The Watch - ‘Betty’ Is a Love Letter to Being Young in New York. Plus: Peacock News and ‘I May Destroy You’

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

‘Betty,’ a show on HBO about a pack of skateboarding teen girls, is joyous and depicts being young in New York as a real adventure (3:18). Plus, Peacock is hoping that ‘Brave New World’ can be it’s ‘Game of Thrones’ (26:42) and ‘I May Destroy You,’ just keeps getting better (41:30). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the run. 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 on the other line. Born and bread to rip and shred. It's Andy Greenwald. Hey, friend.

We're the best skateboarding podcast you can possibly listen to. I can't wait because my years of playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 over a decade ago are going to come in so handy in this. conversation. Because we're going to talk a little bit about HBO's Betty, which has been out for a while. We're going to talk about Betty. We're going to talk about I May Destroy You. But before we get into all that, Andy, it's Thursday, to take a breath. Liverpool, crown champions of the Premier League. I was thinking of you. And I was thinking of the version of myself that told you I was going to start watching soccer 10 years ago. Fantasy had this. What a journey that would have been for me.

Sean, I remember we did the Oceans 12 rewatchables and Sean brought this up. Do you remember when it was a real bit in New York City for people to get up at like 5 a.m. and go to pubs. To like watch the games, watch the matches. That was pretty hilarious. I mean it was kind of a bit to be like, I want to start drinking at 5 a.m. but I'm going

to blame it on sports. But it was funny where we would draw the line. Like you and I both one of our sort of shared obsessions is the specific feeling of entering a bar at like 1 p.m. on a Sunday and leaving that bar at 6.45 p.m. on a Sunday.

and it's dark out. With the Sunday, you have to be specific, like, during football season. During football season, sorry. You've entered it. Not just on a five-hour drinking bin. The world is possible when you enter. There's like a little bit of warmth still and people are out on the streets. And then when you exit, you realize that you in your life are as bad a clock management as Andy Reed.

Yeah. Because it is now bitterly cold and all hope of a weekend has gone. But maybe that's the remit. to that would have been just getting a quick power nap at home and returning to the bar. Yes. Of course, in this scenario, it's Monday morning. Wow. Well, how's your week been going? Oh, great. Another great week in America. Thanks for asking. I have to tell you, and maybe this is our segue, because we are going to talk about a bunch of TV shows today and some TV news. Oh, wait,

you want to do the news first. So maybe this isn't the best segue, but I just want to say. I was going to front load us with the headlines, you know. Okay, but can I tease people with something? Absolutely. Here's how my week has been, Chris. This week I discovered Betty on HBO, and Betty gave me a sensation that I was unfamiliar with. I'd forgotten. And that feeling is called happiness. So it's been a decent week. Andy, you know what? There really aren't any rules. Let's talk about Betty. That's fine. Chris, I love Betty. I love Betty so much. And so let me start by saying this. So it's six-episode, half-hour show on HBO. Hard to tell if it was sort of under-promoted because it's sort of a more modestly budgeted

show or if it just got lost in the aforementioned America that we were talking about. Or like the kind of, it definitely came out right as that HBO, HBO Max, HBO Go, HBO Now, boondog all happens. So yeah. To me, the show is HBO Plus. Like, this is what you get HBO for. And I have to say, before I get into it, I am not controlled. actually, but morally obligated to tell you that you remember our good friend, Laila Art Chuleta, who was my overqualified assistant on Briar Patch and Albuquerque. And one thing you know about Lela is one should listen to her, whether it's getting you from the Albuquerque airport into the general vicinity of your pal here, or it's the text saying

that I should watch Betty, and it was the last push I needed to do it. And I've watched four of the six episodes this week. I'd hold back from watching the last two. It's just pure pleasure for me. So this show is... Has your wife already watched this season of Betty six times without you in the middle of the night? You know, it's funny you ask that.

I think the answer to that is no, but here's why I do have some lingering suspicion. When I fired up my Apple TV to resume my solo Betty watch last night, I noticed all the episodes had been played all the way through. Now, there are three plausible suspects in my home, one considerably less plausible than the others. She doesn't know how to work the remote controls yet. That's my wife. We have too many remote controls. Probably it's one of those things where your boy thought you pressed pause,

but it's turned off the TV and it just was racking up views, which is good for Betty fandom. But anyway, so I don't know if anyone else has watched it. I have not watched the last two because Did you happen to catch your wife shredding down a banister while smoking a blunt? Live in a one-story house. All the rest, yes. So for people who don't know about the show, it is basically an evolution of a movie that came out a few years ago that I have not seen called Skate Kitchen. Crystal Moselle filmmaker made a doc called The Wolfpack made it loosely based on, itself loosely based on a female skate collective in New York City called Skate Kitchen, where the skaters were not trained actors. played versions of themselves. They're playing new versions of themselves on this show. And it is kind of

a shaggy summer in New York City young women on skateboards living their lives. Show. And I love this show so viscerally. I feel like I would protect it like one of my children right now. And I was very happy to see that it's already been renewed for second season. The broad strokes are, I think, for people who are looking for something new to watch. First of all, commitment-wise, we're talking six 25-minute episodes. You can bang this out, and you'll enjoy it. Two, there is a tone here that I just feel like I know I needed at the moment for my entertainment, and I don't mean to short-triff the other heavier stuff that we've been talking about that we will talk about.

But there's something about the show that is, even while dabbles and addresses heavier topics, which it does on occasion. It's so bright and bright-eyed. The colors, the personalities, the vibrancy of the city. It's not just interesting to me as someone who, again, only played a skate video game once for a while a couple years ago. But it's just interested in the world and in people and in their behavior. And it's so low-key.

It almost sneaks up on you how affecting and emotional and actually quite funny the show is. you and I have talked a lot on this pot over the years about our love affair with New York, which started, I think, around when we were both in our late teens or very early 20s and extended into our 30s and often had some rocky periods of relationship to the city. But one thing that you've always talked about that I really, I was always just so into this idea. But was this idea that as you walk around New York City and it is still the best walking city in maybe the world. And you look down a street, there's like that galaxy down that street.

And there's like this whole other world. And it's just a series of if you had made that left or if you had made that right, you never know what you would have bumped into, what you would have seen, who you would have met. And I don't mean that in a romantic way. I mean that in a literal life is an adventure way. And the time period in these young women's lives that they're documenting in Betty is the time when you were probably most open to be. taken down that street to being drawn down into these other worlds. And the way that they depict New York as a place where that kind of thing can happen, where you can like get stoned in a van with some guy talking about fake Supreme T-shirts and then go off to a skate park and

then go on and go into a bodega and then go here and then go here. And like the kind of endless, like kind of currents that take you all the way through this weird island is just so perfect. And I think over and over and over again, for the last couple of years, you and I have just been hammering home. If you show me a real place, if you build a real world, even if that world isn't real in reality, we're already halfway there with you. Absolutely. And that's the thing that this show does. You're just like immediately as you, as soon as you see this show, you will be like, I get it. I know exactly what's happening. I know how hot it is. I know what time of day it is. I know how much money these people have in their pocket. I know what they want to do with their day and the fact that they don't know what they want to do with their day. It's like it all kind of comes to life so fast. There's a moment when you're younger, if you're lucky enough to live in New York.

But I think honestly it's probably true if you're lucky enough to be young anywhere living in a city where the world is like a giant shoots and ladders board and it's yours to play with and to take risks and to lose but to keep pushing forward. And it brings that feeling to life better than anything I can remember in recent times. But the other thing about it, and maybe this is why the show is hitting me so hard right now, too, is that there is a joyous sense of community in the show that I find very affecting right now. And also it makes it a little bittersweet because our ability to be communal is challenged so much right now. It's a vision of a city that has nothing to do with whether it's the high gloss money version of it that exists on the pages of newspapers or, the kind of overly intellectualized, head-scratching, worry, think-piece blog version of it that tends to exist on shows like girls, which you know, you and I like quite a bit. But this is,

this is a city that is just you cannot keep a lid on. It's just existing. It's just youth culture. It's multiracial. It's multi-aged. There are just all kinds of people who are united in living in this place and taking joy in it when they can. And there's also a hidden language, you know, and I don't think, I'm curious when people say, when people watch it, maybe you haven't lived in New York might have a different reaction to certain aspects of it. But there's a shared language to living in a space. In the first episode, characters are gathered. They haven't met each, a lot of them haven't met before. And then there is something that happens a lot in the summertime in New York. There is suddenly a downpour. Thunderstorm breaks out. And instantly, every single person

in the city knows how to behave. and what to do and where to go and the bodega to climb into and get a plastic bag or whatever you need to do. And it's just effortless the way the show depicts that. And look, if you are struggling

at the beginning of the episode, which maybe might strike you as like a technicolor non-shitty version of Larry Clark's kids at the beginning, like not salacious at all in a way that I really appreciate, if you make it to the part

where ASEP Rocky's fucking problems plays and the character of Honey Bear, who is a breakout, and she's just this phenomenal presence, this woman, Cabrima Abrams. If your heart doesn't melt in that moment, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, I mean, it's all, that thing you just said about the rainstorm,

it's like I can still remember on like the street where I used, where I spent the last like 10 years of, or I don't know how long I spent on, on Court Street, but like knowing which bodega had the awning that was big enough to stand up, that you didn't get blocked out from the fruits, vegetables, and flowers that were outside. Which ones have, like, cheap $5 umbrellas

that wouldn't last for more than an afternoon, but maybe, like, you would just leave it at the bar anyway. And, like, you just, the way that, this show has that same sort of sense of geography, you know, and sort of mental geography as well. And, yeah, you're right. I mean, as far as, like, the language goes and the ways in which these characters interact with each other,

a lot of them were in, in a skate kitchen and are non-professional actors. and the authenticity of it actually comes through. I mean, I think that's a dicey proposition sometimes, especially for a TV show where it's not just like this experiential thing. It's actually going to have to stay coherent for multiple episodes. And yeah, they do that. But I think it's interesting.

I mean, I think one criticism that might come at the show, and I've heard it from people who have tried to check it out, is you begin to maybe, some of people have said, they begin to feel the limits of the non-professional actors. But I got to say, these young women, I think they've got the sauce. They've got the range. You know, there is, of course, playing versions of themselves in landscapes that they're familiar

and whether it's on a skateboard or just New York City helps. But, like, Johnny Russell, who plays Indigo, Rachel Vinberg, who plays Camille. I mentioned Cabrina Abrams, who I just realized is Cabrina Adams. I apologize to Miss Moon Bear. For that, I'll never make that mistake again. I just want to watch them, you know? I just think they're really interesting, intuitive natural performers. To connect this, because this is just a pure rave for me, it just makes me happy.

And I just would talk about this for the whole hour, but we won't. But to connect this rave to ways we've talked about TV before, I think one of the reasons why you and I are so impressed. There's some overlap here between the other HBO show we're going to talk about at the end of the podcast, I may destroy you, which is also, I think, brilliant. And also, you know, vibrates with a certain young energy. Obviously, you and I are very, very envious of or interested in as spectators to that now. But I May Destroy You is also quite contemporary and clever in that it has that kind of zeitgeisty feel, but is in the service of, as we've described it, a wrenching personal detective story. It is serialized in that way.

The other thing that we've always loved about TV, going back to even before this Golden Nature TV, are shows where the premise is so good it could be about anything. And as far as I can tell, four episodes in with a second season coming, this show could just go. It could be about almost anything. And I love that about it. I mean, I think that shows like this are more what I was hoping for, I was hoping TV would turn into when I think we started doing this podcast. And I think that when we sort of felt like there's been this tug of war back and forth between whether or not television has really lived up to its promise of the quote unquote golden age and whether or not, and what that means in relationship to its sort of tension between it being a writer medium versus a filmmaking. medium or a director's medium. And I think that there's been a lot of conversation about that.

But for me, it was always about like telling different stories in different kinds of ways. And that was the way in which it would be the inheritor of like the sort of 70s cinema that everybody would kind of like, like this could be it. This could be our kind of like the place for all the real artistic experimentation and expression that we thought was going to come out of the 70s and was crushed by the 80s and blockbusters. And shows like Betty. are little minor miracles like that. You know what I mean? Like that's that's why you watch TV

is to find something like this that doesn't feel like anything else. I should give a shout out too to Leslie Arfin, who's a established TV writer. She actually worked on girls, which is interesting and worked on most recently love on Netflix.

She came on as co-show runner and executive producer, Moshe Casher, as a stand-up comedian, worked on the show. So there are comedy bona fides there, too, which are subtle and really good. Before we move on,

I have to ask you, Like, as a longtime skate aficionado. Yeah. You know, just as like a goofy foot stand. Is that a thing? Or is that like snowboarding? Anyway, I love watching people skateboard. I think it's fascinating.

I have no idea how to do any of it. And it's just kind of beautiful and cool on film. I have to say Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 did lie to me because my understanding of skating at a certain level really does involve just banister work and rails. but like nothing but like going around like a dome purely on a railing which I guess isn't

possible vis-a-vis physics but that was my one kind of disappointment yeah you know I I don't think I would ever call myself a skateboarder although I think I am a pretty big fan of skate culture over the years I have to say it was excited about you to unpack that by the way really looking forward to it well because I just don't have the balance I don't have the balance that I don't have the appetite for like deep scratches on my body.

Owens a pair of vans once. Yeah, but I do like, I often will watch like old skate videos and think they have great soundtracks. And I would say my wife and I were watching Betty and there was like, there's just a couple of shots in the first episode, for instance, that are just long tracking shots of someone obviously filming someone on it. They are on a skateboard and they are filming someone else on a skateboard in front of them. And I was like, I don't know who you want to credit this with, like, whether it's, you want to, like, trace it back to Spike Jones doing, doing skate videos in the 90s.

But this might be one of the, like, more formative images of my lifetime, like, in a weird way is, like, watching people skate on screen. And that shot, yeah. And that shot of, like, I'm going to get on a skateboard with my camera and roll past this person. And that's, that's the shot. And it seems like, you know, in the grand scheme of things. kind of inconsequential, but I've watched some variation on that shot for the last 30 years. So it seems like a big deal. Yeah, that's kind of interesting way to put it.

And it does, it is a visual language that is more established now, I guess, from our generation below. Last thing, last very New York thing that I want to ask you about. There's a moment in this, the show does so many things so well. But one of the things that it does is it doesn't really tell you too much about the women's lives off of the skateboards until you suddenly are granted access. And in some ways, that was the most New York part of it. that people's life is lived.

I mean, again, this is why this year has been, among the many reasons why this year has been so particularly cruel and vicious to great cities. In New York, life has lived outside. And that's your home. And your apartment is the place where you sleep and store pizza that you haven't finished on the way home from the subway.

Yeah, it's where the Annie's Mac and Cheese is at the end of the night. Yeah. And so these little glimpses where suddenly someone opens a door or in one character's case goes in a private elevator and you're like, wait, what? and they have these private spaces really to like recharge is really kind of exciting.

And it really reminded me of that moment when you're, you know, for me anyways, mostly when you were younger, you meet people, you don't know them that well. And maybe they're like, oh, come back to my place, have a beer or whatever. And then their place either is like the kind of tenement where there's a bathtub in every room, you know, not just the kitchen. Yeah. And maybe the room is just a bathtub. Or it's like, oh, come with me on the sixth train. Why are we getting off at 81st in Park? Oh, your father is a Lehman brother.

Like, his name is Mr. Lehman brother, and you have 19 rooms. But out in the, you know, on the battlefield of ideas that is the Lower East Side, I guess we're all kind of equal. Yeah, I thought you were going to reference the phenomenon of when we were growing up in Philly. And like, we were in middle school and high school. And a guy would be like, do you want to come back to my dad's place? And you'd be like, just your dad's, right? Okay.

Yeah, checking in. And you'd see your friends divorced dad's house for the first time, there was always a story there. You know what I mean? Yeah, I remember, you know, you know where big main line of Philadelphia divorced dad energy was, like where they shopped mostly? Yeah. Was the sharper image.

Those were the houses where that had those things, those like the metal rods where you put your hands or face on it, that are absolutely banned in the COVID era. And B, the only time I ever saw someone with one of those robots that did, nothing but serve a tray of drinks if you made the drinks and put them on the tray, was that shout out to a kid named Tony's divorced dad. That dude worked track suits, worked at an auto dealership, and had a robot. And, you know, that's about as good as it got in the 80s. Tony went on to inspire the Ashley Schaefer BMW character in Eastbound and Down probably.

At least spiritually connected to it. All divorced dads, they were like, the Jack Daniels was not hidden. It was like, son, this is where the booze is. Whereas if you were at like, you know, the mom's house, it was like a little bit more like, it was a little bit more like obscured. But like the divorced dads were like, that's a funny smell and cigarette.

Speaking of divorced dads, because really many of us are really just a few bad decisions away from becoming one. So all respect and all fear. There was a moment last night where, and this is why I'm a little suspect, I don't think my wife finished the series of Betty, where she was working late after the kids went to bed

and I was skating my way through two more episodes of Betty and then she came to join me and she's like, can we watch something or do you want to keep watching this? And I was like, brain was like, I want to keep watching this. Yeah. And then like, actually body, heart was like, I want to keep watching this. Brain was like, your choice, whatever you'd like to do. So that's how I go from being like,

this show is reminding me of living in New York and listening to Aesap Rocky to browsing the deep season 38 menu of American Masters on PBS. Be like, oh, well, you know, I guess there's another another Joan Didion doc. Well, that could be a nice nightcap. Meanwhile, in your head, it's just listening to Far Side and just like running away from Park Rangers.

I'm just doing kickflips over the bar. Last night, we were, we keep having this thing when we get to the end of the night where we're trying to find a show that's not too demanding, but not too stupid or one that we've like seen 100 times. Okay. So we keep finding like these. like we and honestly like the thing that we've been watching a lot of that I've been

really really enjoying is Dave which is something we never talked about on this pie but I missed it completely hilarious but last night it kind of was like later and I was like kind of drifting off and I was like man we could watch something else and it was like we started watching Floors Lava which is you know the Netflix number one show on Netflix and is one of the craziest things like I just felt like I was on mushrooms the whole time uh And, you know, people need to know. It's the game floor is lava, but filmed.

And there's like, you know, they pretend like it's actually lava. Wait, that's a game? Yeah, it was basically like you set up your house, like if you were at your house. Oh, like a kid's game where you jump from couch to table. But it's played by adults and is like super intense and people like do faceplants on stuff and everything. You know, it's kind of also got an escape room vibe. But the point is, is that I, we watched one and I like got some jokes off and was like, this is just so stupid. And I'm like, well, okay.

and then my wife watched like four more without me. But then like my first reaction was, well, I'm going to be totally lost now. You know, like it's like the narrative. The narrative thread is going to disappear. So stupid. I need to get out of the house. Were you an escape room guy? Did you enjoy that?

I would have been if I, I think that was something that could have happened in the last couple of months, you know? Oh, that's, that's something you've done before. This is a good, Kaii, are you sitting an escape room person? Like do I want to go to an escape room? Not now, but were you? No, that sounds like a waste of money. Okay.

I agree. Thank you, Kaya, wise beyond your years. I mean, I think if you don't know what the concept is, being like, can you escape? A big divorced dad energy right there. Kaya, do you have a drink serving robot? I think if you didn't know the concept and someone was like, would you like to escape this room right now, 99% of America would take the offer.

Yeah. But I've never understood the appeal of going to solve problems. You know, it's like a, it's like, it's like a, do you actually,

do you like playing like dinner party games like mafia and stuff like that? No. Why don't you? I don't like fun very much. I'm anti-fun. I think that the reason is,

is that your guy, you have, you have this family. And I'm, I'm a pre-divorced dad. You have limited at that's socially. You know what I mean? And you've got to maximize them.

And it's tough for you if you show up and you're like, I'm trying to, catch up with friends, get my drink on, Tony's dad style. You know what I mean? A funny cigarette gets passed around, who knows? And I'm saying, and if I come up to you and I'm like, here is an elaborate game that is going to take 45 minutes just to explain. Yeah. And inevitably, someone's going to get in a kind of weird passive aggressive fight. I could see why that would be a day ruiner for you. Do you remember our buddy Chuck Closterman's

birthday party one year was going to his apartment, having take out KFC and, playing mafia, right? Or murder or whatever. Mafia, yeah. That's the most chuck thing ever. I don't feel like we're outing him by saying that. I don't think so either. Today's episode of The Watch

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Maybe we'll hopefully have some people from the show on at some point in the next couple of weeks to sort of wrap it up because we haven't really talked about the show. I just want everyone to watch it and enjoy it. Yeah, seriously. They're very high recommend from us. Really the only news I wanted to talk to you about. So Peacock launches July 15th. Yeah.

They put out a batch of trailers. I think that I need to see the library. This is my take on Peacock because I think HBO Max really opened up. They put out Love Life. I know I'm a fan of Love Life. You had some reservations about it, but you know, you understand that lots of people like Love Life. But that was the only original series for, I guess, adults that they were putting out, that was exclusively for HBO Max.

There was a bunch of docs and cartoons and stuff like that. Children's programming, but their library. Their library was, I mean, unbelievable in terms of rewatchable movies and also shows that had huge rewatch potential like Big Bang and friends and stuff like that. So that was kind of like the HBO Max story. I don't really know. I mean, I have some awareness of what's going to be on. Peacock like the office. But I need to like kind of like get really like kind of see a list of it where it's like 30 Rock and all these other things. But Peacock made put out some trailers for their quote

unquote originals. The reason I use quote unquote, which is the verbal version of air quotes is because a couple of these things are British co-pros that have already aired. Yep. And then the sort of big tent pole that they're putting out, the one I think that they're hoping catches on is the adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Right. Which is, I think at least the first episode is directed by Owen Harris, who directed several of the best episodes

of Black Mirror. I think Grant Morrison worked on it as a executive producer. And it stars Alden Aaron Reich, Demi Moore, Jessica Brown-Finley, a couple other people. And I'm a...

I still, still, still, Alden Aaron Reich is my Boeing stock. Like, I will not sell it. But I have to say that I do not think that this show looks that good. Okay. That's one note. Okay. Would you like to elaborate on that?

Well. I should say, I feel, and I know people tune into this podcast for full transparency, I feel slightly hamstrung because I am in a, I have an overall deal with Universal for my own work. theoretically my work, if I make more work, could end up on Peacock. So I feel a little bit delicate there. So I'm mostly going to reserve my commentary for like the overall place in the marketplace and criticize you for your terrible stock trading. But I will say, I wasn't saying like this is site unseen.

So I'm not saying like I don't know anything about how good or bad this adaptation is. I think part of it is the amount that Brave New World has influenced other stuff. I have now come out the other side that when they set up the premise for Brave New World about this quote unquote perfect society that this one person is the anomaly in and then that person unravels the thread. I think that has become such a well-worn trope that I am almost sort of like I got it before I even see it. So that's that. And then I wanted to also talk about foundation. Well, it leads well to foundation because Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Isaac Asimov's Foundation kind of are the early. of modern sci-fi that have been, the concern would be that the bones have been picked clean

by every story that has come since, whether or not they are better stories. It's interesting to note. I mean, the other thing about Peacock is that, and this could be an advantage or disadvantage, and we'll see as it plays out. I think we've talked around this before, but we're not getting the full blast of what they intended to be because of the pandemic. I think they intended to launch with more originals and have more things just. more stuff ready to show because the goal, it's kind of, it's trying to fill a different niche. I mean, it's going to have really, really solid dependable content like Law & Order and 30 Rock and the office eventually, I think next year, the office hits it. But also be the

place for shiny new streaming content. And there's also an ad-supported version of it. So it's finding its way. Brave New World was developed for USA and then Switch. midstream for Peacock. Right. So I think your concerns are, especially in terms of like as everything becomes IP and everything now, all the things that were quote unquote unproducible are now very much producible. Well, I just think it's an interesting thing where it's like we've had this sort of wave of world building sci-fi influence stuff that is obviously drawn from a lot of foundational

texts. And now we're now going through the cycle where we are re-a-mobile. imagining the original versions of these things in Foundation, Brave New World, and to some extent, dude, you know what I mean? Yes. Absolutely. So Foundation, we're talking about, it's the 19, it's the first, there were short stories published by Isaac Asimov in the 40s. It first collected into a book and then ultimately a trilogy in the early 50s. So this is about as, this is way back.

Actually, more contemporary than Perry Mason, but still, in the, you know, in the world. way back machine. And this is material that I love. I read these books when I was in high school and they kind of blew my mind. That's a prime age for reading foundation. So David Goyer, who has a long history in genre work, he co-wrote, probably most famously he co-wrote the Nolan, Batman movies with Nolan, is spearheading this adaptation. It's the biggest production ever in Ireland. Shouts to Paul Meskell and normal people, which filmed in the same studio, but... Shout out the Celtic Tiger. So there was a big press release in January when it went into production, the biggest production

ever in Ireland, like 500 people working on the production, and then, of course, they've got delayed. But the trailer that they released is impressive looking and certainly looks like they spared no expense. A lot of great actors in it, Jared Harris, Lee Pace. Here's my... I hate doing this concern, trule. But here's what I want to say about this. I love these books. And the reason why I love the books is because they are very, very modest stories

with galaxy brain ideas. And part of the appeal to me about it was that they were so tightly focused. I mean, they're short stories, really, cobbled together into novels. And they're just the purest of sci-fi for that reason. Asimov is a really smart guy. Jewish American guy living, you know, during World War II, thinking about the end of empires and how

great civilizations end and being like, well, okay, the end of the Roman Empire, but in space. And there's something that was so beautiful and simple and almost humble about it, this idea of a guy who can predict the end of civilizations through math called psychohistory and being like, I'm going to create up a shadow plan to shorten the time between the end of this empire that I'm living in and the next golden age for humanity in the galaxy from 30,000 years to 1,000 years. It's still going to be a thousand year long story, but that's 29,000 years less suffering for other people.

And this isn't even a spoiler to say, like the main character doesn't live past the first book because it goes on for a thousand years. Right. I love this. It still gets me excited thinking about it. And there's something that is so pure about that idea. It's about thinking and hoping and humanity

that when I see a trailer and the trailer, is like the home of the Sith in the last terrible Star Wars movie with the Batman basin, the Nolan blaring. I'm like, I feel like you may have misunderstood the text and misread the moment. Like, obviously you can't pitch Apple.

I'm going to do this unproducible thing and we're going to do it at budget. Like, we're doing a really super low budget. But I kind of wish they had. But this is such an interesting conversation, man, because obviously what people want is the next Game of Thrones. They obviously want.

a global franchise that goes on for five, six, seven years and creates a secondary extracurricular life of fandom, of conventions, of theories, of writings of like critical discourse, and also like, you know, energy around the show. And I always just think back to that first season of Game of Thrones, no matter how expensive it was to mount that show, how small it felt. Yeah. And not how small it felt like in terms of,

its ideas or in terms of its performances or in terms of its writing, but just like it just stayed within its lane lines and really was like about these people talking and telling their history. It really didn't get shown for a while, you know, that it was a lot of it was about this sort of like interpersonal communication. And then at the end, obviously, it becomes battle after battle after dragon after dragon. I feel like a lot of these shows are trying to start with the dragon. You know, the first shot of the foundation trailer is this absolutely awe-inspiring piece of special effects that, you know, it would be worthy of a Quorum movie, you know, or worthy of a Christopher Nolan. It was the entire budget of NBC's Caroline in the City over its

entire run in one CGI shot. You know what I mean? Like, it is that. It's just TV showing off, which is cool. And, you know, maybe, look, the show, I hope to God, the show is great. I really think that would be awesome. And part of selling something, this is what we're doing, I mean, the show couldn't even finish production, is putting it into a language that audiences are primed to understand. And then later it can be something else. This is, I don't know how many people who are listening to this stayed through all of my Frozen Two talk with Kristen Bell. But one of the things that I thought was most interesting when we talked to her was watching the trailer for Frozen before the movie came out and seeing them marketing a completely different movie than what it was in order to make people

hopefully get them in line to see it because they understood what that was. So maybe that's kind of what this is. The pure idea here, though, and the potential to be that long-running series, regardless of how they shoot it, is really vast because Game of Thrones was a generational saga, but about one generation. And a lot of the talking was about the previous generations leading to this moment. if they do foundation right and they do it in the spirit of the books, it will tell a story that spans a thousand years.

So there will be new characters and new points of conflict and new locations in ways that could be quite groundbreaking and potentially quite on-inspiring and moving as inspiring as the CGI shots if they do it right. They put out this teaser for Foundation and we could share it, but I thought it was, it's always such an interesting choice when they do these like sort of B-roll behind-the-scenes shots from special effects heavy sci-fi movies where I'm like, I don't want to see Lee Pace's character for the first time standing in front of a styrofoam sphinx.

I mean, this is, this was definitely, they were like, what do we got? Right. What can we finish? Can I tell you the one other reason I'm slightly prejudiced against this? Okay. So the main character that starts this is this psycho-historian called Harry Selden. Jared Harris, right? Jared Harris. I love Jared Harris.

The Chernobyl God right there, you know? One of our great actors in almost anything, really versatile. But like, I feel like Harry Selden should be played by like Judd Hirsch. You know what I mean? Is that, is he like older or what? He's an old guy. He's an older guy, like he comes to this closer to the end of his life. But obviously they're not, first of all, can you imagine that pitch meeting? Listen, Tim, everybody here on the Apple board.

Johnny Ive, it doesn't even work here anymore. Thank you. Eddie, Mr. Q, thank you for your preemptive half a billion dollar bid in our 10-year series. I just got two words for you to put butts in seats. Hirsch. Judd Hirsch. This is just me saying that like this spirit. Guys, we couldn't afford Dreyfus because we blew all the money on a space station.

Hirsch's tech avail. We can't get him to Ireland, but he'll zoom in. I said this before, but like, the sort of like something about 1940s, New York hustling. Like, there was something in that. There was something that felt very, I'm just going to say it. Like, there's something like super Jewish New York to me about these books always and also who Asimov was.

And like the star of the book being a guy who's just like, I'm a historian interested in psychology. And also I'm going to build a generation spanning project about an encyclopedia. I just feel like he shouldn't be a super silliest British actor. Like, I just feel like it's kind of a misreesome. read on the person that could fumble his way into history. And it also feels like that thing that sci-fi does. And I think you saw this in Brave New World where they're like, to be sci-fi, it has to look

this way and sound this way. And people have to speak in a certain tone. And I'm just really ready for something to shake that up. Yeah, me too. I am too. Should we end by talking a little bit about I May Destroy You, which is probably the least sci-fi thing in the world right now? It is, although she is a psychochemist in terms of Arabella's.

own personal Bill Nye the science guy in terms of her own ingesting of chemicals was impressive, if not totally terrifying. This is, I think this is, people were asking, I saw, I think someone on Twitter was like, what has the belt right now? To me, this show has the belt. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess we have to say it out loud.

Like, I made a story definitely has the belt. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's hard to gauge the, I've seen anecdotally people as they find this show saying, holy shit. I don't know that it has become like a week to week kind of thing, but this show is now three for three with episodes. In fact, I would argue each one is better than the last. Yes. This was a surprising, I never, I never was certain what was going to happen, but I was always aware that I was like in the hands of like a, like maybe a master storyteller watching this.

this episode. And filmmaker. I thought Sam Miller is just doing an incredible job. And I love how the show keeps you guessing.

And because we know how high the stakes are, because we're so centered in Arabella's emotional experience, it feels breathtaking, in the literal sense,

like I'm on the edge of my seat, even when Arabella and Terry are having fun. Not because I think something terrible is going to happen because I truly don't know because anything is possible

on the show. And I, to that point, I was really shocked and impressed how it zagged in episode three to have a traumatic event occur in episode one, to have episode two be about the beginning fallout of that event, and then take a breath, take a step back to a happier time in, you know, I think it's fair to say, at least for most of the episode of a happier time in these women's lives, was both surprising. and sort of set me, tip my balance a little bit in terms of what to expect, but also just right. It's like, she's just kind of new. You know, she's like, she's the savvy, she's already a savvy pitcher who knows just when to throw the off-speed stuff when you least expect it and are ready to enjoy it. And for what this episode did, and I think, I've a feeling you're going to back me up on this, I have never, and I'm not trying to like virtue signal sobriety here because I am not a sober person,

but I don't think I've ever ingested one-eighth of the amount of drugs or a variety of drugs, certainly in one night that Arabella took in Italy. And just the way the show made mind-altering drugs in your 20s feel simultaneously like the single best decision you could make and the most terrifying, horrifying, horrifying mistake you could ever make, sometimes within the same shot was unprecedented and made me feel insane. I thought it captured the, you know, basically like the defense system of consciousness and like how when you strip that away, how terrifying it can be to kind of be without that. And obviously that's what this show in some ways is about. I also thought it was one of the best flashback episodes I've ever seen precisely because most flashback episodes are about some kind of Freudian trauma that is explaining what is happening in the current moment. And this was more like, yeah, this is another sort of snapshot of someone's past that illustrates who they are now and illustrates like the interpersonal relationship between Terry and Arabella and talks about

what, you know, when Terry spends the day with her in that second episode, sort of helping her piece things together and is getting increasingly concerned, you're like, oh, it's interesting. I wonder if Terry's like the sort of straight-laced one and Arabella is the wild child and Terry's concerned and it's like, no, it's, it's much more complicated than that. It's much more like real life. Yeah. And I, and I think that that's exactly it what you said about, about complication. You know, I think there, we have seen many, many examples, I think less, hopefully I'd like to think less in recent years, but so many examples of a kind of clumsy morality when applied to young things that happen to young people. It doesn't necessarily have to be sexual assault,

as the case of the show, but whether it's, you know, recreational drug use or drinking or smoking or whatever the case may be, even well-intentioned shows or stories tend to have a moment where it's like, well, you shouldn't have gotten in that car. You made a mistake. And let's isolate that one moment as if it was a binary choice, as if we weren't the some butterfly effect total of everything that we ever did. And some of those things ended up, you know, with results that made us feel good or happy or let us to a good place. And some of them didn't. And even the that made us feel good, maybe made someone else feel bad. And painting in that fuller picture is really crucial, I think, to full-bodied, full-hearted

storytelling, but also really impressive to see it being done. I don't want to say effortlessly, people work really hard in the show. But it's the first thing that you said. I just, I feel like we're in the hands of people who really know what they're doing. And I never felt like I was being really, like, manipulated. I think that moment, I mean, you were saying, like, you know, when you're young and you're, you kind of... you're having an extremely normal one out.

It's just like, A, you definitely feel like you lose your grip on, on your fastball pretty fast where you're just like, I'm kind of giving myself over to the momentum of this. And B, you're like, I'm once like completely like exhilarated because I'm flying and then, oh shit, like I'm up in the air. Like that happens very fast when that's going on. And I thought that that moment sort of as her Italian drug dealer soon to be quite, Bozzi boyfriend is leading her into this sort of like, I'm going to take you somewhere else. And they've had this sort of incredibly intimate moment back at her apartment. And now he's like

taking her somewhere else. And I think you feel like, okay, this guy doesn't seem like evil. But there's that moment where you're just like, I have no idea what's on the other side of this door when this guy unlocks this like sort of restaurant, this cafe door. And then it winds up being this kind of epiphany moment of listening to daft punk as the sun comes up over the Mediterranean. And yeah, I mean, sometimes that does happen. You know what I mean? Like, and you've got to treasure that when it does. I personally don't feel like I would be able to process something like the sun coming up if I had taken that much, you know, ketamine, but whatever. Do you think we should rename this podcast,

my two dads? I just feel like we have a lot of advice about young people having fun in Italy and or New York. But yeah, I think that it's interesting to be talking about and to be watching. I made a you and Betty in concert because they both are very aesthetically driven and personalized riffs on the fleeting bulletproof nature of youth, you know, that I think I'd be curious, honestly, from our listeners, people who are in that time of their lives or people who are like us probably, I think, past that time. It's central to it, you know. Kyya just nodded gravely when you said past that time. Yeah. I don't think Kai is.

Kai is ordering us Ensure to make sure that we recover from this 45-minute blast of enthusiasm. But no free ads, but that would be a great sponsor for us. Just that it's always a navigation. Like to go out and experience life, like you have to have some denial, right? You have to be in the moment and be present and appreciate it, but also not get too far out of your head. But also you don't want to stay in your head. And, you know, it's interesting to watch, but I appreciate so much that both of these shows come from a place, a very, I mean, I May Destroy You isn't a warm and fuzzy show, but I think it comes from a very open-hearted, and both shows come from female-centric, creative point of view. It's the female gaze in both cases, even though Sam Miller, who directed, I May Destroy You as a Man, both shows, I think, are centered in a female gaze and looking at the risk and reward of, going out and being and living in really fascinating and worthwhile ways.

I can't say it better. So let's wrap it up there. Next week, we have like a wild wave of guests coming. Yeah. Let's ride that wave. So we'll definitely keep talking about I May Destroy You and we'll talk more about Betty. I am going to figure out a way to talk about dark.

I know you didn't watch the second season. So here's the problem. You could watch like a six minute YouTube that's about dark's coming out on Friday, Dark Season. I know. So, guys, look, you know I love Bartas.

Or is it Bartos? I don't remember. Bartos. Whatever. You want me to take that back? No, look. I, apologies to our German fans.

I love that first season so much. And I cannot tell you what bad timing that second season was for me in my life. When I would like return from set in Albuquerque with my brain dribbling out of my ears and be like, I'm sorry,

I can't do time travel right now. So what can I do? This is the least easy watch for an entertaining show. I would try. I will send you. There are multiple dark season two recaps. The problem with that is as somebody who did, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Kaya, like I think we did upwards of like three episodic recaps on the watch while you were in New Mexico with Gallagher, Jason Gallagher.

I remember. And we talked about it, Time Bros. and I would feel crazier at the end of those podcasts than I did at the beginning. And like when Jason and I actually thought we may have figured out time travel on that podcast is still one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had. So I hope that, you know, if you try and watch the second season recap that they have and then we want to watch a couple of before Monday, that's great. Otherwise, I might just have to do like a Colin Coward podcast where I'm like just going

solo for 50 minutes. I might listen to your time travel podcast and attempt it in order to find the space because look we talk about a lot of TV shows and there are a lot of TV shows but there aren't as many experiences of watching that I enjoyed as much as that first season so I wish that I was caught up to join you I will try so if you don't mind I'm just going to put this to you right now in front of God and Germany and all our listeners slow walking this a little bit I got you man I got you. You know whose clock we're on?

Ours. It's you and me. What's Kaya doing right now? I don't know. She's rolling her eyes. Is she asking her robot to get her somewhere that Jack Daniels? Greenwald, I'll see you on Monday, man. Great job for Anki's.

Have a great weekend.