively static, there were little kind of flourishes that really made those scenes come alive.

24:51Andy Greenwald:Think about, I think that's very well said, and think about how, think about the effect that the dragons had on people in Game of Thrones, like people on the show, because they hadn't seen them or they thought they were mythological or enough time had passed. Just for like, they're never going to come back. And so the what the fuck wasn't overlooked before they started torching everybody. What was cool about this episode, in the absence of dragons and just generally, was that Rhaenyra physically was the what the fuck because she is someone who was an idea. She was a cause. She was a shadow, a danger, a threat.

25:29Andy Greenwald:She's supposed to be a prophecy. And now she's just a lady walking around a house and everyone's like, what do you, what? You know, and she's making decisions and it was like a workplace comedy. The scene with Allison where Allison is like, well, you killed my father. Yeah. Was not, not funny. Do you know what I mean? And I think that was, and it was self-aware enough for that. I, the thing that I, it's something that I noted last week and then I was happy to see played out differently this week. Last week, because of the necessities of plot and moving things forward, the two most powerful people in the realm, Rhaenyra and Daemon, hop off their all-powerful nuclear bombs and then just walk through the castle.

26:09Andy Greenwald:And they are thus at risk, and then the stakes shift accordingly. The same thing was happening in this episode, but for much smaller stakes effects, which made it a little bit more, I don't want to say relevant, and it just made it more palpable. It made it more engaging to me that her being there and making these decisions and all the decisions in front of her being bad was much more interesting in the sense of like she is supposed to be up on high and now here she is brought low and heavy as the head, et cetera, et cetera. And that there's this like sort of spectrum of ideology that runs through the sort of cohort of people that have brought her to power or helped her get to power.

26:49And you've got people like Massaria who are like, well, I kind of believed in you because I thought that you were going to be the person to change the way things ran for common people. And then Daemon's like, I believe in you because you're the person who's going to bring the Targaryen line back to its customary place as basically demigods and paying no mind to law or whatever. And we should just go around burning up the rest of the world until we get to almost fantastical places, more fantastical than where we were now. And the way in which that information is conveyed was so much more witty, artful, but also like forget the idea that these two people are like there are men with wings, like a land beyond the sea kind of stuff.

27:35It was just very fascinating to see these two who are like, well, on one level, you're the only one who understands me. But on another level, you're pulling me right into the direction that Targaryens of the past and Targaryens of the future get pulled into where they think they're gods. and that way spells doom. So I just thought all of that stuff was so well dramatized in this episode.

27:58Andy Greenwald:I want to talk about the place, the city on the edge of the world where men have wings. First of all, book me a ticket. Sounds awesome. And are they eligible to play for the USMNT? They have wings. They're very good playing. We don't have a lot of wingers. We don't have a lot of wingers. Oh, that's good. Maybe we misheard. Maybe it's where men are natural wings. three and D stretch wings. They could play for the Sixers too. This was something that I said probably too many times when we covered Game of Thrones, but I just felt that it was always important to not just, not to serve what I wanted to see in the show, but to balance the scales of what the stakes were and what people were fighting for or fighting against.

28:42Andy Greenwald:And that was to let us know what else they could be doing. Make us understand the choice to continue to march towards King's Landing when you could, in the case of the original Game of Thrones series, show Arya going east. Show what life is like in these other places. Is it better? Is it worse? Why do they keep coming back? Give us a sense of Dorne as being like, that's pretty nice. Why don't you just stay here? Yeah. So that when Damon says it, when Damon talks just what you were saying, when he is grandiose in this episode, it is night and day from when he was grandiose in the previous episode.

29:15Andy Greenwald:In the previous episode, he's reciting a prophecy that sounds as romantic as a to-do list. In this episode, he's saying, here are all these things that are possible for us now. So what will we do? When you can do anything, what will you do? That absolute dogged march towards the nightmare throne is tough when you don't understand the psychology of why characters are doing it other than the fact that they have always done that or they have been told they are meant to do yeah and she's blinded by a sense of destiny that i think is undermining her ability to maintain alliances which is really well depicted in the scene with corliss which they like finally brings to steve tussan off the bench and let him like do a cool scene where he expresses an emotion that he didn't even express when like his wife gets killed you know what i mean like he gets to say everything that's been like happening inside of his his person for like the last two or three years where he's just like you've got to be fucking kidding me i am asking you for one thing yes i have essentially like backstopped you in this entire time against better judgment yes and i am saying like you know we both know how things happen in bedrooms here just call these guys uh valoren is all i'm asking and she doesn't because she doesn't want to bring in questions about like oh so now even bastards get special dispensation even though that's exactly what her sons have gotten also look how nice it is when plot lines intersect yeah like what he has been doing the last three episodes is uh is the the precursor to this conversation.

31:02Andy Greenwald:So it carries episode to episode. And I do not mean this as faint praise. It's kind of an echo of what I said after the premiere, which is the people making the show are very good at their jobs. I think that the overall mission statement may be slightly off at this point, but the fact that they were able to execute a battle that big and then do the very basic stuff, like, like overlap plot threads in ways that are, that create satisfying, naughty circumstances. I don't want to discredit that. That is good work, and it pays off when you can just take a breath in an episode like this. I would love nothing more.

31:39I have not seen the next episode. I would love nothing more than if the next episode continued with this pace and momentum, and especially this sense of subjectivity. I don't know if this show has enough runway to start hopping around and really diving into, the interior life of Ormond Hightower. I know he is in the scenes from next week rather heavily, and he certainly pulled a fast one on Rhaenyra this week. But you don't hire James Norton just to do three scenes where he smells perfume and then walks away. So I'm excited for the emergence of that conflict to come to the fore maybe next week, but I've really come back around on this.

32:25I think you know I wouldn't necessarily Say it gives me anything Close to the feeling I got Watching Night of the Seven Kingdoms or Especially peak Game of Thrones But it's a it's becoming More of a pleasure to watch I think What What hopes do you have for it going forward

32:43Andy Greenwald:I mean I think it is an Old school TV move Back when TV shows Had to make 22 episodes a year Or let's do one about this and let's do one from her perspective. Let's see what else we can do. Yeah. Let's see. Let's take this thing out on back roads or see it on the Autobahn or see if it floats. You know, like, let's just see what it is that we have here. It is a luxury in this age of condensed seasons and years between them and expensive post, you know, post work that's required. So I feel I feel seen. I feel heard. I really enjoyed watching the episode. I think that the nuance that they were given, that these characters were given for this one hour will pay some dividends going forward if it goes back into the churn of plot um but i also think the show is what it is so i feel i feel happy that we got here i guess it just i thought that this episode if you're not gonna have part of the reason why season two kind of fell flat was because everybody was like okay when's the battle coming all right like yeah i understand if it's going to be quiet loud quiet loud we we have to kind of build up to this battle but like the way in which it's quiet is so snail-paced and so kind of morose and sort of strange and damon with the tree and and and all this stuff that's happening and you're just like okay okay okay and then they don't do the battle you know and now the beginning of this season was almost too much battle yeah i was almost like that's cool but like it's been two years since this show ended and we pretty much jump in and start a massive naval battle.

34:20Andy Greenwald:Yeah. With a character, with many characters whose motivations I have somewhat forgotten, you know, and now obviously you can do your homework and find out, but I think that if they are going to have episodes where they don't have massive army on army, dragon on dragon conflict, this is a really good blueprint, but I don't, I mean, obviously the show is done, so I don't know. No, but we're, we're, we are still god bless us you know we still are covering television on this podcast week to week in an old-fashioned model and the truth is the majority of people who ever watch house of the dragon will watch it when it's done streaming on you know the patio of david ellison's mega yacht or whatever the case may be and it may be that much like when you know when you when you said things like oh what what's my reading order for jonathan hickman's avengers it'll be like what's the best way to watch house of the dragon and it might may well be to watch it in these chunks and one chunk will be treating last season season two as ending two episodes into season three and then maybe you know it'll advise you to take a walk around the block take a break and then pretend it's starting over here and that will be a different experience and that's okay um it just is clearly in balance in terms of the story a couple things in terms of how it was delivered to us.

35:36Andy Greenwald:A couple things, a couple bullet points for this episode, if I could. One, I found it amusing that Dan Fogler is now on the show. Yes, that was funny. I was like, what? I mean, it was just funny because he's a fine and amusing and good actor, and he was doing a fine English actor. It was totally fine. It was just like, what? It was kind of a lean-in moment, and part of me was like, did we actually run out of British character actors? because Night of the Seven Kingdoms. They're all in Star City. And Star City took them all. And they were like, oh my God, we've called the Royal Shakespeare Company.

36:12Andy Greenwald:We need Tel Aviv. Is that where we're headed? And I'm kind of here for it. I thought that was amusing. Do you think that King's Landing is right for a DSA candidate in the next election? I think that's what Massario wants. I think that's what she wants too, but she is still, you know, she's just like allying herself with the Eric Adams administration being like, no, no, we can do some work here in the margins. I did really like, again, speaking of things I never thought I would see in a Game of Thrones show, I never thought I would see that cinematic staple giving out turkeys in the hood on Thanksgiving.

36:46Andy Greenwald:I really enjoyed that scene as well. I also, across 15 years of this show now, one of my favorite things, of this world, one of my favorite things remains every so often when someone has a normal name. And then you get a line, like an ADR line of, you still have to kill Darren. which just sounds absolutely banal. The hiding a child thing was pretty good. Oh, because they hid that kid? They hid that kid. Because Orman put that kid in the Pierre coffin somewhere. Well, he's not dead, but he just hid him somewhere. The real one. Yeah. Yeah, but also, it's not that hard when only nine people have blonde hair.

37:26Andy Greenwald:You just have to get some bleach. Yes, but it's like he's also playing on the fact that Allison hasn't seen this kid in years. so it's not like he's hoping that people don't realize like what he's done until it's too late it's also he he's really showing deep ball knowledge because he also knows that people haven't watched or thought about the show in two years and i don't even remember how many kids she has so when a blonde kid i was like oh guess there's another one and that's him yeah he's just he's just the shy type is actually like a little bit of a run a runner for fans out there who are like what i think he plays a different role in the text uh i don't think his actions are different but I think he's a little bit more present.

38:04Or at least people have a better understanding of what's going on with him. And I think that they were like, we haven't cast him yet. You know, like, so it was sort of strange. And there's a couple of characters that it doesn't seem like they're going to introduce because they've sort of maneuvered things so that they can do away with certain characters. But we'll see.

38:21Andy Greenwald:Like Bob? Kenny? Little Stevie? Yeah, Christopher Sanchez. I also did want to say, like in the hopes that we can unite one of the more popular shows or worlds we cover on the show with one of the more divisive. I did enjoy Top Chef's King's Landing. Which one's divisive? Well, I feel like sometimes people are like, I rock with these guys when they talk about obscure ass spy shows on BritBox. But the fact that they devote 10 weeks every year to cover season 23 of Top Chef might... And argue about it as passionately as anything in the world. It's the only thing I care about. That's the only thing keeping me on to be honest.

39:01Andy Greenwald:On Earth. Truly. The King's Landing episode of Top Chef where all the noblemen were there for the tasting and then they brought but they did this they fucking did the fine dining like they all placed it at the same time and everyone kind of recoiled like most people do at fine dining restaurants these days. Tom would have been like did you mean to caramelize the rat? Yeah well Tom would have been okay with the rat but there was a little okra on the plate and he didn't like it. No you just didn't need another starch. I thought that too many starches on the rat. it solved two problems at once rats and the rich and needing a needing a protein for the evening did need a protein I enjoyed it I like the line I'm awash with dilemmas and uncertainties that's just being alive in America let's talk a little bit about Star City which we usually say for the very end because I think we assume it's a not an acquired taste but a niche offering and you know it remains in and around like the bottom of the top 10 of Apple.

40:01Andy Greenwald:Which we don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I would like it to be in the top five or the top three because I want it to be renewed because I want to keep watching this show. Yeah. This was an interesting episode because it was a true testament to just my deep pleasure that I get from watching it. This had a year time jump to start. I think it was into the next year. It was referred to as last summer. I think the implication based on the end of the episode was that it's been about nine months. Okay. I believe you. Gotcha. And it's worth noting that I think it's becoming a little bit harder to avoid if you're reading about this show.

40:43The For All Mankind character echoes, which I didn't know were as extensive, but I think it's pretty cool and interesting. um this was a very melancholy episode of television yeah you know like a real like this is this is what a sort of authoritarian regime leaves behind in its wake yeah for the people who try to participate in different parts of government and different parts of society and like get broken because they they try to fly a little too too close to the despot sun um And in that, it was great. I thought that it essentially followed the same rhythm or rising action as the previous episode.

41:28So instead of, and this is spoilers for the season of Star City and for this episode, but instead of the loss of the Venera crew, we got the possible rescue of them or the possible signs of life. I still thought it was gorgeous the Rachmaninoff playing as they break down these algorithms and start doing secret channels to Anastasia up in the space station.

41:52Andy Greenwald:But also it's like there was a not insignificant montage of beautiful classical piano music while a man wrote algebra with a pencil. Yes. Thank you, Apple. Like truly. I cannot believe they got that through. I don't know how they pitched it. I don't know what it appeared like in the script, but that's not even the first thing to go. That's the thing where you're like in the room, you're like, it would be beautiful, but we will never have beautiful things in this life. It was great. Again, I feel like I'm a broken record, but I've said that there's been moments on this show that really play the espionage greatest hits.

42:29I thought Irina going to Raskova's apartment, that brief look into her life of like kind of wearing this sad track suit and having something in the oven and then her revealing to raskova that like she's been tasked with bugging her and she's like you should bug me and then we're also gonna like run a run a double on on petrosky who's taken over star city uh was awesome you know even if you've seen it before and it was choosing who

42:59Andy Greenwald:you work for and why and who's running who and how no one ever everything is in op i will say just as a sidebar um last week you were wondering if roscova was veering a little too english when she yelled sort it out i think discovering her in her flat dressed like she was in the verve in 1997 was a real tell as to where her her allegiances lie just listening to urban hymns but it was caught me in a moment you caught me at a very bucket hat time of my life that the drugs don't work truly it was beautiful oh please continue your i mean like we could talk more i just my my headline from this episode is uh joseph davies uh he plays uh sir day and um he obviously gets like a kind of cool moment at the end of the episode but his reaction yes thank you the entire process of trying to apply for a professorship uh somewhere like at a college somewhere which would obviously be a step down financially for him but would be a break or an escape from star city where he has essentially been demoted to the sub sub basement and they keep moving his stapler you know uh and then finding out not only that his apartment has been burgled or rousted but that the guy who was enticing him essentially to make this application was probably spying on him or working against him.

44:22And Davies' reaction to finding his apartment in this state, because the apartment is really the only, like his cooking and his music and his books. It's his private world. Is the only thing that he has got that is for pleasure in this life. I thought it was really legitimately heartbreaking and a beautiful piece of acting. And he's probably the fifth or sixth build actor on this. and that character actually exists in the 4L Mankind universe. So I think for some viewers, they're like, this is extraordinary to get to see this guy as a young person. And apparently Davies' performance echoes the older actor's performance as Sergei as he gets older.

45:00But I thought it was lovely. And in an episode where a lot of the main faces, Tanya, the cosmonauts, the chief designer are largely off screen. Yes. He really stepped in.

45:13Andy Greenwald:I love that you shouted him out, highlighted him. I agree. His performance is brilliant and it's understated and it does what the best acting can do. Because we, who have likely, hopefully, never had our inner sanctum, our private lives, like, tossed like that, he, you could imagine. This guy's got a lot of zin. Oh, no, found some more. How old are these lozenges? Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 on 4K. He wasn't fronting about physical media. He's really about this life as they quietly let themselves out. I think that our gut supposition about how we would feel would be one of anger or sadness or about the mess or whatever our natural pathways of emotion are.

46:04Andy Greenwald:What he communicated in that moment was such deep indignity. Yeah, he puts his hand over his mouth to like stop him from stop himself from actually expressing an emotion. And the camera captures the broken vinyl records and things. And it is a violation. And it is just one indignity stacked on top of another. I only have this. And you've put me in prison already and you've stripped me of my work and of my purpose. And you've stopped listening to me and you've removed isolated me from my colleagues. And now you've taken this was beautiful. And the performance was so gripping that I hadn't Googled him before and realized, like Adam Nagaitis, he was briefly in Chernobyl.

46:39But where we had seen him before was Andor, where he's one of the prisoners on Narkina.

46:45Andy Greenwald:No shit. And I'm not saying that, like, although I feel like basically this podcast is constantly in service of this idea that Tony Gilroy is uniquely able to draw out nuanced performances from British stage actors. but this performance and the role the character plays on this show is cut from the same cloth as to what Tony did with Andor where it's like the private lives of public facing genre storytelling is it's an incredible feat. Do you think Andy Burnham should just cut the dole and just say we've been able to outsource funding for the arts to Tony Gilroy who will continue to put British stage actors in giant sci-fi epics?

47:27Andy Greenwald:I would bring it up, but I think Andy Purnum's too busy doing would-be viral Instagram things where he's like, they're like stone roses or urban hymns. He was asked that. Stone roses. I think he's calling Carmine Infantino about Kwanzaa's red card. And about Martian Manhunter's role in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Yeah, I thought that was incredible. I thought it was incredibly beautiful. And I would say to your original take on the episode, I think this may have been my favorite episode of the series to date. I thought it was, it's not just that I thought the tone was so elegiac and interesting.

48:04It's of a piece of the conversation we were just having about House of the Dragon, which is like when you have a show that has a mandate in the sense that like it was pitched and sold as a companion piece, as a spinoff, as a way to backfill or

48:19Andy Greenwald:spack. For a lot of people, like, you know how this story kind of ends because we're already into the, I don't know, like the 20th century, 21st century. On the other show, yeah. Yeah, so. So I think that when you accept a job or you're even the one who pitches it, like the larger assignment is manifest. And servicing that takes up reasonably so quite a lot of your creative oxygen and your practical budget. it. So finding the little pockets and the little space to make something that is special and stands on its own is even more precious and even more rare. And last week when I was talking about the show, I was saying I did feel a little bit of, um, for all mankind mission creep, not to diss that show, which I have regrets that I've not kept up on.

49:03Andy Greenwald:But my feeling that kind of kept me out of it was that there was this inevitable drumbeat of history, history, history. And it was telling us about it as it was breathlessly trying to catch up to what it wanted to say. And last week, there was, I had that sense of like, well, now we're on to this next mission. Now we got to do this. The fact that they took a beat, that for a show that was notable for, in episodes five and six, picking up the action seconds after the previous episode ended, like Irina in Tanya's apartment, which was surprising to me that they did that, but it felt reasonable and interesting, not just reasonable, it felt exciting.

49:38Andy Greenwald:that after this incredible cliffhanger of a crescendo of the previous episode that we begin months later, it's just a, it is a really masterful use of - Oh, and they also just sewed it up by having Raskova's report kind of basically yada yada of what happened, you know? It's a masterful use of off-speed pitches, let's say. There you go, dog. You know, of like, oh, now, oh, something has changed. And again, like I, there was not a single moment in watching this episode that I thought the Venus mission was lost. Because these are three, two, no, with Chadia joining it, I mean, she was not initially in the cast, but the other two are two of the leads of the show.

50:17Andy Greenwald:And I'm not saying the show is so sentimental that it can't kill main characters, especially as it turns towards the 21st century, but that story wasn't done. You don't have, what's his name? Sasha. You don't, not just Sasha, the other guy. Negatus? No. Valia? Sasha. You don't have, thank you. Sasha's honest values has been value - Yes, you don't have them fall in love accidentally and then leave Earth without some resolution. Yes. So I knew they were coming back. The question is, how do we get there? And I just think it's remarkable when you have creators who are like, let's see, let's solve this problem and see it as an opportunity.

50:55Andy Greenwald:I thought it was totally pleasurable to watch. Were you psyched to get a little George Bush cameo? I am always wondering what the Bush family is up to in an alternate history where, you know, they can sort of shake free of right and left, you know, and just be good sense versus no sense, you know? Apparently it's an underrated presidency according to historians. I wonder if in For All Mankind, George W. just stays as the ranger's owner. And then becomes a painter? Yeah. I mean, it'd be great. Hopefully we're going to have Matt and Ben who created the show on hopefully this week. And I unfortunately won't be here for that episode because I'm going to be in Toronto, but Andy is going to hopefully be talking to those guys this week.

51:39Andy Greenwald:Yeah. Is this time for some other housekeeping? Sure. Well, I think that if we're able to line this up... This is exactly where Kaya likes to keep all of our important show announcements at minute 52 when we're talking about Star City. You guys clip this, right? This is going to be good. That we will hold the episode until Friday when the season finale comes up. Yes. But also, I had an idea. Let me know how you feel about this because you're going to be traveling. So really, I could just do it. You could do whatever you want. But I don't feel comfortable with that much freedom. Do you want me to drop questions from space and hope that they land?

52:11Hope they land in the right place.

52:12Andy Greenwald:But all the other podcasts find the questions and they get mad? I wondered if it would be useful to do a prompt. I don't know if anybody cares about this stuff. But if there's any super specific industry-type questions of working in the mines questions for me. For those guys or for that? Or just like we could do an all... Ask Andy anything? Kind of. Is that... Within reason. Do you do whatever you want to do, man? But do you know what I mean? Because, I don't know, maybe that's interesting to people. Yeah. There's some actually, like there are a fair amount of questions for Andy's in our inbox.

52:48Andy Greenwald:Okay. Well, I'm happy to tackle that. What is your favorite piece of steamed fish you've ever had, you know? Well, that's a great question. Cafe Deco is amazing. Save it for Thursday. Western's laundry, though, actually often has... It's kind of deep in Arsenal country now, which is feeling a little iffy for me. Do you want to announce your Tottenham Hotspur lifelong fan? I don't need to announce something that's been part of me from the very beginning. I think an Ask Andy Anything pod would be... Will you slip in some questions that have been lingering? No. Just things you wanted to know? I think I know the whole story.

53:18You're good?

53:19Andy Greenwald:Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel, maybe. Or a white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Do you want to talk about the agency at all? I think I wonder whether or not, like if you want, I know you're up through three, right? Yeah. I am through five. We both think this season is extraordinary. We have had somewhat similar conversations as we've chipped away at this second season. And they've basically been like, it's funny to watch this very, very, very thrilling and expertly made.

53:57And expensive. Like cover song of a song we adore. And I think that that has disoriented us, but I will say that I am fully loving this season. I would like to ask you a question. Is any of the methodical way that we are going about this tied not only to the fact that somewhat we know the story in the broad strokes because we watched the Bureau, but also that Paramount has not announced its season three renewal?

54:22Andy Greenwald:It's not just that Paramount hasn't announced a renewal. it's that they dropped the entire season over a weekend and which is not what they did with season one and correct me if I'm wrong I have not seen any press I don't mean like I haven't seen like wraparound ads on buses I have people involved in the show I do not have a grand theory of this but I will say that I have seen on social media various places a kind of wave of Michael Fassbender on the hardest scene from Steve Jobs and I was like why the fuck is that a blog post and I'm like oh because they're asking oh he did do an interview about it well no they're doing they did junkets but I think so much of junket stuff now is a guy going in and he's got Catherine Waterston and Michael Fassbender he's like I have to ask them about these five movies that they did like I can ask a couple of agency questions but then it's like when you were playing David and Prometheus did you think that you were I think That's true.

55:20And that stuff all then gets aggregated. Yeah. But then the editors of these sites or these algorithms can just be like, nobody's watching the agency. We can just publish all this Prometheus and Steve Jobs stuff. Now, I don't, that's not like a conspiracy or anything against the show, but I do think it's something interesting about, it used to be kind of like you would go to these things and you would be like, I have 10 minutes and I can be like, what did you, why did you, what drew you to this role and all that stuff. And now it's like, I have 10 minutes, hold a dog, try a hot wing and tell me about these three movies that have nothing to do with the agency so i don't know if it's working for them or not but like i i do find that i have anecdotally heard from people out there yeah who are like yeah like i don't like starting shows that aren't going to finish oh for sure yeah yeah yeah um you know this is a a dense complex adult thriller that i think is hitting its stride and clearly was a massive investment to get gear and right and waterston and all these people to do it um to say nothing of the british actors who were all

56:26Andy Greenwald:sometimes playing americans who are also they shot the show in london kenya and morocco yeah like that's like 2019 money it's wild uh and we have the merger coming and we have no definitive news yet and it's been five weeks it's been a minute a couple weeks a couple weeks since this came out do you feel like I am slightly to blame because when we had the entire cast of the agency available to us and I only asked Katherine Watterson 10 minutes of questions about her role in the HBO avant-garde theater show The Third Day I think that might have contributed to some soft numbers I don't regret it fascinating show um i think that's really well observed i think um i i think this is an interesting conversation in relationship to star city too which also has not been officially renewed to my knowledge i know that uh matt and ben created the show talked about like we're not going to do decade jumping we're going to keep it in the 70s and tell the story of star city specifically not get into the mars like what what's it like for a russian like on the other side of a scene that you've already seen in For All Mankind.

57:38But I do think that it would be a mistake to just say, like, we have the roadmap for a five or six season show. Presumably, Michael Fassbender committed to that going into this. Yeah.

57:56Andy Greenwald:I mean, I think, well, a couple of things. I think it would just because, Well, more than a few things. La Bureau is one of the great television shows of all time. Everyone should check it out. The way that each season builds the world out while also diving deeper into the possibilities already presented by the characters we thought we knew is extraordinary and just worth watching whether you love TV, want to make it, anything. So the thought of assembling this kind of Avengers and then not getting to do that level of work, knowing what could happen for Jeffrey Wright's character, for John McGarrow's character.

58:34Andy Greenwald:Like that is a real shame because it's the best of new TV in the sense of its ambition and old TV in the sense of, God, I love that guy. I didn't even notice him for two years. That's a real shame. I'll say that my interesting experience with this season is that I am finding it incredible. I mean, I love the story because I love the story. I love watching Richard Gere be in a TV show. He's just cooking.

59:04Andy Greenwald:I find, I'm finding it incredibly engaging, both because the story is engaging and because of the pace of the storytelling. I am finding it a little... You're also passionate about ethical diamond mining. Thank you. Well, and accurate South African accent work, which frankly has been absent from our screens for some time. Since perhaps before Blood Diamond, you know, who knows? Certainly before Blood Diamond. So congrats to Michael Fassbender for bringing that back. I have found it a little ham-fisted at times this season. Okay. Both in the sense of like the John Magaro character, Owen, like being bad at doing spy stuff.

59:44Andy Greenwald:And that's sort of textual, like he's not good at it. Yeah. But then also the people around him being like, I just trust you for some reason, Steve. Let's go to the Central African Republic. That's like, we got to get the show on the road, but also that was weaker to me than some of the other things that are going on. And weaker to you than the Bureau version of it. For sure. I think the other thing that frustrates me slightly, I do enjoy the Butterworths writing an American cast talking about American cultural perspectives. Oh, like, what's up, snowflake? Yeah, it's like, you libtard snowflake.

1:00:13Andy Greenwald:I'm like, why don't you listen to me talk about the English national team for 10 minutes and then we can see how we're square. There are moments that I just feel like are missed opportunities, but the sort of missed opportunities that could become gold over the course of a longer run. Like, Jeffrey Wright is so, he's such a brilliant actor, and he's funny. This show is not written so much for him to be funny, so that when he gets, like, a small crumb, like the scene when Fassbender asks him to give him control of Gremlin, the agent they're running in Iran, and he goes, let me think about it. I thought about it.

1:00:48Andy Greenwald:That's funny. And, like, I wish we could have a little bit more of that. Classic laugh line. That's okay. But he makes it funny. He does. And the show is written in a way. And I love the whole like the Catherine Waterston pulling the guy into the one blind spot and him then going and getting the device because he's like, of course, it's a blind spot. Yeah. I love that. I wish there was more room for that, but I sometimes feel like that's the kind of like spontaneity that comes from more fluid productions as opposed to something that is so like, We have this much time. We are doing it on this budget.

1:01:25Andy Greenwald:We have this blueprint and we have these very busy screenwriting brothers and we are going to execute. Yeah. Sometimes I appreciate that efficiency in terms of delivering on the plot. Tom Hardy's trying to kill one of them. It's possible. Yeah. We don't know what's going on off screen. Anyway, all this is to say, we will circle back. We will cover the rest of the season. So we have Thursday's show will be, or Friday's show release will probably be Star City finale related and some Ask Andy Anything stuff. I then think you're out the following Monday. I am. We have a lot of travel this summer. We do.

1:01:53and I'll do some exciting work that day.

1:01:57Andy Greenwald:You should do a follow-up. But maybe next Thursday? Are you back next Thursday? We can finish the agency. Do you think we should, would you want to spend some of Monday fact-checking my answers to the questions about me and just being like, that was a lie? No, I think you're like a dazzling broadcaster, and I'm sure you'll really do a great job with whatever you decide to do on Friday. And wherever you decide to take this show going forward. Thank you. Sakaya, Kai, and Sarah, we are going to wrap up there. We have explained the short-term future of this show. It's not so dark. About two-thirds of the way into the podcast.

1:02:31So just go on, scroll on back if you want. And we'll talk to you later this week with some more Star City stuff and some more exciting television talk.

1:02:40Andy Greenwald:Are you bullish on the long-term future of this podcast? Sure. Wow. Sure. Wow. Okay. Great. Bye, guys.

1:02:54We'll be right back.