The Watch - Better Call Saul’ S6E5, ‘Doctor Strange’ Is Back, and Jamie Hector on ‘We Own This City’

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about the uneventfulness of this week’s episode of ‘Better Call Saul’ as we near the end of the first half of the final season (1:00). Then, they talk about the lack of stakes and poor special effects in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ (20:24), before Chris is joined by Jamie Hector to talk about his role on ‘We Own This City’ (47:13). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Jamie Hector Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line. He believes men would rather go all the way to Germany to look for plans for a meth lab than go to therapy. It's Endingrywolds. men. It's what they'll do. Oh, Andy. For must to the TV of the last 20 years.

Monday night in America. And we are talking about Better Call Saul, the episode hit and run, which you, if you are an avid Saul fan, I've probably just watched. We wait until after the Saul episode drops to release our Monday podcast so we can talk about those Eps. But we're also going to talk about Dr. Strange to colon in the multiverse of madness. It's not in, is it? It's just the multiverse.

of madness. There's no two, baby. There's just a colon. Dr. Strange colon, the multiverse of madness. And maybe we'll chat a little bit about Top Chef if we have time. Otherwise, we'll save it for Thursday. Also, the back end of today's podcast. Let me just get through it. One second. One second. I got to do it. What did I do wrong? You didn't do anything wrong. I just, I'm just really jealous because Dr. Strange colon is not in network for me and my provider. He does a lot of business here. Strange, Cullen is one of my favorite Fletch characters.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Continue. Do the rundown. Also joining us on the podcast today is

Jamie Hector, who we all know and love from the Wire is character Marla Stanfield, but he's also now on We Own the City, which I think is my favorite show currently on right now.

Episode 3 aired this evening, featuring one of my favorite scenes from the series so far, an incredible, incredible moment with him in Bernthaw

in a car wash and I can't wait for everybody to hear Jamie talk about making the show and I think we'll wrap up some of our we own discussions in the coming weeks hopefully have George Palacanos on to talk about it. Only a couple more episodes left to go but that is that's really in pole position for me right now man. To Dr. Elliot Strange Colin. How are you doing? I'm fine. I'm fine. Let's talk about this episode of TV. Okay. You want to talk about Saul first? Yeah. I think the reason why I was like, how are you doing? I was like, you do and you want to waste some time is because

this was a little bit of, I would not ever go as far to say that this was a time wasting episode. As I said, this is one called Hit and Run. It's directed by Melissa Bernstein and written by Allison Tatlock. It features, I think even the characters in the show would admit there was a little bit of wheel spinning.

You know what I mean? There's a lot of sitting around on the couch smoking, a lot of adjusting my clothes on hangers. We obviously will get to the Howard Hamlin part about it and we'll get to the sort of, we finally see Lalo again after three or four episodes, I think we finally get a shot of him, and he's made it all the way to Germany. So where do you want to start with this one? Would you rather start with the sort of overall...

What did you think overall of this episode? I felt that it was, in many ways, emblematic of Better Call Saul as a series. And I think we said this last week, too, not necessarily a series that is feeling any haste to get into the end game. a series that has made its bones and made very admirable award-winning bones on taking its sweet time, you know, pursuing leads, as they might have said on the wire, chasing things down. And I don't mind it, broadly speaking, because I love these actors, I love these characters, and I love this world. And there were some really nice individual scenes this week. And I particularly enjoyed, and I agree, we should circle back to Howard. I've really enjoyed that Patrick Fabian has been given some gifts this season because I think he's an interesting actor who's mostly just played one note of a character for a long time.

So I've really appreciated those little grace notes. You know, they've done this before and you can feel them. Remember like it? Remember camp when you were a kid, Chris? You ever go to like a day camp or sports camp? And like the highlight of the week was when they would like give you a little Dixie Cup full of juice. But like, you know what I'm doing here? But like.

This wasn't like Jones Town Okay, this isn't going dark I'm just saying I felt like juice was pretty abundant at camp Like it wasn't like oh end of the weed treat I just remember it being Maybe I went to a very persimonious camp But I also remember that all the counselors

You were like under the banner of heaven sports camp You deserve this Jedediah I just also the fact that all the counselors at the camp Were like in retrospect 17 And so they'd be like If you were first in line, you'd get a big old cup of juice, and they would run out of juice because they don't know how to portion stuff out. All I'm saying is, Better Call Saul is not run by 17-year-old camp counselors in the 80s, and it's all the better for it. They're giving people all of their juice.

That said, Chris, did you know the show is a prequel to the popular Emmy Award winning series Breaking Bad? I do, yes. And one of the things with prequels is, we kind of know what happens. And so it's possible to be in the position we're in now. where I am truly, truly admiring the amount of bone-deep dread that these brilliant storytellers can mine from situations to which there are not many uncertain outcomes. Right?

I think that's kind of amazing. But on the flip side, there aren't that many unknown things to come with a lot of these characters. So instead, we are lingering on revelation, such as they are. Like, Chris, did you know Gus Fring owns a lot of shirts and is a little bit type A

when it comes to cleanliness? Very similar shirts, though. Yeah. But you know what I mean? Like, yeah, this is, this is Giancarlo Esposito doing a little donut on the front yard

of a character that we know pretty well. You know, he definitely will scour some grout with a toothbrush. That's not necessarily new information. And while Lalo is haunting the margins and going to Germany, which we're going to talk about, We know that he doesn't mess up the super lab, that he doesn't get Gus or Mike, that all of the big players in the Salamanco organization, whether it's Bolsa or it's Don Nector or anybody, they're all still on the board.

Yeah. So does that increase our tension that there's only one character, prominent character, left on this show who has an unknown fate? Yeah, that's kind of intense. But otherwise, it does muddle the drama for me a little bit week to week. I got to admit it. I hear you. I thought that there, to your point about patience, you know, it was kind of funny. I think that it's not out of the realm of, uh, a possibility to just say like, you know,

audience members are not unlike the Sandpiper class action, uh, participants where, you know, you're sitting there and you're just like, I'm ready to get paid, you know? And it's not like I'm impatient. I didn't put these, uh, I didn't say that this had to be the last season of better call, Saul. You know, like, I'm not the person who was like, Oh, that wasn't you? That wasn't me. And I think that in some ways, what you're talking about is final seasonitis

and the idea that you're sort of anticipating certain big shoes to drop. Obviously, we got one in Nacho. But so far, I think that creating Lalo as the shark from Jaws and creating a lot of tension around, like now, especially with the meth lab, the super lab. and you know I guess Gus basically is putting a holdout pistol somewhere like on the tire of a tractor. Is that what he's doing in that scene? I have no idea. Right.

I thought it was a tequila stopper. No, but you know what I mean? Like there are these little things that you know we're going to come into play but are not like major moments of like, I don't think on their first pass, you're like, obviously this is happening. Gus seems to be more worried about Lalo coming back for the lab than he is for him, right? or even any other person. He seems to be very specifically worried about the lab. He went to great pains to obscure the lab. He's got Mike down there showing him tunnels

and showing him all this stuff. He's clearly foresees the lab as the playing field for their Super Bowl. And I'm kind of, you know, I was a little bit in the dark as to like why that seems to be Lalo's focus. It seems like Gus should be the main target and then whatever happens after that

is a benefit, but maybe I'm just not understanding the intricacies of Salamanka business. I think the intricacy is just, remember, what he said to Hector on the phone was he'll bring proof that the chicken man is doing something against them. And that would be the super lab. Right. I guess. I think... Maybe he just wanted to go to Germany.

I mean, who wouldn't? It does seem pretty nice. I thought this is the nature of these. episodes a better call Saul because like is there only one more in this mini season? Two, I think. So yeah, there's two. We're going to be, in a week or two, we're going to be in ecstasies. Like that's the weird thing. Like I think it's going to be phenomenal and we're going to love it. There are always episodes like this. And I think it's probably important to try and set to focus on the fact that Tony Dalton is very, very good at being evil and charming at the

same time. And I remain just dazzled by Saul and the Breaking Bad and the whole team, including executive producer Melissa Bernstein, who's a very nice person and who had her directorial debut with this episode, their ability to just keep finding the right actors to deliver in small roles. Because you think about Burner's widow. Oh, yeah. Let me rephrase that. No one among us has thought about Bernard's widow at all, but the show had to create a compassionate and sympathetic and appealing character in the most minuscule amount of brushstrokes.

She just happens to know who astronauts are and enjoys a, you know, and, and, and, and, and, a nice crisp dry reeling, I would imagine, at the bar. So that when it seems like she is going to meet her end just because she forgot her cell phone at home, it's just agonizing to watch. And it's just escalated and shot. It's cast, shot, framed, delivered expertly. Yeah. Beautifully.

But, you know, Better Call Saul, like God, I guess, is in the details. Like, that's what the show has always excelled at. I find it ultimately less satisfying when it has set pieces like that. I'm very pleased, no matter what they're. what the end result is. It's just production at an extremely high level. I'm less compelled when the show does the kind of fan service. Like origin story for the receptionist kind of thing. That's exactly what I was going to say. That is a question I did not have. I appreciate the answer, but I'm good. On the plus side, I just want to point out that Melissa Bernstein, like you said,

directed this episode, and she is one of the latest line of people who seems to just really easily stepped into the visual language of what I guess we could just call like Albuquerque Noir, which is when Kim is smoking in the living room and it's it is sort of classic noir

lighting where you know there's a single light source. It's very dark. The contrast is very sharp but the color palette is all the browns and oranges of New Mexico rather than the black and whites of classic noir or maybe some of the more

neon ideas that we have from like de palma and man and some of the 80s stylists that like really like i think in your mind you think of you think of like William freakin and it just gets very electric and very like neon flash this is much more like adobe colored you know it's much more it's much more earthy tones but still with that more contrast and i just thought you know kim's kim smoking indoors it just means she's she hears footsteps coming yeah And it's very significant that she doesn't disabuse Jimmy of the idea that that the Lala's dead, right? She's holding all of this in. I agree with you about just the beautiful aesthetic consistency of the show.

And I just continue to beat this drum that it's just really an argument for a longer running series as much as anything else. You know, Marshall Adams is the cinematographer on Saul and is just exceptional, like, peak of his powers, top of his craft. And you can't do, I mean, everyone you're mentioning, whether it's Melissa Bernstein or Ray Seahorn or John Carlos Spazito, all the people who are taking turns directing episodes, they are all absolutely without question, smart, talented, creatively engaged people. And people who fit those criteria can direct episodes of TV. But directing episodes of TV is also super time-consuming and hard. And you can't let people practice it in real time unless you have

just an absolute rock solid system in place. You know what I mean? So people can step in, share their ideas, and then you have people who have been doing this for years who can execute those ideas. So it may have been Melissa Bernstein's idea to like, let's see if we can frame Kim's face in the coffee cup. That's a very bad salt type of thing.

Yeah. But doing that while still making your day as a whole other story. So we get to enjoy I mean, I assume she gets, it's basically like test driving, you know, a Lamborghini. I hope that they all had fun doing but we really get to enjoy it. There is no noticeable drop-off in quality.

You know, it's just always finding new ways to say things in a very distinct visual language. It's really satisfying to watch. That's why I also feel a little weird being like, yeah, not much happened because it's sumptuous. Yeah, but also a lot did happen. And there are scenes like the one with Howard and his private investigator

that makes me kind of wonder whether or not Howard should be taken equally seriously to wallow. Maybe not in terms of the amount of discrimination. he might rain down on people or like violence, but I thought it was pretty noteworthy that he hired a PI to start investigating

Jimmy pretty thoroughly for a couple of reasons. One, Jimmy's also being watched by Mike. We know that part. And two, what will Howard do with that information and what will that do to Howard? You know, like once, if Howard

finds out that Jimmy is working in the cartel or that Jimmy has contact with with Gus. And really what happens to Kim, too, obviously that's like the driving question of the entire season. But I think that like I've kind of been treating Howard like comic relief. And that boxing match speaks to that. The boxing match while like also kind of fucked up and weird is played more for laughs.

Especially Odin Kirk gets to really be like Mr. Show Bob Odenkirk in that scene. But I don't know. I mean, they've driven Howard to the point where he is now like I want to fight and I didn't even think that that fight was like going to solve anything. What I really need to do is start like taking the fight to Jimmy with his PI. Yeah. And this is not a spoiler for people who don't watch the show or haven't watched the show yet, but there is a anecdote in the third episode of the third season of Barry that's like a Chechen folk tale. And it's basically about you can choose vengeance and be unhappy forever or you can choose not to enact vengeance and be happy. And

there's a similar Chechen folk tale, uh, dynamic happening. with Howard in this episode, particularly when Ed Begley talks to him after his big, he actually does a great job being a lawyer. Yeah. Still, Cliff is like, come on. I think that what you said is really important in terms of Howard pivoting not just at Jimmy, but I think the untold subtext is he's pivoting at Kim. Kim is what makes it clear to him what's going on.

And I think it's probably worth just planting a little flag here on a currently not very developed island, but I have a feeling more and more. pleasure boats will be coming this way, which is that Lalo doesn't destroy Kim, Howard does. And had you been thinking that before this episode, or is this episode what got you here? It was the explicit nature of the trigger that caused him to become aware of it. Who did you meet with, Kim Wexler? Well, now in Howard's mind, they are one and the same. Right.

You know, and there's a version of the show in which Kim is killed or something horrific happens, and there's a version of the show where Kim, is disbarred. Right. Or disgraced in some way, yeah? Yes. And I'm, you know, I'm not going to say which is worse because clearly one is much, much worse. But in terms of the sort of the moral gravity of the show and of the show that Saul is that bad wasn't,

I feel like that feels a little more in line with where we might be headed. I think the other thing about it is it's a little cute that there's the boxing, match, but not in a bad way. So there's the boxing match, which is almost intentionally satirical. But the boxing match was cover for both of them, right? Because as you were alluding to, Howard leaves and he fully engages the PI that he already has in place now to follow Jimmy. But when Jimmy gets home from the boxing match, they don't seem in any way disturbed that Howard is on to them. Right. So this was also part of their plan. I mean, Howard says to him, like, you wanted to get caught. So clearly that this is just part of

their Rube Goldberg trap that we're not privy to, but that's what's happening. So they're a little ahead of us. And this show does an amazing job, as did bad, with giving the audience 75% insight into a plan and then surprising them with the 25%. You get the 75 because it's a pleasure to watch the process, and it's a pleasure to watch people come up with a heist idea or come up with a con idea or come up with how are we going to get out of this impossible situation or that impossible situation. but you want to leave that last element

that's where you get to box cutter and Breaking Bad or where you get to whatever. You know, you want to have that part that we don't know or we don't see coming.

And I think that there's still a lot we don't see coming. I don't mean to sound muted about this, but it was just like there wasn't a ton of plot in this episode or a ton of story in this episode. We're Sixers fans. We love to watch the process unfold, but we kind of would like to actually win

playoff games at the end of it. I know. It's a seven game series. Is that far-fetched? No, that's on the money. Should we shift to Strange? Can I just add one last point? I know I'm always harping on production stuff, but like, do you know how hard it is to make

Albuquerque look like Germany? Oh, yeah. So I take it they did not go to Germany. I feel fairly safe, assuming they did not go to Germany. You think they maybe got some second unit outside of a suburb? I think they did a lot of, I think it's a lot of in post, you know, and I think they definitely painted a street with some different. street stuff to make it look like that.

But like, what a challenge. Like, yeah. People are bored of me saying this, but having been in production in Albuquerque, it's a great city to be in production. Did you do D.C. in Albuquerque? We did, and then we cut it. Oh, okay. We shot a few things for the pilot that were meant to be like suburban D.C., Virginia,

and it didn't work. So we cut it. But no, that one of the reasons why we never, for story reasons, but one of the reasons why we never tried to suggest anywhere else was it was just too hard to double for anything. But I was going to say, like, you can do a lot of things there, but there's limited inventory, right?

Like, I love to see. I think the house that they're staking out with Gus is the house we shot in for Briar Patch as well. So all of that to say, when you send your veteran location, locations department out to look for the most Germany place in Albuquerque. In Metro Albuquerque?

I mean, respect. Respect all of them. So let's get into Strange. I saw this last Wednesday. You saw it last Thursday, I think. Yes, that's right. And a lot of people saw it over the weekend. A biggest movie of the year so far,

probably the biggest movie. Top 10 opening. Yeah, biggest movies in Spider-Man, certainly. And I've been trying to sort through what some of the strains of the post-release debate have been. There's a couple of really interesting ones. Number one is this hilarious, like,

was this movie scary conversation, which I think is like largely fake. Like it's basically like how dare they? This was like an R rated horror movie and it's like,

no, really, it's not. Some of it is a little bit of like the usual concern troll that you and I engage with. It was like,

are we sure Marvel's not in a slump right now with these last couple of movies and, you know, when is, when will all be made clear in terms of this phase and what this phase is about?

And then generally just some post game, like, did that movie make sense and was it good? So I don't really want to talk about whether or not it was scary because it really wasn't. It wasn't scary. I will talk general. Let's do specific to the movie and then we can do like a larger Marvel conversation afterwards. Okay.

I'll tell you what's scary about the movie. It was like God-level dog shit. That's what was scary about the movie. I'm old enough to remember, Chris, when Kevin Feige was good at this. So that's scary that I feel like it's like watching James Harden you know try to get separation

try to play above the rim You get old fast in this game If you lose your first step They can really throw a lot of pressure at you You go right into the multiverse of madness No I mean This was a really bad movie I think in a lot of ways

But I think it's probably So we could talk about those ways But I also then as you said I think it's worth talking about why it was kind of a failure of a movie in a lot of ways. Because you are, even with the way you opened our conversation, we're giving them a lot. Like, we're framing this as when are these very disappointing one-offs going to coalesce into something that might make them more appealing in retrospect as pieces of the worker puzzle?

Do they need to or should they? Or do they even have, after, I think it's five or six of these phases movies, plus the show The shows largely, I think, are doing work going backwards, where a lot of it is still about the blip or still about the aftermath of endgame. Whether or not, like, this multiverse idea of which they still haven't really introduced a primary antagonist or really explain the stakes

of what's its stake other than when you cross the streams, it's bad. Yeah. Maybe they should just punt. You know what I mean? Maybe they should just be like, hey, we needed this to introduce Fantastic 4 and X-Men. And by the way, obviously, this is spoiling Dr. Strange if you haven't figured that out yet. Maybe we just need this to introduce Fantastic 4 and X-Men and have them be introduced in media race so we don't have to like, you know, spend time being like, this is how like the accident

made the thing or whatever. I don't know, man. I think that it would be weird for them to do all the episodes, all the phases, the movies that they've done in those fades and then not. commit to there is some sort of like multiversal fight that will then collapse all the multiverses? I don't know. It seems like there is. But I also think they're just getting way too cute.

We've praised Kevin Feigy for the introduction, not of the multiverse, but of optionality that the multiverse provides. You could throw a bunch of characters into something. If one sticks, hey, that's our character now. That's where we're going. If not, it was just a multiversal version of it and we'll recast, right? Like that's the freedom that he now has to play with that has, you know, directly addresses something that I think has been really one of the only flaws,

which is that if you miscast someone, unless it's like, you know, roadie in Iron Man 1, you mostly are stuck with that person, and then you have to deal with it. So that has been clever for them. But there clearly is now, after this movie, a plan for what the next big Infinity War is going to be.

And if you'd like to know how it was introduced into the Marvel universe and what made it awesome, you have to go back to a guy called Jonathan Hickman and his pretty amazing multi-year run on Avengers that started 10 years ago. Which I just started reading, actually. This is amazing. I love this for you. I love this for us.

One of the things is funny is like every time I go see one of these Marvel movies, I typically open up the Marvel app and start reading either stuff about the character I just saw or just like one, something that you or Concepcion or somebody else has like mentioned as one of their favorites. And I never read the Hickman Avengers. And it's awesome. It's really, really good. It's awesome in the way that his stories tend to be, like his most recent X-Men stuff, too,

which is just like, oh, I'm just going to wrap my arms around all of it and show you how it could be and maybe should be, and then I drop the mic and I leave. Right. And so what he did was he took over two Avengers titles, the flagship Avengers, and then also another title that had been running called New Avengers. And in the pages of Avengers, he has Captain America and Iron Man being like, we need to get bigger. We need to be more than just the Earth's defenders. We need to defend the universe.

So so many characters who either once were Avengers or tangentially Avengers or never were Avengers just come into the fold. And there's like 40 or 50 characters at play and they're interacting in fun ways. And it's everything comics can do that until recently we didn't think movies could do. And it's really fun. In New Avengers, he takes this concept created by another beloved comic writer named Brian Bendis called the Illuminati, which is a collection of the self-appointed collection of the Marvel Universe's smartest minds. And in the comics, it's Dr. Strange. it's Reed Richards, it's Professor X.

It also includes Namor, the Submariner, who I think is an upcoming movie. And basically what they determine is that the multiverse is crashing into each other. And that when two realities begin to crash into each other, there's an eight hour or so period when they both exist, and only one can

survive like a Kumete. And do they blame it on Spider-Man wanting to erase his girlfriend's memory, or what? They do not. That was actually a MC, advancement, I think, in the narrative. Okay. And so these guys are basically trying to, A, stop bad things from happening, but they do make a kind

of Faustian bargain where they're like, we have to be the last surviving universe because that's what we're here to do. We have to... And that's 616. The 616 universe, yes. And all these stories basically build bigger and bigger and bigger and as the incursions happen more and more frequently until there's one final incursion and then something else happens. But the introduction of the word incursion, the idea that realities can crash into each other,

that does seem to be where we're headed, where there is an infinity war, but with infinite versions of the same people in them, which would make for quite a spectacle. Sure. Okay. Great. Now let's talk about what was wrong with this movie. And I think to begin with, it was interesting that a Sam Ramey movie suffered from such a massive failure of imagination. There are parts in the second half of the movie, and you told me this, and I didn't, on the pod last week, I didn't really know what you meant. But in the second half of the movie, there are some scenes that are just clearly Sam Ramey, you know, whether it's the camera work and the close-ups of the face or a fight using musical notes. I think starting with the moment that

America and Stephen go flying through like a dozen different worlds and then land, and then there is the reflecting pool fight with one. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. That there was, it's almost, I can't decide if it's worse that sometimes Feigey and his lie lie filmmakers have a little bit of fun and show their personality. Because all that does to me is you end up in no place. You end up seeing like, oh, this is what it could have been.

But then there was the first hour that was filmed in front of, I guess, like, maybe they couldn't afford a fully green screen in Atlanta. I mean, it is one of the most amateurish, looking 30 to 40 minute sequences of mostly CGI and reshoots that I've ever seen in my life, like held together with spit and glue, and it's really shocking. Like, it was jaw-dropping how bad this movie was from the beginning and then got marginally better. But what you're talking about when they're like jumping universes, yeah, there's a paint universe. And I'm like, okay, great, great, this will be a lot of fun.

I heard it's a multiverse and I heard it can make you mad. And then they get to the place where they're basically going to spend the rest of the movie where the multiversal innovations are red means go and pizza is served in balls. Yep. Wow. And they have like a total recall memory machine. Yes. That's, you could do literally anything and that's where you settle.

Right. And that was just hugely disappointing, right? Because then the other reason you're there is to introduce characters to slaughter them in a way that also points out the major problem that you started with, which I feel like you should speak on because I think you're pretty keyed into it, which is that what are the stakes here? If we're just using this as a device

to have our fan casting cake and then bisect it with a vibranium shield, what are we doing? Yeah, so I think there's three options of what happened there. So we're talking about the moment in the middle of the movie where Strange meets the Illuminati.

You get to see Patrick Stewart as Professor X again. You see Haley Atwell as Captain America. and at least in the theater, I was in the biggest reaction for John Krasinski as Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four. I don't know that John Krasinski and Bennett Kumberbatch were in the same room together

while they shot that because there were moments where the eye line is different, pretty much. But here are the three plausible reactions you could have to that. That was either incredibly cynical to do that

because you're essentially like, we're going to do this thing. I often, I thought it was kind of weird how badly it was leaked? You know, like there was so many rumors about it. I didn't know. Tom Cruz. It's going to be Hugh Jackman. It's going to be all these people. Like the Tom Cruise is going to be playing Ironman that there would be all these like cameos and that I would assume they all suffer the same fate. So it's either deeply cynical because you're kind of halfway sort of like hedging. You know,

you're like, okay, we're going to have Krasinski here. But let's say the contracts don't work out or like he can't do it. Well, it's okay because fans got to. to see it once. And then we can just say, well, that was a different version of him. That was a different realities version of Reed Richards. That's one way. The other is almost like hostile towards fans where it's just like, oh, you wanted to see Reed Richards, he dies in nine seconds.

You know, that's, and that's actually kind of funny, but also is kind of cynical. And then the third one is like, they're just keeping their options open, you know? Yeah. And they're almost like market testing ideas in their own movie. rather than feeling like they have to like go out and maybe like try try something and commit to it. So it's just basically like we're introducing this version of Reed Richards in this movie. We'll see how people feel about it and then we'll adjust accordingly. I also think that there are, it's simply, as you alluded to it, there's just dealmaking, right?

I think it is significant that John Watts, who direct the Spider-Man trilogy, just left Fantastic Four. That suggests it could be creative differences. It could be, as was mentioned to the press, that he just wanted to take a break from superhero stuff. Or it could be that they're trying to make a deal with the actor they want to play Reed Richards, who also is insisting on directing the movie. And we know who then that would be my old college drum, JK. So I think that that's all very possible and plausible. I thought that scene was cute, mostly cynical.

I felt like it spoke to Feige's. kind of, he seems neither here nor there with all the toys he's inherited recently. Taking your time introducing X-Men makes sense. There are creative ways to get kind of, kind of cutesy with it, like when Evan Peters was the other Quicksilver in Wanda Vision. I forgot about that. But he also, as we know, hated the Marvel television stuff, hated it. and having Blackbolt, who is a ridiculous character in the comics,

but can be kind of epic and cool, he's on the Illuminati in the comics as well, kill himself by not having a mouth and having his voice explode his own head, felt kind of mean towards the Marvel television stuff in a way. You know, it's hard not to read into it. Similarly, Fantastic Four is a beloved property and one of the biggest things they have left,

and one of the biggest swings they have still left to take, introducing even the idea of it in this kind of throwaway fashion felt odd to me. You know, like this was, if you were honestly excited about this, throw it at the end of the movie as a tag or something, right? Doing it here felt a little bit odd. It also highlighted something that I think doesn't get talked about enough, which is there are a lot of great actors in the world, and there are a lot of great superhero and super villain parts.

Not all actors are good at doing this. And I am not entirely sure what the deciding factor is. There used to be something, a joke that I had with my wife and with friends, like, the way to make Star Trek movies good is just cast as many Shakespearean actors as you possibly could because they're used to saying things that made no sense to modern audiences and they have fun with it. Yeah. That may be, there may be something to that as well, considering how many of the people in this

movie are we're hiding their English accents. But it's really striking how when you hit pay dirt, how good it all is and how just easy these movies feel, whether it's Chris Evans or Downey or Chad with Bozeman, or in this case, Haley Atwell, who's the only one who came to play, I feel like, out of this entire movie in a lot of ways. Like, she was awesome. I don't care about Captain Carter from the what-if cartoon, but when she was on screen, I was told. totally in. This is a fun superhero romp all of a sudden, right? And then when you don't hit on the casting, like I feel like Brie Larson is Captain Marvel as one, it just feels kind of inert. You feel the fact that these are widgets. And I'm going to drop a big one here. I'm going to let you

step back in. But I think Cumberbatch, I just don't really get it. I don't get what he's doing. I feel like he doesn't get what he's doing. And it just doesn't work as the lead character of a movie. I think it speaks more to the response I would have to all of this, which is that you could have, like, Lawrence Olivier in these parts. I think that there just needs to be a kind of clearer story. I think that the amount that they have to talk shit to one another

about multiverses and incursions and MacGuffin on top of McGuffin on top of McGuffin and dark holds and all that stuff, which I think, like, you know, for some readers and some fans of the comics or of this character that might make more sense than others. And I'm really like, it's not like I'm longing

to return to a time of Civil War, Captain America Civil War, but like I found that very legible. I just found like the emotional stakes of those movies, very legible. And even though with like the Thanos stuff got really bogged down with like running all over the world and time and universes and galaxies to find stones,

I kind of understood what Thanos wanted to do and I understood why it was important to stop him and I understood with the consequences of what he did. was. I think that you can have Patrick Stewart and Benedict Cumberbatch and you can have Brie Larson and you can have whoever you've got. And it just doesn't matter if 98% of the script is just unintelligible comic book stuff. Like you still have to ground this stuff in like relatively recognizable human experience. And you don't, you can't sell it just on the back of like, oh, don't you remember five years ago when Stephen Strange lost Christine? Like, no, I don't. And it

really wasn't when Harry met Sally to the begin with. But you're, What you're speaking to is the problem with comic books that this has now turned into, right? That everything has to connect everything else and you are bound up in the chains of your own continuity and the story you've already tried to weave and how do you get out of it? I think it's very significant that Kevin Feigey's greatest success, I think, was the order in which he introduced characters that at the time people dismissed as secondary or second-rate characters. Like Iron Man is not as famous as Superman, right? Thor is a god.

They don't understand what that is. he understood in a way that really, really translated, obviously, how to distill these characters into one sentence or less about what makes them tick and what will make them popular heroes, truly for audiences, not just as money-making IP machines. And I don't know how replicable that skill is when you're down to Moon Knight, you know what I mean? Which is its own interesting thing,

but Moon Night is never going to be Captain America is the last Boy Scout or the Hulk gets mad sometimes. You know what I mean? That's just simpler stuff. The Doctor Strange thing always felt a little bit like hubris because either you make a super weird Steranko-inspired, like trippy movie, which I think people have flirted with in the past. Or you just want him to be a player in the Avengers, which he was.

Or you want him to be a kind of plot machinery slash jokes. But he's got too much power. jokes on in Spider-Man. But instead we have this guy, that's where I'm ending up. It's like, oh, here comes this huge monster. What are they going to do? He's like, oh, well, you can just cut them in half with his brain. Like, I don't know.

Like, that's pretty cool. It's not like I got that much enjoyment out of watching, like, Captain America fistfight people into submission. You know, and it was like when he would, like, fight a demon, you'd just be like, all right, I guess, you know, his gumption over, over this interstellar beast. But, like, I don't know. Is there what limits? are there on what strange or Wanda can do or Captain Marvel for that point. And so I think that you're just kind of getting into a point.

It really has something to do with my like nerd background or caring about like what qualities each character has. I just think in terms of storytelling, heroes need limits so that they can surpass them. If you make limitlessly powered beings, you're just kind of watching 300 or something. You're just watching like it for like the special effects. Yeah, I,

I agree. And I understand why, you know, there's the Christine and Rachel McAdams part to sort of humanize this figure. But I don't, and again, I don't know whether this speaks to Cumberbatch's performance, to the continuing strange hair choices and wigs that they put him in for this character, which I find really bizarre. And I guess that's for continuity's sake, because they filmed this movie, I think, twice. Like I just changed their mind and just did it again. I just find it very, it's tough, it's tough slet. to think of it as anything other than a widget between two other movies.

And by the way, I really like Benedict Wong in these things. Like, he seems to be having a great time. And he's a fun supporting character. My low-key, other favorite detail is that Michael Stoolbarg is above the title on the poster for showing up unrecognizable and pasty

and whispering at a wedding. By the way, I didn't remember that he was in the first doctor's right. That's also just incredible agent work. I just, I think so. Yeah, they're like, oh, yeah, you can get Mike back, but here are his terms. Yeah.

We'll get this beloved doctor back. The last thing I think we have to talk about is maybe the problem here is that arguably or maybe soon it will be inarguable, the biggest movie of the year is essentially a sequel to a TV show. I'm not bringing this up because I'm allergic to it. We're TV guys. Like, that's how great. Let the gates swing open between the medias. The Midday Boys had a very, very spirited debate about whether or not you could understand what was happening in Dr. Strange if you hadn't watched all of Wanda Vision.

And I would remind people not only all of Wanda Vision, but the post-credit sequence of Wanda Vision. Yes. The answer is both yes and no. No, you couldn't because the entire fulcrum of this movie's plot is WandaVision. But two, yeah, sure you could because I didn't see the connection at all. Like we have been or I have been in hindsight critical of Wanda Vision. I think we loved the first three episodes, and then as it became just kind of marvely marvel, I got less interested in it. But Jack Schaefer and Matt Shackman and the creative team, they basically made the decalogue, okay, compared to what this movie was.

Right. Like they treated the issues at play with some spirit of playfulness, creativity, and sensitivity. And this turned it into a cartoon, right? that this idea that a woman also just takes the show back down to zero because the whole point

of the show is that she's starting in this place of grief because of what happened in the Avengers movie and so she creates this world for herself where she can have

a happy family but in doing so essentially enslaves a town then at the end she learns her lesson so to speak and confronts an even darker force

in Agatha right and she's exiled for her own good and for the good of everybody else and then the movie starts and she's just like back at zero. She's like, oh, I'm still pissed off about this

and now I'm mad about these fictional kids that I've created. And so because of that, I'm going to go on a killing spree. Across the multiverse. Yeah. With unlimited powers. And I'm going to be in my...

My exile will be to be buried in my own tomb. Yeah. It was rough. It was just clumsy. And I think it was made clumsy because... I don't care if they build off the TV show, but it's frustrating if you just undo what the TV show did.

And I think the TV show, to its credit, in, it's, you know, I think we've all heard stories, whether sourced or not, that it is hard to work within the Marvel machine right now, because there's just, it is a machine. So it's hard to get these little glimpses of creativity and spark that we always try to highlight. They, they worked really hard to get those things. You know, they chiseled them out of this, and this movie had a clumsy sledgehammer. Last thing I would say, I really mean this sincerely.

I don't want anyone to lose their job ever, especially during challenging economic or pandemic times. But guys, you got to change, you got to change vendors, Marvel. Not just the CGI teams who were not finished this movie. I mean, I don't think it's on it. The technicians. I think it's like they're just like, we have to make a certain time. And then we have to reshoot this movie because another movie came out and changed the. You need some new designers because this is the second movie.

So of the last three, right, all of which were pretty significant misfires, I think. Shang-chi, Eternals, which I did enjoy because of its humanity, but, you know, I'm not saying with some great masterpiece. And this one, two of the three feature giant metal dog monsters. I assumed that the metal dog monsters menacing Wong and everything in the tomb were the same from the Eternals. I think that was incorrect. They were just leftover metal dog monsters. Okay. Two of the three, Shang Chi and this one,

featured blandly pan-Asian settings populated by people in tunics spinning shit in the air. You know, then we were supposed to care about. Right. Like, give me some specificity here. Like, Ramey tried, I think, in moments to put a little wit or heart.

He tried to get a haunted house vibe going at times, yes. He did. And I think some of the monsters had some, like, like the eyeball demons. Yeah, that was very Dr. Strange comic bookie in a really fun, fun way. But it just doesn't fly when you're not giving them the, you're not letting them open it up.

You know, you're not letting them actually drive the car. This is my second test drive analogy of the podcast. I apologize for my limited creativity that I'm displaying. But like, we always would make fun of director bullshit. I think this is betraying the fact

that you want a different car. I really do want a different car. I'm very close to talking about it on the podcast. You know, Russo Brothers being like Captain America, the Winter Soldier is actually the parallax view. Yeah. Okay. Bullshit. But Ramey did try to make a Sam Ramey sort of dark horror movie here.

And you can see the trying, which is a bummer. You kind of just want to see this succeeding. So bizarre. And honestly, thank you, everyone for letting us talk about this for 20 minutes. Doesn't matter. You're going to make a billion dollars. Sure. Sure.

And we'll go see Thor and we'll keep watching stuff. let's get into my interview with Jamie Hector. I just want to say like, you know, he was just such a gracious, lovely guy. And, you know, he's obviously best known for these two parts on these David Simon, George Palacano shows, The Wire, and I guess now we own the city,

but he's coming off of, I think, seven seasons of Bosch, has appeared in countless other television shows like Power and Queen of the South and Strain and a bunch of other stuff has been working throughout. But clearly is the Swiss Army Knife of these shows, of these Baltimore crime shows. And it's been fascinating to watch him on the other side

of the law, so to speak, because the whole point of we own this city is that there is very little difference between the cops and the criminals in the show. I thought, like, just without giving anything away for folks who maybe didn't see episode three, I would suggest you do that before you watch, you listen to this episode because we talked quite a bit about what happens in episode three. But watching Sean Souter, the character Jamie Hector, plays both in the early, part of the 2000s and in 2017 or 2015, depending on what they're showing, is a real masterclass in like, how am I going to adjust this character over the course of 15 years? How is he going to be carrying himself differently? Does he feel a little bit more weighed down by life? What is he like

when he's first on the force and kind of a young buck? It's really awesome. And it was a great episode tonight. So we'll chat more about that on Thursday. We'll also do Top Chef and Atlanta probably. Oh, yeah. Catch up on Top Chef. Yeah. Everybody should catch up Andy, I'll talk to you soon, man. Jamie Hector, up next. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Jamie Hector, thank you so much for joining us on the watch podcast today, man. I'm a huge fan and this has just been an incredible show

to watch so far. So yeah, thank you so much for making time. Absolutely, thank you, bro. I appreciate it. Thanks for having you. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about, I guess, I'm curious where you were

when you sort of started getting these scripts and when you started talking to David and George and everybody about the project and really what was the first thing that drew you to it. Well, I was back home and just finished wrapping up on seven season, seven and final season of Bosch, not too long after that. And I got a call from George Pelicanos, and it was a great call, you know, when you get a chance, we get a call from people you admire, especially creatives and writers, producers, et cetera, you know, you're all ears. And he just said,

Jamie, I know you just came off of a great show working as a homicide detective, but I want to talk to you about another project that you would be playing also a detective. And I said, sure. And we spoke about the project overall. And then we had a conversation about Sean Souter. And I asked me if you had any source material, he said, the book by the same name. We own the city. Well, that fantastic.

And, you know, as quick as I said it, as as as quick as he sent it to me in the mail. you know and I got a chance to really dive into the material and it was fun because it happened so quickly in terms of reading the material because it's a page turner you know just learning about the audacity of these things are always done but the audacity to do it during a time when you know you can be on camera you know the you have cameras on you you know what I mean yeah so reading that learning that learning about Sean learning who Sean was and having a conversation with George and then having a conversation with David and being able to reunite back with the squad again. It was just amazing and fun. So one of the things I think is leaping out at people

about this show is the formal way it's being told where you're jumping from, I think, 17, 15, with Bernthal's characters going all the way back to like 0.3. You pop up. I think 07 is when Souter is sort of like his younger younger suitors started starting getting involved with Wayne I want to ask you a couple

of things about that. First of all, production-wise, how did you guys shoot that stuff? Did you guys do early and then break and then late and then break and then like the present? Like did you just shoot those or did you shoot them kind of jumping all over the place for your character? All over the place. It was

Yeah, all of the place. Yeah. It was like a fantastic me. No, true story is I'm just grateful for a few people that was a part of it. clearly the creators, but at the same time, hair and makeup, wardrobe. I mean, we're talking about Debbie Young, Janice for hair and makeup. We're talking about Donna for wardrobe, head wardrobe,

and script supervisor, you know, keep us on point in regards to our journey. Because as the artist, you know, as the actor, we track it. And the goal is to always track it to make sure that we're in pocket leading up to where we're coming from. You know, we were coming from not only right before the scene, but we were coming from in life. And then we've got to track it because we're crossboarding. Yeah. So that was definitely something to tackleable. When with Sean, for example, you'll see his hairline might shift because before he was making a little bit of change,

before he was actually working as homicide and growing in rank. And when you grow in rank, detective, you make more money. Yeah. overtime. And then you saw his suit begin to change instead of it being as big as it was and the collar, spread collar, more fitted suit. Hairline instead of it just being unkept, it began to me, it was more consistent that you would see him with a haircut and a taper clearly because he started making money where he can support himself as well as his family. So just that over the period of time and then storyline going back and forth by the time you get into the you do

your work the night before clearly but then you get into the trailer you grab the sides things can change by the time you get to the sides and then once you get in hair and makeup and then they do they do diligence in terms of the increasing of scar the grays that are added in or taken away and then you really lock in it's like okay this is where we are today yeah yeah you know it's like especially in this third episode, which featured a lot of your character and kind of culminates with Suter and Jenkins doing a raid on the car wash,

but is juxtaposed with Suter at a different time of his life. His wife is kind of reflecting on like, I think you come home and you're like, I did some good today. Like I really had a good day on the job. And she's just like, that's such a change. It's really cool because it's like,

you can see the way, the different ways that like Suter is carrying himself. Like, the big one was the difference between the way he kind of like enters the bar to come see Wayne and like it's all everybody's drunk everybody's having a good time nobody's going to be driving that night versus like the kind of like the more stoic maybe more weathered maybe seen too many things person who comes home to his wife that night but feels a little bit better about himself a person that feels like he's doing the job that he signed up to do yeah versus the job

the job that the cars that he was dealt and then having to make choices and decisions that constantly chip away at his moral compass, you know, meeting with Jenkins in the bar, not realizing that you're about to get tested. Yeah. You know, which is still surrounded about people that you feel like, you know, we're in this together, we're going to do some great work. Bring closure to some families, tragedy, investigate, gather information, and do the work.

And now you realize, hold on a second, we got two different ideas of what the work is. And then moving down and then realizing that that's the case and then making it out of that. Now you're no longer in that space, but why do I keep bumping into these same dudes

that I've got history with? Yeah. Why? Why are you? I'm moved. I'm gone now. I'm actually doing work that I'm really proud of. And I can come back and tell my wife

and share stories with her that I'm proud of in a city where we turned upside down where it was, but now I can say, listen, I'm bringing in closure to lives. You guys just keep popping up. Yeah. And you know, that's,

you want to remind me. That scene in the car wash, it's like, Wayne is playing on that part of Sean where he's like, you're a super cop. You know, like you did this. Like you,

I didn't know I was here with like the Wonder Kid who's going to like find all the guns and drugs and stuff. He's like very much playing on Sean's desire to be good police, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely, right? And, you know, you can lean on somebody where they think that, where they think their strengths are, like, this is what you really want to do.

I know you want to help, but I'm going to show you how you can help yourself. Yeah. Put you in a position where it's very difficult for you to say no. And especially with people with Sean in particular, which is, so you don't know if he did or didn't, you know. I mean, I'm not sure if you saw the entire season, but we're going to talk about episode three. you know, we don't know. It's ambiguous, yeah.

Right, it's ambiguous. But the thing is, with a person with Sean, when I listen to all of his tapes, his temperament, his patience, his ability to really put a case together by detail and not rushing. When you have somebody that has that energy, that's like, ah, before you know, the lights turning on and you're stimulating in all areas.

And you're like, hold on a second. Yeah. Just give me a minute to breathe. Then it's just like, make a decision, make a decision, make a decision. And then before you know, what decisions have made that affect you for the rest of your life. Yeah, that's Wayne, right? Like, Wayne's knocking down a wall with a crowbar and throwing televisions on the ground

and he's trying to get illicit reactions, right? Yeah. Absolutely. And that's what he's not giving you a chance to think. It's like, you know, I know people that's so. they blur your mind so quickly where it's just like, can you just do that? And before you know what they're gone. And then you're a part of something that you didn't know that you were going to be a part of.

Yeah. So that scene in the car wash is amazing for a number of reasons. Thank you. You're incredible. Bernthal's incredible. The way Ronaldo Mark is green shot it is incredible. And I wanted to talk a little bit about this because I think that this season, this show, has such like a kind of kinetic energy because,

for instance, in the car wash, there's like a shot where it's like, Bernthal is interrogating the guy in the car wash and talking to him about like, why don't you just tell me where everything is and we can make this quick and make it easy on you. And in the frame,

you're still in the background doing the search. Like you are on camera. You're doing, you're live in the scene. And I was wondering, like, that must be so stimulating as an actor to kind of never know,

you know, I'm on like when you're going to be on because like you're really playing. that whole scene out. Bernthal's in one room, you're in the other room, you're kind of coming in and out of camera, you're coming in out of camera, then you find the table, the camera's on you, there's this discovery, you chill Bernthal out a little bit by being like, hey, we got this. But can you tell me a little bit about that specific, the blocking of that scene and how cool it must be to kind of have stuff happening in the foreground, stuff happening in the background, and have that axis switch throughout a scene?

Well, you know what, to start off of what you're saying in turn to the background, the beauty about working on, cutting your teeth on stage is that you realize that you're never off camera. Sure. Well, you're never off, you're never out of the audience's eye, right? So this is where I come from, no theater acting. So I'm always very conscious of the fact that no matter what's going on up here, and you think everyone's watching them, there's always someone that's watching you also. So the staying character and stay in a moment is very important, as long as the cameras.

rolling, right? And even for the most part, when the camera's not rolling, if you can stay in pocket. So that's what was happening in the background for me, just to always stay ready. Yeah. With Green, with Ray, the beauty of his directing is, I said, man, you have a lot of, I mean, this is, this is not the only huge scene that he had to direct from this huge scope. Yeah. And I said, man, what are you storyboarding? And he's like, I know he's storyboarded it in his head,

but his ability to come down and probably revisit the location and then work it out with us. He's hands on working it out with us. His style of the suitings is one that you really come to appreciate. One, he involves you. One, two, we have a conversation. Three, the scope of what he's doing in detail with us and with all of the moving.

parts, you know, to tell the story. So even though we're looking at a story, an entire story of six episodes, it's for me working with him, every story seems like it's magnified to his own story. Like, this could have been the film. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, because it's like, I was going to ask you what it's like sometimes to do, the wire's a little bit different.

For this show of particular, I think it's been really amazing to watch it unfold because it's not like every other TV show. You're just not going to get certain motivating character beats all the time. Like it's like because it's almost building up this world and it's obviously like the Nicole character is making a lot of like doing a lot of the work of like explaining the context of the situation and what the Justice Department was doing there. And then you guys are kind of like the characters who are acting out what it is she's describing in a lot of ways.

It's not it's not a traditional like I'm like this because my dad was like, this and you know I'm doing this for my kids or stuff like that it's a little bit more complicated but for you when you're when you're talking with the writers and when you're talking with the director or even your your fellow actors like are you you're you must be internalizing it and personalizing it the way you would anything else right you're finding those those human moments for this guy even if he's part of a larger machine of the show oh yeah yeah you know what but what made it that much what made it that much easier was actually listening to a lot of his tape and his voice and him on the stand and also being able to see so much of his life

with his family, his relationship with his family, when he doesn't know he's being recorded. When, you know, his relationship with his grandchildren and his children and also with his friends, their sense of humor and being able to see all of that. And then top that off with having a conversation with his colleagues. And then letting me know who he was and how he thought. And then again, kudos to HBO, right? And the production company deadline to everyone, they just, I bothered them. You know, I was just like, can I have this information?

It wasn't a bother. But I need more. I need more. And then they were just sending me information that I asked based on who he was as a child, interviews and who raised him? Where was he raised? When did he join our own forces? Why did he join our own forces?

Who was his uncle? Why did his uncle all of a sudden start playing a father figure in his life? His cousin's becoming his brother. What was his favorite film? You know, singing in a rain? I mean, it was just like interesting. The kind of person that he was. And then what he ended up becoming in terms of really wanting to be a part of the community.

Yeah. And how that affected his life. Because I would imagine a lot of that work when you're doing a character is stuff that you have to do yourself. It's like stuff you're almost fashioning yourself where you're like, here's this guy's. I'm sure you've got a bunch of characters and you're like in the back of your head, this is this guy's favorite movie. But that's you. That's not getting. And the question becomes why.

Yeah. Yeah. Because look, if you listen to this certain music that you listen to, and I try to associate the kind of music that he might have grew up with as well, right? and then create a playlist, right? But if there's certain music that you listen to that I would have never even thought to listen to, my question then becomes why, right? Why is this your favorite film? What is that sensitive part inside of you that exists that makes you want to,

what are you either running towards or running away from or trying to surround yourself with that leads you to loving this? Yeah. You know, this story. You know, how is that your favorite? Like, how's that on your rush, not Rushmore films? Yeah. When you're in a scene like the Car Wash one and just in general working with Berthal,

but I thought that you guys had incredible chemistry, very wary of one another as characters, but also clearly drawn to one another. What's it like to be his scene partner when he's going off, when he's at maximum volume and really like taking up all the physical space in a room? But like, you know, you're in it with him. What's it like? What was he like as a scene partner for that? He's one that you really enjoy really listening and really responding to.

Because he gives you something to really listen to and really respond. You know, he comes with all of the work done and always with a great amount of ideas. Always, it's like, oh, Jay, what you think about this? Let's talk about this. And I'm throwing it back at him as well. And then we get on set. And it's not as if, on your mark, it said, go. It's like we just walk into the moment. Yeah. And exist.

Because we were working on it and talking about it and living it up and just having conversations about it way before we stepped into that moment. So what's it like working with him? It was fun. Yeah. You know, I mean, cracking jokes, chopping it up off scene. But at the same time, getting in the mix of it and just really, really listening to each other and what he has to say.

You know, I know people like John with that, No, like Bernthor, no, like Jenkins with that level of always go and on, right? Yeah. And one thing that you realize that you have to be is in a space with that individual, you got to be yourself. You got to be confident enough to be yourself to not, you know, feel any kind of way that the air is sucked out of the room. Yeah.

I mean, and he's also always going to be like probing for like kind of, yeah, weaknesses, but he's just like he's cracking jokes. he's busting balls and you might just be like oh man but like it's an interesting episode because that way jen jenkins character like does a lot of does a lot of making fun of people and he also gets made fun of a lot in that episode so it's funny to see him scary part about it right yes i'll cut you off the scary part about it is how charismatic he is yeah yeah right so now you this is a guy that you're like damn i don't want to like him but dang on it this dude's funny look my good side Just make change if I get shot.

They're like, what? But, you know, you got to love it, right? But then it's just like, look, man, you terrorize in the community, bro. Yeah, yeah. Well, man, I won't keep you any longer. This show is incredible. I love your performance on it.

Souter's such an amazing character, and I can't wait for people to get to see the last few episodes. Jamie Hector, thank you so much for joining me today. Christopher, thank you, man. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me.