The Watch - Amazon Buys MGM—What Will They Do With It? Plus, This Week’s ‘Top Chef,’ With Juliet Litman.

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

Amazon is buying MGM to the tune of $8.45 billion, so Chris and Andy surmise what exactly they will want to do with the studio, which is home to properties like ‘James Bond’ (1:00). Then, Andy is joined by Juliet Litman to talk about this week’s episode of ‘Top Chef: Portland’ as some new front-runners emerge (18:20). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Juliet Litman Producer: Kaya McMullen Engineer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That cut a little close, I bet, didn't it? That was a lot going on there. You want to unpack that for people? Well, Andy, so it turns out that Amazon has bought MGM for the price of like three European football clubs. First of all, how did you find out the news? Because I thought MGM promised that they would tell us when we dropped out of the running. You know what I mean? And so it was...

Our problem was liquidity. It always is. But I thought we cobbled together enough, you know, debt refis to kind of like at least get in the door. So Andy and I are recording this on Thursday afternoon. We're going to talk a little bit about Amazon's purchase of MGM. We're going to talk a little bit about the Friends reunion, which is airing on HBO Max. And then Andy is going to talk about Top Chef with a guest to be named later. We don't know who that is yet.

I don't even know. Yeah. So you'll be hearing this likely on Friday. Andy, how are you after the end of a glorious week in the United States? Well, I mean, as you said, it's Thursday, so I feel like this week could still redeem itself. There's a lot left on the bone. I am concluding my time in Philadelphia, so I'm flying back tomorrow. Chris, are there any things that you, like, need to soak up?

Like, do you... Because people know this. Like, I will fill a carry-on bag with green packages of hers sour cream and onion potato chips. I probably will get a couple of things for a carry-on bag. package for both myself and you. But I have to say, like, you know, I've been, I got, you know, in LA, I feel like I, even though I treat my body as still like a trash compactor, like, I've, I've definitely changed my habits enough where I, you know, like, I'm like, well, I shouldn't have sugar after nine. And, uh, and just like, yes, last night, I was like walking down

through my neighborhood and I like almost got like a water ice. You almost got a water ice? A water ice. But maybe I'll treat myself tonight. I mean, who can say? Um, But yeah, so we head back to the West Coast, if people need to know that. Well, the NSA already knows. I mean, your cell phone has been pinging, like wild. NSA, NSA, everybody knows. Fauci knows. But what do you think about this huge deal, this Amazon MGM deal?

We talked a little bit about it. I think we were like, I think everybody is sort of just like, does this mean there's going to be a Bond TV show? What do you think it means for Amazon? But I think it may be a little bit more general than that. Well, I think one of the reasons why I am struggling to have an opinion or a take or to contextualize it or to, you know, explain the reasoning is because, and not to sound to galaxy brain about this, there doesn't need to be one. Amazon operates on a scale that despite our, you know, good faith effort to purchase a film studio in their stead, we cannot comprehend. Yeah.

And so the headline is, you know, $8.5 billion, which, you know, by the way, what happened to another half bill? Because last week it was $9 billion. So good negotiating tactics there, Jeff. They have it. They can do it. It doesn't matter. We always said about Apple, too. I mean, Apple's just like sitting on this cash pile.

So what else is Amazon going to spend that $8 billion on taxes? L-O-L. So in that sense, they were like, we have a ton of money. There is a hole in our media business, which is legacy properties. It's interesting because... The half bill, by the way, went to Lord of the Rings. They'd already spent that. That was pre...

Right. I mean, it's weird. We talk about how having a robust legacy library is crucial to the survival of these services. And yet, today we're recording Thursday. It's the one-year anniversary of HBO Max. Not a ton of subscriber growth in HBO Max. And HBO Max has HBO. It has other cool things like originals and hacks and Studio Ghibli and all that.

But its main selling point, I think, to a lot of people, was the deep legacy vault, which includes friends, which we'll talk about in a second, but also all these movies. And I'm sorry, I mean, it's a loose statement, like a parenthetical around all these movies. But that's basically what Amazon just bought. And so that's nice. That's a luxury. I don't think it's a needle mover, but it firms up their position. as a dominant player,

but I don't think it was particularly in doubt. So I could be proven wrong because I don't understand the vagaries of the deal, but HBO Max has this incredible movie library. They have their own properties that in there continued to develop more and more Game of Thrones shows.

Another one was announced. I think it was 10,000 ships. Is that what it's called? There was another HBO game of Thrones spinoff announced in development. But for the most part, like if you go to HBO and you want to watch a bunch of these movies

or even if you want to watch them their legacy shows, it's, I don't think that HBO specifically owns the rights to those. I mean, Warner has. Warner does, yeah. Some of them. But, you know, Amazon is essentially buying the rights to start messing around

in sandboxes, right? Like, that is one way to look at this. And I think that's the thing. Right. So now they have bond. Now they're going to have to negotiate with the broccoli family about what they can and can't do with that. Now they have, I mean, everything from legally blonde to bond to, I think they have, I think they

actually now have the Hobbit, which I wonder whether it was a pretty, was a big carrot for this because it allows them to build into the Lord of the Ring stuff that they're doing. And maybe they can do like a spinoff show just about the guy who makes plates for hobbits and the dwarves break them, you know? You're speaking my language. Elvish. Love it. So, yeah, I think that it's just such a fascinating deal.

I wanted to ask it now, it was just announced that Jeff Beezas is actually stepping down from his role of CEO of Amazon. he'll be stepping down on on July 5th, his independence day. It comes right after ours. But I didn't know if you got a chance to see that in the negotiations, it was sort of revived now because of these negotiations and then because of this purchase. But someone kind of went back to this book, Amazon Unbound, Jeff Bezos, and the invention of the global empire was written by Bradstone.

And I guess when he was, when Bezos was more involved, with Amazon Studios. He was just like making successful stuff isn't hard. Let me lay it out for you. So I wanted to present you with Jeff Bezos' 12-point plan

to make a successful show, tell a successful story. You want to hear it? I would love to hear it. All right. This is, you know, for his, this is his TV idea.

A heroic protagonist who experiences growth and change. Okay. So this is like, like, who doesn't want that, right? I mean, I'm on board. A compelling antagonist. Wish,

The protagonist. I prefer boring antagonists, but go on. Wish fulfillment, e.g. the protagonist has hidden abilities such as superpowers or magic. Moral choices. Diverse world building, parentheses, different geographic landscapes. That's definitely the kind of diversity we want. Like, all of the change in upheaval in Hollywood has been like the topography of this landscape is too flat. I know.

We got to get Pete Dye to design this course. Civilizational high stakes, parentheses, a global, threat to humanity like an alien invasion or devastating pandemic. Or a giant corporation that has access to all of our personal data and no obligations to nationhood or tax codes. My mom was kind of banging on about this too where she was just like, I don't want them, because I got her the voice command remote controls. You did?

Yeah. Who side are you on, man? Man or machine. I don't want them to know, like to listen to me. And I was like, they are listening to you. Like they know all of your sort of habits and stuff like that. The only thing Amazon knows about me is that I need carpal tonal wristbands. You know what I mean?

When you get down to it? Some more of his points here. Right. So civilizational high stakes, urgency to watch the next episode, parentheses, cliffhangers. Humor, betrayal, positive emotions, parentheses, love, joy, and hope, negative emotions, parentheses, lost, sorrow. And number 12 is violence. So I read this, and I was like, is it possible?

that the only TV show Jeff Beaz has ever seen is Game of Thrones. It's also possible that they never spent one second listening to him because Amazon made I Love Dick. You know what I mean? Like not exactly checking any of those boxes. My main reaction to this is being rich is a trip, man. It's crazy. This dude is the richest person in the world. Respect.

And now he's just like, here's some things I've noticed about movies. I've cracked the code. You need characters and ideas. I'm going to sit back and let you, I'm going to sit back and let you, you know, brain boys figure out the rest. But you know that there's some guy who's just like a mid-tier exec at ABC

just being like, I know. Seriously. But I mean, this is, it's interesting. The, there was a lot of talk, you know, 10 years ago with the rise of Netflix and then Amazon and then, you know, when Apple came into, that the cultures, of Silicon Valley and the culture of Hollywood were not compatible.

And there are a lot of jokes and rabbit holes to go down here about the ways that they were unfortunately very much the same. But generally, the idea was that Hollywood fancies itself in the creativity and ideas business and thus having a whiteboard solution to everything that you could code creative success was anathema to what Hollywood thinks of itself. And to me too, like, I think that that stifles creativity and all that. That said, what business are any of these people actually in? Right. Because it's great that sometimes some creative stuff slips out around the margins, but generally we are in a business where the most preciously worried over and thought about

and the most brainpower hours spent on project is Untitled Marvel film, 2023. You know what I mean? It's funny, we can make fun of it, and clearly he shouldn't be in charge of a writer's room or whatever, because all that is incredibly basic and obvious and not actually insightful, but faux-insightful, and the kind of faux-insight that you applaud

when the person's saying it is a multi-trillionaire. But we actually are, that's basically the content factory we work for. I get better bathroom breaks than Amazon workers do, but basically it's the same thing. Should we touch briefly on Friends before we get into Top Chef? Well, only to say this is probably very on brand for our podcast and not very helpful. But as we were about to record a day early, Kaya pointed out that the Friends reunion had already dropped in HBO Max, and we haven't watched it.

So feel free to hit Kai McMullen, yeah. Hit Skip. But I was like, I don't think we need to mention it because I don't think our devoted kind-hearted listeners need to hear me be like, that thing you love, nah, because I have no interest in this, but you- Are you-na, or are you not, are you abstaining? I don't have any, I cannot stress how little interest I have in this, both because I, it's just them sitting on a couch patting themselves in the back for being funny.

I don't get it. But also, I don't care about that show. I haven't watched it in 20 years. I love that people love it and, like, calm themselves with it, soothe themselves with it. You don't love it. People love it. It's nice. I like people to be happy, but I can't say that I feel like it's aged particularly well.

Like, I'll watch a Seinfeld rerun and be like, yes, this is still purely funny. But the appeal of friends, which I did watch religiously in the 90s, was more like, hey, it seems pretty fun and cool to be fun and cool and living in giant apartments in New York. That's right. I'm going to watch this. I did like basically rewatch friends during the last year. How do you have time? You are fascinating to me.

I don't, first of all, it's not. I think you have a thing. Every night you're crushing Superstore, you're crushing. No, you don't understand how people, like, you and S-Mail are like, everybody needs to be quiet. We need to turn all the lights off. And I need to get my high-definition television to show me the temple of TV. Sometimes stuff is just on, you know?

And, like, sometimes I'll come into bed and my wife has an episode of friends on her laptop and she's looking at her phone or something. And sometimes we grab the laptop. No, but we like, like, so you don't watch TV before you go to bed. We don't have the TV on. Like one thing that I will say, maybe this may be a poor critic. You and you guys just are in prayer the entire time. I prefer the term quiet reflection to whatever God is relevant in that moment.

But the TV in our house is never on unless it is a specific like sanctioned time period, whether it's for the children can watch their shows or they can watch a movie or the grown child has been granted furloughed to watch the Philadelphia 76ers for a period not to extend one hour and 55 minutes. But like, I understand that for a majority of households in America, it's on, right? Like, it's just on. Maybe the news or maybe there's a sitcom or maybe a sporting event. And that is not my experience. So I get that. That piece of like, hey, look, why not is gone from my life. Sure. Right. It's still, it's still very present there. But what's friends like for you now, this many years, like, when you watch it, are you like, hey, old friends? Or do you feel like it's still had a comedic point of view. There's a lot of stuff

in there that hasn't like aged great, but I do think that there is a overall style of that kind of joke writing and also just like I don't know. I think that there is like a very almost narcotic feeling to those kinds of shows sometimes and especially in totality like when you're watching them in big batches like that or if it's just something that you have on it honestly reminds me of like

throwing a rerun on when I would come home from school when I was a kid. So to me it's not like, well I only have this many hours in the day, how the hell am I going to watch Friends? It's just not that deep. One thing I am interested in is that beyond the fact that most people's relationship with the actors and friends, aside from Aniston really, is through this frozen moment in amber that they have. For me, Swimmer is always the cop and wolf.

That's right. But Friends was like about the sort of totality of it rather than I think there are some famous episodes, but I would never really consider myself to be like, I need to like see a special about friends. Like I need to see like these people like interacting on like a superhuman level. Like I don't want to shit on this because genuinely I have very fond memories of the show. And we probably said this at some point over the last however nine years we've been doing this podcast. But one of my most foundational TV memories is senior year like senior year of high school.

So like fall 94. Um, my dad had gotten like a little Sony color watchman, which is what how you could potentially watch portable television in those days with an antenna and a prayer. And I don't know if I was allowed to or I just did, but I took it into my room on Thursday nights and I would watch the NBC Thursday night lineup. So I watched the first season of Friends and felt alive because it was so exciting and it felt racy and fun and sexy and adult and had that romantic serialization that was kind of new. And then into ER where I was like, you can put tubes there. Like it was a very formative experience. So that's my relationship with it. I don't want to besmirch it. But I,

I also, maybe that's why I also don't want to revisit. After having just visited New York, too, I'm curious to see what any updates they make to New York real estate analysis on this show. I mean, whether or not, like, rather than living near Central Perk, they're now in, like, an abandoned penthouse that's actually owned by a Sultan, you know, or some kind. Right. And so, like, the big surprise in season six would be the Sultan comes home for the first time just to check on his tax shelter and they've just been living there.

By the way, that shows, that's a free idea, Peackeye. Take it. That's a good. You know what? We didn't get an MGM. We don't even need this one because we're liquid now. We got a lot of cash.

Why don't we take? We could stop there. So just some housekeeping. Andy and I are doing, we did this. We've got Top Chef after this. Then on Sunday night, immediately following the mayor

of East Town finale, we'll put up our episode of the watch, breaking down the finale and our conversation with the creator and writer of the show, Brad Englisbee. Very excited for everybody to hear that. And then we are also excited to say

that we are completely, our bureau rewatch deep dive podcasting. We'll be recording that next week. I'm not exactly sure when we're going to release that. So a lot of stuff coming from Watch HQ. We never sleep. Well, you're coming back to watch HQ, thankfully. I am.

I know. I'm on my way back. So we'll be on the same time zone. Safe travels, Amigo. And podcast listeners, enjoy the suspense that I share with you, that on the other side of this break is me talking about an episode of Top Shacks. I haven't seen with a guest. I want you to do Solo.

I want you do Solo chef. It crossed my mind. Did it? I'm going to be honest with you. Yes. So that's in play. Here's some 10 talking points. I feel like once you light that candle, it's never going to burn out with me.

It's, it is really like swimming in the darkest dark of the ocean. You think it's just water and it's not. Okay, so maybe this might not be the week for it. So everyone get excited. Who knows? As always, we were produced by Kaii McMullen. We will talk to you guys on Sunday night. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime.

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Hilton, for the stay. Book your spring break now. Okay, we're back. I'm back. We left you at the top of a cliffhanger without knowing who my special guest would be for Top Chef. I'm so happy to announce that my special guest is the Carrie Brownstein to my Fred Armisen or perhaps vice versa. My old pal from Grantlin, the ringer's own, Juliet Litman. Welcome back to the watch. Thank you so much for having me. Always happy to be here. I love talking Top Chef. I know. I'm so thrilled about this.

I'm sure people remember that you were one of the pioneering food podcasters with our friend David Jacoby back in the day. I sure was. But, Julie, I feel like we've done this before. I feel like a couple years ago maybe we've talked about Top Chef, but it's been a while. Yes.

It's a long time. So I expect heat from you that is more akin to the hotline that is normally in the quickfires than the retro electric coils that our chef testants were forced to deal with in last night's episode. And so just for people, no, I'm sure they do know, but we're going to be talking about last night's top chef and also Last Chance Kitchen, which is extremely relevant. It is canon and important to be watching for people who don't really know that. Absolutely.

Duh. Chris and Kish is proof positive of that. Living proof. And Brooke. Brooke came roaring back too that way. That's true. So, Juliet, before we get into the episode, where are you with the show? Where are you with this season?

Are you enjoying it? Are you finding the bubble nature of it a little bit odd? Where are you on the all-star judging panel? bring us up to speed. Love the show. I think it's like one of the best shows on television. It's consistency would win Top Chef every time. It nails it basically almost every season.

It's great show. I don't like the All-Star judges, I think, as other people do. I like them, but like I kind of think that these judges are all filling himself a little bit too much. Richard, Richard, Blaze and Kristen Kish are really filling themselves, and I find it annoying. I'm just like, tone it down, guys. You were free to be on Top Chef. I understand it's a pandemic, but I just feel like they've got a lot of energy.

Well, specifically on that point, before we get to Kristen, I think Richard is in a different place because Richard is basically everything he does is auditioning to be the host of something. So he flips a TV switch that is very different, I think, from like Melissa, or Gregory, who are just, oh, guess what? They're just surprisingly delightful and charismatic. You know what I mean? They seem still like themselves. Contestant Richard was different.

I think Melissa seemed a little bit different. too. She got that winter's glow. Oh, she had a major glow up in a lot of areas. Kish, I feel like, she's fascinating to me because, first of all, where was she the first six weeks? And then her, so she was unavail the first few weeks. And so did they send Carrie home?

Because they were just like, honestly, you were our second choice? Or is she just still lurking? So then Kish had a secret quarantine and then came roaring in. And it just feels like she's trying to catch up. Energy wise. She's wild. Yeah, she's like making up for lost time. She was definitely the meanest in the challenge, which we, which we will get to in terms of the, like, people making the food. I just feel like she's saucy.

But I don't know. She just has a different aura about her than she used to. And I'm just sort of like, I just sort of don't, when contestants from Top Chef leave the show, I just sort of move on as well. I like to go to the restaurants. I do. And, like, I've been to many Top Chef alum restaurants. But like, what's the best one? What was the best one that you attended and attended?

I see, the pandemic is so long I've lost restaurant. language. Brian Voltajio's restaurant, Volt, and Frederick Maryland is really fucking good. Wow.

I would expect nothing less, but that's nice to see it. By the way, side note, one thing that I think will be interesting in the years going

forward is I don't think we're going to see many top chef restaurants anymore. Like, Melissa, why would she open a restaurant? It's really hard.

They almost all fail. You're tied to one place. She can probably make twice as much money and be three times as happy

making like branded hats and sauce lines and doing Instagram lives and then doing TV stuff. So I feel like that era may be in the past. That's an interesting point. Other thing that I think, and this is relevant for last night, is that there is still a line

where a lot of these people are still themselves kind of genetically feeling like contestants. And so had last night been, you know, Eric Repair and Emerald, who are much more used to being mentors, they would have been a little bit more forgiving and maybe in like better spirits about it. But I think Melissa hid it better. But Chris and Kish was just like pissed off to be serving something bad. Yes. That's a great point. Should we say what the challenge was?

Well, let's, okay. So now we know where you are. Let's talk about the episode as a whole. Before we get to the main challenge, let's talk quickfire. And I think it's actually, our conversation may bleed between the two a little bit because I don't know how you feel,

but my sense of this episode was these were two very challengingly free-form assignments that really proved how in their heads all these people were. Absolutely. I generally am super impressed with the producers and how they come up with interesting challenges that manage to be creative and also, you know, actually produce substantive food or, you know, bring something out of the contestants. They clearly felt they had to do a Portlandia thing. I don't think they really knew what this challenge was.

I don't feel like I understood what this challenge was other than like we will put in some old stuff and some cassava flour and then we'll just try to edit this to make Armisen and Brownstein seem fun. money in the moment. What was this challenge? How would you describe it? The challenge was do right by Portland cliches, essentially. It was like take all of these like cliches about Portland and make a good dish. Okay. I mean, that's what it was, right, to like make a hipster dish.

Yeah, but also that was so annoying. Like, what is that even mean? It's lazy is what it is. It's lazy. And Byron, like, well, he did this in the challenge too. Like, I don't think he even tried. Like, he was just like, I'm just going to cook something now. which probably wasn't a bad move.

I like it better when they test out their like chef skills a little bit more. Like why haven't we have like a Misan Plus relay of any kind? You know, what happened to those challenges? I love the Misan Plus Relay. Me too. I miss the Misan Plus relay. And like, let's chuck some oysters. Let's see how fast they can do it.

We're in Portland for God's sake. It is interesting. It might be worth asking the question because we are not, I wonder if we've lost the Misan Plus rally as part of the show's gradual shift away from like the brigade system of like chefly cooking skills towards more like put your story on a plate. Right. How creative are you? That said, when you watch these people, even people who we are going to dunk on later in this conversation, like fly through the kitchen and produce food. Like these are all extremely talented people. I think they could chuck some oysters.

Oh, absolutely. No, I mean, I think at the beginning of the season, Padma said it, like there are no sous chefs this season. These are all people who have their own restaurants, basically. Like, These are all really accomplished chefs. And so they have to have the technical skills. There's no question about it. It's just, I think to your point, the show seems to value some of the, like, fundamentals a little bit less and a little bit more focused on trends and food trends and whatnot. I think also, like, one thing that's been really interesting is seeing Sasha had her run in Last Chance Kitchen and her just making really good, what I consider straightforward Italian food.

That kind of has, like, no place on the proper challenge. anymore, whereas, like, more creative food gets a lot more attention. And it's almost like, that's almost reflection of the judges more than anything else. But anyway. I think it's really interesting. I think the judges' tastes have changed. I think food culture has changed. I think the contestant pool has changed.

And the language that everyone uses to talk about food has changed. And I think generally it's one of the reasons why I'm really high on the season, because even before this quick fire began, you look at who's left. I mean, Joe Flam seems like a nice guy. You can probably cook a nice plate of pasta. Nicholas Elmi from Philadelphia seems like solid dude. I bet his restaurant's really good. I didn't find them particularly compelling people or they're cooking particularly compelling

on TV because they were executing correctly and thus won. I would much rather see someone win with stewed turnips or a giant bowl of pork and hominy soup than that because I haven't seen it before. And it's interesting how they're getting it done. One more quickfire question before you get into the specifics of it. But of the remaining contestants, there are seven, did you have Don pegged as the biggest Portlandia fan? No, definitely not. No way.

Incredible moment. Incredible moment for an Olympic athlete to suddenly start blushing and giggling at the sight of Kerry Brownstein. It was a thrilling moment for me. I love the Don arc. Can we just talk with Don for a minute? Let's talk about Don. Does Don and Gabe are peaking right now?

So I feel like it's worth talking about them. I really thought that Sarah and Shoda would be going to the final. Sarah's now in Last Chance's Kitchen. Shoda is still going very strong. I now think Don is going to win. I just think that... Wow. You think she's going to win? I do.

I think she's going to win. She just pulls it out. Like, every episode seems like she is in the weeds. And then she has a delicious dish. And I just think that she's, like, really creative. And she said something this week's episode where she said, like, I don't really make recipes. I make composed dishes. And I just feel like that's like winners talk.

And like, she's an Olympian. Dawn's a winner. And I just feel like she's getting this edit now where she's coming on strong. And we are kind of like still going up on the dawn arc. And I think she's going to win. I think it's a very, first of all, this is the hot take that I want from me. I really appreciate it. Boiling from the kitchen.

I think that it's interesting. You say that she seems like she's in the weeds and she's winning. Remember first two weeks she didn't get food on the play. Yeah. And then she was perpetually in the middle. She's getting better. She's not only getting better She seems to have

And maybe this comes from I mean the corny edit Would be this comes from being a professional athlete or something But and I'm not above using it also But like she seems to be Humble enough to learn And improve which I think is important And not just bluster through things

And keep making the same mistakes Which is something we can say about the person who went home this week I think that Dawn is coming on strong I'm not sure I would put her in the top Well, we can discuss this at the end what we think our final odds are. But you mentioned your former top two.

They're still my top two. Sarah and Shoda. Sarah and Shoda. We can talk about that. So Quickfire was kind of bizarre. Yeah, it's bizarre hearing Fred and Carrie also talk about, like, texture and stuff. We're like, do they tell you?

I was just like, do they tell you to say that? Like, I don't think that's how Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen eat and think about their food. But like, as fans of the show, do they, like, know the watch words? I don't know. I thought that was weird. A million percent, they know the words. I feel like, I'm going to, I'm going to argue with you.

I feel like they definitely talk like that. I feel like if you went out to dinner at Brian Valtaggio's restaurant, I feel like they would be all about talking about the textual components of a dish. Okay. I feel like they're very Portland. Sure. I feel like that's earned. I don't know a lot about either of them.

That's not really my, unlike Dawn, it's not really my speed. Do you think, the thing that I want to know, and we all have no answer for this is, what was their quarantine situation? Because clearly they were working together, but it seems like to enter the Top Chef bubble, you had to fully quarantine for like 10 days. Did they quarantine for 10 days just to eat a Hasselback Purple Yam?

They must have. I don't see another way around it. They must be huge fans of the show. I mean, there are a lot of Top Chef heads out there. Yeah. I mean, I would do anything to be a part of any version of Top Chef, even these new spin-offs that they're pushing. But I don't know if I have like just 10 days to burn.

You know what I mean? To be like... Well, it was the fall. It was a slower time. I don't know. Now you don't, but maybe you did in October. Okay. Well, we'll conference in my wife and family later to discuss the finer points of that choice.

Okay, so we move on. Dawn went to Quickfire. Her advantage is one that we don't really see as an... I mean, they never reference it again, but she gets a little extra time for her... 15 more minutes. 15 more minutes for a challenge. So then there's a little downtime and talk where we learn. that Juliet's former frontrunner, deposed frontrunner, the clubhouse favorite, Shoda, has a kid.

How did you feel about this? This is the reality part of the show that you can speak to better than I can't even. How did you feel about this reveal, this edit? He has an eight-year-old in Japan, which made me want to look up Shoda's age, which I have not done, but I was curious about how old Shoda is in relation to his son. I just wanted so much more info. I was like, you can't just drop that, and then we move on. I mean, he said, we know that he sees him two times per year, he hopes to see him more. And I just have tons of questions. Like just so, so many. So that's, you know, my intrusive, prying, gossip-prone mind at work. But I can only be me.

I mean, the takeaway clearly is that his son's mother is Japanese, not Japanese-American, and is either unable or unwilling to live in America. And Shoda has businesses in America and family in America also. Yeah. Shoda is also unwilling. willing or unable to live Japan. Yeah. One of the things, and again, this was a tender moment for him, was very sweet. I'm a huge fan. I love his cooking. I love his whole vibe. He was like, I hope in the future to

find a way to be nearer to him. And I was like, bro, there's still only one way. I know what I mean? Like, unless you both agree to move to Hawaii, it's not as if there's a more convenient commute across the Pacific Ocean. Right. I know. That's why I have so many questions. I'm just like the language that he was using was so like, delicate almost. And I'm just like, what's going on here? So I've just left with tons of questions. It was interesting. Usually when you get like a family reveal like that, it means that the person's in trouble.

So I was glad that was not the case. Shoda is obviously incredibly talented. I mean, also, you know, we also learned, I guess we knew, but I mean, most clear this episode that he trained in Japan working at it isa. So, yeah, I mean, that, you know, that was. major reveal and I it definitely confirms to me that I mean it's obvious from his cooking but showed a must go far I'm sure like we'll get some more family stuff um I don't know a lot of the family stories are really touching I have to say oh god yeah Byron talking last week about how he was um a dreamer was a dreamer I lost it yeah so moving and I find Maria's talking about her family like really moving as well um I don't know it's just it's a very like a very great cast they did a good job I agree and the emotion I mean, this is what the show is more about. And frankly, I just like it more now. Like, I think that these are people who are much more in touch with their emotions. And that's obviously on the plate as well. But they just seem like more successful human beings than a lot of contestants we've had in the past. And the beauty of a show like this, you know, that keeps putting it through the ringer is Maria, we just, I just feel like I, this is unfair, but this is reality TV. I know her more. And so her prickliness, her toughness, her attitude, her defensiveness at times, like, is part of the large. larger picture, and I feel like we've been given insight into it, which I'm grateful for. And, you know, I love her now as much as her fellow cast members seem to.

Last thing about Shoda, other than Will Ferrell as Ashley Schaefer on Eastbound and Down, I've never heard a grown man refer to his boy so much. That was a very interesting phrasing. You know what I mean? When he was saying, like, Gabe, how old are your kids? And Gabe's like, my kids, because that's the word that I choose to use, are these ages. And he was like, eight, same age. is my boy. My boy is eight. It was very intense.

The whole thing left me with questions. I thought you were going to mention show does laugh. He laughed so much. So much. Although not as much as Sarah, as I noticed in Last Chance's Kitchen, whose nervous laugh is really, like, bells peeling. So this challenge. Interesting challenge, a very challenging challenge for two reasons. One, too much freedom for these nutcases. this point. Way too much. They are not doing well without guardrails at the moment. And I'm not sure if that's representative of these chefs in particular or this point in the season. Because in my memory, this is the post-rest Restaurant Wars lull is when a lot of champions have tripped up. Like this is even when Melissa was starting to mess up a little bit in the All-Star

season last year. And then the challenge of actually writing a recipe for a home cook, which is the dirtiest word you can say to any of these people, the home cook. I mean, it's so beneath them. They think we are just troglodytes who are. incapable of anything, which might be true. Totally insane choices by some of these people. Insane. Can I start? Julia, you're on Top Chef.

Okay. And you're given this challenge. Immediately, where does your mind go? Tell me, because I feel like you will have, as a normal person, will have a normal response to this. I would definitely do Italian food. I do like spaghetti and meatballs or like chicken parmesan or like a crowd pleaser. Yes. And moreover, something people have heard of.

Maybe it doesn't have to be Italian. Maybe it's like pad tie or like, I don't know why you keep doing noodles. Because people like noodles. Right. Or like a salmon dish because like salmon's affordable and sustainable. Like I don't, they didn't really make choices based on what people do in their regular lives. Probably because they don't have regular lives. They don't know what it's like to be like a normal food eater.

They're just like their chefs. I mean, I remember it may have been our ringer buddy Dave Chang that that I first really learned this from. But I feel like at some point when Moma Food. who was really blowing up in the early 2000s, and he was like, here's a picture of my refrigerator at home, and it was completely empty except for, like, one bottle of medillo.

Like, he's like, I don't even use my stove or oven. I don't know how to cook for people. Like, I just work at a restaurant. So I get that. But the key thing to the dishes you're saying is not just the familiarity or perhaps the ease of execution. It's that it's possible,

it's even for us to imagine making them taste really good. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's a real possibility. Yeah. To make them taste really good. Like, also, yeah, everybody looks in the book.

I mean, everyone buys cookbooks and with ambitious recipes in them. And maybe some people read the ambitious recipes or look at the pictures or maybe, maybe are inspired by some of the recipe choices. But what everyone really does is looks in the index for where the salmon and chicken recipes are. And it's like, I usually cook this with lemon, but this says limes. And that's it. You cook it and you feel excited. I don't know. Why was this so hard?

I don't know. And then like so so Byron did like a four page recipe with like so many ingredients. The other thing is they didn't take into account like costs and like availability of ingredients. And I think that should, I think the judges should have thought about that a little bit more. Because like if you've got 30 ingredients and like this like esoteric highly specialized recipe, I'm not making that. It's like a huge investment in something I probably won't even be able to make very good. I mean, let's just talk about the screw ups first. So let's start with Byron.

Byron makes the hardest, most expensive, and challenging, time-consuming dish that doesn't even taste good or is interesting. And there's a moment there where someone needs to grab him and be like, I'm sorry, the end result of this is steamed fish on a bean. Right. Because also for people like us who watched Top Chef and Last Chance Kitchen back to back, as we learned from a furious Kwame, right? Like, Kwame's disdain for the people and the dishes he was cooking was incandescent this week, and I kind of loved it. Twelve ingredient fish stock to begin. Now, on Last Chance Kitchen, Sarah had 10 minutes to make a stock and brazed turnips in it,

and she used Swanson's beef stock from a package. Incredible. So, relax. You know what I mean? Seriously. Dude, relax. And the dish wasn't even good. It didn't taste.

That was crazy. Crazy. I got to single out Jamie here too. Okay, I had a question about Jamie as well, so carry on. Now, here's a caveat. I don't like sweet things. I love sweet things. And so we can go back and forth about this.

I didn't understand anything about what she chose to do, but why she was like, this is a great idea. A soggy waffle is where we're going to begin this dish. And then when she was talking out her thought process, she's like, I figured people could make a saw. She's like, people make waffles at home. I'm with you so far. People make compote at home.

You lost me. She's like, and then put a piece of foie on top. Why? Why would anybody do that? Disgusting. It's a classic pairing sweet and foie gras. But like, what? For a home cook?

I love compote. I like Belgian waffles. I like French toast. I like all of these things. Do you make them at home? No. And the way she put them together just sounded disgusting. I'd love to buy a compote, but I almost never make it.

It's very hard. But also, Juliet, she was like, the best way to make this appealing is a black smear at the bottom of It was super weird. It looked gross. It sounded gross. It apparently was poorly executed. It, although her recipe writing was good because the chef that had to make it did it very similarly. I think it was Gregory. That's true. She did make a good recipe. It's just also bizarre that this many weeks into the season where they have been, they've received, I think, very partly because of the consistency of the judging panel, unlike past years, they've received very consistent feedback throughout. So they haven't been told mixed messages. And part of the feedback that I feel like Jamie would have

received right now is she's excelled anytime she said the words in some context like my mom did. Right. Like that always wins for her. Now, I don't want to put her in a box where she only has to cook Vietnamese-influenced food, but it's a cookbook. Right. This is what you're good at? It's true.

And people love Vietnamese food. What are we doing? It's a great point. I do love Vietnamese food. It's a great cuisine. Yeah, everybody's excited. And then it's just like, oh, this friendly person can make a recipe for dumdums like me, great. Also, are there any, like, really popular breakfast cookbooks?

I'm not an expert, but, like, when I think of, like, the really popular cookbooks in the world, breakfast ones don't jump out to me. No, I mean, I'm sure they exist and people, but. And, like, Ina's got some good, like, egg souffle or frittata recipes, of course. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Like, it's just, yeah, it was a bizarre choice from her, super bizarre. Also, I think.

Did we see her make the waffle? I didn't really see that. We never saw it. But I think that what you're also speaking to is something. And then crucial here, it's probably not a robust market because I know a waffle with foie gras, like that could be a show-stopping dish and a tasting menu or whatever. But for the common home idiot cook like myself, waffle, oh, this must be a breakfast thing. And I'm sorry, I'm not searing and devaning a lobe of foie gras before my kids wake up.

I don't understand. I don't understand the context. So another screw up. Another total screw up. Then we should probably talk about our boy, Chris. Chris, his time finally came. So maybe you could give me some larger reality show context here, because as you know and our listeners know, this is the only one I watch. But there is something that is psychologically fascinating, illuminating, and compelling about watching someone who I mean, Chris just seems like a lovely guy.

And I wish him success. He seems like a really talented cook and even better person. But it's pretty wild that my guy ran at pasta three times. And speaking of consistency. feedback. It's not like you did this, like it didn't come together today. They were all straight up like, you don't know how to make pasta. It's always bad. And he did it again. The conclusion about Chris is that he doesn't know how to make pasta, but he tries anyway. And it's really weird. I don't know why he does it. It's really strange. It's almost like a Stockholm syndrome kind of thing. We're like he keeps

going back to pasta. Someone in his life must love his pasta. Someone must be lying to him. That's nice. That's my assumption. Oh, my God. That's so dark, though. For a minute, I thought that was sweet. And then I realized he's going to come back from this quarantine to his wife in Vermont. And he'll be like... New Hampshire. Milford, New Hampshire. Thank you.

Julia is our East Coast correspondent reminding me. Well, they're very different states. Which is very different. Okay, but geographically. Yes, they're neighbor states, but I would say they're very different. Anyway, carry on. I think you're right. I think Bernie Sanders would agree.

Yes, I think so. And Gene Sununu. Yes. Should we just keep naming people? Just politicians. Carry on. Was Jim Jeffords from up there? Anyway, yeah, it was bizarre.

It also was something that can happen on Top Chef that I think, just even from scanning the internet a little bit today, still 18 seasons in drives people crazy, which is, although it's not a surprise, yes, Sarah's a better cook than Chris, we know. But she screwed up, and they judge it on the day. And he made that ice cream last week. Like, yes, he was dodging a bullet multiple weeks,

and it felt inevitable. almost a mercy at this point because God knows what kind of Bucatini he would have tried to handcraft next week out of cassava flour or whatever. I have to say, I think the bigger injustice from last week is I thought Gabe should have gotten home. I thought that Gabe actually only made one dish and then he made the extra toastata that was not well received. The extra toastata was a thing, yeah.

And I hate when people do extra credit and like, or like do unsolicited extra credit and get points for. And I felt like he should have, that should have been held against him that he spent his time on something that he didn't have to do instead of making the whole meal better. And like, I was just like, when it was happening, I was like, why is still making one dish? And like, Sarah's doing so much work. Anyway, so now I have vendetta against Gabe, but that's my take. It's a good point. But, you know, maybe he's the, maybe this is the moment to pivot anyway, which is Gabe seemed to be the only one who understood this challenge on any level. And I, I, I, I, I, not only, I mean, what a saucier. What a saucier. What a saucier he is.

What a casual quote, Richard Blaz threw out, just on the tip of his tongue always, about the Saucier being the soloist and the ensemble we call the kitchen. That guy's a legend. But one thing I appreciated from the judging panel was their comments that this was a showstopper. This was a festive dish. This would have been on the cover of a cookbook. It's like people's understanding of the challenge was so convoluted and limited. They were like, we need to make something we were going to make anyway, then somehow communicate it for dummums. when people buy cookbooks for different reasons,

they don't necessarily buy it for a weekday dinner. Sometimes you buy it for that party thing that you're going to try when you have a whole day to do it. And that seemed to be what he was doing with his Veracruz-style fish. And Gregory, good sport Gregory, two dishes, no complaints, did a good job on both. I want Gregory cooking my dish for sure.

That was my next question. Who would you pick from that team? Definitely, Gregory. He was the most affable and most amenable. I would say I would want Kwami. the least, followed by Kristen, followed by, I guess, Melissa. Melissa's just gotten sassier. I feel like also, you know, I'm happy. Everyone loves Melissa, right? Yeah, I can't. I mean, you're treading on dangerous ground here. I feel like you're ready to

take a shot at the queen or the king. No, no, no, no, no, love Melissa. She's great. Everyone loves Melissa. She is, I mean, one of the fun things about this show is she's almost unrecognizable from the Melissa that was on the, was it the Boston season? Boston, yeah. We're made, with Gregory and, who won Boston? I don't remember.

Oh, May, right. Yes, May seemed like she's very good. People love May's fried chicken sandwich place here in L.A. now. Daybird. I haven't been there yet. Oh, wow. Cool.

Lines down the block. So, right. So Gabe did really well. And I thought the Maria's situation was interesting because, as she said, she is incapable of writing a recipe. the, I mean, I didn't have any problem with Kristen being like, this is insanity, because there was like eight pounds of meat.

Yes, it did seem like insanity. But I also think that this was, maybe this was the nature of the convoluted, maybe this was the convoluted nature of the challenge. Once again, Maria was, like Gabe, Maria was praised for a cookbook attribute that wasn't necessarily laid out or explained to them, which is use this opportunity to give people. something simple and hearty and wonderful that will make people happy that they might not be familiar with. And people like soups and stews, right? I mean, it's not complicated. And this is sort of what we were saying about how Jamie screwed up. Like, Jamie wrote a good recipe for something nobody wants. Right. Whereas Maria wrote a bad recipe for something everybody would be thrilled to have. Right. And I was glad that they ultimately judge based on how good the dishes were. And then,

you know, which almost made the challenge like kind of silly. And to your point, like almost like too freewheeling. Because I did say, they judged both the winner and the loser on like the best dish. And Gabe just ended up winning, not just ended up, but like his was most suited to the cookbook idea, but it seemed like he also just had the best dish. Yeah. And ultimately that's really what they were looking for. Yeah.

To our point about how the contestants have changed, I wonder in traditionally the final episode, the final challenge is, you know, cook the meal of your life. And it's a multi-course dinner for, you know, distinguished guests. And I'm very curious to see how that will turn out this year because there are still contestants like Gabe who's worked with Renee Rizepi when they did Noma, Mexico, or Sarah seems capable of doing it. Chris would have seemed capable of doing it

to execute a traditional multi-course tasting menu. Dawn seems capable of doing it, as you said, composed dishes. But Byron has that background. Maria makes delicious plates of food. Yeah. Or big bowls of food. And should she make it to the finals, It'll be interesting if the judges are able to calibrate their expectations and their taste if it's her versus someone who's doing something more, quote unquote, fancy and traditional.

Right, right. That's a good point. Also, they can't travel. So, like, what will they do to make it interesting, basically? Oh, right. That didn't, that didn't occur to me. I feel like they've done such a good job of hiding the situation for the most part in making it feel as exciting and steaksie. But.

Until last chance kitchen, which was the dumbest conceit ever. Okay. So we're about to get, I think we're there. Dawn had extra 15 minutes, made something that seemed fine. She was like, I made my sauce too sweet because I wanted to match with what, who made hers? Was it Kristen again? I wanted to match. But then the judges were like, one of these was too sweet.

And so, but it seemed unanswered whether did Dawn self-sabotage and Kristen, of course corrected because she knew it was too sweet, question mark. There was a lot of like, there was some confusion because Kwame is like, I guess I'm, I'm just searing this pork belly with no oil because that's what I'm told to do. And I assumed it was going to be charred and blackened. Me too. I thought I was like going to hurt Shoda or something like that. But it was fine. Yeah, it's totally fine.

Oh, and we didn't talk about Shodas dish looked awesome. Shodas dishes always look awesome. It's what I want to eat the most. Great coach. Okay. So no drama. It was time for Chris to go home. Last Chance Kitchen.

Another trip to Bizarro world. And maybe this was just because part of the management that they had, obviously, the testing and the bubble, huge challenges, logistical challenges. But I still believe. I don't know where you stand on this. One of the major challenges of the season was keeping Tom happy because Tom seemed very sad, sad hats, distracted, obviously trying to save an entire industry from his hotel room. But I feel like they were just trying to get him going and I guess he likes to drive cars. Well, I felt they were trying to keep BMW happy.

I think that probably it was very hard to work in BMW and they're not really like going a lot of places. Good point. They only have a few options to drive up to the front of whole. Whole Foods, like being in a car isn't necessarily part of every episode. So I felt like they really went all in for BMW, and that also made Tom happy. The challenge was make a dish. Instead of having a timer, Tom is going to drive 10 laps in this BMW around a nearby race track. And then when he arrives, you have to be done, basically.

It was really bizarre. They have, like, 15 minutes. Do you, I mean, I don't, car stuff, I don't understand. I just don't understand. I don't want to drive things fast. I don't get it. But also the edit, like, was he driving fast? Like, were they laughing?

Because he wasn't. Was it hard? Was he not wearing socks? It looked like he was just wearing a pair of, like, vans. Should you be driving fast without socks? I was not. I was not he was wearing a helmet, but I thought he was going to get on, like, a motorcycle. I didn't know he's just, like, getting into a BMW SUV.

It was super weird. The whole thing was weird. I also was ready to be like, you know, I respect the trickery, but clearly they filmed him at a racetrack. and then just ran the tape and he was standing outside ready to come in and then someone was just,

Sarah was just like, oh yeah, there's a racetrack right there? Yeah. I've been to Portland. I don't remember the prevalence of urban racetracks near hotels and soundstages, but, you know,

what do I know? So about that, look, Sarah, Sarah's peaking. I think that it's actually for certain contestants who have certain blind spots or flaws,

Last Chance Kitchen, running that gauntlet can be incredible. It can light a fire. And we're talking about everyone having too much freedom and they keep screwing up. Last Chance Kitchen is breathless. It's highest of stakes all the time. And there's no time to sabotage yourself, really.

You just got to commit. And I think that this is sharpening Sarah like a blade. And I think that she is going to cleave through whoever else drops down to face her. and she's going to come into the finale with a head full of esteem and be in the be in it to the end. That's my feeling. I feel like I think she's coming back and going into the finale as well.

I think they must have had been really bummed to get rid of her last week. It's obvious she's so much better than most of these chefs. I mean, she also just really different and unique and the plant forward stuff is like interesting. And I say it's like plant forward stuff. She's great with cooking vegetables. You were in L.A. too long, Juliet. Seriously. Although her food seems great.

Like, I really want to try it. But yeah, I agree. I think she's definitely coming back if she doesn't be a real shame. And I think the final is Don, Shoda, and Sarah. So you think Gabe is going to be, is he going to get in his own way? Is he just going to be out-cooked or out-classed? Because I think he is peaking in a way at the moment. The saucier?

Yeah, the saucier. I think that ultimately he doesn't have the same range as some as the other chefs. I think there's a reason why his sauces are like so noted. But I don't know. I have like an anti-gay bias, which is weird because I love Mexican food. But I mean, who doesn't? But I don't know. I just think that he doesn't have the same consistent.

I mean, except for, you know, if Sarah's bad restaurant wars, she's really been excellent. I think he's not quite as consistently excellent. Do you know what I heard recently? You know the great Jacques Pepin, the legendary French chef and American chef, really, who's taught a generation how to cook French food, when he was asked what cuisine, if you could only have one cuisine for the rest of his life for every meal, what would it be? And he said Mexican. I mean, Mexican food's amazing. It's so good, especially, like, authentic Mexican food. Probably the best, I agree. I think, you know, curveballs can come, and it looks like they're, you know, I usually don't watch the next on, but I did. And it looks like they might be doing, like a sudden, like sudden death elimination, either in the quick fire or something.

So we might have a double elimination week, which would increase, you know, make things more difficult for Sarah. But it's hard to imagine a final four that isn't Gabe Don, Shoda and Sarah, and some combination. Yeah, agreed. There's just a difference. And I think that, you know, in his defense, like Byron seems like a really good cook, but the gamesmanship part and the planning and the plotting and that whole piece of it

doesn't seem to quite be there for him. No. It doesn't seem like he, has also like the same kind of compositions. Like his plates don't come together in the same way. It does seem like he's a bit of an overcomplicator as well. Yeah, I agree. So your pick right now, you think Dawn is winning this season.

I think Don is winning. I do. I still think it's showdown. Okay. Well, truth and time will tell all. That's a joke from the Hills. You don't know that because you don't watch reality TV. No, but thank you for bringing it here to me.

You know what you're bringing your cuisine and putting your story on a plate or a microphone. I appreciate it. Juliet, I'm so happy to talk to you about the show that we both love. Thank you for taking time to do it. Thank you for having me. This is an absolute delight. I loved it. And Juliet, are you, are you a mayor head? Have you been watching mayor of Easttown? Oh my God. I fucking love mayor. And I've been so deep on Mayor of Easttown Reddit. I just cannot wait for Sunday. I'm like going to be really sad when it's over, but I absolutely love it. I think John did it. And Billy was part of cleaning it out. and that's why he was bloody.

And I don't know what's going on with the teens. I'm confused about the teens. I think that the friend found a picture of Aaron and John. I can say nothing. I know. You've seen it. I've seen it. But I'll use this opportunity not just to flex about that, but just to remind people,

I think Chris and I said this at the top of the show. But our Merivistown finale episode, which is all of our thoughts about it. And an interview with creator, Brad Inglesby, will run Sunday. night, not Monday. It'll be up live once the show is done airing, I think, on the West Coast. So, tune in for that. I'm so excited. Chris and I'll be back next week. I know it's so, isn't it fun having, like, between having Top Chef and Mayor, obviously we do this on the podcast, but it's so good to have good shows. It's so fun. Also, I think you probably know this. I'm like very anti-binge television. I love week by week. You and I share this. I do not want to binge Mayor of East Town. I'm so happy that I've watched it week by week. I've had time to

about it. It's built. It's this communal experience. Everyone loves mayor. It's just, oh, I love it. Everything about it. It's great. I completely agree. And this was like old school for us on this show because we could, I mean, on our podcast about mayor, because we could just take our time and enjoy it and be surprised and be a part of it with everyone. And HBO sent us all of them, but we wouldn't do it. We refuse to watch them because that's not fun. That's not the point. It's really, it's really not. I just love, I love Mayor. I'm so grateful that the show has come to us. It's wonderful. Think about how big the Queen's Gambit would have been

if that had been a non-bing. You are preaching to the choir. How fun would that have been week to week? Oh, chess. I know. But I would have taken over. I mean, it's a testament to the show that kind of did take over a larger cultural conversation

and discourse in the middle of a pandemic winter. I mean, that is hard to do for any show, let alone a chess show that's available in one night. on Netflix. Yeah. It's great. I love a weekly watch. Give it to me always.

Once again, we are proving that it's a fallacy that good radio comes from conflicting viewpoints. This is like Top Chef itself. We're good pals. We're agreeing in the kitchen and out of it.

And it's fun to talk to you. Thanks for having me, Andy. We'll be back next week, Beranskis.