The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘WeCrashed’ Episode 7

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin applaud the powerhouse performances from Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto and wonder what kind of message the show is trying to convey. Plus, they share what they hope lies ahead in the series finale and discuss how Apple TV+ stacks up against its competitors. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's Mallory Rubin. Hi, Mallory. We pod. And then like a gong sounds. Right. I forgot to bring the... That was more of a lightsaber sound, but I did my best.

And the we pod gong. All right, we are here to talk about we crashed the Apple TV Plus show. We are here to talk up through episode seven, the Penn Ultimate episode. You might hear one or more of us back in the feed to talk about the finale that airs this Friday.

But for now we're just going to like, catch up with this show. Sean and I cover it, I think, the first three episodes. Chris and I did a sort of tech show in general check-in, but Mallory is the one who has been keeping the flame of We Crash Alive and the ringer step by continuously texting us photos of Ann Hathaway in the show. So Mallory Room, and I'm so glad to have you here, just like a quick few notes where we get into this.

Programming reminders. Yes. As you know, the Presti-CTV podcast, constantly, the cup constantly overflow it. It's popping. We got a lot going on. I know that Bill's going to be back this week to talk about winning time, a show that I have heard is only getting better and better as the season goes on.

We've got some great weekly Atlanta coverage on the feed to look out for. Barry is kicking off soon, and I'm pretty sure we're going to have regular coverage of Barry. A great show that I've missed so much. And then Ben Lindberg and I will be covering Better Callsall every week on the Prestige TV podcast feed starting this Wednesday. We're going to be doing like, you know, the episodes drop on Monday. We'll be doing this sort of like two-day delay. What is everyone talking about kind of episodes? Which means that if you have thoughts or feelings about Better Callsall, you can email us at Kim Wexler lives at gmail.com.

Your questions and comments concerns theories. Ben and I will break it all down. Ben is a scholar. And Saul, I'm so excited to be doing this with him. Incredible. Wow. What a programming reminders run down. It's like you open the tap at a Wii work.

But instead of it overflowing just onto the counter and the floor, it's going right into the listener's ears. Spoiler warning for history, I suppose. I don't know. We're not going to talk about much beyond this episode, I think. But, you know, and the whole season started with sort of the end and the title of the show as we crashed. So I think you know where this is going. But just so you know, since this is a show based on real facts in life, if we say anything from real facts in life, I have warned you. Spoiler warning. It really is all right there in the title of the show.

They're not trying to surprise you. Mallory, I don't think I've gotten a chance to ask you, as we've covered various of these tech scammer grifter shows, this is the last one in the train, right? The caboose of the trend. But in your like super pumped, I've heard you talk to Bill about superbrifference. Pump, but Super Pump, Dropout, Venting Anna, We Crash, all this stuff that's going on. How has that, have you been absorbing that? Have you been really into it? Have you been contrasting comparing?

Like, where are you? I have not seen Inventing Anna, but I watch the Dropout. I watch Super Pump. I've been watching We Crash. And in general, have been enjoying consuming these, though I think, like many other consumers, I have a little bit of internal dissidents with it where I enjoy them very much as television. shows and then have a moment of reflection about the state of our world and the state of our society and why this is fueling so much TV. I loved the dropout. I thought it was a sensational series.

The performances were just unbelievable. And I had a, you know, I had a blast with Super Pumped. Yeah. Happy to, happy to chat with you, anyone who would like about Kyle Chandler in Super Pumped or in anything at any point. And We Crash has, We Crash has been, while I think not as expert of a television show as the dropout, say, quite entertaining week to week as just a TV consumer experience. And, you know, obviously you noted in the spoiler warning, spoiler for real world, real world history. Like I think for, for viewers, probably the mileage may vary on how much precise like detail and knowledge and information you have about all of the facts of all of these different founders and companies and, you know, peaks and valleys and rises and crashes. But it's pretty

hard to not have absorbed at least some of the broad strokes of these stories, just, you know, as a person on the internet, as a person in the world. So it's really interesting to see what level of the stories are heightened and dramatized, what is sort of zeroed in on as the key element inside each of these stories and how much specifically they orient around the central founder as this, you know, modern day Messiah, would be Messiah is perhaps the better way to put it. Modern day would be Messiah. I think the prevailing sentiment, I think, coming out of this little mini TV trend is that the dropout is the show that handled all of this sort of the best.

But I think for, and I think We Crash suffers the most watching in a vacuum, like when I was watching some of the like the first four screeners. But getting texts from you every week and wanting to talk to you about what Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway are doing in the show is deeply entertaining. Absolutely. I mean, and this, we're going to, at the end of this, I want to, like, I want you to indulge me in a little, um, Sean Fennacy Wonky or maybe like industry, Andy Greenwald, uh, state of Apple TV Plus. Like, we're going to just talk about that for a minute at the end of the podcast here. But I think going back to when the, the streamer initially, launched when I was at the event where they, in Silicon Valley, where they launched it,

their big thing that they were leaning on was star power. And I think if you compare Amanda Seifred, fantastic actress, Jessica Gordon-Levitt, fantastic actor, Kyle Chandler, et cetera. But I think if you line all these up, this is the one with the two Oscar winners in, like, the lead roles. And I think though there are some weaker elements around them, and I think overall Amanda deciphered is probably giving a better performance. I don't know that anyone's giving bigger performances than Anne and Jared. And like that that is its own source of joy for me every week.

Yeah. To continue to take people further behind the curtain, you mentioned the text messages. They are exclusively screenshots of Anne Hathaway doing something astounding. The tissue directly against the eyeballs to absorb the tears. the in progress avatar cosplay, the in motion gong swinging, all of it. It has been a transcendent performance. And, you know, again, I think that the minute to minute, I know one of the things you want to talk about today is maybe the length of We crashed compared to some of these other shows and whether it can sustain that.

And there is a lot that is that they're attempting to balance inside of the show. And I think some of the elements that are pretty elemental to the crash and to the, you know, the horror that was actually unfolding here and that really negatively impacted people's lives is there, teased heavily at the front and then kind of backloaded inside of the, this runaway train of charisma and personality, where the cost of that or the things that that runaway train, the people, the lives, the ambition, the hopes and dreams that that train ran over, cast aside, it comes back into the focus of the show a little late.

The thing that is always central is the two main performances from Anna Hathaway and Jared Lotto. And I think it's like, I don't feel this way, I don't think you feel this way, I assume many people watching the show don't feel this way. It's not like you're rooting for these characters, quite the opposite, right? There's almost like a repellent but magnetic quality to what you're watching. And the choices that they are making to bring you in to this fiction that these people have crafted,

not only about the things they're trying to build, but about themselves is like pretty captivating to watch week to week. I think for me, I'm enjoying it so much. I'm doing these performances so much that I desperately, what I can't help but do when I watch the show is desperately wish it were in a better, tighter show so that everyone was sending me text messages on a Friday evening of Anne Hathaway doing various things because I feel like their performances worth noting, worth enjoying. And I can't help but think, like, if this were a movie or maybe a four episode miniseries or something like that, like that people would, everyone would be talking about what Jared Letto, like, Jared Lotto, who is a deeply obnoxious performer by all

standards. Like, everyone who has worked with him kind of agrees that his method is obnoxious. So I'm not advocating for that. I bet he could do this without all of that nonsense, right? That's what I think. But it's undeniable. What he's doing here is pretty incredible. And I just, I wish that there wasn't all that other nonsense in the way.

I wish that more people were watching this so that I can't help but watch a show like this with these two incredible performances at the center and then try to solve for X, try to figure out what I would have done differently or what they could have done differently to make this like the clear standout of the grifter or the tech shows, you know? And again, I do, I come back to length and also that shifting point of view. Like something we talked about a lot, Jody and I talked about a lot with the dropout was how like effectively they handed off the baton to point of view in that show from Elizabeth Holmes, you know, two Stephen Fry's character, two Dillimanette's character, you know, like,

you're going around and you're crucially inside the head of people who are the victims of what's going on. And so you're like in a sympathetic space. I think as enjoyable as they are, we're spending way too much time in, in, like, in Rebecca's headspace, which I understand. And Adam's headspace, which I find a little bit more impenetrable. And, um, when, you know, you know, when, you're you see things like in the last two episodes six and seven we get spend more time with these like a small little circle of employees there some of who have been like there in the background around for like the whole time but like we're really focusing on them the last couple episodes to show the fault like what is the cost of them not going public like what are rebecca and adam risking

not their own fortune we don't really care about that they've shown themselves to be like so flagrant and irresponsible with all of that but but But what about their hardworking under underpaid employees who just want to buy a ridiculous bag on eBay or, you know, et cetera, et cetera? And it feels a little too, little too late for me in terms of like engaging on that level. What do you think? Yeah, I think that the scene in the most recent episode when we're hanging with the trio who are, have been there for quite some time and are really trying to wrap their minds around and like look clearly. to the face-up for the first time how their lives might change and assessing what the payout is about to be of the promise that was made to them, right? And the ending of the episode with the

click of the mouse knowing, okay, the bag is purchased. We, you know, we see Mikey head onto the helicopter with his friends and the guzzling of the tequila and all of it. It's one of the, it's one of the real distinctions, I think, between the dramatized television show, We crashed and the doc, the Hulu doc, which really centers the employees, but also like the wider circle of people who really bought into like the cult of we, you know, people who lived at We Live, for example, right?

Right, right. And there's a lot of insight into how and the wide. people got so swept up in this vision of the future. And one of the things that is really central to and like inextricable from the, the we work and we crashed narrative is this melding of what in many scenarios would be diametrically opposed forces, like the pursuit of the commune, the pursuit of the shared social good and economic good inside of this purely capitalist venture, right? And so to really understand that, you have to have the balance of all the voices and the balance of the people,

not only inside of We work the company, but as we see across the episodes, the expansion of the Wii universe, right? Like the we grow stuff, the school is, it obviously plays for like incredibly rich drama inside of the last. couple episodes. I mean, the expressions on people's faces as they are talking to Rebecca, to Anne Hathaway's character about what she is pursuing, like it brings to the fore as effectively as any of these other pursuits, the absolute gall, like the really totally unchecked hubris to think that because you have really effectively monetized. shared workspace and maybe not as effectively as you were leading people to believe you had,

you can fundamentally alter every other aspect of society, right? Like that doesn't make you a CEO or an entrepreneur or a founder or a unicorn that makes you somebody who thinks they're a God. And in order to really bring that to the fore, you have to see how that affects everybody around you. So there are parts of the episode and parts of the season that do that more effectively than others for sure. I want to talk about two actors, one doing a lot with a little

and one doing a little with a lot. And so O.T. Fagg Ben Lay, who has been just crushing it all over the place, Handmaid's Tale, Black Widow, he's on The First Lady playing Barack Obama, etc. shows up as Cameron Lautner to do this massive audit of WeWork and the episodes where he appears

he is positioned as this like great enemy to Adam Newman. And I just thought he, that actor who is fantastic and everything he does, does so much, very little screen time to get me really, really engaged, to give me a person to root for in opposition to Adam, which I think is something that I've been really missing. And which is when I think super pumped got really good, when it became Joseph Gordon-Levin versus Kyle Chandler. You know what I mean?

To give me that sort of sense of friction and momentum and energy. And I'm not rooting for Adam, but like I like to watch him actively fight something more direct than sort of this nebulous, my marriage, my idea, my crowdfunding efforts. And so that's an example, I think, of an actor doing so much or the writing doing so much for a character was so little. And then conversely, and this is not a knock on the actor, Kyle Marvin, who plays Miguel, the co-founder of the company, because I've liked him in a lot of other things. But Miguel feels like a really rich opportunity to give us a really deep other perspective.

And instead, I just feel like I see him consistently vaguely uncomfortable in the periphery of what's happening. Do you know what I mean? Without like, we see him at the end here feeling like left out of this big narrative that Rebecca and Adam had crafted. But at the same time, I'm like, but I have no sense of his interior. What is it like when he goes home? Who is he? Like what is going on with his life? wants to buy some art.

That's, you know, and that feels, again, just like a little, like, I don't mean to bash the show because I do really, I am enjoying a lot of it. But I just feel, I'm just trying to figure like, how would this have been a great show? And I'm like, if Miguel were this like big, rich character, the kind of periphery characters that the dropout was capable of crafting, like, would I be much more invested in this? Because is he like maybe a more sympathetic figure at the center of all this? I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. It's such a good question.

I think that I completely agree with you about O.T.'s performance and how important Cameron is as a character. The Bill Gurley Super Pump's Cameron We Crash Comp is an interesting one because while I agree with you and think that they unlock a lot of the same things inside of the show in terms of this key fulcrum, right, this key moment of departure. Like the enemy inside the gates, the person who should, they're both benchmarked capital guys, right? should be the ally, the person rooting for the success of the company and fueling it. And they're the ones who have lost some sort of trust that proves fundamental. I think one of the key differences is that Cameron inside of weak, like with super pumped, which we don't have to spend, you know, I won't, I won't go on too long of a tangent here. There are the things that are fueling the doubt and the trepidation and the need for interference

there are not about Uber success as a company. They're about the toxicity of the culture, right, the failings of the founder. One of the, and that, and that, by the way, is also present in We Crash. But Cameron has a really key function for us as an audience, which is to show us that the people who are closest to the numbers, the people who are seeing behind the facade think this is bullshit, know that this is bullshit, right? Like, even the people who are, in theory, most fully invested in playing at the string,

moving toward that IPO, going public, cashing in, don't believe it's actually possible to do that effectively because this is just a smoke and mirror show. Because for as much as people will talk about Adam Newman's charm and charisma, which is obviously elemental to how he achieved his success, it's as much about the reveal of the show.

charlatan act. And I think that one of the things that's compelling to watch and really kind of like riveting because it's a social, it's a social study, it's an economic study, it's a study in like identity and the kind of like imposter syndrome and the version of yourself you try to talk yourself into so that you can talk other people into, there are moments where you, I think, as a viewer, are unsure whether Adam believes his own bullshit, right? How much of it is about being a huckster to try to dupe other people. And how much of it is like trying to talk himself into it? Because there obviously is a level of the Adam Rebecca story.

And again, We Crash really brings Rebecca as a force really to the fore. There is an element, I think that we get most fully through Rebecca's arc of pure, like unvarnished, really warped, idealistic pursuit of this thing that they believe in and think is right. which is, like, actually scarier. Yeah. Than if they didn't. No, yeah. Rebecca strikes me as a true believer.

And then he strikes me as, like, the consummate snake oil salesman. And it comes through, you know, like, it comes through in Jerry's performance. There are occasional moments where, like, his whole, like, Huxter act will drop and he'll say, like, you have my attention. You know what I mean? Or he'll go, like, he'll turn on a dime. Not often, but he'll turn on a dime and show you, like, the real concern. And we see, like, the stress and the total. it's taking on him at the end of this. I have hard time feeling sympathetic to him, but like,

you know, it's there. I'm curious what you think is what the show is trying to say. You know, like, I keep going back to this conversation, you and Bill had at the beginning of super pumped, this question of like, do these shows need to teach us some kind of moral lesson about something? I don't know that they need to, but I feel like there needs to be some kind of thesis of like, why did this fall apart? Why did we come so high and fall so far? You know what I mean? And, like, I think it's clear, as you say, in super pumped, it's not the product, right? The Uber as a product is a decent product, right? It's the environment.

It's the toxicity. It's a lot of stuff at the center of Travis himself. In the dropout, it's clearly the product is faulty. There's no there there. And we crashed, I think it's a complicated blend of the two, honestly, because I think there probably is a version of Wii work that works as a model. if he didn't, like, rapidly expand, you know, if you didn't, like, have whatever it was that Adam had that made him insatiable for expansion, expansion, expansion. You know what I mean? Like, I think there's a concept there that works. But my question is, like, is the show, what do you think the show is trying to say about, like, why they failed here? Is it, is it Adam overstretching himself on a mountain of bullshit? Is it Rebecca's, like, sometimes I think it's trying to tell us that Rebecca's personal insecurities are, and Adam, and Adam, and Adam, and Adam, Adams need to placate those personal insecurities. I mean, I don't love that messaging, but that seems to be something the show is saying

sometimes. So, and, you know, Anne Hathaway said, and I think it's clear in her performance that she is not trying to paint Rebecca as a monster, that she's like a very, this is an empathetic read from Anne Hathaway on this, frankly, kind of very insufferable person, you know? But I'm wondering what you think the show is trying to say. I mean, obviously, we haven't watched the finale, so we don't know the final word on this, but where are you feeling so far? Another good question.

I'm not sure I have a good answer, but I'll try to parse that in real time here because I do think that's an important question. You know, the show opens with either a scene that I assume we will return to in the finale or at least, you know, pick up around, right? This crucial moment in the wake of the S-1, the wake of the plummeting evaluation,

the wake of the Wall Street Journal article, the board pushing Adam out. So we know what we're marching toward the entire time. And I think that one of the real distinctions between these shows and the bulk of other television shows and movies and books and pieces of pop culture that we consume is that it's not so much about like the finale in some ways feels the least consequential because we do know what the end point is. It's more about helping to flesh out our understanding.

of how we got there, of what went wrong and of how these things can happen. And so I guess that's my answer. I don't know actually what the show's ultimate messaging or moral will be or how the show will want us to feel about these people or this thing that happened. I'm actually really curious to see how that plays out in the finale. I agree with you. I've had as, again, I've adored the N. Hathaway performance. I've had a few moments in the last couple episodes in particular where it feels like, Rebecca's role in the downfall has almost, and I can't claim to be an expert just to be clear on like the actual we work and wider we enterprise crash. And I think from, you know, watching the doc and, you know, obviously the pot is well worth a listen for anyone who's eager to learn more about the story. Rebecca is certainly a part of this,

but it does feel like she's been elevated to almost like central player and explanation for what we're wrong. For me, I think it's, the S-1 feels very emblematic inside of this penultimate episode because everybody is sitting around the table, including Miguel, right, a co-founder, in theory, a very trusted advisor that we've seen

Adam cast aside his input and his guidance, time and time again almost to the point where it becomes your teen. Everybody around them is saying, don't do this. This is a bad idea. Leave this to the experts. This is not really the time or the place for you to express your spirit and your vision. This is like a highly technical, legal and financial document. Leave it to us.

Everybody says that to them. They don't listen. and nobody actually stops them. And so I think it's about both of those things. I think it's about the fact that they don't listen and the really unchecked hubris and where it can lead when so much power and greed is concentrated

in so few people when so many other lives and enterprises are connected to that. But I also think part of the message is like what happens when other people let that happen? Like obviously the people sitting at that tape, could say just absolutely not. We cannot allow this to happen, right? But they do. They allow it to happen. It's so interesting. And the, um, so it's, it's funny you mention the Wall Street Journal.

Something that that has really come clear to me as we've covered these various shows is the way in which they all at the end of the day turn into these like journalism stories, right? Yeah. This, this is the least out of all of them. But, um, you know, because there's the Wall Street Journal story and we see them like begging to, you know, trying to stop the story from coming out. But the real, the real figure who seems to be like the whistleblower-esque figure in the story is Scott Galloway is played by Kelly O'Coyne who, an actor. I know. I know you love from Billions. We've seen him around.

My dude. You pointed out to me that he's just showing up everywhere. He's very early. The girl from Plainville, a couple things. But, you know, he shows up early in the season. to like interview Adam and then like in earnest in this in this latest episode with these like segments that feel very Adam McKay like let me explain a concept to you what it means to take something public what an S one is all the sort of stuff like that and then in real life was someone

who wrote a blog post that just sort of like the emperor has no closed treatment for we work Scott Galloway we should mention is the host of the we crashed like companion pod official companion podcast um so he's like all it's all very closely like tied up in all of this. But it's a it's a it's a it's a gimmick that I think works really well in this episode and I think maybe he could have been here the whole time. And that might have been like a helpful little zingy thing like some of the stuff that super pumps did. Do you know? Like maybe not quite the Tarantino voiceover. But like you know something something similar to that. I think that could have been really fun. But yeah, I mean I'm curious to see what this

show us say. Again, I agree with Bill. I don't need a moral lesson. Like, I don't need this show to tell me what's right and what's wrong because I can just watch it and understand what's right and wrong. But I do think that shows need to have like a point of view rather than just telling you what happened. You know what I mean? Right now I feel so far I'm feeling like I'm being told what happened with two absolute crackerjack performances at the center. And that's like kind of enough. But when it compared favorably or on to these other shows, you know, in the balance, is it as good as it could be? Do you know?

Right. Yeah, it's interesting because to stick with Scott Galloway for a second, he's in the documentary, the Hulu doc. And one of the lines he has, kind of one of the hammer lines, it's like toward the end of the dock, it really does kind of bring it all home, it's in the trailer, is, and I'm paraphrasing here, like, if you tell a, you know, rich, ambitious dude and his, 30s that he's Jesus Christ, he's inclined to believe you. And, you know, like, that does not only bring a lot together inside of WeCrash, but across this moment in Founder TV, like the cult of the founder and the cult of tech as this, you know, revelatory force inside of modern day society is really interesting. One of the, I'm glad you mentioned the, you know, could we have used some more,

explainer type functionality inside of the show because one of the the Masa element and everything was soft bank, I actually felt like I didn't understand inside of the show as well as I would have liked to. And then I watched the doc this weekend. And then I was reflecting back on it. And it's like, okay, yes, no, that is really presented

inside of the show as this key pivot point. But in the doc, you really understand that everything that comes after with the S-1 and the journal article and all of these things, it was all already on the down swing because once one of the richest guys in the world who has invested in your product doesn't give you the $20 billion that everyone knows he has and could give you, everyone knows that something's wrong. And there's no way to bring it back. And I think, like, while I don't know that the show would be, frankly, as entertaining, if it made a ton more room for those kinds of elements, it would probably be helpful to better understand the actual, you know, Wall Street and venture capital elements of this story

because you do have moments where you're like, wait, how exactly did they get to a $47 billion valuation that is extraordinary and the thing that we have inside of the show to kind of attach to there is the moment where at the very, again, the very beginning, the opening, Adam says, you know, some people think that's absurd. And I agree it should be a trillion, right? And so our orientation to that whole idea is that this thing that would shock almost everybody alive and seem completely befuddling is to the person at the center of it insufficient. Like that's the orienting principle for the show that the growth should be unchecked.

The pursuit should always be more, more and more in a matter of the cost. Like we spend to grow, we spend, we spend, we spend, we spend because the pursuit is just to continue to achieve. Like there is no end point for these people. And I think that that's really central to what the show is trying to tell us. And maybe there's a larger message there around the founder in general. And I felt like super pumped was doing a similar thing where it's like if we don't expand, if Uber doesn't expand, expand, expand, we die. That that's the attitude.

And it's like, you know, there's a part of me that's always like, can't you just build your little kingdom and be happy with your like small kingdom? And they're like, no, because someone will build a bigger kingdom and come swelming. You know, like, you can't be content with your little patch of land. You need to own the majority of real estate in New York City. Yeah. Yeah. And I think something that's, like, present in a lot of these shows is that if you're the kind of person who would ever be content with that, then you're not the kind of person who

maybe achieves this in the first place, right? And you're just the Miguel. Okay. One last real life fact I wanted to leave you with, unless there's anything else. You want to say is that Rebecca Newman, speaking of what? We grow. She brought back We Grow in the summer of 2020, according to Forbes. And since then, the educational brain has been relaunched as S-O-L-F-L-L-S student of Life for Life, which is pronounced soulful. And I just thought that that fact was too beautiful to not share with everyone else

who might be listening. Oh, boy. She's back at it, Rebecca. Anything else you want to say about the show itself where we talk about Apple TV at large? I don't think so. Okay. So let's talk about this. So obviously, Apple is sort of like one of the late entrants into the streamer wars, the great streamer wars. And obviously they're riding high off an Oscar win. They beat Netflix to the Best Picture Oscar. A huge moment for them with Coda. They came out with a bunch of like really star-y, like when I went to that launch event, they were really pushing Star Power, Star, power, power, right? So their big first flagship show is the morning show, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston.

They brought Steven Spielberg out. They brought Oprah out. They're like, look at all the star, the mega star power that we have. But what's been true, actually, is these like little slow burn hits that have really been building Apple TV Plus's band, like Coda. You know, they acquired starrier films, but Coda, which has no stars in it, was like a big hit for them. You know, Ted Lassow, obviously, a tiny show that came out of nowhere.

I mean, Bill Lawrence and Jason Sudecas are like not nobody's, but like they, Apple was not promoting Ted Lasso at all. Severance is a show that you and I recently podcasted about that has been sort of this big, like, word of mouth hit that I've seen from people, people are loving slow horses for all mankind. Mythic Quest. I'm a huge fan of Mythic Quest. Like, there are these, just these slow, building, slow burning, Pachinko, Wii Crash. They're establishing themselves as like a real source of quality. Netflix has the quantity.

but Apple TV Plus has this like real core quality prestige strain running through them. And then you will be able to speak to this better than I will. Recently they started doing live sports with Friday Night Baseball, right? Yep. I was reading some stuff that maybe that particular element is not going seamlessly for them so far. What can you say about their foray into sports? A lot of tweets. about

Fred and I baseball, certainly. I think that it's, I personally am not like super active in the let's all like

rally against a brand new broadcast and you know and just find that element of like sports Twitter slightly strange. But I think that

certainly acquiring sports streaming and live sports rights is a huge like a huge declaration. of intent, right? Now, is that an NFL game? It is not, but will it be at some point? I mean, I think in general, your point about the smaller shows or the ones that maybe popped up in real

time as surprises really gripping people and sparking a lot of conversation is, you know, I think like foundation is an interesting example of a show that was not what I wanted it to be. Right? But had all the star power and the budget and was this big push. And I think like, you know, obviously everybody's chasing like what's our Game of Thrones when we've talked about that before many times on other pods. But the pursuit of like the big budget sci-fire fantasy story, it's really interesting to me that like, and there were parts of foundation that I enjoyed. But overall, I thought that that show did not like meet my pretty high expectations for what that was going to be. And yeah, when I think about my last, you know, a few months or yearish with Apple TV Plus,

I think of it as one of the streamers that I've enjoyed the most because I'm much less focused on like a, I don't want to say like disappointment, but a very high profile show that like foundation that didn't quite deliver as well. And just like delighted to have gotten to enjoy Coda and severance. And I'm loving slow horses. That is so good. Incredible show. So good. Oh my lord.

Yeah. And I'm real, I need to catch up on for all mankind, which I would say not a day goes by in my household that I'm not reminded that I have not caught up on for all mankind by my husband who thinks it's one of the best shows on TV. It's fantastic. Yeah. So yeah. Apple, Apple's having a moment. Look at that. They're having a moment, but it's not a moment. Like, again, with like with we crashed, that that should be the most popular one of.

of the tech disruptor ones with Anne and Jared. But it's not, and that's okay. But yeah, these lower, you know, lower light hits for them and consistent lower light hits. I just, I'm curious. Apple TV Plus did not sponsor this podcast nor this segment. I just think it's an interesting little check-in on a streamer that won an Oscar and has sports now. So streaming wars are always worth a check-in. There we go.

Last question for you before we go. What, if anything, do you want or need from the finale? This might be a pretty lame answer, Joe. I think I'd like an entertaining hour of TV. Oh. Like, you know, I think especially because, again, we got the scenes in the first episode that teased exactly where we were going. It's in the name of the show, as you noted. This is not only real history, but very recent history.

you know, that it's very, very, very fresh in people's minds. Even compared to some of these other founder shows, like this is incredibly recent. Yeah. I want to feel like those eight hours were worth it, which I think I will feel because I've had a good time. And I would like to feel like we completed some sort of character arc and also like we ended up getting to understand the perspectives

of the wider, network of people who were involved in characters in the show and that they weren't just sort of like introduced to check a box and say, okay, you know, we reminded you of who this was affecting. I'd like to see a balance of the impact and, you know, some tissues right against the eyeballs level of acting, just full on. I've had, I've had a handful of moments in each of the recent episodes where I said, is this a screenshot that I sent to Joe and to CR and to everyone? You know, in the finale, I want like no fewer than 20 moments where I say, is this a screenshot? That's what I want.

How about you? What do you want in the finale? Yeah. For me in the in the penultimate episode, it was it was her saying Helvetica. Absolutely iconic. It's unbelievable. Also the commentary on how podcasts don't matter. Great stuff.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that for us. Love that for us. Of course it matters. We did it. You and I, my little Baba Ganoush. Yeah, I think I need to see Leto like take the accent to 20. It's out of 15 at all time, but I need it up to a 20.

Out of a 10 scale, to be clear. I never thought that I would get used to the prosthetics, by the way, and I somehow have. I found it so jarring in the first couple episodes. And now I'm just like, yeah, here we go. Okay, I do want to shout out one last thing before we go, which is, Andrew Burnap's impression. Andrew Burnap as Phil, who's like, you know,

the assistant who's been there the whole time, but it's really elevated in the last couple episodes. And in the kitchen scene, he's doing an impression of Jared Leto, doing an impression of Adam Newman. It's just like top tier A++ accent work. So I want to make sure I shout that out. Just great stuff.

All right, that does it for us for this penultimate look at Wee Crush. Someone will be back to talk to you about the We Crash finale. Who could say whom, but somewhere in this feed. We will talk about the finale of Week crash. We will bring it all back together. Mallory, you and I all be

talking about Moon Night over the Mirror's Feed. Anything else that people should be looking out from you? You and I are fighting. We've got a movie draft. On the Big Pick, about 2003 movies. Anything else? I can't, you know, I can't say I'm proud of my behavior on the movie draft, but what else is new?

You're wonderful. You're a delight. It's such a good time. Yeah, so check out the Big Pick episode that dropped today is the 2003 movie drafts a big big fun time for us uh as i mentioned a lot going on the prestige tv podcast feed uh a winning time episode better call salt lanta perhaps and berry soon i mean what a time to be alive uh and watching television with us many thanks we watch many many many many many thanks to our producer and puzzle master mike wargon and uh and we'll be back soon a bye bye

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