The Watch - ‘Beef’ Is Back: Season 2, Episodes 1-5 and ‘Top Chef’ S23E7

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Chris and Andy talk about the official announcement of director Joseph Kosinski’s ‘Miami Vice’ reboot starring Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler (6:32), and the news that James Mangold is adapting his 1997 film ‘Cop Land’ into a TV series (10:33). Then they discuss the first five episodes of ‘Beef’ Season 2 (16:12). Later, they react to ‘Top Chef’ Season 23, Episode 7 (55:33). Finally, The Watch: After Dark (01:10:13). 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 Order and it will come. Like today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio and he was a boy from school. It's Ending Greenwald. That was a hot chip reference.

What's up, brother? You're looking good today. You're looking good today. You know what? This is actually the two genders, except we're one gender. But like, you know, like it's two ways. to wear the same literal same outfit. We're both wearing jeans and a denim shirt today. It was unplanned.

I don't really know what to do about it. I guess I could take mine off and get the gun show going. We rarely have things in common, so this does really strike me as odd. You are, for those not watching along on the video feeds. You are also continuing to wear a Phillies hat, which is wild,

because I would like to state on the record before we get into our table of contents today, that since you declared that the baseball season is irrelevant until game. 60. The Phillies have not won a game. Yes. They have been in absolute catastrophic free fall since you announced.

We have a whole segment to do at the end, watch after dark, which comes after the top chef after dark. Right. Which will be largely about Philadelphia sports and where I need you to be. Okay. I need you to put a fucking jacket on and join me on the ice. But I will say this. Joel Embed seen practicing. Yes.

Mike Vrabel's infidelity possibly torpedoing the the A.J. Brown trade. I think now is the time to strike and have a coup against Bill. I was going to say. This is when I take over rewatchful.

He's weak. This is actually... This is him and is weak. This is Putin's whole strategy. Do you understand? He knows he has a smaller, less rich country, but he sees the long game.

He's like Littlefinger, and what he does is he just chip, chip, chips away. And the next thing you know... When the Sixers losing five and AJ still gets traded, he kisses me full on the mouth and goes,

Who was you? No, he just shows you your new office on the fourth floor. Wait, is that like lockjaw? No. Oh, yes. No, I just feel like generally with Putin, if you run afoul of him. Make sure the windows lock. And don't touch doorknops. Greenwald, great to see you, man. I haven't said this in a while, but you can email us at the watch at Spotify.com.

We've been getting some cool emails. I'm going to collect some for a mailbag coming up soon. I think we should get all kinds of questions in this mailbag. I'm tired of being limited to, like, Oh, ask us anything? What are the five best prestige TV shows? Come on. Ask us anything.

Mailbag incoming. I think it's time to be more free with our takes. Yeah, so watch at Spotify.com if you want to email us anything. Consider it our substack. You know what I mean? Sure, man. And then Instagram is the Watchpot underscore. You can watch us on YouTube at the ringer dash TV.

Rob Mahoney put up a really lovely video essay about the pit that our guy, Kai, Grady, worked with him on. So shout out to them. Shout out to Prestige TV. We're also covering beef in increments. They're doing 3-3-3, I believe, or 33-2, or however they're doing it. We're going to talk about the first five episodes of Beef today. Yeah, we are.

Beef Season 2. I can't wait. I would like to say something in the spirit of accountability. Okay. I believe that I was rather flippant in my, like, Beef Got Bad Reviews and I don't want to watch it. Shame on me. Shame on me. Wow.

One thing for this. It's impossible to really, I don't believe. the numerical system people have established the metacritic numbers or whatever to say this is getting this meta score or whatever, I believe beef is doing fine with the critics. But you know what? It's doing better than fine with me. Yeah. And it just goes to show you, do your own research. If we've learned anything over the last six years. You know what I appreciate? You're taking a page from your heroine, Lori Chavez-Durremer's playbook. And when stories were swirling, you were like, you know what? This is untenable. I have to

address these things and remove myself in the discourse. I'm stepping down before the ethics committee gets to me. Yeah, I mean, the other response was you could have sued Rotten Tomatoes. Yes, that's true. For fake news. But, you know what, like, I think there are things to critique about this season of beef, but I'm excited to talk to you about it. I had a couple of news items for you.

Okay. One is a real, like, I don't know if I want to do this to top the show because I needed to be SafeSpace.com to do it. But obviously some Michael Mann extended universe stuff in the news this week. First of all, yes, I did see Maramom Dani quote heat. Look. What's your comment at this time? I couldn't be happier.

Like if that guy ever wants to go get a cup of coffee and stare at each other and say, I do pods, I do what I do best, you know, like whatever he wants to do. Here's the thing. I want to put this out there. There is a non-zero chance that he is a rewatchable's listener. Well, there's a non-zero chance also. like he's available. Like, this guy knows how to reach the people.

He did side talk. Like, he's done Adam Friedland. Like, he... You think this is his next stop and his media tour? The foreheat is Mom Donnie. Oh, for you guy. I thought he was going to come to our podcast. Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, whatever he wants to... With the sixth secretarial labor burns, he knows where to show up. He's probably going to do, do, like, a Rob Mahoney video essay on the pit. This is how he didn't fix health care. I would love that. I think that's very exciting, and I think that we should make this happen, because you know how TMZ just recently announced they are going to DC? Yes, they are in DC.

I think this is a good next move for you guys. I think that this is the next world you need to conquer. Democratic socialism? Sure, whatever you want to call it. I'm just saying, I think that like the merging of these worlds, because you notice that there are people, occasionally pundits online, like a Matt Iglesias or something, will be like, I would like to be third chair on JMO, you know?

Like, I think that this is all possible for you. We should just bring in the political pundit class, is what you're saying. I think that there is a, there is precedent for, with rewatchables, when certain, like, celebrities or actors are fans, they have made appearances or they've talked about it, you know. So I think, why not Senator Chris Murphy? You know what I mean? Why not? He was here.

I think he did press box. I mean, these guys are in the mix. Maybe they should do, like, a car wash where they do, like, press box, they do rear tailgate. They can hear Joel's wrestling story and then they can come on. They could show up with a blue Oxford shirt. And just be like, are we sure beefs? good. I mean, are we sure? What is their truest form? The sad thing

is we're all the same age now. Yeah, I know. Seriously. It's fine. Anyway, in the man universe, I just wanted to say that I have clocked the fact that Joseph Kaczynski's much talked about Miami Vice adaptation or reboot is going to be called Miami Vice 85.

Hell yeah. I need a trade kit because I'm choking on it. This is absolutely ridiculous. I am so excited that he is going to bring his very, very, very polished, like the true air of Tony Scott's like kind of like slick, slick Hollywood filmmaking and that he is going to neon the fuck out with 85 or maybe he's got a different vision of 1985. I think this vision, whatever it is, is going to be seen through slatted blinds at midday. Yeah. And I think it's actually

pretty smart to not try to outmodern the Michael Mann, you know, you know, feature version of Miami Vice, which is kind of like, you know, become like a bit of a modern cult classic. This is you in the hot dog suit, wondering who's responsible for this? We have to find the guy responsible for this. There's a part of me.

There's a small part of me. Which part? That I can't tell if it's my head or my heart. So maybe it's my, my trachea. It's, there's a part of me that is as if not more excited for this than I am for heat. too. Wow. Thank you for sharing this here. Because Heat 2 still feels like speculative to me. Like it still almost feels too real, too crazy to be real that they're going to do this,

that they're going to do a globe-trotting crime epic with two of the biggest best actors alive and a crazy supporting cast if rumors are true. This Miami Vice 85, Austin Butler is Sunny Crockett, Michael B. Jordan is Ricardo Tubbs. I don't think that those Tom Cruise rumors about him playing the villain are real. But crazier things have happened in this little world of ours. So I don't know.

I mean, do you ever watch Miami Vice the show when it was on in the 80s, not in the 80s, but have you ever watched it? I've watched it sparingly. I have, it was, I don't know if there was the same thing in your house, but it was illicit because it was on late. Watch it from the landing.

Yes, it was watching through a crack in the door kind of stuff. Or if you had a sleepover with friends who had a more liberal sleep schedule. Just a bunch of guys wearing denim shirts. I just sitting around holding hands in the dark. Yeah. In their gremlin sleeping bags being like,

this is the best one. Yeah. It's a who's who of character actors, guys. Yeah, or did you ever, you know what the big thing was? This is very generational. But I bet Senator Chris Murphy will get the reference. There was always like the one friend who had a TV in their room

or that they could wheel into their room for sleepovers. Yes. Then you could watch. Did you ever have the kid who had TV come out of the floor or come out of like the half wall? I heard about those kids. Dude, I knew again. It had that.

God damn. That took like five minutes for the thing to rise, but it was worth it. Every minute you were just like, fuck it out. 2001 soundtrack playing. Go away. Yeah. Man, those are exciting times. I think that this movie sounds fantastic.

I think maybe the other thing you're responding to potentially is that calling it Miami Vice 85 really seems like they are going to be dialing in on the aesthetics of what already made America great. Yes. Whereas he too is the movie that Michael Mann is going to make next, which is of great interest, but increasingly with this cast list and you say a global, what's a global crime romp?

It feels less connected to what made the original special and maybe more a celebration of where these people are now. I'm a huge fan of the last two Joseph Kaczynski movies. Yeah. And I think that he will infuse this with an energy that I'm very interested to see. Michael Man, like, is my Jesus? so I won't doubt him

but I just want to see some set photos where I want to see like yep we're rolling in this year you know okay thank you for sharing that that was very vulnerable thanks yeah that's why I wore this shirt the only other thing I had for you today was that I saw an announcement that Paramount is going to get behind

a series adaptation of another cult classic honestly James Mangold's I believe early 2000s God, what year was I think it's earlier than that? I think it was 90s. 1997. James Mangold's 1997 crime drama Copeland.

Let me set the scene for you. A young fellow, no TV in his room, goes to the mailbox to get the hot off the press issue of Movie Line magazine. Where in addition to a scorching interview with someone who was in probably body of evidence or something, there was like... William Defoe tells all.

Literally, there was a little piece about how Sylvester Stallone is going to dust off his acting boots. and really give it a go. Well, he did. And it is one of my favorite crime dramas of that decade. Is it? Is it Leota?

It's incredible. Leota? Yeah, I remember. Harvey Keitel, Robert Patrick, briefly E.D. Falco. Yeah. And Stallone.

Very dramatic ending, if I remember correctly. Yeah, it's just fantastic. Anyway, this is actually a film to series adaptation that I think makes sense because for people who don't know, the concept of copland is essentially a town in New Jersey that a bunch of New York cops have essentially taken over as their like soft retirement home slash place from which they do nefarious business. And Sylvester Sloan's character is the cop who polices cops, but not very aggressively.

Like he's part of a kind of you scratch my back, I scratch yours. And he's he's deaf. He's lost hearing in his one ear, yes. And a cop who has to. police cops is a good log line for a TV show that lasts multiple seasons. Yeah, especially because it comes with a setting, like a town that runs by a different set of rules. Yes. Now, you don't have to set this in New Jersey to New York, although that was definitely like, the sense of place in Copeland is one of the major draws of it. It's so evocative of those towns

when you get over the George Washington and you're driving south and you're just kind of like, what's going on over there, what's going on over there? And these are all like these kind of commuter towns that are very, and even like the way New Jersey is kind of set up where it's like, everything is like a village or a township. Yeah, and in order to turn, you have to turn right and then loop back around. What's that about? We never got to the bottom of that. Do you think Copland voted for Mikey Sherrill for a governor?

Can I mean, can I ask you that something? Do you think it would be better if we have more shit like that in Los Angeles instead of like the death race 2000 that is left turn on yellow? Yeah. Yeah. Any follow-ups? No, I mean, I just think we could do some interesting stuff here with driving if we ever had the wear-with-all. I think the problem, here's what I blame most in Los Angeles. It's the groundlings.

I think that there is a culture of improvisation that has leached from the feeder theaters to Saturday Night Live into people's approach to traffic. In this analogy, what's the feeder theater? Well, any improv theater, because I watch someone just... You mean like, people's driving has become more and more free jazz. Yes. Who, where, like, who is, like, responsible for that? I'm assuming, I just think it's the culture of yes and. I think it's the culture of everybody being like, I'm looking at Google Maps.

I saw someone today turn left to get here where we are at lovely Spotify and downtown Los Angeles. It was the most impressionistic left turn I've ever seen. It was like Monet looking at water lilies for the first time. We were on that bridge turning off and there were four cars coming and there's no signal. So normally what one does when one has an arrow that it's allowed is one waits for the oncoming traffic to cease. Yeah. Not only did they turn in front of those cars, they then started to turn more to delay the impact of those cars, as if they just took a little more time. Yeah.

It would get them there. It's tough out there. It was like watching Will Ferrell in 1993. But, you know, the reason why I bring this up is I was thinking about some, you know, Cape Fear coming soon on Apple TV, which I think will be an extended version of, like, the story we know and love of Max Katie. You know, presumed innocent from a couple of years ago or a year or so ago on Apple TV. TV, essentially expanding a very taught two-hour thriller. That's not ordinarily what I go for when it comes to these kinds of big screened adaptations.

But something like Copland, which obviously I'm drawn to anyway because of the subject matter and because of the original treatment of it, if Mangold's involved, I have a lot of belief. The other creative involved is the old band creator Robert Levine. I think that that's just like a really smart way to make a cool TV show. Now, you could just definitely, like, dial it up as mayor of Kingstown, too, and just kind of have it be like guys walking in rooms. It'll probably be pretty decent either way. But I like the thinking here. Yeah, I do too.

I also like you concerned trolling TV shows about men walking into rooms. I mean, it's all we got. Right? They haven't figured out a better way to make TV right now. Let me know. No. I mean, Lioness, there's a woman in the room. Sure.

Yeah, for sure. You got that. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out? of nowhere and realize you're missing something. Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike, or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for, that's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back.

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

Did you have anything else you wanted to bounce off me? He said you had a question for me. I think considering my long disposition on left turning, I think we should just get into our shows. Sure. I mean, it's your show too, man. You can call an audible if you want. I work better within a structured offense. Let's talk about beef.

Okay, so not unlike the first season where I think I went into it and was a little bit like, what do we got here? What do we got on our hands? And then found myself just completely enamored with it and talked to Sonny and Jake from behind the scenes on the show at one point for the podcast. And we should say Lee Sung-jin, who is the creator of the show, goes by Sunny. Goes by Sunny. And Jake Shriar, who I think believe these two are now collaborating on the X-Men adaptation, which is pretty big deal.

This is three years after the first season. This is an anthology show. So the concept of beef is one I think we can interrogate and what unites these two seasons. I have not revisited the first season, obviously. But I'm curious to know if you drew any connective tissue to the other two. Obviously, Sunny takes the idea of an insight. inciting incident and really explores the studio space with it, because from this inciting incident, so many different things kind of get brought into this world pool of distress, right?

This season, the new installment tracks the collision between two couples, working in and around a high-end country club called Montevista, which I believe is set in, like, in Santa Barbara, I believe. Santa Barbara County, like Ohio-ish. And then the one couple, Josh and Lindsay, were in their 40s, played by Oscar Excuse me, Lindsay's 39. That's a plot point. Josh and Lindsay, who are in and around their 40s, they live in Ohio and work at this country

club. Lindsay, not so much. She's hoping to be brought on as an interior designer. Josh is the general manager. There's another couple, Ashley and Austin, who are far lower on the totem pole at the job, the job totem pole at this country club. And Ashley's a cart roll. Austin is hoping to catch on as a.

as a trainer of some kind at the club. And one night they witnessed in the first episode a fight between Josh and Lindsay, a volcanic fight, that they surreptitiously record and then use as tacit, then explicit blackmail over the first couple of episodes.

Then the show explodes. And the show goes in a hundred different directions, but I don't mean that in a messy, unplanned way. I think what I wanted to talk to you about, first with the shows. We did five episodes, so we've a couple more. We can maybe hit that on Monday if you'd like to. But like, what are some broad headlines about this season for you so far? As I said to you last night, call me Liver King the way I'm loving this beef. This may be my show

of the year so far. Wow. I loved it. I was completely, completely riveted and engaged with almost every aspect of it. Excited to talk about in detail why I'm excited to talk about some of these performances, but I was specifically thinking about what Sunny has done here and what he's established across two seasons. And I think that he is one of, if not the best example of a television autour. What he is capable of doing within the Netflix model is remarkable. I wish it wasn't unique, but it is rare in that he is able to tell a sprawling, but I think very focused thematic story across multiple episodes that has the necessary propulsion to keep you clicking, to keep you watching television, but doesn't ever feel, because we've been bumping up over the last

few weeks against a lot of pilots, a lot of new series that feel like, well, that kind of could have been a movie or that kind of is going to be best expressed over five seasons. It's in the wrong box. He is a master at this specific sized box, and that is not a small thing. The second thing I was feeling as I was watching and loving these episodes was, I was trying to think about why I found this so appealing, because as you and longtime listeners know, I tend to be drawn to smaller studies that capture the minutia of daily life. You know, for example. Well, you will spend a night watching a horror film in the theater, and I will spend a night watching the taste of things, one of the most charming and beautiful French films of recent years about sumptuous cooking in the 19th

century. We can only be us. Elite Juliet Pinotche performance. It's on Hulu now. The thing that I love about beef that really crystallized at some point, I believe it's in, it might have even been in the first episode. I did watch them pretty stacked on top of each other. Yeah. When the characters are scrolling, when the characters are Googling, when the characters are WhatsApp and texting and Instagram messaging and then going into recently deleted, the way they're living their lives online on a show. I realize that, first of all, interiority, as I love or as, you know, generally we love in novels, is extremely exterior these days. Yeah.

We perform interiority all the time in our daily lives, whether it's the pictures we post or whether it's the wellness journeys we embark on or even just bringing everything up in either actual therapy or therapeutic talk. Like the business of interior lives is about making that external. And I feel like Sunny has really captured that moment in a way that it feels artful and true. And specifically, there's a moment early on, and then we can get into the specifics. But early on in the season, Carrie Mulligan, who I think is brilliant always, and incredibly so in this series, is toggling between conversations and Googles and life choices the way we all do. And she's reaching out to an old flame

and then blocking the old flame and then engaging with someone else, which causes her to go back and unblock the old flame. And the immediacy of her emotional decision, making is so disregulated but also so available to her that that then finds its match in the way these characters bounce off of each other like super radical free electrons in this fishbowl of contemporary society you're really tapping into something there because it's also the thing that I think maybe at some points makes my skin crawl when I watch it yeah it's intense you know not necessarily because I probably partially because I recognize it in myself but you know there's often this trope about like, well, would digital,

would cell phones or would smartphones have ruined this movie? Yes. And we're often like, yes, die hard would be five minutes long if people could text, you know? It's strange to watch a show feel native to that in a really, really perceptive way. So much of the deception, the betrayal in this show is fueled by, or the mechanism it's expressed through is deleting. tax messages is, you know, like basically that kind of almost digital forgery that goes on if you

are in an untrusting relationship or any kind of relationship. And there's like, you know, to what extent are people's phones there, an extension of their own, you know, personal private thoughts? And to what extent are they just a piece of like tracking machinery that is following your wants and impulses? And, you know, it's not like this is a digital surveillance show, but a lot of what goes wrong for these characters happens because people have fucking computers in their hands all the time. And it is not an impediment to the storytelling. It is often the source of storytelling.

Yeah. One thing that we, I think that we celebrate whenever we see it, is when we can recognize, even without behind-the-scenes interviews or access to the showrunners, moments when it felt like they had painted themselves into a corner and they were like, actually, this is, this challenge is an opportunity. Everything about this show flows from, from the reality of what they carry in their pockets.

The video doesn't happen if they don't have it that way. The seething jealousy of other people's lives that fuels everything all four of these characters do in different social strata wouldn't happen if they didn't have this in their pocket all the time. They are living, you know, we've often talked about how, like, it's hard to break through as a TV show because you're competing against everything

that's ever been made all the time. And this show is about how it's almost impossible to be alive when you're competing against every other person who's alive. has ever been alive. Yes. And how do you stay within your own life? So it is, use the word native.

I think this show is native to our time in a way that feels very, very exciting and gets the details right in the sense that you know the creators are being observant in the way that Austin tosses out the word late stage capitalism as if it was something that had been on a high shelf and he had just recently reached and taken it down the way that when... And Austin is played by Charles Melton. Who is incredible. I can't wait to talk about him. And Ashley is played by Kaylee Spaney, who I think is remarkable in this.

The four leads are astonishing in this. When Lindsay, this sentence alone is going to give you a sense of the show if you haven't watched it yet, but when Lindsay and, oh my God, I'm blanking on Oscar Isaac's character's name. Josh. Josh are driving, looking for their missing dog named Burberry. She says in the middle of her, you know, absolute anxiety spiral, oh, Childish Gambino just shared. My next door post.

My next door post. And when they go to a rescue, and they say something about like, I saw Gambino's post, and he's just like, hey, he's a nice guy. The specificity, it would be different

if they were like Donald Glover shared it. Yeah. Even in that small line, it communicated to us their relationship with celebrity and the people that they do or don't know

and how intimate they are with them. Every moment is considered in a way that I found really thoughtful and exciting. Yeah, I think that there's, when I'm watching this show, I have basically, and I'm curious whether you ever do this

with this or other series you're having essentially the front this sort of superficial visceral experience of like anxiety and or just tracking the various threads and I should mention at this point that very quickly into this show Josh who

essentially his identity as being the general manager of this country club the country club is taken over by a Korean company run by someone named Chairwoman Park played by Oscar winner Yun Yu Chung That's right and

She was awesome She is fantastic, and it brings in like a whole other element to the show, which involves, like, her husband. Who's played by The Legend Song Kangho, who's Star Parasite and Memories of Murder. One of my favorite actors alive, and he's just... He plays a plastic surgeon working in soul who loses a patient, and that is in its own sense, like a triggering event for the entire series. and Eunice, who's Chairwoman Park's assistant is also a very important character

but it blows out of the doors of the Ohio Country Club into a kind of much bigger canvas. So you're watching it and you're tracking it and you're kind of like analyzing all of the like, oh, this document was left out on somebody's table so they saw it and there's a lot of embezzlement stuff going on.

And then there is like the other part which I think I'm much more into which is thinking about beef rather than necessarily watching it. I don't find this anxious or uncomfortable to watch it all. Maybe it's not my favorite show of the year, but it's probably the smartest show of the year. And I think it has the most to say.

And I think it's the deepest so far. You know, like, and maybe that should be, that alone should make it the best. But I think that seeing these three couples at various stages of their life, essentially like late 20s, late 30s, early 40s, and then much older, like senior citizens, essentially.

Well, the chairwoman is 20 years older than her husband. Chairwoman's probably in her 60s, right? Did I have 50, late 50s? Chairwoman? The actress is approaching 80. Right. And her husband is 50.

You say chairwoman's much older than her husband. Yes. Sorry, yes. So the chairwoman is approaching 80, but the husband is probably in his 50s. But in any case, much older than Josh and Lindsay.

And the way the show kind of depicts love getting corrupted, no matter what age you are, depending on your economic situation, and also love getting corrupted regardless of your economic situation, you know, that there is essentially this coarsening, brittling effect that happens to any kind of romance. This was a hallmark of the first season as well,

which is that the show escalates and then asks what comes next. We've talked about, this came up in our industry conversations, I think, recently, and when we were thinking about the way characters fight on that show, and then the types of, and in relationship actually to the way characters fight on, or fought on Succession. And one of the things that was remarkable about Succession was that when Tom and Chiv went at each other,

it felt apocalyptic. And then the show wasn't afraid to say, the day after, what happens in the smoking ruin? How much more is there to bomb? What remains alive? And the thing that Sonny does so well is he pushes his chips in on these fights that can, you know,

the smallest piece of kindling can ignite them between the characters. But that the fight that begins the series is immediately spun into something else where Lindsay is like, oh, you know, if you don't have fights like this, then you're hiding something, which plants a seed in Austin's mind about what honesty is worth and how it's expressed in relationships. And it allows us to see a little bit further in the emotional journey of these characters as they get more increasingly caught up in these like Byzantine plot elements that are compelling and beautifully stacked on top of each other. but the show doesn't succeed or fail on the back of them, which is something that I really, really like. It succeeds and fails on its continuing emotional, archaeological dig of these people,

all of whom who are given the full sweep of personhood and all of whom can be both buffoons and victims in equal measure. Do you think that when characters are as well drawn as this and are given, to use your words, the full suite of personhood, it kind of obviates the need to have the, do you like these people conversation? I hope so. Yeah, I think it's a great question to ask.

And I find it, I mean, I find that to be the most boring question you could ever ask about art. It is, but I do think that there's something to the durational experience of watching television

where you have to like at least spending time with them. You don't necessarily have to want the guy to be your babysitter, but you want to see them over and over and over again. And partly because they are, are they can be competent in ways that are compelling.

They can be charming in ways that are entertaining or funny often, which is something that the show is able to do quite well. But the other thing that keeps you coming back, and I think kept people coming back to succession, not just from a baseline like, kill the rich attitude, but from a, oh my God, that excruciating moment of vulnerable humanity is pretty relatable.

And it kills me that someone I hate, like Kendall, or, you know, or in this case, Josh, is also capable of that moment. Yeah. That's what the best shows do, and that's what the show, to me, is doing through five episodes. There, in what I've read about

the making of this season, it sounds like Sonny wrote very specifically for the people who he cast. So not necessarily originally, because I know that others had been in the mix for the show. I mean, you'd mentioned who's the couple? Originally, and rarely, you know,

hit lists or wish lists get leaked or get announced, the first stories about Beef Season 2 said that the four actors were circling the parts, and it was Kaylee Spaney and Charles Melton and Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, who I think would have been phenomenal in this. And I actually think Jake Gyllenhaal would have been better than Oscar Isaac, an actor who, you know, in cold, I like more,

but we can talk about that specifically. I disagree with you about that. I think I'm a little bit warmer on the Oscar Isaac performance here than you are. I wonder what it is you think. Why do you say that? Okay. So my, there are certain things that you can just tell, like you can, I don't know if you can tell, but like Charles Melton is incredible in the show. He is so, so good at doing something that a lot of actors struggle with, even great actors. Gosling is good at this too, being, um, dumb in putting that in quotes, but also somehow soulful. Yeah, Brett Pitt's the master of that.

But this part is Brad Pitt's performance in Burn After Reading, but with the humanity filters set slightly differently. He is kind of buffoonish, but he also weeps when a bee dies in their apartment, which tells you a lot about him, both good and bad. I think that little decisions, too, just suit and flatter the actors. Like I think Carrie Mellon is amazing in, I think everything I've ever seen her in. I think she's one of our best actors. The decision to let her be British in this is so crucial.

What she said is I knew that it would require this performance was going to require a degree of improvisation that would just be much easier if I wasn't also worrying about accent and dialect. And so we don't know what the original conception of the character was, but adding in certain details about her life before Josh and about dating a royal. Yeah. Being photographed in the Daily Mail, being posh, and then finding herself in circumstances that her friends back home will probably all heart on Instagram. but the reality of which is a lot more diminished than people might realize is pitch perfect. I love Oscar Isaac. As long as we've been doing this podcast,

we've talked about him like one of our favorite actors, which he is. I find him less, he's so good and uniquely good at being Nebishi. I mean, inside Lewin Davis is a masterpiece. But there's something about his presentation and his physicality recently where he looks like he's still auditioning for Moon Night,

and he looks super ripped and good and healthy. And I know that's part of like the Ohio lifestyle and presenting as someone who can hang with the rich people and Benny Blanco and Michael Phelps as he does in the show. But it is slightly, to me, makes his neediness and his vanity and his weakness impenetrable. There's also, I think it's important to note

that that character is kind of living in a state of suspended animation where he's still like trying to get like the sickest stereo set up, you know, and has sports members. all over his man cave, you know, and it's like kind of like, I am going to preserve this version of myself. And I think that that explains also like why he looks the way he looks. Like, he's trying to stay as long as he can in his child, like his best version of his body. And it does track that like people who are rich and successful and famous wouldn't,

they would bring him along because he looks the part, even if he can't play fully the part with his finances and everything else. This is just a, it's a minor note because when he and Carrie Mulligan are going at each other, he's exceptional when he's sort of looming over Kaylee Spaniy and threatening her and stuff. Like the granular details of the performance are spectacular. But there is something, like when I see Jake Gyllenhaal on screen, I don't trust him. Like I just, I think that's a key part of some of his best performances going back to what, you know, I briefly thought was a masterpiece of television, presumed innocent.

But that is something that he knows how to use. Even in like the Spider-Man movie he was in, you're like he's using his charisma, but there's something spoiled there. Well, it's telling that it was Hathaway and Jelen Hall because clearly Sonny has like an eye for pre-existing chemistry between performers. And they've been in at least one film that I can think of before. Mulligan and Isaac have played across from each other in Drive and in Lou and Dave. and obviously are very familiar

with each other as performers and I think it works really well and on the flip side of it Spani and Melton I think have this kind of like perfect vibe of like I can't remember how long

they're supposed to have been dating for but they're a year and a half but they're engaged and it has that like a lot of this show is about what does marriage mean and what is your duty and what is your sense of loyalty

to somebody made out of. And do you lift each other up or do you weigh each other down? Sure. I mean, I think that that inevitably happens in every marriage, but like the sort of bonds that people have

and how they want to define each other through their relationships is really fascinating. So we'll talk a little bit more specifically about the episodes now. The first two, I don't really have a ton to say about we've kind of set them up as these inciting incidents.

It's important to know that Spani's character Ashley has a medical issue with her, ovary that is going to need surgical attention at some point, but she doesn't have the money, she doesn't have health insurance because of her current status at the country club, how she's working. She uses this black male footage to sort of start to attain more and more status, both up the chain of command at the country club, but just getting financial and benefits,

financial benefits. And to me, the series really takes flight in episodes three, four, and five. I agree. Three features a wonderful escapade of Carrie Mulligan's character and Oscar Isaac's character have long thought of starting a B&B. And then they decide they want to start a B, B, B, and B, which is a bed, bath, and barn. And in the barn, they would hold concerts because they remember going to see Hot Chip at the Hollywood Bowl. Or LCD sound system at the Hollywood Bowl. The aging millennial details are choice.

also that exact dream that they have floated above Los Angeles like a giant thought balloon out of every house on the east side during COVID like that is so... We could move to Palm Desert and Queens of the Sto'd age could play there. It's so much cheaper there.

Yeah. And they go on this sort of fact-finding mission to see like another couple's version, very similar version of their idea and just immediately let their dream die like as they walk through the realities of what they would have to do,

but also the scale at which they would have to be successful. And who they would be competing against. And who they would be competing against and how difficult that would be. I even thought that the way that, so Josh texts Troy, who's played by William Fickner, the great character actor, who's the sort of alpha of the country club in terms of rich guys and is like, you know, we're thinking about doing this. And instead of being like, yes, I'll invest.

He's like, you should meet my friends who are doing it already. and it's just such like a perfect like that's how a dream gets killed is with the one person not showing any interest and telling you by the way someone else is doing this already I just love that whole episode

and then that episode culminates with a great fight between Austin and Ashley that ends with her jumping out of a moving vehicle shout out Lady Bird and then she winds up in the hospital and her medical condition

in episode four is this harrowing other side of the pit adventure where she has got this huge deductible Josh comes

And she doesn't understand what deductibles are It's a great Yes and Josh comes and offers to help her But only if she Shows him That she has deleted

Or is deleting All of the backups Of the video in the cloud Which again is this sort of like Three layers of mistrust And everything

As attached to you know All these digital devices that we have is that nothing is ever really deleted. And a lesser show would run from that, either because the creators are old and don't know that things stay in your recently deleted folder or on the cloud, or because it would dramatically, they would feel like it would dramatically cut off their opportunities. The show brings it in and makes it part of the story.

And there's all this stuff happening while they're in the hospital waiting room, waiting for Ashley to be seen seemingly firmer injuries from falling out of the car, but really, like, what's really coming is this, the ovary situation is kind of coming to a head. is that there are these text messages between Austin and Eunice, Chairman of Parks Assistant. There is Austin being somewhat deroptitious about his designs on becoming a unlicensed physical trainer for the club. But then Ashley is also responding to these text messages

and then deleting all of them. And then Eunice is responding when Austin sees the phone to text messages that he hasn't sent to his mind. So it gets very, very, not convoluted, but like kind of complex when it comes to the ways people are communicating. And the fact that Josh kind of holds medical attention ransom for Ashley is a final straw. She has to go into emergency surgery. They have to remove an ovary.

And at the end of that, she is like, I will have my revenge in this life for the next. And winds up releasing unintentionally, perhaps, Josh and Lindsay's dog. And that leads to my favorite episode of the series so far, is five, where Lindsay has to spend an hour looking for Burberry while Josh goes to play with hot chip. At a chalet in Utah off of a private jet. Episode four, we should note Jake Shrier, just a brilliant job directing the first episode, and I believe he came back for the finale of this season, but Sonny directs four.

It is a lynchian fantasia in a way that is not annoying, which I think is worth noting. Yeah. Because it is a very challenging tone to strike where you can have, you can have, you can have, you know, silly jokes and humor, like, not in that episode, but like Austin, Austin thinking that invoice is written for MISC, MISC, MISC is a misspelling of mist, and he imagines that someone named Marta is providing mist for the club every morning, but also have like kind of creepy, kind of funny, just very unnerving glimpses of health care crises in Ventura County all at the same time. And then these just constant, um, Sottles on

the right word, but appropriately rhythmic beats of the show's thematic drum, where like, Ashley does not know how health care works because she's never had it before. And in fact, the strongest opinion. Sorry, the health insurance, but the strongest opinion she voices at least through five episodes is the preference, Gatorade flavor preference. That's what she feels the most strongly about anything. The whole Gatorade thing has killed me. In her life. It's remarkable. Did you ever feel. I don't... What does he say in my professional opinion? The quench is the same? Yeah, the quench is the same.

Did the... They're very funny jokes in this season. Did any of it ever take you out? I wondered, like, there's a moment when, because the one question I had is the latest criticism that I'm going to offer because I think ultimately I don't believe this to be true. But there were a couple moments when it felt like the characters, particularly Ashley and Austin's intelligence level. toggled based on how good the joke might be. Whereas Austin is sort of the golden retriever

suite, not so smart guy and thinks Misk is missed. In that episode alone, obviously she's been injured and potentially concussed and has a knee and is experiencing torsion in her ovary. That was what you said has a knee, like your Joe Buck. She has a knee. She's out with a knee. AJ Brown's got a knee. She was. That she, you know, gets the deductible stuff all mixed up, but then also thinks that the hospital pain scale is numbered, like, letterboxed. Yeah. Which was super funny. I think that...

It didn't bother me. I wondered if you bumped on it. It doesn't bother me. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me, nor does a guy being obsessed with hot chip really bother me. You know what I mean? Like, it's specificity is what roots it in reality to me, so... Totally. By the way, you should mention...

The reason she jumps out of the car is not any proof of infidelity. it's that she sees that Eunice's Instagram is private, and yet Austin has been a loud entry into her private Instagram. That is a very contemporary concern. That is not a dramatic act-out beat that I would say that my parents would flag. Were they to know how to turn on Netflix or what Netflix was or what beef is?

That's the thing is I do wonder for people who are not glued to their phones, like how some of this plays. No, I have no problem with the humor, and I also thought that episode four was a really great example of something that's incredibly tense and everything is kind of building towards Ashley's surgery, but he still takes moments to have Austin

have that weird interaction with the woman at the... Totally. At the, what about a snack machine, venting machine? And, you know, the woman brought in on a 50-150 who's tripping balls and, like, there's just flourishes. And it feels very, very lived in, even though it's a Netflix show that has, like, movie stars in it. it feels very much like

and I I for me the reason why for and especially the end of four the face Kaylee Spaney makes when Josh's long promised like white glove treatment comes through way too late and the guy is like oh I wish Josh had called me earlier because I could have gotten you seen immediately and we probably

like the underlying message being we could have saved your ovary her nostrils flare for just a second and you're like man Josh is fucking dead like this is and it is I always remember Tina Faye talking about Rachel McAdams and Mean Girls and how you can tell you've got a movie star when she can do a page of dialogue with an eyebrow arch or with like with one gesture.

Yeah, you can cut the words. And Kaylee Spaney does not have to say a thing, but she is like, this guy just might have robbed me of having a baby. I'm going to make it my life's mission to bring him down. Now that fluctuates over the next couple of episodes kind of going back to the shiv and Tom Corollary that you brought up. But to see her in the very next episode being kind of Carrie Mulligan's therapist as they

walk around Ohio looking for this dog is its own kind of thriller because you're like, what is she going to find out? What is she going to find out? And the way that the character's emotional arcs are not always jammed into each other because they are not in service of the plot. And not to compare and contrast because they are ever. very different shows with very different goals. But I think one of the things we were bumping on with Margot's got money troubles is that any

interiority of characters' lives or emotional state was so clearly created to be serviced by someone else's to advance the story of healing and unconventional family structure and it's plot, plot, plot. Yeah. This allows us to have that moment unsaid about how Josh literally leveraged her future over his own concerns by potentially blackmailing her back over medical care. And in I believe it's the previous episode, there's that absolutely incredible sequence in which Carrie Mulligan's character wearing a red light face mask is looking at her phone. Sees is trying to follow up on an assignation with an old flame.

And then he begs off and then she immediately Googles and sees on Daily Mail that he's seeing someone else. And she just starts laughing slash crying maniacally and then chases a plan B pillow with a glass of red wine. So, bravo. this is this is this is this is cinema yeah and I I love it I do have to ask if if anything cut close to home to you I mean I know that we've probably all been to a hot chip show or two in our lives have you have you ever gotten mad at someone for getting COVID at mescal night that seems CR coded to me uh getting mad at somebody for having COVID no just like a British guy cough into my mouth that's how I got covered the first time I mean it is what it is

I was so good I had the fucking Johnson and Johnson, nobody was touching me for a minute. And then I go to England for the first time and some guy comes up to me after a live show and goes, mate! And then just starts yelling at me about Crystal Palace like into my larynx. And I was like, that's it.

I had the worst fucking flight. Anyone in America has ever had coming back. I'm really sorry now in retrospect because I was COVID positive. I didn't find it out until I got to LAX because they had those cool tests. Uh-huh. And I was like, that's definitive proof.

That's a funny story. The novel coronavirus rampages through my body. Despite the best efforts of Woody Johnson's vaccine. What was the question? So, no, I don't give a shit about that. And I had some mescal nights with you, brother. And if I had gotten the big 19 from it, so be it. All right.

So what if I didn't mess up mescal night, but let's make it beef season two specific. What if I, what if... Your mescal nights were great. Thanks, man. Remember that mescal mixtape we used to get? A little tasting flights we would do. Getting tobacco here. And then be like, oh, it's almost 11 p.m.

Is that bubble gum? The funny thing was like, it would be, it would serve it. And it would be like, are you tasting the bubble gum and I am, I am tasting gasoline. This is fucking fire water, dude. So I'm just staring at you seeing if you're picking up the subtle notes of like saddle leather and regret. Yeah. baked into each glass. On beef season two, though, Ashley's COVID, not Ashley, um.

Lindsay. Lindsay's COVID diagnosis keeps her husband from seeing top. Man Maverick in the theater. It was bullet train. Oh, no, it's right. It's Top Gun Maverick. You're right. That's a very great fight.

It's very Los Felos-Coded. It's also just a fight that the way they're like, this is the problem with fighting with you is that you like completely misremember things. Yeah. It's just a very, very accurate depiction of long-term relationship fighting. And to Oscar Isaac's credit, his best moments on the show so far are the fights. And there's a moment when she's like, I've caught you in an egregious lie. The lie is whether or not she approved a dorsese.

stop that he had sourced on Amazon. Oh, she's like, I'm going to go look this up on Amazon, right? Yes, and she's like, you absolute idiot. And his face is the most alive that it is in the entire series. But speaking of their kind of chemistry, it's like when he,

and I've seen this pointed out online, so I don't want to pretend like this is like my blind observation here. The moment where he breaks into a British accent to mock her, she breaks a little bit, or maybe doesn't, but like she certainly like has like this moment of nervous laughter and I'm like that you could do that a million times and may not get that reaction and like you know let's see anathaway and Jake Gyllen all do that's all I got to say.

Well her British accent is quite good. Right. If she was if she was playing Lindsay. I did want to ask you because I think it comes out more in the final episodes which we can talk about next week. But the international intrigue. Oh yeah. We didn't even talk about that. chairwoman Park part

where did you kind of how do you feel about that additional sort of three to four characters and a huge other swath of plot being laid on? Well, there's two things. One, when you are this tightly focused on the emotional lives of characters that I'm interested in, add more plot. The plot becomes secondary to that.

The plot becomes the scaffolding of the roller coaster that the people I'm paying attention to are riding on. And if there's an extra loop in there, it's probably better for the characters. That's generally my approach to stuff when it's working. I only note that stuff being preposterous or outlandish if I'm not bought in. If I'm bought in, I'm on the ride. Two, something that I really appreciate about the series, again, I hope we get a chance to, I've never, I'm calling him sunny like I've met him, never met him. I'd love to talk to him about this show. This is- Come back on the watch, brother.

This is a show that clearly is fueled by someone's interests, that he's interested in things, he's interested in exploring dynamics and has some unique perspective to bring to these dynamics. And so there's a scene when they talk about, there's Woosh the Tennis Pro brought in from Seoul. And when he and Lindsay are talking about things that Dr. Kim can do to change how she looks, you know, or improve subtle things, or even the way the country club wives talk about going to Korea and what Korea can do. So this idea of Korean culture, Korean skincare, Korean beauty standards being folded in, into the batter of upper class

California life, that's pretty real. I was curious whether or not there were elements of K-Drama that, like, influence, like, the sort of plotting and the way that this is playing out. I mean, obviously,

K-Drama is a blanket term for a lot of different kinds of storytelling, but I was reading a little bit about it. I can't say that I have, like, watched a ton of it. Yeah. But I was curious whether or not there were hallmarks. This would be a good thing to talk to Sonny about because, like, I wonder whether or not

there's an influence there in terms of like the way the the plot almost yes ends into the stratosphere. But I think that works whether I think that'd be very interesting to find out because that's not a genre of show that I'm particularly familiar with.

But what it does in practice with this season of television is that it raises the ceiling. The possibilities for the Josh and the two couples skirmish are limited if they are just bound by the economic and societal limitations of those two characters. You raise the roof when you put in William Fickner's character who can just put people on planes and just give them advice and make things,

A, make the people who are higher, which is Josh and Lindsay, make them want something. And then you bring in something on top of that. Everybody always wants something. That's the great thing. And you put people on top of that. then suddenly the embezzlement or the blackmail can go higher. And the stakes can get bigger, which works for what the show, to me, works for what the show does.

And then when you put to one Oscar winning, certainly two Oscar caliber actors, I would have to imagine having fun playing these parts, playing these parts with each other as a married couple, which is not something I think they probably, I don't know if they've ever acted together before, but I doubt they've played that. It's awesome. I mean, Song Kang Ho is like a leading man writ large.

Yes. And he is having fun playing a character. part. And that is such a luxury on a show like this. We'll wrap up beef Monday with Euphoria. How about that? You thought, you were like, guess what? This podcast is vegan now, but nope. We love beef. All I did was like pass along. Like, I guess I shouldn't do the news. You know what I mean? Like, I just was like, hey, you know what?

I've seen some mixed reviews of this show. You know, it's like even the greats can be swayed by misinformation campaigns or honeypots. It's the first time it's ever happened to me. I know, but Eric Swalwell said the same. You know what I mean? so I'm just saying not for what brought him down but he was involved with a Chinese asset

would that ever got proven right I feel like now is the time we could talk about it I want to talk to you about top chef instead it would be incredible if I don't know if we have special top chef litigious Swalwell stands took down our podcast

because of just one straight I don't really want to talk about the food really I mean I've been to Cracker Barrel and I liked it this episode is a grueling experience for the chefs this is Monday's episode of Top Chef

obviously they have to make a Cracker Barrel esk item from Cracker Barrel's all day menu they get put into breakfast lunch and dinner assignments but it seems like it was a difficult challenge even our boy Lawrence just undercooked a bunch of chicken

tenders she didn't know it was possible yeah that nice pink in the middle that was hardcore the way Kristen was like no you know she was just like this is this is not safe to be Do you believe in bringing chicken tenders up to an appropriate temperature before serving? As a parent of children, yes, I do. You also spent a lot of time in England, and they got chickens everywhere there.

Of all different internal temps? You ever know, come on, man. When we watch British food content creators, the chicken, there's just like, and then I'm just going to dab that salmonella off the cutting board before I put all my veg on it. The chickens look healthier. Yeah, they are yellow. I'll say that. I'll say that for them.

They do this cracker barrel channel. challenge. That's the quick fire. The elimination begins essentially immediately in the studio where all the chefs, much to their own chagrin, have to make dessert because it's always funny. There's like one or two people who are like, yeah, I was a pastry chef, but a lot of them fucking hate dessert and making it. And it is going to be judged not by Tom and Kristen and Gale, but by top chef fans who live in Charlotte. Yeah, I was going to say, up to that point, I was like, hello, where was the call? Yeah. But. And honestly, those fans were to like, and it, there was like a nice experience of like what it must be like, you know, when Tom is like, this is shit.

And like somebody who doesn't eat that food all the time is like, God damn, that's like the best dessert I've ever had. These desserts were supposed to mirror several classics, you know. That Queen Charlotte would have enjoyed. Yeah, Melissa Benoist, the actress who's on a Netflix show that's set in North Carolina. I can't remember. but she played Supergirl, and she's a huge fan of Top Chef. That was nice, yeah.

She seemed delightful. Yada yada, like Anthony winds up winning the elimination challenge. It's pretty close to see who goes home. And also, the chefs, I don't think the judges elected Anthony. I think he won based on a vote, right? No, the crowd vote had a three top. Yeah, and I think the crowd vote had a sway in the final decision-making, or maybe you're right.

Maybe they had a voice. Okay. Don't we all? And the more important thing is the elimination. Duane's pretty close to getting cut, I think, because she basically picked a caramel cake. Caramel cake, which looked quite nice. And made something completely different.

And then just poured brown caramel foam on top of it. Yes. And they were pretty savage about Twens. But this is the age old top chef. Like, are they really only judging these people based on the dish they have in front of them or is there a, does your cumulative kind of expertise or skill go into it? I usually would say it's impossible not to think of that.

You know, and everything somebody's cooked up until that moment. But Rhoda is a good example of somebody who I thought was like running away with it and then went home, or not home, went to Lashide's Kitchen. Anyway, Dwayne doesn't go home, Justin does. Yeah. After the elimination, it's announced that restaurant wars is next. As it always is when they're eight shifts. And while this is happening, Jennifer, who is Justin's partner in life and also on the show with him and contestant with him,

Jennifer, who has been experiencing some nerve pain in her left arm or in her arm, now she's experiencing discomfort or some temporary paralysis in her face. It looked like she was. Bell's palsy. Okay. This is not like, I'm not breaking HIPAA. Like they, she's posted on Instagram. Okay.

But she had an attack of, I think for the first time in her like Bell's palsy, which is quite scary. And treatable. And Joel and Bede had that. Exactly. So it looks like Jennifer is now broken the kind of seal on like you need to go get medical attention and leave the show. Here's where I want to get into it with you. Okay, because I want to get into it when the episode started. So I'm raring to go.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was just giving people a recap of what was happening. I wasn't trying to like. Because I think the, as you should have, the end of the episode shenanigans that led into Less Chance Kitchen. Right. is about who actually has been eliminated and who will be rejoining the show. So for people who forget,

Seeger was eliminated last week and did not go to Last Chance Kitchen. And when Last Chance Kitchen started, Tom was like, this is very uncommon. But we will explain at the start of next week's episode, which they did not. And then Jennifer goes home for a medical at the end of this episode

and her partner, Justin, has been sent to Last Chance Kitchen, but has given the opportunity to simply go back into the show as the most recently eliminated show and replace Jennifer. And he turns that down to go be with Jennifer, but then does do Last Chance Kitchen eventually. So this reinforces something that has been explained, I think, or at least alluded to, Last Chance Kitchen shoots later. So...

Two days later in this case. So Justin had time to having withdrawn from the competition, see that she was not having something more extreme. You know, there was worry she was having a stroke or something. She's been diagnosed. she's safe and she encourages him to give it another shot and to go into Last Chance Kitchen, which he does briefly. Yes, and loses to Rota and...

But Rota is not then sent back into the competition. So I suppose that the suggestion is that Siger is going to come back next week. This has not been confirmed, but this is obvious and they're playing very coy with it in ways that are kind of annoying. I don't think it's good television. I don't either. And I would say it's particularly not good television because this was a catastrophically bad episode of Top Chef across the board because it did three of my least favorite things that the show seems to, inevitably have to do at some point during a season, maybe for budgetary reasons.

Got the big three. Big three of Top Chef No-Nos. Let me guess one. Yeah. A corporate tie-in. A absolutely wedged-in nonsensical corporate tie-in that, Cracker Barrel, nice restaurant to go to when you're on a road trip. No problem. But to have Kristen be like, we all know and love their famous crispy-edged pancakes. Which camera? No, we don't. We don't all know that. Thank you. Go on. Two. Making them do back-to-backs.

Nope. Making them. You sound like Joel Embedd. He hates back to backs. Well, the fucking Bell's policy came from somewhere. To say. And how about them never leaving the studio? Ding, absolutely ridiculous, especially when Last Chance Kitchen is there too.

And the attempts to make it classy and, like, hang different lights and then bring normals in to taste their food to the entire episode feels claustrophobic and detached from any actual reality or presence. I will give them some grace here because last year when it was Top Chef Canada, and it was like top chef warehouse in Canada, or so we're told, was really, really egregious. If you have to do one of these to then pay for or save money for some larger field studies later, okay. But yeah, that was two. Well, it's number three.

Derserts. I don't care about desserts. Chefs don't care about. No, but I also think that it's not good television when two-thirds of the contestants are like, thank you for asking me to do something I don't like doing and I'm not particularly good at. Yeah.

That's not very compelling. And then I also don't... You should know that Andy is the kind of guy who sends me Instagrams of steamed fish and is like, I am Paul Atreides now. This is my dream in life is to eat this. Very, very clean. Very clean fish. I also order cheese for dessert.

So like let's, you know, let's be honest about who we are here. I'm not saying I don't like, I can even like a dessert. But if they don't like it... You know what I like, though, a fucking ice cream cone. You know, like, let's just be honest. Like, I kind of, like, I don't, it doesn't need to be too fancy. I like a bread pudding. Baking is challenging.

I even like baking. Great British baking show I enjoy as well. But baking primarily is science and ratios and not like wild improvisation, which some of these chefs maybe are more talented at. And I also think that like the palate fatigue of all these people just shoveling in the sugar makes for kind of a muddled judging experience.

Yeah, I have to imagine that that is difficult. I still think this has been a strong season editorially and vibes wise, certainly. but I am very unimpressed with the contestants so far. Unless the Rota elimination really was accidentally axing your main character too early and she will rise to triumphant from the underworld like Norpheus who didn't look backwards, I don't really think that there is a maybe something, someone will emerge. Sometimes people go on a heater later.

I mean, I think Anthony and Lawrence are clearly the two best chefs and like they are kind of being treated as like supporting characters to the twins, Jennifer and Justin. Dwen's got a lot of camera time. I think these are very charming people. Sure. But I don't. Oscar, you know. And the show, it struggles year to year. I mean, it's only can rise as high as the contestants raise it. And Tristan was another, Tristan and Buddha are generational, like in the sense of like what they were bringing point of view. Yeah, we've had wire to wire guys a couple of seasons in a row now. And guys that, you know, not a row, but we've had, we've had them. Guys who elevate everyone else? Because if there's, a frontrunner, people are chasing or trying to get more experimental.

And like this season, we seem to have a lot of just fine folks. Yes. Whose highs are not nearly as high. So that, all of that was diminishing the experience. It was a weak episode. But then to have it, to kind of have it both ways and be like, there's an exciting mystery to come. We've never had this happen before. I mean, really, it's just a bummer that one of your contestants had a health issue and you have to bring back someone.

I just don't under. I think that Survivor is just very communicative about like this person needs to go home and here's what's going to happen and here's this and here's that. Like there's a lot of over-explaining. And I don't understand why they couldn't have done something in the edit to be like, the reason Seeger is not in Last Chance Kitchen is because Last Chance Kitchen shoots several days after the actual competition shoots on any given moment. And Seeger, it was a we were aware that Jennifer was not going to be able to finish the competition.

But I guess my... Well, the reason is because... Because it would have spoiled the Justin element. Yes, but they gave Jennifer this morning that she was going to be eliminated if she missed any more quick fires or any other elements of the show. To me, that kind of indicated that they did not think that she was going to be on the show long term. It's totally fine. I don't want them to kick her off in any way.

But there's something strange about where has Seeger been now for like three days. He's in the stew room. He's just waiting, focus, drinking Josh wines. Right. So, I mean, we got an email. from a friend of Seegers or from a former colleague of Seegers that was like... Written in the first person.

Just not that the feeling like the show is not capturing his personality. You know? And that I'll be interested to see what happens if he is back next week. Do you think we'll have a new Seeger when he comes back, humbled, rested, ready? Well, I mean, there's an element of that as well where it's like, did this guy get to like go home and conceptualize recipes for three days while everybody else is doing back-to-back cracker barrel dessert challenges? Can I throw something out there? Yeah.

it's too soon to go back to an All-Star season. You want it. I think we might be approaching the time. They've done this a few other times where there have been some returning favorites who get another chance. Well, Kristen guarantees Jennifer can return whatever she wants. Sure.

Although, you know, she seems very talented, but there was, I can't, like when Justin was talking about her and actually his behavior towards her and his lightened demeanor in Last Chance Kitchen when he was freed of the stress of how she was doing, was very touching and I think really appropriate, and they seem like they have a good relationship.

But he's like, she was crushing this competition before this happened, and I did not see evidence of that. Well, when does her arm get screwed up, like the second episode, right? It's less her opportunity to excel, though maybe she will when she comes back. It's that there have been years when they have sort of just given a little, we'll goose it a little bit by bringing back some like almost worst wers and also rands just to give it a little more verve.

And I think maybe we're headed back to that. How would you have done? First of all, we're avail. That email address is out there to come taste things. Preferably not a dessert challenge in the beautiful state of North Carolina. I would have loved to have done the pepper judging. What? It would have really interesting.

You, hold on. We might have to switch the lights for this. You wanted to be in the 120-degree greenhouse eating a progressive meal of catastrophically hot peppers? Do you want me to go judge Cracker Barrel food? I want to go experience something that I'll never experience. Otherwise. I'm going to go on the right. I also would like to have new experiences. I would like to have. No, you don't. You want to have the clean white fish challenge. Delicious. I'm just saying I don't want to experience all the new things still awaiting me on camera. Do you what I mean? Oh, I'm not worried about that. I have a pretty good constitution when it comes to that stuff. How would you do on hot ones? Here's a I've talked about this before. I'm I am. No one can hit me when it comes to Sashwan spice. Like, like, like, I didn't know this about you. Sashwan, like... The numbing spice.

I'll fucking die eating that stuff. Like, fly by Jing, extra fucking spicy on everything. But numbing spice is different than like the Carolina Reaper spice. I know. I'm saying like I have a different relationship to different kinds of spices. The Reapers, I never ate, Danny Chow ate one in front of me at Grantlin once and I thought he was going to have a fucking heart attack. I find, I just, I'd love to know. I haven't really dipped my toe into that.

This is what keeps you young and makes me quite old. You know, your willingness. To try new things. Yeah. But you, I think, I think that I just have like a much more like kind of like adventurous palette, I think. You know more what you like. No, I like to try almost anything, but I am not a fan of extremity for extremity's sake. In television or in spice.

I think that the Seshwan stuff opened up a new dimension of like how I like to eat food. Do you like... Which is leaking everywhere. That's the thing. When like your ears start ringing. and you're a little bit like in this reality but also Desmond from Lost

and experiencing parts of your childhood at the same time. Daniel Faraday is whispering to me. Do you want to do any sports before we go for After Dark? Yeah, where are you at? It's draft day. Before we get a draft day.

I want to ask you how many games in a row the Flyers have to win before you pay attention. It's interesting that they are having a moment right now. On the precipice of sweeping the Pittsburgh Penguins.

First of all, Pittsburgh is a friend to us. Sure. They've given us the pitch. they've given us Bain. Bain's greatest moment. They should have a plaque there. Sandwiches with French fries in them.

Great town. This year alone, I've been on the record as saying something true, which was, I don't think it was controversial, but it wasn't my greatest moment. Where I said the impediment to me watching heated rivalry wasn't the full frontal sex scenes. It was ice hockey. I am so deeply uninterested in ice hockey.

I haven't watched your below. Love it Shorzie. No. I'm not a hockey guy. Playoff hockey, there's nothing like it. That's what everyone says. There's just nothing like it. Find a new slant.

What do you, what do you? Everyone, everyone, the only argument anyone I've ever heard, I've ever heard anyone make for hockey is playoff hockey. It's nothing like it. This guy, uh, trip it on the flyers getting his head beating in at the end of the game two. Yeah. And they just fucked him up in game three. Like they came back five two. It was just like, how many rounds of playoffs await?

This is the first round. Multiple. Okay. So I'll hit you up if we make it to like the conference finals. How about that? I mean, I am rooting for the Flyers above all other teams. And they're also like the thing you might like about them. Young guys seem to like each other.

That's what draws me to most things. Weirdly, I like beef, which is not about young guys liking each other. As far as the Sixers go, not getting my hopes up, but yes, that was very cool. My trademark luck didn't turn that. game. Which is you checking in on it? I thought by checking in on it, it would cause like the entire team to suffer Bell's policy. My question I have about draft day is what are you going to do with all your time when draft is over? First of all, unlike Mike Rable, I'm not taking off day three of the draft to pursue my mental health. I will be locked in across all three days. What's nice about

the draft for me. Honestly, the funniest thing anyone's ever done has been like, I'm going to go into counseling after the first round. After the first two rounds. That, that, shows respect for all involved here. Can you imagine how that conversation with his wife went, where he was like, I definitely need to go see a professional after I make four draft picks? Yes, after I spend time with the fellas. Like, I definitely schedule all things for after the NFL season.

We're just going to go to Sedona after that to just kind of like... Rebuild. Yeah, debrief on the whole thing. Yeah, that's right. We'll bring the whiteboard. I... No, what's your next obsession after the draft? You don't understand.

The thing about the draft that I like so much is that after the draft, we come away with, you know, four to eight new characters in my life who actually have no accomplishments in Midnight Green or Kelly Green, as the case may be. Thus, I can then spend the next three or four months cleanly fantasizing about them all becoming a Hall of Fame players and getting along. That will help me sleep. And driving well. That will, yes. Yes. I shouldn't say that.

I always. Well, or Big Dom will drive them. That's what I thrive on. That's my preferred mode of sports. I'm beginning to think that I'm an off-season warrior. Oh, I definitely think you are. Have you always thought that? Yes.

Not in a bad way, but I think that this is where you thrive. Is it in narratives? Yes. And in media, but not necessarily in game tape. And in, like, parisocial friendship projecting. That's fine. Of like, well, you're all in the same draft class, fellas. And then the Instagram mods for, like, Philadelphia Eagles will post them of, like,

showing up at the NovaCare complex. And I'll be like, look at that. They fit right in. We should do a bit of you doing the Carrie Mulligan thing from beef, like wearing a red light mask and like flipping through. And just me rewatching when Howie Roseman called Jalick's Hunt and he said, what's up, big pimping? But I'm crying. Because there have been nights like that. Here's something. Here's something you can guarantee. If you ever need my attention, anywhere in the world, you people I know, strangers, just go near me and play the video of how we drafted Cooper to Jean. It's like three minutes cut together to make it seem like it was fait accompli, you know, it was all easy. If that auto plays in any moment of my life,

it's like you're taking a bump. It's like, I'm just, it's like you, you at hot pot, I dissociate completely and I live only in that reality. It's been wonderful talking with you today. I really did enjoy talking about beef with you. It was good. See? Yeah. No, the only thing that beef was lacking, a little chili crisp. Seriously. Sarah, Kaya, Kaya, thank you so much for producing and cutting and directing and lighting and making sure that we put our best foot forward. Well, I think our wardrobe person took the day off. On Monday, we're going to talk about Euphoria, episode three.

Yeah. And we're going to talk about maybe the last few episodes of beef and maybe there's some other stuff to chat about. Well, we actually made a blood oath that we would check out the audacity at some point. Yes. So we should probably do that. I'm going to Ohio this weekend. Yeah, boots on the ground reporting. I know.

I'll get to the bottom of Burberry. Would you begin Monday's show with kind of like a verbal column in the style of Thomas Friedman in the New York Times about taking a cab ride and what you observed? In this Ohio farm to table restaurant. Yeah. People are wondering what you could do it. Thanks everybody for listening and watching. We'll talk to you guys on Monday.