The Watch - Answering Your Mailbag Questions, Plus a Politically Charged Superchunk Interview | The Watch (Ep. 229)

Episode Date: February 22, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald open up the mailbag and answer listener questions that range from considering 'Star Wars' as a TV series to Chris's and Andy’s processes for critiquing television (4:00). Later, Andy sits down with bandmates Mac McCaughan and Jon Wurster of Superchunk to discuss their new, politically charged album, ‘What a Time to Be Alive’ (33:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by NBC's new breakout comedy AP Bio from executive producers Seth Myers and Lauren Michaels AP Bio stars Glenn Howardton and Pat Nosswell. And critics call it laugh out loud funny. Don't miss AP Bio Thursday, March 1st on NBC and streaming now on the NBC app. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. and I'm an editor at the ringer.com

and joining me in the studio, here's where the strings come in. It's Andy Greenwald! Superchunk reference. Superchunk reference. Superchunk is on this podcast today. Very excited. Very excited. We are so happy to be joined by one of our favorite bands later in the pod.

Actually, I will not be here for that interview part. We're just recording this first part together. That's because I muscled you out. I'm out. You're in. Mac and John from Superchunk are in. We're going to do a mailbag before that. Yeah, we're going to do a mailbag before that. Before we get to that, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the stuff that's happening on the ringer.com.

We've got tons of podcasts, tons of videos, and tons of articles for you to read. Okay, the articles that I want you to read are from our Jordan-Lebron week. It's kind of a dead week in the NBA, a little downtime from the All-Star break. So we decided to populate it with some stories about possibly the two, you know, greatest all-basket players of all time. I think by consensus Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. but LeBron with every game

with every finals appearance with every MVP award makes the case so we asked our writers to consider this question of these two giants of the sport from a bunch of different angles we've got great pieces

from Shea Serrano Jonathan Charks possibly Bill Simmons coming later in the week and you know there's just a fantastic package of stuff to read can I ask you if this is one of your angles

in this did anyone talk about their movie careers I don't like I know people love space jam but kind of like in a that was important part of my childhood way.

As opposed to like Space Jam v. Train wreck? Yeah, because the thing about train wreck that people don't talk about. And by the way, I don't think people talk about train wreck at all that much anymore. Do you think we should talk about it more? Generally. No, but LeBron was funny. LeBron's very funny in that movie. LeBron was good in that movie.

And I don't think Jordan could have done that. On the podcast side at the ringer.com, I want to tell you guys about a little pod called House of Cars. Andy Greenwald was on this week. Andy, why don't you tell people what you talked about at your house. I'd be on that pod every week if you would only invite me. It is really, you know, as someone who struggles with the person he usually talks to on podcasts, the rapport I have with Joe House is just, it's just Italian chef kiss emoji. What did you guys talk about this week?

Top Chef. I am House of Carb's Top Chef correspondent. Is that an official title? You got cards? I just am trying that out. I'm trying it out. As you know, maybe you don't, because I don't think you watch it. I have seen every episode of Top Chef ever.

Okay. And I am very invested in the show. And so I came on this week to talk about the final four. They're in Colorado this year. and how the season's been. Yeah, I talk about that. Not a good choice for location. Oh, why?

Because the natural ingredients are in as plentiful? Sorry to all my Rocky Mountain homies. It's just, you know, as I said on that show, the backdrop is a little flat, which is ironic. One last thing, please check out NBA desktop. The mobile version, they went on the road during the All-Star break during All-Star weekend here in Los Angeles and Jason Concepcion and Jason Gallagher captured all the sights of Sounds of All-Star.

It's a really, really, really awesome video. And if you don't, you should, if you don't already, you should be watching NBA desktop every week. It is one of the best things on the internet by far. All right, Andy, mailbag time. So we're going to just get through a couple of questions before we get to our interview with Superchunk. Thank you guys for sending in your cues.

You've got mail. Let's start off with an old favorite. It's Star Wars. So we talked a couple weeks ago when, I think we were talking a little bit about Star Wars saturation. You may not have been here for that one. I was out on that one. It was me and Fantasy and Shoemaker.

And we were talking a little bit about the possibility of Star Wars saturation because Benny Off and Weiss have been given a, I guess, a trilogy. I don't know if that was necessarily explicit. It is like Oprah with Cars at this way. And Ryan Johnson has a trilogy, and then we have the anthology movies,

and then there is the Skywalker Saga movies. And now one of the main components of Disney's over-the-top streaming service is apparently going to be a live-action Star Wars thing. And one of our listeners, J.F. Tiotonio, asks, what do you want from a Star Wars live action television series? Fresh new stories, a deeper exploration of characters we already know,

before, during, or after the events of the Star Wars canon. Now, it's worth noting, JF, thanks for hitting us up, that the Ryan Johnson movies that he is only starting to work on now, supposedly have like our outside of this universe that we are used to. It's possible that there will be some tie-in to the stable boy that we saw. The Last Jedi, which really raises my expectations that this will sort of serve as the HBO's luck of the Star Wars universe, where it will be about gambling lifestyle, the stable boys. John Ortiz will bring that accent back.

What if that kid is just like, that's the best that kid ever does? He's like, man, maybe I should join the rebellion. Nah, I'll become a horse racer. Oh, I thought you meant that's the best that he ever does, meaning he has the force, but he can only use it to bring a broom to his hand. So he is intergalactic janitor. So it's like Jude the obscure, but like... Yes, all he ever wants to do is help, but he's just...

I'll just, I'll get that. He just mops up after every time. What you get that hell of a custodial services person. Blasters go off. You know, custodial services, the trash compactor was a big... played a big role in the first movie. We've been talking about this for years. Do you want a Star Wars trash guy story?

Do you? Well, yes, because, look, the macro answer to that is, no, I don't think we want or need this. But that's a silly question. I mean, silly answer, because we're getting it. And because, yes, this is why Disney has so smartly accrued all of these enormous franchise assets is because as the company spins into the next iteration of its existence, which will involve trying to take on Netflix or at least continue to exist in a world where Netflix exists, you need these franchises to supply you content across platforms.

So, yes, it's been rumored. There was always going to be a Star Wars TV show or multiple Star Wars TV shows. Here we are. The answer to that, I think, best case scenario is someone comes in with a story worth telling in this universe that has a compelling point of view and a reason to exist. And hopefully it comes with TV thinking attached, which is that you know, you can go deeper. And whether that's deeper into the trash compactor or deeper into city management. Sure.

Or you do a show like Cheers, but set at the Moss Isley Cantina, which, by the way, would watch, think about what would make sense as a series. My biggest problem with all of these reboots on TV is this expectation that they usually lose the battle against that they have to tie it. It's the Walter White better call Saul problem. Also, it's the, and I'm not, I'm going to tread lightly because I don't want to spoil this if people are watching it. And we haven't even talked about it. But Star Wars, Star Trek Discovery is a show on CBS All Access. I have not been keeping up with it.

But I did, sorry, World, I spoiled myself on what happened in the finale. Now, I'm not going to spoil that. But what I will say... I'm like, I have no idea it could be. You can find this if you want to know. But it does suggest that this series, which was billed as an original 21st century take on the material,

is more indebted to what we already knew than we previously had been led to believe. Okay. That it has ties. It has ties, let's put it that way. And I wish that wasn't the case. Now, that's always going to be the balancing act because they want to bring in new fans,

but they also want to make sure the old fans watch. But then you end up with this, generally you end up with this sort of anodyne, uncanny Valley Zero, like Marvel's agents of Shield. Yeah. It's just a fine TV show. Well, I think that that was also an example of a show that was, what always happens in these ideas,

when they're like, you know, we can do this on multiple platforms and there can be so much synergy, and one story can start here and then go on to another platform. And it's not unlike, not to make it sound like we're a little bit more important than we are, but it's not unlike in the beginning of the 2000s when you and I were first working on the first working on the first, bubble of internet media

sort of in the late 90s in the early 2000s and we were working for magazines and listening to SuperJunk. Who wanted websites and we were listening to SuperJunk and they were like the dream is that there's this like

360 execution of these ideas or that you can put something in the magazine and that the website would somehow bolster it. This is how I ended up with a guy with a handy cam at Moby's apartment in Little Italy

at like 8 p.m. on a Tuesday while he's trying to go out partying but we have to like film his book collection. Right. To buttress the cover story. And the thing is, is that it starts out with the best intentions. And then what happens is you get something like Agents of Shield where I think when they

started that show, they were like, what if we were the connective tissue between all these Marvel movies? And it's like, actually, it's quite difficult to get these major movie stars to show up in an ABC show. And, you know, it basically begs the question. It's like, why have its own story if the story is just there to make sure that Ant Man works? Yeah. Also, the behind the scenes part of this, and this will definitely come into play with Star Wars, although it does appear that Kathleen Kennedy, who runs Lucasfilm now for Disney, has had enough runway to maybe prepare for it in a different way.

The divisions within a franchise at these companies don't always get along. Marvel TV and Marvel movies famously do not. Do not get along. Maybe that's changed slightly now, but that was a huge part of the reorganization that Kevin Feigey basically. basically could be like, nah. And that's why Inhumans went from the movie schedule to the TV schedule because he didn't want to touch it. And we just saw something, another failure of this was Dark Tower, which they thought was going to be a feature, a television series, and then a feature to end it. And they couldn't pull it off.

They managed to end it with one feature. Yeah, exactly. And that was something that they have been waiting and trying to make for 20 years. So I just think that if you, Star Wars Universe, to its credit, you could make a show just set on one planet. That's where things are happening and you read it on the space newspaper or whatever. Sure. But you just talk about how that city works, how that world works, how the governments work, or a local rebellion cell that can't quite connect with the big rebellion, whatever. There's a lot there. And, you know, there's obviously been an expanded universe that's thrived for decades in comic books and in novelizations. But my concern is corporate synergy is still this same, it's still being chased after with the same pie in the sky optimism that it was when we were talking about websites. So it's almost inevitable that there will be some attempt at some crossover, which will belittle. or at least dilute the product. So let's get on to some other questions here.

Alan Jones wants to know we need an update on the TV championship belt. We thought this might be our producer, Zach Mack, using a burner account. That's his Metro PCS burner. But I actually have a pretty good answer for Alan Jones, and it's something we just said on Monday. Black Panther has the championship belt. Yes, I'm glad you said it. Black Panther has the championship belt.

Jedi had the championship belt. To some extent, Lady Bird had the championship belt in terms of a very small... Among us. Yeah. If you want to know what people are talking about, at least the people that we know, and we're two TV people. Like, we really love television. We love talking about television.

We love seeing the way fans and communities interact with these television shows. It just does seem like right now, movies back. It's not altered carbon. And I know people, some people were frustrated. We didn't talk about it more when we touched on it last week. But it's like, man, I mentioned the Bisk. You know, like, I, no. Like, I just didn't think it had any vibrance of your life and urgency.

And one of the things, and maybe we, wrote ourselves into a corner here with this fictional belt, but like it really mattered to us that it was a show, what if we gave it to a show, that it felt like it was sort of culturally relevant in a larger way. You know, I think Babylon Berlin is great, but I also don't pretend that everyone in the country is going to love

that or even watch it. Dark did? Dark probably might be the show that we're most passionate about in the last six months. I think we would have given it to Dark. Obviously, our coverage reflected that. But, you know, we're going to come back to counterpart next week on Stars. it's, it is worthwhile, but it's not like on that level. Atlanta's coming. And I think Atlanta. Yes, thank you for reminding me.

Yeah, Atlanta is coming on March 1st and I do think that to some extent there will be that feeling around Atlanta. My only thing with Atlanta is just, I was thinking about this when reading through some of Abrams's book and Jonathan Abrams joined us on Monday. He wrote the Why Oral History All the Pieces Matter. And there was a feeling that they missed their window of being a truly popular, you know, it did get extended a little bit when people first started watching it on HBO on demand, I guess it was back then, but that if it had it been more easily available to watch streaming and that it's a better show to binge than it is to watch once a week. And I actually, it's not, nothing really impacts Atlanta that way, but I do feel like Atlanta,

it's like you wait all week for 22 minutes. It's kind of a tough beat. That said, it sustained conversation during its first season for the week. And you, you, You and I have both seen the season premiere. It's outstanding. And I think there's something about this show that grabs the microphone in terms of the conversation and the debate. People are going to be excited to be talking about it to see what's coming next. And, you know, maybe this is inside baseball, but, you know, we live inside the stadium out here. Yeah.

Atlanta is the show that everyone wishes they were making. Atlanta is the show that every network wishes it had. And that more than anything else, not more than anything, but that, you know, along with all the other creative, excellence, I think, is what almost definitely gives it. Yeah, and you also, it's the one, I don't think, I want to say it makes me feel like a kid again. It makes me feel like a kid again in the sense of when we were on the cusp of a bunch of these shows coming out, especially when you and I first started doing this podcast, and even before that, with shows like The Wire and with shows like Madman and Breaking Bad, I think you had a week to week feeling of not knowing where you were going next and loving that, you know,

that these people know what they're doing and I can't wait to go on their. journey with them. And now I think, like you said, it's not just inside baseball. We're inside the stadium here. You get a little bit like, oh, I see the seams. I see the stitching here. I know what's going on. With Atlanta, you just feel like you're being lifted up and taken somewhere. And that's just about the most rare thing you can feel on television right now. I want to hit this one question from full context, Lucian, who asks, what's the key element missing for a star-studded show like Waco. And they ask about looming tower as well, which we haven't gotten to yet.

But Waco is something that I have actually continued to watch. And I think that it... You told me everyone at the Ringer office, all the young kids are basically becoming branched avidians. Well, I've just been working a lot on my kitch imitation. It's excellent. This is the Withering! Because it goes up. Yeah, he's up.

It's pinched. It's pinched. It's like he's been denying himself creatine for a long time. I love that a whole generation is like, that guy had some pretty good points. I don't want this weight on my shoulders. Gary? It's Tim Riggins.

No doubt he's charismatic. Why did you send me the milk and then turn off the power, Gary? How many episodes of Waco have you seen? Five. By the way, shouts to, quote, unquote, Alan, our producer, all the shows. All the shows we talk about on this podcast, Waco, that's his shit.

Waco is the only one he's up on. Zach, did you watch Dark? I don't believe He's not a... It's not like a full... Okay, what's the problem with show? Show's like, wake up. Look, we are in an era of essentially the docudrama,

historical docudrama. They have a lot of the same qualities that say Star Trek Discovery or a Star Wars live action has, where it has a built-in cue level that you cannot buy. You cannot... It takes so long for me to explain...

And admittedly, it is a very convoluted premise, but to explain dark to someone. I tried to explain counterpart to my wife. If I was just like, hey, it's like if, it's like if Jack's lost story, it's Jack's lost story, but it's like a separate, you know, if you just were like, it's a reboot of a character on Lost, they'd be like, I'm in. What is, what is this? But if you're like, well, okay, so here's the thing.

That takes a long time. You're in Germany. Right. If you made a show about the militarization of American law enforcement and the rise of Colts in America. I think that would be a pretty tough sell and I think it would be a lot of work. But that's what Waco is supposed to be about. Sure. And that is all Waco is about. That is where they stopped the digging. And I don't know whether that was because this is part of Paramount's sort of targeted pitch to what they feel like is an underserved demographic of television watchers,

which is the middle of the country and they've got Yellowstone coming later in the year and they have been explicit about feeling like there's a market out there for people. But I do think that Waco stops at the surface. And unfortunately, and I don't like to say stuff like this because I don't like to disparage the work that people do on the technical side of things. But I just feel like Waco doesn't look really good. And one thing that you have to kind of reckon with

is you make a television show these days is that they look dynamite. And you have to make them look cool. And it looks a little inexpensive at times. Let's pull back and try and think about why are people making TV and why are they making this much TV? Why do people want to get into the TV business now? And obviously, the conversation that we have had, the conversation that is fueled by Twitter and podcasts

and recaps and reviews, has been born out of this moment, now more of a decade, of risk-taking excellence on television. Yeah. But Top of the Lake can fuel a podcast conversation, but a network that's trying to establish itself isn't trying to hear that.

is not trying to make something that is artistic, artistic, you know, or artsy for arts sake. They want to make television that people watch. Now, we'd never talk about network TV except maybe the occasional line 1-1 review that we do. But people watch Big Bang Theory. Millions upon millions of people watch that. People watch a good doctor.

People watch a good doctor. And that's fine. People watch grace still. People can do different things to different people. What we are seeing now is in an attempt to basically hybridize to class up what is essentially boilerplate or boilerplate sounds pejorative.

I don't mean to be pejorative. To class up what is essentially straight down the middle mainstream television making. And one of the best ways to do it is to take the model that I think Ryan Murphy did exceptionally well with people versus OJ Simpson. Pre-existing IP in the form of history that you're not asking people to go on a too wilder ride

because it's already been spoiled by history. So that you have living television viewers within that 1849 demo who are like, oh shit, I remember that. Who recognize it and remember it. You watch Waco. You're like, well, you're watching it for when they storm the gates.

Like, that is the action sequence that is promised at the end, you know, and it comes built in with that tension and that drama. What Paramount will do to establish itself as a new network is they will class it up. You know, it has some designs towards being more about the militarization of law enforcement in this country, as you said. You get Michael Shannon. You get these, you get higher caliber actors to do it. Yeah. For me, I mean, so to the question. I'm not that interested in it because it is essentially history karaoke.

And it can be entertaining and it can be as entertaining as some of those network shows I mentioned that maybe it sounded like I was dissing. I didn't mean to be dissing him. It can be very pleasant to watch it. But if you really want to have something to say artistically or creatively or creatively, you're going to have to push past the limits of the Wikipedia page. And these big productions, which it's noteworthy. We haven't really watched Looming Tower yet. But Hulu surprised one Emmy. But Hulu's in a lot. Paramount Network and more or less in the same boat. They're trying to compete, trying to establish themselves. These are safe. They're smart plays, but they're safe plays. You know, one of the things that's huge in Waco, and it was a big deal in OJ, and I think it ultimately led to me being not as fired up about OJ after a while.

And I've been thinking about this a lot with shows is about the, is about perspective and about character perspective, and whether or not this story is being told through, whose eyes this story is being told through. and I think Waco probably to be more successful artistically would need to do something that it couldn't do historically and as a document

which I think it purports to be and that is tell one person's story is to tell either Gary's story of a hostage negotiator who went through Ruby Ridge and then was brought to Waco and saw tanks and sciops being used against

American citizens and his reaction to that, or tell David's story or tell someone inside, like Tibbs, who's the character, they based the book, his book is what they based that side of things on. Tell their story from their eyes and their experience and actually limit the world to being what they see and what they feel and what they experience. That gets into really electric stuff when you're like, hey, the FBI killed these people, or you're like, look at this cult. Like, either side is going to have its problems. And I think that they never did that with OJ.

They always bounced around and told all these different parts of it. And I don't think they're doing it with Waco. And I think that there's diminishing returns on it, honestly. I also think, though, just to be devil's advocate here, look at what happens when you try to maybe have some empathy towards all sides or pick a point of view, let's say, and see where that leads you. And maybe you don't get all the ingredients right. You end up with the path on Hulu, which is a show that is.

about cults in America and has a pedigreed cast, you know, Aaron Paul and Michelle Monaghan at the top of it. And Hugh Dancy. And Hugh Dancy. And the show is on its third season, and I tried with it. We may have talked about it on the podcast. To me, it was just, it just doesn't work. And when you look at the difficulty of mounting a show like that and keeping it compelling and keeping it on the air and getting people to sign on and actually achieving those artistic goals that we can blithely suggest, on a podcast, and then you look at what you could do with Waco and who you can attract to it

just by saying the word and the name. Of course you're going to choose that. You're through the historical path. It's not wrong, but it's just another sign that though we are making more television than ever, it's still really hard to make something exceptional. I think there's this conflation with perspective necessarily meaning endorsement. I don't necessarily think you can make a show from the perspective of a character and not endorse the worldview. And I think that that's a challenging thing to do and maybe that that's not exactly what they sold and that's not what they wanted to make. Let's keep it moving. Number one, Jason Tatum fan, thanks for listening. Great, great, great, great. We need a new double-down book ASAP. I have loved every selection

so we have a couple of candidates. Yeah. So we'll get you that, I would say, next week. Yeah, let's decide this week. We'll promise next week. Because we have this backlog of great authors that we've always loved. Maybe it's time to bring James Crumley into the mix. I don't know. Well, we got Le Carrey because they've got a little drummer girl adaptions coming. So we can pick a couple of different stuff. Thanks. We will get you a book. Yeah.

Kyle Patrick wants to know does Andy actually like anything anymore? Nope. Okay. No, no, no. Remember the person on Twitter? Who's that?

Who said, I only like Star Wars. Yeah, and Paddington. I hope. Yo. Thank you. I'll clear out. You know what I really like, guys? Paddington time.

Chris really just stood up. Guys, Paddington 2 is a great film. Paddington 2 is so good. I know there was a little, this movie didn't even do that well, but it did well on the internet because people were like, why is this the greatest reviewed movie of recent time?

100% on rotten tomatoes. I'm back. Guess how many percent it deserves on rotten tomatoes? 100%. This movie is so smart and so funny and so warm and pleasant. Great performances, by the way. The best Gleason performance in 2017, or 2018. Not Jack in Phantom Thread.

Sorry. Not Dunel. How am I doing? Are you sure it's Dunel? Donal. Isn't it Dominal? No, no. Someone.

keeps tweeting this, thank you. Donal Logue, the American actor. I know who that is, yeah. It's the same name. But when you write it real Irish, like... With Gaelic, you get them silent M's and Ns and H's. But his is Dunal? The N is there too, in his.

It's Donal or Duna. Yeah, we're getting closer. Okay. But back to this bear thing, man. Brendan. Pappy. Yeah. Crash on the boards.

Would you say he's better in Paddington or in Bruges? Um, you know, it's two sides of the same coin. In many ways, he's playing. some similar notes. Yeah. He is a convict in Paddington, too, who turns out to have a, I'm not going to, I'll say it, a heart of gold.

Do you want me to name some more names? Oscar nominee, Sally Hawkins. Yeah. Former Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi. What did you learn about yourself during Paddington? Joanna Lumley from Ab-Fab. Yeah. What did you learn about yourself during Paddington?

I learned that, you know, well-mannered bears can make it far in this world. He wears the rinko, right? Yeah. Yeah. What do you? There are other anthropomorphic bears

who you mess with, but if they're polite and British? Isn't there Ted? Oh, wow. Wow. First of all, to all the people out there being like, why did you go to the theater

to see this movie? I saw Black Panther, too, dogs. Like, I went to the theater twice in one weekend. Right. Why did I go to this movie? I can bet you can guess. I bet you can guess who I brought with me.

He loves rinkos. It wasn't. It wasn't with Chris. But look, I just, it brought me real joy that a movie could be made so cleverly and so warmly for, you know what, for children of all ages. Plus, the dude who directed these movies and wrote them did a lot of great British TV. There's a show called Garth Morengi's Dark Place.

Yeah. You should check on YouTube. Is that a child's children thing? No. Oh. No. Garth Morangi's Dark Place? You guys don't know about this?

No, that sounds like a store in Philadelphia that you're not allowed to go into. So this show, this British show, I went on Sansom. Yeah, I know that place. I did go in there. Garth Marangky gave me guitar lessons for like two weeks. Yeah, and then he brought the guitar out. Okay, this is a recommendation. This is a real recommendation.

All right, I see you, Alan. I see you out there. What, do you don't like this? This is the gold. This is what made the podcast what it is today. I will say this. This is a British sitcom premised on the idea that a Stephen King-like writer had so much power in the 80s.

He not only wrote a. dark horror sitcom, but he was allowed to star in it. His name is Garth Morengi, and the show is Garth Morengi's Dark Place. Go to YouTube and watch the first episode. This literally sounds like a subplot in BoJack. It is better because it's not a cartoon. So you will watch it. You can't get Matt, I mean like we both have anti-cartoon bias, right? Paddington's not a cartoon. But my thing is I always want to look forward, man. I want to be like Harry Dean standing in Paris, Texas, and I'm walking down the road and my eyes are going that way and I'm not looking behind me. You know who would have loved this movie, Paddington, too?

Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas, because it's about finding some stillness and some goodness in this cursed world. Let's get through a couple more. Our producer, Zach Mack, asks. Oh, now he's really asking questions? When you two sit down to watch a new show, what are you looking for? What is your process for analyzing? I'm looking for an anthropomorphic bear.

Taking in something new. Is there a rubic checkboxes or particular qualities that cue you and whether... Jack, we have a text thread. You can just ask us to this kind of stuff. No, Zach asked a good question because there's so much new stuff right now. Yeah. I actually have hit the like, this is a lot. Like, did you know that there's just like a Carrie Mulligan detective show coming in a couple weeks? Yeah, it looks good.

Yeah, it looks good. Are you going to be able to watch it? No. Prob's not. Yeah. Right? We were talking earlier with our ringer colleague David Chewaker who was just like, yeah, there's a, my jam on Amazon is absentee with Stana Kadditch. I know. Maybe we should franchise the watch and just start having like other people talk about the shows they're watching.

Jason Gallagher and I are going to do a kid's movie pod. You're welcome to Miss the passes. I think when you told me that I said I wish I was Tom Hardy and Dunkirk so I could eject from this plane. He did say that. Actually, Tom Hardy, spoiler doesn't eject.

Anyway, what is the thing that we look for in a show? Well, it's somewhat pedigree. So if there's people involved with it either in front or behind the camera that I think we have a built up level of interest or appreciation for, you'll give it a chance. So case and point,

the Mine Hunter pilot is good, but it is very much a pilot. And I was, I never blinked twice about pushing through. Right. Because it's Fincher, because we love the actors in it. You know,

that was a reason to keep going and just to let that show find its beats. There are plenty of shows where if that's not the case and it comes with like some off ball stuff, like I'm just like, eh, you know what, life's too short. Yes, I agree.

And I think that people have obviously made fun of me. most of them justifiably for constantly harping on things in Game of Thrones, like the open-air seafood market in Bravo's. But that is a catch-all for, honestly, something that I'm looking for. TV has become so much like movies in the sense that you have to sell it with a pre-existing IP or a poster or a pitch or a question. The stakes are so high.

So what I'm looking for in these pilots is a single moment of humanity. To use a show that you liked, as did most of our audience, True Detective, the Po-Boy, right? That was a moment. That was a real lived-in moment. In Black Panther, there's a scene of grilling meats. Obviously, I like food. It's literally why there is a cathedral on top of Atlanta. It's because it is assembled out of moments like that. Exactly. And so, another reason why I was perfectly fine to walk away from altered carbon

was that there wasn't a single genuine human moment to my eyes in that pilot. To be fair, they had plenty of other things to do. They basically had to establish that you could wear other people's bodies like skin suits, which, by the way, shouts to Bone Collector. They were doing that low-tech years ago. But Bone Collector expanded universe. Get at me, Jim Patterson. But that's what I'm looking for.

I'm just looking for a moment of humanity. Counterpart, we're going to talk about next week, had it in the pilot, despite having a pretty big premise and a lot of exposition. So some combination of those things gets us in. Okay, let's wrap up there. Andy's got his interview with Superchunk.

You'll hear that after a quick brief from our sponsor. New album. What a time to be alive out now on Merge. And then Andy and I will be back. Next Monday, we'll be talking about annihilation. Yes. And then Thursday, in some order, we're going to be talking a little bit about counterpart. We're also going to be talking about McMafia, which airs next week. Next Monday on AMC.

And Looming Tower, which premieres next week. We may grab that the following Monday. We'll see. And absentia. Thank you to Zach Mack for all his burner accounts. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Microsoft Surface. When looking for a laptop, why not consider one with a powerful processor? The new Surface Pro is built for speed and has a battery that lasts all day

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plus take $10 off your first order of $30 or more with the code watch at trycaviar.com. Okay, we have already done an intro, so I'll just say I am beyond thrilled to be joined here in the studio by members of one of my all-time favorite band, Superchunk, Mack McCann and John Worst. are here. Welcome, guys. Hi. Good to be here. So happy you're here. Just mere days after the release of Super Chunks' 11th album,

What a Time to Be Alive, which I can say was released to rapturous reviews. I mean, I feel like I should always be able to say that, but I love saying rapturous review. People have been kind, yes. It's only been out for six days. There's still time...

Do you think it's going to turn? Come back around. When the hardcore punk zines... When maximum rock and roll drops. Flipside is not waiting. Flip sides. He's still fingers crossed waiting by the PO box. We're waiting.

It would kind of be great if this album was received by new media, but then in three months, when old media catches up to it, the hammer drops. Oh, you never know. Speaking of new media, I wanted to begin here. I wanted to know specifically where the two of you were a few days ago, the moment you realized the New York Times had tweeted Max's words to their 41 million followers on Twitter. And the words in particular were from this very nice New York Times story about you guys. but the quote, this is the entirety of the tweet, quote,

I'd happily never make another record if it meant this administration wasn't in power, Super Chunks Max said. Most protest music is terrible. I imagine your menchies blew up at that point, to some degree. You know, it's weird. It's true that when a media presence like The Times tweet something, and you're attached to it, you are exposed to all these people that otherwise are definitely not paying attention to your band, you know.

But on the upside, Ed Asner tweeted his support, which was great. And then, of course, you know, you get some Trump people who, again, don't know, don't care about Superchunk, but they just see something bad about their hero and they start, you know, going apeshit. But it wasn't as many people as I would have thought, actually. You were ready for more? Yeah. More 70s stars like Ed Asner or more of the trolls? any of them. I was ready for more trolls.

Right, like Gabe Kapler didn't chime in or any other people from them. Gary Sandy. There you go. Yeah, my favorite response, I think, I saw someone get into it was the person who did the knee jerk like, you should never make records, this is an act you're doing, and then a few minutes later

the person was like, okay, I checked out your record. It's pretty good. It sounds like Rush. That was the best exchange. For me, that's the ultimate compliment, right? It's true. Yeah. Right-wing potentially Russian bot comparing you guys to Rush. Yeah.

Doesn't get any better. I mean, you guys, to some degree, probably were prepared for a different response to the record, not in terms of press coverage or reviews, but because this is explicitly a political record. So on some level, were you prepared for some of these people responding to you, whether they are Russian bots or not? I didn't really think about it, but I'm not the lyricist,

so, you know, I'm not under that kind of... The drums had a very left-wing slant of this record. Explosive. Explosively left wings. Very controversial drumming. What would be the best adjective you'd like attach to your drumming in a review of the record?

I get emphatic a lot. Yeah. I get caffeinated a lot. Caffeinated drumming. Is that accurate? Probably. I saw you drinking a cup of coffee earlier today. I am a...

As you guys know, I'm recovering music critic. So when I read these things, I was guilty of far worse. But I was reading a review of the record today that said that, Mack, you were singing over guitar sighs. Your guitar was sighing.

I don't hear that. I don't hear that on this record, if anything. I think it's quite the opposite. While my guitar gently sighs could be a whole new thing. That's a little bit later in the career. I think so. So back to the political thing was interesting to me because generally as a band,

I feel like you pulled a reverse discord because you went from singing about personal lives and emotional topics do a more explicitly political thing. It's the reverse disclosures. That is an ice skating move that I've never really encountered before. Obviously, Mac as the lyricist, the albums have always reflected wherever your head was when you were writing the songs. Yeah. Did these words that were pouring out of you give you pause at any point?

Did they fit as a super chunk record? Did it just make sense? I mean, I think the only thing that gave me pause was to not be too on the nose or just obvious about it. And I mean, one thing that strikes you watching the news is that everything is so obvious. What the administration is doing is it's all so obvious and so dumb and so on the surface, you know. So, yes, like you feel outraged by that, but to write about it in a way that's not also obvious is the challenge, I think. Which is where most protest music is not good to quote comes from.

I agree. And so I think that to me that was the main challenge. And I wasn't really worried about people on the other side complaining about a super chunk record. Because as I said, like, those people have probably all been weeded out by now. You know what I mean? That's right. From our self-selected. People who were like paying attention to us.

I was actually more concerned about what I was just talking about, people saying like, oh, you know, preaching to the choir, like it's so it's obvious, whatever, even though, and I mean, that is a concern, though, you know, Ted Leo made a good point the other day online about preaching to the choir saying it's underrated in the sense that it could also just be called community building. Yes.

You know what I mean? And I do get that also. I do agree with that. But in terms of making art that is reflecting what's happening around you, I think it is important to have an angle that doesn't make people just go like, I already know all this. Yeah. I already thought of this already.

You know what I mean? Was there one lyric or song in particular that made its way into the record that was a key and a lock for you in terms of writing from this place of frustration and anger? I mean, I think the title track in some ways was a good, good, not a blueprint, but just like a way in. And then some of the, in some ways, if you have a couple songs that are more complicated or thought through or something, it also allows you to have some songs like cloud of hate that are just more like right on the surface.

Maximum rock and roll is going to like that one. They are. That's your pandering to that one, to those that crowd a little bit. John, how does the process work when it's time to make a super drunk record again these days. Do you get, is it an email from Mac? Have you guys been just hanging out? Is the, is the group, is the company Slack always open for chats? Or you get an email and you're, and what was your insight into where Mac was coming from for this record? Well, this one's, seemed to come up a lot quicker than, than in previous years. Like in the past, um, it's been

more of like a slow, a slow, a slow conversation. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, but this was, this seemed like everything was already ready to go. And we just, learned him and I can't remember if we even rehearsed with Laura. Laura has ear issues so she doesn't want to be in the same room with me most of when we're playing. Well it's all that caffeine. It is, yeah. So.

If your drum sighed more, maybe should be okay with it. Yeah, I think that a lot of it is also, you know, John plays drums with Mountain Goats and Bob Mould and other people. And so I think part of it was both having the songs and looking ahead and seeing oh there's not a new mountain goats or a new bob mold right on the horizon so here's like a year where we have some like free space to both record and put a record out and so that all kind of came

together in that way and also you know a record that is topical it feels like a record you don't want to sit on sure and overwork and you just kind of want to get it out there you know um but it's true that for the two recording sessions that we did, we never all four rehearsed at the same time. For the first session, I rehearsed with Laura, so it was just super quiet, guitar, and bass, and then Jim and I rehearsed with John, and we did that for the second one as well. Jim and Laura and I practiced with just like amps on low and no drums, and then we all, and Jim and I practiced with John. And so the first time we were playing these songs altogether was in the studio,

which is pretty interesting way to do it. But it worked out. Yeah, I mean, the album is not just timely. It feels exhilarating and really, like, there was no wasted moment. There was no wasted breath in making the record. This is, I guess, the third records in the second iteration of Supertunk. Is that fair to say after the hiatus? One of the things that I've loved about the three records that you've made since

is the way that they all really grapple with the role of music in our lives as people who listen to music a certain way in the 80s and 90s and then maybe have to approach it a different way now. Obviously, it's not my life anymore to write about it. I never played it. But Majesty Shredding was such an exultant and fun record to be playing guitars that sounded like that and really having a lot of caffeine on the drums,

which I really appreciated. But I love music was that question of what is it worth really resonated? I hate music. I hate music. I know you love it. I love music. Yes. Wow, yeah, that's Freudian at this point.

I love music again, thanks to you guys. I hate music as what is it worth. I'm wondering, coming out of that record as a band, did you answer that question with any satisfaction? I don't know. I guess I didn't think of it as... It was more open-ended. It was more open-ended.

I don't know. I think, I mean, we love doing it, and we're still here 30 years later. Doing it. doing it. I just think it's easier to have some distance from it when you've been doing it for that long because especially when we first started and all through the 90s when we're making records touring, writing another record, making the record touring just on top of itself, you're not really stepping back from what you're doing very often. It's not really your

mindset, you know. And so I think that it's easier now to write about things like bigger topics like music you know from a point of view with some distance you know it just feels like this this is probably the conceit

of a recovering record critic but the new record seems to definitively answer that question for me in a way because it feels so community based and proactive in a way like it feels here's what it's worth like it makes me feel better about this crumbling world when I listen to your new record And I'm wondering if you particularly felt, Mac, like, we all woke up in a certain level of days in November of 2016.

I suffered an extreme stress-related bloody nose while driving my older daughter to preschool, which I think on some level was meant to one-up the other grieving parents at our liberal life on the east side of L.A. Like, they all had red-rimmed eyes, and I looked like I'd just gotten in a fist fight. But, you know, you woke up, and not to use an extremely Liam Neeson voice here, but with a particular set of skills. And you could take some of those feelings potentially and put them into these songs. Is that a fair way to characterize it? Yeah. And though I don't think it was a goal like, well, now we're going to set out to do, to make this record. And that's going to be our contribution.

It's just more like if that's what you do, then if what you do is make music and write songs, then naturally these songs are going to be about that. Right. You know, both as a, you know, thing that you do just as a matter of course, but also as thing that you do as something to do to let off steam or just, you know, think about something else for an hour at a time, you know, like exercise. I mean, it's the same, to me, it's like the same idea, you know. Right. Do you think, I was in thinking about this record and thinking about talking to you guys,

I was trying to remember like how heated I would get in like 1990 and 1991 when like REM was rocking the vote and telling us about all the terrible things that first George Bush was doing. It feels very quaint to me now because the world doesn't seem as terrible. I'm wondering if you guys feel similarly. Like do you think that from your perspective, are we in a uniquely awful, or getting a little bit older, does our relationship to the crumbling times change? Because like I was saying, I'm a parent now, so I feel like really agitated about it. But I look at what's happening in Florida right now, and these kids and these teenagers,

and I sort of have this vague muscle memory of like it used to feel exhilarating to have a voice and find your voice and organize in a different way. I think it's the most insane period of time in this country's history. I don't think there's ever been anything like it. You know, people just completely altering their definition of what reality is. Yeah, that's mind-blowing. That's the thing. Of craziness, you know.

And, I mean, Reagan seemed terrible at the time. Right. But it didn't feel unhinged from reality, like John was saying. It still slotted into like a binary that maybe was familiar of, what's okay and what's not okay as opposed to there is no spoon, which is where we're living now? Yeah, I mean, I think that in retrospect,

all the damage that he did was laying the groundwork for what can be done now, but it just didn't have the surrealness of what's happening now. Were you guys part of any particular political punk movement in the 80s? Were you turned on by any bands that that was their thing. I mean, obviously, politics makes its way

in almost all music one way or another. Well, I love the clash when I was a kid, you know, and they were very political. Stiff little fingers, things like that. But I'm trying to think in the 80s, you know, hardcore. Sure. That was like a lot of personal stuff, but, you know, until Revolution, summer came along.

Well, corrosion of conformity, who was the biggest band in North Carolina, were very political and they had especially the, I mean, I guess really, Mike Dean and Reed Mullen both wrote the lyrics, but I was thinking about the Mike Dean song, intervention,

which was about intervention in South and Central America. You know, they were writing very political songs, and people from Raleigh, from the punk scene in Raleigh, would go to Washington, D.C., and take part in the punk percussion protests, which I think were organized by, positive force people and maybe some discord people. I'm not sure exactly.

And so there was definitely a political aspect of hardcore, at least in North Carolina. I love the one of the best songs on the record, I think, is Reagan Youth. And I love it not only because it's referencing explicitly that time. But I just, I love the idea that you have this line in the song that I'm going to misquote because it's in my head that I got the name of the album wrong a minute ago. go. But here's the truth, or

to tell the truth, in the chorus of the song. Oh, oh, showed you what was real. Reagan Ruth showed you what was real, taught you how to feel? No, but there's another line. There was more than one? Oh, yeah. Well, right. What's the line right before? To tell the truth. To tell the truth, there was more than one

Reagan youth. I kind of like the idea of taking what is ostensibly a very strident binary punk song and then saying, well, no, actually, there's more than one. Here's the truth for it. and complicating it a little bit. I feel like that's a sort of a necessary corrective to the sort of self-satisfying group think of like,

we're right. We're right and we're alive in this moment and everyone else is wrong. I think that anyone who's our age that grew up listening to punk, like if you say Reagan youth, you just think of the band. Yeah. That's, you know. And so I guess.

But you could also think of Ted Cruz. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I'd rather. The actual Reagan youth that grew up worshipping this person. is now like, you know, the evil people running shit now. What do you have, I guess, I guess if you think about the people who are going to rock shows in the 80s and 90s, these are people that I considered friends and peers and like people I looked up to and these were people who were cool.

And the people like Ted Cruz, I would have said, are not cool. But they organized pretty well, I guess, as it turns out. They had a battle plan and they have won on some level. Does that make you? feel disheartened? Does it make you feel, I'm just curious how you look back on whatever organization came out of just going to shows and the collective spirit from that and how that was spent in the next 10, 15 years. Were they better organized?

Well, I think that, you know, I mean, I think of someone like Lee Atwater, just basically announcing like, here's how we're lying to convince people that, you know, the source of their problems as minorities, the source of their problems as immigrants. you know, just laying out their PR plan basically. And so I guess to me what's just frustrating is that so many people bought into that. And so I guess what you're saying is, how come during the 80s and 90s, you know, people who are going to shows and listening to bands weren't, you know, organizing also? Well, I think it depends on where you were. You know, like we played the concert to try to defeat Jesse Helms in North Carolina when he was running against Hart.

Harvey Gant. And Helms won. Again, he ran the ad with the famous, you know, white hands crumpling up a employment rejection notice or whatever because, you know, ostensibly a black person had taken that person's job. And so I think that many bands were engaged, but at the same time when you're talking about, you know, eight years of Bill Clinton and, um, that that was a time when I feel like there was not a lot of political urgency on the left. Correct. And then by the time W. came around, I think that, you know, his people reacting to W., even though he was seen, rightfully so, as a terrible president, were complicated by 9-11 and the aftermath of that. And I think the war did galvanize people, but. the two wars that he started

but at the same time when a war lasts for 20 years you know it's I think it's hard to keep the intensity up against something like that you know so I'm gonna put you guys on the spot here and you mentioned live shows I should say this podcast is going up today you're playing LA tonight and tomorrow you're playing Seattle next is that

or San Francisco? San Francisco on Saturday then Portland Seattle Vancouver next to week and I must like as someone who's been seeing you guys for multiple decades it is one of my favorite things to do in the world and as you said it's more rare than before. So if you're in those cities and their tickets available, please go see Super Chunk on this tour. As someone who has been a fan of you guys for a long time, and as I was

saying, like look to these records, probably you would say now foolishly, for some sort of emotional guidance or at least structure to my young life. I can't help but look to you guys again in this moment as the world is crumbling and you've made this very, very, to me, moving and inspiring album. Just give me a little hope. What is, what do you carry with as hope in this moment. It doesn't have to be political. I just want to know. The long pause says everything.

Well, I mean, I would say, you know, just seeing how kids react to what's happening and how kids react to this administration, with, you know, being 10 years old, 14 years old, that's how my kids are. and just how immediately they recognize when something is bullshit gives me hope because I feel like that is the next group of voters. And more specifically, these high school kids in Florida reacting to this tragedy at their school, I was nowhere near that. That's the word I'm looking for, lucid. I mean, you know, just are just able to speak so clearly about important things at that age, but they are ready for that challenge. We make fun of the selfies, but they seem to have prepared them for some sort of camera presentation.

Maybe that's it. Like, I don't know. Maybe there's hope in here somewhere. I think John's just thinking about Tiff Merritt's vocals being pitched down. The real hope is getting you onto a Shonda show if we were done recording. That's my hope. There have been guests who have accidentally lined up with the extras. Is that true?

Or how to get away with murder downstairs. Because you may, as you exit, you may see like a bunch, like dozens of people dressed as court reporters or bailiffs. For the listener, we're in the same grounds where scandal is. Don't hold their hands. These listeners should be. Okay. Yeah, they should know. So I'm basically, I'm hoping I could kind of weasel my way on set.

You never stop dreaming. At some point today. Never stopped dreaming. John McDonough, thank you for coming in to talk to me. Thanks. Thank you. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by NBC. hilarious new comedy AP Bio from executive producers Seth Myers and Lauren Michaels. AP Bio stars

Glenn Howardton and Pat Nosswal and critics call it laugh out loud funny AP Bio premieres Thursday, March 1st on NBC. Start streaming now on the NBC app.