The Watch - Apple Gets Into the Franchise Business, the Penultimate Episode of ‘Shogun,’ and ‘Ripley’ Episodes 4 and 5

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about the news that Apple TV will be making a ‘For All Mankind’ spinoff called ‘Star City,’ and adapting another one of Mick Herron’s novels (author of ‘Slow Horses’) for a show starring Emma Thompson (1:00). Then, they talk about an article in Harper’s that looks at the role private equity firms have played in the TV industry over the past decade (13:38), before discussing the penultimate episode of ‘Shogun’ (29:07) and episodes 4 and 5 of ‘Ripley’ (59:09). Read the Harper’s piece here. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, can I talk to you for a second? Over 25 years ago on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy she only kind of knew to college. And so began Felicity. My name is Greg Grunberg, though you may know me better as Sean Blumberg, the inventor of smoothays and director of docketery. I'm still trying to get that released. I'm teaming up with my Felicity wife, Mandy,

Foreman and The Ringers Juliet Litman to revisit our favorite moments from our favorite show and talk to the people who helped shape it. Listen now to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, guselcomab. Taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis,

who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections in tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interests that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going.

Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. 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. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, turns out the real crimson sky

were the friends we made along the way. It's Andy Greenwald. You know, I don't know if there's a unified theme between the television we're going to be talking about today, between the penultimate episode of Shogun and episodes 5 and 6 of Ripley. 4 and 5, brother. Don't skip ahead. Sorry.

However, I think they are both an interesting portrait of what friends are willing to do for each other. Oh, yeah, that's true. So this might get a little spicy today because I think I have different limits. Great to see you. I saw you last night. Shout out to Etra. Was that the name of the place? Oh, you're going to put places on blast?

Good food. It's not blast. What's a reverse blast? I, for one, had never had steak robes pier before, and it's now, the rotation. It's in the starting rotation. We have scouted it. We have brought it up to the big club. And now I'm going to say, like, whenever I have steak, I want that red wine reduction. Do you think that we should... That tangy balsamic taste? Do you think we should do... You know, the website eater has a heat map of like the places to eat in various cities? Should we do with

the watch heat map? And it's that one restaurant plus three sweet greens near your house. and you and you just hovering over a bowl of noodles somewhere. No, we could stick a heap. We could stick one of the heat map emblems over the studios here at Spotify where I take all the snacks and granola bars for my children. So I have snacks for them when I pick them up from school. I get a lot of mileage out. Do you get a lot of doubt for that?

No, I get none, but I feel good about it. Do you ever worry? And I think maybe Kaii should weigh in too. Do you worry that now that we've been hanging out, Like, we've had two weeks in a row of Wednesday dinners. She's like, I'll be the judge of that. Do you think, are you worried that we're like, it's two IRL? Like, are we going to, are we burning up all our good takes?

No, but I am worried that you and I are entering a little bit more of a hostile phase. I think that that is, I think that that is in play. Fear comes. Because I think we, we fought about farmers markets. We fought about whether or not last of us is worse than fallout. And then we fought about Spider-Verse and Killers. We fought about Jalen Hertz a little bit. Oh, do you want to talk about that?

Well, I just want to say that, like, Andy is, um, Andy has adopted, like, a new character on these text messages threads that I'm on with him. I'm workshopping. I'm workshopping. And, uh, my, my buddy, Zach Barron, our buddy, Zach Barron and I are, um, we're a little concerned about Jalen Hertz, frankly. Well, and Andy, who I could tell you some stories about how Andy takes sports losses.

Is it well? And sports unrest. Is it normal? Is like, you guys need to go touch grass. dude is fine. I did say that. It's all green lights. It's because the two of you are, you know, men of a certain age and a certain bearing. And I feel like I, you know, I think you guys, I trust you in a foxhole.

Uh-huh. And all of a sudden, like 9.30 a.m. yesterday, you're like drive time call jockeys on WIP, parsing random softball questions and quotes for deeper psychological meaning. Yeah. Being like, I don't like the way Jailen Hurd. said, it certainly would be nice to have some consistency in the coaching staff. You're like, he is clearly a beta who will fail this season. And did I type touch grass?

Yeah, I did. Was there a lot of silence? No dots after that. Let me just tell you, I'm going to remember that. Okay. I'm going to remember that next time you may be the one who needs to touch grass. I think the deeper thing is I've been touching AstroTurf for years and it has not worked out for me. The deeper issue is, and I think this is the way we make it relevant to the podcast, if I may.

I am, I run hot. I engage with television, with sports on a very, very emotional. You're the microwave man. Visceral level. You're the Vinnie Johnson of TV. And I think that what I was trying to, trying to articulate was that two weeks before the draft, I am not going to burn emotional capital on a throwaway quote on ESB. Like, I will not be well.

I will be in the DSM Chapter 6 through 46 beginning in that first game in Brazil this fall. But like I'm trying to keep it level. Are you going to go to travel to Brazil for this game?

You know I don't like to talk about my travel plans on the podcast, but I'm interested. Andy, I have a couple of things to get to before we do Shogun, and it's not Jalen Hertz related. And it's not even met a fiction about our relationship.

Nor is it about the real divide that's tearing this podcast, frankly, this entire podcast project because Kai is in here too, apart, are differing opinions on wellness and body optimization. But let's save that. Okay.

That can be like an end of pod kind of chat, right? When everybody's listening? Tie it into Ripley. Okay. I just feel like there's some fault lines forming. Truly, nobody lives as well as Tom Ripley. Andy, let's start with some news out of Cupertino. Some Apple News.

I guess also Culver City. I just thought I'm essentially stealing this observation from Sean McNulty's wake-up email that comes via the Ancler. It's a really great newsletter for anybody who's like, when you get up, there's just like this synthesis of all like the trades and all like the sort of news plus also a lot of really good ratings information. This is called Wake Up. This is not Andrew Huberman's wake up and look at the sun, which you also subscribe to.

No, but sometimes I will read Wake Up while I am staring at the sun. And if I can ever get something maybe to project the wake-up newsletter onto my UV-Ray. Or onto the sun, like a three body problem. Yes, this is my three body problem is how do I keep getting Hollywood news while burning my retinas? Some interesting developments over at Apple, which I think we obviously have like a very, not particularly complicated relationship with, but are often very enticed by the sound of a show and then have mixed feelings about the executions of shows over there. Or just sort of like, that was, that was incredibly fine. With the exception of slow horses, I think, is obviously one of our favorites over the last couple of years. They've done some other great stuff, some other, some okay stuff.

And we like a hijack. I mean, we like... Fuck yeah. Yeah. Like yeah. And I'm ready to get hijacked again. Apple announced that they are going forward with a For All Mankind spinoff called Star City, which is set in the Soviet Union. So I guess Putin won.

Yeah, I'm just going to let that. And for all mankind is also returning for its fifth season. I don't know that there is any other Apple show, aside from the upcoming season five of slow horses. Slow horses is renewed through. Season four and five of slow horses. That has made it this far, made it this far down the line.

I mentioned this also because there is another show that was announced this week for Apple called Down Cemetery Road, which is based on a novel by McHarran, who is obviously the author of Slow Horses. And this is going to star Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson. Here's the log line for that. When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a girl disappears in the aftermath, neighbor Sarah Tucker becomes obsessed with finding her and enlist the help,

a private investigator, Zoe Boehm, played by Emma Thompson, and the other ones played with Ruth Wilson. Related to Alec Boe-Bome of the Philadelphia Phillies? Spelled differently. Zoe and Sarah suddenly find themselves in a complex conspiracy that reveals that people long believe dead are still among the living while the living are faster in the dead. So this entire preamble was a way of saying Apple is getting into the franchising itself business. There's not explicitly a slow horse's spin-off, but it is an extension of their relationship with McHaron.

And then the For All Mankind thing is an explicit, like we believe in this project. We've done a lot of work to create this world, so to speak, and we think that there's more stories to tell within it. Any take on the idea of Apple looking inward in the franchise wars? Well, I think the McCarran one. Have you read this book? I haven't if there's multiple. This sounds fantastic to me. I mean, Emma Thompson as a private investigator in a show that has the authorial tone, apparently, as it says, of McHarran, sounds like a winner.

When Apple does a show about a private investigator, they just don't miss. Okay. All right. Don't yuck my yum. Okay. Millions of dudes crying over a tattered fallout, too. so yeah don't yuck my yum Andy

I do yeah man that sad thing is it's not like I just like fallout sugar sugar is sugar is not my yum anymore

I've a lot I'm not done podcasting about sugar god damn it I will be heard I will be heard not today though I think

I think that show sounds fantastic and I also think that you know we have four years talked about the British TV model. You've got a lot of great actors there.

You've got a lot of great resources, crews, used to making things in a certain way. And networks seem to, networks and streamers and services, seem to like dip in and out. The idea of being like, yeah, let's just start a little minor league team here. Yeah.

And just start pumping out the content seems very, very smart to me. Especially because they have such a great thing going with slow horses at a certain time every year. If this is an ongoing series, and they put it on the spring, slow horses in the winter, Like, that's just smart programming.

There's also, I mean, like, here's free money. I mean, like, just do the Jackson Lamb prequel with Theo James or something. I don't know, like, who or whoever. Look at you. I'm just spitballing. Okay. There's a lot to be done there. I think it's fascinating because-

By the way, you do with Alex Lothar. Right? Why are we sitting here? That would be pretty good. Why are we sitting in some big studio somewhere making decisions? Instead of this tiny studio that we got pushed into because of other parts? podcasts we're recording today. This studio is nice.

That's all right. It's fine. It reminds me a little bit of what Paramount Plus did with Taylor Sheridan, where they pick a creative who had some connective tissue between some of his shows, at least the Yellowstone Mothership Show. And we're just like, let's be in business together. Let's keep building this stuff out. Now, I think it would be actually really interesting if they continue to do this with

slow horses, like I said. I think that there's a lot of different ways that that could go. McCarran's written quite a few books. The Slow Horse series is, I think, 10 books. But he's done a couple of other things outside of that that I think probably are worth keeping an eye on development-wise. The For All Mankind thing I don't have much to say about because I've not stuck with the show.

I think this is a broken record. I watch most of seasons one and two. I thought they were pretty excellent. I thought the episodes were very, very long, and I didn't feel as compelled to continue with it. And now it's one of those things where it just feels like, It's just too much show for me to catch up to. But I really enjoyed what I saw.

But there are certain shows, and I wonder if this might be a spin-off for us, not a spinoff, but an episode we could do. Like the tweeners, the puzzlers, like there are some shows that either we haven't engaged with or we don't understand. Or only one of us has. Or we just fundamentally don't understand the financials. Not that it's our responsibility or our job to. But for all mankind is a very ambitious, but also very in some ways old-fashioned,

alt history, space epic that has passionate fans. By whatever rough metrics we use to track what's popular or to have a sense of what's popular, I never get the sense that it's like a sensation. That could be our bubble. That could be our bubble. But it also could just be, this works for Apple. And I feel like if you could reverse crack what makes this work for Apple, we would understand Apple Mall.

Oh, we would understand like modern life. Possibly. Yeah. Possibly. So, again, a spinoff about these guys who very much know what they're doing set in an alt. It's like an alt-soviet Union. It's a speculative alternative future where Russia wins the original space race. But this is a spy show set within this alternate space successful Russia.

I'm not sure when in the chronology it will happen because they're well into the 20, I can't remember where they are. but like they're on Mars, bitches. Yeah, well, technologically and exploration-wise, they're miles ahead. But like,

I just can't remember what year it is. I know it's past the 90s. There's another thing I wanted to mention, which is that there has been an article in Harper's that made the rounds this week. I think probably more among, like, Twitter circles and maybe some like TV writers

more than like it being like uploaded to, or upstream to any of the trades. But it's a piece written in Harper's by Daniel Bessner, who's a history professor, I think, University of Washington. I believe so. And it basically is taking a snapshot. It's a very well-research piece

that takes a snapshot of the current state of Hollywood post-strike through the lens of labor and through the lens of specifically like writer labor. And I thought it had some really interesting points that I personally hadn't considered. before, especially given about the role of private equity pouring into Hollywood production, especially after the 2008 economic downturn, if you want to put it that way. And interest rates being so cheap back then, so you have all of these, all these PE companies

and Vanguard and stuff like that, like jumping on Hollywood as an investment opportunity, and then thus turning Hollywood into any other kind of corporate relationship where they have these quarters and they have to constantly show value to shareholders. And it's about maximizing profits and minimizing expenses and strip mining everything. And it paints a very dark picture of both just the economic realities for Hollywood Studios right now. And then for writers, it essentially talks about a lot of the things that we've been hearing, a lot of things that we've been talking about, that it's harder than ever to eke out a living as a writer in Hollywood, that the very successful writers are doing very, very well. But for the most part,

you know, you have to write more for free to get things greenlit. You don't really have a sense of the metrics of your success if your show happens to get made. There's very little stability into what does and doesn't get renewed. And there are no post-air kind of, avenues for you to like degenerate revenue. The ceilings are much, much lower. Right. Now, I mean, I can read off a couple of interesting quotes from this, but I was curious whether or not just in your cursory read of it, like, what you thought.

I think as someone who is relatively affected by a lot of this. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm, I struggle with pieces like this. I mean, and when it came across the Transom this week, my first response was I don't really want to read this because I can't read just from my own, again, my own well-being. Maybe I wanted the author to touch grass too. because for my own emotional stability, like I can't read another obituary for the industry that I am within.

Yeah. I also think that the trends that Bessner is describing in the piece, this is American, this is America. This is the American economy. This is the American economy of the last 20, 25 years.

You know, the increase in speculative investment and return on investment and the, you know, expecting more of work and paying them less and squeezing everyone. I mean, this is not a unique Hollywood story. And in fact, Hollywood is such a difficult vehicle in which to communicate this story because even the central, the opening scenario,

which is through the perspective of a writer, Lena Smith, who created Dickinson and is a playwright as well, is like when these stories, like her story are posted on like the showrunner's WhatsApp that I'm on, like it is very empathetic room because people are scared and their livelihoods are affected and their work-life balance or if they have a balance. When you read it in the context of like this industry is doomed because a woman got to make her dream show for multiple seasons with Apple and then walked away, the empathy factors feels it's harder to communicate the stakes of that,

which I want to be careful when I say it because I'm in this. So I get this. Yeah. But I thought this was ultimately, from what I read, a pretty dire indictment of the state of capitalism in America at the moment, told through an imperfect lens. That said, I think that the larger points and market trends are accurate and terrifying. That's we, the one place that I think that we are not experiencing it yet is on our screens and streaming services. But for everyone on the other side of it, whether it's writers trying to get things made, whether it's executives trying to save their jobs, whether it's CEOs fighting off activist investors or whatever.

Right. It is mad max times. I also think that it's always hard to read. So for me right now, TV is great. We're having a great year. We talked on Monday about whether or not with Sympathizer Shogun and Ripley, have we ever had three shows this good airing nominally at the same time? why are all those shows on at the same time?

Well, we're experiencing a rush of stuff under the bridge, you know, like all these shows that are like clearly like award worthy or calibrated to be at least in the awards conversation are coming out just in time for Emmy eligibility and so that then they can get this awards push then when they advertise this show going forward on their streaming services, they can say the Emmy Award winning yada yada. I don't think that that's a healthy ecosystem,

for television watching. We've definitely gone through barren periods where you and I are essentially like trying to make, you know, rub two stones together to either find something to watch or to talk about, you know, something going on in Hollywood. This is similar to what happens with movies

where you get an awards push towards the end of the year where you sit through 25, 35 weeks of like awesome to terrible blockbuster fair and then all of a sudden 22 good movies or dramas come out in the span of two months.

And that doesn't seem like, it seems like it's almost made for the awards industry rather than it is for, like, creating a healthy movie environment. Maybe, maybe I'm, maybe I'm reading too much into it because of like what I do and where we live. But that's the way it seems.

I just think that, like, nothing is really, the thing that I took from this article is the sense that nothing is really being made either in the best interests of the creative people or the best interests of the audience. And so that's why we get this sense of like, wait, why do I all of a sudden feel underwater by like nine shows that I'm supposed to be watching at once?

Or I don't know whether I want to watch all of fall out in a weekend. It has been said to me that in direct response to something that we talked about on the last show, why are these shows so long? That in the cases of some of the more, recent entrance into the TV arena, like the tech companies and the streamers, they know it's a problem. Not because they think that you, Chris, are getting tired at the 55-minute mark, but because algorithmically, it isn't optimal to have something be 70-minute or whatever. But because their

creative development team lags so far behind their IT department, essentially, they can't communicate this. Okay. And so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, this weird place where it's not just to say that creatives are being stymied. In some cases, creatives are running wild. And there's no middle ground because I think this brings it back to the very misdude observation you made, which is in whose interest is everyone working and are people working in the same direction. That's a serious, that's a serious problem undergirding all of this. Yeah. We are in a weird moment. I think this is not, my goal in this, much like it was on the text thread about the Eagles, is not to be doom and gloom. Oh, no. But this is deeply,

a transitional moment and it is unclear what's what's happening on the other end of it. And it's feeling, and I feel like you'd agree with me too, like even anecdotally in our interactions, that even though we are years past this being in inevitability, people seem to be only mourning the death of the cable bundle now. Yeah. Like now that the bill has come due or now that the awareness is that we broke the single most successful profitable thing. And, you know, again, not to put on my, you know, handing out leaflets on the college quad outfit again, which was fantastic outfit. It was probably got probably a lot of stuff from the thrift shop

plus pants from structure or something. This is the 90s. That the cable bundle was... You were probably wearing like a Waltham Girls softball t-shirt? No, I probably... No, you knew me. I was probably wearing like a linen vest from the Banana Republic outlet.

Like, it was pretty fly. that I mean the cable bundle The secret of the cable bundle That got us in the end It got us You know madman and and Breaking Bad Et cetera et cetera

Was that everyone was paying money And the money was being collectively pooled and shared Which is kind of the opposite of the rapacious Yeah Capitalism that we're seeing now Where everyone's just out for themselves So that's not me trying to pretend That John Malone and Brian Roberts from Comcast

Are Leninists I'm just saying that that was a different model that allowed shared profit, that when things were relatively equal, people could take artistic chances with the understanding that they were backstopped by this collectivism. That's gone. I am truly when it comes to propping up the cable bundle, I am the watcher on the wall. Yeah? I'm the last one. You're the guy. I'm John Snow. I mean, look, and then we find... I'm John Snow and I'm on the phone with Xfinition, with Spectrum being like, guys. Yeah, but then I'm the guy who we were talking about this

is like we both agree. And then last night, I was unable to watch the Sixers play in game because I don't have access to ESPN right now. Why not? Because it's a large... Is YouTube in a disagreement with Disney about something? No, I'm in a disagreement

about what my path forward is. Because, as you know, I famously canceled DirecTV recently. Yeah. And I kind of forgot to pick something else. It's fine. So, wait, you're a television podcaster with no TV right now.

Well, do I really need TV? I mean, I have screeners for sugar. I'm fine. You're good. I've got everything I need. You're good. We got off track on that. But so I did like in the piece, and we can move on a second, but like I think the idea about stripping value from the production system like copper pipes from a house, is a direct quote, is accurate.

You know, I think the trickle down effect from all of the fear, but also the cost cutting that has caused the fear and that perpetuates it has trickled down to a degree that, you know, has trickled down to a degree that. it has affected everyone in the industry and the and the effect of the strikes as well. Look, I think that there's there's another point in here that I will just make briefly to echo something in the in the Bessner piece, which is essentially the often mocked, even by you and me, idea that Hollywood is somehow special. Yeah, I wanted to get to this too. And the studios and that there is a cultural inheritance and a. and a

that it is somehow like a very valued export that we make things here that charm, entertain, provoke. Delight the world. Delight the world, right?

And I use all the and I'm doing air quotes even though I'm not doing air quotes, but like I understand how ridiculous that sounds. No one can see you. It's okay. But at the same time, I don't think that we would be doing

what we're doing if we didn't also believe in it a little bit. Of course. Yeah, that's the thing. The idea that now all of the, whether it's people or places or even just the ideas that, yeah, this is actually kind of important. And sometimes we should do things because we know it's the right thing to do or because it's good for the medium or because you need balance of it can't all just be video game adaptations or it can't all just be Chuck Lorry shows or whatever it is. I mean, Chuck Lurie now almost seems like an otore in this era.

I think that's a really interesting point that he makes here, which is like if you start basically, you can still call it Paramount or you can still call it this or that, but actually it's owned by BlackRock and Vanguard who want to make sure that they get like a Q4 bump or something like that, then you start really getting away from the Hollywood that they show us in Babylon. But it's always been show business, and it's always been a very, very uncomfortable collision

between art and commerce. And also, I mean, for a long time, like, writers have had a very deeply, like, complicated relationship with the idea of Hollywood. I mean, this, this whole, like, you know, go watch Mank, you know, and it's like all these, all these guys coming west to cash in after years of toiling either in newspapers or being short story writers. Or blogs. I'm sorry. Go on. What? You know, it's, I think that there's always been this kind of, like, it's this, it's this chalice. It could be poisoned out here. Yeah, and nothing is promise and nothing is guaranteed.

And, you know, the collective freak out from the creative classes here is, this is the other point that I was trying to make about, like, this is just everything that's happening in this country writ large. I mean, it's the same thing that happened to Uber driver. I mean, everyone is freaking out for the same reasons because the ladder is being pulled up and there is no stability. This is just a very high profile industry that is drawing a lot of attention and also one that. It has not just the megaphone of the press and the attention of the world, but also, like, relatively strong unions. So that's why that aspect of it, I think, has been, has been interesting and also felt pretty significant.

But the balancing act is no different. I mean, the idea of trying to put certainty into the production of something creative is forever. I mean, that's the real three-body problem at the root of all of this. That's the stable age and the chaotic age is. that's what this has always been. And I think when we started this podcast probably at some point in 2012 or 2013, joking about Kevin Feigey's release date calendar through 2017, that's what that was. That's what we've been living in for a while. And I think that ultimately, the challenge of an article like this or even some of our conversations when they get a little bit in the weeds on this

podcast is that the evidence of this struggle is not yet on screens. And where this is going and what it will mean ultimately in people's lives, both in the audience, but even in people who work in the industry, is very much unknown. So these are attempts to kind of wrap arms around or wrap many, many paragraphs around something that feels very fissile. I think that the volcanic change that we have been feeling over the last year or so between the strikes and everything else is only going to just keep getting rockier. And I don't necessarily think that there won't be great shows coming out of it and that people won't do amazing work. But I feel like this is a story we're going to be tracking for the rest of the time that we do this podcast.

Yes, how long is that? It depends on whether you come back from this Brazil game for the Eagles. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back.

Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply.

The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points,

and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predicts, and predicted from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk

and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. With all of that set, all of the turmoil, all of the uncertainty, all of the like, are we sure we know what we're doing stuff going on? This week we had an episode of television, the penultimate episode of television from a season of television that has been so uniformly,

and so satisfying. It has done all the things that TV reliably, or at least in its best possible shape, can do, introduces you to new places, introduces you to new actors, makes heretofore unknown characters into

household names, pretty much. Yeah. And has become kind of a sensation. You know, I mean, I think I was looking for information about Shogun information. I was doing a little bit of education for myself on Reddit. You sound like...

The show on Reddit is like... It's got to have like Game of Thrones level engagement. The way in which like the amount of posts, the amount of comments on each post, the amount of like pretty thoughtful discussion about what's going on on the show and like there's like book chatter and all that stuff. So just to see something kind of emerge

from the huge field of candidates and become like, oh, this is the show that when I say, hey man, what was good in 20? A-24, you're going to say, show gun. And, you know, how's the dragon in industry? And there's so many other things to come. But I think that it might wind up being the definitive show of the year. Yeah. And I wonder, I mean, we don't, again, we do not have, we are not journalists in this way. We do not have the metrics for it. But when you talk about like that kind of, when you do that

kind of internet shoe leather of like the conversation and the type of conversation and where that conversation seems to be reaching, it sounds old-fashioned to me. And that was, you know, part of this project from the beginning, right? Like, absolutely the brain trusted FX was like how they've always been doing this. Like, how did people historically watch TV? What do they look for? What did they engage in? What is not being served right now?

And you go all the way back from the beginning, this was a phenomenon event limited series from a book that really, really fired up a large swath of the nation, if not the world, when it was published, you know, 40 plus years ago. So sometimes it's always hard, but sometimes it's not complicated, right? like the execution was incredibly hard, and we're going to talk about it because I think this episode may be the best episode of the series, may end up being the best episode,

and I think it is a absolute, like, just put it on the plaque in terms of what... It's the N-S-O-I mixtape episode. Yeah. What these, all these individuals creatively accomplished in unison, like what they did here is it's all there. They left it on the field in this one.

But at the end of the day, being like, let's make something that a lot of people are going to get excited about. this has all the tools. Drafting is it. Drafting is not an exact science, as we're all about to learn in two weeks. But, you know, sometimes you've got all the measurables, and this show has had it.

But, God, the fact that it delivered on it, it's wild to me. So obviously Crimson Sky is the name of the episode, and it's an idea that's been kicked around on this series for most of the season, where it was supposed to be this brazen, all-out military assault led by Toranaga on Osaka.

And it was that, but it was not an all-out military assault as much as it was what could one person do to change the tides. And either, I don't know, I mean, if Toranauga really does want to prevent a war, as Mariko says,

which is just, he just wants peace. He just wants the fighting to end. He essentially uses, I'm sure very, very sincerely, the loyalty that people have pledged to him as a wedge to get into

to get into Osaka and to start sewing discord among the royal families who are quasi-imprisoned there. I think that I had a couple of notes about the structure of this episode or at least the storytelling style of it that I think are more conversation pieces than there are cadix.

But I think it needs to be the headlock is that, like, Anna Swai just absolutely is a star, I guess, and is just so wonderful in this episode has been over this arc of episodes where she has obviously been headed towards this conclusion. Although, let me ask you, did you feel like it was an inevitable end to this character? Well, a couple of things. I do want to, you're pointing out the Toranaaga strategy, and it made me think about how we often are saying, like, ah, that person's playing chess when everyone else is playing checkers. But one of the things, you know, as a former Grandmaster myself,

one of the things that I know about chess is that you have to sacrifice a lot of your pieces often to win, especially like on a high stakes game. Everything I learned from chess, I learned from watching Queen's Gambit four years ago, by the way, which and I have not rewatched it. But like you rarely, rarely see, with good reason, I think on a human level,

the grandmaster just sacrificing, not just pawns, but like the most valuable pieces on the board, the way that he has done in the last two weeks. So that is a very, very different way think about even fictional war and how we're seeing it fought on the show. I think that my feelings about, I mean, Anis Wise performance is one for the ages and it's absolutely magnetic. And I don't know, were you thrown it all by her media tour this week? Like, did that give you the sense?

I think that this show has probably arrived at the, if you don't watch it, the night it's released, you're in for some tough internet sledding. So yes, like, I did not know that that was happening this week, but Vulture more or less spoiled it with a headline the next morning, and then she was on Colbert. She's absolutely phenomenal. It's like one of those rare moments when, because there are great acting performances where you would carve them out and say, like, well, no one else could have played that part, and whether that's because of someone's biographical truth that they bring to the role or their cultural background, or they look like they're casting for looks. There are very few people who could be, you know, there were very few people available to them who could play this part that

ticked all the boxes in terms of fluency in multiple languages, et cetera, et cetera. But she is also so wildly and uniquely charismatic. Her stillness as a weapon throughout was just breathtaking. But you were asking about inevitability. And for me, that's, to answer that is to look at kind of the mastery that Justin Marks and Rachel Condo and their whole team have been executing throughout the last few weeks. I got Freddie Toy. Fred Toy Yeah. That's a great name.

Everything that we see, like when we watch TV particularly a series like this, it's, of course, it's cumulative, right? Like everything we've seen is going to inform what we see next. Oh, they're willing to do that. Ergo, they're going to do it again. Or we won't fall for it twice, right? And so if you think about the Sepaku we saw at the end of last week, which was an absolute, you know, white knuckle moment of escalation.

What are you going to say? Got punched and then you realize, wasn't a very appropriate thing to say with Sepaku. I am not going to comment. You're the one watching my face here. And we know, no edits. It's all live to tape. That informed our viewing of the Merrico

Sepaku moment that almost occurred. And watching it, feeling the stakes raised, knowing that it has happened, changed the way we view that scene. And now, I'll say to be, I just want to be, I don't know if everyone else here, this. Like, I am so enraptured by Shogun. I never touch my Apple remote to see how much time is left.

Yeah. Which is actually, which I do more than I realize, either because I have other things to do or I'm running late to, I don't know, hypothetically say, record a podcast. Or I kind of am trying to cheat and be like, well, there's only this many minutes left. So this is the last scene. So it's going to happen. I do. I, this is me, but Ripley. We're like, I actually have been almost shocked by the end of Ripley episode. because I'm like 55 minutes did not just go by. It flew by. So in this case, the previous episode informed our reaction to this moment. And then when it is, when Ishido comes in and ends it, I was like, ah. And then I absolutely, like the sucker they hoped I would be, put my guard down. Did you?

Yes. I did not. I did. I mean, I didn't think that everything was going to work out. But I also was not, I definitely took my eye off the ball. about what was actually still going to happen in this episode. I did not think a happy ending was coming at the end of this or next week's conclusion, but it jobbed me.

I was completely in the moment, which is as much as you can ask for from a TV drama. Let me ask you this. So I think that there is, it's totally fine to just be like there are certain concepts in this era of Japanese culture that are somewhat foreign to our like Western ideas about even loyalty, you know what I mean? And fate and in a lot of ways, the spirituality that surrounds a lot of these characters, whether they're Buddhist or Catholic or Protestant. And in some ways, Enisowai's, like, quote unquote, stardom to the extent that I guess,

or her emergence, is very much a product of, like, the opening up of the idea of, like, what would you watch on TV? And the fact that she's kind of come to us via Giri Haji Pichinko and now this. She was in Monarch, too, right? Then she was in Monarch, which is another show Apple is spinning off, which is notable. I didn't mention that. My point is more like, if you watch it from, like,

when you fully give yourself over to the ideas that are being talked about on this show. And if you do that, Mariko has been telling you what's going to happen to her for three or four episodes now. With great calm and with great confidence. Yes. And desire. And like, that is truly what, like, it's not like just talk me out of it. It's like, no, this is actually losing my life or ending my life, which is what I want,

in the purpose, in the service of something greater than myself, will redeem what has really been a miserable life, you know, with few exceptions. A couple of pillow talk nights with a Protestant aside, you know? Well, and there's also, as we did learn, there's only one thing that ever would have made her want to live, which would be her husband asking her to die. Yeah. That's the only thing that has ever made her be like, no. Which is very specific.

She doesn't want to die with her husband. She does not want to be captured. You know, she is, it has to be a very specific end to her life. And it might take you a second to get your head around that. Just the same way it might have last week with the Sepaku scene from last week, where you're just like, this is not something that like I think a lot of Western audiences are particularly familiar with. and I was curious whether or not you bumped up against that.

I did not. I actually thought it was part of like the beauty of there is an international language of storytelling. Yes. And an international spectrum of ideas and a chronological spectrum of ideas that even if you're like, well, I can't really think of many things that I would commit sepico over, I would still, I still deeply identified with the idea of wanting your life to mean more than it does. Yeah. And I think, again, this is where the framing of,

the story and the reframing of the story for this 2024 version serves it so, so very well, because a story about someone learning a foreign language is probably not that much drama. A story about someone subsumed in and learning a foreign culture is a much deeper and richer story. And this works because Blackthorn is, and, you know, it's notable how utterly passive the character has been other than a few choice moments that we're going to talk about in this. episode and previous episodes. But he is mostly walking around looking, feeling, looking troubled.

Nice. Drawing gestures in a stone garden. Just trying to disrupt. He has nothing, he has nothing to do. But also, he feels he is, I mean, that was a beautiful moment because he's looking at it. And I think at this point he understands the beauty of the flow of these lines that are drawn in the sand.

And all he can do is try and disrupt them. That's what he is. Like his character is doing that to this world. And so when in the moment of the Sepuku and he's, it's not just that he wants to protest it, it's that he's looking around and everyone is sitting down in the audience. The sheet has been brought. Everything is being done.

This is rolling along because this is what is done. This is understood. And he's the one who's in objection to it. And it's a subtle thing. I would be interested in seeing the way these scenes were conveyed in the original miniseries, not to be like, aha, people in 1980, sure, were culturally insensitive, but more like the way that you show your, which perspective the camera is representing through camera.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like my guess is Richard Chamberlain's objections, such as they are, would be the focus as opposed to being in inevitability. And then there is something. This is a testament to how this entire scene was framed, let alone this episode,

that when he volunteers to second, that feels like, for me as an audience member and I imagine others, that felt beautiful. That felt like the most beautiful thing he could say at that moment as opposed to the more Western thing

that he had been saying to her for episodes like live your life for yourself, you don't have to do this. Yeah, for a show and a story that so much of it is been about these different languages and different concepts or ideas being translated,

that was his translation of the love that he feels for this person was to help her do this thing. You know what I mean? Like was to give in to her... To listen to her. Yeah, to listen to her. You know, he could have chosen to make her a cup of tea, but we know that doesn't. That's not the key to her. Well, I just, I did find, I think that the

moment where they're both holding, I think, the rosary and what is Martin said to her is like when you need something, when words don't come and you need something to hold on to, like hold on to this. And I thought that was an incredible moment for these two people who have kind of been thrown together because of language to be in a moment that's sort of almost beyond language. I also think Tommy Basto

who plays Father Martine is awesome performance. Really, really subtle, empathetic. Is Nestor Carbonell's character alive? I believe so. Because he's just on he's on a boat somewhere. I was just hoping he could just be like ah. He might come back.

He was scum sucking maggot. I love you. And the kiss. I also think that, and I want to We want to talk about more about the end. But knowing what happened in that scene right before Ishido interrupts and then what happens at the end, the moment that they share when they sleep together again this time without pretense was an incredibly effective moment. And also in conveying culture, because, and I don't mean to be glib, but I'm going to be slightly glib. Like, that was, for Mariko, that was a rump spring of moment. That was a what happens in Vegas moment.

She was not in the world anymore. She had made her exit from the world. She had made peace with her exit from the world. And then there was a stay. And she was sort of floating in an in-between place, right? And before going right back to what she had intended to do, though not how she intended to do it. I thought that was incredibly, I don't know, it was bittersweet.

It was very beautiful, considering it that way. The whole episode was orchestrated so beautifully because you get these series of acts of defiance by her. So you start with her poetry slam for Ishido and we see her first interacting with Oshiba and like the tension that's there but like her

kind of just being like, no, I'm actually going to push I'm going to push this like issue of the idea of like I'm leaving and if I'm not allowed to leave you have to admit that you are essentially a dictator here. And that you don't, this isn't, like, nobody is here because they want to be

because they're here because you are trying to control dissent among the royal families. Then there's the very physical and very amazingly staged column that's leaving the castle where, you know, all those samurai sacrifice themselves for her and she gets to use

some of her own warrior traits that she's got. And, you know, the arrows are hitting right by her feet That was wild. It was just this incredible scene. And just like, even, you know, Yabashige and Blackthorn kind of cutting across different parts of the wall so that they can keep seeing down, it was such an amazingly staged sequence. Then you finally get to Mariko just saying, you know, like, if you're not going to let me go, then I'm going to need, I've failed. And if I've failed, I need to take my own life and I'm going to do it at sunset.

He gives her this brief reprieve, but it's not really because he's about to let, let the, Shinobi out. We're going to get to our fucking homies in a second. I love it. So it's just an incredibly, like, if you break it down almost in these beats, and the beats get louder and louder and more profound and more profound, and then has this kind of this sort of U-turn at the end, I just thought that the way they orchestrated that was like really, really, really beautiful storytelling. Yeah, the staging of the exit is just, it's just phenomenal, phenomenal television. She's so good in that scene. She's so good in the scene. And think, about though like I can't help I just am so obsessed with how this is the rare show that

you can tell by watching it that the people making it were doing the micro and the macro at the same time not the dosing I mean in terms of their perspective on what they were making that it wasn't just that they were cooking up a sick sequence for us to enjoy with it yeah like you said with the arrows when she gets the weapon that they make it, what, like, they make it 20 yards, but it feels like they've traveled miles. Yeah. It feels like it's taking forever. The stakes are so amazing.

But then the macro view of it, which is, you know, people are going to be saying this is the, FX clearly wanted, and then some headlines even said this, like, this is a Game of Thrones worthy epic. But Game of Thrones was often so celebrated for what it was able to show at the end on the scale of its, not the beginning. But, I mean, what we remember a lot about it was the scale of its battles and hard. and Hard Home and Dragons and White Walkers and all this, and how this was the Shogun version of a penultimate episode battle that actually was more about restraint than about anything else and what wasn't done.

So one of the complicated aspects of this episode, it wasn't a critique, but I feel like it's worth saying that just in my initial viewing of the episode, I did find the Yabashishee, role, the role he played throughout the episode, and the amount of characters who essentially had hidden agendas was just a little bit initially confusing. So on like a cursory watch without reading any recaps

without going into like, okay, Reddit, explain this to me without listening to Robin Joe. Like, I was like, okay, I'm a little underwater with like what Yabashige and Blackthorn in the, their broken language have agreed to be ado. What the purpose is of Yabashige, I mean, he is essentially going as like a herald to Ishido to say,

he's coming, you know, Toranaag is coming, I am surrendering first. And, you know, and like I'm giving you a list of everybody who's going to surrender. So just FYI.

And then Mariko is sent to then press the issue of like, he's told you, I'm here, I'm taking these two, and we're going back so Tornaaga can see his son one more time before he comes back to him. I didn't know that was his baby. That was news to me in this episode.

He was hiding a child. He was hiding a child. The, I didn't have enough time to prepare my who in Shogun is who in the contemporary rap world. I would love that piece to be done. It feels like the ringer is the website to do it. Probably. So Yabashiga is there as the herald of Tornaga

to announce the surrender to say that it's coming when he's finished with his grieving. He then tries to cut a side deal saying, I have surrendered, I apologize, essentially I apologize for my deviousness. I have brought you a gift to show my loyalty to you, which is this guy, and he and his ability to do cool stuff with cannons. And is that enough? And Ishito's like, are you fucking kidding me? Absolutely not. So then he does, then Yabashige is told, you will be forgiven, but you just have to help me out. You don't have to die. the helping him out is extremely better call Saul vibes, by the way.

Not to spoil that show for people who haven't watched it. But that is some real, real, real, Saul Don Lalo's Casita vibes. So he's going to leave the door open for... And by the way, Ishido is just a dirty dog. He is. He is always doing... I guess permits just don't count for anything in this society.

My guy pulls shenanigans outside of the gates. You didn't know? That feudal Japan had permits? You haven't gone to the DMV? in Ado, just to get your walking papers. It's just that like, you know, if they ever were to do more Shogun or if there were spinoffs, just like... Can you imagine being the first guy who was told he had to get a permit, like in human history?

Like he'd been leaving all this time and someone tells you? No, just like the first dude who's like, I'm going up to this guy, and I'm going to be like, you got an extra ox on that cart. You're going to need a permit for that and just be like, what are you talking about? Well, that would be you. But then there are other people like me who would be like, oh, thank goodness. It's been too chaotic. These oxen are just the trod it all over the road.

That ox cut me off on the 110 today. There's just shenanigans outside of the gates. There's always thieves and robbers and murderers and Shinobi. There's just a lot of wild stuff out there that I feel like I'd love to get some more screen time. So he lets these guys in. And then waits and then pretends to be shocked also. What I was unclear about was what was the Shinobi's mission. Now, as someone who is a big fan of Shinobi, particularly the revenge of Shinobi,

I know my mission is to side scroll across multiple levels throwing katana, throwing, no, throwing stars. Shinobi was my downfall, the game on Sega. So much. I think I was, I loved my parents. I was a sweet kid. Yeah. And then Shinobi came into my life.

We're talking revenge of Shinobi. Yeah. On Seamus. Yeah. And when revenge of Shinobi came into my life, I took on a different, a different air. Do you know? I became dedicated to the dark art. I just want to say

like we are both human like fallout might not be our thing but revenge of Shinobi was our thing if they fucking made revenge if Amazon made revenge of Shinobi and every episode was 80 minutes and it all came out at once I would literally pay for my wife to go to a hotel

and I would have straight up Pringle can hands just watching Shinobie the 16 bit music when that dude's face showed up on the screen does for me with the X-Men 97 music does for Mina.

Okay? Like, that just sends me. Yeah. And also, one thing that you guys with your, like, you know, fucking giant open role-playing world games don't understand is that we were just peasants waiting for crumbs from heaven. You were timing jumps, son. So hard. And the game was so hard.

At the end, it would say, you did a good job, Shinobi. And then it would, like, start again. And be like, what? I failed sixth grade. But my mother hates me But then you'd get like You'd pick up your copy of electronic gaming monthly It'd be like Shinobi 3 is coming

And I'd be like oh no Seventh grade is about to be a problem And then a game would come out It was clearly 18 years old and freshman year But if you remember you would get the game It would be like 50 bucks for Genesis or whatever And you put the cartridge in And you'd see a guy that kind of looks like Shinobi

But now he has a dog And instead of throwing stars the dog attacks people. I think I got into skateboarding by this point. Okay, here we go. This is what you do. Is this payback for all the nights? I'd be like, one more drink.

I got to go. Is that what you're doing this? Anyway, and it was clearly that they just made a, they were like, oh, Americans really like Revenge of Shinobi. I got a dog game. I can't sell anyone. Let's rebrand it. Anyway, okay.

So the Shinobi come in. Yeah. Not our friend Shinobi, different Shinobi. But I was a little bit. I don't know what Ishido. Like Ishido could have just let Mariko do that. I guess he feels like he would have been disgraced for allowing that. I don't know what level of disgrace he's in for when it's like,

so your Shinobi went through, slaughtered a bunch of people, and then blew up Mariko. And I assume your plan was to kill all of those people. Well, that was the plan to, I thought the plan wasn't to kill her. It was to kidnap her again or to actually. But they were lighting fuses outside, right? Well, they were trying to blow the doors. I don't know if they knew anyone was sitting behind there,

but before when they entered, were they trying to, because online I've seen this, I've seen two different things, that they were there. They were like a hit squad. That's embraced debate. Or, I mean, this is... Have you ever heard of this website? It's called Wikipedia.

It seems very, very well-sourced. An army of Shinobi infiltrate the castle, but Blackthorn prevents them from kidnapping Mariko. I mean, the chaos, Blackthorn, they blah, blah, blah. Shinobi set up explosives to blow the door, but she willingly stands in front of it to defy him. Right, because she's like, I cannot be captured.

She says that. Yes. She also, like, she is really banking on everybody's memory in that moment. Because no one has their cell phones out being like, let me record the last will and testament. I guess I understand if she's like, if I'm captured, there's no Maggie Haberman here to be like...

She fell asleep during the capture? Democracy dies in darkness. Oh, right. And so she can't, like, how, how does word get out that she's necessarily being held against her will or whatever? I think you're misreading the times. Like the fake news thing is relatively recent.

I mean, I think when Yabashige and Blackthorne, they all come out of there, they'll be like, guess what happened? And everyone will be like, seems right. But who are they going to tell? They've got,

they probably, there's some leaks maybe. Oh, the spy. Well, there are spies everywhere. There's spies everywhere. But also, is Toranaugas's plan here, It seemed to be under... I'm waiting for the final episode to be over

before I'm like, I get it now. Toranaaga was putting his playmakers out there in position to succeed. But this is also... Yabushige is Nico Patum I hope saving us in the last minute. No, but this does appear to be... The Mariko plot seems to be an attempt to soften

the political power, the assumption of power that Ishido has done, right? Because he knows that she... I don't know if he ran the odds. Also, are you, can I ask you another question? Did you think it was implied that Ishido's permit Roboop was a lady Oshiba plan? That she was swayed and didn't want her friend to die. That's possible.

Oh, no, I didn't think that. I did not think that. I thought she was like, this is all bullshit. What she's doing is like, you think that she's, call her bluff. Call her bluff. But he was like, she's not bluff. We don't know. Okay.

We don't know. We're going to hopefully find out. I also think, do you think that Toranauga, we'll know more after this week or next week, but does Toranauga need a peat for Moneyball just to be like running the numbers on some of these stratagems? I mean, his peat is like, he's losing all his peats. These were all of his peats. Yeah. They're all gone now. Yeah.

He lost his son. He lost Mariko. He lost Hiramatsu. Yeah. Like Blackthorns out. Yabashige is a rat. Abeshigues just doing... Yo, he's a fucking scumbag,

honestly, though. Wow. I love the actor, and I love the performance, but now we have kind of crossed the... He gave his guy a drink before he stabbed him up. You know, that was nice.

Right? Stabbed him up. So next week, when the finale comes, we're going to go on Tuesday. That's when we're going to release our podcast. I didn't know that. That's good. That seems like a good plan.

Yes. That seems like a good plan. I'm worried that after the events of this episode, John Blackthorn doesn't have a lot of, like, pep in his step. Well, I'm worried that no one's going to understand him. Oh. Not a lot of English speakers left or Portuguese speakers left. Well, there's, there's Kiama.

There's the Christian region. Oh, that's right. He's like, hello. They get along great. Yeah. They seem fine. He's like, hello. Blackthorne's like, no, no, tell me.

Portuguese speakers everywhere hiding from me. Devious. Problematic. Not a lot of Blackthorn from me in this episode. Well, he's melancholy. It's Mariko's episode. Yeah, what's he supposed to do? This episode is brought to you by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in.

Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Shall we talk a little bit about Ripley, 4 and 5 before we get out of here? Also, I do think in the spirit of like, you know, the UCB teachers that trained us, you know,

usually like I do my best work off of prompts. So I'm not saying you didn't do your half the bargain, but I'm just, I'm just a vessel, you know. I promise to bring you a series of prompts next week for a live audience. I think that sounds great. Ripley's Epioply episodes 4 and 5. So it was La Dolce Vida and Lucio. Can I start at 5 and just talk about the cat? I know that your better half wants to talk about the cat as well.

We could also start from 5 and say, remember last week on this pot, or maybe not last week, maybe it was Monday, but you said, you looked me in the eye, and you were like, you sure you're going to be able to hang with this show? And I forgot that you had seen ahead. It was more just like, we're not just gallivanting in Atrani anymore. You know, like we're going into the heart of darkness.

Yeah. Episode five was a tough one for your boy, but I can, I respond to greatness. That's what this is. This is greatness. Yeah. This show, I don't think, has had a dead moment. and there's been a couple dead bodies,

but there's not a dead moment. I brought the cat for a reason. There's a reason behind everything I do. Not only is that great cat acting, which my wife is quite a connoisseur of cat performances, and she assured me that she rarely sees cats cast so well. But it created this sensation that I have when I'm watching it, where I'm like, and this is filmmaking.

But it's like, that is the perfect, cat to be sitting on the perfect bench at the bottom of the most perfect apartment building with the perfect broken elevator, with the perfect neighbors and the perfect landlady, and the stones and the record play, I mean, like all the furnishings inside of Dickie, but Tom's apartment. And I don't know whether it's the cinematography that's creating this sort of patina of seemingly effortless perfection about this show, but there's not a single shot wasted.

There's not a single character who's cast wrong. There is just this sense of like, he's throwing a perfect game to me. You know what I mean? And I'm sure people are like, well, this isn't, it's not as good as the 99 Ripley or there's lots of different colors we could throw out there or whatever, but like, I'm like, in a weird way,

don't really I want to talk about it because I'm like, this is too fucking good. I don't want to spook the picture. What I want to say, though, is in response to your observation about filmmaking, and we've been throwing that term around a lot, and often then we default to talking about direction or production design. And what I can't get over is that what we mean when we say, this is elite filmmaking or he's throwing a perfect game or whatever,

is the cohesion of every distinct element into an apparently seamless or flawless whole. Because when you're talking about the moments of the cats, you were correctly talking about finding the right cat. Talking about lighting the cat, talking about finding the right building. Getting the cat to react to an elevator or steps or whatever, yeah. And that's also editing, you know, which looking at the cat footage, choosing the exact right second and cutting it. And I can hear Phoebe volunteering in real time for this here to four undiscovered job in Hollywood. What if he had to sort through three and a half hours of cat reaction shots to pick those? be so happy. I want this for her.

And when all of them are in concert, like, again, it's almost cheap to use some of the language that we, nothing about this show is cheap. But it feels almost thoughtless to use some of the language we use about other would-be Ripley's when we talk about Ripley. You could say transporting, right? And you could say it because they fucking shot at the Coliseum at night in Rome. Yeah, that's goddamn transatlore.

That's a vacation most of us wish we could take. But that's not everything that makes it transporting. What makes it transporting is everything that led up to it. The tension in the air, I keep talking about the Foley and the sound and the score and the performances and the tension and the editing, all of which transport me to a place that feels real. There are moments when watching the show, if my mind wanders for a moment. And I fall in love with the way Tom buys all of the newspapers at the newsstand and he puts his Lira down

and he finishes his, and then he goes and gets his coffee or he finishes his coffee. And in that moment, I'm just completely to the absolute core of my being believing that I'm watching a truth. Right? Like in a weird way, even though this is a beautifully sculpted fiction, but I'm like, this exists.

They shot this in 1960. Like, I fucking am gone. That is a leaving my body with the spirit of imagination transportation transportation transporting that can only happen when everything is working in concert together. I don't understand. I don't understand

did they just have the single greatest production designer in the whole world to be like, I'm going to pick the one street in Rome where you're never going to feel like it's not Rome in 1960, whatever. And that's really hard. It was the hardest thing

is New York because I don't know how you shoot that without the sound and the light and everything of New York kind of seeping into the frame. So episode four is this kind of a little bit of, it's a chase sequence or it's a getaway sequence of Tom

going back to Otrani and essentially starting to become Dickie by taking his shit. It's this guy who's like already started to pick out these different accoutrements from Dickie's body, literally

the ring, the cigarette, etc., the sunglasses. And then he goes back to this guy's house and is taking on all of the things that made dicky-dicky, whether it's his clothing, whether it's art, whether it was his Picasso, whether it was his boat. And some of it he's using as...

The whatever that is, seen with the hotel concierge about the Picasso is delicious. And the thing I thought was so fascinating about this was, A, the tension of, when you're watching it, you as an audience member, I cannot help but start to get swept up

in the very natural, like, I want him to get away with this. Yes, that's why people keep coming back to this story. He's a psychopath, but I want the story to keep going, and I want him to stay two steps ahead of these people. And also, the kind of line between hate and desire is, and Tom obviously hates these people.

But he also wants to be them. And he doesn't just want their money. He literally wants to become them. He wants to take on their lives, their friends, their way of moving through the world, their interests, Caravaggio, et cetera. He wants to transform. And he almost seems completely unperturbed by his actions

because they seem like a, not unlike what we're talking about with Mariko, they are a natural conclusion to his greatest desire. Yes, and he looks at these people with their, like, you know, their idle lives and they never work. And he works nonstop all the time he is working. He must be so exhausted, you know, but these skill sets that he has. And I love the way the storytelling, the visual storytelling, that was expended in the first episode

of seeing Tom alone in his element, making the phone calls, typing the letters, the rigor that he was willing to endure for relatively meager returns is so important in establishing the rhythms not just of the show, but of a character that we're going to believe in,

because when it comes then time to do this with the passports and to take his little glue brush and perfectly do that, and then when it comes time to dispose of bodies, it's the same precision throughout and he seems to be operating under a bedrock assumption that through hard work

he can become them which is kind of like that's the American dream right there and that's the American dream and it's also the it's a very subtle and I think beautifully and intentionally subtle piece of this I mean of the whole Ripley project

like even back to the original books but and we I think that one of the the totally subtle brilliant acts of this show is the way Stephen Zalian is keenly aware of that as a person of the world and a student of the books and has read them a lot and has communicated that to us or at least I feel like it was communicated to me

through the Greenlee family through the journey we had with them on the show where Tom goes into a working place where boats are being put together and sees the father on the floor and he's like he's a working man then he sees what his son has become and he's like well I will in many ways be a better

son because I will do the work and continue to do the work to be to achieve this life that is not as free and easy as your Marges or your Dickies or your, what's his name? Freddie. Freddie's, believe. Speaking of Freddie. Largely, Freddie back. Yeah, Freddy's back and then Freddy's gone. So I wanted to ask you, you know, I think for as much as Matt Damon looms large as Ripley,

for as much as Jew law looms large as Dickie. in people's minds. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance as Freddie in the 1999 film version of this movie is probably the most, I would say, the most challenging thing

to overcome, at least in my mind in terms of like, who is going to take on that role and somehow do better than Philip Seymour Hoffman. Elliot Sumner is used fleetingly, and I think effectively,

and I thought brilliantly, ultimately. You know, I think I was rewatching The scene essentially, two scenes, one from the film, one from the show, of Freddie moving through this apartment, fucking with the stuff,

fingering a bunch of like belongings, noticing things that are off, and then finally confronting Tom with, here's what I think is going on. Like, I think that there's, or at least I know that there is something weird going on, and I want you to know that I'm going to get to the bottom of it. In the movie, I believe,

Freddie is bludgeoned with a statue. and in the television show, he's bludgeon with an ashtray that Tom picks up earlier in the day, which almost makes it seem premeditated. Well, also that, again, the confidence to frame that, the whole thing where he's acquiring things for his life and he buys the perfect thing,

I'm sure I'm not the only person who watched that scene and knew what that significance of this was going to be. Yes. But it's still thrilling to watch. Yeah. And then it's incredibly violent, so I wanted to ask you. I mean, like, not, what was it about five that you were like, oh, is this what Chris meant by Tough Hang Department? Oh, it's just, it's because it's excruciating.

Because these are master practitioners, actors, filmmakers, everyone, knowing exactly what they're doing and exactly how they're going to get there and crafting it, again, with editing to exact the optimal amount of tension. and dread and inevitability. So I'm familiar with the story. I know that Freddie is not coming out of that apartment under his own power. It didn't make it easier to watch. And then also knowing, it's that this is the thrill of the show. This is the chemical high of it, right? Like we know he's not getting caught.

We know he's taking him down the stairs too. We know he's taking him down the stairs. But how is it going to go? Yeah. And there's this incredible recurring motif. that Zalien is doing where everyone looks at Tom a certain way. You know, always the eyes in the rearview mirror from the cabbies or the people at the bank or the hotel clerks.

They linger. And the show is filmed from the perspective that we feel the judgment. You know, which I think in a, this is a bizarre exercise for me to even spell out with words. But like, if there was some sort of like objective tape of this show, I don't think anyone was really looking at him that way, but we are living in his head, and innocuous looks are charged because of what he's carrying right in his head. And so all of that is so, look, I made it through. Yeah. I made it through and appreciate it again. If I called out the Foley work on the desk drawers, I should call out the foley work on Freddie's skull. Well, I think that the-

and the physicality of it. The way that the murder and the cleanup is depicted is, completely the same as the passport manipulation. Like everything is just an unflinching, unjudgmental eye watching this killer move through the world. And the only thing that ever pierces his self mythology that he is actually turning into these people in some ways is the phone. And that piercing phone ringing and I think it has a different ring

when it's being called from downstairs versus from an outside line and so his whole I'm up here and I'm going to look down but the elevator's broken so I can hear how close they are coming up and the steps and everything

and overhearing the argument that Freddie is having with the landlady insisting that that's not that's not Dickie you know where is Dickie and she's like he's up there and just like they're kind of it's just it's so unflinching

and it's so it like you said it is just recording it and and being kind of like hey this is just we're just depicting this behavior the idea that he's safe to in this apartment

like because I wouldn't be I love I love the mistakes that he's making you know and the way that the show he could just run he would be he could have cashed out on that boat and run

yeah he does not want to run he thinks he deserves this. This is what he wants. But the mistakes like checking into the fanciest hotel where everyone stays, you know, and then the Excelsior, yeah. And at the Excelsior hotel in episode four, and the way that shows his face where he's just like, I got it, I made it,

you know, but of course he didn't. And then his face when the phone rings. I mean, that's the other thing that's so subtle and so consistent throughout the series is Andrew Scott's face when he sees cops and it lingers, like, is this the moment? Because he knows the hand is

coming on his shoulder, right? He knows, on I mean, he actually is the Jews for this guy. I mean, from the second we meet him, he's like, I'm basically one step ahead of this ambient reckoning for what I do, but is almost like, how far can I push it until maybe the clamps come? Yeah, and the flicker of, he's been uncomfortable before when Marge doesn't like him, or when Dickie, like, says, are you queer? He's the only one who sees him.

But when Freddie is so deeply dismissive and disgusted, like I've called around, I know what you are. I know what you do. I see those shoes. I see all of it. The writing Picasso on the picture. I think that the casting of Elliot Sumner was really smart precisely for the reasons you said, which is that Philip Seymour Hoffman is so iconic in this part that you can't chase it.

You have to do something completely different. And keep it focused. In my memory of the movie, which I don't remember that well, but also it's a movie, not eight hours. He's a much larger presence. He's walking around the apartment. He's playing the piano. He keeps doing like, ding, and then does like a little, like he's playing it really big. There's also, and I think we'll get into

this more, I think in our discussion of the next couple of episodes, you know, Elliot Sumner's non-binary. Andrew Scott is a gay man playing, you know, a character whose sexuality is, I think, very fluid or up for debate.

And these two interacting in a room, has a different energy to me than Matt Damon and Philipsymore Hoffman and intentionally so. So I think that'll come up a little bit more in future episodes. Should we just mention the use of color in the show for the first time, potentially the only time? Did you notice? Cat pause? Yeah, the cat paws.

Great cat acting. Great. Do you think that was the cat needed that? Yeah. It was in the cat's rider. It was like, you know, any paw work I do is in color. Thank you to Kaya for producing us today. Thanks to everybody for settling in for a nice long.

Do you feel like this is a long one? It felt like it. You flagging? It's because you're using the wrong protein powders again. I have not on any protein powder today. You know what protein knit powder I have? Pure steak,

Robs Pure. That's why you're... See, that's why I feel good today. Thanks to Kai. We'll be back next Tuesday, I think. Okay. That seems good.

And it will be a Shogun finale episode. So you should watch Shogun. Yeah. Have we said that yet? Like just a little late? I hope you are. Yeah. I can't wait.

This podcast is meaningless. Otherwise.