The Emmys Mostly Got It Right and ‘Task’ Episode 2

22:18Andy Greenwald:Yes. And so it was nice to see him practice, not even what he preaches, just practicing good behavior in the industry and giving opportunities. The one thing I wanted to ask you is, do you think that Dan Gilroy is going to lord his Emmy over Tony Gilroy? This is exactly what I have up. Set this up. And or one writing. which was very much like a, like, there is, it was nice to know that any of the people in that crowd had like watched Andor, basically. And like, as you like to say, the ball knowers knew. Yes. That was classic, like Tarantino has won Emmys, but for writing. Yes. Because that's the category that they'll reward the thing that's a little bit outside of the box.

22:54Andy Greenwald:Oscars. Yeah. Sorry, Oscars. Yes. I was like, did he win an Emmy for writing on CSI? For his appearance on Golden Girls. That's right. They and or won best writing in a drama series, right? For Welcome to the Rebellion. Yep. And Dan Gilroy is the writer of that episode. Credited writer of that episode. I would imagine that Tony Gilroy had some input on that episode. That's fair to say. And it stays in the family. And I'm sure at Thanksgiving, they'll just put it in the middle and be like, it's for everybody. I feel like the vibe I get from the Gilroys is that they will not do that. and that will be the conversation.

23:30Tony, let us know. You know what I mean? Like, come on the watch and tell us all about visitation rights for that Emmy.

23:35Andy Greenwald:It was good big brother behavior. Like, it is genuinely Tony modeling good showrunner behavior, even though this was his first time being a showrunner. He is, everybody understands, he is the creator, he is the showrunner, he is the last one to touch the pages that go out. He's the last one in the edit. He was messing, he was co-composing the score. Like, that's his baby. both seasons he divvied up the writing among his writers where he took credit for three episodes only of each season and the rest were farmed out and everyone basically wrote an arc this season it just so happened that his brother Dan who is an accomplished screenwriter and director in his own right wrote what is pretty much uniformly agreed upon as the best episode of the series yes which won yeah so that was very cool and very gracious he won he thanked his brother he thanked Genevieve O 'Reilly who should have been nominated.

24:27Andy Greenwald:Yeah. Which I thought was cool. But again, like, it's hard to nitpick when Andor did win. On Thursday, I was like, you know, the nomination was the reward. Not true. I'm not going to get upset about this stuff. It's not like when we talk about television twice a week for the last decade plus, we do not talk about like Emmy winners. We just don't. And I don't ever hear anywhere else besides in Los Angeles is people being like, well, I know that that won an Emmy. You know, and it's just not a barometer of what people are watching and what's important about television. No, but it does, if you are a fan of TV that might not be mainstream or even Matlock, like there is an argument to be made that Hacks being a glorified, celebrated show that will wrap up in style after its fifth season, which I think Hannah Einbinder confirmed last night.

25:18Andy Greenwald:There's no guarantee that it would have had that opportunity had it not started winning Emmys from its first season. totally agree it does matter in terms of the lifespan of shows it can give them a second chance and I do think in terms of I just mean about the discourse around like what people say when they're talking about how great Andor is or how great Severance is it's not like well I liked Severance but it didn't win any Emmys um no but I wonder if in this more stratified streaming era do you think it means more or matters more to the creators because like like 20 years ago like I'm sure it matters to some creators and for some it's just like I don't give a shit no but what I mean is like it felt like maybe I'm wrong maybe this is just hindsight but like so The Wire never won any major awards but it was an immediate ecosystem where it was almost punk that it didn't win the awards yeah but like David Simon was like The Wire was on for the first two seasons of The wire it definitely felt like the people who love the wire were like keeping it on life support you no but like it was you there was two or three is the wire coming back yes runs i think through season three through season three it was like i don't know if they're gonna bring it back i don't know if they're gonna bring it back and then obviously it kind of entered into a more of a like peabody award winning the best television has to offer kind of which used to be an argument you could make for survival and then that got it to its fourth and fifth season that's right i wonder whether or not that is even a thing anymore.

26:52But I mean, I know that HBO thinks it's a thing. But do we think of any shows? I'm sure FX thinks it's a thing.

26:57Andy Greenwald:Are there any shows that you can think of that fall into the Charles Barkley zone of like uniformly recognized as one of the best ever but never won the title? Because if you go back through like all the shows... Other than The Wire? Other than The Wire. Because if you go through, you know, the sort of consensus greatest shows, they all won, whether it's ER, The West Wing, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Sopranos, they all had their turn. Even Game of Thrones had its chance. Friday Night Lights win? Anything? No, but I feel like that's not ever in, it's in the most beloved conversation, but the like, and so the reason I bring it up is because for something like Severance, which has a case to be made that it is the inheritor.

27:37Andy Greenwald:The zero, zero, zero, everyone? Let me check on that. Maybe we can Google that while I finish this thought. That there's a case to be made that Severance is the inheritor of that legacy right now in terms of a prestige water cooler mystery box show that is driving conversation, that is making stars noticeable again, that like when we talked about the show coming on the air, we were using like salary cap analogies that like if you have Stiller and Christopher Walken and Turturro and Patricia Arquette in your cast, you're going to need to fill out your young defense with your Trammell Tillmans and your Britt Lowers.

28:11Andy Greenwald:They won. So that was much like we won the Super Bowl last year with the young defense. That worked out. Yeah. You know what I mean? But so if this is, if this show is the inheritor of that mantle in such a bifurcated, what is really popular world, having the proof, historical proof that the industry agreed that this was the best drama might be more significant for a severance than at any other time in history. You could be right. And I think I would feel more strongly about it if I thought it was coming back within any like, within this Trump administration. You know? Well, this one could be ongoing.

28:44No, that's what I meant. Like this particular one, The third one, maybe not.

28:48Andy Greenwald:Oh, so you think that we're going to recognize it as the beginning of the third term as opposed to just rolling fruit? Oh, instead of just an era, you know, like an emperorship. It's so cute. You think there's going to be an election? Well, sweetie. But anyway, that argument is almost moot because one thing I feel confident saying is that there will be as many seasons of— I mean, there will be a third season of severance. There will probably be a fourth season of severance. That's just the way Apple works, where it's working for them. They like it. They like the prestige. They usually like they had a big party.

29:17Andy Greenwald:Tim Cook was there at the Emmys last night. It's not living season to season or like, oh, did we get a Peabody? Okay, we'll green light it. So who knows what the argument is. Let's take a quick break here. Unless you had any final Emmys thoughts. Who should host next year? I just, just. It would be very funny if Stephen Colbert hosted. Sure, he's free. Like, I just want to say that like the hosting. I feel like it's just crazy we're still having these arguments hosting matters it matters but does it matter for the first seven minutes is it really just about the opening monologue do you think a host has any responsibility of like time of show and like run of show time of show no but how you feel about the time of show or the run of show or there have been moments but there's this hard thing like there is a world in which Tramiel Tillman would be a very good host but not enough people know who that is that's not somebody you can put on advertisements and be like, the guy from Severance is hosting or something like that, where I'm just like trying to think of like someone who's like, I actually have benefited directly from the Emmys recognizing talent.

30:23I am a lovely man who can, apparently a five tool player who can both run a submarine and also a marching band.

30:30Andy Greenwald:I thought you were pitching to the Jeff Hiller hosting. No, I just mean like, or the idea that there is no host, but it's like, you know, groups of actors. But like, I honestly think like every time you pick a standup to do it, you're just tossing a coin. Mulaney could have hosted and had similarly like... But Mulaney has a different relationship. He loves show business. His whole career is a love letter to the different facets of show business. Yes, but he loves like weird Conan and Letterman and like public access television. And like, does he like like song and dance, like sing for your supper shit?

31:03Andy Greenwald:Yes, he loves musical theater. Did you watch the documentary now or his sack lunch bunch? I'm not getting into a debate about whether or not. I just think that like... This is the most spirited argument we've had in three and a half years. Don't tap out now. Who do you want to host the Emmys? I just want to say that the biggest example, evidence of what I'm trying to express here is... I think I'm just so mad that Nate didn't crush. I'm furious. I love that kid, that underdog. I did put a lot of stock into it. And this guy being funny. He is funny. He's fine, yeah. He's, wow. He's fine, he's good.

31:33Andy Greenwald:You're going to lord this over me, huh? One of the nominees for Variety Special was the Oscars, as it often is. but it was the Oscars that Conan hosted. And I feel like that is an exact, that's a comparison point to make. Conan announced as the Oscar host, there's a little bit like, well, why is he hosting the Oscars? He hasn't really been in any movies. What is his relationship to this industry? Is it just going to be like when Letterman did it, you know, 20 plus years ago? Conan did the work and delivered a very, very memorable job hosting so much so that he's already hosting next year's. Like, you got to work to do that job, not just bring your job that you're very good at to a room full of people who are like, what are you doing here?

32:14Andy Greenwald:And I think that like, or when Kimmel's hosted the Oscars, when there was the crazy La La Land thing that happened and it cuts to him, he's ready to meet the moment. Yeah, would Nate Bargatze have been able to handle that? No. He said, he... If they were like, Severance, wait, the pit, what would Nate do? He's like, I just got here. This is so weird. Y 'all invited me here. I gotta go. Like, I don't... You know what I mean? like that bit didn't translate to this now I don't know if he cares about that particularly but it just I'm offended because what I like to see Chris in podcasts or in a word show is his effort and I think he tanked it and I think he's waking up today that's why you love the tush push I think oh you mean in football games or just like as this is just like good job out there in the studio today like Bill's out there just slapping everybody on the way out the door yeah some of your favorite Hell's Kitchen bars yeah All right.

33:09Andy Greenwald:Well, a good night for TV, but a bad broadcast. All right. Let's take a break and we'll come back and do task. Task talk. Let's go. Week two. Right here. You were all fired up about Nate Bargatze. I need that same energy when it comes to crab fries. Do you think that Casey Blois, famous Pennsylvanian, that he is intentionally scheduled task to run week with week with the Eagle season? So week two of task is week two of the season. This is an incredible point. Do you think he did that on purpose? Where's the bye week? I would... Oh, boy, that's a really good question. I think that... What if Taz took a week off if the Eagles had a bye week?

33:45Andy Greenwald:What if Taz ends, right? The only reason I know, and I feel comfortable saying this, is that if we had Casey on the podcast right now and asked him this point blank, he would say, Eagles are football, right? Like, that is what Casey would say. That's not what he would say. A hundred percent. He would say, go Birds. Come on. He would be for us, but we've discussed Philly sports with him, and that's not, you know, He likes jumping in quarries. I know that you watched this episode during the daytime. Yeah, I don't recommend that. Early morning. And that affected your maybe mindset while watching it.

34:18Slightly. I thought that this was even better than the pilot. Yeah. This one's called Family Statements. It's written by Inglesby and directed by Jeremiah Zagar. Again, it's written by Brad Inglesby and directed by Jeremiah Zagar. Yeah. I got it right this time. Hit it hard. Sorry, Jeremiah. and I don't know I feel like you write the checks of the character moments so that when you cash them on the set pieces or attention like they just hit harder yeah and that's that's what Inglesby does for me up there with the best where it's like I'm gonna make you care about 14 people almost I mean we have so many groups now like all these like little clicks within the show and even if you fucking hate the guys in the Dark Hearts, you're like, well, it seems like Jay and Perry are an intense duo and I am now pretty locked in.

35:12Andy Greenwald:Yeah, they practice politics the right way. Oh, God. What did you think of the episode? I loved it. You were right and I appreciate you pointing out that it is challenging to... We have screeners. We're lucky to have them. I watched the show early before the Eagles came. a bad episode of a show in the wrong context could really set me off. Yeah. This was so good that I was drawn in and I actually found myself wishing I had like blackout curtains. Yeah. Because it just did not meet the moment of the show, but I was still completely riveted. I like a lot what you're saying about how you, if you, if you, this show is so much about tone and art direction and vibe and it's sunken in and the cigarettes and the beer and you feel it.

35:59Andy Greenwald:but there is a lot of technique involved here. And I'm glad that you started with that because I was thinking about one of the things that does separate Brad Inglesby from other writers on TV at the moment is that he seems to have a genuine curiosity and interest in every puzzle piece that adds up for the larger trauma picture. I did not know we were going to get the backstory of the plastic Phillies cup that has vodka in it now, for example. I did not know that we would spend time discussing where the imprisoned brother ran after his ill-fated attempt to play. Was it lacrosse or was it field?

36:37Andy Greenwald:It's lacrosse, right? Yes. When he was, nobody passed him the ball during a lacrosse game. And then he had just like stormed off, broke a car window and vanished for several hours only to turn up like in the dugout of a field. Which then becomes a, which becomes plot later when Tom knows where to find his daughter. even a small, almost tiny moment, like how Sam likes his pancakes is just a question when Robbie asks him that. That's just not a question you're used to hearing. Now, I think there's a side argument to be made that the way most big ticket TV shows are constructed and made these days, there just simply isn't real estate for that kind of small emotional character beat because you're too busy establishing why Rhaenyra has the right to the throne or whatever.

37:17Andy Greenwald:You know what I mean? Like, I don't even mean it as a drive-by. I mean that these shows have different purposes. She's on a dragon. You're not really going to get her with a drive-by. That's true. She's going to win. You're driving by in a little electric car being like, bing, bing. Oh, down to 48%. Better pull over and charge. I'll never make it to King's Landing this way. And no more federal credit for my good work. Sorry, man. Can you believe it? I did things the right way. You should have watched Landman a little bit more attentively. Anyway, I just feel like his interest and curiosity in those details is what makes this so much more than the sum of its already impressive parts.

37:55Obviously, there's a lot of things from this episode to break down. Ruffalo's a really gorgeous moment talking about what happened to his family. Not gorgeous, maybe isn't the right word.

38:06Andy Greenwald:It's easier to talk about forgiveness when it's not your loss. Yeah, it's very emotionally trenchant. And the introduction and really immersion into the world of the motorcycle club, the Dark Hearts, who are kind of outside of, you know, this sort of two sides of a coin, Robbie, Tom thing going on. They are the overarching villains of the series. And I think it's really cool to get like an insight into the internal dynamics of it, like that there's like a national mother club or network that runs these local chapters and that Perry's helped Jay usurp someone to take over. but now Jay's like hot-headedness or lack of attention to detail may cost them.

38:48Andy Greenwald:Can I ask you just a sidebar question here? How did you feel about the break in storytelling aesthetics for that sequence? To go away from one of the two people, you mean? No, that's actually another good question that I should have asked you. But specifically when we were getting the download on how the Dark Hearts operate. Oh, and like all the pictures and stuff? We cut to like found footage, photos. I thought that was awesome. Like it was narrating it through. I thought that was good. It was helpful. and I think that it's good to see the show not be done trying stuff after one hour that's a good point and I think a lot of things because you wind up having like a producing director who sets the tone and kind of makes the rules for the visual language of a show often you'll get kind of wrote like hey I gotta follow the playbook from what we have you know and it was cool to see I mean obviously Zagar is directed both of those episodes so maybe we'll get more of that stuff to follow but I thought it was neat to have like it's a pretty darkly lit show to have like this is this guy and this is what he does is a little bit, is pretty effective especially because again this is something I want to check in with you if you had the same experience that I did but Jason is the middle manager of the Dark Hearts who may be in a bit of a pickle here okay right is that who he is he's the guy who wakes up in bed and gets the call and then the other guys like I put you in the guy who's giving me Greg from White Lotus vibes but isn't him yeah that's that's Perry that's Perry and Perry says put Jason in this position right Jason Jason so Jason is an the casting is just unrealness and we have to talk about that but this guy is an Irish actor I don't have his name in front of me we can look it up Sam Keighley Sam Keighley another just like task is I'm not just saying this because most of the people in the cast seem to be from Ireland and the United Kingdom it is cast like a British show in the sense that you just feel like these are the best people for the job and they are unrecognizable if we've ever seen them before and they are pouring themselves into it and it is star making rather than star affirming but anyway that actor Sam Keighley has Robbie sad eyes and he looks kind of like Tom Pelfrey and so I at first was like, is this his brother who we've been talking about?

41:06Andy Greenwald:And then I believe the television show informed us that Jason actually beat Robbie's brother to death. It's implied, yeah. And that Maeve knows about this, right? But did you have a similar confusion momentarily, or do you feel like there's intention in the fact that these broken men all look related in some way? I think that it's probably more about the idea that that's just the way that guys look who do stuff like that. Not like us. No, I mean, I just, but they're built. They have tats. Go hunt. I'm wearing shirts. They work with their hands all day or whatever. If I took my shirt off, it would just say, The Watch.

41:45Andy Greenwald:But with the same illustration we have. But just your half of your face. And then you'd be covering up a Nate Bargazzi tattoo on your chin. It's going to take years. Can I just say Mulaney instead of Bargazzi? Uh-huh. It didn't bother me. I think in the trailer, in the teaser especially, there's a shot of Jason and it looks like in the shot of him on the motorcycle, you're like, is that Pelfrey? Right. But I didn't have the problem in the show. Sorry. What was I going to say about that? I completely took you off guard. You were talking about Perry and you were sort of giving us the background, I think, of some of the Dark Hearts stuff.

42:25Yeah, and that was a good question about like the...

42:27Andy Greenwald:I interrupted you twice. We were really just like, let's break down. what we just said. Let's diagram it. Can we get the whiteboard out? Because Chris said this, then Annie made a joke, but then Chris made a joke inside that joke. And then it was 3rd and 15 and we hand it off for no reason. We were like, field position, baby. Oh, I remember what I was going to say. Yeah, thank you. Good. Margarita LaVeva. Oh, yeah. That's Jason's girlfriend in the show. Damn. See? Not recognizing people that I genuinely like all the time. Turn the brightness up. In my defense, I watched the screener, which is notoriously...

43:05Andy Greenwald:Where should I look? HBO screeners are so dark. Yes. Do you remember watching the screeners? This is a rich problem, but like the episode of Game of Thrones where the Night King comes to Winterfell and the entire thing is dark? Uh-huh. I basically just guessed. You were like, is that the guy from the Dark Hearts? I had no idea what was going on. Bargazzi? I was just riffing at that point. I thought that just getting a little peek into that was fantastic and then what I was going to say about those character moments just to kind of loop back to that was we didn't get much action but the way you spend time with people and many many many many people have reached out to us to discuss DJ Grasanova already yes I will read a note from an email from our listener Patrick.

43:58Shocking development with Hurricane Lizzie this week. There's this phenomenon called the Fujiwara effect, where two tropical storms that get close together begin rotating around each other. Usually this ends in the two storms either merging or one dying off and making the other storm stronger. I think we've got a Fujiwara situation developing between Hurricane Lizzie and Hurricane Grasanova. Can't wait to see how this develops.

44:24Andy Greenwald:This guy's got it. And I just felt it between Fabian Frankel and Alison Oliver in that room talking about DJ Grassanova touring the Catholic school mixer. Playing Flo Rida. Playing Flo Rida. Really freaked me out that that was, if it's Flo Rida's whistle, that means this character was in high school in 2012. Yes. Well, she says her Yahoo name is from 2012. That's fucked up. You were so old. look aren't you happy to see a government run group that's not a gerontocracy like you have to let the young people cook we have to do it my point is like that moment is just so funny and it's so endearing you just immediately feel closer to both of those characters even though they don't get a lot of screen time even though they haven't done a lot of stuff obviously Lizzie has like got a little bit of a touch with this stuff even though she's clearly distracted by her music and her life.

45:22And Grasso is, you know, probably thinking about ascending some sort of ladder here. I mean, this seems like what he wants to do. But their connection is going to make whatever happens over the next couple of episodes that I have not watched ahead, but you can see in the trailers, there's shootouts, there's people being upset. Like, I'm going to be there emotionally with them.

45:41Andy Greenwald:Do you want to do your McBain Live Forever rankings on the task force? I don't. I really, really don't. Who's number one? Let's not say it. We just might be blasting some Flo Rida, I feel like, in memoriam sooner rather than later. That's my guess. I don't like that. I'm sorry. I don't like that. I'm not watching the head. But first of all, what a redemption tour for Sir Kristen Cole. He's really good in this episode. Not just in that scene, but the scene where he's talking about religion with Tom and what never made sense to him about eating meat on Fridays. I thought that was a great scene. Why can't I have a slice of pepperoni?

46:15Andy Greenwald:I also just want, like, I actually got excited about what went on behind the scenes when, whether it was Jeremiah Zagar or Brad Inglesby, like, pulled Fabian aside and explained high school DJ, like, how important the DJs who played high school dances were to people growing up on the main line or Delaware County, or maybe anywhere in America. And I'm sure it's true in the UK as well, so it's not like some foreign concept. But, like, these guys. I think the UK understands DJ culture. they were doing ecstasy way before us I think they have something to learn from Larry the guy that ended every middle school dance by playing Panic by the Smiths and I was like this song says hang the DJ but he's the DJ but like these guys were gods this is the Paul Oakenfold remix of Left Fields Open well I saw the Paul Oakenfold of Villanova play no but like these guys were celebrities because they came into your school and like for two hours like it was not school so I thought that whole scene was fantastic.

47:16Another fantastic moment for me was the last, I don't know, five or six minutes of the... Actually, it's quite a bit longer than that. The sequence of Maeve taking Sam back in.

47:29Andy Greenwald:Okay, let's zero in on this. Okay, so... On the Sam Maeve stuff, because I have some... By that same token of what I'm talking about, where you lay the groundwork with a fun moment or a touching moment so that when that character is put in the fucking shit, you are right there with them. Everything you've seen Maeve do, her struggle with, I gotta get out of here, but I cannot leave these kids. And her, at once, half of her wants to be young and hook up with guys, and she works in a friggin' arcade. Like, there's a suspended childhood to her, like a suspended youth to her, and just old way too fast.

48:07On the other hand, it's like, watching her sort through the moral calculus of, what Robbie's done, who this kid is, what his parents may have done to her family.

48:19Andy Greenwald:Which she, yes, which she is aware of. Which she seems to be aware of. And then furthermore, her wanting to do the right thing, but not knowing what the right thing is until she's put in these incredibly extreme circumstances. Amelia Jones was fantastic in this sequence. She's unbelievable in this show. You also get such a sense I know guys this is stupid we could do this about every single thing everybody's got shopping plazas and like that was so real to me the arcade next to the supermarket next to the whatever talk to me about how you felt about that sequence it was a beautiful expression of what the show's core conceit is is that there's authority there's criminality and then there's humanity and which side are you ultimately going to end up on before we even get into the specifics of what time of night was this where most children are completely asleep, but some children are still playing skeeball at KJs.

49:17Andy Greenwald:That's true. I do have a question about that. That's true. The thing that I want to start with in terms of how this whole thread unraveled was in relation to a conversation we've been having about Alien Earth. Now, I'm not spoiling it. Good. If you're one of those people who skips around, don't worry. We've been talking about the level of plausibility and believability in terms of a horror show where characters have to be dumb enough to like, open the specimen jar or walk to the basement in order for the story to happen. But how many times do they do it and how do you hide the ball in terms of what they're aware of and what they're not aware of?

49:54Andy Greenwald:And what is driving it? Is it ultimately, is it character behavior? Or is it the story has to go this way to tell the story I want to tell? And I thought of that when Maeve is told that this is the son of one of Robbie's colleagues and he's going to be staying with them for a while and she nods. It's not a very convincing story by Robbie, but yes. And then, you know, relatively short amount of screen time later, she takes out her phone and Googles everything about what she has seen and learns everything. This doesn't make her Sherlock Holmes or let alone Dr. House, but it does make her human. And it is an example of a writer being like, what are the challenges, but how are those challenges opportunities if I push things towards plausibility?

50:37Andy Greenwald:These people are smart in a way that engages us. In that episode, and probably in between Sunday to Sunday, what most people are thinking is, how much longer can Robbie get away with essentially taking a child from a crime scene before that kid is all over the news, before there are people who are like, have you seen this boy? There's posters everywhere, and he's not going to be able to leave the house. And the kid himself is old enough to see the television and to be like, something's fucked up here. I like the fact that he's starting to become a little bit suspicious of his circumstances. You're absolutely right.

51:10like it's like a perfect little like everybody like is like no get phones out of tv and movies because it's so annoying that anybody could just google anything but that is exactly the kind of

51:20Andy Greenwald:thing somebody would be like what what the fuck yes and would google it and and he and it forced him to come up with a elegant way to extend the status quo yes the is it you look you could be a very cynical watcher of tv and be like nothing changed in that moment except now Maeve is in on it. But the moment when she got back in the car after believing to have done what she thought was the right thing and the kids in the backseat was a legitimate jump scare, but it was like, oh, and then the tension ratchets up because it's well directed and it's well conceived. And that is that's what we're looking for in dramatic storytelling.

51:54Andy Greenwald:It's always about hiding the ball. It's always about manipulating the audience. But what can you gain from the ways in which you do the manipulation? She's also a person who's obviously like done whatever she can to help these other these people in her family and has a job but like she just seems like somebody who's like i'm i'm just trying to get through my life without massively fucking it up yeah and now look what and that's what she says in the very last line of the episode which is what have you done to us you know and she means those kids too she means everybody around them because it's not just robbie it's going to affect everybody in that house yep and she doesn't even know about the fentanyl, which is really dangerous to have in your trunk.

52:36Seems like a lot of fentanyl too. I think that the one beat I wanted to talk to you about in the episode before we talk about like kind of where this stuff is going.

52:44Andy Greenwald:Just the last thing, the Maeve thing. It was cool that Maeve and Tom crossed. Yes. Like you said a moment ago how many different factions there are. Cool to see it just in small ways starting to overlap already. Well, this kind of goes back. you know you could say tom maybe not the most uh like he was not scrutinizing the situation with the utmost like eye of sauron level of you know detail if you would have his his night you might not either exactly and speaking of like the storytelling choices like the cut when when perry and jason are discussing who their antagonist is who they're up against yeah they cut to him like eating a eating a hoagie yeah and just slopping everywhere and just like we don't have much to worry about there that told us there's two there's there's some problems going on because we've got obviously someone within the dark hearts is communicating with cliff and robbie about where the houses are going to be i've got a guess to you i well so do you think it's the guy who was like that kid six feet deep yes the guy was just like i was eating i wonder if that's a nervous all right herring and it's going to be the other guy but i'm not you're you're probably right okay you're probably right no and then there's a mole inside of the task force or inside of law enforcement who's and that's another place where i'm kind of i'm grass and over and just knew a lot about motorcycle gangs well do you think he was djing some some dance nights at lefty's tap room lefty's tap room can you imagine if uh we happened upon lefty's tap room i had this exact journey.

54:17I know it's late, but can we throw the Emmys on? I just want to see what story Hollywood's telling about itself.

54:25Andy Greenwald:This guy doesn't work blue. Do you like him? I had the exact same thought. I feel like, you know, during our wayward youths or 20s, like we would stop into various taverns. I would be fine at Lefty's Tavern. I know you. I knew you would say that too. First of all, inside smoking, I would love that. I did not know that was still legal? I suppose that's just an indication of the cops looking the other way. No, there was, as I learned earlier in the year. Oh, it's like social clubs, right? Like the great McGlincheys in Philadelphia. I was like, whoa, I've stumbled in here on one night and we've traveled back to 2006.

55:00Andy Greenwald:And then there's a story in the Inquirer being like, you could still smoke at one bar and this is it. And why did you go there? You had to burn your clothes. I just, I do think it would have been good comedy if we had walked into Lefty's Taproom and you would just immediately become the intramural football player that you were in eighth grade and I'm like, do you guys have any Japanese rice lagers? Like, what's anything NA? Do you think I try not to drink on Sundays? It gives me the scariest. The vibes would have been Stephen Graham, Jack Thorne, like standing on stage. I don't think it. Look at me.

55:31I look a lot more like Jack Thorne than I do Stephen Graham. I'm just saying I would. I'm not saying height wise.

55:36Andy Greenwald:I'm saying energy wise. The American experiment is men from all over can sit down right next to each other and just say, that guy needs to make that pass. He's got to make that pass. It's true, but the game was not on. It fucking wasn't. You know what I mean? It was a lot of people going about the hard work of drinking. Yeah. It was a business bar. But they still have their manners. When that guy Bishop walks in, he's like, go greet him. That's true. that's like me talking to my children when they see their grandparents greet him I want to talk to you a little bit about the sort of Brandeis family reunion that happened we get that all explained to us so Tom and his wife had a biological daughter named Sarah who is back in town she lives in Chicago I think now and is back in town with her Sarah?

56:32Karen? Go on and then they adopted a pair of siblings, um, Emily and Ethan. Um, Ethan had some psychological, some emotional problems, was off his meds during COVID because it was difficult to access them and threw his mother down the stairs and killed her. Yeah. And is in prison for that. And this crucial, this titular from the episode title, family statement is coming up where Emily is thinking about maybe making a statement on Ethan's behalf for asking for mercy from the judge. And the judge is apparently taking that very seriously. And it really just pulls apart the family, like right at a dinner table.

57:13And who is the other guy? I think that's their lawyer who is also a family friend. Okay. Yes. So he was in the first episode and explains to Tom, like, here's how this is going to work.

57:25Andy Greenwald:I thought it was so early. I thought he was a colleague, but now I see that. you really have to get a better laptop because it seems like a lot of these things but i love it um look there's not too many new ways to skin a cat and we're gonna come across things in this show and lots of shows like this that are like you know what works trauma traumatized detectives experiencing loss and trying to rebuild their lives probably through their work like it's just something that people respond to the question is whether or not you can either think of a new way to present it visually or performance wise or do you have somebody like ruffalo who is so fucking good he's so good that he can just break through the wall and even though it's the same thing that detectives have been talking about more or less for the last 15 years on television where you're just like uh then a thing happened and i lost my faith in humanity and I don't know, I drink out of a cup now.

58:25That was good. He bursts through and you may find it to be like too cute by half that he is also a fallen priest.

58:35Andy Greenwald:Yeah. But now you know why he fell. Like, you know, like now he's still falling. Yeah. Now you know why, you know, and he's grappling with things from a religious questing kind of perspective. There's a sense that you get from him that he has the patience of a saint and now you understand more deeply why he is modeling his patients on the patients of saints, but also why someone locked in a spiritual struggle internally could look very much like someone who is paralyzed or drowning from the outside. And I think the moment, the way that he plays that scene was so masterful because he doesn't really, that's the moment where a lesser actor in a lesser production, like I don't think anybody would have allowed this, that's the moment where you go big.

59:21Andy Greenwald:And he seemed to collapse inward under the weight of it in a way that was as effective. It was an implosion versus an explosion. And it was incredibly memorable for it. I also love the way that all the little details and choices that we celebrate when we watch the show pay dividends. Like, I, you know, I said this last week, I'm so thrilled that one of the greatest errors of Mare of Easttown, the Rolling Rock sponsorship, was corrected in this episode where they're just pouring yingling lagers out like it's Philly tap water. Yeah. When you have every character drinking from the same long neck bottle and then his daughter shows up and is just swishing a real oaky cab saw of after a long day of travel.

1:00:05Andy Greenwald:You're like, I understand. But I also really, really liked if it was intended or not. You know, obviously Tom has a drinking problem. Yeah. And it could have been inherited by his daughter. You know what I mean? where she's clearly on a night away from the husband tucking in to some oaky bread. Well, I mean, she didn't have a novelty glass that said Mommy's Little Helper on it. You know what I mean? We're not there yet. Do you? Yes. It's from my Japanese rice loggers. Mm-mm-mm. All day I put the edge on, and then a night that helps take the edge off. I have to say, I recently specialty ordered a case of Japanese rice loggers.

1:00:46What? I would think that they were coming from like Yokohama for what I paid for them, but they're like occidental brewing. They're like down the street.

1:00:54Andy Greenwald:Oh, you got like one of the local micro brews that's in the style of an Asahi, but you paid$45 for it. Let's say it was$45. Sure. Wow. Well, it's 24 of them. Okay. How many are left after that episode of Task? 12. I have my own lefties tap room going. I get it. I get it. No judgment. I would say that just for next week, I did not watch scenes from next week, nor have I watched the episode, but it sure feels like we're going into Philly. Yeah, because we have to talk to the, is it the Dominicans who run Philly? Did you know that? I do wish that the time I spent watching the later lesser episodes of Dope Thief counted as research.

1:01:37Andy Greenwald:Like I do wish that they were walking into kind of the same shadowy criminal hierarchy. That it would just have helped. a couple other observations we can just one I wanted to make in particular like I don't think that the the quants will emerge from this episode with this take but I think it bears mentioning on the podcast that Peaches fiance's dad wasn't wrong about Peaches now did he pick the right moment to tell his daughter that he always thought that guy she met online was a low life no I think that in that moment that's not what she needed emotionally but big picture considering that Peach's bad behavior led to the Dark Hearts entering his home and likely beating him to death.

1:02:24Andy Greenwald:I think they are dead. I feel like he should have trusted his Spidey sense there. But also might be a wrong move by Jay because obviously the cops have already been to Peach's girlfriend's family's house so that's going to put them on the scent of the dark hearts, more so than they even already are. Well, I think, again, the cool thing about the show is just some decisions that are made in the construction beforehand, such as we know the crime. We know who did it. We are increasingly seeing the connections as to why Robbie is aware of these drop houses, why he's targeting the dark hearts. There's a personal element to it.

1:03:00Andy Greenwald:But just that the teams are drawn. And the only wild card is Robbie and Cliff. Like, how quickly will they be discovered? which the way that the show is going, which I appreciate, which is they're not stalling for stalling's sake, will be soon. That's the only variable. The task force is there looking at dark hearts and trying to stop people. It's less about stopping the dark hearts, right, than it is about stopping the people who are antagonizing the dark hearts, which could spill over into a gang war in Montgomery County. Did you hear how you just did it over? Which, did I say spill over? Yeah.

1:03:34Andy Greenwald:God, this show's really taking me back, isn't it? It's because I was starting to talk about Monco and I was worried about, you know, bus routes in my stomping grounds. If you have task questions, please hit us up, thewatch at Spotify.com. We'll wrap it up there. Thanks to Kaya, Kai, and John for helping us this week. How do you like your pancakes? Not crispy. Has anyone ever offered you crispy pancakes? Have you ever heard that? Has anyone ever offered you crispy pancakes? I've heard crispy bacon, but crispy or fluffy pancakes is an option that is. I feel like then we'd be kind of getting into like a crepe territory.

1:04:02That's right.

1:04:02Andy Greenwald:That's goddamn right, Kaya. That's the European perspective that we want. I saw in a TV show to be named later, someone ordered a steak crispy with a one sauce. And I have to say, and an ice cold Pilsner. Is that like a, were you watching, I think you should leave? I was watching. It's like a crispy steak with water poured all over it? Some early, early season three severance previs stuff. But I've never, I don't think I've ever had a crispy steak. Yeah, it's not usually how, you know, maybe if you go into Lefty's Taproom, you don't get an option. That's true. uh i get that like a medium rare like a pink but great talking to you today grass fed you did great today do you think yeah that's because you know what i came in i came in with a game plan oh you're so passionate like vic fangio i'll talk to you on thursday i can't wait