The Watch - Apple Owns TV Right Now. Is That a Good Thing? Plus, ‘Cape Fear’ Series Premiere and ‘Star City’ Episode 3.

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Chris and Andy talk about the Knicks' historic playoff run ahead of Game 3 (3:46) before recommending a pair of documentaries in Netflix’s ‘Marty, Life Is Short’ (8:18) and HBO’s ‘The Dark Wizard’ (13:26). Then they discuss the recent abundance of Apple TV shows and what it says about the state of streaming television (15:51). Later, they break down the ‘Cape Fear’ series premiere (22:27) and ‘Star City’ Episode 3 (49:56). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy and Jason Arreola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I ain't sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me at the studio, the originator of the hashtag Freemax Kady movement, it's Andy Greenwald.

I don't think you should watch Cape Fear on Apple TV for the murder drama. I think you should watch it for the insightful glimpse into the world of podcasting. The lurid world of podcasting, which is featured early on. It is. I love prestige television's concept of podcasting gives me no end of joy. Andy, it's so good to see you.

Monday in America. What do we have on tap? Game three in New York City for the NBA finals. The World Cup begins this week. I'm happy they shut down those watch parties. I'll tell you that much. I want to talk to you about this. Do you?

Yeah. This is one of those days. Yeah, we're going to talk Cape Fear. We're going to talk Star City. But this is one of those days where you came in shot out of a cannon. and we almost started potting before we started potting four times. It's a pretty stimulating world we live in.

Is it? Yeah. I think there's a lot going on. Is this just nithiumum you're feeling right now? Anything is possible? That's the hardest laugh we're going to get from Kaya all day. That's just sadly taking down all her Pratt sites. Damn.

Pratt falls. I was one of the people in Santa Monica who was devastated. I didn't actually get to vote for Spencer Pratt. You're going to hear you. us up at The Watch at Spotify.com. You can follow us on Instagram. At the Watchpod underscore, our lovely production staff was mostly in

Sweden. Well, they were in Sweden, not mostly in Sweden. Well, mentally they were a little checked out. And so we missed out on clipping some incredible culinary conversation that we had at the end of last week's podcast. I think that would have gone. What are the rules about that? Do you feel like, can you dip back

into the vaults? You just like put a little sepia tone on it just from the past? He's going to go back and be like when these guys were talking about Game of Threat. season five. True cooking. Yeah.

Or he could just do the thing where he runs together like the APA research when we have a guest on that I've spoken ill about their work in the past. And you just bring up all the clips when Andy's just been like

not a fan. Remember that all the silence in those pods? You can watch us on YouTube at the ringer dash TV. It's just ringer dash TV. I always say The Ringer and it's ringer dash TV on YouTube.

You can also watch us on Spotify where I hope you listen to us but you can also find us on other podcast platforms. Some housekees. As some people may have heard last night on the Bill Simmons podcast, I'm going to be appearing on co-hosting whatever a World Cup show on the Adam Friedland show. This is a wild turn of events.

I believe it's the Adam Friedland show, colon the beautiful pod is the title. It's a mini-series that we'll do over the course of the World Cup. Adam is making shows for us now or making shows for Spotify. And now we're going to do a little bit of a fun kickoff before his new season of its normal show. a big football fan? He is an unreal ball knower. I must say. Really?

Yes. Yeah. He likes a phone call. He likes to make a phone call and he likes to just kind of just kind of be like, here's some topics I have on all football related. But yeah. It's unbelievable. By the way, I felt that because that's not what I do.

So if this, it's interesting. You found a younger Jewish co-host. Okay. I'm just trying guys out. It's noted. So if you're excited about the World Cup like I am, check that out. That kicks off. I think we're going to have an episode up on Wednesday.

I mean, that's when the World Cup kicks off, so you better get it together. Do you wish you were in New York City today, the center of the known universe? Well, this is tough because as a, I mean, long-time New York resident, I want my friends be happy. Have you yet eclipsed New York with L.A.? In terms of time spent? No, no, no, no. We're barely halfway mark. Okay.

But I can't say I root for the Knicks, but I root for the vibes. And I do want New York to win. And I want my friends in the great city to be happy. It must be tough for you because as a big chemistry merchant, as a big... I thought this would be after dark, but yeah, go ahead. No, we can talk about it now. Because this is something I think everybody is sharing. Everybody has become a Knicks watcher, you know, whether or not they enjoy it or not.

and like everything about this team guys going to college together dudes doing podcasts together the Carl Anthony Towns mom storyline like everything about it Jim Dolan's Big Redemption in New York City

Shalamey Stiller you know like the you crested and now we're going to the other side of the mountain but it just seems like if there was ever a team packaged for you it's this

the only problem is you're from two hours ourselves. Yes. I have, I've said this to you to what I would characterize as open derision, which is two years ago when it became the Nova Nix, I was like, we have to be honest with each other. I would kill to cheer for a team like this. This is a dream situation. If only they weren't wearing the blue and orange. I, yes, I like the vibes. I like the team. I would watch just Carl Anthony Towns's post-game interviews where he just becomes like this, Why is Sacham about the great continuum and loving the beautiful sport that he's given a chance to play?

It's unmoved. It's like a river. Dude, it's unbelievable. Yeah, man. It's very moving. And I'm happy that New York is having a moment. Also, I just realized I have a little packet of granola on the television. Why do you have that?

I was just snack. Dude, you love a free snack. I was just grab something. I was like, maybe that'll taste good this morning. Thanks, guys, for keeping that on camera. I want to say that Sean Fentasy is one of the. great loves of my life, you know? And so I want him to be happy. Yeah. And that's where it starts and ends. That's really nice. Yeah. It also ends at the gate to City Field. And if I have memories of

Sean being relatively supportive of at least the Eagles, not like cheering for them. No, no, no, no. But just being like, I'm happy, you're happy. And so I pass it back to him, the baton of friendship and good sportsmanship. Seeing basketball games at Madison Square Garden is awesome. and it's better if the Knicks are good. And maybe they stay in their own arena. Like the fans as well. I think that would be nice. Also, I think it's good...

Oh, instead of coming to ours. It's good for our narrative as struggling Sixers fans if they never lose again. But do you think that our president is going to kill the vibes tonight? Do you think that he personally will be responsible for their first loss?

I definitely, think that his, whether it's the Secret Service or whatever it is, knocking out all these watch parties and all this street festival vibe that they've got going is not cool and is going to frustrate some people. If he went out and did side talk after the Knicks win like a close game three and was like fuck Trey Young, he'd probably get a third term. first of all you should go into the

advisor racket I think that's not wrong if I was just like shoot this guy full of Adderall and send him out into side talk I think people would overlook some some flaws in his administration tell him what glizzies are

get him on the uptown number one train no I don't know I think it's fucked up yeah I wish those I wish people were able to go watch and like they like canceled it all always out to Battery Park or whatever like yeah it's like the city Midtown's basically shut down.

Man, you love Midtown. That was always your favorite neighborhood to just kind of just walk through. I love sitting in a cafe in Herald Square watching life go by. Nobody gives a shit about this. I do, this is great. Well, I do, but like, you know,

people come here because they want hard-hitting takes on television. And Philadelphia Sports. This is all outside of our... Wait, can I tell you one thing, make one recommendation about television? Of course. Just since we're speaking broadly here.

I don't know if you check this out, but there is a documentary on Martin Short on Netflix. I didn't check this out. It is called Marty, Life is Short, and I recommend it for fans of comedy, for fans of Martin Short, obviously. But it's a great glimpse into a person who seems like a truly wonderful Menchy human being

who is beloved by everyone and is a good performer and a good person and all that, and his history is interesting. It's also at once, like very, very moving about how, much like the Nova Nix, people grew up together and like this foundational Toronto production of Godspell in the 70s

had Gilder Radner and Andrea Martin and Eugene Levy and Martin Short and all these people that went on to Victor Garber like all of these and Paul Schaefer was the bandleader and all these like seminal moments where people were just young people screwing around and then they all became something Catherine O'Hara but the real reason I have to watch this

and I think I need you to watch this is it is a damning indictment of how we've conducted our socially as adults because the backbone of this documentary is Martin Short's home movies either in Los Angeles for his he and his wife Nancy's like legendary Christmas parties or their summers in their cottage which let's be honest it's a little more in the cottage somewhere in somewhere in Canada like a late cottage yeah where they just reliably host Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn

Catherine O'Hare are Eugene Levy like all of these incredibly famous funny people. And I'm like, they were younger than we are now, just hanging grillin burgers jumping in lakes and laughing. When do we get the grill and burgers jumping in lakes and laughing part of our friendships? Or should we have been friends with richer people? I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. Thank you. I am, I'm shook up. Like, I loved this documentary, but I feel like... When is the grilling taking place, like on a historical timeline? I will tell you exactly, without telling you what year it's taking place, I will communicate it to you. There is a

steady cam shot of Eugene Levy grilling burgers with one hand and ripping a dart with the other. Okay, so this is 90s. See? Yeah, because I'll tell you something. Last night, I got some Thai food. And I, like,

what I mean is I got a noodle dish. Well, it's like, basically it's a night market and they make a crunch wrap. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. and some rice. And then after that, I was like, my mouth is hot. I'm going to get some ice cream.

I spent $110. I also went to both places. This is no disrespect to night market, which is an incredible restaurant, nor the ice cream establishment I went to, which is good but overpriced. But I don't think I can host anyone. I can't be making burgers for so many people.

Because of the cost. Because of the cost. Because of the cost of food and living. So basically, what you're saying is, this is another thing that boomers took from us. Country houses, lakes, camaraderie, grilling. Exactly. It is, I mean, you're not, first of all, you're not wrong.

Everything sucks. I'd love to throw my doors open. Nobody wants to come over. Yeah. What do you mean you'd love to, but try us? I just think that like in L.A., it's just a lot more difficult to make plants than it is in New York or anywhere else in the world. I'm going to stop you.

Half of these gatherings in the Martin Short documentary are in a L.A. Yeah, but there's a moment with... In the 90s when there was like a third less people here, I feel like. At the Christmas party... You read those Joan Diddyam books, and she's like, I was on Franklin Avenue, and then I drove to Santa Monica in 19 minutes. You know who's the queen of that is Eve Babitz?

Eve Babitz is like, well, I woke up feeling a little indolent in Silver Lake today, so I drove to Carpentaria for the morning. Must be nice. One of these Christmas parties where Martin Short's like doing a little Sinatra song to kick it off, and he's like, who's next? and then someone stands up from the crowd of... It's Franks and Leroy? No, it's fucking...

The guy goes up to the microphone and goes, it's me, Glenn Fry, the happy eagle. And everyone's like, ha ha, Glenn! Then he plays piano for a while and then Sally Field jumps on the piano. Oh, that's nice. I appreciate what you're saying about the cost of living.

It is skyrocketed. But I also think that you're avoiding the vulnerable truth of the bottom of this, which is that we've screwed up our adult. We have. It's no doubt about it. It's shaken me up. And yes, is this rarefied air?

Like, on one of their vacations, Tom Hanks and Martin Short for the, with Steven Spielberg on the handy cam, ringer friend Steven Spielberg, they decide to recreate the last scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Tom Hanks playing Forrest Gump, which had just released, and Martin Short as Ed Grimley. And Steven Spielberg directed it. Filming it, yes, as they jump off a boat together saying they can't swim. That's incredible. I will, where is this?

This is a Netflix documentary. If anyone has any advice, on how we can be better adults having watched this, email, Chris. My only recommendation from the weekend is just that I completed my journey with the Dark Wizard, who is Mountain Climber Dean Potter, four-part documentary about him on HBO, which then sent me down a 100-foot wave-esque rabbit hole of watching mountain climbing documentaries. Oh, that's cool. So I also watched The Alpinist, which is on Peacock,

which is made by the same filmmakers as Dark Wizard and, A little bit of like a Peter Sars guard narrated documentary about the history of climbing in Yosemite, which I found on Amazon, but I think it's something in the valley. I can't remember what it is. Anyway. All right. That's a dangerous sport. Yeah.

That's always been my sense of it. Yeah. You ever, you ever? Never even an inkling. To want to climb a mountain? Yeah. It's not my business. No.

Mountains are there well before me. It'll be there well after me. Yeah. I will say the greatest compliment I ever received was, and in retrospect, I think, It was maybe just like a fishing expedition of friendship, like just sort of offering a hand. But when I was in Albuquerque making the show a few years ago, someone on the crew was like, do you ever rock climb? And I was just said, thank you.

For thinking that I might have. Obviously no. But that is the nicest, most optimistic thing anyone's ever said to me. What's up with those guys, though, man? I was thinking about this, both the 100-foot wave dudes and like these mountain climbing guys. I don't think they actually, quote-unquote, exercise, like, outside of. the sport that they participate in. Like, they don't have to lift.

And I... This is what they said about John Cruck, too. Like, are you saying? No, Alex Honnold, like, everyone's... A couple of these shots in Dark Wizard has his shirt off. And I'm like, this dude's cut out of pure marble. Like, this is insane.

I thought you were going to do some of like that, the discourse about Homer Gear. I thought that's what you were going to say. What's the discourse about Homer Gear? That he, like, isn't ripped in that scene in euphoria. Well, so what? Yeah. I'm on your side, man.

I thought body shaming. I thought you were setting up the story to be like, he is an elite mountain climber who tames nature. Yeah. You know, and he's ripping darts between pizza bites. Let's get into actual television. How about that? I thought we just named some television.

We did. So Dark Wizard and HBO, Martin Short documentary on Netflix, two recommendations from this weekend. Andy and I also, so we're up to date on Star City. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. I thought we could jump in and talk a little bit about Cape Fear. But before we did that, Yeah, yeah.

Can we just address the fact that most of what we've talked about over the last couple of weeks has been Apple. This is out of no great allegiance to their services or products. It's just a reality of... They said in front of their MacBooks. Well, I know. I mean, it's ridiculous. But there have been various moments when I have felt this. I think the fact that I, you know, we've talked about maximum pleasure guaranteed.

We've been talking about Widows Bay. We're talking about Star City and Cape Fear. We haven't really talked about your friends and neighbor season two. No. We didn't keep up with Margot's Got Money Problems. But like it goes on and on the sheer volume of stuff that they've put out that somehow has wormed its way. Not wormed, but like, what do you think is going on here? Like is this, is this a we can just outspend and outlast?

Yes. We touched on this a little bit on Thursday. But I think that this is the best case scenario of their flood the zone. strategy. They simply have more swings every time they come to the plate. They have more things in production. If you go on the list of current programming and upcoming, there are, I would say, upwards of 20 to 25 upcoming drama and comedy series, many of which are at least intriguing via logline or Star Power. And those are the ones that are awaiting a scheduled release date. They have so, so much in the chamber. And

I think it's raising their batting average. Now, that said, I think they are also rounding into form and understanding better what it is that they do and what they can, what sort of, what they can fill in the marketplace. I think that, and we'll talk about this this week, obviously, like, I think you and I have, we praise a different part of their strategy

than the part that might be, I was about to say, keeping the lights on, but the lights are fine over there. You know what I mean? But I, but there's some of the shows that you mentioned that we are not covering are probably the ones that the programming team would point to internally

to say, like, we're getting real traction here. Certainly your friends and neighbors. Yeah, like just still the number one show on Apple. This is working for us. According to their own internal. This is the thing that we can run up

the flagpole and say this whole, um, this whole, uh, expansion is worth it. Mm-hmm. We are in the business, I think,

of arguing for the fact that Apple, due to its deep pockets, can take a project that is completely air-tanked, when presented to them, like Widows Bay, and say, we can help you execute this because, you know, we'll get a chance. I hope to talk to Katie Dippold and hear O'Murai about it, but I can't, I would imagine that many places were interested in taking the meeting and like the idea of it. I don't know how many of them were interested in location shooting in Massachusetts, a place that is not famous for large-scale productions or tax breaks, you know, in order to get it over the finish line to get it.

That's probably like we have a place in Canada. you can shoot. Yeah. We'll make it work for you. Have you thought about setting it on an island off of Georgia? Exactly that. So, or in the case of Star City, where it's like, that's very nice of them to make a show just for us in this podcast.

We really appreciate it. So, yeah, I think that that's reflective of what, of their strategy working right now. The flip side of that is, this is extremely inside baseball. But in order to watch ahead one week to we could cover Widows Bay this week because of our recording schedule, I went on their screener site. And on the screener site, it's just these, like, dusty bones of shows that they've wanted us to watch or wanted people to engage with that are just memory hold. Like the big... They may be memory hold, but many of them have four to five seasons. No, the ones that didn't. I'm saying things like, like, like the hilariously insane

disclaimer that we covered with Quarone and Cape Blanchet. Well, that was never going to be like more than one season. Probably one of the most expensive one seasons ever, I would say, based on everyone's EP fees alone. The big cigar, you know, like... Big cigar? Yes, this was a historical show based on one of those epic magazine articles that was about like Huey

Huey Newton and Cuba. There's nothing... I'm not saying these because they're bad. I'm just saying they were like, maybe that's going to be the thing that we do. Nope, no problem. And you never see the retrenchment because they went all in on the wrong thing. Yes. I mean, you know, the

internal marketing when you look at the app when you open up Apple TV on your like a set top box or if you watch it looking at it on your desktop it's there's like a sort of pleasing uniformity to the design of

the marketing that being said I don't see a lot of like in the wild hey by the way this is on but I don't know that a lot of these streamers really participate in that outside of like say Paramount Plus who really seem to try to make sure everybody knows

that like done ranch or whatever is on. Well, I think that there's a lot of like, kind of like we have kind of decided to moat this stuff. And what matters is the service more than the show? Well, I think that there's also internally a distinction between shows you spend on and shows you gatekeep quite literally and that that actually could be a boon to them. So the example, we're going to talk about Cape Fear, which is getting the royal treatment from, I mean, it's on, you know,

wraparounds on buses and billboards and their truce. trying to draw people to the service based on this show. A show we covered last week that we liked, maximum pleasure guaranteed, I think it's getting the reverse treatment, where it is something that for people who are already within the ecosystem of Apple, they're offering it up,

and maybe it's an auto play when you finish a different show that they think might be simpatico, and then it's generating its own level of interest within the ecosystem. And the argument for doing that, I would say, is, especially for the way these tech companies budget things,

if they spend, you know, they can break it down to like, we've spent $1 million additionally on top of the production fees for the first episode of Cape Fear in marketing costs. Thus, in order to recoup, it needs to make back its production costs plus this, like a movie would. Yeah. You know, and again, that's all gets fuzzy once you're inside of Apple's internal budgeting. All that is to say, if they get X number of watches

on a maximum pleasure guaranteed, those are faster return on investment. and that might make them more likely to keep it going as opposed to outwardly spending on it and not seemingly recouping that investment in the outside expenditure. It's so opaque. Yes. And it only makes sense to them.

I thought it was really interesting. We can get into Cape Fear here. That Cape Fear was, I think, very wisely released in June as summer hits, as the temperatures go up, as people are looking for like a sticky, indulgent kind of high, trashy show to watch and not for the Emmy consideration

which just ended I guess about a week ago I think voting opens this week I believe for the Emmys because you would think Amy Adams Javier Bardem Patrick Wilson these people would be like the kind of person you would put forward for an Emmy award

that being said I think the show you can and we'll talk about I watched two Andy watched one we can talk broadly about it. We don't want to like spoil things. Obviously is based on in some ways one central story, but is based on several different sources of material. So Cape Fear is based on the executioners, which is a John D. MacDonald novel. It's based on... From 57 or something, I believe. The film

starring Robert Mitchum from the 50s, I believe. 50s, early 60s. And then it's also based on the 1991 Martin Scorsese adaptation with the screenplay by Wesley Strick, which was like a famous kind of, not cash grab for Scorsese, but like another one of his, like, I'm going to prove that I am a bankable director as well as like a world-renowned artist of cinema.

And that was like a $35 million movie that wound up making $180 million. It was Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro, and Jessica Lang, and Juliette Lewis. in the major roles and was a huge hit, and we've done it on rewatchables. It continues to be a rewatchable movie precisely because you are caught in a vice grip

of tension and atmosphere. You can feel the sweat. You can feel the tattoos on De Niro. You can feel the water like hitting them as they have the... It's a damp film. Big finale. And this show is trying to do

what several shows like it, in the past have also attempted, which is to see if they can reliably hour to hour, release some tension and then pour it back on so that the audience, so the audience, continues to be engaged and continues to have the sense memory experience of watching Cape Fear,

which is kind of the hardest part about this show to navigate is how do you sustain this vibe for this many hours when usually the human body checks out after two hours. I'm just like, I need this to resolve itself. And it is not historically, and by historically, I mean the novel and the two previous adaptations, a particularly complicated story. No, not really.

It is really like an unstoppable object running into an immovable force and then something's got to give. What is your, I know you've done it on rewatchables, what is your personal take on the Scorsese movie? Because my, I have not rewatched. Maybe I rewatch it in the 90s, it was on cable.

It's a pretty nasty movie, intentionally so. It's definitely, we're doing on rewatchables this month, we're doing the From Hell genre, which is a largely like 90s-based phenomenon subgenre of thriller that basically does the dot, dot, dot, from hell. So roommate from hell, stepfather from hell, nanny from hell. This is the best possible version of From Hell,

and I guess it's the thing from your past from hell. And I think this was Scorsese. You know, this had been a thing that had been banging around Amblin and that Spielberg had considered directing himself. And Scorsese winds up doing it. The famous trade, right? Yeah, this is the Schindler's List trade, right? Yeah.

They each were developing a project. They probably shouldn't have been. And Scorsese and Spielberg swapped Cape Fear for Schindler's list. Right. And in some ways it worked out for both of them exactly right? I would say so. because Scorsese gets to show he can make a blockbuster in a really sincere, like, efficient way,

it has so much style. And this is the thing that I was thinking about going into this TV series is that so much of Cape Fear relies on the artistry of the filmmaking because the people are relatively unpleasant to spend time with. Yes. Yeah, it's not a heroic storyline. And that's not a deal breaker for me.

No. But it's also not funny. So this isn't going to be like succession or Breaking Bad or any other series or Sopranos or anything where you're like, boy, these are a bunch of corrupted people, let's watch them get caught like rats in a maze and then see who gets out.

This is like, you're going to spend 10 hours with these people and you're going to be forced to hope that they figure this out, you know? Yeah, and I think the nature of television requires, despite many, many brilliant creators, you know, valiantly attempting otherwise, television requires some audience buy-in and empathy. and on a very base level, maybe it's because of the time commitment. You have to want an outcome,

which I think is not, that doesn't reflect the best of cinema, frankly. Like, the best movies keep you on your toes and you can switch allegiances and you can question your own empathies and all that stuff. But for 10 hours, I'm not saying you have to pick a sigh,

but you kind of have to settle in and root for something. Right. And now, so this rendition of the series is from Nick Antasca, who's a TV show creator, who we have talked about on and off over the years, but I'm a huge fan of Channel Zero. He did the act,

which I was less of a fan of what I saw of it. And he's done a bunch of different stuff as an executive producer, as a writer, as a creator. He is a very, very good maker of television and producer of content. I mean that in the best, most generous way possible, and particularly because he has a real sense of what types of stories interest him.

And he is interested in the horror, in the lurid stories and the sordid stories. And from everything we understand about this, this wasn't necessarily Amblen taking generals on how they can profit from this sitting in their catalog. No, he wanted to do this. And I think the thing that I, starting with praise, because, spoiler, I did not really enjoy watching the show,

I think that this is sort of all the way back to where you started, but like there is a full-throated embrace of a kind of tawdry summer 80s and 90s blockbuster entertainment that is you can't half-ass. And I think that that that was clearly both inspiration and the goal here. And I think it's why I was also comparing this, maybe unintentionally at first to last summer's version of this maybe now was two summers ago

was presumed innocent which was another like let's take something from a very specific time culturally that we remember and try to iterate it and well for the contemporary streaming era but also try to hold on to these things that we don't really

get in our entertainment anymore I prefer presumed innocent because presumed innocent had O.T. Fend Bentley's performance and Peter Sarsgaard performance and it had some knowing wit and I would say that this does not seem to have that. But we can we can talk more broadly and I'd like to hear your thoughts about it before I tell you what I was sort of bumping against. I think that the issue for me was how the little tricks that they're playing. So I basically I would say that my my broad take on the

show is that I thought it was unnecessary and that it was totally make-believe. And I, also didn't hate it. You know, like, I didn't, in the opening moments, I was just like, there's basically two things that happened that I thought were like exactly diametrically, not diametrically opposed. There's one thing where I was like, holy shit, this is really compelling that they're doing this. And then there was something else where I was like, I know exactly what this show is going to be. Do you want me to tell you those two things? Yeah. The double suicide? Yep. That was when I was like, damn. Oh, yeah. I was like, okay, we're really going to do this. This is gnarly as hell. Yeah. And the second was the,

family of dead skunks in the pool? Just even did the whole opening barbecue of... Yeah, it was phony baloney. Of Amy Adams walking around with AirPods in and just being like, well, I want my client out of prison. How about that?

And I don't know why I made him sound like, made her sound like Andy Griffith, but... That's not far from the dialect coach. Yeah, and, you know, Patrick Wilson, for reasons we will soon find out, like, looking like an absolute wax statue and then these kids being kids and, you know, like looking at their...

phones and gaming and getting catfished. So what do you do when you take a like a, first of all, I was about to say a beloved franchise like this. It's not. It's, it's a, it's a cult thing. It's obsessed over. It's, it's a specific memory for a lot of people, depending on which version of it you respond to. How do you update it and why do you update it? And I would say that there is an awkward collision between the modern and the classic. And it's evidenced by, as you said, the son isn't just Moody, he's losing himself in online gaming. The dad isn't just walled off and keeping secrets. He's microdosing.

The daughter isn't just harassed by Max Katie. She's harassed by a rapacious true crime podcaster. True crime podcaster. And I think honestly, most egregious of all, in order to understand where we are in the contemporary political moment, a cultural moment, everyone talks about how bad the system is. A lot of talk about the unfairness of that. the system. This is where I think the thread is

that Antasca is trying to pull. So, you know, he's got a bunch of really talented directors working on this show. Morton told him directed the first episode, but then S.J. Clarkson took over one. Reed Morano. Amanda Marcellus. Amanda Marcellus. It's an impressive lineup.

Yeah. I think he's most interested or it seems like he's most interested in asking the question is, what if Max Katie got out of present? And instead of being feared and rejected, He was tacitly embraced by a emergent, scanning liberal, criminal justice reform community that wants to believe the best in everybody, but wants to believe the best in everybody as long as it gets people to donate to their nonprofit or whatever their cause.

And I think that that is an interesting concept, but I don't know if it has like 10 hours of legs. as a concept. And the thing that it drove me actually most nuts in this episode and the first two episodes

is not the performance because CCH Pounder is incredible, but the character that CCH Pounder Noah plays Noah who is in charge of this I think it's called

the SJLP and it's like a basically they go around it's like a freedom project they go around like trying to free wrongly imprisoned incarcerated

people who have been false abuse of crimes. But she's is so blinded by the dollar signs and the press that Max Katie could bring this group if they somehow figure out a way to bring him into the fold here, that it kind of just, it goes beyond my suspension of disbelief and it's just preposterous. Well, it's one of the things that we love about Widows Bay is that from the very beginning

in the first 15 minutes, Mayor Tom Loftus communicates to the guy from the New York Times that there are no cell phones on the island. And he just said it, and then it's done. And then all the problems of modern, suspenseful storytelling are just vanished. They just vanish. And you can tell a story in a more familiar and classic manner.

And with this show, they are struggling up against the constant presence of cameras and constant presence of everyone knowing everything about everyone else all the time, while also having to manufacture natural moments for Max Cady to wander into the backyard of the Bowdens, for them to have a little tete-a-tete in an art gallery off of the main party area of a charity ball. It's kind of hard to do both, you know? And also I think what you're responding to is the fact that, like, Cape Fear is the previous Cape Fears are small. Not just because they are either a slim pulp novel or, you know, a two-hour movie, but smaller in the sense that Max Katie isn't a cause-seleb in the way that he is on the show and probably would be in contemporary 26, where everything that he does is broadcast online and in the news media. And I think the show does a good faith effort to bring some of that fanfare and focus to the world. But then it's also like, it's a little discordant then. This is the biggest thing that ever happened.

And then Amy Adams is shocked that he's there in front of her. But then he also just takes the mic from her at a large public gathering, wearing a beautiful linen suit, which I guess is standard DSU when you get out of the Georgia penitentiary system. It's both big and it's trying to be big and small at the same time in the way that it's also trying to be short and shocking and also long, serialized and expansive at the same time. That's a central tension that a lot of these...

Better shows and worse shows have fallen prey to it than this version of Cape Fear. So the premise of the series is essentially that Amy Adams, who I think is moved into the kind of Nick Nulte role, the kind of star of the show, really. Amy Adams was Max Cady, who's played by Javier Barterdam, his defense lawyer at his trial was 17 years ago. 17 years ago. And very late in the trial, she encourages him to make a plea deal, to spare his life from the death sentence. It just so happens that the prosecutor in that trial, was played by Patrick Wilson, is this guy, Tom Bowden,

and they wind up getting together after the trial. She's pregnant with her fiance's baby, but then she leaves him and gets together with Tom Bowden, and then they start a family. And they have a very successful two-lawyer life where they have this huge house in Savannah, Georgia, and seem to have everything that you would want in life. And instead, you know, of course,

when you look underneath the hood, everything is decaying and breaking, and there are skunks in the pool, essentially. They hide Max Katie like the shark from Jaws for 90% of this first episode. I think it's pretty effective. His introduction as a character is convincing his former mistress or girlfriend to take her own life and confess to the murders of his wife and child, which is why he was in prison in the first place. This exonerates him, gets him out, intrigues this woman Noah, played by CCH Pounder,

who then wants Anna to start working with. with Max Katie and bring him into the fold at this, at this nonprofit that they work for. They are piling on characters in this show. Like within the first two episodes, Ted Levine shows up, Paul Schneider shows up, you know, Jamie Hector is there.

Like, they have supersized this thing. And to your point about Cape Fear being tight and small, part of at least my love of the 91 film, is the feeling of, even though we live in a town, even though we're part of a community, even though there are laws,

when you really boil it down, it's us versus him and nobody's coming to our rescue. It's a little bit confusing and it's a little bit distracting when you have like five different subplots going already and we're two episodes in.

I was curious whether or not you are turned off by the tone of the show or the actual storytelling of the show. I actually like the tone and I think that there's an element of it that is just profoundly camped be, but whether it is a developmental edict or just the personal taste of the people in charge, it resists it at every turn, which I found neuters Bardem's performance, which is 1 million

percent a delicious ham and cash grab. You know what I mean? Like, he's going for it and good for him. He's going for it, but in a different way than De Niro and Mitchum did. Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying, but he's doing it in a very, it's a way that's true to him. He's not changing who he is as a performer. But I think that there is, because I think what makes him always so magnetic is that he presents as this like, it's certainly on camera. I have no idea how tall this man actually is, but he presents as like this hulking, a physical brute. But he is so sort of sly and as my kids would say, secretly zesty, that like that comes out in ways that, or maybe not so secretly, ways that are kind of beguiling and charismatic and sensual. And so I like all that.

I just can't stand the half-assness of the camp in the sense that, I mean, you have Patrick Wilson, who is a very strong actor, but I think needs to be given, needs to be tipped in one direction or the other. Can't just be ramrod straight with his little belt talking about cornflakes at Kroger. Like if you're having him say things like this, if you're doing the dialogue, if you're doing the dialogue that the show is giving you, let him slather some some some, some, some, some, some, some, some, some, for Pimento on it. You know what I mean? Don't treat this like this. It's shot so straight face that we're meant to take all this seriously and worry about these people and the stakes are rising. And I think it's a little bit preposterous. There's a Puma in the backyard. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think they say Puma, don't they? Do they say Panther? Oh, I thought there was a panther attack. Oh, okay. Maybe you're right. Well, they do say it regardless. They preface it and then it shows up or foreshadow it.

So I had a problem with that, and I just sort of had a... Full disclosure, I don't know the difference between Apuma and a Panther. I was giving you time to look, and I was like, why is your laptop shut? I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to over-reli on the internet. I want to be candid with our audience that I just don't know. You could tell me Apumo was just like a male panther, and I would be like, maybe that's true. No, I think it would be a Pumo.

We were having this conversation with ballerinas right before we started shooting. Yes. Because Mikhail Berushnikov's daughter is on the show. But there's these details, right, that I think are just kind of ridiculous. But the show doesn't allow them to be ridiculous, like the fact that in the opening moments, Anna is sitting for a filmed interview for, presumably for television. She is a television journalist, right? There's a video camera, a television camera on her. But as soon as the action moves to the pool where a family of skunk corpses are being retrieved, the television cameraman runs out with a wide-angle still camera. Oh, those are actually, now the 4K cameras actually come, like, looking like a still camera. So he was still videoing. He didn't switch jobs in the middle. of the scene. Yeah, I think actually, like, that's a camera right there.

That's just basically a real camera, regular looking camera. These have been cameras the whole time? I thought that was a light. How long has that been there? We've been on Twitch for five years. You, me, Jankey Rondo, just run in 24-7. And, like, the little things of, like, this set decoration, you know, one thing that drives me crazy, this is what I look at is when you see rich people's homes and they are just full of

large bowls full of artichokes. Wait a second. I have to talk to you about this. Yes. The teenage son's room is in a completely different architectural concept than the rest of the house, and it's driving me insane. He has exposed brick, and it's like a giant loft that he has somewhere else in the house. Well, remember the story is telling us that there's houses in constant repair and renno.

They don't let people onto another side of the house that they're constantly renovating. don't know about where this kid's room is. Right. But did they have seven different architects work on it? Is this like a Borges story? Like what's happening? Well, also, but then the kitchen has these like palm tree wallpaper that looks like, you know, a now out of business W. Hotel in New Orleans right before Katrina.

But like, but again, like I think you are, my thing is this. You are always telling a story with every frame of the show. Yeah. And the pilot makes good use of the low, heavy trees. enough to make me think that they filmed this in Savannah, which apparently they did not, although maybe they got some exterior, so I'm not really sure.

But everything is an opportunity to tell a story. And when you put things in a house that just has these, like inconsistent room to room without committing to the bit that every member of this family lives in his or her own psychological slash physical space, which is a choice. I guess I could see the argument.

But make the choice so that when you're in the kitchen and over the sun's shoulder, when you see him taking out like energy drinks for his mystery night out, on the table, there is a beautiful piece of sourdough with two slices cut and like spilling open as if you are waiting to celebrate the, you know, the breakfast at this Airbnb

and it's been cut for you. I'm like, that was a choice you made and you didn't pay attention to it. It's giving us this sort of like moneyed laziness when I want every frame to compelling and tell us a story. And you were praising the directors. I put some of this on, I put some of this on Morton-Tildum.

I don't know the man. Yeah. He makes a beautiful picture and he keeps things moving and he does seem to understand the assignment. But there's an element of this and I apologize, especially to my friends who just returned from Scandinavia, but you hired a Norwegian to give us like sweaty southern funk. It's kind of like me going horseback riding, which is in the sense that I've seen people ride horses. And I could probably be lifted up onto the horse. And in a still photo or two, I might look like I know what I'm doing.

This is the backrooms thing. In backrooms, there's a line about like this is like, describing a dog to someone who's never seen one and asking them to draw it. It's kind of that vibe. It is a sterile and professional recreation of something without the stench and the funk. There's also a funny thing that I saw the Vulture Recapper for this show pointed out that I hadn't noticed and then immediately was like, I can't unsee this now, which is the amount of times they use jump scares for no purpose whatsoever. Like Ted Levine showing up or like it turns out that's just the gardener or whatever. and like they're going to do that to wear down your nerve ending so that when it actually does.

Yeah. But part of the issue is that if you're going to not remove the danger, but like imagine if Max Katie actually had visiting privileges for all these places and was able to just walk in and out of prisons and people's homes and businesses. The whole point of like the Cape Fear movie is that he's kind of like this pariah who is basically like what are you going to do about it? Yes, it's everything he does is a provocation. And this is more like, what if he could insinuate himself

into the progressive weakness of this community? Now, I genuinely good faith, I'm curious about this, that like, I think, tell me if I'm wrong, because I'm not in this cohort. But like, if you are a particular fan of horror, and I don't mean like, ah, what a, like, get out, what a brilliant analogy for our times. But I mean, like, I like watching people dropped into a shark tank

and seeing what the sharks do next. Sure. There could be that kind of entertainment. There could be here. Bad stuff's going to happen, and it hopefully will be happening in increasingly claustrophobic and horrific ways. So that appeal might be there.

Sure. I just, I think the problem is when you're also like, and also the teenage son will go on a Kennebine journey where he sees an AI version of Max Cady's unborn teenage son. Well, when you put it that way, by the way, I'm just noting with interest. Again, I don't have a dog in this fight. But you brought up Nephawatch with Baryshnikov's daughter.

Your silence on the sun in this is remarkable to me. Who's he? Kate Winslet's son. She's really populating a lot of casts right now. Kate Winslet, famously, big friend of the watch podcast. Yeah, basically. So whatever, she's done a beautiful job raising these talented children. That's pretty much my take.

Yeah, Mia Rappleton, who was recently in the last West Anderson movie. Yes, the Phoenician scheme. She's very good. Your boy. Joe Anders, yeah. Yeah. Okay. My boy.

That's your boy. You love his plot line. You love gamers. I don't know what you're getting at. I think that you're trying to build a case. Nepo-wise or Harlow-wise? Yeah. Like, I don't know.

You are. You had a problem with Jane Campion's daughter being in Star City. I didn't. You have a problem with who's the... I had a problem with Andy Circus's daughter being in Star City. And who's the kid who's Evan on Widows Bay? Who's his dad? What?

He's a Nepo baby? No, maybe not. Protect him at all costs. He's fantastic. Anybody with that name, I'm like, your dad's probably, you know, Daniel Day Lewis or something.

I mean, I don't know if we're going to continue watching this. I know. Sorry, too much. Spoiler. I'm not going to be watching this. This is not the new euphoria. No,

but I'm interested genuinely. Every once in a while, maybe I'll do a little update from Savannah, Georgia for you. I think I'm going to, I had such a good time watching this with my wife. Yeah. Say more about that. Well, it's a really funny show to, not funny, but it is a really fun show to watch and be like,

what the fuck are they doing? Now, we may not be interested in this after four hours. Right. Which would be double the amount of time we've already watched. Kingston Rumi Southwick doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, which either. He's like a soft, he's a soft nepo. Thank God you're here. Father is producer, mother is an acting coach.

So he was just primed for this. He's not. I don't have a problem with nepotism. You do. You're the one who's like saying like, I don't have a problem with it. I am a product of nepotism. I genuinely don't have a problem with it when it's good.

I like things to be good. It's like, oh, I'm the asshole. When it's good, it's awesome. I think both of the nepo's in Star City are excellent. I do too. Okay. Well, let's talk about Star City. Lewis Pullman, great.

That's right. Your best friend is Louis Pullman. Well, I just called... I columbiced him for this podcast. Turns out Bill Polman. Pullman is his dad. Did you have anything else you want to say about Cape Fear? No, I just...

You won't be watching any more of it. You reject the highfalutin way it cast its ranks. Yeah. You wish Patrick Wilson would untuck his shirt every once in a while. Yes, live a little. And it's unpleasant. I think ultimately it's that I just find it unpleasant, and I'm not particularly fans of many of the leads.

That's keeping me away, but I am interested in it as a project. And so I really appreciate you going on the front lines. You know what I mean? It's like what Scott Pelly said. He never wore the uniform for this country, but he's been in foxholes. That's you. That's you. Let's wrap things up by talking about Star City.

Okay. My enthusiasm for this remains like a burning hot flame. I do want to acknowledge at the top here. So we'll talk a little bit in detail about the three episodes that have aired so far. I felt like in the third episode I detected a rhythm where before I was like this could be anything and go anywhere

and I have no idea the vibe of the show is so intoxicating but like you could tell me it's gonna time jump to 84 in episode three and I believe you it's a little bit more steady as she goes in episode three.

It does jump but yes it jumps and there's also big character reveals but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this is sort of random, but I saw an old Quentin Tarantino interview this weekend, not the one where he says the RIP is the best movie, he's seen in a decade. Have you talked to him about this?

I don't have those privileges. Has Sean back-channeled with him about this? I don't know. But I did know that the RIP was playing at the Vista, the movie theater he owns, so he walks the talk. But he was talking about the difference between storytelling and situations. and, you know, he was referring to the movie speed where, you know, it's like,

what if a bus had to go 55 miles per hour or would it explode? And he's like, I really enjoy that movie, but it's a situation, it's not a story. Like, those aren't characters, those characters aren't going on a journey. It's, well, I mean, they are literally going on a journey. Yeah.

But, like, they don't change over the course of the movie, really, like, that much. I don't know, what's your name learns to love? Annie? Yeah. I don't think she was not ready for love. I just think she didn't have a driver's license because she had too many points on it.

I forgot about that detail. Yeah. Don't try and get any speed trivia past me. When's the last time you rewatch speed? Within the last three years. I need to say that. It's a frequent rewatch. I love that movie.

It's an excellent movie. But is it a situation more than it's story. Yeah, I'm sorry. We don't need to digress. And Star City has a very, like, digestible situation. It's a very digestible pitch. It's, you know, what if the Russians landed on the moon first? what would happen to the collective histories of both nations,

America and Russia, but also, you know, what would happen to the space programs that they would then go on to produce. The reason I think I like this show so much is that it's a story. And that they have found a group of actors and created a group of characters

where the little revelations about the characters and the little bits of growth and the little bits of change and the little moments of epiphany or catharsis or whatever are so earned and so well drawn and I'm thinking of two in particular

that I just wanted to bounce off you so in episode two Anastasia Belkova who's the first woman to go to the moon she's on a promo tour with her arranged marriage husband are they married yet by the time when they go to Paris?

I can't remember. No, they didn't get married when they get back. Yes. With her fiance, Sasha, who's also a cosmonaut, they go to Paris. And it's cool.

Like, you know, it's like a cool idea and it's cool to imagine like them doing this sort of propaganda promo tour for the Soviet space program. And they take the moment where they basically find

the one thing that these two people have in common is their disaffection with where they are in their lives. Even though they couldn't be more different and she's a little bit odd. And for the first, you know, episode and a half, you're kind of like, I don't really get who this, is this person like a product of nepotism because her father is a big dip wig in the party or what's going on. Especially because they make the bold gambit of having her be the backup plan to Janakatova, who is a firecracker in her limited screen time in the pilot. And she winds up going on this nighttime odyssey across Paris with her fiancee that is fucking delightful and exciting and scary and interesting.

and everything from the way that they have to exit a hotel and she takes off her heels to go down the stairs quietly to them like running across the street and she stops to look at the Arc de Triumph and he's like, come on, come on. But like she takes this moment to be like, holy shit. I never thought I'd see that. Especially here in Lithuania.

Yes. Whoa. I think she was right to call attention to it. And then they have this like really fun night of drug and boozeattle dancing at a nightclub where she is soft recruited she thinks by the Americans, but it turns out to be a Russian agent or Soviet agent working on behalf of, you know,

pretending to be an American, it's test. And then in the third episode, we have Arena who is played by Agnes O'KCase, who's the protege of Ludmilla Roscova, the sort of KGB chieftain. And she's been

doing the lives of others listening thing on Tanya and Valia, Valia is another cosmonaut, Tanya's his long-suffering wife who's cheating on him with Sasha. And she's been listening in on them. And then it turns out, surprisingly, her daughter is being taught by Tanya. She's being taught music by Tanya. And she goes over to her house for coffee and admits something to Tanya. And in the moment where she admits it, not only is it just wonderfully

played by the performers, but the sound on the show becomes muddled and muted. Like, it's been erased. And we find out that that's because Irina's going to go back to her listening station, go on the tapes of Tanya's listening devices, and erase the part where she confesses something private and personal about her past, about the father of her child. And I thought both of those moments were so earned. And just like to build up, it's about the space program. And it's about spying and it's about national security and all these big, big ideas. But they are finding story in character in a way that I think is really, really wonderful. Yeah, I completely agree. And, you know, there's even more detail in those scenes in the apartment where, um, uh, what's her name?

Arena is seeing for the first time the physical, the set of her favorite radio drama. And she's smelling the perfume that she knows was purchased in Paris. And, and she's smelling the perfume that she knows was purchased in Paris. And she's being taken out of it, not just in the sense of, like, future scrubbing, but she's hearing the conversations that played in her mind only in this place, and it's really dissociating and powerful.

Because we started with quasi love letter to NBA fandom, I need your help on this. I need you to use the sports half of your Grantland binary brain. Who is the most, in your opinion, maybe even in this finals, like the most, and I feel like it's probably

someone on the, Knicks, like the most old school player who is not going to trick you and not dazzle you, Josh Hart. Right, is just going to go at you and it's going to be basketball. Josh Hart. And that's Star City to me, especially in the third episode, where there is nothing in the mechanic, I mean, the setting and the fact that within each episode they can do a tense Apollo 13-esque space drama is remarkable.

But even to use that as a set piece in the third episode where something goes wrong. there wasn't a single moment watching the launch sequence played out over the back half of the third episode where I didn't know something was going to go wrong. Yes. Especially once the one character space swims to the back to release the pressure. As soon as he did that, my brain went into like the top, you know, you can like change the camera angle and I'm watching the All-22. I'm mixing my sports metaphors, but I was like, I know what's going to happen now because I have watched television before. but I'm curious how they play it

and the way they played it is right down the middle and perfect with the cuts when you stop hearing from the back and the elation mixed with a sudden discovery and then the slow realization that something has gone wrong. This is textbook. There's nothing particularly novel about it.

It's just executed at such a high level and I felt the same way throughout that episode where it's like, let us explore story in every corner of the world that we created. Because also remember, it is a rare, rare opportunity for producers and TV makers to be told by a rich-pocketed benefactor like Apple, yeah, we want more. So what could they have done with this?

Especially when the fact that the Russian's job in the narrative of the other show for all mankind is established. They're the antagonists. They're the rabbit the greyhounds are chasing the whole time. So it was kind of either plug-in play or let's dive in and create rich, rich characters to make the show as much of. about them as possible, and then just put him in conflict, see what happens. And I'm struck by how effective and yeoman-like the show is and how satisfying that can be. The sequences you're talking about, I think, is elevated by the Valia subplot to it. Yes, right. So obviously, we're talking pretty openly about this series. So if you haven't watched episode three yet,

You might want to skip ahead to the next segment or end of the podcast, but it's revealed that Valia is the mole inside of Star City and that he planted basically a transponder or transceiver on the lunar module, which winds up being detected by the Soviets. So they then power down. They reboot. The module, reboot it. Looks like everything's going to work out. But unfortunately, like the repowering of it means that the hab, the hab. doesn't, like basically the extender part of it of the module doesn't go back in or goes out too early

and in trying to land the module back with the space station that they were the space, whatever, the craft at their part. They've aborted the moon landing. They're going to fly back and Arsini, RAP goes back to... Right. After a McBain head fake where Sasha spends most of the episode trying to figure out what he would say in a letter to his loved ones

and gives one of the letters to his you know, his illicit affair with Tanya. I thought that part was really great, you know? Like the fact that every character has, like, a secret life emergent is really cool. It means that, like, nobody's ever fixed on a map. Right now, I think perhaps the best performance on the show is Anna Maxwell Martin, who's playing Ludmilla Varscova, and we haven't really figured out what her bag is yet. Would you be like what she's into?

Yeah, like, we don't know. like her nuances yet because we haven't spent like a ton of time with her she more like lurks on the you know like is the face in the back or the person who's just like I don't believe you and but I really thought that that sequence wound up being elevated

by finding out that it was an act of duplicity or an act of espionage I did want to ask you something about where we are which is three hours into the show I had a couple of wait a second I forgot that we're supposed to be

watching Russians. So as we talked about last time, all of the characters, all of the characters, all the Soviet characters speak English. Yes. And speak English accented English. English accented English.

And this is something that Chernobyl did. So it's not uncommon to see this. And I thought even there was a joke maybe underneath a performance where when Arsini is talking about what he's going to say on the moon, he's basically doing Sean Connory's Hunt for Red October accent.

And I don't know if he was trying to do Sean Conry or if he was trying to do Sean, but it was a joke that landed for me. Yeah. Do you ever blink and you're like, I'm starting to forget the nationality and ethnic background of the characters that we're watching? Well, I think that that's part of the reason why it's done this way because it is a pretty quick, sneaky empathy, you know, IED because it's like, well, they're just like us. Just like that sting song.

they love their children too whoa I think the interesting part was when they were in Paris and they don't speak French but no one in Paris understands them because they're speaking Russian but it's English and

you know at least from my own personal research efforts many people in Paris do understand English even if they pretend not to or the fact that when you see them like when you see Arena transcribing the the recordings, she's typing in Cyrillic.

Right. So, no, I think that the, I think that the, whatever, you know, prep meetings and design meetings they had were just, to my mind, seem incredibly successful and incredibly aesthetically integrated. So the language and the way they speak the language works with the production design and the sets and the, just the entire aesthetic of the show is consistent for me. So it doesn't. Good. Were you concerned trolling? It bothers you. No, it doesn't bother me.

I just think that there was one moment where... God, what, which episode? Or what scene was it? I think it was when Valiah and Sasha are in the stairwell and he's sort of like you're being a little... Like, you're just a child, like, and you're always joking around, but this is serious. And for a second, I was like,

this is about the British Air Force? Like, what am I watching? And I was like, oh, wait, that's right. Yeah, these guys are cosmonauts. And they... Yes. You know, and they work under Soviet... Russian rule.

Yeah, I think that the other thing that's been interesting about it, basically the show seems to run towards the challenges, which is kind of like my 10,000 foot almost de facto praise these days, where it's like, well, this is where the fences are in the world that they've been given, this is what they've been granted. So what do they do with it? And I think some of the interesting cultural and character-based nuance has come from the moments that we haven't seen yet when Belakova's father shows up

and the way he treats her. The references to arena's bad marriage, the things that are happening outside of Star City contribute to the idea that though some characters like Valia's wife, who's Tanya, Tanya, you know, chafing against the limitations within Star City and dreams of Moscow and listen to records, you know,

just really just like us. It's a really cool detail that she's getting contraband LP or singles. Smuggled in on X-rays. Yeah, that can only be played four times before they degrade, yeah. That's pretty cool. My favorite Robert Pollard solo album was also issued only on X-ray that could only be played four times, but sorry, you missed out.

I invited you over to listen to it. But yeah, like there's levels to this society. That Star City isn't some achievement and within its walls, everything is possible. That Star City is an exemplar of the best and the worst of a larger society. And the larger society is knocking at the door in various ways. So I feel immersed. I mean, it's an excellent show. it is a remarkable pressure valve that it has, that if it starts to feel a little too

kitchen sink pot boiler, they can just fucking go to the moon. And when I was watching that moon sequence, I was feeling something that is probably baked into every frame of the seasons for all mankind that I haven't watched, which is, man, it's cool to see something in which space travel is really hard and really scary, not, you know, ah, time to take the cruiser to Nabu, or whatever. Time to take the cruiser to Nabu. We can wrap it up there. Thanks to Kai and for producing today, and we'll be back on Thursday. I will be half gone. So we're going to talk about Widows Bay together,

but then Andy, we'll have the con. Do you think you'll wear the same clothes on Thursday when we talk about Widows Bay? Because I was planning to. I was going to turn everything inside out. That's sick. See you guys on Thursday.