The Watch - ‘Atlanta’ and Julian Casablancas Share Hot Takes on the Music Biz, Plus ‘Collateral’ Episode 1 | The Watch (Ep. 234)

Episode Date: March 13, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss their enjoyment of 'Atlanta' Season 2 (3:30) and Julian Casablancas’s interview in Vulture about politics and the music industry (11:30). Later, they announce their latest series deep dive on Netflix’s four-part series 'Collateral' (22:00). Julian Julian Casablancas Vulture Interview For more from The Ringer on Atlanta Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio. It's that time of year when he becomes a Villanova fan. It's Andy Greenwald. You wanted to go sports today with the intro. I feel like every March when they're good, you'll be hit me up and you're like, So Nova, Philly team or no? No, well, listen, people need to know this.

You're Nova a Jace. Deep origin story. Where did we hang out for the first time? Rosemont. The Villanova Diner. Yeah, and outside of your place of business at borders. My place of business, sorry. I was selling Lucy's.

You didn't work at Borders. You just were selling Lucy's in the magazine aisles. I was selling Lucy's at Galifties next door. Greenwald, happy Monday. I just flew in from Austin, Texas. I'm a little bit punchy. I love it. I was there for South by Southwest.

Thank you to everybody who came up and had lovely things to say about the ringer about our podcast. This is the watch on the ringer podcast network. Always cool hanging out in Austin. I had one bummer day where, like, I'm, you know, because you're in Texas, you really want to eat, right? Yeah. As a person who frequently appears on a house of carbs, you know about this.

You really want to eat right. But I had like a schedule this one day where like I just didn't have time for a meal, you know, or the people I was hanging out with were going to have meals without me. That seems to be more what you're saying. Which is a tough beat for me. So on Saturday, of all the things you can eat in Texas, I had a bag of peanuts and M&Ms, and then a pizza from Schlotsky's before I saw a Danny McBride movie.

That is dire. Yeah, it was brutal. The lonely margarita pizza I had on Saturday night was a little bit of letdown, but I had a lot of fun in Texas, and I've had a lot of fun watching Atlanta this season. Nice segue. Did you mention we're going to be talking about our new mini binge watch? we're going to be doing collateral.

I was waiting for you to do it. We're doing that. We're going to be talking about episode one? Episode one today, episode two, Thursday, three next Monday, four next Thursday. We've been in, you know, we love that show. And we can't wait to talk about that episode. I wanted to talk a little bit about Atlanta, though. Obviously, we have sort of sung its praises.

We've talked about its ability to maintain its energy in the second season. Often what happens in second seasons is you just like gain a little weight, you know? You just add characters, you add unnecessary plot. lot lines. The freshman 15. Yeah. You just kind of punk your breaks a little

bit about the with the sort of propulsion and momentum that shows that typically have. But Atlanta remains really sharp and really surprising from week to week.

This last episode that one that aired on Thursday dealt largely, I guess largely with the music industry and the state of the music industry and paperboy and earned stopped by this

I guess Spotify-esque company. Yeah. And there's like this idea of their relationship and what they have to go through to just do the things that they want to be doing, which I think everybody can relate to. Do you want to talk a little bit more generally about Atlanta first

before we get into the music industry part of it? Because there was something I wanted to talk about a little bit with that stuff. Sure, yeah, and I agree. I mean, I love this episode, I love this season. I think that it is remarkable how much better this show is than just about everything else out right now. It feels completely alive. And you should be listening to the recapables, by the way.

Right, for every, which has a new episode. episode, podcast episode up after every episode of Atlanta. Hosted by Amanda. This show is, you know, there are plenty of adjectives one could use. It's vibrant, it's emotional, it's just present. And I've been thinking a lot about how much it stands out and why. And I think that one interesting thing about TV that we don't give enough attention to over the last few years is that for much of its existence, TV was a really ephemeral

of the moment entity, right? Like, you couldn't see old episodes unless you had VHS tapes lined up or laser disks or what have you. Or the show had to hit this magical 100 episodes to get to syndication. And even then, you know, so basically what we were dealing with was something with the immediacy of a newspaper. And we would read the, we would see the hits, we'd see what we like them, we would move on. Yeah. The Golden Age, such as it was, that I think we all agreed, you know, I don't know the exact years, but whether it was 99 to 09 or something in there that produced a lot of these episodes that we love and revere and really. fueled the growth in the industry has had a very long tale.

And one thing that I've been thinking a lot about is how a lot of the shows that we talk about, especially this year, which we've agreed has sort of been a B-minus year, they're not only competing against the other shows on right now. They're competing against all the greats. So Ozark, which I'm sorry to bring up again, but I know you love it. You bring up as much as you want, yeah. I wonder if Ozark would be received differently if you couldn't just, you know, toggle on your Apple TV or what have you and go to Breaking Bad.

Do you get what I mean? Like, all these shows exist in a continuum. If there was a feeling like if once a show went on, it basically went away unless you bought the DVD box set for it or something like that. Yeah, exactly. If you didn't always have the choice of revisiting or comparing or considering it. I mean, one thing about the streaming era. I also think that television as a serious pop culture study has become more of a popular thing to do

is to, oh, you got to go back and watch the show. You got to go back and watch the show. And it's available, so you do it and you get late period binge watch. Yeah. And obviously this has affected the radio. of things because you can watch every show that's in existence, every show that's new is in competition with every show ever, which is a whole thing. But I'm just wondering about the way we consider it, which is if it used to be a newspaper, now it's more like a book on a bookshelf

from a library with all the books around it. Yeah. And having a conversation with them. That is a big, bigger picture thing I've been thinking about as to why maybe we've been dinging some shows even without even realizing it, why we are considering them as lesser when maybe we would have been feeling, maybe some of these shows that we've been dinging to some degree would have felt fresher or at least untethered from this. long tale of history that we've been enjoying, this golden age, this golden run of TV, but also because Atlanta stands out even despite that connection. So there's two things I think Atlanta has going for in that regard. Yeah. Right. So we have been talking about those golden age shows that you mentioned

that that period of time and beyond that through, I think, I think it ends with, let's just say it ends with Madman, right, like for the sake of conversation. Even though I don't know if television was as good during the end of Madman, but like let's, we can put it there. I think that's right. But we don't really frequently, I personally don't frequently go back to watch hour long dramas. You know, I think that I've done a like light rewatching of the wire on Friday night lights. A couple of favorite Mad Men episodes, a couple of favorite breaking bad episodes. We did that, the podcast about that a little while ago. But I don't really frequently, I don't really like want to, if I'm going to watch an hour long drama, I usually want to be something new. Um, which is strange.

Because I think that when those dramas came out, we're like, well, here's the antidotes. to the disposable sitcom. Here's an antidote to the corporate network machinations that we've did this brain candy that we've been watching for 30 years. Now we have real art. But it turns out that the brain candy actually had a pretty good format.

That that was a really... And that you can actually, as we've seen with people watching friends and watching Seinfeld and watching these shows over and over again or going back to how I met your mother or going back through modern family or whatever. Those shows are easy to live with.

you know, and they're easy to have on in your life. And Atlanta sort of splits a difference. It has the artistry of one of those hour-long dramas with the digestibility of one of those sitcoms. And it has the bits, and it has jokes that you want to return to, and it has those moments who are like, oh, yeah, this is an episode where this happens. But it also has those wallop moments,

those bang, like those mic-drop moments that elevate it maybe to the world of, of art, you know? Yeah, I think that's the secret sauce here in TV making, which is obviously there's a ton of it and everyone's looking for the formula. Everyone's trying to jump out of orbit. Everyone's trying to break free of gravity, basically.

And, you know, when we used to talk about Mad Men, we would talk about one of the things that kept it working and humming was that it was also a workplace comedy, little key in addition to it. The thing you say about sitcoms, you know, the formula works, people want it. And there are very few shows as nimble, as Atlanta that can lay back in the cut

and become a character-based sitcom when it wants to, that can take a detour into dramatics, but that can also just live in this in-between sort of emotional place that feels so rich. And I wonder also if one of the reasons why this season, which so far,

I mean, we haven't even seen Van yet, so far it's just been tracking pretty closely to the Earn and Paperboy story. And I think we read in the early press that when they came back and they wrote the season, they surprised even themselves by having it be a little more conventional, which I sort of disagree with, but I guess in terms of how they're plotting it more conventional. So far, there hasn't

been a B.A. you know, the Black, the B.A, whatever, the Black Entertainment News episode. They haven't done like a wild formal digression from what a typical television show would look. But because they did that the first season, we are constantly on guard knowing if they're coming as progressive now. Yeah. It's like, but we know that they could. It's like a pitcher coming into the first inning and being like Ricky Vaughn on the mound and then suddenly becoming Cliff Lee in the second inning. It's the reverse of what they tell you to do. They say, like, learning your lines so you can improvise.

They improvise now they're sort of learning their lines, you know. And I think it's pretty interesting. I mean, the thing that that second episode really does well. Sporting waves, it's called. Sporting waves. What it really did well is Brian Tyree Henry does such a good job projecting the indignities of being a musician, but being an artist, but being specifically a musician and specifically a musician in 2017 or 18.

And you and I have been around music for almost 20 years now, the music industry to some extent. Like we've been to listening sessions and we've seen vans that were wrapped with artists' faces driving around New York City. You and I were briefly signed to touch and go records. That's right. In the late 90s.

But there does seem to be, because of digital technology, a heightened level of absurdity to some of it. And I think that that's captured really well when the guy is asking him to do drops for the playlist or whatever, and he's like, that's right, but just do him, we're tough, you know, and he just does the same exact way over and over again. This kind of gets to some stuff that Julian Casablanca's was talking about in this interview.

So if you haven't gotten a chance to read it, it's Unvulture, we'll put it in the show notes. But it's a pretty funny interview. Now, most people are dunking on Casablanca's because he seems to misunderstand the popularity of David Bowie, who was, like, one of the most famous people alive, and he was like that obscure, he was really obscure in the 70s. And there's some other. Hendricks. And Jimmy Hendricks, which David amazingly, like, just

like he closed Woodstock. Yeah, right. He's like, nobody appreciated Jimmy Hendricks when he was alive, and David's like he closed Woodstock. It's just a great, it's a great heat check. But, there is some stuff in there that he talks about, which is about the idea that

money and specifically major corporations' interests in maximizing profit margins has started to affect not only the political world, which we were all probably to varying degrees aware of, but very much so the artistic, the popular culture world. Now, for some people, it's like no duh, but there's a way in which he talked about it. And you could say it's sour grapes because he used to be the man and now you want to be the man, right? But there's also a little bit of like melancholy, I think,

to it where I think he thinks there should be a way for the best work to rise to the top. and that in the 70s and in the 60s, even, you know, like, that there was still, you could still listen to the best music on the radio. Now, he then sort of goes back against his own point by saying David Bowie wasn't appreciated,

the Velvet Underground were it appreciated, Jimmy Hendricks wasn't appreciated. But he's getting at this idea of, like when you're dealing with someplace, like an Apple music, like a Spotify, both services that you and I use and love, like you're also talking about corporations

whose primary interest is not artistic, to cap, like... I mean, it's always been the way. Right? Okay, but do you think that there's a decided difference between some place like RCA Records and a digital... And a digital technology corporation?

I think that's a fair point. I don't think he's the correct vehicle to be making this point. You know, I think that he undercuts to every argument he makes when he suggests that Ariel Pink should be more popular than Ed Shearin. Just like, nope.

Not a big fan of either, but let me just stop you right there. That is, Ariel Pink is not the David Bowie of his generation or our generation full stop. I think there is something there, which is to say that Spotify is about to go public and has made that intention clear. And Spotify, while they have, you know, there are many smart people working there

and people who are passionate about music, the bottom line of the corporation is to maximize return value for the soon-to-be-share-vors. And like you said, that has always been the bottom line of the music industry. You can go back to the night to people getting screwed out of their royalties as soon as they had royalties.

What's weird, I mean, it just, it's a very, very, his whole argument, you know, from what, from when he's like, I got really into politics, you know, so I'm really learning a lot about politics. It really sounds like I just, you know, the guy with a socialism flyer on the main green stop me. He sounds like an older version of Timothy Shalaman lady. And I had coffee. Exactly. Yeah. He's like one, one senior seminar away from like really fully articulating what he's saying.

And he keeps saying, I don't really know how to communicate this, which is, but is with the confidence of a 38-year-old white rock star. are, communicates it. Right. I think his point is that now more than ever, the people with the money get to decide what happens and get to decide, they get to decide who the politicians are, who are going to run for office or who wins, and that they would get that, and that they also decide what we hear. But what he's, what he starts by saying is that he had hoped there would be a great democratization, that because Spotify gave you access to everything, that the undiscovered things would no longer

be. We would all listen to the stooges. Undiscovered, right. But a lot of people are listening to the stooges. and it's fundamentally true that you can discover things much more quickly now. But it was never going to be that something that is intentionally made to challenge you is going to be as popular as the thing that is made to please you. That's just in every avenue of culture or food or life that's always going to be the case.

There also seems to be, in his words, a little bit of nostalgia for an era that he didn't really get to be a part of either. I mean, one thing that's misunderstood often about the strokes, I think, they wanted to be kind of guided by voice. They wanted to be a 90s rock act, even though they were playing with 70s and 80s poses. Yeah. And I think what he's kind of saying on some level is that he wishes everyone wasn't so complicit, but he's not personally angry of people because that's the system. And it is worth noting that indie acts and major label acts all do Spotify sessions. They all go on Zane Lowe for Apple.

There is no one that I can tell who raises a middle finger and does Sid Vicious or even Steve in the face of what the industry is, everyone plays along. And so we see Paperboy doing it too, but we get to see his face while he does it. And I'm very interested that you're putting these two things together. I think there's, I wasn't fully integrating them into my mind, but there really is something there. Well, it's the same thing that the Cat Williams character says in the first episode about, you know, and Ern's like, you know, everybody's, you got to lose the chip on your shoulder. You know what I mean?

And that idea that you may see the game for what it is, but are you going to play? or not. And this idea, I think that Julian Casablancus has hit a point where people aren't necessarily eating out of the palm of his hand anymore. He may be, I'm sure he's very well off and he doesn't have to worry about anything as he was probably when he was entering the strokes. But it

does seem like that kind of tension around how much of a dog and pony show does this have to become to do the simplest thing? Is it an interesting tension? There's also... And there are people who accept that as part of, as a tax on doing what they want to do. And there are people who are

rebel against it. I also think that for all of the transparency we have now with celebrity lives and the process of things, how sausages get made, we don't really get much insight or where we don't choose to investigate how non-linear an artistic life or career or journey actually is. And that goes back to what Brian Tyree Henry's face does so well. And what Atlanta does so well. He is the MVP of the show, by the way, I think. His performance, what he can do. with his face, just the deep bone-level existential disgust and despair. But also the fact that the show, I mean, how much more successful is he than when we met him in the premiere?

And I think the answer is none, negligibly. Yeah, I get the impression that it's like his fame outpaced his output. His output, or at least his, the one song has now become so much of a signature that he's trying to catch up to it. But that's also, he also still has to have his life. Right. And I love that Atlanta exists in the, um, potholes between events in people's lives. And there's a way to read the Julian Casablanca story as, you know, pampered, aging rock star runs off at the mouth too much about things he's not, well informed on or, you know, not understanding what people want from him.

But there's also a version of it where like, it's been 17 years since the first stroke. record came out. It's been 10 years since they released a record that people were like, that it felt culturally like people are excited about or, you know, are they going to make it? They're not. That they're not going to be the biggest band of the world. I mean, I think we knew that in 2003, but now we know it too. But for a lot of people, they don't think about, we don't, I mean, this is, we're all guilty of this. We don't think about people that we like or admire or artists that we are excited about in the fallow period between their output when they reenter our lives. And that's when they're actually doing their lives, and that's when they are developing their maybe not

super complicated theories about how money is ruined politics, you know? And so in a weird way, we are peeking underneath the hood in both of these pieces in a way that isn't, frankly, isn't that flattering to anybody, you know, the system, the star, what have you. I really love the fact that Atlanta has real emotional stakes and that it is, really grounded in a place of disappointment and despair. And for as funny as this episode is, when they realize, without saying it, that they're not going to work in this world, it's not going to happen for them, when Erne loses the money, the way that he loses him, it's hilarious, but also that matters. And it's so much easier to, when you're covering a rock star or making

a TV show, I think, to steer your story towards the zeniths, towards the maximal moments, right? I mean, that's sort of the way more traditional TV has always been built. It's the way movies are built. It's for either the highest highs or the lowest lows. But Atlanta succeeds by just living on a Tuesday. It's just Tuesday afternoon. Yeah. And they did this and now what? That's like, that's the power of the show. All right, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. Then we'll come back and talk about the first episode of Collateral.

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Hulu's new series, the Looming Tower, based on the Puelled Surprise winning book by Lawrence Wright. This Limited Series traces the rising threat of Osama bin Laden and how the rivalry between the FBI and CIA may have set a path for the tragedy of 9-11. Starring Emmy winner Jeff Daniels, Golden Globe nominee Peter Sarsgaard and Tahar Rahim, as Ali Sufon, the looming tower, is available now only on Hulu. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Hotel Tonight. Fun fact, unlike flights or other travel, hotel rates actually get cheaper at the last minute.

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And with Hotel Tonight's H.T. Perks program, the more you book, the better the deals get. So start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels and download the Hotel Tonight app now. Andy, we're back. We're going to talk about the first episode of The Netflix show Collateral, David Hare's four-part crime drama, starring Carrie Mulligan. And there's a lot of different ways we can approach this. We can talk about our favorite performances in the first episode. We can talk a little bit about the plot if you'd like to.

But there's one thing I wanted to bring up initially with you. And I know that some people like ding David Hare here and there for feeling like he's a little bit on his box at Hyde Park. You know, shout at people. I remember those guys. I saw those guys. But there's one thing I wanted to discuss because I think that you and I often respond to

the same thing in TV that we like. And it's basically like this specific thing is, you know, good dialogue. And sometimes we deviate, sometimes we don't. But there's a difference between good dialogue and realistic dialogue. And this has always been kind of a fascination of mine because the two terms can be interchangeable sometimes when you're reading criticism of television. It's a very realistic dialogue.

In fact, I don't actually want realistic dialogue. Realistic dialogue, if you want realistic dialogue, homie, listen to a podcast. Well, yeah, but actually, in the sense, you and I are doing a performance of our friendship on this podcast. And it is... What? Well, no, but it is not like how we actually talk. I'm heartbroken. This is the first time we've spoken since the last time we were in microphones.

Any other hard truths you want to drop on me? It's not how we actually talk literally in a room together. We'll get distracted by something. There's somebody else comes into their. room that's unexpected or whatever. You rarely call me by my last name, except on this podcast. That's true. That's kind of a thing we do here.

But the same thing goes for television. If you wanted to watch a realistic rendering of some of the events that you see in collateral, I don't think it would be nearly as exhilarating. In fact, it would be utterly depressing and then boring. But what David Hare does really well is he knows that what he wants to do is his action is going to be people talking. And this is similar to what Sorkin does. This is similar to what a lot of great writers do, Petitschievsky.

it's having two people, three people in a room talking, what's happening in that room? What's the emotional stakes? What is the cause and effect that brings them into this room that's getting them out of this room? The action is largely verbal. He has a certain energy to his writing that I really respond to.

And even though it is very, very, I wouldn't say stagey, but it is produced. The dialogue between Carrie Mulligan's character Kip and her partner throughout the first episode is the ratatat. Love it. You know, classic buddy cop dialogue shot through maybe, you know, British boarding school, but it still has like a 1940s, 1950s, noir kind of vibe to it. That's what I love.

I love the idea that someone is using dialogue to create a tone for the show where most people use camera work, lighting, setting, whatever. You can create an emotional stakes for a television show. with dialogue and you can decide, you know, this is very serious stuff we're talking about. We're talking about a murder. We're talking about immigration, refugees. We're talking about Brexit. But you can create the tone of the show with how people talk.

And you can tell us a lot about these people's worldviews by how they talk. I was wondering if you responded to that at all in the show as well. I love that you say that because what this show has that grabbed me right away is it has energy and it has intention. And I think that's crucial to making something that is entertaining. Energy is right there. I mean, the direction by S.J. Clarkson is really good. The show is as much about London as it is about anything else. And so it feels like there's an urban hum to the show that I really appreciate.

It also helps inform the viewer that you know there are only four hours. There's only four hours of the show. So it's going to keep moving. It's just like the smile on your face about that. It makes me so happy. And also that speaks to the intention here, that David Hare had something you wanted to say, at issues you wanted to play with. So he grabbed an appropriate-sized canvas for himself to do it, and he went after it.

And so this idea of realism is really a much more complicated and problematic issue to bring up with things, because what do we want out of art, but also what did the artist want to do? Law and Order is incredibly entertaining and efficient show that makes an absolute mockery of police work and legal work. Sure. But everyone's fine with that. However, a show like The Wire is specifically about bureaucracy, process. and frustration. Yeah, boredom, you know, the system's grinding you down.

Yeah, absolutely. And so that's what the show is about. And so when we watch this, and I, you know, already I can tell, and this is a part of, this is a little voice in my head that I just quieted while I was watching it because I was enjoying it so much. Like, oh, that's convenient that, you know. I would say that collateral is to the wire what Ozark is to Breaking Bad. Fair.

Fair. That's fair. Like the MP that is, you know, talking about immigration is also involved with the woman who witnessed the murder. You know what I mean? Who is in a lesbian relationship with a priest? I mean, it's all, if you say it out loud, but the point is that he chose the cannabis that he wanted. He chose the characters that could be stand-ins for the issues that he wanted.

And then he imbued them with energy, intention, purpose, and enough character to make it believable. And then they're telling the story. And so it works, it's funny. I think that we, in general, this goes all the way back to the thing I was saying at the beginning about what we are expecting from greatness in TV, what we're looking for right now. this is a modest show in a lot of ways. Yeah, this is a celebration of the double to left. But it is successful in it. And in that way, I find it superior to a lot of the bigger swings that we've been considering and dismissing so far in calendar year 2018.

Well, I mean, what do you think that's about? Do you think that that's about the influx of, well, you've talked about the thinning talent pool, but you could also make the argument that there's this influx of bigger names coming in, So the stakes inevitably have to be high for a Reese Witherspoon drama on HBO or a show from Jonah Nolan about Cowboys and Robots. You know, like that the stakes have to be a nut. I'm just picking two shows at random. It has nothing to do with them being on HBO. But it's like that idea that if you're going to do this, it's almost like what happened with movies as they moved into the blockbuster period out of the New Hollywood period where it's like, look, if we're going to invest in Bruce Willis jumping out of a skyscraper or the skyscraperererer up at some point.

I think that's exactly right. We used to talk about how the British model was interesting or noteworthy or superior to the American model because they did fewer episodes and they could be more focused with their storytelling. That was clearly absorbed fully into the American television bloodstream thanks to the streaming services. What I'm looking at now is a difference between American TV as it's currently being commissioned and made and a show like Collateral is that collateral appears to have been an issue and a story that David Hare wanted to tell about a subject. he had a story. He had themes he wanted to tackle, and he built it, he built it like Legos from there,

from a foundation. I think much of the shows that we're talking about were being considered for this year and going forward are built not in that way. They are built top down. You get Reese Witherspoon,

you get Nicole Kidman, we want to work together, let's find a piece of IP, as they say, or a book that might work. Okay, let's fold that in. Let's get a director, let's have,

and then once we've got all those pieces, well, then we'll pay either one writer, or maybe a lot of writers that we don't even know about being credited to find a reason to make this show. Reverse engineer a theme into this material, which is really just about being in business

with these bigger names. Right. And I think that a lot of, I can't speak to the motivations of any different actor, but there is something about this Carrie Mulligan performance, and I actually want to have Amanda come on on Thursday because she and I have been talking a lot about,

you know, we've got a lot of time for Carrie Mulligan. We always have as an actress, but she's showing something here that I don't think she's gotten a show before, which is the space to just have like a pretty normal character. Kip is such a refreshing cop. We've been kind of going through these years of True Detective Two style characters who all have this mortal emotional wound that they're carrying around,

this trauma that they're trying to get over. And that they punish themselves or others. Yeah, exactly. And that their police work is in somehow, it's like a penance for some, you know, sin that they've committed or has been committed onto them. And so far, at least through one episode, this is just a driven woman who is sort of looking for justice, but has also just happened to find something that she's very good at. Yeah, when we see a no-nonsense British police detective, the easiest comp is for Jane Tennyson

from Prime Suspect, the Helen Mirren part. But so far, through one, a more natural comp for me, weirdly, is Marge Gunderson for from Fargo. Yeah. That's a great, that's a great comment. Not just because they're both pregnant, which is interesting and noteworthy and adds to the character, but because she's doing her job. Now, she is not, this is not a Coen Brothers universe, so there is not that strange sense of whimsy and menace. We're not, there is no commentary on regional niceness or peculiarities so far, but she's good at her job.

There's a, and that also is steered towards Carrie Mulligan being cast in this because she is a very warm presence. You know, when you see her, you sort of, the way her face is open and you like her on screen, which is a huge attribute for any actor. Now, she's a police detective, so she's a little more no nonsense, but she plays off of it. She knows people will talk to her. Yeah. When she gets the call in the middle of the night and she's in bed sleeping with her husband, there's a little bit of a smile when she says, I'm going to work. Yeah. Because she likes going to work.

She does like it. She likes this job. Yeah. And I think that I think you're right, especially in a show, again, four hours, people. In a show that is as limited as this, there's not going to be room or time. to be like, I don't think, about her tortured backstory. Yeah. So let's just have her be an active engine to get us through the story.

And there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with giving us that to play with. For her to play with and for us to watch and enjoy. So we could talk a little bit more deeply about the plot on Thursday when we kind of get a little bit further into this season. Is there any other non-Carie Mulligan performance you wanted to shout out? I want to particularly shout out Haley Squires, who plays Lori, the ill-fated pizza manager, one of the first people we see in the show.

I haven't spent as much time in London recently as you, but she seems like a very plausible resident of that fine city. Now, I also like, I just like her performance. I like the energy that she brings to the show. I also want to say that I think she has a very thankless job, because this show, I don't know about it for a similitude on any number of fronts about how Labor Party is functioning in a post-Brexit era, about how the Syrian refugee crisis is playing out on the streets

of the capital city. But from what I believe to be true, its depiction of the hideousness of English pizza is dead on. But that is a popular pizza joint. Pizza is popular everywhere in the world. The world's bigger now, I think, is burgers in London. Look, at least in, like,

it's like the gourmet burger is pretty popular. I think pizza is obviously like a staple of the to-go thing. Nothing speaks worse about, about, American Empire or the decline of American cultural empire than the proliferation of the fancy burger place. So wait, do you not, is it the proliferation of fancy burgers or is it just the proliferation of burgers? I went, well, I really struggled with that. A couple years ago, maybe this is a better story for House of Carbs, but a couple years ago. You can bless me with it.

I went to a friend's wedding in France. Okay. So it's in France of the family. Did I tell the story on this podcast? Who knows? And, well, edited it if I did. And the first night we got there, everyone's a little jet lagged. wife and daughter go to sleep.

I'm wandering the streets. You know, to say he's late, a little bit later, Paris. Okay. It's a beautiful. Oh my God, I'm in Paris. How incredible. Walking around beautiful old buildings,

mimes with berets, probably, I don't remember. And then from a distance across like a beautiful park is the sun setting. I see a crowd of people. I'm like, okay, I wonder what's going on over here. I approach. And I see like a wood front of this building and people gathered around. I'm like, this is a restaurant. I'm like, this is the spot.

The bistronomy movement is happening in Paris. And I'm going to discover this. I'm going to walk in. And I get closer. I'm like, there's something on every table. This must be the must order. Is it wine? What is this on everyone's table?

This red bottle. If he was wine in every table, you would have just found a bar. Which I also would love to experience because I was jet lagged and thirsty. It was Heinz ketchup because this place was a burger place. It was mobbed. And the aesthetic was pure Brooklyn. It was just like exposed wood and, you know, like those old light bulb light fixtures, a little like hissing kind of.

And you're like, no. But I was like, this doesn't exist in Brooklyn. But in Paris, everyone's lining up for this faux Brooklyn aesthetic. So, look, I don't even know why are we even telling the story. I think it was just about pizza and the popularity of different foods in Europe. But that pizza looked super bad, right? Like, they were just thrown in frozen pizzas. Also, yeah.

Bring it back to collateral, which we probably should. When Billy Piper receives the pizza from the doomed pizza delivery guy. Yeah. And then hurls it across the room and disgust, I was like, I stood up and applaud it. Like, that is exactly what you should. should do when someone hands you that pizza. I know. Something tells me that the pizza is a little bit of a guffin in this whole situation. Yeah, I don't know.

You don't think the pizza was that important? We'll be talking about episode two on Thursday. Do you, last thing, the first episode reveals who pulled the trigger without revealing anything about that person. I mean, there would be, I guess a twist would be why was this person wearing a diving suit otherwise, but how do you feel about that gambit? With the possibility of being a twist or her, of a... Well, it's an aggressive play and a mystery not to leave.

the trigger person a mystery, but basically to introduce us to someone who we don't know, so we don't know why. I think the why is going to become a bigger deal than the who. I mean, Jeannie Spark plays Sandrine Shaw. That's the person who gets into, like, does a full outfit change in the bus station. Do people wear a lot of diving suits in London these days? Now it will be disturbed if I see it. I think that athletic gear, a leisure wear, is getting pretty close to scuba wear.

Wow. You mean in terms of its breathability underwater? Well, it's tightness. I mean, people, I think it's, people are out there wearing, like, the guy who manages Liverpool basically is wearing tights. I'm pretty into our hard turn into just being a podcast of the old guys complaining about international food. I like it.

I wish I could wear it. I'm just saying, I don't know if I don't have to figure for it anymore, if I ever did. It's too tight for you? I don't think that I could come into work as Yergen Klopp does and be wearing tight black athletic pants, black sneakers, and a, and like a windbreaker.

My bigger question is, but you want to. Yeah, definitely. Why? Also, that dude has a full head of fake hair, and he's like open about it. He's like, I got rich

and I got hair transplants, dog. Wow. Yeah, so he's just like, he has a certain degree of like, he knows where he wants to be and he knows how to get there. Listen, I think you're doing great. You are doing a podcast

sitting in front of a picture of yourself. I don't think it gets any better. you're right, I've peaked. Thursday we'll talk about episode two, and maybe Amanda will come join us and we'll have some other goodies for you. Until then... Hey, last good kiss by James Crumley.

That's the book. Get reading it for the book club. So that's it for us today. Let's talk to you on Thursday. I'd like to see you in those clothes. I think that would work for you. Zach, thanks for writing. Berensky.

That's probably not Zach's favorite pot ever. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Hulu's new original The Looming Tower based on the pre-Litzer Prize winning book by Lawrence Wright. This limited series traces the rising threat of Osama bin Laden and how the rivalry between the FBI and the CIA may have set a path for the tragedy of 9-11. The looming tower is available now only on Hulu.