‘The Paper’ Restores the (Sitcom) Feeling. Plus, ‘Alien: Earth’ Episode 5 and a Busy September for TV.

23:12Andy Greenwald:It's cool. It's Hollywood, baby. His current wife is making out with John Cena in the show. I know. That's beautiful. Don't be judgy. Come on. It's all kinds. Have you seen John Cena's promotional run for The Peacemaker? What do you mean? He's like a coffee expert. Is he? And he's like, yeah, he's like a really like, he's a real renaissance man. He talks about how you can judge a coffee shop's coffee by how they make a flat white. That's his go-to to test it because it requires demonstrating the artistry of pulling shots, but also milk. That's exactly what John Cena said. He and I have many things in common.

23:52Would it be amazing if John Cena replaced me on this podcast?

23:55Andy Greenwald:And would we tell anyone? That would be amazing. You know? I think the tell would be like the listeners being like, man, CR really cares a lot about coffee now. that would be the only thing and I took over the CDC there you go that seems more likely by the way how many more episodes of Peacemaker have you have you knocked down I haven't I mean that is a show that comes out weekly and I may continue I saw James Gunn teased there will be big cameos at the back end of the second season do you see he's he announced a Superman movie and he's also like there's a Superman movie coming in 27 yeah that's real soon guys like that means they're shooting it imminently I think early next year which is probably why uh cornswood is was not eating the british snacks in that lad bible thing that i saw because he's got to maintain yeah he couldn't slip but he also couldn't say that he was making another superman movie that fast yeah but that's good that's kind of the movie version of what we were asking for in tv like get the seasons renewed like let's make well i'm curious whether or not you know obviously i would imagine that the paper if it's being renewed on its first day of release which is sort of an hbo thing you know like where you wait for it to come out and then you're like we look We're so happy with it.

25:06It's renewed. I imagine that this is always the plan. Yeah, but I think it is. Peacock doesn't have a lot of franchises and the office is kind of.

25:14Andy Greenwald:They need it to work, but I do think it was smart. That was playing the expectation game and the media game well, because I think people do, anything helps to get people to watch something new, even if it is structurally or formally familiar. The sense that there's more coming does help people, I think, commit. I just think that there were aspects of the show like when did we stop valuing expertise in this country? Until I remember January. In the sense that who directed this season of the paper? I mean, Greg Daniels himself, but the office veterans like Paul Lieberstein, who is Greg Daniels' brother-in-law, but also was Toby on The Office and was a showrunner.

25:56Andy Greenwald:Ken Kwapis, Jason Walner, who did The Giant. Tons of Modern Family stuff, they've done this stuff before and also Yana Gorskaya who did What We Do in the Shadows Tazba Chavez who I think worked on Res Dogs like they got people who knew how to do this and then they also had things behind the camera that I appreciate like Alex Edelman who's a stand-up comedian and plays a funny character named Adam in the show is also a writer and producer on the show he's not the only one I'm just looking at the cast list but that's like also that's always been the Greg Daniels DNA is to kind of mix people's roles up and give people kind of different things to do.

26:36A chance to create things

26:36Andy Greenwald:and be writers as well and shape it. And then just the small little details like Alan Havy who has had a long career as a stand-up and is on Mad Men is crushing it in these small parts. Is it Nancy Lenahan? Yeah, Nancy Lenahan who you remember from like a hundred movies plays his secretary and has like one scene in the third episode and I'm like that's very funny. Yes, right. That she's there that's her doing it. That's great. And the sense of like building out that community with people who you're excited to see, including official friend of the podcast, Tracy Letts. Oklahoma's own. By the way, I gave you a hard time for gatekeeping that relationship.

27:11Andy Greenwald:I wasn't gatekeeping it. No, okay, sure. It was just like, who are you texting? You're like, nobody. You're like, oh, it's just my friend, Tracy Letts. It was me and Tracy being like, did you see this Italian crime film called I Will Shoot You in the Face and Then Talk to You Later? it's better when Sabrina Impiciatore says it the context didn't matter I was just like oh this is someone who we admire Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tracy Letts and then you're just like that's my text pal I was like whoa that's crazy but then you gifted the gift of gab he asked that was very nice so now I feel now I can be like friend of the pod that felt good absolutely I would love to have Tracy on talk about sandbaggers but also isn't he a big eastern gate guy huge eastern gate He is the gatekeeper of Eastern Gate.

28:00The Eastern Gatekeeper. It's right there. Did you see there's like five stories right now that are like, this is Eastern Gate? Yes. What did Trump say about troops in Poland? Did you see like the six right-wing German politicians all died the month before the election?

28:13Andy Greenwald:Yeah. Or Trump's like, yeah, more troops in Poland if they want. That's so sick. He's a big if they want guy, Trump. He's like, if you want, sure. You know who else was like that? My grandmother. You do what you want. You always do. That's what you would say. That was like a classic thing. Anyway, we're getting off topic only to say, I feel I'm very bullish on this show. I love watching it. I'm very happy it's here. Yeah. And I just think that there's, it is a specific feeling that is hard to capture in a review, but the enthusiasm and the warmth of like, oh, this is a thing that can grow. This has been planted, and there's something coming up here was exciting.

28:52I think that, I think it's good that they, in retrospect or not in retrospect but after having watched half the season or a chunk of the season knowing that it's renewed I think it's wise that they put the 10 episodes up I think if that pilot had gone up it could easily get lost to the chatter just around like oh football's back and there's all this other stuff happening and it's just like well yeah and then next week one more episode of the paper will be up it was always going to probably be a batch and then weekly after that but I think that now well, this will be there. People can catch up with it.

29:28People can watch it at their leisure. And then maybe the second season becomes a little bit more of an event.

29:32Andy Greenwald:I am generally a week-to-week person, but I just feel like this was smart for NBC, Universal, Peacock to be like, we're in the business of Greg Daniels working in this world. Yes. And so we are not going to be short-sighted about it. We are going to trust the people, the person we hired and the way he hires to do something special here. And it is a weird example of foresight, honestly, because famously The Office was, after the first five or six episodes, people are like, what is this? The British one is better. This is never going to work. Parks and Rec, first five or six episodes, famously kind of weak.

30:09Andy Greenwald:Did not understand its lead character. Retooled, figured it out. It would have been a shame if they had, first of all, I think this is ahead of schedule, but I think it would have been a shame if they had given up on it too early. It comes at a time, as we enter into September here, that is going to be extraordinarily busy over the next couple of weeks in television. And that's another reason why I think it was probably just in... It was smart for them to kind of get all their stuff up. And I actually do wonder if folks at Peacock took a look at what was coming out. Not that these shows necessarily are going to be somewhere I turn pretty big and take away all the oxygen, but...

30:48Controversial episode. It was. It was. It was a controversial episode. it was it was a strange piece of what a lot of people are saying was like trying to sort of rehabilitate the Jare character

31:04Andy Greenwald:oh we are talking about it I thought you were continuing to move on oh okay I have something okay go on did you watch it of course not I've never seen a frame of it what I did experience you are the king of like I don't know what we're talking about but I have a strong opinion That's why I succeed in this fractured media economy. I know. That's my secret sauce. I don't watch any of this shit. No, but I was driving the girls back from their annual physical doctor's appointment, and my older daughter was reading the epistolary, like the last part of the third book, where Belly is in España. No, in the...

31:48I know, in Paris. Yeah. they changed it. She finds the only four nice people in Paris to hang out with. Did you ever meet any of them?

31:56Andy Greenwald:You didn't. She's in Spain and so she's reading me. My last memory of Paris is going to this cocktail bar called Combat and being like here we are and it was like six or no Parisians or drinking and they're empty bar. You can sit over there in the corner like on a stool like all the way over there. It was good though that when you when you went to Paris you went to Paris between London stops. So I saw you before you went and I was like, how's it going? And you're like, it's pouring rain and everyone's mean. And then you came back into the warm, beery bosom of the big smoke. And I was like, I miss Paris.

32:32Andy Greenwald:Suddenly, you're like, why is everyone so nice to me? I don't trust this. No, but she was reading these letters that are from the book that, what's his name? Conrad. Conrad. Writes. And like, they're just constantly like, you don't have to write back. I get it. I'm just going to keep writing you. You're probably dating some like motorcycle driving guy named Benito with a ponytail. And I'm just like, this seems a little like boundary-less. You know what I mean? Is that how your daughter read the letters? No, she was like, this is so romantic. I was like, this is how they get you. I pulled over to the side of the road.

33:03Andy Greenwald:Toxic masculinity. They just tried to do a lot. It was a very Jer-heavy episode considering what the people really want. You are the voice of the people. I'm an avatar. I'm a conduit. They speak through me. It's beautiful. I was just saying that September is a very busy month of television. I thought I'd do a little bit of a preview for the folks. That's cool. Obviously, Paper, Alien, those are the things we're talking about today. Task comes on Sunday. Here we go. I will say that I have watched the first episode of Task. And it's everything I ever wanted from a television show. Say it in the camera.

33:42It's everything that I ever wanted from a television show. Great. It is two dudes on a collision course with each other and Rita's water ice.

33:53Andy Greenwald:Now, I wish it was John's. Yeah. As a water ice purist. Do you like black cherry? That's not my preferred flavor. You ever had the chocolate ice from John's? The what? The chocolate water ice? I have not. And I typically do not like chocolate water ice. Really? Yeah. Yeah. But John's also has a nice disservant of fresh fruit flavors in the summertime. You know, I went to a place in Fishtown called 1-900 Ice Cream. I've been talking about this place. That went crazy. They went crazy. They snapped. Yeah. You dropped something, King. This ice cream cone. What flavor did you get? A vanilla chocolate soft serve swirl.

34:32Do they dip it? With Heath Bar topping in, I had almond, my wife had dark chocolate dip.

34:40Andy Greenwald:I like the dip. They do some crazy sandwiches and stuff too. They do, yeah. Do you, we'll circle back. I was going to bring up some slang that the kids are using these days. But like, do you remember all the slang that we read? Remember when we read Marlon James' great book, Brief History of Seven Killings? Yes. And the entire book is written in like thick 1970s Jamaican patois. You and I did not use that slang. No, no, no. We're reading this book and we're like, wow, this is really like. That was sort of our Asian Hooters moment. You and I walking around. Just reading the book. Being like Brief History of Seven Killings slang.

35:09Andy Greenwald:Do it. I dare you. I dare you. You don't need to dare me because however many years later. I've got more to lose at this point. You told me before we filmed that you have nothing to lose anymore. You are a stateless actor. You are Tom Hanks in the terminal right now. The junior high of Los Angeles, they say gyat. They are using Jamaican slang. How are we going to get in front of this? I think that train left the station. Yeah, but we didn't get the alert. you know what I mean? Amtrak was down that day. Thanks sleepy Joe no Amtrak alerts. The paper Alien Earth Task which rules and we'll be talking about extensively on Monday and then when we get into mid to late September we have the lowdown which we talked about last week the Ethan Hawke Sterling Harjo show set in Oklahoma about a conspiracy addled who goes into down a rabbit hole trying to uncover a conspiracy in Oklahoma English teacher is back.

36:13House of Guinness. My scouts are out, and they are checking it out. House of Guinness comes from Stephen Knight. Stars Anthony Boyle from Say Nothing, and is basically succession about the start of Guinness. Quite a popular beverage these days. Slow Horses is back. That's wild. Again. Great. There is a Jessica Chastain show. The savant. That I'm kicking the tires on. Okay. I'm thinking about taking it for a test drive. We'll see if the salesman lets me go pass a block.

36:44Andy Greenwald:Well, I think that you have a relationship with that dealer, right? The Chastain dealership. I do. Sean, it says Phenasy's Chastain dealership outside on the sign. There's no way to continue this joke. But if something's working out, if there's a new model, they save me a test drive. That's nice. Yeah. And then the gold is coming back in early October. That's been interesting because the gold has been out in the UK, and so people were wondering why we were ignoring it. Yeah, they were like, there's rules. It is not. On September 18th, a show that I really, really need you to be a part of is Black Rabbit.

37:17Andy Greenwald:Oh, that is the Jude Law and Jason Bateman show. One of them is like restaurants in New York. It's basically like, what if a guy owned Schiller's? Go on. Or the, what was the Spotted Pig? That guy got canceled. Not that guy. But like that type of place. Like a hotspot. and it's a lot of restaurant shit in the show this is good for me and then a bad brother comes back but not the bad brother like the restaurant that we like oh why'd you tell me that like if it was just like then Nick shows up and is like how you guys doing this has been a very local no one's in the room with us it's the Philly special episode Kai is on vacation Kai just wanted to give us some space today so nobody's checking us he's cutting the cameras he's cutting the cameras right now yeah he's almost skudmockering wow anyway I think it's going to be a really cool month, but that's a lot of television to fucking watch.

38:08That was so sweet.

38:09Andy Greenwald:That was so pure. I think it's going to be a really cool month, guys. Just don't worry about getting your booster shots. It's going to be a cool month. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks. followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphaya, proper training is required. Tremphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

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39:19Andy Greenwald:Evening. Buyers remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice. I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food, Sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food's wok cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite.

40:02Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, Kung Pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2 % cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2 % cash rewards on purchases.

40:38Say it with me. The ActiveCash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a two percenter. Learn more at wellsfargo.com forward slash active cash. Terms apply. You want to talk about Alien Earth? Yeah, I do. That was the best episode of this series about the dumbest fucking characters I've ever seen in my life. That's very well said.

40:59Andy Greenwald:Do you want to quote the show? This is proof how stupid smart people can be. Well, you have to basically, and I got to tell you something. Yeah, please. Noah Hawley went on House of R and Babu Cissé went on House of R. Cool interview. You should definitely check it out. Mal and Joe and Rob have been breaking down the show all season. And I, I, I, I've, I've heard him on that episode. I heard him talk a little bit on, I believe the official alien podcast. And when I say I heard, I read aggregated quotes from his official alien podcast where he's getting a little flip about like other alien movies, specifically Prometheus and covenant, which he's referring to now as like alternative fiction.

41:46And so like, and I understand he's gotta approach things where he's like as I did with the Coens I am doing with Alien I have to believe in myself, it's my shit it's true, you gotta get those voices out of your head. Now, I'm only being a dickhead about this because I love Prometheus and Covenant and feel like somewhere in those movies is a map to the stars you know, is a fucking highway to heaven. I don't, we didn't quite get there, but it was really close. The on-ramp was visible. Okay. I'll allow it, though. Alright. I think that he was also like, isn't it kind of funny? In some of his conversations, I think he's sort of talked a little bit about like, you know, if you sign up to do one of these jobs like these characters do, where they're just like, yeah, 60 years, everybody I know will be old or dead, I basically I'm getting ground down by a corporation anyway.

42:48These corporations own the world, etc. etc. You're not necessarily going to get the best and the brightest. Okay. And so that is supposed to go a long way, I think, to explaining why the science officer on the Maginot is eating a sandwich and drinking out of a water bottle when they're loosely conducting experiments on alien life forms.

43:14Andy Greenwald:alien life forms that have already been established are predators. And suck all of the blood out of living beings. Yeah. So you have to basically... It's rare that you watch a science fiction show or movie and are like these people aren't that good at their jobs. They're not sending their best and their brightest. That's what I'm saying. Usually you're introduced to a cast of characters and you're just like we're the fucking... The marines they send in aliens are the best Marines. Yes. And they get their asses kicked by the aliens and it's only through the ingenuity of Ripley that, you know, they, quote unquote, become victorious.

43:54But watching this and watching the people on this ship, you're just kind of like, oh man. I mean, again, there's also like... That can be a frustrating thing to watch, is what I'm saying.

44:03Andy Greenwald:I found it frustrating to watch. I also think that, and again, in a vacuum in space, I do admire this about Noah as a creator and as an auteur. he loves aesthetic choices and that defines his work as a director as much as anything else and I'm okay with that. Like we like Wes Anderson. Like I like people who have, who make committed choices to an aesthetic. And I think that the pieces of the alien mythos that were compelling to him, certainly visually, were a kind of, and I know there's a word for it, I forget it. It's used to describe Star Wars as well. It's like a type of future, which is like a little bit busted.

44:41Andy Greenwald:But that you're taking some of the same technology or the appearance of technology that Ridley Scott used in the first Alien, like clunky keyboards or non-high-def screens and very ham radio vibes, I like the continuation of that. I prefer that. I think it makes for visually interesting storytelling and kind of, you know, sort of a surprise makes you lean in instead of lean back kind of stuff where it's like, oh, a very liberal smoking policy in the airlock of space on the ship. But when they made the first Alien... Yes, there was a liberal smoking policy anywhere. People smoked literally everywhere.

45:15On airplanes, so why wouldn't you do it?

45:16Andy Greenwald:So I appreciate that. I think that there were elements, though, that were challenging, one of which being, I think to your point, no one appears qualified for any of the jobs they have, including captain, sub captain, security officer. Well, security officer seems decent. He seems quite qualified. But like medical officer, not because he's smoking, because, you know, doctors used to endorse cigarettes. Yeah. More that when they are doing open torso surgery, no one thinks to put on a mask. Now, again, maybe this is our future, and, you know, the CDC no longer recommends that doctors wear masks.

45:50Andy Greenwald:That's very possible, so maybe I should be thinking about it that way. But, like, there's a series of required suspensions of disbelief that escalated and escalated, and I found challenging. Some of which I thought Noah Hawley, who wrote and directed this episode, played for almost comic effect. He did. It's intentional. He knows what he's doing. Chibuzo, who is played by Karen Aldridge, who people may remember from Severance, and I believe Fargo, is the science officer. And her whole, like, I've left my Stanley jar, like, my Stanley cup, like, open, and I also have, like, a deli sandwich next to this eyeball, and I'm kind of just all over the place.

46:33And I also liked the light suggestion that they've been in space so long, and been in space so long with these things that she's starting to develop, like a camaraderie with some of the... Yeah, for this amount of time,

46:44Andy Greenwald:standards have definitely fallen a little bit. But when it comes to, we just didn't notice that there wasn't a guy in the sleeping pod, which all seemed to be in the same room. I'm like, well, that just seems like plot mechanics. You know, when they're like, oh, where's Petrovich? It's like, well, didn't you look? Like again, part of the challenge I'm finding in... Well, there's two things. I think I should just call it if I was swept up in the human or emotional drama of the show I don't know if I would be picking Nitz as specifically as I am I'm not particularly engaged with the characters as we met so far outside of Morrow who I think is a great actor and a really interesting part since this is very much a showcase episode for him and he gets to move around a lot more I was just like blown away by him again I continue to be most impressed by the thoughtful structure and scaffolding of the show in the season.

47:39Andy Greenwald:I don't even think I've mentioned that. I just think that the, the kid, the way that the show communicates previously on within the framework is awesome. It's so stylish. It's stylish. It's thoughtful. It's fresh. Um, doing the, the structure of like a mini episode of alien in the first two episodes and then a step back and then doing alien as a flashback here. I thought that was just very clever, um, very clever, uh, architecture. especially for the way we watch TV now. That said, I want to know your opinions as the alienologist. This was Noah making an alien movie. He had an hour, he took an hour to do it which is shorter than most movies but got us from A to absolute destruction and Z.

48:25At the end, what did it do right?

48:29Andy Greenwald:What, in terms of like honoring the things that you like about these movies, what did it do freshly or differently in the sense that all people who have directed an alien movie get their chance to say what's interesting to them? And what do you feel like it did wrong within its hour-long framework? Yeah, I think that he, first of all, and you could also ascribe this to the past accomplishments of Ridley Scott and James Cameron and H.R. Geiger and the people who, all the screenwriters and writers who have worked on the first two aliens to honor and also iterate on the production design, the world, the feel, the feel of this ship, the feel of how it must be.

49:06yeah um the mother room yeah the mother room is awesome like the the crowded uh the crowded bridge that they have um oh yeah that's another thing small details you don't ever see a crowded spaceship yeah the dynamic of the um of all of the remaining surviving uh shipmates who now are for the most part like Zaveri is the acting captain but is just also an exo who had been sleeping with the deceased captain

49:40Andy Greenwald:no I think she was sleeping with a science officer Bronski I think Bronski Beat was named after him that's probably right they probably did do that you know the Jeremy Bisping and Michael Smiley characters who are the mechanics like kind of in the tradition of Harry Dean Stan and Yafek Kodo I think ultimately though and I actually like I think they left some really good stuff on the table with Andy Yu who was playing Tang who is the sexually deviant navigator who I think we were led to believe was a synthetic I thought that was the implication but is apparently just a creep and also is kind of like what if you had a creeper in space in space everyone can hear you creep but ultimately this is about Moro and this is about Cissé's performance again and it was like if that had been the series, if that had been the season, if it was like this season is about getting to Earth, I would have been fascinated.

50:38And I think you could have done that, but you don't have Peter Pan and you don't have Kirsch and you don't have Boy Cavalier except for being on TV. I just think the action in this episode is quite good. The alien behavior is new.

50:55Andy Greenwald:I want to ask you about that. There's a lot of interesting developments on that side. But I found it suitably entertaining and thrilling. But it's really about Moro for me. He's a character that I have not seen in this world before, and he is just deeply fascinating to me. Yeah, and I think it's a shame that... It was like a throwaway reference in what you were saying, and it feels a little bit throwaway within the series, that this is a guy who had a family and to get a paycheck said goodbye to them forever, but then with a forever he didn't even anticipate with the message that his daughter has died.

51:36And I don't mind that, and I did think it was like humanizing for him, but I actually find the other part of his motivation more interesting.

51:42Andy Greenwald:Yeah, I'm saying, I found it interesting, but I also found it almost a shame that it's just like a little bit of scribbled backstory to fill in. It's like anytime a character is sitting alone looking at photographs, like okay that's shorthand to give us some sort of emotional thing I'm not pretending that like people are not above it that is a hallmark of visual storytelling but there is so much in the decisions of this one character to change his body to give up his family to become essentially a Ronin for capitalism and that's the thing that fascinates me is that in a world where four or five corporations are running the planet the CEOs of those corporations become gods and the people become religious addicts.

52:26And so the idea that Morrow would be like, I have no family. Your mother rescued me as a palsied beggar and turned me into like a gladiator, essentially. My sword goes to her and to this family and to this mission. And then that's what's guiding all of his decisions on that spaceship is, you know, Risha Morjani's character is very, is like, well, we have to like save this person and save that person he's like the only thing i'm saving is the specimens yeah i find

52:57Andy Greenwald:that's the only thing i care about is the cargo it is i don't want to come off being like it is a sin that the show's biggest problem through five episodes is that it has too many good ideas yeah that's that's pretty awesome it's pretty cool um i think that we are experiencing and we we should check ourselves that like three episodes to go potentially future seasons it's too soon to say oh, Noah's not interested in that. Or the powers that be wanted more of an alien show and then he wanted his show and then this third part. This is way more alien than I thought it was going to be. Ultimately, I think that too.

53:29Andy Greenwald:So I do want to ask about some of the alien behavior. Let's start with our friend, the newly hatched xenomorph in this episode. What's its motivation? Now I don't mean like... The one running around? Yeah. The one, first of all, it's very human. Like clearly like someone in a suit, which is interesting. Yeah, and each movie takes, I mean, there are people who are keepers of the flame about alien behaviors way more so than I ever could be. There are, each filmmaker brings a different interpretation to alien movement and alien behavior. So Fincher's aliens are way different than Ridley Scott's, are way different than James Cameron's, are different than Fetty Alvarez, etc., etc.

54:10Andy Greenwald:But do any of them do what the alien did in this one, which is corner in a dramatic way? what's her name? Zaveri. Zaveri, yeah. And then trip her, I guess to make it more fun and sporting? That felt like predator behavior. Right. That alien kills. Like they don't, I think that alien could drag Zaveri back and make it part of like a big alien honeycomb breeding thing. That's fun. They do in aliens and stuff like that, but there is usually, it doesn't really matter. I mean, I did find it playing with its food a little bit. Yes. It was strange. Yes. But then the eyeball also seems to... Well, so the eyeball is maybe the hero of the show?

54:57Yeah, it's like people have compared him to Baby Yoda. The eyeball is just like, hey.

55:01Andy Greenwald:Many people are saying, hey, the blood bugs are out. Like, I thought that was pretty sporting of it. I suppose we're supposed to interpret that as there is alien on alien beef. and they're not working in concert with each other, but rather like, no, I want it, I want it, I want it. And the eye needs a live host, right? Like it needs, it gets in and then it's like, I keep you alive and control you a little bit. Meat puppet, if you will. I thought that was very, I thought maybe it had developed a fondness for our unhygienic science officer in that moment. kudos to Noah and his team for really mining a lot of effective nightmare fuel yes but it's good to take the scariest possible thing which is an eyeball that is an alien that jumps into your eye socket and make it cute that wasn't the worst thing the blood bugs that vomit baby bugs into your water bottle you never have a problem with is if you just drink Aquafina and you unseal it and it's like I can see there are no blood bugs in here Nothing in here.

56:10Andy Greenwald:Nothing in here. Not even any nutrients. No, it's literally nothing. There are microplastics swimming around, but you're good. You're good for another 10 years at least. Yeah, that was horrifying. It's horrifying. You're a water bottle guy, right? I got one right here. Do you ever just take a peek in before you take a sip? Now, either I, here's the thing. I either have to choose to do that every time or never do it. Yeah. Like, there's no middle ground here. You drive yourself mental. I liked the fact that it wasn't you know I was I love it when somebody is like you think it's going to be this disgusting thing but it's going to be much grosser I thought she was going to like take a drink and the thing was going to go in and instead it spooched in her water and then left yeah it was like my work here is done I feel like I need to be more attentive like I feel like this was instructive for me because recently it's heat wave here in Los Angeles and the bugs come out, like flies and stuff flying in the house.

57:08And my younger daughter screamed and then breathlessly reported to me

57:13Andy Greenwald:with like Toledo truth teller levels of detail about a fly had landed on my toothbrush. And she was like so revolted by this. And I guess I'm worried that my first response wasn't as strong as hers. I'm a little bit like, maybe a little bit like, you know, these kids toughen up when they go on the New York City subway and touch the pole. You know what I mean? Sure. I did get rid of the toothbrush. Where's the camera? Did you really? I did, but then I kind of felt like... Wash it in hot water? She was like... I just felt like there were market forces in the house that I just couldn't avoid it, but I don't know.

57:50I still feel like with your younger kid especially, you're still in that zone where you can just lie.

57:57Andy Greenwald:Oh, surely. And you can just be like, that's a friendly fly. yeah but then I felt like that is because one thing you have to do there's a I believe this is where the term double consciousness comes from I want to be parenting in the moment but I'm also always checking for the things that are going to come up in therapy later therapy or yours great question buddy no that like at some point they'll be like how did you feel about your father he was a decent man with some wrong opinions that he was not afraid to share with the world and he was foul and unclean because one time a fly sat on his toothbrush.

58:34Andy Greenwald:So I had to like just take that off the board. I remember there was this one time my wife and I were in Maui. This is a relatable story already. Go on. It was our first trip we had made after moving to Los Angeles and we went to Maui and then we did the road to Hana. Oh sure, it's a long road. It is. Very stressful for a marriage. And we got to Hana. Were you driving? Yeah, I drove. Oh brother. and a lot of slow down slow slower and we got there and like you know had dinner or whatever and she went to sleep and like at some point in the night I like turned a lamp on to find something and when I looked up there was just like an array of of Olympic athlete bugs on the ceiling they were just like not like ooh a fly it was just like a beetle the size of Lawrence Taylor Like maybe he won't notice me.

59:28Andy Greenwald:Yeah. And I decided like Lawrence Taylor. And I was like looking at it. They were looking at me. Yeah. And I was just like, we're just going to turn the light off. Yes. And we're going to, we're not going to tell her for sure, you know, for days. And she won't listen to this podcast. So you're safe. But it's like, sometimes you just have to pretend like it didn't happen. You know what I mean? What's the harm? I mean, I guess the engineering crew of the Maginot found out what the harm was. so there's a there's a line but you know we're thinking about it yeah but we all have to like we have to live our lives you know you can't respond to everything do you think Zerri brought the dirt from Utah with her expressly for the purpose that if she hooked up with a guy and he died she'd pour it on his uh corpse or good question do you think it was just like hey a little bit about me I'm from Utah this dirt's great I think a little little thing about me I carry a fisherman's tackle box with 50 vials of dirt from all of the Weyland-Yutani states.

1:00:30Andy Greenwald:And which state are you from, future paramour? And it's like Utah. She's like, okay. Or maybe he gave that to her. And he was like, when we get back, we're going to move to Zion. So please just hold this dirt for me in case I die violently in front of you. Yeah. It is thoughtful, you know, in terms of its planning. I thought it's very like, sometimes leaders meet the moment. You know what I mean? And other times I feel like they don't. Yeah, she was not quite Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide as exos go. She was not ready. She was not ready for prime time. The last scene of this episode is Moro meeting with the Yutani heiress, or the current CEO of Yutani, and she's convinced by his passion.

1:01:12And she's just like, give this guy whatever he wants to go recover the specimens and fuck Boy Cavalier up and whatever else. I mean, this has gone fast. There are only three episodes left. Yeah, I've really enjoyed this. I think we obviously have our critiques of it, but I'm not sure how popular this is. It seems like it's a really big show. I mean, I know that there was the release statistic that 9 million people over six days watched the first episode, and I assume it's continued somewhat apace to that, but it does feel like it's been a success.

1:01:49Andy Greenwald:This is one of those things where, like, it does feel like that the only ways we really, really know how successful something is for the larger streaming, the parent company of the streaming service in which it is on, it's either if it is a out-of-the-box shock, like the bear season one, being like, oh, this is just undeniably everywhere and we didn't expect anything, so now we're crowing about it. And everybody's like, yeah, chef. I'm just keeping things in the FX world then. The other example of that would be Shogun, where they went all in, it was hugely expensive, and then clearly they were justified for it, so they couldn't stop bragging about it.

1:02:23Andy Greenwald:Something like this is fascinating to me, and I would love to get under the hood and actually know. First of all, what makes this successful to the Walt Disney Company is unknowable to us, like in terms of market penetration or awareness or brand management or the relationships with the Thai tax board or whatever else they're trying to keep happy. Creatively, they seem happy with it. Noah's someone they've been in a relationship with for a long time. I think they're very happy with the reviews, and they're certainly, like, again, like, we'll have a big podcast when the show is over, but the way that it's structured, if you think about it, like, this was a huge episode, and there are three left, and everything that's left on the board feels enormous in terms of things breaking out, things breaking in.

1:03:05Well, it's got such good, and honestly, to Noah's credit, to Noah Hawley's credit, you know, with Fargo, he always gets to end it at the end of the season and he can burn his ships. Burn the boats. Here, assuming this has got a multi-season arc in his head and he's talked about it, that is the case, this is going to be a lot more about putting chess pieces in place for the future. And I think that it has a lot of potential. And I'm also really impressed with the fact that for as much as I enjoyed what is the timeline of Yutani reading about that stuff on Alien Wikipedia. I didn't really think that somebody was going to be able to pull this off.

1:03:45And he has done so by, yes, serving you some of the flavors that you're used to, like basically giving us three hours of Alien movie in the opening episode, the second episode, and now this fifth episode. But also, obviously, delving into a lot of his own real fascinations. And even when I'm not fascinated by what he's fascinated by, I kind of respect the move. Totally.

1:04:09Andy Greenwald:And I just think it's interesting the way it is unknowable how these larger companies are considering the projects they invest in, invest heavily in, and what timeline they're looking at. Like, I think we are used to covering on a podcast twice a week basis, the sort of shock turns like, oh, Shogun, they're going to submit it as an ongoing series. They're going to throw more money at it and find more story. Like, how lucky they had this. These corporations and networks and streaming services, I mean, they are currently, they're scheduled. I honestly thought you were talking about the corporations in the alien universe.

1:04:40Andy Greenwald:We're not there yet, but you could probably find the way Scheinhardt Wig Company becomes. Yeah, Yutani. They are already programmed through 27. Like, they know what's going to be on through 27. They are thinking about 28. They are also conversations that are just almost abstract to us. Like, within FX, they might be getting around a table and being like, Like, well, we have, part of our mandate is to do things with the IP that we're allowed to play with. We, part of our mandate is to have a quote-unquote big show or one or two big shows that can compete at the Emmys with the attention economy, win Reddit or whatever.

1:05:18Andy Greenwald:What is more valuable to them? To greenlight another$300 million for season two of Alien Earth or to potentially set on fire$300 to$500 million starting another one from scratch? Yeah. I don't actually know how those conversations go, but I find it interesting. And so I think we were having a text about like, well, how many people are watching this show? What is its market penetration or whatever? Not because that affects how we feel about it, but I'm curious. I think it's unknowable. I don't know what the return on investment is. I think all we could say is this show is working. Even though I'm not in love with it, I found this one tough to watch.

1:05:57Andy Greenwald:Because, again, because I have a water bottle. But, but there's stuff here. Yeah, there's definitely stuff there. Did you want to talk at all about Cot Stealing? Yeah, we went to the movies. Yeah, well, separately. Why do you keep saying that? Are you worried that people think we spend too much time together? No, but I just was like, you independent of me. Yes. Went to see Cot Stealing instead of weapons, which is fine. I have my outlet for weapons coming soon on the big picture. And then we went to dinner. Yes. Can we say that we went to dinner together? Yeah. I feel like you're kind of like reclaiming your space.

1:06:29Andy Greenwald:that's fine it was a long weekend usually we do take time off from each other I just don't want people to know I go to Asian Hooters that much and then at dinner I was like yeah it was good and then you were like yeah I don't know maybe we'll go see it you were playing a little coy but you saw it you both saw the film Caught Stealing now there's no way to talk about this movie without having a spoiler discussion so if you haven't seen Caught Stealing Andy and I both recommend it it's a really honestly pretty fun movie and especially if you like the kind of stuff that Andy and I like detective-y urban fiction you'll enjoy it also before spoilers kick in it's also set in 1998 in New York City which is you're speaking my language weirdly not enough coverage of the internship crew at Matador Records that summer I feel like there was a moment when there could have been some little overlap there I don't think I would have survived but then really no one does no just that what I found really charming about seeing this movie was it was just a fucking movie like I this is what we talk about that they've taken from us in a way.

1:07:29Andy Greenwald:You know, it's Charlie Houston, a great crime novelist, adapting his own book, Darren Aronofsky, a great director who historically does not make the most crowd-friendly stuff or at least the most like fun stuff, having fun. For a while, yeah. You mean in the movie? Yeah. Oh yeah, I mean it's dark, but it is also, it has a vibrancy and lightness of spirit and tone that I wish there were more, I just wish there were movies like this. I wish that it was more successful counter-programming than it seems to have been. Because this is a pleasing movie experience. Yeah, and I think that it does a convincing, if not like note-perfect job of recreating a time and a place that is obviously very close to our hearts.

1:08:13But also just like great music, great hangs. Great cat. People chilling in a bar, a cat, yeah. and a good kind of um it reminded me of the uh post pulp uh run of indie or studio indie crime movies where it was like a bag of money and all these different criminals and then you know people have compared it to snatch or to uh lock stock into smoking barrels i think that what's different about this movie and this is where we kind of get into spoilers if you if you want but you know there's this Charlie Houston novel which I haven't read so I don't know how faithful it is and it's the first of a trilogy and it's the first of a trilogy and for people who don't know this movie is about a guy named Hank who is an ex-baseball player living in New York City bartending kind of more or less wasting his life staying out real late, drinking beers all day he's got just basically the hottest girlfriend that's ever existed which is Zoe Kravitz as a paramedic

1:09:17Andy Greenwald:Can I just, as someone who was quite vocal about the ending of Twisters, can I say, having a movie with hot actors who have sex with each other and are into it, that's good for the culture. So, it is a very, very, very fun fucking movie for an hour, and you're like, I just want to live in this. We did, to a degree. And then the Zoe Kravitz character gets killed. As does everyone eventually. Yes, almost everyone. Yeah. And I think that this is an example of, I understand how it would make sense in a book and I understand how it makes sense in a page. And I even understand when Darren Aronofsky's like, here we go, we're going to do X, Y, and Z.

1:10:01It's going to make sense in the movie. But then when you get five scenes of Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz. You want more? Well, it would just turn me into John Wick if she was taken from me, you know? It kind of works that way. It kind of does. It is kind of like, what if John Wick was just a bartender and not like actually a superhuman. I get it. But like the tone of the film remains a little bit probably more buoyant than I would expect. Yeah. After her demise.

1:10:28Andy Greenwald:I think, I mean, you could flip it the other way and say like this is an example of excellent casting. Absolutely. Pushing something into a stratosphere that it didn't necessarily expect to be. Like the emotional heaviness of that lingers. her absence is felt the gravitational pulse shifts I think these are good problems and this is cast it's insane the people that are playing these roles by the way give me more funny Liev Schreiber please shout out day trippers this dude actually is funny but usually by the way are you aware that Liev Schreiber's internet presence is entirely talking about Ukraine and then also promoting a whiskey that he's the owner of it was just not an online presence that I expected for Ray Donovan.

1:11:17Andy Greenwald:Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Just like, oh, okay. He's keeping busy. And by the way, for the record, I'm objectively pro-Ukraine and pro-whiskey. So I'm not picking a fight here. No, I know. But it's funny when somebody is like, I have two passion projects. And here they are on my Instagram. Yeah. Anyway, the casting across the board is excellent and it lifts the entire thing. Just like the direction is excellent because this guy really knows how to direct a film and it is vibrant, it's fun. and there's like a, what I imagine to be a drone shot like along the backs of the buildings in the Lower East Side when he's sneaking out on the fire escape.

1:11:49Andy Greenwald:It's an awesome sequence, yeah. It's a beautiful shot and it's just all better than it needed to be. And I kind of miss that, the sort of the elevated B movie into a B+. I think that - That's exactly what it is, yeah. I think that it's a good sign that the movie had the thing at all that it loses when she goes off the board. Yeah. And then like Matt Smith, again, is just really taking advantage of his moment of being like, oh, that's a guy who's good at stuff. and playing characters and doing things. And everything is a little bit better than it should have been. Like the good English band Idols does the soundtrack.

1:12:19Andy Greenwald:And it's like Griffin Dunn playing the bar owner. All these small details added up to something that I just found entirely delightful. I highly recommend it. Sorry for spoiling it if you listened through this to get to the fact that we're recommending it. This is just classic podcasting by us. I did not... I don't know. Maybe something's shifting in me. Because like both the paper and caught stealing, I'm like, yeah, I loved him. I just had a great experience. I like liking things. It's fun. I know you do. And I think there was nothing about caught stealing that I was like, I don't like this. It was really more of a like, I don't know if the second half of the movie pays for the first half of the movie.

1:12:59Andy Greenwald:Because you were super in on the first half of the movie. Yeah, I really was. I mean, it's also just a nature of, I don't need to tell you about how movies work. You know much better than I do. But like, they were committed. You know, it is not, it's an example of like chemistry sparking or something working that in a TV show you can then write towards. But in a movie, you're like, we've already left the station. We're rolling. I just wanted those two crazy kids to make it work, you know? Talk to me, just before we go, give me your pitch for Austin Butler, leading man. Are you pro? Well, the number one thing about him is he has great taste.

1:13:32Or somebody who is his manager or agent has great taste. because I think that he's gone about his career in a really, really good way where he's working with really interesting filmmakers. He's taking a variety of different kinds of parts. I don't know what his range is as of yet. Like whether he's in Bike Riders or Caught Stealing or Masters of the Air, he looks the same. He largely acts the same. Yeah. You know, like he's Austin Butler. You could say that is the sign of a movie star that Robert Redford is Robert Redford, whether he's in The Candidate, downhill racer or three days of the condor and that's very effective for him um it's i i haven't quite gotten there yet with him like as an emotional kind of we're in the same place like being but i do think he's cool and i do think he's funny and i do think he's a convincing person in an action set piece but there's a there's i think something is like he's hiding something a little bit not hiding something like he hasn't given it he hasn't revealed it I'm like, put Austin Butler in a congressional area?

1:14:36Put Austin Butler on the - Where are you hiding, Austin Butler? Put him at the CDC.

1:14:39Andy Greenwald:Yeah. He, yeah, he's cool, hot, has good taste. And this movie is so perfect for someone in his, in the place he is in his career. In that it doesn't work. I know how to have fun. That's what he said in this movie. It doesn't work if he's not charismatic, if he's not the star that this whole, you know, carousel of broad characters. And the characters are broad. I mean, like the Bad Bunny character, Action Bronson, like there's a lot of big acting. Vince D 'Onofrio, Liev Schreiber. It's big, swirling around him. It works with that actor in the middle of it. I, you said it better than I could. I keep looking at him being like, well, what's there there?

1:15:23Andy Greenwald:It's not bad. And there are, you know, very successful careers of people who aren't, who don't have other layers because this layer is enough. but I just don't I don't quite see it yet but it worked for this this was a perfect movie for him if anything I'm interested in checking out the other books in the series by Charlie Houston Charlie Houston is a great writer who deserves more of our time he had a book last year that called Catch Penny that I recommend incredibly incredibly highly he's a phenomenal and cool writer and a little cameo in this movie yeah and I believe he is a Giants fan which is evident by the by the film alright everybody thank you for listening.

1:16:03We'll be back on Monday, believe it or not, and we are going to be talking task episode one.

1:16:08Andy Greenwald:Are we going to redecorate next week? We haven't really. We have to start just bringing stuff in. It's not like my wife would love for me to get some shit out of the house, so maybe we should just start bringing books in and stacking them. I'd like to see, could we just get a corporate card and buy everything again? Buy what again? Oh, all the shit that we own? I'll ask Bill. I mean, to be fair, every few years, he's goes shopping for a new studio. To be fair, his show is 100 times bigger than ours. That's it? It's only 100 times bigger? What happened? Are numbers up? I don't know. I'm just throwing out a ballpark figure.

1:16:44I think Bill's show commands a slightly larger capital investment.

1:16:48Andy Greenwald:Do you think that would be the case if we just shifted to all Eagle stock? And by Eagle stock, I mean Don Henley, Joe Walsh. It does make me wonder whether we should do our Thursday show, to just guess the lines, but for the next episode of Task. That's fair. You will have to explain gambling to me. Okay. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to John. Thank you to our listeners. We'll be back on Monday with Task. Please watch it on Sunday night. Go Birds Brains.

1:17:22This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods, who has your back to school eats sorted. Wow, we're going back to school already. They've got your fast and easy breakfast covered with frozen waffles and pancakes. Lunchboxes are looking tasty with organic seedless grapes and baby carrots and essentials like cheese sticks. Then for dinner, you can build your own meal. Choose from a variety of entrees like chicken scalopini in two sides, and it's all good too. Whole Foods has banned more than 300 food ingredients storewide. Shop back to school must-haves at Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures.

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