The Prestige TV Podcast - Did ‘Eastbound & Down’ Stick the Landing?

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Andy Greenwald is joined by Chris Ryan to discuss “Chapter 29,” the series finale of ‘Eastbound & Down.’ They open by talking about Danny McBride’s uncut style of comedy, why the HBO series warrants an extended conversation including but not limited to its comic hijinks, and how the creative team behind the show has since evolved (2:26). Along the way, they discuss its never-ending list of perfect guest stars, and the gradual character development of Kenny Powers (18:53). Later, they explain how the finale is an example of both a satisfying conclusion and radical experimentation (40:17). Finally, they answer the titular question: “Did it stick the landing?” (64:50) Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Chris Ryan Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Theme Song and Other Music Credits: Giancarlo Vulcano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey. Hey. Hey. Can I talk to you guys for a second? Sure. Over 25 years ago, on September 29, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy

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presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Boershead. The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Boershead committed to craft since 1905. From Chapter 1 to Chapter 29, from Carolina to the Congo, look at y'all jumping around like a bunch of child molesters and a chucky cheese. This is Stick the Landing, eastbound and down.

Hello, welcome to an episode of Stick the Landing. Greenwald and I am joined by someone I've never met before. A newbie in the podcast space, Christopher Ryan. Is this a microphone? Is this how it works? Welcome. Thank you for taking the plunge and doing this with me. Look, I was waiting to see when you were going to blink and have your boy on, but like I know that this is really weird. It's like we switch sides of the bed, you know? Change is good in long-term relationships. And I think everybody here knows, Kaya and Kaya can confirm. There was always an open invitation. Yes. But, you know, you were, this is beautiful. I've read a New York magazine that Pollyamory is in.

So you wanted to let me try things with new partners and see how it felt before I came back home again. Like Kenny, like Kenny Powers, so I appreciate what I had the whole time. You chose East Bend and Down. I did. I mean, to be fair, like there are some pretty juicy titles still on the board for Stick the Landing, which is a fantastic pod you've been doing for the last couple of months. Say you're on right now. And you know, I was trying to think of like what would be a good one for us to talk about?

What are some things that we've shared, but maybe haven't like broken down a lot on the watch? We didn't. And eastbound is just like, it's basically my therapy. It's where I go when I want to be private and I want to live, laugh and love and be seen. And it's also the thing that I think you and I, like, for all of our divergent and convergent tastes, are the thing, is the thing that you and I equally find to be the most funny thing we've ever seen. It is the Venn diagram of all of our. comedic interests. Yeah.

And we love the show so much that maybe the funniest parts of the show weren't even on the show. Right. We could do a whole separate podcast episode about the outtakes on YouTube, which we won't talk about now.

So for people who don't know, and it's worrisome that our younger producers don't know, Eastbound and Down was a brilliant comedy that ran for four seasons on the Home Box Office Network. It premiered February 2009, and it ended November 17th, 2013.

Did not remember that it was kind of a holiday. The season is kind of holiday theme, but I did not remember that this went off the year right before Thanksgiving. Helpful to think about it, taking up all the juicy parts of the Obama administration, basically. We were so young then, and we made jokes then that we don't make now, apparently, after rediscovering this. Where were you with Danny McBride, who created the show, along with his longtime collaborators, Jody Hill and Ben Best, and then their friend David Gordon Green came on as an executive producer and director throughout the run? Where were you with Danny McBride when the show premiered. Were you checking for him? The footfist way. The foot fistway was like a big deal.

Like I think it was also one of those really awesome occurrences where, you know, a screaming comes across the sky. We're like some from outside of the Hollywood system and from outside of really anybody's like purview, there's like this really cool voice and this really funny sensibility that's like has arrived and it rived seemingly fully formed. I mean, Danny's been basically working on a version of this American idiot character across the last 20 years, right? Like, almost. It's kind of Loki, one of the great artistic arcs of contemporary life.

Yes. Like, it's like to what Clint Eastwood is to, like, stoic cowboys, Danny McBride is to assholes with Jetskies. And I, so I was aware of Footfist Way, and I was also aware of the almost underground punk rock element to it where it was like people were trading tapes, like, you know, or DVDs. Like someone had like a DVD of Footfist Way

and they got it to Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. And like it was getting passed around and it was like this, this sort of like secret for a while. And I think one thing that I would say, just like even by the time they got to HBO and they're doing a Sunday night television show, the roughhouse gang or whatever, you know,

like they never like broke. They never bent to the will of like let's have some notes on like what would be like a little bit of a more palatable version of this or should we make him a little nicer or whatever and it's like we've seen plenty of awesome shows that are like maybe Michael Scott should

chill out a second or maybe the Amy polar character on Parks needs to be Ratched it down, dialed down. They never do that with Kenny and I feel like there's something kind of special about the fact that the original voice is the same voice that ends the show. Also what interests these dudes

Yeah. I, we just discussed the two of us having a vent diagram. I don't know if there's a, there's a very big vent diagram of my interest with these, these boys. Like, I think their love of like class A pharmaceuticals and Smokey and the Bandit all at the same time does not mirror my growing up necessarily. Yeah. But they're so committed to the bit and they're such fans of not just making each other laugh, which is key to then making everyone else laugh. but also to trying to learn how to make the things that they loved. So one of the great things about the show is that in the midst of the dumbest jokes about

like grooving with widespread panic and, you know, snorting big lines, like they are trying to shot by shot recreate things that they love growing up. There's a commitment to the filmmaking, commitment to the place too, that is so rich, even though I've never spent this much time in the Carolina. So like the thing that I always think about with them and especially, especially this show is Tarantino, because the experience that I had somewhat with reservoir dogs, but especially with Pulp Fiction,

was getting thrown into the deep end, in the case of Eastbound and down, maybe a lazy river full of urine and ejaculate. Like, the experience of getting thrown in and having it be this fully formed, fully thought out universe of influences and cultural touchstones that were, I guess,

not even whether they were familiar or not, seemed to be made 25 times cooler by the fact that they were being contextualized by these filmmakers. So like in Tarantino, and you go see Pulp Fiction and you have the opening scene and then cool and the gang kicks in,

you're just like, well, already this is the best soundtrack of any movie I've ever seen. I'm so locked in. And in some ways, I feel the same way about the Freddie King drop that basically scores every cold open of you down and then,

like you said, like the references to smoking and the Bandit, the references to like stone 70s and 80s, action comedy, TV, and movies, and their kind of tapestry of cultural interests that aren't mine necessarily, but are like completely fascinating. I love the point you're making, and we're going to get to the show of specifics, I promise, but like this is a throughline of something that we often talk about or try to think about on the watch, which is how we discover things and how we fall in love with things.

And in a pre-internet time, like the way you would discover things was through influences or people making a reference to something or you look, what did you like? Well, what did those people like? And so all the Tarantino's, the movies that Tarantino was referencing, whether they were, you know, French New Wave films or 70s black exploitation films. I didn't know any of those movies. I knew the Tarantino movies. And then you work your way backwards. And one of my memories of the Eastbound era was still living in Brooklyn and, um, I think Eastbound must have been on at this point, and I was like, there's nothing like this. It rings my bell, like nothing else does. David Gordon Green presented one of his favorite films at Brooklyn Academy of Music, at Bam, and it was a film that is still almost impossible to find. It's called The Dion Brothers. I watched that movie, and it all made sense. It was like I was suddenly back in that world, and they successfully recreate.

This is a movie with Stacey Keech and Frederick Forrest as fuck-up brothers doing all sorts of criminal stuff, but it's funny and it's weird, and it's lost. Yeah. But it's not lost because they brought it to. us and they brought it to everyone by making a show like this. And you know, it's also amazing is that for as cool, I guess cool is the word I'm looking for, for as cool as I thought this show was, I don't think they ever worried about being cool.

You know, like, I think that they were like, this is what we like. Yeah. And we like jet skis and souped up pickups and bong rips. And wearing fucking board shorts and bong rips and flip flops and this culture of like the Carolinas. but like if you don't, if you're not on board, like we're giving you the uncut dose of this. Yeah, like their devotion to absolutely blinkered male ego is, it is, it's Shakespeare. Okay, so this is where I wanted to go with this.

Okay. Actually, in the original, in the opening conversation, if you don't mind me, grab the screen will a little bit. Please. Spent a little time last night reading a little website called grantland.com where you wrote about the, I don't know if it was specifically the finale as much as the like last innings of Bupy Spout. It was both. I got real fired up about this last season.

I wrote a column at the start of the season and then one after the finale. You can spend an entire hour talking about what Eastbound and Down reflected about the American psyche in 2009 and what it predicted about the American psyche in the decades afterwards. And you beautifully wrote about the portrait of male sort of frailty and the decay of classical masculinity that's on display in Eastbound and Down. But let me ask you this. Do you feel like to warrant a place on stick the landing or to warrant like an extended conversation beyond, we always joke about the Chris Farley. Like that was so funny when you did this thing. Which we will get to, I bet, today.

That you have to kind of almost build out like the more serious aspirations of a comedy. You know, like, you have to say parks and recreation is about community and about like hope. And that eastbound and down is about male like male fragility. in the 21st century. Yes and no. So I was excited to talk about this show. Beyond just being like, this shit is so funny. I cry.

This show is so funny and I cry. And I love it so much. And I was just, my jaw was on the floor from jokes that I remember, jokes that I didn't remember. It is unbelievable and it holds up. But I was also ready to have a conversation with you about that very idea. Do comedies in this era have to become serialized? Do they have to answer a question? Do they have to be going toward anything other than just a more natural or in some cases if they run too long

unnatural conclusion. I was also wondering if we were going to talk about this more as a period piece in the sense of people with a very specific worldview getting a chance to just go ham on an HBO budget, as opposed to the current model, I think, of whether people get funny off of TikTok, and then maybe FX will give them a production deal, and then maybe they get on FX on Hulu, which is no small thing. But it is different from the Danny McBride and gang way, which was the foot fist way, which was a VHS that got, this is the story always, but like got passed around Hollywood.

And the previous passed around VHS in Hollywood was South Park, right? And so everyone who is anyone laughed about that. And then a lot of those people ended up cameoing on the show later. So is it, are we talking about the end of that era? Are we going to talk about this sort of, this moment of like boys with their toys comedy, which is exemplified by Will Ferrell showing up and then watching the outtakes where he's just taking up all the air, having all the fun in the world, and making Danny McBride and Craig Robinson and whomever else was on set that day laugh. That feels that era,

which is the Adam McKay, Will Ferrell era, no longer. I mean, not only are they broken up, but like that type of comedy doesn't seem to be in the culture anymore. So were we going to talk about that? Yeah. And then I went back into the show

and was loving it and watching it chronologically. And then I got to that last season. What's interesting about getting old or older is I was watching this last season and I was like, holy shit, is this low-key the best season of the show? Did this show find itself at the end? And then I was doing galaxy brain emoji

where I was like, is this show the short-pants version of Breaking Bad? And is it more effective in detailing the ego that can lead to the downfall of a normal family man, even better than that great show in the same way that righteous gemstones is the short-buss version of succession?

And then I went to Grantlin and I was like, oh, I wrote all this years ago. I really thought I had cracked the code. Yeah, you got to Google yourself. But yes, I think that I think all of those things merit inclusion here, but I especially think that Kenny Powers gives a teenager a machine gun and, like, does the meme? Yeah, it's like, that happens. That happens.

But also, this show gave us an ending that is so wildly successful, not to spoil the landing of Stick the Landing, that I do think it's noteworthy. because it didn't need to. The laughing would have been enough. It's also interesting to see how it's like kind of what they did since then. And I think you can't help because this creative team has remained largely together

and in fact has gone back to their roots in a lot of ways where they have this Myrtle Beach creative community that they shoot righteous gemstones at that I think that they did the Halloween movies there. Yeah, they collectively, best friends, they left L.A. Yeah.

And they all move back to Carolinas, the South Carolina, and then they just have their families and hang out and make shit. And then they make movies and they make things for HBO and they do what they want. Yeah. And you could say that they are on, I mean, they did four seasons of Eastbound, two seasons of vice principals and now are on season four. Yeah. Upcoming of Righteous Gemstones. And it's almost, so we're saying they've done eight. So it's 10 seasons of TV.

That's 10 seasons of TV in 15 years. Yeah, that's incredible. Across three shows, remounting those things, writing them, and at the same time, working on major motion pictures across, like, the board. You know, basically, like, they're these incredibly prolific guys, but they have a project. And I think that the end of Eastbound and Down is only bittersweet for me because there's a part of me that just wanted Eastbound and Down to always exist, you know.

But in some ways, I got that wish with Vice Principal's and Righteous Jamstones. Well, and there's something actually kind of amazing to be said about the maturation, such as it is, within their creative work, that they put this character aside and then sort of iterated and evolved aspects of the character. Yeah, and society changed, too. I think, well, at least like what people sort of found, I mean, I still find Eastbound and down pretty much 99% hilarious. Yes. But I think the differences between Eastbound and righteous gemstones are very tell. Yeah, I think that if Righteous Gemstone spent a season with Jesse in Sinaloa, Mexico, they wouldn't cast an Indian actor as his Mexican companion. So things are different.

Let's set the scene a little bit for the show. I mean, I imagine people are familiar with it. They've seen the memes, seen the gifts. You think people are going to be surprised that you're doing eastbound? Do you think that the eastbound finale stands out in people's minds as an important finale? I don't know. I would also say I don't think that's necessarily the stated project of the show. but I was really struck by what a fucking great finale it is.

It's awesome. It is so, so, so good. And I think that the best finale's kind of do the thing this one did, which is they have their cake and eat it too, which is that it is at once a conclusion to a kind of surprisingly moving story, but also is trying new and wild shit up to the end with a degree of insouciance and fun that it feels almost radical. And then gives us my favorite kind of ending, which is multiple endings, the one that you want or the one that a character wants and imagines and the one that you get.

Yeah, we get granted state and... That's really it. We get the two Breaking Bad finale. But they did it in one half hour. We'll get to the finale, of course, as we always do far much later than we plan to. But I got to say that I was budgeting my rewatch thinking that the finale was like 50 minutes, that like, you know, the modern way of like, well, let's clear our throats. it's still a tight 29. Yeah.

Like, these guys are pros. Yes. For people who, let's describe the setting, the show is about Kenny Powers, who is based on, in many ways, like a John Rocker type. Yeah. A brash-mouthed baseball closer who...

Throws hard and parties harder. Yes. And burns so bright that he burns himself right out of the sport. The one thing that I love about the show is that Danny McBride is in no way a sports fan. Nope. and in no way an athlete. And I said in multiple interviews

that he didn't even know how to correctly hold, let alone throw a baseball. He just thought it would be super funny to be that guy with that hair, with those tan lines. And so you do see,

especially in the first season when he is doing more baseball, you do see some creative cutting. Sure. Yeah. And also, I mean, to their credit, if you look at 1980s

and 1990s baseball cards, like, there are a lot of guys who look like Kenny Powell. Oh, he looks like a plausible, they were, the entire, champion 2008 Philly's bullpen

looks like him. All of them. Yeah. So that was not any barrier. I wonder if there's, as we do more of these podcasts, I wonder if there's a correlation with shows that had perfect starts

that also had good endings because this is not the work of this podcast, but this is a perfect pilot. Yeah. That introduces the character in the world. He's humbled, but not really, knocked back down.

Would that be nailed the takeoff? We should have talked about this beforehand. It's not about airplanes. It's gymnastics. Oh, okay. Well, Mary Lou Retton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Have you seen our logo? I have. It's a TV, but it's doing the Carrie Strug like, you can do it. If my face isn't on a logo, it doesn't really register with me, so. You have face blindness for all other faces? It sounds healthy. So Kenny Powers has knocked back down to the very first rung. He's back in Shelby, North Carolina, and substitute gym teaching.

It's basically the vice principal's. Like, pilot is also in the Eastbound pilot. And his brother, played by the great John Hawke. his brother's kids, his jet ski, the love of his life, April Buchanan, played by Katie Mixon, his one-season only best friend, Clegg, played by Ben Best, who was the collaborator with these guys on the show, and then I think they had some discreements separated. It's a pretty perfect season of television that gave us many of our best memes and gifts. The appearance of Will Ferrell as Ashley Schaefer, Ashley Schaefer, BMW.

We don't need to revisit letting the boy watch. We've done it in his plums. And we will going forward, yeah. But it is so wildly jaw-droppingly funny that, you know, it did enter into that kind of like, very 21st century problem of we did a perfect thing, but this is a comedy and we're doing multiple seasons of it. So where else can we go? What else is there to do?

I don't think anybody watching the show in 2009 was like, this is a multi-tiered journey with this raging asshole. Yeah, and there's also, you have to understand that these guys, while their ambition is probably somewhat limited to entertaining one another,

it's not limited to making each other laugh. And I think that they recognize the story engine that they had and they decided to drive south. They did. Into, we don't need to dwell on it, but like,

there are a lot of highs and a lot of people getting high in season two. And Kenny has, I mean, we should also say that season one ends with another one

of the all-time great comments. comedy cameos, which is Adam Scott. Yes. As the assistant to the assistant general manager of Tampa. Who explains some of the benefits of his American Express. The difference we know in American Express Black Card and Gold, the gold card will get you Jonas Brothers tickets. The black card will get all three Jonas Brothers sucking your dick, I believe.

I've already signed the HR form. Yeah. Because I'm a contractor, so I can say, I can quote the show in the podcast. I don't know if you can. But it's all a lie. He hasn't been called back to the majors. and so he leaves April at a rest stop, and we discover that he is now professionally cockfighting in Mexico,

stealing Stevie's money from his ATM card with braided hair. And he meets his father, played by Don Johnson. I mean, we could do so many podcasts. You could just fucking tell the story if he's about it down, and I'll just sit here and chuckle. It's real funny. He's La Flama Blanca. Yeah.

Ike Baranholz as, what's his name? Dyshenko. The Russian pitcher. This season three. Yeah. No, that's season two. Dishanko's in... Oh, no, that's season three.

You're right. I'm sorry. He's not Mexico. He's one of the Mermen. He's in Myrtle Beach. I will say... Because he DJs its celebrations in July 4th. I will say the hindsight,

season two, I think, is the weakest of the four. It's also the longest, I believe. It's conceptually. It's amazing. I don't think that I've ever been more excited for something than I was. Kenny Powers goes to Mexico. with Michael Pena loaning a minor league

baseball team down there or a baseball semi-pro baseball team down there and it's still incredible but it is easily the darkest and has the most bits that don't go

like don't actually work you know yeah and I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that they were way outside their comfort zone they filmed the season

in Puerto Rico and they pretty much like to film where they like to film sure they can control and I don't just mean that because they're home bodies but like one of the things that you realize

when watching their work and like revisiting especially Eastbound how much of the comedy is dependent on the faces of the people they put in the background the very specific children

they employ and also I guess pay off their parents so that they can just say the filthiest things in front of them it is not a shout out to Jerome

in this episode or get to Jerome season three was a incredible creative rebound where they're in Myrtle Beach Jason Sudecises Shane I don't think anything says more

about like human civilized that the trajectory of Jason Sudec is from playing Shane in season 3 Vespout and Down and Ted Lassau. That's called range, Chris. We used to have actors that we celebrated. Shane's entrance in episode 301 in the locker room of the Myrtle Beach Murman

where after Kenny has asked for some body lotion from his teammate Darnell because white guys get ashy too, they have a French-Canadian player named Jacques, and Shane really object. to how Jacques pronounces his name. They then greet each other the way I tried to greet you when I got off the elevator today at Spotify before I was reprimanded by a very officious swede.

They used their fingers in lots of ways. The thing that I'll never get over is the precision, and this is the running things of this show, the precision of Dynamic Bride's language when he's just like, this is a little bit, it's a little bit Wayne Jenkins, where he's just like, God damn, Shane, you always enter situations in a big way.

It's like, every word is always in the right order. Yeah. You're right. I was wrong about Barron Holtz shows up in season three, as does Matthew McConaughey. Oh, he's at the end of season two. There's just this vibe that like people just think these guys are so funny and they just wanted to hang out. Yes.

Show up and hang. Season three also had some of my favorite outtakes. They aren't quite on Ashley Schaefer level, although Ashley Schaefer shows up in one of the most like, honestly, like. It's really hard to. stunning pieces of television and his sort of his dinner

that sort of predates Django I think yes and then there's a wonderful Jango reference and there's a great Jango reference anyway some of the stuff with Ike Baranholz the outtakes of him and Dishenko are fucking amazing also one of my all-time

favorite eastbound lines is when Stevie and Maria his wife that he's brought back from Mexico are brought to Myrtle Beach because Kenny has been stuck with his child because April has had a son off of their one-night stand in the first season and she's abandoned after a fun night on the beach where she punches a woman at Puttput leaves the baby with him and then there's a whole lot of stuff like when Kenny comes out of the surf he's been bodyboarding on his Confederate boogie board with a weed with a marijuana leaf on it

and he picks up his towel and he has put his son in a hole in the sand those are really dangerous to keep it out of what holes in the sand yeah apparently so you No, so that's a no from Papa Chris. Chris's not putting the baby in the hole. But so Stevie and Maria come down to be nannies, and they convert, Kenny's, like, you know, his room where he's hanging all his katanas into a nursery, and he gets really, really mad.

And he says, and I think about this line a lot, I don't want my dojo to look like a place cabbage patch kids go to fuck. Which is just good advice. Do you remember when Jacoby would always tell us not to get fired? Yeah. You're giving me that look right now. I just like watching you cook. I can tell you watched all of these batted down

and just wrote down every good line. Okay, all of this is to say the show was kind of succeeding as a comedy that the arc was getting him back to the majors. First season, he is trying to put his career back on track after spectacularly flaming out. Second season, he pops up in Mexico. Third season, he comes back to the States.

He's in the minors. After being scouted in Mexico, he's in the minors. And the third season ends, he has gone to the Texas Rangers. He's going to get his MLB shot here again. And then he... Because the closer of the Rangers are the Texas team

because they didn't ever get the right Sennie of the actual MLB teams. Can you imagine? Played by classical... A. Bart Giamati in heaven just being like Jesus, age Christ. I hope my son wins an Oscar

because otherwise none of this was worth it. I don't know if you remember that the... Kenny gets the shot to close for Texas in the playoffs. I do remember. Because physical specimen

Seth Rogen plays the incumbent closer. Seth Rogen literally just like... He does one scene. From the set of funny people. does this scene. He does one amazing scene.

He's wearing like what I'm wearing right now. He's no way like a baseball player. He does one incredible scene and gets hit by a car. By a bus. And then Kenny gets the call. But, you know, maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks

because Kenny throws two blazing strikes on the big stage and then puts the ball down and walks away and spectacularly fakes his death. Yes. Bleaches his hair. And he goes back to April. And April's like,

couldn't you have just asked me to come live with you in Texas? and he's like, no. He's like, basically like that didn't occur. That never would have worked. But we're still playing with this idea that in every season, they did the thing that a lot of TV shows do, which is just like, if this is the end.

That's okay. That's okay. But what is the larger story here? And I thought the brilliant turn that earned the finale, that earned this great last season, was the realization that the A story of getting him back to the majors was not nearly as interesting or as comedically raised. as burying him in the minors, the miners of life.

And so after all these field trips and off-sites, the fourth season begins, and he is, to quote Goodfellas, he's a schnuck. Yeah, he's working at a rental car agency for a guy named Mark, right? Mark, yeah, Mark. He has two earrings. And he comes across one day he has to take a car to a TV studio. Do you know what the first line of dialogue in season four is? What?

I love NPR. That's right, because he's listening to NPR and a guy tries to drag race him. He winds up taking a rental car to a television studio where they are shooting a show called Sports Sesh,

which is basically like a super profane version of first take or Rome is burning. And I don't think it's profane until Kenny gets there. No, I guess not. Although it does seem to have like, it's on the edge.

And it's actually very funny now because all of these shows have like six or seven dudes on them at once. That's the thing. like the sports sash kind of invented it because it used to be PTI it was just like one or two guys and they were writers yeah but like the the phenomenon the metastasizing

phenomenon of seven to ten very wide men in suits crammed tiny desks it was invented by sports sash and essentially like what you get is this portrait of a guy who has a hole inside of him you have to understand that with Kenny Powers it's not a hole that can be filled the hole is another organ

and it's always going to be there so he goes from being obsessed with getting back into baseball. It's like a shy hoolood of debauchery. Yeah, and he always thinks like, okay, now I've changed my ways. I'm going to do this. And then it's actually like a pretty affecting portrait of a guy who's like, I'm doing

everything right and it feels it completely wrong. And he's disgusting. Like, April is having success in her career and he's like basically having an allergic reaction to that. He hates the fact that anybody from his former life or lives sees him and doesn't see him as like the alpha that he thinks he is. and he basically breaks bad in the middle of the season.

Well, even in the middle of the episode, because he is being a relatively good dad. He doesn't have the same policy about swearing in front of his children that I try to maintain. But, you know, I've seen people live their lives like this. But it said that the sort of chips appear when they have dinner with their normy friends, two of whom are played by Gillian Bell and Tim Hydecker.

And he's just appalled and disgusted and then tells a joke that is honestly appalling and disgusting. But then like the little moments, like he doesn't get what he wants when you just hear something shatter. And April's like, what happened? He goes, that plant fell. Oh, yeah, because he smashes her vase because she's like, you can't do something. Yeah. He can't make a killer playlist.

Yeah, so he has a bender, goes on a bender, and decides that what he wants to do is get on sports and be famous again. And be famous again. So he gets Guy Young played by Camerino, who's sort of one of a series of ostensibly big bads throughout the course of the show, to give him a shot on this TV sports takes show. And at first, he's having a bit of stage fright with it, but eventually overcomes it by being, like, the TV version of himself.

So let's also just, like, one of the things about Eastbound, especially looking at it in retrospect, is, like, it goes right at so many of the things that the prestige dramas of the last two decades have gone at. And you were pointing out the, like, even predicting some threads in American culture. And I feel like it's not predicting threads. It's just like these guys were actually in America.

Yeah. And the rest of us were actually watching Fraser or whatever. And so what's interesting to watch in season four is the dynamic of the men on the show and of the audience. And it's not just what we're going to get to when Sasha Baron Cohen, what he imagines television to be is like the gladiator arena. Yeah. And Jody Hill, you know, the director and collaborator talks about like a face in the crowd

is an important reference for this entire season. But like when it's revealed that Guy invited Kenny on the show to basically shut up the grandstanding black athlete, Darnell, and the way the crowd is thrilled with this. And one thing that's kind of amazing watching this is, and I'm saying this fully as a good thing, at no point is eastbound and down pulling the camera out more and being like, look at these people's reaction to what this guy's doing.

At no point is anyone like, let's consider the politics of what Kenny's doing. Kenny's just doing him. Yes. And Kenny's like, I wanted to be the alpha and then he gobbles up everything around him. But what it's saying in those moments is fraught. But you can just see that on TV now. Yes.

No, I know. I know. Like, you can watch it on these sports take shows now. Like, it's like that, you know? But in the same way that, like, you watch the sports take shows and you are actually just experiencing something in the wild, like in terms of what masculinity presents as or how we're thinking about class and race and sports and entertainment, the problem of the problem. Let me calm down

a little bit. But like, one of the problems of dramas of the last two decades has been like, and now we're going to tackle this one. Yeah. In the underlining of the subject matter and the aligning of the characters or the show with a particular message that they want to impart about it. And I kind of felt really good watching Kenny just do this.

Yeah. And watching the camera look at the crowd and be like, yeah, that's what a, it's what an ego would want. That's what the dynamic of the show would want. And that's what a mostly white audience in South Carolina would want. And I think it's an equal opportunity satire where it's like Normie's like the Tim Hidecker

character whose password for every website is Wake Forest. But he used a dollar sign instead of an S. That's why he locked himself out. To, you know, like, you know, the people who work for actual baseball organizations, the guys in the media, like, the only person who kind of is unscathed is April. and even April has some heartnights out.

No, it's crucially important to the survival of this show. Not to get too far under the hood of something that's just purely funny, but that like April gets after it. Yes. If April didn't have those two, especially in later seasons, in season three when she visits him in Myrtle Beach before she abandons Toby. At the put putt, yeah. And then the water park episode, which is one of the series high points.

Oh, yeah. If she didn't have those nights, none of it works. Yes. Right? because otherwise you have a show about a buffoon who keeps getting ninth chances. Yes. Yes. And I think that it's basically an indictment on society itself that those chances keep coming up.

And you know what? I've seen it play out since then, right? Yes. We've seen opportunities where it's just like, oh, yeah, if you act like this, you just don't get in trouble because you are trouble. I'm not sure who you're referring to. But I can sort of largely take your point. And it was much more noticeable on a rewatch, right?

That, like, they somehow had their hands on the dial so subtly that the version of Kenny that exists in season four is still absolutely a lunatic. Yeah. But he has learned some things. He has changed slightly. He's occasionally self-aware in a way that season one is not. I think there was also, like, you know, you mentioned that his Danny McBride's baby lack of fluency with baseball itself. But, like, I do think that Kenny Powers in season four is, like, no longer an athlete. You know, he can't really like pretend like he could still fire one in there.

Like, it's over. Right. But also mirroring real life, like the real fireball, the real flame throwing can come in your post-athletic career in the media. Like, you know, if it ever came back, his podcast, for example, would be incredible. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue, ask your doctor about zebbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive

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working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend. Only on Netflix May 8th. So the fourth season is this like Heisenbergian struggle between the man that Kenny feels that he deserves to be, that he's going to get rich again. And it's mirrored by the quite honestly grotesque developments of Stevie.

Yes. In the season when he spends all of his remaining money on plastic surgery, both for his wife and for his own chin. Yes. And then has an aborted suicide attempt that blows said chin off. Yes. In one of like the way. Really. most disturbing things I've ever seen.

I feel like, you know, like, do you want to have the Stevie conversation? Yeah, I think Stevie is what, what should have happened to Kenny. Like, anybody who puts themselves through what Kenny puts himself through, more often than not would wind up like Stevie. You know, like, you would...

Happily married with four children. I think just go, you would lose your mind. I, as like, okay, so like when you're watching it, the first time around, I was like, this is quite an original character and quite an original performance. I will say that when I go to re-watch Eastbound, I probably try to skip through the Stevie stuff

as much as possible. It's a little much sometimes. It is. And I'll respect to Steve Little who went after it. He went for it. But my interpretation of that character was always like,

this would be the like, we lost the patient version of Kenny Powers. Yeah. And it's also, You know, it's just also smart classic comedy writing that if you have a buffoon, he needs to be able to punch down too to sort of frame,

like the fact that Kenny is the smarter and more responsible member of that partnership is noteworthy. But the show is also, and this runs through all of Danny McBride's work, like he's so deeply attuned to the really stupid gradations of male relationships and friendships

and, like, the power dynamic between him and Shane and Stevie and that like when we meet Shane, it's just like, we're just a couple of good old boys, just having fun. Yeah. getting handies from college girls at the beach.

And then when Stevie shows up, you start to, and then when, and then secondarily when McConaughey shows up as the representative of the major league team, and Shane's like, oh, hey, man. And he's just like, who are you? Right. And you realize how kind of empty a lot of these people are. In the season, fourth season begins Kenny's family man. He then has a quite long, multiple night, dark nights of the soul where he basically becomes this

media demon, he takes over the show, he destroys Guy with a hot mic incident, guy young, who had extended a hand to him when he was just delivering his rental car. Right. In the process, he splits from April, who initiates divorce proceedings. He hires many, many lawyers and is wheeled into the divorce proceedings in a wheelchair. Like a late period Michael Jackson look. He has also given his son about whose masculinity he fears. He has given him a wolf.

Yeah, pure bread. That he bought from in, what doesn't? A Craigslist Indian. Craigslist Indian. The wolf's name is Dakota. Yeah. And they throw like raw steak at it in the garage. For what it's worth, he has also shown his young children both human centipede and G.I. Joe retaliation multiple times because Kenny believes that the more times you watch it, it kind of like hangs together.

But at the end of the penultimate episode, Kenny has had a complete meltdown on live TV over Christmas in his solo show. and he has realized the error of his ways he has helped Stevie not end his life, though he does end his prosthetic chin. He has given Christmas presents to Stevie's family, including the dancing robot, whose name is Ewell, I believe, for Ewell Brenner.

And he's given his children what they most want, which is not Louis Vuitton backpacks. It is, in fact, the return of Dakota, whom he had freed an earlier episode. And in this episode, he retracted. single-handedly in the woods. What an amazing television show. It's an amazing show.

This is almost a silly question to ask when talking about a show like this, but what were we hoping for? Where were we the night of November? So when you and I were... By the way, this was your birthday. The last one? Yeah, it aired on your birthday.

I don't remember. 2013, I would have been out here then. Yeah. So, happy birthday to you. You probably watched the show. I probably did. I would say that... Because I asked you, before we did this podcast.

I was like, do you think that Kenny Powers, his sort of, the redemption that happens for him is, like, not earned or anything like that? Like, I really don't care. But, like, when you get into end game with a story like this that is thrives on, like, putting this character in increasingly crazy situations, basically, like, is redeeming or having a completion to this story kind of counter to what the energy of the story is leading up to it? And I think that this fourth season, especially on rewatching it, actually builds towards this in a really elegant way, which is not a word I would usually throw at Eastbound and Town. I agree. And there's a world where you look at the arcs of the seasons,

and you think that how many times can Kenny go to the mountaintop only to fumble the bag or immolate? And what I think was kind of brilliant was this season was never about him pitching in the majors again. What it was was a response to what he thought the happy ending was. and the framing device for this season is the screenplay that we find out later is like 400 pages and all voiceover and Stevie looped on Vicodin

is like, show don't tell, Kenny. But it's actually more about something that he says earlier in the season when he's just like try to stop being a regular normal person and start becoming a champion instead. And that's actually wrong. Like he thought that faking his own death and making the very beneath him choice

to become a family man and Normie was like winning a World Series, that he would be rewarded for it, and he wasn't. And he still has, as he talks about in the finale, we're going to get to this giant ambition monster inside of him. And instead, like, taking a more active role in what winning looks like is the arc of the season. And it's kind of moving.

Well, when you think about the way, the show essentially, like you said, it has two endings. So it has this sort of, I mean, can we get into this a little bit? Do you want to work backwards or do you want to go beat by beat? But let's go into the episode a little bit. And we'll get to the two endings, because I think it's worth noting

that, you know, you, they're, one of the great things about TV finale, especially the good ones, is you have some expectations, you know the visual and storytelling language of something, maybe there's a couple things you'd like to get one more glimpse at, whether it's like, or Lily Tomlin and Don Johnson coming back, or is Stevie going to finally whatever? Yeah. You kind of don't know what it is until it starts. And there was no one who was checking for the show,

if we even watched shows this way 11 years ago, who thought the show was going to begin with Sasha Baron Cohen flashing his dung on an airplane. Nope. That was not on anyone's finger card. While escorting his friend's 13-year-old son. Jerome. Jerome.

Who has for a penis? But by the end of the episode, he does. It's so, it's so, like, remember when we, during the pandemic and we got really into the French show, LaBuro, and we talked about one of the most unique things about that show's finale, and maybe we'll do it again on this show someday, is that Eric Roshan, who created it was like the problem with finallies is that people, to attach to their beloved characters. Yeah, got to kill your darlings.

So what I'm going to do is write everything up to the point that satisfies me, and then I'm going to hand the entire apparatus over to a well-known French filmmaker who's never worked on the show or in television before, and I'll just help them out. Yeah. Not maybe Danny McBride invented that by being like the finale of the show is just Sasha Baron Cohen inventing a new character, right? Just like, just inventing an incredible, incredible asshole named Ronnie Thelman.

Who is basically like a little bit Simon Cowell, a little bit, Weinstein, a little bit, like, who is this guy? A little bit of Joaquin Phoenix and Gladiator. Yeah, he's basically a television executive who owns the network that sports session been on. Yeah, he's like if Simon Cowell was a harkening, I think is the right way to consider it. That's a good way of putting it. So the show begins with him successfully propositioning a stewardess with both revealing

himself and also revealing his bank balance. And he says, now that I've given you my two biggest assets, go into the bathroom and get yourself prepared. Right. This is the new Kenny, I would say, that we see in this episode, has been activated. He finished the last episode watching his family's tearful reunion with Dakota the Wolf through opera glasses. God, I love the show so much. This time he walks into the divorce proceedings and theatrically says,

order in the court. I object to this divorce. and he fires all the lawyers, and they're like, why did you have us come in? But he basically says, a great change has occurred. I love my family now.

And he, but the New Kenny is not this theatrics. The new Kenny is not saying, April, I demand you take me back. He's saying, take a week to sign it. Yeah. And if you still want to sign it,

the divorce is yours. He's over the course of this series has swung from MPR Schnuk to Coke-addled water park attendee. who refers to his wife as wife. Yeah, and now he has kind of found some middle ground. Like, he knows he's not the father of the year. He knows this is probably the reality of the situation

is that April is moving to Santa Fe with the kids for a career opportunity. Right. He has been really resistant of her success in the past, but now seems to finally kind of have some humility. Yeah, he's very gently. He gathers the crew after the debacle where he may have, like, permanently injured a set worker, and he calls over the crew people and laborers and migrant workers.

and as a sign that he's changed, he has his bodyguards remove their Wilson leather jackets. Yeah. I mean, I can't think of a more genuine sign of transformation. But then Ronnie Feldman shows up

and introduces him to his friend's son, Jerome. And he's there to renew his contract because, so it's one more bite at the apple. Yeah. That Kenny's selfish Christmas meltdown is exactly what they're looking for and he wants Kenny to be the next Ellen DeGeneres.

Yes. And when Kenny is like, I'm not a lesbian. She says she's pretty, dope, but she's a lesbian. And he says, I know she's a lesbian. I was in the meeting where we decided she should be. And he says, I was also in the meeting where we decided Ryan C. Chris should be straight. Kenny's like, good move. This is the last temptation of Christ happening right now. Yeah, so he's going to have a talk show and he wants him to get Guy Young to be the first guest,

and it'll be a ratings bonanza because Guy Young will apologize. This is basically a plot line of the morning show, by the way. So this show is hugely influential. And also, when all was said and done when we're all just sitting around in front of the great burning pyre of prestige television, like, are we really, really going to watch Succession and Breaking Bad again? Are we just going to watch the McBride shows and be like, we get it? The rewatchability of Eastbound is incredible. Partially because of the episodic, like the sort of like, it's a 28-minute investment, and you can just be like, I laughed five times in this half hour.

I have now like kind of come back to life. And sometimes it's because you just get like this kind of writing. Yeah. And it was, and it's kind of well-observed. and true. So, okay, so he gets a new show called The Powers Hour. He and Stevie bandaged chin show up. And he says, we've reached it.

The pinnacle of success. Our journey ends here, Stevie, at the top. But instead of wonder, I only feel isolation. This is when he finds out from Sasha Baron Cohen that this is all a trap. Yes. Right. That the goal of the show, this is a quote. The goal of the show is humiliation.

And the show is nothing like Ellen. Over and over again, this has sort of happened to Kenny, where he thinks people are, people want him for him. for these like inherent qualities that he has to have, whether they're athletic or personality-based. And especially in this fourth season, this is what Guy did to him. At first he thought Guy just wanted him

because he saw something special in him. And in truth, it was to knock out the guy who had sort of been rising up the ranks of the sports session. And now it's like he thought Ronnie Thelman was going to give him his own show, but it turns out he just wants this carnival of horrors with him and Guy. We do get an amazing glimpse of what Kenny's version of the show would be. he introduces himself as Kenneth Powers. You know, it's a much classier, more catchy-feely type thing.

So Guy walks out on the set, they boo him. You've walked into an ambush old friend. Marino is fantastic at this season, maybe never better than with his haunted eyes and cardigan. He says these people don't give a shit about second chances, but that's not what I want. And he goes on a long, as always, self-serving monologue. So amazing.

About having screwed a lot of pooches and fucked a lot of folks. And we get this montage of all the other people that he did dirty this season, like they do to just chicken restaurant and Duntells at the club and Marks at Millennial. Everyone's watching. One of the things that I love about the show is that everyone is always watching TV at crucial moments.

And that they're all like tuning into sports sesh. Every night, this regional Carolina sports show. Like Gene is like... Dominates. Well, Gene shouts down Dixie. And he puts the remote in his butt. I mean, he gets to watch it. Like, that's a powerful moment too.

In some ways, this is a replay of when he drops the ball on the mound. But he says, the vicious dragon who was Kenny Powers will retreat to his cave back to hibernation until the next foolish night awakens his wrath. Sasha Baron Cohen is very upset. Jerome has a raging cold sore. I don't think this has ever been said on a ringer podcast. Ronnie Thelman confronts Kenny.

He says, you absolute pair of hedgehog tits. You upset a little kid who's very, very sick with herpes. We brought Kaya. Speaking about things, we finally got her. He punches Sasha Baron Cohen and says, how's that? for badass and Stevie out of his mind on pain meds and scissor says, start shouting World Star. What a beautiful show.

What a beautiful show. And it's only getting started here, though. Okay, so all this is leading towards, he meets with the kids. He warns them that the kids from the Res aren't going to like him. In Santa Fe, yeah. In Santa Fe, but the Wolf will help. He says that's, you know, he'll visit as much as he can because Southwest has a hub in Albuquerque, but obviously they don't have first class, but they do have a business

select option. A couple cocapelli jokes. He says he's going to step into the feature film world. He and April say goodbye to each other. And then Kenny, who always gets in trouble for saying one too many things, says the right thing for the first time ever. From the first season when he grabs the microphone in the high school to announce that he's accepting the position of gym teacher,

he's always saying a few things too many. But this time he says, when I told you, I was unhappy with you and the kids, that wasn't true. I was unhappy with myself. I wanted to be a success, but it turns out I was a success the whole time.

I just thought you should know. And she kisses him, and listeners, why did I get teary-eyed? Why did this emotionally affect me? That these two lunatics still love each other. I don't think you can talk about that moment without talking about the next couple of moments.

Because I think that what happens with the fantasy life of Kenny Powers and the reality of Kenny Powers are like the scales of justice. Okay, so you want to take point on this? Basically, we now go on a voiceover run of the next few years of his life, shots of him making of the movie.

And there's a funny interview with Jody Hill from Vulture at the time where he says that they had always actually wanted to do that as a whole storyline. Yeah. Including Stevie getting upset that they cast an actor with Down syndrome to play him.

So we only get a glimpse. Small glimpse. Maybe that's tasteful. I think it's one of the first times that they're more tasteful. They showed some restraints. They're like finger in the wind to the shifting winds, the shifting cultures. We go, we start barreling into the future. Yeah, well, it's the six feet under ending.

I mean, this is what's so incredible about this show is that they, like you said, they have their cake and eat it too. They have it all. They do this fantasy montage of the next few decades of Kenny Powers, which both mirror Batman's origin story and out of Africa. And featuring his children grown up played by. Alexander Scarsguard and Lindsay Lohan. Yes.

Lindsay Lohan entirely silent performance. Both of them. Yeah. Both them silent. I would say that one of them seemed more game to play than the other because you read these interviews and Scars, apparently Scars Guard showed up with a whole backstory for Toby. For Toby. That he's just completely rapturously in love with his father.

And so he just goes on tilt. Yeah. Never says anything. Yeah. Lindsay Lohan was surprised that there wasn't more paparazzi around the set. I think that's probably right. In any case, there's this fantasy sequence that goes decades into the future. April is killed in a mugging.

But Kenny pulls out a 45 of guns down the assailants. Kenny moves to Africa eventually. Did you feel like you were on bath salts? I had honestly forgotten that this part happened. You get this fantasy. And as the fantasy goes on, I think it's more, it's either like these guys truly don't give a fucking shit and like really went for. and then you're like, oh, this is a fantasy. You know, this is part of this play.

But the beauty of the show is you're not sure. So he goes from gunning down the assailants to being shot up with heroin in underneath an overpass with a sign that says, will wrap for cash. He leaves the rehab facility with his kids. And then, like, the voiceover keeps going.

It's also great because when he leaves rehab, everybody's like high-fiving him and applauding. With each sorrow comes a little bit of knowledge. He goes on a safari with a hover bike. Yeah. Speaks click dialect. Uh-huh. Falls in love with a woman in a tribal marriage.

And a tribal ceremony. And it has many seeds. And then with a long white beard. Just fucking dies. And then they come, Scars Guard and Loebhead go to Africa and spread his ashes. No, it's Stevie. And Stevie. Dress up like Logan's run.

And like Stevie shares a knowing look with Kenny's African bride. Like he was too good for this world, and they, like, have a space vessel to throw his ashes into the river. Stevie rub some of it on his gums first. And then we're back in Santa Fe. Yes. Then it turns out that this is a part of his screenplay. He sits back, and he says, it's perfect. And April's still alive?

Doesn't he say, I'm finished? Well, first he says it's perfect, and she's like, are you done yet? You've been in for hours. And he says, yeah, he does that there will be blooded. Yes. He says, I'm finished. I thought that was a very knowing. 100%.

He's holding a baseball and he puts the baseball down. Jay Giles band kicks in and it's over and it's fucking perfect. Yeah. Perfect, perfect, perfect finale. Down to the illusions you're making, down to the bat-shit,

ratcheting jenga tower of insanity, down to him being what he always wanted to be because it's not just that the screenwriting was a through line in the last season. Remember, in the first season, we hear him talking and then we realize he's listening to his own audio book about success. He's a character without a personality.

He is just a character, and he's trying to build out his character. Even the things that he does over the course of the series, like going to Mexico would be something Kenny Powers thinks sounds cool. He just wants to be a writer, which is so funny to me. Like when they just slide in these little jokes, like when Guy charitably asked him to guest on the show once, April's like, how much are you getting paid for this? And he's like, well, it costs $2,400 to join SAG.

but that's an investment. It's kind of beautiful. We got to have all of it and none of it. And that very simple image of this absolutely ludicrous cartoon putting down the baseball. Yeah. And then he just steps into his life.

And then it actually feels like almost like the end of parenthood or something where they're just driving in this moving truck and it's just a new life is starting. And I kind of remember at the time, I don't know if I referenced this in the Grandland piece, but it reminded me also. So in his office, I think there are some cocapelleys on the wall,

implying they are in Santa Fe. But a little bit like Stephen J. Connell, who is the famous executive producer. His tag, his production company tag at the end of the episodes of the Fall Guy or whatever, was him typing furiously at a typewriter. That is like the last page comes out of a typewriter. It flies into the screen and becomes what you see.

We've done a lot of good finalities on the show and we will, but this is perfect. Yeah, I mean, it's basically like a six foot for shooting guard. you know, like maybe didn't change the game, you know, and maybe didn't like orchestrate the offense, but did exactly what it set out to do. Well, I want to talk about that before we wrap up, which is to say, this show did its work in the shadows.

This show is very popular. Yeah, it got very, so it was basically hit its peak at the beginning of season two, and then ratings-wise went downhill over the next few seasons, although still was, I think, solidly supported. Well, also, it bridged the gap between eras of how we thought about ratings. So when we talk about ratings that were published or that we know we have data of from Eastbound and Down when it was on the air, those are the ratings HBO provided for the first night, Sunday night airing. It's not, and even then, they were like HBO now or go or on demand.

Like there was, it was doing the week-to-week thing that matters now. It's worth noting that its weekly average and its final season was roughly equal to what Shogun gets on FX. Yes. Now. But this idea that this show could, and this is also credited. McBride and Jody Hill and then the whole gang. It's really interesting that they had this self-awareness to not just self-select into making what they wanted to make and doing it with their friends in their own place, but to always stay

within their lane in terms of budget and ambition so they could not stop. Yeah. Because, you know, we were trading YouTube clips about the show when it was on and we were talking about it and it was a very successful show, but it also never was the biggest show. It never got, I don't know if this was Emmy Bate anyway, but it, it did its work kind of quietly behind the scenes in the kind of culty way that all of their favorite stuff did it. And I, 10 years on, I'm like, maybe that's the way to go. Yeah, I mean, I think that when you see somebody and a group of people get together and they make

something like foot-fist way, I think they're doing it because they want to, you know, and they figured out a way to make it work financially and logistically to make a movie on their own, even though they went to a far-flung off-the-beaten track film school in North Carolina, even though like nobody really knew who these guys were. And even though they didn't really have a distribution plan in place for the film itself, I think they were like, we can't not make this. And I got the feeling like that's always been the animating idea behind their work, no matter how big it gets.

I think that, and I think they love it this way. But as we are even just teasing out these kind of like, was this show better than Breaking Bad in explaining early 21st century masculinity? Maybe. I think they probably think that's funny and they'd be flattered by it. But I also think that that doesn't necessarily matter to them. I think that they want to entertain themselves. For sure.

But I think that their heads, for as many drugs as they clearly used to do, their heads are so on straight about how they can control what they make, how to prioritize what they do with the opportunities they're given. And a conversation we've had on the watch at various points over 12 years is like trying to find parallels between what interested us in music when we are music fans, but when we were music writers. and TV that we like and respond to. And the thing we always, the beach we always bump up on is, well, there's no indie TV. It's just not possible. Everything makes compromises. Everything is a little bit sucked out from the inside. Everybody gets jaded.

Are these guys as close as we've gotten to it? I think so. I think probably, like, you could make an argument that a lot of, like, the comedy that gets uploaded to YouTube and Instagram and TikTok now is probably the most, the closest thing you have to, like, a DIY independent TV movement. But I think a lot of people do that with an eye towards getting recognized

so that they can make something in a more mainstream way. These guys have for the most part never blinked when it comes to like what they think is funny and what kind of stories they want to tell.

And this is something that I wish we saw more of, frankly. Like I wish there were more opportunities for people out there who are like, cameras are obviously very expensive but they've never been lighter.

They've never been more able to get into more places. And these guys had a sense of like a place and a kind of person, and they made a bunch of really good TV about it. There's also something that is really interesting to see in retrospect, just how nimble they are with it. Because there is a time, what they've been able to do, which is be in business with still to this day, the standard bearer for prestige television,

for as long as they've been in business, that was kind of the HBO model. There was a tenure track graduate school. And like the Davids could make whatever they wanted for them. them, Simon Milch and Chase. I saw an announcement the other day that Simon is working on a show for them, and I was like, really? You guys still, that's just fucking fantastic.

But I bet if you got behind the scenes and had the opportunity to talk to those guys at various points in the last decade, I mean, Chase has been very upfront about it. Like, he spent years trying to make ribbon of dreams about Hollywood, and they were like, you want to do a Sopranos movie? Yeah. And David Simon gets to every so often, you know, he gets to make a, we own the city, or he makes a Philip Roth adaptation. how many projects has he brought to them

over the last five years that we'll never know about because they're like, we just kind of don't do that anymore. But are you saying like if McBride turns around and is like, I want to do something about a NASCAR driver? I'm saying the level that they operate on and the consistency with which they operate and crucially that they're comedies has allowed them to be so nimble and dexterous

in one of the most challenging and transformative eras of television and it all started with this show. And I wish we could say, so when we talk about like what the show has led to, it's led to an incredible career for these guys. And I was not as high on vice principals. I love gemstones. But gemstones is a very, very different thing. And I think it ought to be a very different thing. Yes. And it's also probably indicative of those guys being older and having families and that Jesse starts, which is the Danny McBride character in Gemstones,

even at his worst Jesse is sort of starting at like what would have been the nicest version of Kenny Powers. He, yeah, he's season five Kenny Powers. Yeah. He's season five Kenny Powers. at the start at best, but also he's also become, and I think this is also true of, you know, anyone in any field who's a prodigy, like he's become more generous. So he is not the star of the show.

And I think I would say it's not a critique of gemstones, but it is a reality that gemstone seems locked into, we're just going to keep presenting the same group of people with like mildly different situations over and over again, whereas Eastbound was like, what if we

just tore this up? and threw this guy into this and through this guy into that. I will say also that in terms of legacy, some of our favorite shows, let's throw out the word comedy, but some of our favorite shows of the last 15, 20 years of TV

have all come from this similar place, which is people who know something about a place and a vibe that we might not know about and they were given the opportunity or they took the opportunity and were granted the budget and the opportunity to say, trust us, come over here.

And that's reservative. conservation dogs. That's Atlanta. That's insecure. I mean, it's, I may destroy you and flea bag. It's like, yeah, I mean, like, they're not always funny, but yeah, but those kinds of. I guess I would say, just you're trying to like to put a serious hat on this before we make it silly again.

Before we have some mild incest at a water park. Just a little bit. Before I read the, like I do have in my notes app like six quotes that I don't think I can say on the podcast, but I'll just say them really quick at the end. and then Kaya and Kaya can deal with it. I just wish that there were people in the executive boardrooms and development offices saying, I'm not saying it's easy to find another Danny McBride, Jody Hill, and David Gordon Green,

because that is certainly not the case. But I do feel like part of your mandate should be to find the next eastbound and down, because look what it opens up for you down the road. Yeah, I think the issue with it is that eastbound and down, even at its most successful, was like a single or a double. Yes, it's hard. They're increasingly in the triple and Homer business. that's true and that's a problem with what the industry has become look this show

fucking 10.10 from the Russian judge on the ending as far as I'm concerned I think that the ending of this show which I thought was like bittersweet that it was ending has only grown in my estimation since it was on it when I went back and rewatched large chunks of this show for the pod I was like man like they do not make them like this anymore like this is just so fucking well done it was so fun so fun to rewatch this again I don't know if there's anything left to say other than the end cut to black audience goes fucking ape shit. Should we end the watch like that now? When he writes in the script like The End, Blackout,

Blueprint Reels play in small box while credits roll. That's just good screw writing. Yeah, but then he's just happy because he's imagining the future blooper reels. Is that how you feel when you write? No, I've never been happy once in my life when I was writing. But I am happy thinking about the five, six years of blooper reels that Kaya is holding on to. in the vault. My only hope is that she has one key

and someone else has the other like the failsafe for nuclear submarines. Yeah, it's around my neck. That's my only hope. Chris, thanks for joining me on another podcast. Thanks for having me then. This episode of Stick the Landing was produced by Kai McMullen

and Kai Grady, and our theme music was composed by my good friend, Giancarlo Volcano.