The Watch - A Check-In With Andy, the Premiere of ‘The Deuce’ Season 2, and a Mid-Season Review of ‘Ozark’ Season 2 | The Watch (Ep. 288)

Episode Date: September 10, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan is briefly joined by Andy Greenwald to give an update on the production of Andy's show 'Briarpatch' (1:00). Then Alison Herman joins to talk about the second season premiere ...of HBO’s ‘The Deuce’ (7:21) and David Shoemaker gives a mid-season review of Netflix’s ‘Ozark’ (23:36). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:01 Today's episode of the watch is sponsored by ADT. ADT can design and install a smart home just for you, backed by 24-7 production. It features services like doorman service, which is an ADT automation that unlocks the door for packages, friends, or your kids, or turndown service, an ADT automation that arms your system, locks your doors, and turns down your lights and thermostat. It's all controlled from the ADT app or the sound of your voice, and backed by 24-7 protection. Just visit ADT.com slash smart. to learn more about how ADT can design and install, a secure smart home just for you. I need sports to have to clear the room.
Starting point is 00:00:42 Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at Theringer.com, and joining me on the other line, he just can't quit me. It's Andy Greenwald! Whoa!
Starting point is 00:00:56 We only have a guest appearance from you today. What's up, man? You know, I just got a little nervous. You were moving on so easily without me. Yeah, you know, I mean, we're just going to keep going to the bullpen. We'll see who we find, you know, Katie Nolan any day now. So it's just one of those things. Man, young Wally Pip here in the high desert.
Starting point is 00:01:15 Yeah, how's it going? It's good. You know, I just landed back here. I was home for a nice weekend. Didn't connect with you because you were up Northwest. Oh, I love Seattle so much. I was up in Seattle and I was up on Orca's Island. And Greenwald, I had the best pizza I've had since I left New York in Seattle.
Starting point is 00:01:36 Wow. Yeah. Big talk. At Delancy, have you? Do you know about that spot? I know about Delancey because the co-owner used to run this blog Orangette. So I read about her journey to making a pizzeria up there. It's really good, huh?
Starting point is 00:01:48 It was sick. I had a pepperoni pie and a chocolate chip cookie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and I was ready to go straight, straight to my grave. Stuff. That sounds like you were about to put on your shoe. I know. I know. It's definitely like what dad gets you after you hit a double.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Greenwald, what's going on with you? What do you want to talk about? I've just just given a heavy-duty parenting. I've been doing the last couple days. But can we be transparent? You're this is production Eve, isn't it? Yeah, man, we start filming tomorrow. What is the first shot you guys have to do? Nice. We do not for no. And he's asked me that no, no fewer than five times in the last few weeks. That's cool. I did a solid 10 minutes telling my mom over her iPad phone how to turn off her iPhone today. So.
Starting point is 00:03:04 That's much worse. So let me assure you, we do not shoot in order. Okay. But we're in a very, just something you do for fun here. Just to loosen up. Is Jay Ferguson okay now that the Cowboys are residing in the basement of the NFC East? I'm really glad you asked that question. For people who I'm so excited that in our incredible might even rank higher.
Starting point is 00:04:13 Like just cowboy shorts, every time we meet he is wearing. And they're so great yesterday. Yeah, it's the wrong time for him to try and troll Philadelphia. Philadelphia fans because Dallas sucks and the Eagles haven't lost since last January. I'm just saying he has gone radio silent. I bet. Is there any pop cultural observations you wanted to share with the listeners before we move on? I got Allison Herman here to talk about the Deuce and Shoemaker to talk about Ozark.
Starting point is 00:05:12 I love the Deuce. How come people aren't talking about the Deuce? I mean, I know you and Allison are going to and I'm thrilled. Quiet, it felt like culturally quiet return it had this weekend. I think football had a lot to do with that last night to some extent because people spent 13 hours watching games and the Sunday night game was like ridiculously good last night. So I imagine that kind of blotted out the sun a little bit.
Starting point is 00:05:37 But I think that this is sort of an issue and I'm going to talk to Allison about that. There is a little bit of like a reliability, the sort of reliability fatigue with David Simon George Pelicano shows, which is a terrible thing. But it's basically like, of course it's good. Of course it's insightful. Of course it's very sensitive and urban about like the state of the world back then and and what it means now. Do you think people just get tired of it being good?
Starting point is 00:06:07 And that would be a shame if that's the case. I'll say that the, you know, in this episode was one. I was so excited to see everyone as if they were much. That's still what I like in my TV show. All right, old fashion. I'm going to let you go. Good luck tomorrow. Hopefully we can keep these little check-ins going.
Starting point is 00:07:04 It won't be Emmy season without you. I can't let go. You're going to pry my knuckles off of the hands. All right, brother. Take care. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
Starting point is 00:07:21 All right, now I am joined by Alison Herman. Allison, I wanted to have you on to talk about the deuce. I love talking about the deuce. Let's go. Are enough people talking about the deuce? Andy and I were just chatting for a second there, and he was just like, did this, like, the reception felt a little muted last night. I don't know if Twitter is like a really good barometer of deuce passion.
Starting point is 00:07:39 But, like, I said because last night was also like, start the football season. so maybe it wasn't as much like, hey, Frankie and Vincent are back, but I can't tell if people are excited about this show like we are. Well, I think we're operating in a TV landscape right now that really does not prize consistency, which totally makes sense. I mean, even just putting the giant sports apparatus that just kicked into gear last night aside, just speaking in terms of scripted TV,
Starting point is 00:08:05 last night was the second season premiere of The Duce, but it was also the premiere of a new Jim Carrey vehicle, which is the first TV show since, in living color and also this, you know, we were joking about it before it aired, but Lifetime has this new kind of funny dromedy U, which is a little creepy. Yeah, it's just sort of like there are too high to semi-high profile releases, and then in the middle you have David Simon giving like the unsexiest possible portrayal of the sex industry. And also we should probably mention there are probably some behind-the-scenes considerations
Starting point is 00:08:35 in terms of, I'm not sure HBO wanted to necessarily put this as much in the spotlight because there's the whole James Franco of it all that they have to deal with. Sure. So I didn't get the sense that I saw one David Simon interview in Rolling Stone. I saw a few advanced reviews from people who were like,
Starting point is 00:08:54 this is a big HBO drama, so I owe it some coverage. But I don't think HBO was really like pulling out all the stops the way they were when they first launched the show. Everything about this show in a weird way is traditional. Like even the trailers were very like,
Starting point is 00:09:08 you know, hey, it's 1977 in New York, and here's all the characters. And here's a couple of things that are sort of galvanizing, you know, incidents. But there's not like a lot of heightened high concept drama the way Westworld and True Detective have these sort of basically movie trailers to introduce their seasons.
Starting point is 00:09:25 So yeah, you're right. The promo on it was a little muted. Do you want to talk about the James Franco of it all? Because I think one of the interesting things about it, aside from whether or not he should be allowed to be in this show, basically, based on the allegations against him, is the specific role or roles he is playing in this and the way in which he is interacting with this world.
Starting point is 00:09:48 Yeah, I definitely want to refer your listeners to Sonia Soraya wrote a really great piece in Vanity Fair in which she makes, but I think it's a very compelling case that a lot of the specific allegations against Franco had to do with his actions as a director in terms of filming sex scenes. And so much of the thematic points of the deuce are about how this stuff is presented.
Starting point is 00:10:06 And, you know, the arc of Maggie Gyllenhaal's character this season is all about her being a director and what it means to shoot porn from a female perspective. And basically, she made the argument that allowing Franco to retain such a prominent role in the show directly undercuts a lot of the themes and arguments that the deuce is trying to make about the exploitation and possible not exploitative applications of the sex industry. I don't have a definitive answer. I will also say, you know, George Pelicanos talked on your show about how they were going to make these big time dumps in between seasons. and it was almost going to be kind of an anthology. And one of the things that just surprised me about the content of this episode is it's a five-year
Starting point is 00:10:46 jump that does not quite feel like a five-year jump. There's some progress in a lot of these characters' lives, but basically all the ensemble remains in place as it was in season one, and the changes are not necessarily as drastic. Like, I was particularly surprised to find that, you know, one of the central tensions of season one is these pimps who are primarily African- American men facing their own redundancy as things move indoors and more legitimate in towards the porn industry.
Starting point is 00:11:14 And lo and behold, Cece, the Pimp character, is still acting as this kind of de facto agent slash unprofessional hanger on to Lori. For Lori. Yeah. So I think I was just surprised as a whole that they didn't necessarily make as much use of the time jump as I thought. But also that presents an opportunity to do some cast turnover that they did not do. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:35 Absolutely. And I think that, you know, so sometimes there are things that happen that feel like they are kind of pulled from the center of the Venn diagram of the things that I'm interested in. And definitely 1977 New York and punk rock and the cultural explosion that was happening then are among the things I am most interested in the world. And I grew up like listening to punk rock and really idealizing New York City in the late 70s and early 80s and the art scene that came out of that whole area. it's sort of funny sometimes when you get that. You know, when you get to watch the thing that you're so, so fascinated by, the thing that really threw me off watching it, and it basically took me until the scene where Maggie Gyllenhaal and David Crumholtz are discussing editing techniques of pornography is basically
Starting point is 00:12:25 adjusting back to the rhythm of the show and to the rhythm of like the Simon Pelicanos way in general. I think it's very deliberate. The scenes are all moral. less paced the same way. They were kind of pitched at the same, especially in this episode, at the same frequency.
Starting point is 00:12:43 And after I think a week of watching Ozark and American Vandal screeners and this sort of like, maybe even Saul where it's like this high concept or really tense, quick silver kind of feeling to go back to like, oh, okay, somebody's going to walk into a room.
Starting point is 00:13:00 And then they're going to have a little bit of a chat before they discuss what they're actually doing in this scene. And then they're going to finish that chat. And then we're just, going to move into another one. And I thought that there were some incredible moments, though, in the premiere. And it is a hang. And I think what's really interesting about, you know, the way it works. First of all, I thought the 77 of it all kind of came more into focus with the aesthetics of it. Like the fact that Margarita Leviva's character, Abby, is managing this bar and she's basically
Starting point is 00:13:28 turned it into a punk haven. Yeah, she's got Penn Smith hair. And the gay bar is a lot more of a disco. But also, you know, the thematics of the season, as we're watching, the like, I guess you would call a gentrification of the sex industry. A lot of the frisin of danger that comes with having a cast that's about, I think last season, basically half the characters were streetwalkers. When you move it indoors, not to say that the porn industry is not dangerous and rife with exploitation, I would not be surprised we see a character overdose, for example, this season. You're not getting that, you know, one of the climactic events of last season was a prostitute
Starting point is 00:14:00 who was killed by a John pushing her out of window. And you're not really getting that, you know, little bit of, you know, life or death to it all and then you just get the the Simon and Pelicanus rhythm as you mentioned you're just watching people speak good words and for me at least it's massively pleasurable and I feel like
Starting point is 00:14:18 I haven't actually said that I still really enjoy this show and I think this is a great season it's just not a flashy season yeah and I think that I wonder whether or not for people like us I would imagine for a lot of the people listening to the podcast if you're watching a lot of TV this now feels
Starting point is 00:14:34 like an experiment whereas in fact, it's very much in line with everything that they've been doing since the Wire, but it actually, in the face of a lot of television now, feels almost experimental in its pacing. And it's basically an ideas show. It's a show about individuals being crushed by institutions and being crushed by history because we know what happens. And it's like a plotless show, right? It's not, you know, I conducted an extremely unscientific Twitter poll just based on, I had a couple of real life conversations. I had a couple of real life conversations. where people told me basically, I like the show. I recognize it's objectively a good show, and yet I found myself kind of trailing off after four episodes because I didn't feel like it had a sense of direction, which was more or less borne out by what I heard by my followers who responded.
Starting point is 00:15:21 Thank you to those who did. But yeah, exactly. It's not a show that really grabs you in a way because you don't really know. You're watching history unfold in a thousand very small and subtle ways. You're not real. The question is not, you know, is Vinnie going to make it? It's not, is Maggie Gillenhall's character Candy going to be a huge star?
Starting point is 00:15:41 Even though you can tell the general trajectory of everyone, you're really there to just watch Maggie Gillenhall and David Krumholtz, who's looking great, by the way. You're just there to watch them, like, talk about the female gaze in this, like, art porn movie she made. You're not, I'm not really like, oh, is she going to make a visual reaction when the lion is chasing the zebra? Or the orange being crushed. Yeah. Right. Like, that's what I'm around for. Yeah, and I'm around for, I think that they do,
Starting point is 00:16:12 Pelacanos' crime fiction is very straightforward. It's not straightforward, but it's not florid, I would say. I think it has a journalistic kind of energy. And Simon obviously comes from a journalistic background. And I think they do a lot of almost framing the themes of their shows in an almost journalistic way. They put like a thesis statement or a topic statement in these scenes so that you know why it's an important conversation
Starting point is 00:16:38 is because it's about the encroaching gentrification that will happen to Midtown, or it's about this kind of last moment of, I think Matt Silvercites referred to it as kind of like the Vimar Republic era of New York City before AIDS came in. Yeah, because the AIDS crisis is coming down the pike. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:16:54 Yeah, so like you kind of have these signals of like, oh, yeah, and of course, like they're playing new rows and stuff like that, you know. But I think that ultimately there are these moments of quite moving poetry. Like the scene of Maggie Gyllenhaal in her Unitarred on the desk dreaming about making a musical
Starting point is 00:17:12 is like almost just like Lynchian in the way that it's shot and the way that she's kind of acting. I thought that was remarkable. I mean, speaking of thesis statements, there's literally a line in this episode where Maggie Gyllenhaal says, who would have thought that fucking
Starting point is 00:17:24 is the most boring part of horror? That is the show. Like, I don't want to say you don't need to watch the show after you hear that line, but that is definitely they are telling you exactly what they're trying to do. and what they're trying to say,
Starting point is 00:17:35 but it doesn't feel like a hammer, I guess. Yeah. I'm very content to just watch this show proceed and watch over me in the way that... They're very different shows, but almost like when I watch Mrs. Maisel, which is the Amy Sherman Palladino, and you're just like, oh, this person knows how to make TV.
Starting point is 00:17:50 And those shows show are a very important connective phone because Lenny Bruce is in the doze. Oh, my God, yes, I forgot about that. Kirby, who plays Lenny Bruce and Mrs. Maisel and plays Ed Koch's sort of Midtown... enforcement lieutenant in the deuce. And I actually thought that that was actually that was really cool how he brought, like, I think he had like
Starting point is 00:18:11 a little bit of a different energy to bring to the show. I hope we get to see a lot more of him this season. Oh, totally. I think we will. But it's also really interesting to watch, you know, the slow role of history, speaking of, it's last season, the gentrification was, we're going to take these streetwalkers and we're going to push them indoors to these parlors. And now it's like, we're
Starting point is 00:18:28 going to take these cash-only businesses because they don't result in income for the city and we're going to convert them into money earners. which totally fits with the Simon thesis of it always comes back around to capitalism. It feels like an extension of the John Lindsay administration last year. It just feels like a really interesting, the fact that you can, I think it was an interesting choice for them to go to 77 and do the Weimar Republic instead of going straight ahead to like what happens when porn goes to video, what happens we don't have to deal with, you know,
Starting point is 00:18:57 the AIDS crisis. But that's a little like, okay, so we're getting this intermediary step. we're getting the next stage of this very gradual process that eventually is going to end in an M&M store. Yeah, right. And I think that the thing that I like the most about or the thing that really hits home the most is that when you, these guys are all living and these women are all living in this land of vice. And I think we sometimes, at least initially you associate vice with indulgence or with self-satisfaction, if not self-annihilation. But there's something about it that's supposed to be indulgent. and then you convert it into a job. So everybody, you know, in the end of the episode
Starting point is 00:19:36 and the mobster is telling James Franco's character, you know, enjoy it. You know, like this is the life we live. Like we get to have these suits, these cars and stuff like that. But he's been basically awake for three days running after his brother trying to find him because he stole all this money from one of the peep shows. And every character on this show is basically increasingly getting ground down by the professionalization of their industries. And you also get the labor consciousness,
Starting point is 00:20:03 which I thought was a really interesting part of Abby's arc. And I think I can disclose. I've seen like three more episodes of this season, and that's something that they really touch on, which is, you know, it's all capitalism, this is work, and the people who are doing the work are laborers. They're not lost souls. They're not fallen women, but they are, you know, they're a class.
Starting point is 00:20:21 Yeah. And it's fun to watch them, you know, draw that line in a way that I think resonates with certain issues of the day. today. Of course. Yeah, it's a, it's a miraculous show in a lot of ways. So I hope we come back to it later in the season. Thanks for joining me today, Alison. Thanks for having me. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by ExpressVPN. You're being tracked online by social media sites, marketing companies, and your mobile or internet provider. No joke. Not only can they record your browsing history, but they can often sell it to corporations
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Starting point is 00:23:38 my Lake brother. David Shoemaker in New York City to talk about Ozark Season 2. Now Shoemaker and I we didn't really agree on like let's do the first three episodes or let's do, so we're going to talk generally about season 2. I finished it last night. Shoemaker still got a couple left. So we're not going to spoil anything in terms of, I don't think we'll spoil anything major. We won't spoil any any possible character deaths or anything like that.
Starting point is 00:24:04 We're going to talk more about how we are feeling about this season. And Shoemaker, I want you to go first because I'm still sorting it out. I will say that, I remember the last time I was on the show, I had to make up some things I was not looking forward to or I hoped wouldn't happen in season two. And one thing I said was I hope they wouldn't just keep introducing the next big bad, you know, that just took the place to the last big bad. Sure.
Starting point is 00:24:25 They absolutely did that. And I think they did it about four times in the first three episodes. And I was totally wrong. It's just as great. The show is just as great as it ever was. It's like, in some ways it like doesn't. I, you know, I'm all in the bag for this show, so I'm just going to make excuses for it.
Starting point is 00:24:41 But the bigger and weirder the show gets, the more the focus is, I mean, the more the bird family is just put into relief and it makes it just so much kind of more interesting and compelling. Yeah. I think that what I wanted from this show was a pretty unique ask that would have been probably not a good television show this season,
Starting point is 00:25:00 which is essentially to keep moving at the same pace and to keep moving in a world without morality, which is essentially the thing that made it so, such a strange watch and such like an intoxicating watch in the first season is that Marty is moving so fast and moving his family through so much turmoil that he never really stops to have the like, am I a bad person conversation?
Starting point is 00:25:26 You know, and he's basically spinning so many different, not lies, but he's covering up so many different numbers and he's moving things around and he's got, you know, his life are these little shell companies. And when he finally has to do a full accounting, which I think happens over the course of the second season, there are some more traditional aspects going on in terms of a reckoning of who he is, who he's becoming, what he wants to be, who he feels like he should be. But that being said, even though it kind of lost some of the thing that made it completely unique in my mind, I thought this season was quite entertaining.
Starting point is 00:26:02 It was really, really, really, really fun. Well, I mean, that, that, that hectic pace and that, like, you know, the no stopping to reconcile morality actually becomes sort of a plot or at least a minor plot line in the show. Increasingly, as the second season goes on, they are sort of self-aware in that way, and I think, you know, that's really interesting.
Starting point is 00:26:23 Yeah, I mean, I think that you're right, that, like, the perfect version of this show is maybe a little bit hard to nail down. It's at least hard to sustain, right? Like, you could have done a seven-episode season that just moved at the same pace as the last season. But I look at season two as actually more of an extension of season one thematically and narratively, rather than...
Starting point is 00:26:47 Because I was kind of thinking what they'll do is the casino will be up and running. You know, like I thought we would join them six months, nine months, 13 months later and they would have this casino and then something else would happen. And instead, it starts relatively soon after the first season ends. Yeah, I think that that's a really smart way of looking at it. In some ways, this second season has been just sort of a sidebar or a sequel to the first season in a broad thematic way. I mean, the first season was very much Jason Bateman's show.
Starting point is 00:27:20 And I think almost all of the shows that we love, in season one or about one character or you can think of them as being a sort of like protagonist driven show and then they expand out into these huge universes where like the 18th most important character actor is just as important as the main character or who used to be the main character
Starting point is 00:27:41 and in season two you see them giving a lot of of time and significance to the other members of the bird family I mean Laura Linney in season one might as well have just been like a bump in cue rating for the show You know, I mean, she was really fantastic, but there was, I spent a lot of time wondering why that Laura Linney was there, you know? I think the second season is our answer. Oh, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:28:01 And, you know, I mean, for all the great shows, you know, I mean, no knocks on watch favorites like the Americans, but there have been a lot of shows where the casting of child actors has gone awry. And, man, they just, like, lucked out so much with both of the kids in this show. But Jonah especially is just like, he's just like a proper actor, man, and he's like carrying scenes. and storylines and stuff. And it's, you know, without giving too much away, there is, you know, he becomes as significant in the sort of paralleling season one aspect of season two
Starting point is 00:28:35 as anybody else. I think one of the things that sort of defines the second season is three women who sort of rise to power over the course of the season. And that's, obviously, it's Darlene, Jacob Snell's wife. It's Helen, a cartel boss played by the great British actress Janet McTeer. and obviously Laura Linney.
Starting point is 00:28:55 And Laura Linney, you know, without, she basically has a Michael Corleone arc, you know, and she, I think one of the things that's fascinating about this show is that by placing essentially
Starting point is 00:29:07 like squares in these really, in this criminal underworld and asking them to sort of find out who they are when they're living without a net and without the sort of cottoning of, of everyday regular life,
Starting point is 00:29:22 they find out that their lives are actually perhaps they feel more alive than they did before and I think that that happened a little bit in the beginning of the first season with Marty and it certainly happens this season with Laurelini as Wendy and she's fucking phenomenal in this in this show yeah she's really really good
Starting point is 00:29:42 I mean there's no doubt in the world obviously that she's an incredible actor but the way that she is just as her character is like suddenly thrust in this weird world and has to inhabit a new sort of persona in the Ozarks. Like, Laura Linney is carrying scenes in a show that seemed to be, you know, through season one sort of entirely built around Jason Bateman and, like, character actors doing twangy accents,
Starting point is 00:30:06 you know? I mean, so, like, Laura Linney is, like, a full anchor of this show now, and it's fantastic. I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about that idea of whether or not second seasons and whether or not shows in general need to go wider or go deeper. because I think they chose to go deeper with mostly the same cast of characters with a lot of the same sort of end goals for each of those characters
Starting point is 00:30:30 rather than bringing in a ton of new people which I think they could have done had they done just straight to the riverboat or done a little bit more of a time jump did you feel like over the course of the episodes that you've watched that you came to appreciate characters like Jacob or you know Wyatt Moore
Starting point is 00:30:48 or was there a party that was like I kind of wish there was like a different group of folks interacting here. I mean, this show is still relatively young. So I don't, I mean, I'm not, I'm not upset that we don't have a whole bunch more people.
Starting point is 00:31:02 I think that, I mean, there's certainly an aspect of the show where it feels like they're a little bit too in love with their cast. And I don't know, I guess that's the wrong way of saying it. Despite all the craziness that happens on the show, I mean,
Starting point is 00:31:14 plot-wise and everything else, there's not, you know, this isn't a show where you feel like all of your favorite characters, are in moral danger all the time. You know, and maybe that's just because of the being on Netflix. I don't know what it is.
Starting point is 00:31:28 I just don't, you know, I don't expect, you know, when, I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say that Rachel, Jordana Spiro's character, reappears this season. And it was sort of a, it was presented as a sort of twist, but it was no surprise, right? I mean, the way that she left, but also just the vibe of the show. You know, we had a couple of deaths last season of significant characters. But then there's a point in this season where characters die, and I think it really helps to keep you on your toes and realize that, like, you know, this show is, it gives some fucks,
Starting point is 00:32:00 but it's, but it wants you to know that, like, they're, that it's willing to go to the excesses of, of its predecessors. It's, at certain moments. And, you know, I mean, again, it's, this isn't like some terrible, this wouldn't be a terrible spoiler even if I said it, but I'm not going to go into it, but there's one character who was all, it was around the entire first season, really becomes like the emotional core of season two. And, and, and he just, it's just a great example of someone who like, I, it was almost just like a bit, like not a bit part, but just a bit.
Starting point is 00:32:32 Yeah. And I, and I was so happy to like care so much about that, about that character. So anyway, it's interesting that, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned both the Snells. They, they become simultaneously more sort of lovable and more hateable. But I would say, I mean, they were set up as just villains in season one. So I guess they're definitely skewing towards more lovable. And meanwhile, you know, both of the birds, I mean, both Jason Bateman and Laura Linney are put in just in situations that you, like, cannot like them. And I think part of that is because their goals start become very muddy.
Starting point is 00:33:13 You know, their stated goal is to protect their family. Their stated goal is, like, everything we're doing is because our lives were in danger back in. Chicago and every decision we've made since we got to the Ozarks is to basically prolong our survival. And in fact, there's greater ambition involved there. And I wrote about this when I wrote about the preview of this season is that ambition and survival are two instincts that can feel very similar because they're very passionate. And I think you see that where there's a lot of confusion about what are we actually trying to do here. Are we trying to become kingpins of of this backwater, you know, lake town, or are we trying to get an exit strategy?
Starting point is 00:33:56 And that's the tension. And then what happens is that we see over the course of the season is just like in any family where maybe some decisions are made without consulting with the other person or there are different alliances or different pockets of power going on, that's getting exploited on like a criminal level. And it winds up being, you know, it winds up maintaining them such a dark place. because it basically becomes punitive towards one another.
Starting point is 00:34:21 People are saying, well, you made this decision without me, so I'm going to make this decision without you. Yeah, exactly. There's no relation, I mean, there's no pure relationships in the show. You know, I mean, even, I mean, the purest one might be the Snells,
Starting point is 00:34:32 you know, and they have some moments of discord this season. You're absolutely right, though. I mean, that level, it's, I mean, they make light through, I mean, at various points in season two, of the concept of, you know, what,
Starting point is 00:34:48 they, what, what their stated goals are, right? I mean, they're, they're, if they're not always fully aware of it, then the people around them are, right? And it's like, and their, and their kids sort of calling them on their shit. Like, it's, it's always there right in the subtext that, that there's a question as to whether or not Marty would, you know, dreams of being, of actually being a kingpin, um, or whether he just is only a problem solver and that continues to lead him down these roads. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think as many times as he tells himself that even he would, you know, even that character believes that they're going to get out at the specified deadline or whatever.
Starting point is 00:35:23 It's just, it's a never-ending cycle. And I think that, you know, they're coming to grips with that. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll maybe jump in in a couple of weeks when it feels like more people have gotten a chance to watch the whole season, aside from crazy people like me and Shoemaker. And maybe we'll do a little bit more of a spoiler conversation about it. But, Dave, thanks for joining me.
Starting point is 00:35:44 Thank you so much for having me, man. I love this show. Me too. All right, that was David Shoemaker on Ozark and Alison Herman on The Deuce. And we'll keep talking about both of those shows later this week. I have an interview with Carlton Cuse and Graham Rowland, the showrunners of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on Amazon, which has been out for a couple of weeks. I'm really excited to talk to those guys.
Starting point is 00:36:04 And we'll probably hit on Better Call Saul as well on Thursday. So put Andy in your prayers as he embarks on production for Briar Pratch. And I'll be back on Thursday. Take care.

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