The WGA’s Surprise Deal With the Studios, Bad Robot Downsizes, and the State of International Crime Thrillers on TV

21:04Andy Greenwald:Because he's a girl dad. Have we mentioned that? Who, Joaquin Puntrier? Uh-huh. Yeah. Is that... I just watched the interest drain from you. I like to have that. Must be nice. Okay. To have children? No, to have to be a girl dad. You don't care. I care. No, no, no. You care about me. Yeah. But that is not a driving force. I could care less if a director is a girl dad. I know. Yeah. You know who else cares? Sean. Sean's with me on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What about guy dads? I respect what you're doing. go have catches like we need good men in this world yeah yeah yeah I loved the drama that's awesome I thought it was quite good but also you said you liked it if I don't mean to blow you up here and do reportage on your text sure but it seemed like you liked the experience of seeing the movie a lot and then you also liked the apres cinema you liked talking about this movie yes and I'm sorry I can't back you up on it but I will see it I really enjoyed going out to dinner with my wife after seeing the drama and then talking about the drama a bunch you know what was And being a little Justin Chang and being like, well, look what he says.

22:05It was a very engaged evening.

22:08Andy Greenwald:First of all, you are both very engaged conversationalists about culture. It's enjoyable. What is, off the top of your head, what was the worst post-movie dinner conversation you've ever had with Phoebe? Was it when you had to take her to see The Eternals or something? No, it was like she tapped out on going to movies that she knew she was going to hate a long time ago. I think we left the film 21 grams in the middle of it because it was giving her a panic attack. Fair. And I don't remember what we did afterwards. We might have gotten drunk. That's probably why you don't remember. That's awesome.

22:42Andy Greenwald:Yeah. That's great. Okay, I wanted to see if you had any pit thoughts before we get into the international crime shows. Not necessarily about the episode, or for sure about the episode if you'd like, and also about the cast changes and the general state of the series as we enter, I believe, the last two. Yeah, I mean, I think that they're... One of the things that I have just loved, and I think I've been beating this drum pretty consistently for the last few weeks, is I absolutely love the way the show is surprising us and manipulating us in the best possible dramatic way with pace and expectation.

23:19Andy Greenwald:The season is not going to end without something else big happening. I don't think there's going to be necessarily resolution to Robbie's dark night of the soul, dark day now into the night of the soul. But I think that story will be pushed more into the center of the table in one way or another. But the fact that this episode felt very like both at once kind of elegiac and like

23:45Andy Greenwald:reflective for the day that was and people and, you know, and Ogilvy has changed so profoundly over the course of this, of these 12 hours, but everyone has been changed slightly by what has happened. To have that happening concurrently with the show's honest-to-God superpower, no other show has ever done this, which is just like, if you need a shot of, I guess not Versed, the opposite of Versed. Yeah, adrenaline. We have an entirely different cast of this show just ready to roll. Yes. Just to show up and give us completely new blood, new faces, new energy, new relationships, new perspective. It's unprecedented, and it's so, so exciting.

24:22Andy Greenwald:And of course it's the fact that it's so exciting is why people are immediately fan casting and wishing for spinoffs but it also this is what you're referring to in terms of the news um makes sense that the show has the other thing that it has that other shows have never had is a farm team of just characters that could be upstreamed to the main cast and be part of it which is what's happening with Aisha Harris's I believe yeah Dr. Ellis Dr. Ellis's character who like all these night shift people from Dr. Shen to Jack. I mean, these guys, Mateo, these guys all have main character energy. And they are the main character of the non-existent night shift show.

25:00Andy Greenwald:But that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And, and again, like the, it is unique to the show, or maybe it's not unique to the show. There have been other shows that we've talked about that have like a built-in mechanism for cast turnover and the shows that have used it that well. they can do things where like I think that Dr. Mohan who I I'm a fan of the actor and the character it seems it's I don't think anybody watching this season was surprised that she may have that story may have reached its natural end her character was going to go one of two directions she was either going to be like I am going beast mode and now understand the pace and demands of of this department or I'm a really good doctor, but I don't really want to do this kind of medicine.

25:48Which I think is a totally, I think one thing that's cool about what the show does is it just gives you the viewer the information. When Whitaker is talking to Ogilvy and Ogilvy is like, I'm going to go do peds or something. Whitaker's just like, this is the only place where like you really feel like, I feel like I'm making a difference in people's lives and you see them on their worst day. That, that seems great.

26:10Andy Greenwald:One thing that'll be interesting to track as the show runs two, three, four, eight seasons, it can be, cruel isn't the word, but it can be swift in its determination about things. And they can say, I have no reason, two things to say. One, I have no inside information whatsoever about the production of this show. That said, I believe them when they say that Supriya Ganesh is moving on because that character, for story reasons, has reached the end of its story road and they're going to switch it up. Tracy Afichwa who played Dr. Collins in season one her departure that she never came back from her D &D notice on her phone still strikes me as super odd but they can say it's story reasons because this is turnover yeah they can so I guess what I mean is that like as we reach season five and season six of the show new faces get announced there's gonna be it's gonna be a little stressful because it's not like being added to like it's all at will employment people can be written off of shows all the time but I think that people get usually when people get added to a hit show they're like awesome I can settle in for a minute yeah this show is built on turnover and you can't guarantee anything other than the fact that you are going to get a big boost out of whatever you do on the show it's I think it'll be fascinating to see over the course of the rest of this season and certainly into season 3 which I imagine will air sometime early in 27 if not exactly when season 2 started airing whether there become untouchables on this show.

27:39And I think that Dana and Robbie are. And Whitaker. And Whitaker might be. And Santos might be as well in some ways. And Mel. If that crew is like locked in or if there is still like, it could be anybody. And I don't think they would make the show without Noah Wiley or I don't think the show is the same show without Noah Wiley. But, you know, they are having these characters at a crossroads in their life, especially Dana and Robbie, thinking about like whether or not they can actually do this anymore. And so that's an interesting crossroads to arrive at in season two. And I don't know if you can return to the same crossroads in season three with the same characters.

28:16Andy Greenwald:Well, what you can do, I think the thing that we keep, and certainly I do, I keep getting rocked and impressed by how nimble the show is in taking advantage of its uniqueness, not just its uniqueness in terms of its setting and hours, but uniqueness in terms of its clockwork, old-fashioned dependability. Mm-hmm. There absolutely can be a season of The Pit where Robbie doesn't show up until hour eight. There can be a season of The Pit where we get a lot more Dr. Shen and a lot less Dr. Santos. The show is built to contain that. And I also think the nature of it, where they are filming in L.A. at a certain time every year, I think that they can take advantage of that.

29:00Andy Greenwald:I think it's very different than telling an adult actor, you need to move to Belfast for one to six years. Now, stuff gets done. Like, the travel departments of these networks, I can say, are very efficient. Terrifyingly so. Getting people to other countries in relatively quick turnaround. But I think that that aspect of it. But, you know, it also, that even, that's a grandiose way of talking about the kind of familial thing that they are already creating where relatives and wives and partners of many of the cast members have already shown up. It popped up, yeah. It was Noah Wiley's wife was this week or the previous week.

29:37Andy Greenwald:She was the person who had too much turmeric. Oh, yeah. The Maha person, yeah. Actually, I don't know that she's actually identified as Maha. Yeah, be careful, Chris. Well, you're the one with the protein yogurt. Look, some of us are just curious. You're the one with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brand yogurt. I'm not taking that because I'm hungry, by the way. I'm taking it because I'm very sick. And I've heard that that yogurt can... Did you know about one in three people with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

30:13Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

30:22Andy Greenwald:Trimphia, Gucelcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. imagine being a million miles away explore what's possible ask your doctor about trim fire tap this ad to learn more about trim fire including important safety information you'll keep keep it coming i like it i like it when you're like i have a number of talking points for you i was gonna ask you about the maximum pleasure guaranteed trailer this is an upcoming show on apple starring tadiana maslani the reason i was gonna ask you about it was be Because I couldn't tell whether or not we are in the throes of a wave of popularity about upper middle class curiosity about the dark side of life.

31:31Or if that is just one of the most durable things to make TV about anyway. And I'm just imagining it because of DTF and this. And your friends and neighbors. It's obviously something that Apple is interested in. is this seemingly perfect person just got a little bit dangerous the other day. You know, like, and this seems to be about a woman who starts exploring her sexuality and then some various levels of crime start happening around that.

31:58Andy Greenwald:It's a slippery slope, Karen. That's right. That's the genre. Is her name Karen in this? No, I'm just saying that's the new genre I'm inventing. Slippery slope, comma, Karen. Wouldn't Karen always be calling the cops, right? Oh, well, we haven't seen the episodes. Yeah, but like - That could be episode one. This won't do. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. It's ringing. You guys are in so much trouble. Hold on. Yeah, you stay right there, young man. No, they put me on hold. They've all been laid off. But do you notice these kinds of things where it's just like, oh, for some reason, we're making 10 shows.

32:30Like for a while there, I felt like half the shows that would get announced or released were from the true crime podcast about the dentist who killed 50 people but also had six wives.

32:42Andy Greenwald:I think that you can track middle class. Well, there's no such thing as a middle class anymore. Sorry, it's just a funny little joke. You can track a certain upper middle class, let's say, malaise through television. And Breaking Bad, for example, which is maybe the greatest example of this, of like, I'm a successful suburban science teacher. Wait, systems aren't working for me? I shall cook drugs. That's how I remember the pilot. That premiered maybe even the day. No, it premiered in January of 2008. So it premiered just as that presidential campaign was starting, but was clearly developed at the end of the Bush era of like just economic ruin and foreign misadventure.

33:29Andy Greenwald:And I would say that you could track this. Like that's the canary in the coal mine, especially at a moment when it's weird. It's like in the last year and a half, two years, TV got really interested in the plights of well-off white people again, which is... Gave us some content. But I think you can track that, and I would be curious to see some of the... We've heard about announcements of some return-to-the-family drama-type shows, and to see those Geiger counter wobbles institutionally, systemically happening to that sort of person. It's an endlessly renewable well, but seems to come up to the surface at certain times.

34:11Well, you know what? This is actually a pretty good segue. We watched two international crime shows this weekend to get ready for the pod. You're welcome. One is called Unfamiliar. I mentioned it briefly on Thursday. We'll get into that a little bit more extensively because I think that did more for us. But I do want to ask you about this show on HBO Max called Privileges, which is a French language show or French show. and it is from the creators are Marie Meng and Vladimir de Fontenay who I believe were in attendance at the Eyes Wide Shut party I was at this weekend. No, I'm just kidding. Just sounds like kind of the people with the cloaks.

34:49Tell us more about the party. No, I'm just joking.

34:51Andy Greenwald:Was it held in the abandoned Cinerama Dome? Like we are failing as a nation, thus we must embrace perversity. When you get up to the door, you go Tarantino and they let you in. no just you know i was just having fun at the expense of their names but not fun at the expense of their show which i i actually i think i enjoyed a little bit more than you but the reason yeah i'm connecting it to maximum pleasure guaranteed is um this is in and of itself a crime show and there's basically two shows here um in privileges it's about a young inmate named Adele, who's a wonderful performance by this young actress named Manon Bresch.

35:29She's awesome. She, as part of like a work release program, joins the staff of a luxury hotel called the Citadel in Paris. And it's a kind of secretive program that the manager of this hotel, Edouard, runs. We are led to believe probably because he himself has come from a rough patch in his life. Also, what happens is he gets these people to come aboard and they basically will do anything for him to stay out of prison or to secure some sort of release.

35:55Andy Greenwald:Because Adele is returning to prison every night. Yes. You know, as he brings her on, there's this pilot episode. She gets used to being there and then pulls off an extraordinary request of a pop star guest of the hotel. This hotel is sort of at the nexus of power, fame, money. And basically every single guest is either need something, want something, is doing a drug is having an illicit affair or something. So you get a lot of good TV marrow out there. The thing I was going to say is that they approach this world from the perspective of somebody who has nothing in this Adele character, whereas like the ones you're describing in America are tend to be, hey, everything was going pretty great for me until fuck.

36:41And it does change your brain chemistry to watch a series where, you know, first of all, you can totally understand why Adele will, and, you know, no spoilers, I guess spoilers for this first episode because it helps to be able to discuss it. There is an extraordinary sequence in the first episode of Privileges where Adele goes and fetches a boa constrictor for one of the guests and it is shot like uncut gems as is much of Adele's kind of behavior and action in the show is very, like, handheld, incredibly tense, heart-thumping. And it's like you're cheering for her in a way that I don't think you cheer for Coop and your friends and neighbors to get away with stealing Rolexes from another rich guy.

37:25All that is to say there is another half or 75 % of privileges that is basically a Fox procedural.

37:31Andy Greenwald:Yes. And is 19 different blackmail plots overlapping. And even for my fluency in international crime, challenging to keep straight all the different subplots that they have introduced within 70 minutes of TV time. What did you think of the show? Yeah, I mean, I have a larger take for both of these shows, and I do think we need to start discussing this as its own genre, which is, I think, elevated Euro trash. Hey, it's okay, brother. Listen, I'm not, as someone who went to college in the Northeast in the 90s, I was jealous of the elevated Euro trash. They knew which bars to go to. You know, they dressed great.

38:10Andy Greenwald:Sometimes they would get me a cocktail. CD singles seemed to come out of nowhere. All the CD singles.

38:19Andy Greenwald:The, but it's also just about how the way these types of shows, and this is not just these two shows, this is a lot of the shows that we like, and I was thinking back to like Lupin and like all of these European shows made for international streamers. There's a certain language, visual language, there's a color palette, there's a lack of humor that is just shot through them all and it's becoming a little bit samey. But I think that you're making a, but I did like this show and I think it's a really, really smart and strong setup of this character coming into this world through the service entrance.

38:52Andy Greenwald:And hotels are fascinating, bizarre places that are - Great place to do a TV show. Incredible energy and engine for plot and story because you have new people showing up every week. I think the way you're looking at it is really smart. We talked about this recently in relation to Taylor Sheridan shows and how I just, maybe he's no longer, you know now that he owns much most of rural america himself he's no longer the person to write the man of the people show um but i think that every one of the taylor sheridan shows i've engaged with over the last year would have been improved by like like landman would be much much better if it was about boss's crew and then the other characters were there too but they were fleeting as opposed to we have access to all of it and we are as interested in the guys who literally got blown up as we are with Demi Moore's whatever.

39:45Well, to your point, for a variety of reasons, I think Landman season one works better than season two. Number one is because Tommy works for somebody in season one.

39:52Andy Greenwald:It's a great point. Yes. He is like, I got to do what fucking Monty says and that I might not believe it all the time and I have to go sell it to this person and this person. And I think not to, I can't believe we're, you're finally letting me talk about international shows in other languages and I'm like, the thing about Taylor Sheridan is this is, you really cooked me that is so bad but I do think that as much as like the Taylor Sheridan hero narrative of Taylor Sheridan is look where he was and look where he is now and that is the narrative then of all of his shows and so that's probably why he can't unless young Taylor coming to CBS this fall they did it for Sheldon they could do it for him he's like I'm an actor but I want to be a writer and they're like oh Taylor you never could be a writer Just get back on that motorcycle son of Ankar.

40:42I'll show you.

40:44Andy Greenwald:Type, type, type, type, type. Type, type. And then the Black Hawk helicopter said, women are sad sometimes. Anyway. Honestly, in Lioness, they are sad sometimes. With good reason. Because they've taken out a foreign government. Hmm. Brownie face. Actually, opposite of what you thought from me, because I love to zag, I thought the second episode of Privileges was better because it had settled into what it was going to be. I thought the first episode had so much to do to get Adele into this world and for us to understand the stakes and all the faces and the characters and it was based on something that I found so profoundly silly which is the snake heist yes I see I like that but it had some but it wasn't it should have been funny but it was shot as if it was uncut gems and there needed to be some absurdity to it yeah I thought and instead it had like the most French needle you're Siskel and Ebert in it now right now I like this it had the most French needle drops ever where it's just like some old spiritual like sped up you know and she's like, you must bathe in the water.

41:42Andy Greenwald:And she's like, I'll rescue the snake. And it's a boa constrictor, but do you see the Foley guy in France just like lighting one cigarette off the other and being like, I will add the rattle of this snake. But boas don't have rattles. No, no, you don't understand. We have no snakes in France. This is scary. This is scary. And then it was like also the same - There's a lot of snakes in that scene. She has to find the boat. But then every time they wanted to remind us that she had the snake on her person, they were like adding the same sort of Polynesian jungle sounds they used to play at Epcot.

42:08I didn't notice that. but that is really perceptive. So nuts.

42:13Andy Greenwald:Anyway, by the time I got to the second episode, it's like, okay, now she's in it and the stakes are what they are. And now there's an international football star who wants to play PlayStation with her. And then there's also the larger, there have to be Russians. And then one of my other favorite things ever in these international shows is when they have to have an American person in the cast. Mark Pepo is the name of the character. The American tech bro named Mark Pepo. so good and they always refer to him as Marc Pepo Marc Pepo yeah Marc Pepo is here he has requested the cheap champagne and and I do believe the actor who plays Marc Pepo is French but maybe he was raised in two cultures so he has much like yourself much like myself one culture with you one culture that is just really annoying and somehow we make it work it was like the same thing like remember the rich guys in Squid Game yes Hey there!

43:08Andy Greenwald:Hey honey, wipe my ass with an American flag! It's like, the guy in the country who plays that part is just, he's available. I'm really hoping some American CIA agent shows up on Unfamiliar. That would be so sick! There's a lot of English in Unfamiliar, we need to get to it. Anyway, I think it's a charming show and it's a good show and has room to grow. I do wish that it was freed of, and we could segue into Unfamiliar if you want, because I wish it was freed from this same... Privilege is HBO Max, but it is Netflix-y. And one thing, just to contextualize all of this, like every nation once had a thriving...

43:48So in the 18th century... Come on, Vladimir Lenin.

43:54Andy Greenwald:The television set was invented as a tool for the worker to entertain himself. When Tracy Letts began August Osage County, how could he have known? I think Tracy listens. It's time for a rewrite. September, Osage County. Yeah, so every country had their own TV services and they were making TV shows and they had more, I would say, distinct national or regional characteristics of how they made TV. Some good, some bad, some translatable and exportable, some not. I mean, one thing that is worth saying to contextualize what I'm trying to articulate is that when I've talked to people like people in England they're like most of our TV has been dog shit for years and we you would see the six things that were good I think that's reductive but I understand that's true for us too I think that's the same thing for us too where like we there are 400 television shows on a year you and I talk about 12 but now all TV shows are built to be exported because like with cinema the international market is incredibly lucrative and makes sense especially for these services that launch and want their own HBO Max siloed launched in England stuff And so part of launching internationally for an HBO Max to catch up with Netflix is to say, HBO Max in France, HBO Max in Germany, what are our shows that you guys should have developed for us?

45:09Just imagining the pit NHS where everybody's just like, that's taken care of, mate.

45:13Andy Greenwald:But imagine if it was the pit NHS, the 15 hours would be someone being told they could come back for their surgery in three weeks. They'd be like, fantastic. They just sort of sit down, maybe get a pint. And then three seasons later, it was like, me goldbladder. it's gone it's gone a bit bigger now it's yeah but great great sorry for the aside great pitch but the the international language of these shows is getting samey is all I'm trying to say and I wish there was a little bit more of an idiosyncratic feel to these shows that it didn't feel like some of the edges were sanded off it's a double edged sword right because like the the Sopranos and Wire influences on the Bureau is what probably makes it totally the fucking Bureau and it makes it in some ways as good, if not, you know, like as good as those shows that it was influenced by.

46:05Andy Greenwald:And one of the things that this is also the opportunity that's given us is switching to Unfamiliar, which is a spy show on Netflix, German language spy show created by Paul Coates, I believe is his name. Who's English? Yes. And again, we don't know. I didn't, I wasn't able to track down the actual origins of the show, but my assumption is, I think co-pro has now become a genre. So I think multi-country international co-productions is now not just like a way of selling stuff, but it's like if Paul Coates, who has worked on spy stuff in England and also comes from writing, you know, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks and other shows that sounds like I'm making up their names but are quite popular in England.

46:43Yep. But he's a very accomplished veteran screenwriter. If he's going around and doing meetings and he meets with Gaumont or he meets with a German producer and talking about maybe selling the idea of a British show in Germany.

46:55Andy Greenwald:Yep. This was something where, like, I think he brought an idea of like, I mean, it's essentially the Americans meets Eastern Gate. And they were like, not only yes, let's set it here and we can get the BND to participate because it's like out of a sense of transparency with the German people or something like that. Yes, I think my assumption is. The BND being like the intelligence service of Germany. It's a very cool building. It's very likely that he had this and it was either written or prepared to be pitched as a show set in London. And they said, well, why don't you just do it here? That international language is very cool and offers up different perspectives and also allows the show to be set in 2025, 2026's hottest hotspot, Belarus.

47:45Andy Greenwald:Which is, I would say what happens in Belarus stays in Belarus, but that is rarely the case. No, they make sure it always catches up to you. Always catches up to you. It is a rough, rough. I mean, what is the current, like, fictional TripAdvisor ranking for holidays in Belarus? I mean, I think we should break our live show moratorium into a Belarus show. And then that's our last show. And just give in to Mother Russia if you reclaim. But, oh, by the way, before we get into unfamiliar international translations, we didn't mention the fact that Disney, the larger global Disney plus umbrella, they're remaking the Americans as the Koreans.

48:26Andy Greenwald:Yes. And set in the 80s, but with North Korean spies in Korea. And I think that's phenomenal. That's awesome. I think it's an exciting idea. I'm trying to think of some other stuff that we could set in different places. There are many things we could set in different places. Do you want to, you know? I mean, we have been doing that anyway. You know what I mean? Like, just without calling it, it's like Mobland is just Sopranos, but set in England. You know, like, what about DTF Minsk see what I did there did you just look up cities in Belarus is Minsk Belarus yes I did I heard it I was like damn you typed and then you pulled Minsk out DTF Minsk jokes chat GPT Claude come on yeah we should do that we should totally do that set up unfamiliar Let's talk about it.

49:20Unfamiliar, like I said. Vibe-wise, it's the Americans meets Eastern Gate. If you didn't watch Eastern Gate, it's the Americans meets a slightly more like grounded, born-ish action spy thriller.

49:31Andy Greenwald:24-ish, you always were saying when we were watching it. Yeah. Homeland-ish as well, maybe? Sure. It was great. One of our favorite shows from last year. They got unprecedented access to shoot within the BND headquarters in Berlin. And it concerns partners and parents, Simon and Merritt Schaefer. Simon is a girl dad. He is. Nah. Well, don't spoil it. I'm not spoiling it, but no stolen valor for you here. Simon and Merritt are partners and parents. They have a teenage daughter named Nina. They run a nice little Berlin restaurant, and they moonlight running as like, they are safe house proprietors for spies on the run or for intelligence operatives on the run.

50:10Their past catches up with them in the form of a Russian spy named Koliyev who is looking to settle a score from an operation 16 years prior that went wrong in Belarus. Yep. This one's cool, man. Six episodes on Netflix. The thing that will get you with Unfamiliar, you watch two of them. That last five minutes, they always are like, hey, I bet you want to keep watching.

50:36Andy Greenwald:It's super Netflix maxing. Yeah. In a way that I, unlike Privileges, I watched the first one of this and I was like, here we go. This is my new favorite show. And I watched the second one and I was like, ah, yes. this will be fine. Yeah. It is incredibly engaging the first episode because it just stacks scenarios on top of each other with an absolutely relentless pace. And, you know, from these people, they have a safe house. Oh, they used to be this. Oh, there's this thing in the past. Oh, it's connected to the highest levels of power. There's a almost brutal, dare I say, dramatic efficiency to some of it.

51:15Andy Greenwald:There was a moment in the beginning of the second episode when Simon and Merritt, the married couple, are talking about the state of play. And I know that all the Netflix executives were like, we would never ask our creators to restate the plot every 10 minutes. Maybe they just do it for us. But yet I actually really admired the efficiency of that scene where Merritt is basically like, you're acting crazy. There's a corpse in the safe house and Koliev is back. And now you're telling me this person is alive. And it was like, bang, bang, bang, let's get it done. For foreign language films, for our purposes, it helps to have some resetting.

51:51I mean, like, the whole, like, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon being told to say what the plot of The Rip is six times is probably overblown. Dan Lin, who runs Netflix movies, has disavowed that. I did think in The Rip that they overstated, like, the circumstances. But in this show, it's welcome because half of it is told in this flashback manner. I will just say that I thought the initial premise of this show of like we have a restaurant but by night we have a safe house in any other world would just be like a really solid backbone for a long running TV show to add on the a case from the past has come back to haunt us our daughter is in danger multiple factions of German and Russian intelligence are in play

52:43Andy Greenwald:And one of us has a slow-moving health crisis that would not survive the NHS. Yes, there's a hat on a hat on a, whatever a German hat is. Like the little Kaiser Wilhelms kind of. Do even German people ever put a Kaiser Wilhelm hat on? I mean, I haven't seen SNL DE yet, but I imagine some of the cold opens have that. Don't you think? Yes, sir. I mean, it's a rich country, you know? There was a lot of funny sketch on SNL UK this week. Was there? Yeah. Could you curate the best of the weekend's bits for me? Like a newsletter? Could I? You probably could. You want me to start like a sub stack and just start sending you stuff?

53:22Or an email. That's what sub stacks are.

53:25Andy Greenwald:Just for me. Oh. An email. Could you email me? I'm asking. And what do I get out of it? I'd be like, you're right. That was funny. You'd probably feel good. You'd be like, wow, I picked a good thing. I made him laugh this weekend. There was another thing I wanted to say about this though. I just, I think that that's a really smart, sorry, Siskel and Ebert. I thought that was a really smart observation because I think I agree with you and I was responding to those rhythms. I think that I enjoyed, decent setups are very, very hard to come by. Yeah. And they're very hard to come by with funding and financing and good cast.

53:58Andy Greenwald:And I can call up or you can, like that. The actors in the show are really strong and really compelling. German Sarah Paulson is great as Merit. I don't know what her name is. She's awesome. Spoiler, there is a point in the first episode, this isn't really germane, I won't spoil what she's doing. Actually, I will spoil what she's doing, but not to whom. Where she performs some advanced interrogation techniques on them. Performs, yeah. She looks pretty cool, wearing like a full latex torture protection kit. Was anyone wearing that at the Arclight this weekend? And did you approach them casually?

54:31Say, Karen, the password is slippery slope.

54:35Andy Greenwald:And that's the last thing you remember until you were talking about the drama. Suzanne Wolf is the actor. She's good. But just that it's hard to come by these scenarios. And so that is a multi-running, that's potentially a multi-season show for me, but that is not the business model for Netflix Germany right now. And here's the thing that's funny. So we were talking about The Pit earlier. There's a version of The Pit that is less strict about its setting that goes up to Gloria's admin office that goes home with these people that turns up the knob on their romantic lives outside of the office, its adherence to its format and its form, I think is 50 % of the reason why it's successful.

55:19If there were subplots in the pit about funding crises, or if we were cutting back and forth between the legal department and the cyber defense unit as they were fighting off some of the problems that this season had experienced, I don't think I would be as interested I'm interested in these people performing their jobs and so I think with Privileges and Unfamiliar both are very easy to get through because they're watchable and they're six episodes and especially with Unfamiliar all the episodes are up the Privileges is going week to week so the third one comes up this week I just like I think that there's a version of like there's either an Unfamiliar that's a movie and there's an Unfamiliar that's like a 12-episode long-running TV show about people who run a safe house for spies.

56:09It's right in the middle.

56:11Andy Greenwald:Yes. I think we've talked about this before, but I think one of the biggest challenges to making good stuff these days is you have potentially limitless formats or vessels to pour your story into. Picking the right vessel is 50 % of success. And it may not even be your choice. And ultimately, it might not even be your choice. Exactly. I think some networks and streamers are becoming a little more case-by-case and trying to make the best version of it. But there are many, many other examples of someone having a good idea and finding a potential willing buyer or partner. And that partner says, we love it, but what we do here or what we need right now is X or the opposite.

56:52Andy Greenwald:We need a limited series right now. We need to dominate. We need a gourmet cheeseburger that will go around the world and be in our top 10. and then you pivot and you can still end up with something good but I do think that sometimes that misalignment can stop things from being great. I want to ask you for unfamiliar what was the most German thing about it and I'll give you three choices. Number one that at least 40 % of the cast in the show were also in the television show Dark including Thomas Peachman who plays old what's his name what was the kid's name the main kid? Wasn't it Jonas? Jonas yeah.

57:29And in this show, he plays a guy named Jonas.

57:31Andy Greenwald:Who maybe could be the same one because he's also dark and brooding and operating within a plot that only he is privy to. Handsome guy, though. Happy to see him. Number two, that the way we understand that certain scenes are set 16 years in the past is that Simon has a single earring. Or the fact that their daughter, Nina... That's the Belarusian way, you know? Just one earring. That their daughter, Nina, is both newly 16 and an accomplished club DJ. That was German as fuck. I also thought it was pretty German that they took public transport home from the nightclub when they went and saw their teenage DJ daughter.

58:11Sabrina the teenage DJ. Yes.

58:14Andy Greenwald:A million percent. A million percent. She also, I would say that anytime that that... Dawn breaking. They're on a bus. And then when she goes on a, like, a Ural trip, she wears, like, the uniform of traveling Germans for the past 40 years, which is sweaters with zippers that they don't need to have. Yeah. Like up to here. My only other note as a big fan of spycraft, spoiler alert, I don't know, I could be wrong, I don't know how they do things in Germany because as you know, Eppinger's ended in the late 1940s. So basically the last 70 years of German history is a blank to me. Seems like it's gone fairly well.

58:51Andy Greenwald:I don't think that spies call other spies and leave detailed voicemails about where they're going, what they're thinking, and what they need to know. There was another thing that I was going to bring up about in Familiar. First of all, I just want to say, I enjoy watching this show and I will finish it. It's really good, but I did have that kind of like, oh shit, oh okay. This was one of the first series that I've come across where the technological advancements at the fingertips of at least fictional spies kind of kills the vibe a little bit. So there's one point where the Jonas character that we're talking about who seems to work in like private security and is maybe playing both sides against the other is like, let me call up my satellite imagery of this situation.

59:34Oh, yeah. And then is like, hmm, pan left. And I'm like, so what the fuck? Can we just see everything all the time now? That's not spying. The whole show. That's using a computer.

59:44Andy Greenwald:The show begins. Like. Let me find out. Yeah. The opening of the show where a, like a dark asset, that gets his way into the safe house to determine who these people are. Not only does he shoot himself in the knee to do it. Now, again, I'm no ballistics expert, but I feel like there are less painful places to shoot yourself. I think he goes a little bit above. I think at the fleshy part of the thigh there. Oh, I thought he was trying to imbead himself, like permanently. Never going to play 65 games again. That he then makes it to their safe house, enjoys their soup, which, you know, is a scene I really liked a lot.

1:00:21Andy Greenwald:And then once he's unattended, goes into the control room of the safe house and just dials up the internet. Yeah, specifically the Russian back-channel portal. To show them a thumbprint. Now, he uses their technology the same way I used to use the Apple Store to check my emails on my Yahoo account 20 years ago. That was very simple, and everyone there was like, sure, man, do what you got to do. Everybody is meeting at library bar. I won't be joining them. The opposite. I was the one who would make my way to the Apple store and be like, hello, friends. The temperature has reached 68 degrees. Shall we be drinking alfresco this evening?

1:01:01Andy Greenwald:And before I hit send, Phoebe would be like, yes, she was my connect. Yeah. Yes. I thought that's like there's just technology is coming for all of us, even spies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I think the reason why we responded so strongly to Oliver Harris books is because he's using it in a way. Very creative way. That feels like it's still the spirit of this work. And even he is like, I create like a character who lives in Dubai and just can break into any computer. Like it is kind of a cheat, I think, a little bit. Yeah, but then what are the consequences of that? And what are the... He has a tough life.

1:01:37Andy Greenwald:But that said, when I Googled jokes about Belarus, it worked. You know, it crushed. I hacked into Paul Provenza's laptop. And I was like, I found the mother load. Joke after joke after joke. Any watch after dark topics for us? No, I just want to say that this is not. Do you think this is a lighting change? Let's see. Yeah. One of my favorite things about changing to watch after dark was that when we clipped Mina last week from the show, like two of the clips were just normal clips. And then one clip was lit like this. but I don't think there was any explanation that it was different. We do very little context clues on this show.

1:02:14Andy Greenwald:That's true. It's really, we don't handhold like our favorite television shows. No. I just wanted to let you know that this week, is Euphoria premiering this coming weekend? This coming weekend. I wasn't kidding that I am ready to do this. Like I am excited to enter into this show. I'm rearranging, so I'm doing Rewatchables Live in San Francisco this week. Jesus. And then next week, I'm happy to say, I will be appearing at the Zach Lowe live show in Denver. This is like the end of the Marin podcast. Where he'd be like, just for laughs, Providence. You are doing the itinerary of an NL West team.

1:02:51The Punchline Fest in Topeka will be like... Incredible. But I'm going to make it work so that we can do Euphoria together. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

1:02:59Andy Greenwald:I really appreciate that. I just want you to know that if I enjoy this experience, I'm going to be insufferable about this that I have finally figured out how to engage with television after 15 years just do what I want yeah just chaos menu well for the purposes of this show I don't know necessarily that that is always a bad idea like I have said there have been a couple I would even say today is a little bit of a dead day in terms of like what's on the docket news and shows I mean like I had a lovely time talking to you but unfamiliar and privileges are not exactly like headlines succession and you know but would it make sense for us to just be like I turned on Dark Winds season four I see what you guys are talking about it's good it's a great point because otherwise you know what'll happen we won't cover Dark Winds yeah so yeah well I don't know why I said that like a threat sorry anything else no I'm excited about that I want to watch the drama what else do we have other big shows coming that we need to be checking for you have your document Chris is the keeper of the keys here in terms of what we ought to be covering.

1:04:06So we got Euphoria coming up and then the finale is the 16th. That's next week and Margot's Got Money Problems with David E. Kelly's show with Elle Fanning. It's supposed to be very good. Beef season two, but then that's a Netflix situation so you're going to have to watch all of it to have anything to say about it. Widow's Bay I'm very excited about. End of April.

1:04:25Andy Greenwald:That looks like it has horror in it. The Terror Devil in Silver which I need you to fucking nut up and watch that with me. Even though it's about... I fucking need you, dog. I'll never ask anything of you again. Just watch this AMC anthology horror series with me. I think it's more of a psychological thriller anyway. I can do that. Yeah. I can handle that. I'm not sure about that. This is the devil in silver is the tagline. Well, at least the devil is showing out. Yeah. Dressing up for the occasion. We didn't cover, I think this is relevant, there was some literary news that I thought was going to be part of your rundown.

1:04:59Andy Greenwald:Maybe you covered it on Thursday. Some big Ben Lerner interviews? No. Miss me with that. Do you not like Ben Lerner? No, I'm not doing a drive by a Ben Lerner. I'm just like, my attitude towards contemporary fiction, and Kaya could jump in because Kaya keeps up with contemporary books in a way that I don't. I don't know if you do either. Let me know in a couple years. That's my attitude towards new novels. Good. Okay. There's a lot of old stuff that I still have to write. What was the literary news that happened that you wanted to talk about? Two television shows based on beloved literary properties are now moving.

1:05:30Andy Greenwald:One, The Corrections has been announced. I can't believe that. Yeah. Cord Jefferson is writing and directing an adaptation of the... From what I understand, Cord is directing. And Jonathan Franzen is adapting his own book. Really? That's from what I understand, yes. And this has been long gestating. I'm sure, I think it was optioned to be a film by Scott Rudin when the book was published 25, 26 years ago. It was infamously an HBO pilot overseen by Noah Baumbach. that did not go forward. Still somewhere at a dusty shelf in Santa Monica. Someone can see it. That was 10 years ago, and now it's happening.

1:06:11Andy Greenwald:A lot of Whip producing, Paramount producing for Apple with Meryl Streep starring. Yeah. Have you read the corrections? Absolutely. I have not. Do you remember that my... This is nothing to be proud of. I want to preface this. But I was checking for the corrections because my father took me to see Jonathan Franzen read from his second novel, Strong Motion, at the downtown borders because Jonathan Franzen's first book, The 27th City, which I also read and enjoyed. Is about St. Louis. Is about St. Louis. My dad's a Cardinal fan. I think Franzen is too, right? Yes. So a hardcover copy of Strong Motion says, to Mike, go cards.

1:06:51Andy Greenwald:And so I was like, ah, great American novel. I see all of you Johnny-come-latelys are now aware of the prosaic brilliance of the bard of the Midwest, Jonathan Franzen. So you were there early. Did you like the corrections? I loved the corrections. And what was the one that he... Freedom. Yeah. Purity. Purity. I kind of tapped out at that point. Okay. But he loves birds. Never did Franzen. You never did any Franzen. Never read the corrections. It's nothing about it. Part of the corrections, one of the storylines is in Philadelphia and one of the characters goes to Front Central School. There's a little Quaker School part of it and still you've done it.

1:07:26I did hear about that.

1:07:27Andy Greenwald:You heard about that? There is a light within dot com, the Quaker back channels that you track. R slash Quaker schools. So that's one. And then the other thing was the announcement that another, this is like, it's kind of like try again month in TV. Bonfire of the Vanities. Did you see this? Yes. Who is writing this? It's wild. Your guy, everyone's guy, David Kelly, is writing it. Matt Reeves. That's right. Of the Batman fame, is going to direct this. And this is a, would be, if this goes forward, a huge, huge do-over to one of Hollywood's most legendary flops. Brian De Palma's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's celebrated novel.

1:08:09Andy Greenwald:Yes. Masters of the Universe. Is it time? Are we, is it, is the time right to get the 80s right? I assume that this is going to be a period piece and not an updated for 2008 or 2026. Let's just see. Because all the spycraft would be way too. I'm excited about that. You also didn't mention that Lonesome Dove, the rights to Lonesome Dove have been purchased. I noted that. I was watching that with some interest. Yeah. And we do not have any creative attached to that yet. Would you like to be a part of that package? I'm putting together a small group of men with a particular set of skills. Sure. I'm trying.

1:08:45Andy Greenwald:Did you actually say like, hey, just like agents, like. First of all, you've correctly captured the tone of my email voice. Hey, agents. Hey, team. I would love to go to the world. I heard some guys just spent$100 million and they're looking for someone to adapt their cowboy novel. Well, I've read it. I am full of protein and ready for service. And I love unconditional sunlight. And Jonathan Franzen. I definitely have raised my hand and then someone stepped on the back of my neck to take the ring. I don't know who's involved with it creatively. I just saw that the rights were purchased, which is the idea of having another go at that.

1:09:30It's very exciting. I saw also that they were talking about it in relationship to doing all of the Gus and Woodrow books. I think that's right. And that would be pretty cool. Although, as we've discussed, some of those books are darker than the others.

1:09:44Andy Greenwald:The thing about those books, which by the way, honestly, speaking of contemporary novelists, I just kind of want to read those again. The order in which they were published chronologically of the story is 3412, which is quite odd. It's also the way I recommend people read them. But Lonesome Dove is one of the greatest American novels of all time. And that's three, right? Chronologically, but that was first and is perfect and you can just read that. Streets of Laredo, the sequel, is so dark. It is incredible. It's McMurtry responding to the response to Lonesome Dove. You think I wrote a classic?

1:10:17Andy Greenwald:Fuck you guys. Also, I forgot about trains and Mexicans. I gotcha. And then, then what's it called? Dead Man's whatever the next one Dead Man's Walk Dead Man's Walk is unbelievable and that is the origins of of them as young Texas Rangers of Gus and and Comanche Meet Moon is just like a cool like adventure story it bridges it kind of spackles the distance from when they were young up to the edge of Lonesome Dove I agree I think it would be cool if they did all of them I don't think there's any reason to do hey we're doing Lonesome Dove again because Right. As... But if you were going to do it chronologically, that would be quite a long wait to get to Lonesome Dove.

1:10:58Andy Greenwald:Well, you could just keep spackling on the old age. Sure. Just put Austin Byler in. Listen, I... All I'll say, this was never real. No one was going to let me do any of it. But I was like... Tommy Lee Jones actually is... Well, this was like six years ago, but I was trying to convince people that Tommy Lee Jones then was the age that Call is... in Streets of Laredo. So you could still do it. You were like... You could do it. And also, famously easy to work with. Yeah. Him and horses. And I'd be like, hello, I went to a Quaker school. What did you do? Oh, Harvard. That's cool. Is that a real horse, sir?

1:11:40Andy Greenwald:Why are we doing... I like French mystery shows. Taylor Sheridan shows sure did change my ideas about masculinity. He wrote the intro to the new edition of Lungs of Dove. I am aware, brother. I'm across that a couple people sent that my way Andy great to see you dude let's figure out a way to podcast later this week I know that I'm on the road but I want to do Pit with you thanks to Kaya and Kaya happy birthday to Kaya was there anything we didn't cover that we should have covered for your birthday Kaya how can we better celebrate it I would have loved to touch on the Summer House drama just a little bit that's for After Dark can I say something perhaps unsurprising to get us going I have no idea what anybody's talking about absolutely I saw there was some stuff about I got some inside information for you what do you got great I'm not gonna share it on the podcast were you saving it for ringer ringer dish what are you doing no I just I'll tell Kyle that's the best birthday present you could possibly give me I just saw that everything was about Ciara but not Ciara but not Russell Wilson Ciara that's only that's there's only one Ciara in my book one Ciara ooh Ciara month it kind of is Ciara month now now it's Ciara month thanks everybody for listening and watching we'll be back on Thursday with The Pit and some Top Chef and some whatever else.

1:12:54Greenwald, hold it down while I'm in the Bay.

1:12:57Andy Greenwald:Yeah, what do I have to do? Nothing. Just meet me here at 2 p.m. when I get back from the Bay. I'm stressed. Okay, sure. Talk to you guys soon.