The Watch - ‘3 Body Problem’ Episodes 1-5 and Benioff and Weiss’s Adaptation Prowess

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about news that ‘Euphoria’ Season 3 has been delayed indefinitely, and get into whether or not the show will ever come back (1:00). Then, they discuss the first five episodes of ‘3 Body Problem,’ touching on how Benioff and Weiss are at their best when working from a source material (15:43) and how the show manages to make dense sci-fi material feel light and fast-paced (34:32). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio with several new promising applications for nanofibers. It's Andy Greenwald! I think I could be a good nanofiber scientist because as far as I can tell. You type a little bit. You just type. And then you say, we got to turn this off. Or turn it on again. Yeah.

We are going to be talking about the first five episodes of three body problem season one. Because my guy, Andrew, tape crusher Greenwall. I was taking a page out of the Ben Solac playbook. Yeah. You know? I do a deep draft prep. Watch more than half a season of three body problems. So we were going to talk up through the episode, Judgment Day, which is, quote, unquote, the big one.

It's the one to watch through. And we're going to chat all about our feelings about that show. This, any admin, stick the landing. Season one's done. So everybody should go back and listen to that if they haven't and pick different shows and stuff to investigate. Andy and I did East Bend and Down. which was a lot of fun. I like a lot of people on the internet are like,

you didn't do Sopranos and Lost? I'm like, yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Do you listen to the people on the internet? Galaxy print. I do. I do. They help sway my opinions on a lot of things.

I wonder what Twitter would be like during three-body problem. Oh, I'm ready to talk about that. I have a lot of thoughts about that. Okay, so you want to do some news and notes? I do. The first one is I want to congratulate you on your long plan to oust the CEO of Boeing. I thought that you used our microphone in a, pretty sketchy way last week. I can neither confirm nor did I that my patronage of Boeing had anything

to do with him stepping away. I think a nation sat in watchful visual as I flew to the Pacific Northwest. They did. They did. It was like that time we were all watching the plane. I saw as I took off from Burbank millions of candles lit, the CR heads. Could you land our prints? Could you see the candles through the window or through the open panel on the side of your plane? Yeah. As the wind rushed in. You survived as the main takeaway. Many people from the Portland athletic community came and greeted me at the airport as we landed. The timbers?

Yeah, exactly. The starting 11 for the timbers. Scoot Henderson. Jeremy Grant. That's right. Time Lord, right? He's on the injured list. Yeah.

Phil Knight, CEO of Nike, came through. No, I was in Portland this weekend and it was a safe and, you know, quick little flight. Okay. So you're saying, oh, so this is like big short stuff. I'm just saying, you know what? Like, you're zagging. I'm available. You know,

I'll have the conversation. If Boeing is looking to level up in this space, I'm available to talk about it. Yes, so I did have a little trip, but the CEO of Boeing, I hope he doesn't start a TV podcast, you know,

I don't want any time to return the favor. Andy, one thing that I wanted to chat with you about is the announcement today came out in Variety that Euphoria Season 3 had been delayed. Now, this has been, One of those like almost you know,

imaginative exercises of like, will this hit show that has launched the careers of three pretty significant stars now with Sidney, Jacob Bellorty, and of course, Zendaya. Will this show ever come back?

If it does, how will there be a time jump? I know that you're an avid watcher of all Sam Levinson's work. So I can explain to you that it's been a few years. And the show has not aired since February, I remember. Yeah. Right. And in that, and that airing February 22, that season, the, let me, let me put it this way. The, the, the, there were some standalone episodes that got a lot of acclaim. What was the Coleman Domingo episode, right? And those were between seasons one and two. Yes, they were connective tissues. Between the two seasons, which themselves had quite a significant delay. Because I believe the first season aired in 2019. Yeah. And so, like, there's a, there was a Hunter Schaefer focused episode in a, in a Zendaya focused episode that were like, the, sort of connective. And then we got the full season two ending in February 22. Yes, with the famous Oklahoma

production and everything, yeah. Famous. And then since then, I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. That's why Cindy Sweeney is in the bathroom crying in all the memes. Because of Oklahoma? It's like they're doing a musical at the, and that's also like Maude Apatow is doing a meta-fiction about all of her friends and. You love shows that have performances of the musical Oklahoma in it. You really respond to that. Or maybe it's just her play. It was in Watchmen, too, you really responded to Oklahoma. Yeah, I did. I've seen Oklahoma. I remember where the wind comes, do you want to finish it for me?

And any case. So it's been a long time. It was supposed to come back 23. Sam Levinson was writing. And Cindy Sweeney had said in her press run for Immaculate, a film that I really enjoyed, where she plays a nun impregnated with the Antichrist. It happens. She was like, I go back to shooting Euphoria in just a couple months.

Can I jump in with some news from my perspective? There's a Instagram account, a gossip account, called Dumois. Yeah. I'm breaking news here. And they were like, we saw Eric Dane. Guy's laughing harder at that than she does at John Blackthor. I said that only for Guy.

Because they saw Eric Dane at like, I don't know, Jones on 3rd or whatever. And they were like, hey, guy, like, when are we? He's like, March 1st. Yeah. Euphoria. Yeah. That didn't happen. So it seems like there's something.

I think that, you know, this show is obviously going to have, if not a creative, reimagining, I guess, like they're going to. there was going to have to be a lot of adjustments for the now great demand that the actors find themselves in. So whatever window they had, they must have missed. So HBO and this is a statement that was made to variety. HBO and Sam Levinson remained committed to making an exceptional third season. In the interim, we are allowing our in-demand cast to pursue out of our opportunities. At an event last week, Sweeney was asked about rumors that the hit HBO show might not be coming back.

She stalled by taking a sip of water before telling her moderator, quote, my girl. Honestly, talking about euphoria is like as scary as talking about Marvel. I said one thing, and it went everywhere. Oh, yeah. When asked if she'd seen any scripts, she replied, maybe, I don't know. Well, I think Sam Levinson is also always rewriting, so screenplays

are kind of like this fluid, you know, like... Kai, can you edit out the sloshing sounds of the water Chris is carrying for watch Superfan Sam Levinson just now? Anyway, if I had to guess, it's too big to

fail. There's too much, there's too much riding on it. There's too, like, genuinely, I agree with this. It would be like getting the Beatles back together. If you can get a Lordy's and Dea and Sweeney back in the, in the stud, you have to do it. They need, they all need this. I mean, HBO, I mean, part of the proof. The people need it.

Yeah, but I'm also, I'm just trying to, I'm trying to pull back 10,000 foot, have not watched the show, but like, but from, no, but from a business perspective, I understand. Proof of concept for HBO as a viable, still, crown jewel of original programming or contents for its larger max overlords, this is like Exhibit 1A, right? Because this is Casey and the team empowering people casting a show up and making a phenomenon out of whole cloth and creating superstars. And that is one of the reasons why HBO

remains valuable in the larger WBD slash just the larger TV industry. So yes, I agree. It has to come back, but it does sound like it's getting quite unwieldy. Yeah. One of their note. I wanted to tell you from the world of entertainment. Thank you. It sounds like... I wish all your notes were from, like, Portland. Scarlett Johansson. Yeah. Is going to be leading the cast for the Gareth Edwards mounted Jurassic World reboot. That's wild. Which is, I would just say, honestly, of those two people, like, I'm pretty excited to see what Gareth is. Which does with Jurassic Park World, whatever it is. But it's also kind of, you know, when sometimes when, franchises go on or if there's like different iterations of them, you can see a studio sort of decide,

you know what, like it's really Godzilla or King Kong that sells this thing. It's not whoever isn't around it. So the idea that they're attaching such a big star to it is pretty fascinating. And it's actually interesting to see Johansson, who after MCU is like kind of out there. I don't really, I mean, what does Scarlett Johansson even done in the last couple of years? I'm trying to think. Something jumps off, like after marriage story. Asteroid City. She's very good in that.

She was recently on Saturday Night Live. That counts as Katie Britt. Yeah, that's right. That was pretty good. That's right. Clearly you're not really following the Singh animated universe. No.

Speaking about being impregnated with the Antichrist. I've actually started, can I tell you something about my anti-animation agenda? Yeah. Is when I am doing, like, if I'm ever like, let's take a look at Jake Gyllenol's last 10 years, like on a podcast, I leave out there animated works. Wow. Because I'm just like, you know what? You could see his face.

That's voiceover, dog. Anyway, I just thought I would mention it. Do you have any takes on this? Well, I, so my question is... Did you watch any of the Chris Pratt Jurassic movies? No, and are these new movies a refutation of those movies? It says Jurassic World reboot. So they're just going to do it again?

Like, in a different world where Richard Attenborough didn't do it? I would imagine... Is this the multiverse or is this Star Wars? Is it all one story? Oh, it's all one story. I mean, it's all one story in the sense that they're still riffing off of like in the 90s this happened. I see.

Now in the 2010s this happened. So the first trailer of this new movie will be the velociraptor music, but with pitched down with Billy Elish singing over it, with black and white images of Wayne Knight getting eaten. Yes. And then Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. Wayne Knight. Struggling with that shaving cream.

Chris Pratt will all walk into the frame. Yeah. Right? I'm trying to, like, I think it's like a frozen empire thing, you know, where all the pop stuff of our childhood just becomes like the dense vegetable, nutritious fiber of adulthood. Yes. I do think it's interesting to watch stars who are legitimately big stars continue to try to do a, I guess, in their mind or in their team's mind,

a considered dance with the mainstream culture. The people who have argued that like if you do, if you play ball and you do one for them or one for everyone or one for Disney, then you can have the flexibility to do one for yourself as well. There are many case studies of that being fairly true. There's also Robert Downey Jr.'s recent Oscar press tour where he's basically like red on the beach and Zewatineo. You know what I mean? And he's just like, finally I can see the sun again. Yeah, I know. I know. So, but then there's another version of it too where she's just like, this is cool. This is highly paying work. Private schools in Manhattan are expensive.

Gareth Edwards is not nobody, right? He is a guy who has an aesthetic and has made films in a certain way and I'm sure that their meetings were very creative and whatever. I find it interesting. I don't have like a value judgment on it. I think it's an interesting way

for some people to navigate their careers. Let's move into a three-body problem. You know, because I don't have anything else to say about Jurassic World being rebooted. Did you see the Chris Brat movies? I saw the first two. I don't think I saw how it was concluded. So you didn't get closure?

I don't know. You know what I mean? For all I know, all I know, all those dinosaurs are flying Boeing planes everywhere.

You know, like, it could be really up my alley. I would be into a version of these movies, because like the apes movies, which like, you know,

the flight attendants are like, welcome aboard, and I'm like, ah! Just tiny arms. Tiny arms trying to move the pilot. I, I am interested,

and this sort of does lead into three-body problem, but like we are coming out of an era where it's all existential, existential civilization versus civilization, like the Planet of the Apes movies, or like, everything's cool, James Franco, John Lithgow, and then the monkeys start thinking and talking, and then the next thing you know, they're just, you know, living their best feudal lives on the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Yeah. Why can't we get along anymore? I mean, is this all a larger metaphor for American society? Like, I would like to see a Jurassic movie where the dinosaurs, yeah, they're flying the planes, too. Yeah, so you want to have, like, basically, I mean, that's how we get. into the like Kong versus Godzilla where like we've like kind of oh we've got we've got our cool monsters but then there's always this other threat that our monsters have to go fight their

monsters so you want the Jurassic world monsters not monsters dinosaurs to be you know fending off some other kind of thing no I want it to be more like marriage story I want her to think of it as that maybe that's why she's involved maybe it's actually marriage story we're tanon we don't get along because our species are bred to kill each other. However, for the sake of the kids, we have to try and make this work. You know what? They could do a lot worse with this movie

is if it's like, Scarlet Johansson's character from Marriage Story is like maybe making a promotional video for the new Jurassic Park. And she's like the kind of star in voice. And Adam Driver's character gets hired to like make the videos that they're there. You see this?

Yeah. And maybe Laura Dern has moved on as now working in litigant the legal department of Jurassic Park. Yeah. More like mediation. Because I feel like to enter that park, you have to sign quite a hefty document saying you won't sue them.

Mostly I just would love to see Noah Bombach write this, you know? I'm not mad at this. Like this idea of saying, like, well, we should have our smallest, like most beloved actors be in action movies. We've done that for a really long time. I think we should bring the action into the smaller movies. Yes. Marriage story set?

This is incredible. Marriage story says... At East La Newblood. No, it doesn't even have to be there. My point is, here's my pitch, ready? Marriage story is still happening in Park Slope, Brooklyn. But it's the Park Slope Brooklyn where Jurassic World also exists. I think that they needed to be a little bit warmer.

I don't think that they can be up in... No, no, I'm not saying the dinosaurs are there. Oh, you didn't... I thought they were like just roaming Prospect Park. Well, I started there, and I could tell that I was losing the audience. So now I'm drawing it back. I'm just saying, what would it cost? What would it hurt the...

kitchen sink drama of Noah Baumbach's searing Oscar-nominated divorce story if occasionally there was a Chiron on a TV being like dinosaurs rampaging. Right. I think it kind of ratchets up the stakes even for their smaller bore problems. Yeah.

Okay. Do you see what I mean? I think you're right. I think this is incredible stuff. We should go back to the drawing board and see like what kitchen sink indie movies could we now superpower? What if anatomy of a fall

was about the fall of Segovia from the sky. Maybe the dazed and confused folks could have like a high school reunion in Cape Cod where there are Jaws sharks. You know, like... This could really work. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere

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All right, let's talk about three body. I'm really anxious to do this. So we talked a little bit about the first episode, which we were both huge fans of as a piece of pilot television. But we've now really truly thrown ourselves into Silent Spring, you know? I had one question coming out of these first five. that was really important for me to get an answer from.

Okay. And so to be clear, spoilers through Judgment Day, which if you're still listening and haven't watched, this is a good chunk to watch. This makes sense. I think it's the first half of the show, you know, in some ways. An alien civilization makes contact with Earth. Yep.

And their accolites on our planet start a recruiting drive by using futuristic technology, but essentially a video game. Yeah. if that video game was the first iteration of Halo on Xbox, how far could you get in levels? And do you think that you would be their face and voice on Earth? Let me live on a boat, my lord, and serve you.

Call me Master Chief. That is correct. I appreciate you beginning there because I was going to say that there are a lot of choices characters make on this show that I don't personally relate to. It doesn't mean I don't love the show, but you are helping me understand, this is a better way in for me. If it was, Chris, if the aliens had come earlier and sent Mario Kart 64, do you understand, like, I would be rolling out the red carpet for them? Yeah.

So by the end of episode five, I'm pretty sure, you're going to have to remind me because I watched it. And then so, like, I'm not exactly sure where stuff ends. But by five, the true purpose of the video game is kind of revealed. and it kind of is to some extent put aside, like the whole entire video game can see. Now, for those five episodes or for the first few episodes where the video game is like a major part

of three body problem, and I assume if you're listening, I don't need to really break down what it's about. And honestly, like, some of the physics stuff is beyond my comprehension, and I just go yada yada, that sounds right. The video game thing is really interesting because it actually is a solve

for what I think I've seen some people bumping up against, which is some of the CGI animated feeling of some of the action. I think it actually works well because you can say, well, it's a video game. So you're inside this game and it actually, you can tell they're having a blast, you know, like it's kind of tongue in cheek to see

some of the scenarios that they come up in this, be it with like Henry the 8th era, England, the Tudors or, you know, what is it, Kouple Khan and stuff like that. Once they get out of, of the video game, that I think you're almost forced to look at the quote-unquote reality of the show with a little bit more of a kind of like, I'm being a little bit more permissive about how stuff

is happening and how it looks. Sure. And even I imagine you're also, the next step is also to say the sheer coincidence of it, that they are telling a not only global, universal, multi-dimensional story that is essentially being fueled by the actions of eight people. Yes. I think that what's remarkable about the show is how all of these things

have clearly been considered. One thing that I was occurring to me as I was watching it was just it felt really good to start to break away from a larger expectation of movie, of TV feeling

like movies or basically what these guys seem to have done when I say these guys again, I mean David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Wu, who are the creative brain trust of the show, I think truly embraced the medium. Imperfect as it may be.

So do the CGI spectacle, do they equal what we might want from a first contact style sci-fi movie? No. Does the depth of characterization or the depth of explication of hard sci-fi physics, quantum physics concepts, does that equal what I imagine are the deep pleasures of the book? My guess is no.

What they have done is understood all that going in, and there is a lightness to their adaptation that I think they were freed from serving the dual masters of other mediums and say, here's what we can do. And here's the jazziest, zippiest, most grabbing, entertaining, confounding, thought-provoking version of a television show in the Netflix era we can make. And it feels optimized in that way. So whether they were going into the video game space or whether the video game space was becoming the world, I was on board because there's just, there's a lightness to this adaptation that I think can't be overstated.

When we were texting about it over the weekend, my love for the show, which is real, partly just comes from the pleasure of having something so considered and yet so fun to have in my life in this way. Yes, and also I think weirdly optimized for modern consumption, which I don't mean to make

that sound as unromantic as I do. But when you think about... We talked about this a little bit before when we were like, the HBO version of this show is the pilot is the first season. Right, right, right. any version of this show in years past,

I would imagine culminates with the reveals of what the game is and what it's for. Right? Like, that would be a good ending point for the first season is that this video game is this thing that these two people are sort of surreptitiously playing, that their friends are worried about their addiction to. Yeah, we start from that level.

Yeah, and that there's, like, maybe you're doing these flashbacks to China and you're learning more about Dr. Yeh, but, like, for the most part, it's like, you're kind of like, oh, these guys keep going into this game and why is Jen so good at it? You know, like, ultimately what we kind of get

is like, this is just the appetizer for, like, the way that they've portioned and coursed out this season is, I think, incredibly smart from two guys who kind of mastered how to build 10 hours of a season and 40 hours. And up until the last like five or six episodes,

like kind of nailed it. Like, this is as good as you can do with like an epic story on a multi-season arc. Well, it's also, and I think other people have expressed this in written pieces about the show, it's a profoundly different skill set.

And this show, at least so far, really serves their skill set, which is to say the first few seasons of Game of Thrones when they are operating directly off the text of the book, they can be the most incredible interior decorators of all time.

Yeah. If the house is built. What happened in the last few seasons was they made it to the last, last room to decorate, and there was a gaping hole where the wall should be, and then they became architects and designers at the same time. Within this world, there are three books that they are adapting. And so what we're seeing on full display is this very of the moment skill that, again, this is one of those incredible skills that might not be as useful 10 years ago, 50 years ago,

or who knows in the future how we're consuming media. But like, right now, this is one of the most incredible and bankable skills there is. And so the way the information is coming to us, the way that again, these are dense, these are filled hours of television, five hours so far. I think one episode was a little bit shorter, but largely they're consistent. I'm so all the way in and understand more or less the parameters of the world. That is not easy to do. To your point about when we get certain information, what I really loved about five, and we will get into it in more detail, I'm sure, is not just the enormous spectacle of it,

but a real sense of not just movement forward, like, oh, now it's going to be something else, but also that the sequence when Liam Cunningham and Jinner, I forget his character's name, Wade. Wade are playing the sort of, not even playing,

they're being told the final level of the game, so to speak. It's illustrated visually in a way that backfills information that I think most viewers have already backfilled. I didn't forget that the show began with science being broken and it's not a stretch to realize in episode three once we start talking about aliens that they may have something to do with it. But the show was totally confident saying in episode five,

yeah, that's why that happened. Yes. And telling us that, and that's a good feeling, actually, you feel cared for in a strange way as a viewer. And again, it's why I feel like, I mean, I don't know what criticism of the show exists, and I'm sure some of it is valid and some will get into. But it is a little bit forest for the trees for me thing here.

It's just like, look how well cared for we are within a project that is unambiguously ambitious, unambiguously thinky and heavy in its specifics, but also just really light on its feet. Yeah. And you can also say, I mean, the other particle acceleration that they're doing is with characters. So I think that over the course of the five episodes that you watched, you know, at various points you might be like, this person or this person seems a little underbaked or maybe superfluous to the main thrust of the story. I think in some ways they get through the sacrificing of, they get some of those people out of there pretty quickly. They sure do. And the people that they keep around eventually wind up having a very significant impact on the story. I think that came up

specifically when I was saying, like Joven Adepo, who I like a lot. You remember him from left over is and watchmen, among other things. Like, his character of Saul, so far, is just getting baked a lot and observing things. Because he's well cast and it's an actor that I like, that's fine, right? Because I assume something's coming. In the same way that you might be watching Thrones and you're like, do we need, does Carrington, do we need the other brother? You know, like, do is there have to be like this other brother here?

And you know what I mean? And you're like, holy shit, that winds up being really important. Like there's characters like, I don't know, like even Vesaris or something like that where you're like, oh, okay, this is like, and then they pay off and then they have like something to do. It's the most important thing to me is when you have like these larger ensembles is that everybody gets something to do. And as you go through the course of the season, even somebody like Augie, who I think is, you know, kind of around, I mean, she's invented nanofibers, which is great. Or, like, you know, this new version of amaphibers that can cut diamonds and can cut ships in half and stuff and people. And she's horrified by her invention or the applications of it. A lot of, like, her behavioral stuff is, like, smoking, cursing, being really frustrated with everybody.

But, like, then has this huge, like, basically mini Oppenheimer plot line with this fifth episode. Yes. And I would say that, you know, Isaac Gonzalez can do many things well. I don't know if this is the best casting in this part because of exactly what you just said, that what is intrinsically interesting about this part

is that you have to do Oppenheimer in three scenes wearing a jacket that says Panama Canal on it. I didn't get that from that performance in those beats, but I think the larger point is well taken, right? That like, it's, for as much as I'm saying that these guys understand how to make a TV show, there are other things that are. are not the language of TV, which is they're more book logic or certainly sci-fi logic

or often movie logic, which is, yeah, these are all just pieces on a game board that are there for a reason to accomplish a task. These guys, their amazing ability is they seem to be able to work backwards from a constructed hole and then find these little diamonds to make the thing that got cut up. I don't, what they're servicing with their choice of characters and settings and the way that they're writing the dialogue to tell this gigantic fucking story. I'm just, I'm really floored by. That being said, I don't know if the show works without the China flashback stuff. So, yes.

So I mean, it works, but it's, I think it's given a resonance at a depth because of that storyline. So here's a couple things that I wanted to focus on, which is, because when we talked about it before, I didn't have the full scope of that. Yeah. I don't know how it's presented or where in the book it falls, but the, the, you know, sequence when the young Yewinje gets the message what that message is

late at night after eight years or whatever of just falling asleep listening to static and the message is like you're lucky that I received your message. Because I'm a pacifist. Do not reply. Do not reply. Do not reply. If you reply, you will be conquered. Yeah. And she fucking fires up the device, aims it at the heart of the sun. It says, please conquer us. We cannot save ourselves. Yeah. And this is

crucially after she has had a meeting or gone to go see the woman who as a teenager killed her father. I wish I had her name in front of me. That's my favorite, maybe my favorite small acting performance of the year. I think she is unbelievable. And she,

these two women have a conversation in which, like, case, like, they're, you know, the woman who's killed her father has now been maimed by hard labor and working in like a threshing device.

But she is like, I won't, like, who's going to fucking atone for what I did? Who's going to repent for what happened to me? And, you know, you're obviously there's loggerheads of two people who have just been stepped on by history. Yeah, there is no repenting.

And there is no resolution. There is no great deliverance. And I think that's what she's looking for. Well, she's also had the scene with young Mike Evans who, hard to imagine he turns into Jonathan Price. But again, time is a moment. This is the thing about this show

is that I think no one ever really seems Okay, so like one of my favorite things is like I don't know how Wade is affording all of this stuff But like, it's just like you guys are doing this And this is and everybody's got clothes and food And is got on planes They've got like perfect outfits for Panama

They also have, and this happens later in episode five Where they're like, aha, we have the hard drive That contains the impossible data of the known universe Plug it into the USB port And it's like it's like it'll take a trillion in years to fix, and they're like, okay, and that it's like, but maybe we'll get lucky and they get lucky. Well, they don't get the, no, no, the aliens open it up. They raise the kimono, so to speak.

Yes. So she has also seen, crucially, Mike Evans, be like, I would sacrifice my life to save one species. And so my two points that I wanted to make about that were that is one of the greatest, most absolute heavy metal endings of an episode in television history. Yes. I love it. Yeah. It's awesome. That's the second episode?

I think it's the second episode, yeah. second point is if I have, well, I don't want to frame this as a criticism because, again, the books exist and maybe I, and I probably should read them to get this kind of context. One thing that I was curious about, and I feel ill-equipped to answer, and I'm curious your opinion about how much the show is communicated to you, is these books and this story are deeply Chinese. To even write a story that begins with a depiction of the Cultural Revolution, and struggle sessions is highly charged, highly political. The confrontation between the good of the people, the larger body versus the goals of the individual, are crucial to understanding that period in Chinese history

as well as contemporary Chinese history, if not communism, or struggle on earth. Our perspective on that is so Western. You know what I mean? So Yewengi's actions... With our Levi's genes? I'm listening to... of Bruce Springsteen in these headphones.

I'm not even listening to you. Boeing airplanes. Yeah. TBD on that one. So my question is, I'm very curious the intention of that character's actions and how they could be viewed.

Because I think through a Western lens watching those first few episodes, it's very... Look, I don't mean to conflate Asian culture as one thing, but I suddenly was thinking of there's a scene in Shogun, maybe I won't spoil it.

So I'm not even going to go down that road. I mean to say is through Western lens, when we see what Yewinji has to go through and seeing her parents killed like this and seeing her own individual brilliance tamped down and reality and truth stepped all over, her taking matters into her own hands code as a Western act of heroic defiance. It doesn't work out great for humans. No, but we don't know that. And also, I think that there's an essential element of this is that is the Carson book, the Silence Spring. Yes.

And the idea of radical, I mean, I suppose you could call it radical environmentalism and seeing human beings should be part of like a tapestry of occupants of this earth and stewards of it instead of pillaging it until it dies. And not only doing it to the planet, but also doing it to each other for greed. for whatever other reasons. Now you can say certain concepts are like Western capitalists and certain concepts aren't. But when you think about what she is asking to have happen,

yes, in some ways it's like conquer us or whatever. It's like, conquer me daddy. The other is that would be, if I was on the alien team, I would do a pod called Conquer Me Daddy. You would be so popular. And it would just be like, you know, winners and losers of the coming alien invasion. You could only listen to it on like 1940s radios receivers.

Only Jonathan Price can hear it. It's a, yeah, it's a bespoke podcast. So the ad revenue is a little low. But we're sponsored by the Sungtis, so that's great. Yeah. I don't know what I was saying. But I think that it's essential to also look at it as from the, through the lens of like environmentalism

as it is through the lens of capitalism versus communism. I think that's a good point. And also, if you're part of a natural order of things, another way to look at it is you are bugs. Yeah. Which is where we end up in episode five. I also was interested in watching this from another larger cultural conversation that this feels a part of to me is related to Dune 2. And I'm not going to spoil that movie for people who haven't seen it.

You guys should see it. It's really good. But one thing about it, that movie that is just essential to it. And I found myself, I was interested in my own reaction to it, and I'm interested in how it plays on the larger scale, which is the star of those movies is also kind of the villain. That the hero turn is actually a turn towards potentially great suffering and death.

And that runs, that's very true to the book, I think, and from what I understand about Frank Herbert's view of messiahs generally. I sit next to a guy on the plane last night, He was reading God Emperor of Dune. Oh, shit. Really? With the half-man, half-worm god? Yeah.

He had a new edition, so it wasn't the one that haunted your childhood. Oh, is the cover more like the worm god, but he's doing like Jonas Ara's author photo? It has like a more of like a Leanne Moriarty vibe to it. Oh, those panels of color? I love that. Yeah. But my own reaction to it and also, you know, writ large, that people are, we're coming out of the superhero age is what I want to say. which is everybody knows that it's a very binary.

There's good and bad. And the heroes always triumph. They're wild-ass decisions to do things on a global scale tend to work out. Yes. Maybe the citizens of Metropolis or Sequovia don't agree. But we're from a godlike perspective. Coming out of that era, getting into a messier thicket, right? Which is where good literature often is and good ideas often are.

but I was sort of, there's something about me that has been conditioned to watch Dune and be like, well, this is all set up. I am the mark is what I mean to say. And now we're watching this and it's profoundly not a superhero narrative and it's not even a Western narrative. And I'm finding that an interesting conversation to have or just to be observing if this is where this sort of storytelling is going. And I like that. Do you have, I mean, are you, are you somebody who's like spent a lot of time like wondering what is out there? Like, are you, are, like, did the ideas of this show, are they made more urgent and more real to you because they're also about whether or not there's an expiry date on? No.

Okay. So I was thinking about this. And there's the scene in episode four, I guess, when Jin leads the special forces to the English summit slash rave. Yeah. Where, yeah, when we find, we find out that she's leading this cult. This is all her doing and always has been. And she announces to the followers that the Santi are coming and it will be 400 or 450 years for them to get here. And now we need to prepare the way and whatever for your children's children and all this.

And I got to tell you, if someone told me that something mega was happening in 400 years, I would also go sit by the beach. And you'd eat a million Cornish pasties because I'd be like, look, I'm just going to enjoy my life that has nothing to do with me or my children's life. Yes. Or their lives, and they told me that they're not having children. They're just going to live with cats in Tokyo. Did you ask this of your children? Were you like, what would you do if in 350 years, like, aliens were coming to destroy us? I couldn't.

I got to be, I couldn't care less about what's happening then. I feel very at peace with decisions that are under my control. Like, the great works of Shakespeare will burn. I'm like, I'll enjoy them now. I'm not going to be there. Oh, man. I guess we could see why you're not running Waystar Royco, you know? But do you disagree?

Do you take a longer view of your responsibility to humanity and being steward of the earth? I don't really know. I think it's interesting how internationalist and global this effort is. One of the things that's sort of fascinating about it is that there are some films that depict this kind of situation as something that splits the world or increases tensions. So like an arrival, there's like a lot. there's like a lot of like, there could be a, like, a war over this, this, over these, these beings coming to our planet and China and the West might go to war. And in Armageddon and other things, like, they're like, okay, well, like,

everybody's immediately forms an international space force to combat this, you know? I think it's in the Martian, right? Like, there's like a lot of, like, collaboration. Another great Benedict Wong performance. True. But I, you know, I like the pro-science, like, aspect of this. and that like the scientists are the Avengers is a pretty cool look at it. Whether or not like I feel some sort of, it's like, you know, how big do you think your life is?

How much do you think your life matters? Well, and I think that's one of the- If everybody decides like, ah, fuck it, then like, well, what do you? Well, I'm not saying fuck it. I'm just like, what can I control and what can I? I don't want to make the world worse. But I also am not going to spend my life focused on 400 years from now. That doesn't seem like a good use of time.

Kai, are you pro 400 years in the future? I'm worried about that. Not really my problem. Do you follow Kai on Instagram? She is focused on having a good time now. Exactly. She's our hero. I guess she doesn't want to see season 700 of Below Deck then, you know?

Set on the Santi Star Destroyer? Yeah. I like, it did feel very bravo and someone's like, what do you really look like? And she's like, you wouldn't like it. I feel like that's what the real housewives would say, if you ask what they look like without the filters. to the point you're making, this is, what you just said

about our obligation to future generations and our place as a society as part of something larger than the day-to-day quotidian troubles that are happening on Earth. Like that is,

that is one of the deepest connections between three-body problem and all sci-fi, right? I mean, Foundation, Isaac Asimov novels that are now an Apple TV show,

what's wild about that first book, which I loved and read when I was in high school, is it's essentially a series of short stories about what happens after a guy, this guy, Harry Selden, is in the first story. And then it jumps hundreds and thousands of years in the future. And it's just on, on, on and on.

And it's purely speculative and not really worried about the trappings of the way we tell stories on television today, which is a group of friends solving crimes. So the other piece of it that felt almost a throwback and deeply connected to the Western canon to me was when Wade and Jin are having that confrontation with the sword lady and or conversation. Really, she's kind of monologuing, if we're going to be honest. Yeah, seriously.

And she's like, you've been basically explaining the rate of like iteration of technology on Earth. And she's like, in 400 years, you will be better than us and you will destroy us. So we are going to stop you now. And that was a turn I didn't expect. I thought what she was about to say was, we don't have to do anything

because in 400 years you will have killed yourselves. Yes. That was an odd bit of, it's not necessarily utopian thinking, some sort of deeper belief in the common project of humanity. Well, you know, and a different show, and I guess I don't know why I keep kind of like riffing on, like, what different versions of this could have been like or what, because I think that this is like as good as you can do it, you know, in a lot of ways.

It truly is. It truly is. A different show might introduce that as like a, there might be more room for debate. It seems like Wade essentially can govern world policy, global policy. And there's a couple of sort of, I don't really know if. if it's a DASX Mac and our device, if he's just able to be like, well, we need to do this,

so we're going to invent the ability to do it so that we can shoot this on a television show. It's not like, oh, fuck, that didn't work. Now, that does happen in different parts of the show, but in terms of, like, answers to questions, they seem to always come up with one. And they come up with them successively in each episode. Yeah, every...

Well, I mean, I think there are a couple things that I'm... I remember... Not pleasantly skeptical about or curious about. Like, it's made clear at the end of episode five that the Sontilla have been, for a number of years, been watching everything and absorbing everything. Tatiana, she's out there. Right?

Yeah. And yet, it took one old man on a boat telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood to get them to be like, oh, shit, what? If they had access to, and if I can just keep things, you know, relative to what we've been saying, to the entire Bravo library streaming on Peacock, I think they would have cracked the whole

were pieces of shit thing. Well, also, like, understanding metaphor. Like, that's, like, a pretty basic tenet of storytelling. Yeah, and there's a lot of story streaming. And I guess, like, we're going to have, like, a global apocalypse because these guys take things too literally. I just had a vision of sending Tim Robinson to talk to them being like, I used to be a piece of shit.

Yeah. She's like, where were you? Sloppy steaks. One other thing I wanted to discuss about this show is Benny Offen Weiss and was, but Benny Evin Weiss is historical. ability to pepper a season of television. Now, it used to be probably like twice a season.

This time it's like three in the first five episodes. With the, we would be talking about this all week if it came out once a week. We could start with the big one, which is the Judgment Day boat collapsing. But basically, it does take a little bit out of the little scene horror movie ghost ship. Does it? There's like a whole thing with a wide. cutting through the people on the boat. Really?

But... Were they... I'm sorry, you said wire. Is that the same as a nanofiber? No, but, like, I think that that... That moment where Wade's like, it's not working, and Augie goes, like... No, Dev says that, and then, yeah.

And then, and Augie's like, yeah, it is. It's working. And that's fucking... It's sick. It's also... Speaking of sick, like, I just would love to have heard the conversations where they're like,

what we're going to do is we're going to show recess at boat school for a while. Yeah. We're going to hang on that for as long as we can in good taste and in good conscience. But they don't show any kids getting got. No, but I'm saying, but they waited to the last second of that wire. They were like, if case there's anyone who didn't understand that season 5 through 20 of romper room were filmed on the deck of this boat, we want you to disabuse yourself of that

innocent notion now because that's what's happening. Do you see it was Taco Tuesday when they got got? Hard shell tacos on the boat. But, you know, there's also, like, I guess Evans is, at this point, one of the really, like, cool elements is that Evans has lost contact. Well, they've been abandoned. And that's slowly, that's played very well. It has a tendency to sometimes happen when you got a lord, you know? Wow.

Oh, you're getting spicy. Well, I mean, I don't mean that. I mean, historically in literature and in ideas, like, has God abandoned us. It's like a thing that comes up a lot. Okay. So you're not saying pro or con God abandoning it. That's not the take. you're sketching out for yourself today.

I'm just the lowly podcaster working for this on team. You're just the lowly podcaster slash airline CEO. Yeah, my, okay, episode five is a remarkable set piece that, again, their use of tension, their understanding of when to deploy, not just how they constructed it visually. And Minky Spiro, I think it's the director of that episode. We haven't mentioned Derek Tang, who directed the first two, I thought did a beautiful job. Yeah. It's very, very, very well executed throughout.

It's, I do want to talk about the, like, so the conversation that Wade has with my guy Clarence, who, if Clarence wasn't on the show, the show is not good. No. You could swap out other people. I would say, actually, despite everything that's happening in it, I was watching the show with my wife. Like, we were both, like, Benedict Wong is doing seven.

He's Morgan Freeman and seven, and this is awesome. Like, when they first starts investigating, like, what's happening to these scientists and why are they taking their own lives? Like, it's awesome. it's it if you're if you want to use the analogy of like of building a show or show running a show is cooking like if if you don't have that flavor element in this the whole thing is off yeah it's just off it's so exciting to have him there to be he's we it's it's not just that it's it's morgan freeman in seven he's a rumple detective like we can we get that we

understand it he's street level he's not a physicist he's smart and he's skeptical and he's funny too which is essential in something like this i really appreciate that throughout. But when he's having the conversation with Wade, where they're like, okay, we need to get all of the conversations between Mike Evans and his lord. Yeah. And how are we going to do that? And Clarence is like, well, special forces would be bloody and there's a gas or we could do, we could shoot a missile, we might shoot the wrong thing. They kind of yada, yada, yada the part where they were like, we will use Augie Salazar's nanotechnology to physically rend everyone and everything on that boat. and collapse the boat and collapsed the boat into essentially like the confetti paper that they pack things in

but then they're like found it that's what I'm saying how did that decision appreciably increase the odds of sacred I really don't know because they didn't

seal team six man what the fuck they didn't know what the space hard drive looked like it would be too bloody to send in special forces or I think they were like

on their side but like it's a fucking giant floating high school like why can't they sentence also I don't didn't understand, because my guy, Mike, stays a little bit ahead of the wires for a while. You know what I mean? He sees a lot of good guys get put through that egg slicing machine.

Yes. He rushes into his communications room. Gives his little red notebook. He grabs his, oh, a little more Chinese history there. Well done. His hard drive, his pocket, you know, is whatever. And at that moment, I'm like, I guess he thinks he's going to make it, right? So he's taking the most important. thing that's on the boat. But at a certain point when he just realizes he's not, isn't the goal then to destroy the record? Yes.

But he doesn't do that either. It just leaves it to fade. Yeah, he's just like, we'll see what happens. Any other big picture things you want to say about these episodes? I think we can obviously have another conversation about it once you wrap up. But like... Well, yes. So the end of this episode, we find out that because of

the Little Red Riding Hood Gaff. I think we can call it a gaff, right? You know, we do that about politicians. I think we can do it again here when the fate of humanity is at stake. Yeah. A whoopsie. Can you imagine if what Mike Evans had to explain was like the Kate Middleton saga? Yes.

Yes. You think this song did we'd be like, you know what, actually? Never mind. If they cut to Mike Evans. It doesn't have to be you guys. There's probably another planet. Like year 10 of this. And he's just on page 55 of American battles.

She made a video and we all felt like shit, but. And we deserved it. That is a great. Kaya's deafening silence over there. She thinks about what she's done. I don't feel that at all. Whoa! Minute 53!

The hottest take! They handled that so poorly. Yes, I think that there's a lot of blame pie. Everybody gets a slice. Speaking of slices, episode 5 of 3 body problem, trying to get this ship back on track. Why do you save the good stuff for the end? Well, anyway, so at the end of this episode,

we get the reveal that they have interdimensional capabilities with protons and can make small things large and basically have created a literal sky net around Earth, which is particularly tough for our man Alex who just wants to die in peace looking at the sky. Yeah.

And can no longer do that. Do you think that they get to see are our pod completion numbers? You mean, once they've... Oh, with their proton? Yeah.

Yeah. I feel like, well, people are really like, they leg it out to the end of the watch. I think they mentioned the best. I think that that factored into their decision-making about what they wanted to do with our planet. Yeah, Alex, Alex no longer gets to gaze. So the world is sealed off.

And you feel like, you feel like Twitter would be saying what on that day? Twitter would be like, this is... This is shocking, but not surprising. We deserve this? Yeah, this is, we should have... Do you think this would upend Twitter's perception of colonizer narratives? I'm just asking.

I don't know. I don't know. I'm just asking. I don't know. Why don't we wrap it up there? Well, okay, but so five episodes. I don't want to wrap it up yet. I do, only in the sense I don't...

Okay. You're very saunty right now because you see the big picture because you've seen all these episodes. I have. I am riveted. and thrilled. And I think this is so fun. And yes, the podcasters lament, I do wish this was weekly. So we could be doing this every week instead of in larger chunks. Can you even, do you, do, I want to ask you a question, but I feel like you might not be able to answer because you like the Sonti, you know everything, which is how much of the episodic nature of the show through five is going to radically change

in the back half of the season, let alone potentially future seasons. I would say that it remains consistent in terms of its narrative in terms of its narrative pacing and in terms of I think it makes use of every tool in the toolbox that it has and I mean that in terms of the characters and I mean that in terms of like

nanotechnology well I just think of like it's it's looking forward did you mourn the end of the Jack Snacks era of the show I enjoyed the character and thought we got the most out if he wasn't going to turn around and be like I've had like I will now use my fortune and my ability to make

disposable snack packs like for the greater good you know that was I thought that was actually like him being like I'm fucking out was like a little bit was a little bit silly that was dramatic yeah it's like you guys have gone this far you know

you're what you're doing I also was confused because he was like I'll meet you in the pub but he clearly didn't wait at the pub no you went home he just went home I think he went no I think he went and got steaming pissed at the pub then got a cab home because Jen never came to him and then at the end. I appreciate that you're like he took a cab

because he was responsible he didn't drink and drive. Last thing, Chris, had things gone a different way on Boeing this weekend the way that you were predicting catastrophizing last week? And if I had spent today

sitting on a beach just thinking about missing my guy. Would you have taken the show off? Would a look? No. I'm a professional. Kai and I would have done it.

It's like when you were in Europe for the succession finale. Caius two major co-hosting would be the succession finale and the RIP Chris pot. Chris seemed nice. No, no, we would be like Chris's unfortunate end is a one-body problem. Today, we have bigger fish to fry. I'm just saying if I was sitting on the beach, would I have gotten a visit from an attorney granting me half of your estate?

No. I'm sorry. Okay, wow. I'm tied up in a lot of things right now. There are a lot of them in the aerospace field. Okay. Well, I love the show. I think it's great.

I love the show. I love podcasting with you. But I think it's good. I think it's healthy. I think it's good for the medium that we have the show right now. Me too. You sure about that?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. I feel like you're just, you're past it. You know, you've seen them all. You know who's coming. Don't worry about that. You probably know what they look like.

I did. I'm not going to spoil it for you. I love doing this deal with you. All right. We're going to talk on Thursday about Shogun and some other stuff. Andy, great seeing you, Kai. Thank you for producing. We'll be back.