‘Widow’s Bay’ Is One of Apple’s Boldest Swings Yet. Plus, ‘Top Chef’ Restaurant Wars.

19:43Andy Greenwald:But they also have no interest in Star Wars. Right. I don't know. Maybe they were just like, Grogu's cute. Nope. No. No interest in Star Wars. No interest in Harry Potter. It's weird. It's weird. The way that they're uninterested in specific properties. REM. That their father couldn't care less. One day we'll figure out what the common denominator is. Yeah. I mean, the anticipation for this, I think I've gone from like, I won't be seeing this to like, I'll see this out of professional obligation, I suppose. Yeah. All right. But. Does that mean Sean begged you to see it? No. Nobody begged me to do anything.

20:15I mean, it's just. I love the way you pretend. Nobody does. I mean, it's not like anybody's just like, please, Amanda. Josh DeMauro on the phone. Like, it's either I'm going to have to cut 1 ,300 more jobs if you don't go see Mando. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike, or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for? That's when Prime's same-day delivery has your back. Getting you exactly what you need, fast and reliably, so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines.

20:51Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. All right, let's get to the main thing, because this is an exciting development. It is. We are not stalling. Widows Bay is a new show that's on Apple TV. The first two episodes are already up, although I believe the listed release date was the 29th. I think it went up maybe a little early. Maybe I don't know how to really read release dates. It's created by Katie Dippold, who is a pretty accomplished screenwriter who did a pretty hilarious Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy movie that he worked on the Ghostbusters reboot, worked on Parks and Rec.

21:29Andy Greenwald:And is responsible for one of the greatest tweets of all time. You are the key master of social media, you tell me. Remembering the time that I dressed, my friends were having a Halloween party and I dressed up as the Babadook and it was really more of an adult drinking wine situation. And isn't there a picture of her dressed as the Babadook with everybody else's dress normally? Lives rent-free in my head forever. And weirdly, that tweet, I think, is more relevant to this show than some of her other credits. So it's created, the first episode written by Katie Dippold, and then it's directed by, I think, in its entirety?

22:02Andy Greenwald:Not in its entirety, but you know, it's Hiro Murai, the great Hiro Murai, Atlanta. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Station Eleven. But the other directors on this are Andrew DeYoung, who did Friendship and works with Tim Robinson. T. West, who I think has done some. Ty West has done some films that you have seen and I have not. Yes. Hero did, I believe, five of the ten. The logline for this is, quote, a skeptical mayor of a New England town refuses to bow to the superstitions of the residents who claim that the place is cursed. It stars Matthew Rhys, a pod favorite, as Mayor Tom Loftus. K.O. Flynn, now a watch favorite, who plays his colleague Patricia in City Hall.

22:44Andy Greenwald:She's a British West End favorite. And was in a show that I loved a lot called My Lady Jane from about two years ago. Yeah, and she's fantastic in that. And then it has basically a that guy, character actor, all-star team. Take the cast conversation, put it down the road a minute because I can't wait to talk about that. This show is awesome. Yes. These first two episodes are fantastic. I think this is the best use of Apple's money because it looks like they bought a town, like they bought an island, that I've seen since the iPhone 14. The MacBook Neo is pretty cool. I saw it in the store the other day.

23:20No, this is what I want Apple TV to be doing more of and to be trying more of. And when you see what Katie Dippold and Hiromurai do with the first two episodes, you're going to be like, why does everything else look like and feel like what it looks like and feels like?

23:38Andy Greenwald:And why is everything else written the way that it's written? Like, I think this is phenomenal. This is, we are suddenly in the clover here because I love Beef Season 2 and I think this show is astounding. Like, I, this is going to mean something to you. I watched the pilot twice. Did you? I don't watch anything twice. That Young Lean video, I barely remember it. I think this shit. You should start sending me like 18 things you want to talk about on the podcast and then be like, oh, I wasn't serious about hockey. Hockey's the one thing I don't text you 18 times a day about. That was cherry picking.

24:12Andy Greenwald:I text you constantly. I thought this was just like a revelatory and joyful experience. And one of the places we should start, and I want to get in the weeds with it because all of the small details are so expert. And it's not just the production values of where it's shot. it's the filters on the cameras that hero is using to make it look and feel a certain way with such taste and asceticism and specificity but also in watching the pilot what i was finding myself admiring so deeply was the very very classy and subtle ways and efficient ways that widow's bay achieves exposition where in the flurry of action that opened the show in the first six or seven minutes there's a phone call to the police chief who's another one of these great mount rushmore Or that guy's, it's Kevin Carroll, who we loved on The Leftovers.

25:01Andy Greenwald:And in their first interaction, Kevin Carroll's chief of police says, why do you want to be, why are you mayor of this town if you hate everyone in it? And it's just another little brick to build a character in the flow of the show. But the biggest thing we have to talk about, I'm sorry to cut you off, is the fact that this show walks a genre tightrope that I did not believe to be possible. It is possible. You have to educate me on this. So this show mixes comedy and horror. and there are comedies that have scary moments and there are horror movies that have funny moments, but blending the two genres seamlessly is difficult.

25:36I'll give you a couple of examples that I think did it well. Cabin in the Woods. I think you could make the argument that there are elements of the Scream franchise where they indulge in a kind of meta horror comedy.

25:49Andy Greenwald:Awareness of the tropes. Yeah, commenting on what's happening. Fright Night. I mean, there's plenty of examples. I like Fright Night. People might even consider Ghostbusters to be like a little bit of a comedy horror, although I don't think it's like super scary. It's a library scene. Yeah, but it's a difficult thing to pull off because if you're being funny when you're being scared, you wind up either not being funny or deflating the fear. You're just deflating the scares. And I think sometimes it can be a pressure valve release for people, but like for the most part when it comes to horror, I like it treated fairly seriously.

26:26Like I want to lose myself in the moment and really feel like what's happening on screen could or is happening. You know, it's like that's part of the joy of it is the visceral kind of like present tense of it.

26:38Andy Greenwald:Not to muddy the waters, but you had me watch the Resident Evil trailer just a moment ago. And I will not be seeing the film, but I was able to admire exactly what you're saying in that trailer. It's fucking intense. It was intense and it was visceral. and there was seemingly as much attention paid to like the physicality of like bodies dropping or tentacles, like whatever, it is in reality. So what you see and feel visually is incredibly captivating and present. If the main character of Resident Evil in the trailer like did a Jim Halpert face to the camera, it would definitely make me relax more and it would undercut the whole point of it.

27:18Andy Greenwald:And this show is not, that's not what Widow's Bay does. so with the path that it chooses feels unique to me and fair and quite artful yeah and i would say that most of the comic moments or the punchlines in this or the comedy moments are very situational so far so they are not glib kind of mugging everybody's sort of talking like they're james gunn characters kind of comedy it's everything is about like there's a specific character that Matthew Rhys is playing and he has very specific people working around him and all the comedy becomes out of character. All the comedy comes out of like, this guy's like this, this woman is like this.

27:56And there's like these funny interactions that they have. But on top of that is the possibility that these people are all living in like a Stephen King nightmare where there's fog rolling in there. There could be zombies, whatever, what have you.

28:11Andy Greenwald:I joked about the tweet. Parks and Rec is a huge, huge, huge foundational piece for the show. What should we call this? Parks and Wretch? What should we do? We can workshop that. The point being, I would say Parks and Rec and the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons. Paranormal and Rec? Let's keep going. This is a safe space. And we can always ask them to cut our bad ideas. Right, guys? Nope. The town of Widows Bay is a, or the island of Widows Bay. It is somewhere in New England. I thought it was like Massachusetts-esque. It might be Maine, a Jace, but it is a island that has not been discovered, has not become it has not gone viral for its aesthetics.

28:53Andy Greenwald:It is not a vacation hub. It is not really anything. And the mayor, Tom Loftus, played brilliantly by Matthew Rhys, again, like the casting, get someone who can be a compelling emotional actor, but also knows his way around a joke. He is essentially the Mayor Leslie Knope of this town, who wants what's best for everyone, even if they don't agree with him. And he is very motivated to publicize this place and bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Among the things keeping it in the early part of the 20th century is that there is no cell phone service. There is no Wi-Fi. It is all connected by landlines.

29:26Andy Greenwald:Everybody knows each other, etc., etc. etc. In the first moment, you are introduced to this absolutely wonderful rogues gallery of locals who have quirks in the way that aren't, again, they're not making fun of people, but it's just a familiar type of single cam comedy that we've encountered before. And then on the third level, there's also this deep, deep bench of fake history where there are funny headlines, like the way there used to be murals in Parks and Rec. And there's even funny paintings, There used to be murals in Parks and Rec, like, you know, about about a dead man found by horse and things like that.

30:01Andy Greenwald:Yes. Pre-seen by whale. It is elevated and it's funny. But what's incredible about the turn, and I did want to talk to you about my ability to just not only not only watch and endure things that are scary, but just love them, was that the show understands something that I think maybe you do, too, as a fan of the genre. that like the emotional line between laughing and hysteria and crying out in shock or fear, it's not that much distance between those two emotional responses. Heroes talked about that in interviews. So there is that kind of like hysteria, literally, that can veer from one to the other relatively quickly.

30:40Andy Greenwald:And it's just on that line in a way that feels really, really natural to the piece and really captivating because I was like, man, we can... I'm not joking. The reason I sang the Young Lean video was I was like, look, I've just watched Widow's Bay and now I've watched this and we can still do stuff. Yeah. The old stuff still works if you if you recombine it in a new form. I think you're absolutely right. There's also a really good they're they're playing some cool tricks. You're right. The cell phone thing is a very slick way of saying you can't ask the questions of why won't they just text each other to say don't go into the fog is coming.

31:19Yeah, right. Right. So now you've got like a kind of 90s, 80s sort of level of like communications with people. There also are, you were speaking about the exposition. We're not doing exposition dumps, though. There are exposition hints. Yeah. So there is, for instance, Stephen Root. Well, again, another like you guys got Stephen Root. This is going to be watchable. um Stephen Root plays a very agitated old-timer uh who is the antagonist of of the mayor Tom Loftus and may have been a mayor himself at some point plays a guy named Wick I believe and you know he is insisting that the island has quote awoken uh because there was an earthquake the as the episode opens or as the season opens there's an earthquake and that this island has now got like kind of like a curse that's been activated by this earthquake and that there will be things that happen over the next couple of days that like to portend for really bad shit coming but the way he kind of puts these breadcrumbs out is not in an annoying like oh so let me guess i have to watch like four hours of this before we get to an answer about this like you can kind of tell there is an old wives tale about this island that nobody who's born there is allowed to leave and then if they do leave they die relatively quickly after reaching mainland and there's something going on with Tom Loftus' family where the mother is not there.

32:42We don't know where she is. And the son, who is natural native to the island, Tom Loftus was born off the island, but summered there. His son was born on the island. And his son is a little bit of a juvenile delinquent. But there is obviously a motivating fear, but also drive on the part of the mayor to be like, is this old wives' tale, is this piece of folklore true? Any of these. is my son ever going to be allowed to leave this island?

33:12Andy Greenwald:He says he has, but I don't think. I did not believe him. And if he did, I imagine it was quick, you know, or something like that. And it just produces an anxiety around it. And I love, you know, look, we all grew up with run past that house, don't walk. And hold your breath by the graveyard. Yeah, just like all sorts of little like old wives tales that we probably adhere to longer in our lives than we even admit. And some people still do to this day, you know, like some people. Don't like walking over cracks in the sidewalk. Some people, you know, it doesn't matter. But the show really effectively plays on that psychology.

33:45And it's like, do I really want to find out whether my cynicism is going to get me killed? So it's really, really, really effective in that way. I found, I'm trying to think of a comp for what Matthew Rhys is doing in this. First of all, let's just take a second to admire what he has done over the last 10 years, right? So you got the Americans, one of your favorite shows. We were big fans of Perry Mason. I was a very big fan of him in Beast and Me.

34:16Andy Greenwald:Oh yeah, I was a fan of him in Beast and Me. And those are several different performances. Yep. He has kind of, I would say, like always got a degree of, like a kind of suave literacy to his performances and to his characters. This is another guy. This is another kind of color for him. And he is playing point guard in this show because he's got 10, 11 people to pass to at any given moment. You know he's the star of Presumed Innocent season two. I did not know that. Like there's a scene in the second episode where he has a long interaction with Tim Balls from Righteous Gemstones. Just the names we're saying.

34:59Andy Greenwald:I want to say them all at once at some point, but yeah. it's it's the ingenious like invention of this show is to just like put a very very very competent leading man in moments where he's throwing passes to the best character actors that Hollywood has that TV has I mean what were some of your favorite supporting performances well I want to get into that but I just think you're right to point out like what Reese is doing is astonishing and you understand why the town loves him even though he is not super famous because there aren't many people who can do what he can do. The type of performance he's giving is this fever dream combination of Ted Danson and Steve Carell.

35:42Andy Greenwald:It's really good. In that you are a talented actor who has charisma, gravitas, suavity, charm, but you can get down in it and you can laugh too. And also you can become hysterical. But there's a generosity of it. He just seems to be... enjoying the notes he's being asked to play while everyone else gets just like, you know, hit the laugh button time and time again. So Cato Flynn is amazing. She's hysterical. As Patricia, who like when the plot of the pilot is that a New York Times reporter played by another icon of this podcast, an actor we love, Bashir Salahuddin from Southside and Top Gun Maverick, plays a, what a CV, plays a New York Times journalist who's, you know, it's Tom's dream to have the Times write about the island.

36:34And he just needs him to say, this is the next Martha's Vineyard and like the entire fortune of the island is going to change. And we're introduced very quickly to the idea that this is a place that's resisting the outside world. And because of that, the infrastructure of the town is kind of falling apart.

36:48Andy Greenwald:Patricia, the first thing she asked Tom about the reporter is, did you tell him about my paintings? Kevin Carroll, we mentioned from The Leftovers, Dale Dickey as Rosemary, an office associate. And gossip. And gossip. You won't recognize her name, but you will recognize her face and her voice almost instantly. Next to her in the office is Jeff Hiller, who won an Emmy for somebody somewhere and was just on Pluribus. Steven Root. Evan, Tom's son, is played by Kingston. Rumi Southwick, who was the son on Presumed Innocent season one. That Presumed Innocent coaching tree, really? It's giving. His sister was Chase Infinity in that.

37:24Andy Greenwald:I mean, remarkable, remarkable stuff. Nancy Lenahan, who was just brilliant and funny in limited minutes on the paper is Jerry. Tim Baltz from Righteous Gemstones. The bald guy in the band from Righteous Gemstones is one of the guys on the island. Neil Casey is a funny actor. He was in the Ghostbusters reboot. The great Toby Huss from Halt and Catch Fire. The thing that I'm trying to communicate is not how amazing these people are. And it's not even like what Katie and Hero have done here is like a dream of like anybody who has the opportunity to make television. These are the people you want to give jobs to and you want to work with because they make everything better.

38:02Andy Greenwald:And how fun would it be to be on an island with all these creative people? It's that they came into this with the strength of material, strength of point of view to tell Apple what's best. Now, it's not fair to suggest that any one streamer or network is monolithic and that there's some internal pushback to good ideas or interesting casting. But if you don't come in as the creator with a backbone and a point of view and some institutional or historical reputational muscle, you are going to get moved off your square in the margins. Yeah. And in the margins, I mean, I don't know what the arc is for Patricia and for Tom, but in a traditional sitcom, that's the couple.

38:43Andy Greenwald:that's going to happen. And once that's maybe the possibility, which I don't know if it is, and I don't know if I would want it to be, Cato Flynn is the person who will get, like, the respectful nods in the meetings, but won't get the part. Everyone, it seems like, that they wanted, got the part in a way that feels cohesive. And it's the same way with, like, what would this show be if they hadn't filmed on location somewhere in Massachusetts? Sure. It's not half the show that it is. Look, I am not going to comp it to shows that don't do this well, but I can think of a dozen off the top of my head where when you're watching, you're like, nobody here chose their outfit.

39:24No character woke up in the morning and put their clothes on.

39:27Andy Greenwald:You're onto something. And in this show, it's briefly mentioned that Tom was coming to the island as like kind of like a rich kid from the mainland, right? and that he would come and hang out with the townies, but always got to go back to his nice life. And while this has kind of been brought up, I noticed how Tom was dressed, which is kind of like J.Crew, spring, summer, well put together, nice pair of jeans, buttoned down, tucked in, blazer. And he's being very earnest. He seems like he wants the best for the island, but you're right. Like the way you communicate difference can be in whether a guy tucks his shirt in or not or what kind of print he wears.

40:14Andy Greenwald:How the corduroy jacket fits him or doesn't. Exactly. And it's like a guy who has like three really good outfits, you know, and everybody else is kind of like I'm wearing a rain slicker or like I'm still allowed to smoke indoors. You know, I thought of you. Yeah, and it's just an attention to detail that I associate with Hiro Morai's stuff, and that I think it's easy in TV to kind of be like, here's the scripts, here's the set, like put them in beige or gray and have them talk, and you can get much deeper than that, and these episodes are about 38 to 45 minutes long, which I think I am going to keep banging this drum that that makes a huge difference.

40:59It's a sweet spot. And you can just see that there's like a real depth of vision and artistry going on in like all the departments.

41:07Andy Greenwald:So I want to talk about briefly the one other small triumph in this show that we clearly love. I can't wait to watch more. The first episode, the pilot works brilliantly and does something that surprised me in this day and age, which is it walks us to the precipice of what the show is about and then pulls it back. Smart, smart TV making. There's more road ahead. Let's enjoy it. And then when it does something even more remarkable, even in this day and age of changing production models and things, second episodes are still a bear. Second episodes, despite the fact that we are not in the, other than the pit, we're not in the let's churn it out, keep it going production model that we used to be in, that caused the reputation of second episodes to dip, in which it was like people's second albums.

41:52Andy Greenwald:Like you have a lifetime to make the first, then you have two weeks to make the second. So the second episodes are generally the pilot again, while you find your footing with a new group of people in writer's room. Second episode of Widow's Bay is a completely different look into the show. It's a haunted house episode. And every moment is packed with the kind of detail and possibility that you're describing. It gives us the show's first, I believe, genuine jump scare and horror moment. Well, it's also like a real taste of the supernatural. Yes. But within it, it also has some of the more two-episode sample size elite jokes thus far, like when spending the night in the local inn in advance of the tourists coming as a dare.

42:31Andy Greenwald:Well, to prove it's not haunted. To prove it's not haunted. Tom is there at the honor bar and then he opens the cabinet that all B &Bs have of Dick Francis paperbacks and self-help books and board games. And the board games that he finds include Daddy's Home, which he plays later, and then two looking like small box, like Uno card games. One is called Teeth, and inside of it is just like a teeth extracting wrench. And then the other one is called Run and it is a deck of cards that he flips through. It says, don't run. It says, not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet, run. I will carry the beauty of these jokes with me for quite some time.

43:16When this show was first sort of getting promoted, they did so with a VHS quality, I guess, like travel ad for the island from, from earlier, like from decades ago. And it was, uh, you know, like a guy basically standing on a, on a rocky beach being like, welcome to widow's Bay, like come along. And then like the guy walks away, but the camera doesn't move. And it has a real, like, um, a little bit of a twin peaks vibe to it. The thing that the second episode made me think of and about the viability and maybe perhaps the legs of the show and with Apple, uh, as, as Foundation and Silo and many other shows and season five of Waiting.

44:00For All Mankind. They will let you finish the story. So the second episode, though, I was like, is this X-Files? Yeah. Could they do like Monster of the Week but we're never quite sure if it was real or not?

44:13Andy Greenwald:Because it is not, as the first episode implies, oh, it's not a zombie show. It's not like one thing is happening to this island. This island is fucking weird. And weird stuff happens here, much like, you know, funny heartwarming stuff happens in Pawnee. Yeah. And that's engaging, but it's also viable for long term if you have that kind of creative grip on what the thing is that you want to do. The thrill of the second episode actually came early on before any of the scares come, is I realized that much of my chagrin that the New York Times writer had left because I love the character and I love the actor.

44:50Andy Greenwald:Yes, I know. But it took away any kind of like false time frame or anything where it was like, we have to solve all of this so that this guy, when he leaves the island, will write well about us. It's like, no, he's already left. We're okay now, but we're not, you know? and it's really cool when a show is like, why don't we do like each episode has its own vibe rather than each episode is essentially people coming back and forth and talking to each other and then there's like a false cliffhanger at the end. But we're only doing this over the course of three days or whatever. That's where I see the other two influences that I would throw in there.

45:28Andy Greenwald:We talked about Parks and Rec a lot clearly, but Mike Schur, who is Katie Dippold's boss on Parks and Rec, is the reigning champion of classic sitcoms that have a little bit of the wire-esque mutability and serialization. Enough to engage modern audiences, but enough of the old stuff, too, to keep things a little bit lighter so that these shows don't sink under the weight of their own plot or premise. The other show that I was going to throw out there is, do you remember The Third Day? Yeah, of course. Third Day was a pandemic. Did we ever watch the live episode? The live episode. So this was a pandemic era HBO Co-Pro experiment starring Jude Law made by essentially experimental theater people and directors that at the midpoint of the season, there was a day long theatrical happening that was live streamed that in some way advanced the plot.

46:23Andy Greenwald:Did we spend our day doing that? I mean, it was the pandemic. Like I read the Magic Mountain for sport. Like I probably did watch it. But kind of. It's pretty good. But not Dr. Faustus, clearly, though, in terms of my, you know, Thomas Mann knowledge. I guess I just never really thought about is Faust the guy. Faust is the guy who makes the deal or Faust is what they call the devil? No. Gotcha. The devil's like, doctor. You know what I mean? He's like, please call me Faust. I believe that's the translation from German. You and I are friends. Let's talk. What do you want, Faust? the anyway it's a tough watch that show but it was engaging and I wonder I want to ask if we get the chance Hero and Katie if they overwatch that show because it there is an element of things don't work the same here and are you trapped here?

47:19Andy Greenwald:I don't know are you? Yeah the kind of like brinksmanship in terms of like how far is this thing really going to go that was very engaging on that show too because there was a mania to it and and a creative like full creative commitment to the bit the uh you know the the font of the title card is it'll make you think of stephen king but it's not explicitly stephen king font and i guess i would leave it there which is that there are are some things that like wear their influences on their sleeve or in fact lead with their influences in order to like kind of create a mood board for it. And I'm sure that they did that here, but it was just different enough where I was like, cool font, cool show, you know, like the story of the agony of influence of in our contemporary era is I think a divide between the properties and projects that are just clearly attempts to recreate entertainment from the creator's childhood.

48:26Andy Greenwald:versus ones that are like, I was raised in a circulating bath of Amblin and Spielberg and 80s, you know, Ghostbusters. And that informed who I am. And now I'm going to do this with it. And the more success, to my mind, the most successful things do that, you know. I'm actually curious, like what I just described, which category do you think Stranger Things falls into? You watch the whole thing. Well, by the end of it. I'm not trying to take a shot. I'm just curious. I think you'd probably be surprised, but still like bored by the fact that it turned into like James Cameron at the end. Also 80s.

49:02Yeah, but it is essentially like closer to Terminator and Terminator 2. And almost like the never ending story and like, you know, sci-fi epics. It's all in a blender. Yeah. Whereas the first couple of seasons are very much rooted in like Goonies and that kind of thing. I think that's it for Widow's Bay for me. I mean, like, I honestly don't have any critiques of it. I didn't really have, like, everything that, like, my brain would be like, oh, let me guess, you're not going to tell us, like, why this. I was like, no, this is, like, really working. And I think part of it is the runtime, the pace, and the production is just so fun to be in that you're not really sweating the, like, the little things.

49:45Look at us.

49:45Andy Greenwald:This is the Predator handshake meme of comedy fan and horror fan. I'm curious because, you know, I think we were probably like mixed towards not happy about Margot's Got Money Troubles. And I cannot say that I'm looking forward to the revival of Ted Lasso. There's a couple of sci-fi shows that Apple has, like obviously For All Mankind, Silas coming back. I think they'll do the last, I think they're ending Foundation now. I don't even know if it's being promoted or not. I don't know. But this, Star City, which we talked about glowingly, at least its trailer last week. And Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, which is coming soon with Tatiana Maslany, which looks pretty gritty.

50:24Andy Greenwald:And friend of the pod, Jake Johnson. Yeah, and looks like kind of a provocative, interesting, modern thriller. I'm kind of curious what they're doing over there. I think what I was saying before is probably fodder for a larger conversation about the state of the streamers. Like, Apple has so much money and its goals are so wide that you kind of can't make a declaration about what they are doing or not doing. They are essentially doing almost everything. And I think that I would love to get under the hood and try to understand what's working for them, what's working for audiences, and where any disconnects may have been in the creative process.

51:05Andy Greenwald:Because for whatever problems we had with Margot's Got Money Troubles, we are in the minority, I think. People just like casually, like industry, not industry, people are really enjoying it. And I think it's because it is, you know, like from the production design to the performances, like it's really, really well made. That strikes me as something that is meeting its goals, you know, what it was set out to do. And if the vibe of the story of the book didn't work for us, then that's not necessarily the adapter's problem. I think that we've seen other examples of Apple shows where it feels like someone nodded off at the wheel on one side of it or another in terms of the notes they were or were not giving or in terms of just like the unfettered whatever.

51:40Maybe just like how production worked out, like where, you know, stuff didn't come together. Yeah.

51:45Andy Greenwald:But not everything good. Like when you think when we talk about like the famous development processes of like these, the two remaining titans of like, really, let's get in here and develop, which are HBO and FX. I mean, they're grinders. They are incredibly demanding. I have seen the notes and the notes are brilliant. And the notes are extreme and intricate. And not everything turns into a diamond if you squeeze hard enough. That doesn't work for everyone. Some creators, and they don't do that for everyone. I don't mean to pretend that that's what they do, but it's too facile to be like, Apple just shrugs and writes the checks and HBO obsesses over every detail.

52:24Andy Greenwald:Broadly speaking, that's kind of probably true, but there are outliers on either side. And there's also good quality from either side. I wish that Apple's stuff was a little more focused for the consumer, but it almost doesn't matter if they do. Whereas like Peacock, for example, I think what's fascinating about Peacock's recent choices editorially is it's very hard to imagine a consumer maybe I'm wrong I'd love pushback on this but like the average Peacock consumer who watches NBA okay so far we're in Top Chef we're in the larger Bravo universe not necessarily me the Burbs the Copenhagen Test and Miniature Wife like that is that's a very broad brush Apple can get away with it Apple can be like do you like F1?

53:15Andy Greenwald:yes do you like Slow Horses? sure also here's this you know quirky horror comedy and then they sell you know 100 ,000 more MacBook Neos. Yeah, you know, there has been some speculation about whether or not Tim Cook's resignation or stepping down will lead to... Stepping up. Sure, step to heaven? Where is he going? No, I think he's taking on like a larger title, but he's no longer the CEO day to day. Yeah, I mean, but whether the new CEO will be like, why do we have this? You know, now, I think probably you could make the argument that it's been a net positive for Apple to be so forward-facing in culture by being a part of things like F1 and Ted Lasso and putting Killers of the Flower Moon out or what have you.

54:03But I'm curious to see whether there's ever any like, hey, season five of that? Really?

54:10Andy Greenwald:Yeah, any curtailing of it, any changing. It's funny though, because the one thing for all the criticism that people, fair criticism, I think people lobby at Netflix, Ted Sarandos' love of Hollywood or love of SNL or the things that he loves isn't questioned. But then they're like, but is this good for Hollywood? Tim Cook, this is not a shot against Tim Cook, but it's just like, I saw a thing that was like the only time he's ever seemed really enthusiastic or happy is when he's crossed paths with Lana Del Rey. Yeah. Which, respect. But it's funny that you would think that someone who devoted so much capital to the sprawling entertainment wing of his company that continually does feel a little bit unmoored from strategy.

54:55Andy Greenwald:It's amazing what you can do when you don't buy data centers. Yeah, there you go. You can make shrinking. There you go. Right, but you'd think that he would be a little bit like, how fun, I visited set and I do love this. Sure. He doesn't seem to be that interested in that, which is also fine, but the behavior of the company would suggest that he was like, in the same way like Jeff Bezos moved to Hollywood, you know, and he's just like, I like this. And then he moved to... Where are there no taxes? There's a world in which, you know, I mean, Apple obviously is one of the more, one of the richest companies in the world, one of the most valuable companies in the world.

55:32Andy Greenwald:There you go, glazing them again. But if Steve Jobs, the movie written by Aaron Sorkin, tells me anything, it's like sometimes there's competition internally for what's getting resources. and if they decide we haven't made something new, something really truly mind-blowing. Since Ted Lasso season two. Since Ted Lasso's sophomore slump. No, like there's often like a concern-troll thing about Apple where it's like, where's the new iPhone? Where's the thing that's going to change culture entirely? Yeah, well, there's also nothing more to do with a phone. Like now there's four lenses on the camera.

56:07Yeah, exactly. But like, would you argue that like maybe there's too much money being spent on TV and movies that could be going towards product development or could be going towards whatever else is core to their business?

56:19Andy Greenwald:Not if the alternative is like an AI companion you wear around your neck and then you can hang yourself with it. Like, I don't, I think that this is not, I don't like read Bloomberg in Financial Times. This is not some like big brain zag. But the things that I have heard like just casually that they did, you know, they went down the path of like maybe we will make an Apple car or maybe we will make an Apple TV that's also the screen. And I think that it proved to be smart that they were like, let other people make those things. We will have our phones be the software for the car. You know, so in that, world where there isn't that much more iteration to do in the hardware space, having a studio, is it the worst thing?

57:04Andy Greenwald:I don't know. But I, but I think your question, maybe this is the map more of a Matt Bell and the town type question is like the soft power of producing content. What does that mean to the bottom line and how, how, how committed are they to it? Because if they, if they stopped, well then, yeah, you get, I mean, I know we're like Like the Arclight hasn't reopened. But like if Apple stopped making TV, this whole thing collapses. The most chilling thing that I saw, which it was admittedly a tweet and I did not then interrogate the truthfulness of it, was the announcement by that like the Quixote.

57:37Yes, Quixote's going to like shut down. And this is if you're driving around Los Angeles, you see these trucks that say Quixote on the side and it usually means there's a shoot going on. And I still saw them, you know, even in the dark days that we've been in. But them announcing that they're like, they're out on Hollywood?

57:53Andy Greenwald:It was a weird announcement and a depressing one at a moment when, and it's not just the like, you know, happy headlines coming out of like the, you know, there's no writer's strike, that things are moving. There has been a slight drumbeat of it's coming back. Like there's more production happening. Netflix just bought the old CBS Radford lot. Yeah, there's another big soundstage going up on Santa Monica. So there was, so that was maybe more of like Like, is that an outlier or is that an indicator of the real economy? Well, let's take a quick break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about Top Chef because restaurant wars happened this week.

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59:48Okay, we're back. Let's talk about Top Chef. I want to talk to you more broadly about something. Rather than, we're going to get into the details of this episode, which was Restaurant Wars. Do you like Restaurant Wars? This is the backbone of the show. This is the merge in Survivor. This is what it kind of all builds up to, and then the game changes afterwards, and it really usually, I think, functions as a mile marker to be like, we're entering the homestretch here with these chefs. but I was curious whether or not you think Restaurant Wars is a barometer for who's good at top chef versus who's good at cooking

1:00:26Andy Greenwald:I think I'm of two minds of it I think generally it is a very good benchmark midpoint of the season partly just because of the nature of it we're 23 seasons in I believe it's been a part of every season and the chefs are aware when they get to eat what they're going to be doing and they maybe have had some strategy and some thought and the history of the show comes to the fore in a way that's fun in that they're aware of the pitfalls of being front of house or whatever. I also think that it's one of the few times, to your point, where we actually see what these contestants might be like in a real-world professional setting as opposed to the heightened manic creative nonsense of the show.

1:01:05Andy Greenwald:So I think that's really, really good. I also do think the front of the house stuff is incredibly revealing and incredibly important because as you and I talk about all the time offline when you're not texting me about hockey is like restaurants are mostly good or bad because of the service and the experience. And that is underlooked by a lot of these. And it's also basically divorced from the reality of Top Chef. So I like all that. The thing that bugs me is they can't stop fiddling with it. There have been seasons when they go shopping for decor like this season and there have been seasons when they don't.

1:01:40Andy Greenwald:I think the ones where they don't are better where they explain their vision and then they have to you know make do with it but like I don't think these guys are necessarily good at shopping clearly in this case some of them weren't and beyond that if they're just giving 24 hours to throw some cloth up in an abandoned Carolina warehouse it's not really going to sell the deal anyway so focus on the other stuff instead and I felt the same way about the this year iteration of takeout orders too. Yeah. Which is just like, I understand you want to try something new. And that certainly is part of restaurant life post COVID, but it was just ultimately it was distracting and it's a split mission.

1:02:17Andy Greenwald:Like if you only have 24 hours and you have to have a dish that travels well, like I think you're setting them up to a fail in a way that doesn't showcase their talents or reward the viewers of the show. So it's, it's interesting you bring up this, this twist that happens in restaurant wars, which is essentially like trying to recreate the, the panic of the bear within an already tense situation uh with with restaurant with like starting and and serving at a restaurant over the course of one night two sittings with only like a day or two of prep um i was watching survivor last night survivor 50 this is a spoiler for this last episode of survivor 50 i hope you don't mind but uh you know they have successfully introduced a bunch of like until now never seen before twists.

1:03:05Last night they get their customary letters from home which is always a really emotional moment for the survivor people. They've been out there for like three weeks and like they get these letters from their loved ones and they all cry. When that happened they also brought out Mr. Beast. Mr. Beast walked out with a briefcase that said beware and said he would be back at tribal council to like reveal what the beware like chaos was going to ensue and people know who this guy is yeah i mean he's probably the one of the most famous youtubers in the world i wonder if your older

1:03:37Andy Greenwald:daughter knows who mr beast is okay but they but like in the same way that like you know when we were in the 80s i was like oh that's valerie bertinelli you know what i mean like i wasn't a fan he does things where it's like i gave away 250 000 you just had to spend a night in alcatraz for it. You know, like it's a little bit Running Man. It's a little bit Squid Games. He did the Squid Game, Beast Games. Is he running for mayor of LA? Is that a better plan than Karen Bass's plan? I'm listening.

1:04:07His twist basically like upended Tribal and while I think Tribal sort of ended in a very entertaining place, it's not pure Survivor. It's not pure Survivor gameplay. Right. And I thought that the takeout thing was an interesting wrinkle and ultimately did not, I think the right team won Restaurant Wars, which was Dwen's team. Yes. But it was kind of like either commit fully and fucking go into, like somebody has to work a to-go window.

1:04:42Andy Greenwald:What I would suggest, and maybe this is coming and maybe they talked about it and this is actually a bad idea in practice, do a ghost kitchen challenge where you have to create a ghost kitchen that's going to appear on the app. So you could get, look, they love getting branded, get the apps involved. Yeah. And then they have to see like how many orders they get. I'm sure all these people have dreamed their whole life of getting to a ghost kitchen and making Goop Kitchen teriyaki bowls on Top Chef. It's a fair point. But if also, if we're being like, what is the industry now? There you go. Do you see like New York Magazine covered the New York arrival of Goop Kitchen the way they once covered like the greatest French chefs like deigning to set foot in the Isle of Manhattan.

1:05:21I did not see the New York Magazine. Very cool. Yeah, it's a sign of the things,

1:05:27Andy Greenwald:like you can't have it both ways. We have been praising the season for some feeling the editorial hand more from time to time, which is appropriate when you are on season 23 or in the case of Survivor, double that. That didn't work for me because we had chefs and teams that were more than capable of doing this in ways that were compelling on their own. Now, they can't count on that. Like, if these chefs had, like, totally shit the bed or, like, not, you know, been mismatched in ways that didn't work, then we may have been complaining about wishing there were more wrinkles to it because they were all bad at doing the one thing they had to do.

1:06:03Andy Greenwald:But I felt a little bit disappointed with the extra distraction because ultimately what the takeout thing did was give them a chance in the edit to say, Dwen's team and her performance was clearly superior, but some people lacked cutlery. Yeah. Which was not as dramatic maybe. Well, because I think that the thing that I didn't understand was that these people are just going to like go outside of a restaurant and eat. So that's why I guess the cutlery was important but I was mostly like when they're like, do you need cutlery? I'm like, no, I'm taking it out and going home with it. So I'm fine, you know.

1:06:34The one other thing I made major note I had from this was that, you know, when this season began, I think my excitement and I'm still really into this season but my excitement was largely around the separation from the pack of Rhoda, Anthony, and Lawrence, and the ensuing competition that would come out of that. Because I was like, you know, sometimes you have a Buddha, and it's just like wire to wire, nobody's going to beat this guy. This was like, ooh, and if there's like a big three, and then there's like maybe a late breaker, and you could have like a pretty tight, like, it's anybody's ballgame going into the finale.

1:07:10and now it's kind of been like that but not as good as I thought it was going to be because Lawrence and Anthony have kind of come back down to earth and Rhoda's been in Last Chance Kitchen the entire season seemingly. So I was curious whether or not you even had a feel for what these people are cooking right now.

1:07:27Andy Greenwald:I thought, I mean, one of the things that can happen in a way that I really enjoy in Top Chef is that you could be thinking someone is mid for weeks and then like Oscar and then not only is he charming enough in front of house, he makes the best dish of Restaurant Wars. And then everyone was like, well, that's exceptional. And you like to see it, you know? I like seeing people rise to the occasion and prove why they're there and make it seem as if they could be competitors, even though I don't really think that's the case. Right. We should mention, we failed to mention, since we talked about it a lot last week, like Seeger was back.

1:08:00Andy Greenwald:Yes. It wasn't that dramatic. They did the thing that we thought they were going to do, which is Seager just didn't go to Last Chance Kitchen because obviously they shot two days or three days of the show before they did an LCK. So they just had Seager like kind of in the wings. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a bummer. But just in terms of like it is, I don't know what fair is, but okay, he's back. Yeah. I don't know if those guys were at a competitive disadvantage from where his head was at and then making him executive chef was a choice. True. I think I could be wrong, but I don't know if I will be.

1:08:37Andy Greenwald:I think that there are only three potential winners of the season, unless something bizarre or catastrophic happens. Hate me. You got them. Rhoda is now back. Sorry for the Last Chance Kitchen spoiler. But Anthony and Lawrence and Rhoda, they are the best chefs. And seemingly the best competitors, although Rhoda clearly had a pretty spectacular slip up. I don't see the path for everyone else in terms of whether it's their abilities or their consistency, which is kind of a bummer. And even if, like, it's been interesting this season. My daughters are all in, finally. Took 23 seasons, but they love watching the show with me, which is quite meaningful for me.

1:09:17Andy Greenwald:I love doing that. But they love Brandon. They like the twins, but they were super into Brandon, I think because he made ice cream for the dessert challenge and seemed to speak their language. but like I don't even know if he was a contender because real contenders who know how to play this game don't do what he did which was essentially make himself invisible and put his name on something lacking like that was just such a weird strategy fail in the one episode every year that they know they're going to be in and remind me Brandon was the one who came and helped his brother when his brother had kind of which they showed like he's an incredible he was an incredible sous chef he clearly is a very talented very fast and backstopped everything.

1:10:00Yeah, when Jonathan was like, oh, I haven't cut any herbs and services about the start.

1:10:04Andy Greenwald:Yeah, but then what did he make for his own dish was a gloopy rice pudding with four soda raisins on top. Yep. Like that's never going to win. Yeah. And it was weird lack of focus. And I think that that focus is the thing. Because you could criticize people like Lawrence and Anthony for like playing down slightly to the competition or playing it safe time to time. Well, Anthony having immunity in Restaurant Wars was also like kind of like, well, you can just go do XO. You can do executive chef and then... He also made a hideous, like insanely weird looking choice to make a dish that was like one thing and then he just poured something else on top of it.

1:10:38He also put okra in it, which is like you're just tempting fate. Slime on slime. Yeah.

1:10:42Andy Greenwald:But playing it safe in a field like this kind of makes sense. I thought, just going back to your first question, like Dwen was so good at front of house and made it seem easy, which is what good restaurants should feel like. I thought that was a really nice showcase for her and her ability. Yeah, I thought she was quite good. I was worried with the edit that they were giving her when she was like, the thing about me is I'm super organized. And I was like, this is either you're calling your shot or this is going to be like your montage at the end. Let me tell you something. It is really fun. I recommend this for you with your ward or whomever, like to watch reality TV with young minds that have not— Who don't know about hero edits and stuff.

1:11:19Exactly.

1:11:20Andy Greenwald:So they think that I am some like Nostradamus. I'm Bill James. Like I'm pointing out the inefficiencies on the field in ways that they have never understood and they want to bring me into the front office. They look at me like I'm a wizard when I'm like, that person is going to win or lose. No question about it. You know, or like I'm predicting the winner wins. That it's going to be central is going to be her. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was pretty much all I had for Top Chef. Great. You have anything for After Dark today? Anything? Yeah, I'd love to address what an amazing sports week this has been.

1:11:53I love it. First of all, this will probably be going up. By the time this goes up, I think the Sixers will be playing game six in Philadelphia against the Celtics. But I just want to talk to you about hockey.

1:12:06Andy Greenwald:It's me with a rake. I'm going to watch this game, and I know it's going to happen. I am not. I have to go to a dinner. I can't get out of it. And maybe I don't even want to get out of it. Are you going to be eyeing your phone? I try not to do that. That's good. But I wanted to know how you felt about the Flyers' overtime 1-0 win over the Penguins in the NHL Stanley playoffs because you never commented on the 37 text messages that me and Zach sent last night on it. First of all, I was knee-deep in my rewatch of Widow's Bay. Don't regret it. I did respond to you with a share from 4 minutes, 14 seconds clip of the Young Lean video.

1:12:46Andy Greenwald:So I was in my bag. You know what I mean? I felt fine I don't did you watch the highlight? no because I don't want to experience FOMO okay I think I've made a decision I'm going to stick with it I did feel like Zach was putting on a little bit thick with his text saying oh my god I can't believe hockey is like this I've never felt so alive like I thought like I felt like Gary Bettman was like paying him a little bit some spare loonies to influence you just to be like maybe he's texting that to a lot of people yeah I don't know He works for a culture magazine. Maybe he's setting the tone. I thought it was great.

1:13:22It's just been an electric week when it comes to athletics.

1:13:25Andy Greenwald:So the, I mean, it's like soccer in the sense that this sudden death feeling of like, oh my God, anything can happen in this moment. When the improbable happened and the Flyers won, what sort of, how would you characterize the noise that came from your body and how did you behave? Was it? Yeah. Let's fucking go. You went low? Yeah. The truth is these moments reveal and I tend to go real high in those moments. I don't think I do well, like when good things happen in sports and the true spirit comes out. That was a heck of a slap shot. Wow. Touchdown, fellas. Yeah, but you went. Do you guys want to get some light beers?

1:14:07Gosh.

1:14:09Andy Greenwald:2.5 % is my limit. Yeah, it's not awesome. It's not awesome. I'm impressed that you know you got anything for me for After Dark? characters revealed in those moments no no I'm not prepared not prepared you got me watching Resident Evil trailers you know like I'm just I'm kind of on your street today I'll see what I can do we're gonna be back on Monday we're gonna be talking about euphoria we're gonna be talking about culture I think probably culture here's a question for you big movie this weekend coming out Devil Wears Prada 2 I've seen Devil Wears Prada 1 I can't say that it's the most rewatchable movie of the century I like that movie I like Emily Blunt in that movie I wasn't like the story needs to go on but why not you know I'll eventually see it it's not a first weekender for me.

1:15:13I had to go see Hocum this weekend with Adam Scott. Oh, that isn't... A horror movie set in an Irish hotel.

1:15:19Andy Greenwald:A lot of things that interest you. I, um, this is a big movie in my household. This is a... Devil Wears Prada 2? Yes, my children are very, very, very eager to watch it. Have they seen the first one? No, they just love fashion. Yes, yeah, they, yeah, that's a... Like, if... I'm not trying to tell, I'm not trying to tell Hollywood what to do, but like if you want to really engage with specifically my children 11 Things I Hate About You would be a billion dollar box office hit judging by the continued enthusiasm for that film if they just like remade it or do you think like if they revisited some of those I don't know I just mean like maybe this is a conversation for the big picture or something because like the passion the selective passion that my daughters have for the few movies that they like is so intense and not really because they have those options they i think it has limited their interest in checking for new things you know like why why go see that when we could just so why go see the christophers when you can just watch devil wears prada one again yeah or clueless again but but this is a but there's a you know big 12 months of of tom holland content coming so that's going to do numbers.

1:16:35Andy Greenwald:Like the Odyssey? Well, my older daughter loves three things in this world. Greek mythology, Tom Holland, and Zendaya. So, yeah, we're going to be there. Now, do you think, this is for after, maybe this is for the future, for the summer, maybe we should have an episode where Uncle Chris makes his, Uncle Chris explains Christopher Nolan to a 13-year-old. Your mind is the scene of the crime. She'll be coming in cold to his particular aesthetic vision. Should I do it as Bean? Yeah. I'll give it some thought. Thank you. Thanks to Kai and Kaya for producing today, and we will be back on Monday. Everybody have a great weekend.