The Watch - Breaking Down the 'Better Call Saul' Finale. Plus: Actor Tony Dalton on Playing Lalo Salamanca. | The Watch

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Chris and Andy hone in on the season finale of their favorite show of the year: 'Better Call Saul.' They discuss the tonal differences between the world established here and in 'Breaking Bad,' the specific performances of Bob Odenkirk and Tony Dalton, and the way the cast and crew have perfected the craft of the 'Breaking Bad'/'Better Call Saul' extended universe (1:02). Then, Dalton joins the show to discuss his role as Lalo Salamanca, what he takes from the page and makes his own, and the most rewarding aspects of working in a high-level ensemble cast (44:32). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Tony Dalton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And if you have the means, it's an unbelievably great and useful cause that helps our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can the money goes directly to World Central Kitchen, and it's a charitable donation. Once again, it's the ringer.com slash WCK. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I am an editor at the Ringer.com and joining me on the other line, fetching the bolt cutters. It's Andy Greenwald! Don't you put that in my mouth. Someone else owns that lane. What's going on, brother? What would you give me on Pitchfork?

Oh, you're best new music, son. That's nice. BNM. I haven't been new in a long time, buddy, but happy Monday. What's up, man? It's Monday. It's the Watch.

And what a show we have for you. We're recording this on Monday afternoon, but you'll be able to hear this sometime Monday evening because it's a very special episode of The Watch. Today we talk about the season finale of Better Call Saul, a show, which I think Andy and I agree is the best show of the year so far. Oh, wow. Look at you.

Would you say that? Putting that in my mouth. Non-BP. Yes, right? Yeah. That's okay. I'm already removing myself from the conversation. I mean...

What's the comp? It's been great. I'm trying to think. What else have we loved? Zero, zero, zero. We enjoyed talking about the outsider, but I don't think it was on this level. No, I think you're right. I think you're right.

You know how loathe I am to throw around superlatives. You? You love a superlative. Andy, I think so. We get to the end of this season. I think the last two episodes delivered in a huge way. And we'll talk about how that finale played out. Then we have a very special guest joining us.

None other than Lalo Salamanca himself. Tony Dalton was nice enough to call into the watch today. A note on that, a couple of technical difficulties there with the audio. So apologies, if it's a little bit more guided by voices, mid-90s audio fidelity than we usually put out. But Bobby, Wagner, will work as magic, and I'm sure it'll be fine. And if it's not, it's all on Bobby. It's his responsibility. I think the important thing, and this is why Chris was saying it, is that Chris is going to sound great.

I sound fine. The most important thing for you to understand is that Chris is it crisp, crisp high fidelity. It just doesn't come through when Tony and Andy are talking about what a great podcaster I am. That's the only part that gets lost. That got a little garbled. Let's not waste any more time. Let's get into a better call, Saul. Man, what are nerve-wracking two hours of television?

Two hours plus of television that they put out over the last couple of weeks. I'm just kind of in awe. The funny thing is, is that for as satisfying as I found this to be, it was kind of an anti-cliffhanger cliffhanger. And I think a lot of people were worried, not worried. I mean, you should worry because this is a dark show, and I don't think it's going to get much brighter as we go along. But I think a lot of people anticipated a major, major domino to fall

in this last episode, if not the episode previous. and we didn't quite get it. We got, I think, a very good setup for what will be season six, where we arrive, and spoilers begin here. We arrive at the end of this season with Lalo understanding exactly who betrayed him, having a pretty good idea that Jimmy lied to him clearly, and also obviously knowing that Nacho sold him out.

So it puts Jimmy, Nacho, and to some extent Gus, and to a worrying, extent, Kim, in the crosshairs. What was your reaction to the finale? I think it's interesting how many times this show can explicitly tell us what it is and how it does what it does, how many hours we can spend on this podcast celebrating the show for what it is and how it doesn't play by normal rules and it doesn't play by the playbook that we've come to expect from television in this century because it doesn't need to because the luxury it has

with its relationship to previous show, Breaking Bad, and also our relationship with these characters. And yet, like Lucy with the football, we, and I think we, both of us, but I also think probably a lot of audience members, too, are so conditioned to engage with drama and dramatic television in a way that we keep falling for it. And I think they actually know that. And if and when we get to talk to Peter Gould or Vince Gilligan about it,

that's something I'd like to put them directly. because this show has never, ever been one that gives you the thing you're looking for when you're looking for it. It has never been the one to tick the boxes of what a finale ought to be, and putting that in quotes, scratching itches that feel like they've been left there for a while. Everything about the brilliant and excruciating finale of episode nine would, though, caused, us on a muscle memory level to expect that the gunshot we expected one way or another, whether metaphorical

or not, in that final scene between Lalo, Kim, and Jimmy, we expected it to ricochet or go off in this episode. And of course it didn't. This is just not what this show is. They have the restraint earned and also

inherited that they don't have to. You know, what happens to Lalo and Nacho, which is, you know, we'll say it for the hundred time for the people in the cheap seats. Whatever that event was is what Saul blurts out in his first appearance in Breaking Bad. Yeah. They don't have to do it yet.

They can spend an entire season misdirecting, redirecting, before finally giving us this event that the entire season, basically, the entire series has been predicated on revealing. So, yes, it was slightly anticlimactic. But again, this is this remarkable good vibes mojo. the better calls Saul has that other shows don't. Didn't mind it. Yeah, I mean, I was, I went back and I was rereading some of the stuff you used to write about, especially towards the end of Breaking Bad's run for Grantland.

And you wrote so well about the clock-like, you know, the watched-like technical mastery of plot and story that the writers on that show of Breaking Bad had, especially towards the end in terms of pacing, in terms of tempo, and in terms of, and in terms of knowing when to hit the accelerator versus when to pump the brakes in terms of how far or short they're going to come in this story. And I was thinking about Better Call Saul a lot in relation to that because for me, I think the thing I realized at the end of these last two episodes, 9 and 10, was that in some ways, Better Call Saul for me is just much more thematically rewarding now. I think it's unfair to say it's one or the other and that one has to be better than the other. It makes for decent enough content,

but it's fine for Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad to both be fucking awesome shows. But watching the way in which that they are taking their time to sort of layer these doubles. Everybody in this show has a double. Everybody in this show has the mirror image on each side of the story.

And now that those stories are converging, watching the Kim and the Nacho get closer together, watching Gus and Lalo become obviously intertwined, and watching Mike and Saul become intertwined. I just can't help but feel like this show has become an almost more ambiguously brilliant character study in a way. I think that Breaking Bad was always a very neat story. And this story, for us,

precise as it is, feels a little bit messier and feels a little bit sadder to me. Well, I think part of that is because it can live in a more, a less binary, more gray world of emotions because we know the outcome for a lot of them. So it doesn't have to spend as much time on the TikTok of people's lives as opposed to the sort of ebb and flow of their emotional or moral interior. I also think that, you know, for as fun as it is for fans and non-fans to debate which one is better, which one is superior. My opinion really is that this show could not exist without the other one in every possible way, both who's in it, obviously, you know, the trust that it's earned to tell its story at its own pace and also the style of storytelling. And so there's something about Better Call Saul that I think feels very, very rewarding to fans in a way that might separate it from other.

shows, it's rewarding because we're going deeper in ways that we didn't before because of what we've already watched and what we've already invested in. But there's also the element that I think should be called out too, which is the idea that this show is better than Breaking Bad would have been absolutely heretical until the last two seasons. Sure. Oh, absolutely. Except from the hottest of hot takers, the fringiest corners of Reddit. If you were like deep in Sandpiper and we're saying that. Like, yeah, absolutely not. You and I are late adopters. We are definitely like BCS phase two evangelists, but I, but both of us had problems with like the early part of the season, early part of series, as we do with Breaking Bat. And are season one and two of better call Saul,

quote unquote, worse than the later seasons? Or are they the necessary, uh, first steps to get to earn these seasons? And that's sort of an impossible question to ask. But I do think that for diehard fans of the show, who, didn't do like what we did, who have, you know, happily watched every episode week to week over these past five seasons feel not smug because there's nothing negative about it. They feel rightfully proud of their investment and the return they're seeing on their investment. So that feeling of reward is part of this conversation, you know, definitely because now with hindsight that's only possible in season five, you could be like, oh, they did have probably a lot more planned, not planned,

but a lot more intention is baked into those first few seasons than maybe even Breaking Bad, which still didn't really know what it was going to be until further into its run. Yeah, I was going to ask if you took a sip of fine tequila when Kim brought up Sandpiper underneath the sheets in the finale. So glad that's coming back, you know. As the husband of an attorney, like I'm all about wondering if lawyers fees are included. And I think that's, I think, you know, it is all connected in a fun. way. They're able to do that in a way that they never

could before. Do you know what I mean you know about, like, the thematic richness of this show that seems not only in the sense of like the way in which the characters are written with these kind of strings attaching them, but just the idea of this season especially

and I kind of wish that there was more screen time for Nacho, but this season especially watching Mike kind of Shepard Nacho and Saul Shepard Kim and both of them having a real feeling of protectiveness and also sadness about what is happening to these people. I agree with you about Nacho. I wish I'm really enjoying Michael Mando's performance a lot.

And I would have liked to see even more of him this season. It seems like we're going to see a lot, at least in the first half of next season. I imagine. Let's just to talk specifically about Kim, and when you talk about thematic richness, what I think is at play here and it's worth noting is that generally, whether you're like a casual TV fan that doesn't think about this stuff, or you're like us or people who listen to this podcast, you think too much about this stuff. We carry an irrational amount of hope into fictional scenarios on week-to-week serialized television shows. It's just baked into the way we engage with culture.

It's generally the way we watch movies. Even if it's imperceptible, even if we can't tell, if it's a rom-com, you want them to fall in love, even though you've never met these people before. If it's a thriller or a horror movie, you don't want that person to die, even though you know if it's a horror movie, you know, 60%, I don't know the numbers, a lot of the people gathered together at summer camp or whatever probably aren't going to make it to the end.

That is an essential part of dramatic storytelling that masters of the craft know and manipulate, even though that's kind of a dirty word. And what's amazing about what this show has given us is that Kim, one of the most, you know, fascinating, brilliantly performed, well-written, compelling characters on TV in recent memory, we want nothing more than for her to find happiness.

That's just, of course we do. But there is no hope in the character. There is no hope in the character because we know she is not in breaking bad. Now, that's not saying it's not even like a guessing spoiler. We don't know if she dies, although certainly a lot of people are worried that she will. We do know that the happy ending that a better call saw that wasn't connected to another TV show would have the happy ending we would be rooting for if this was a different type of show. it's just absent. Yeah.

And so because of that, all of our journeys with her have this much deeper, more melancholic capacity to them, right? It's just a very different way to engage with the character and it's shot through all of it. And so in this finale,

when we see her, her Saul come out, right? Yeah, which has been there since the beginning. Just like Saul does when he says Saul Goodman in the beginning of this season,

I think, at the courthouse. Yep. And he's getting his name changed and everything. Or maybe it's at the end of season four. I can't remember. But when that happens, when Kim does finger guns at Jimmy in the apartment, I think we're supposed to feel almost as bad as we would if Lolo hadn't believed their story in his apartment.

I mean, it's as painful to Jimmy, you know what I mean? Like, it hurts as much. Yeah, well, also they're different. Maybe not as much as getting killed by Lalo, but a lot. Well, there are different kinds of death in this show. And, you know, which is another way to talk about the thing. that is inevitable, which is that the show will have to deal with in now in just one more season. Because for people who don't know this, season six, it got the early renewal for two seasons.

And season six is the last season of the show. It'll be longer than most. It'll be 13 episodes. And this is insane to say, 13 episodes, which will put it in terms of overall quantity, one episode more of Better Call Saul than Breaking Bad, which is just crazy to think about. but the jump from this hybrid Jimmy Saul that we're seeing at the end of this season to, and this is something you said to me in a text last week,

essentially the buffoon that Saul is very comfortable playing, that some shows wouldn't worry about that. I feel like these writers do. And so to get from here to there, it seems like a pretty long road, a particularly long bad choice road. And I'm interested about that because one of the things I know you and I wanted to talk about in regards to this finale was that we noticed we don't talk about Bob Odenkirk that much, which is so interesting. I'm glad you brought this up.

So I was watching a bunch of videos today in preparation to talk to Tony Dalton and just kind of like going through the Better Call Saul YouTube interview universe. and I saw a video with Bob Odenkirk, I think it's like from after episode nine or whenever he gets out of the desert. And he looks like Bob Odenkirk. And I was like, you know, he looks like the Bob Odenkirk who probably walks around Los Angeles

or wherever going to go into the supermarket. And I realized like I had done such a bad job appreciating what he had done this year because I think I was so distracted by Ray Seahorn by Tony Dalton then to some extent by Michael Mando and John Carlo Esposito and all these other people, he has really got this very tough job where he's essentially playing the billboard version of himself, you know, and giving depth to that billboard when he's on Breaking Bad, and one of the

things that I think was a little difficult for people to navigate in the beginning of Better Call Saul was just how different he is from the character that we grew to know over the course of Breaking Bad than he is in Better Call Saul. But I think we've really almost underrated or at least not talked enough about how remarkable he is. And I was rewatching the Tell Me Again scene from, from episode nine. And just watching how he's getting kind of bulldozed by Kim in the hotel scene in episode 10. And he just does so much without being showy, which is so contrary to what we think of

Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, who's all catchphrases and bright and bold suits. He's really been in his underpants for the last two episodes. Well, let's also turn the clock all the way back to when this show was announced. And I'm probably on the record writing this. We probably talked about it on the podcast back in the Granland days. Was it going to be a comedy? Was it going to be like a procedural legal comedy, a half hour show? Which I think they've said in retrospect they discussed.

Yeah. They were talking about it being like a case of the week thing where like stand-up comedians came to Saul and like had a case, but that it was almost more of like a sitcom. And so instead they built this. riveting character study and emotional drama that basically puts Saul Goodman as the straight man for almost the entire series, for much higher wattage characters like Lalo to bounce against, but also it's hard to call Mike Herman Trout showy, but he has a very heavy gravitational pull for the thing that Jonathan Banks does that everybody loves. So first of all, it's an enormous,

it's not just an enormous performance. It's a really fascinating study of trust by the creators because no one was checking for Bob Oden. No one was saying Bob Odenkirk who had a remarkable and phenomenal career as a comedian and as a performer.

People weren't like saying what they said about Brian Cranston, you know, that this guy is a generational talent as it turns out as an actor with such depth and range. But also, an interesting act of sort of like abnegation of ego too by Odenkirk this shows built around him but he's often

the stillest quietest thing in it especially when he's not in a courtroom um that alone is really interesting and worth worthy of note but I just think that his performance in these last three episodes is the best he's done all season all series because there's a difference between um being subtle yeah or being not you know or just being quiet and being still and I feel like stillness is a is a is a is a very underappreciated tool in an actor's arsenal you know because you still have to have the charisma to hold power when you need it and to let it go when you don't but you your your eye the eye keeps going back to you you know and he's so still in that scene that we love so much in episode nine and he's so still in this episode as he's realizing the choices

he's made on the aforementioned bad choice road that he's dragged or he least he thinks he's dragged Kim along with him until the finger guns moment when he realizes that she's been right there alongside of him. He's a really interesting guy and it's an interesting thing to see too in someone who previously was a comedian and comic performer because every major comedian does their dramatic turn. And what's interesting is what some of them do or what they don't do, right? And like one of the issues that I've taken, I've had in the past with like a Jonah Hill

performance, for example, is that when he's being comedic Jonah Hill, he's so alive. And when he's being serious like he wasn't maniac, it doesn't seem like he's doing something else. It seems like he's not doing all the other things. Where does Wolf of Wall Street fall on that axis? Positive. Because he's alive, you know, it's a dramatic piece. And so it's not a, the trick is taking stuff away, but not feeling the absence, right, feeling the presence. And it's really interesting. I mean, I I actually want to go back. I haven't. Maybe people can still find it

somewhere on the ESPN site. But Bob came on the podcast to talk to me in New York in 2015, right when the show premiered. And he's definitely the kind of comedian. You know, there are people who come in and they're on. Yeah, they're doing bits.

And there are people who just will not do bits. And he's definitely the latter. I think David Cross is certainly like that too when I've talked to him. Well, that would have been right when the show kind of premiered, right? It did. And what he had, though, instead was just

an enormous humility, genuine humility about acting in that it's work for him and he studies it and he takes it really, really seriously. It's not just like, I made you laugh until you cried on Mr. Show 25 years ago, ergo, I can pull this off.

You know, it's amazing. My favorite thing about what he's doing and it's my favorite thing about the character is that he doesn't have a superpower. And I think that in Breaking Bad, Walt always had his brain. He always had the Heisenberg

way of seeing things, and he also had his literal abilities in chemistry. Jimmy is obviously a very talented lawyer and a talented con man, but I really love that in these last few episodes, he's been, he's hit a ceiling in certain places. He's hit a ceiling on how far he's willing to go. He hit a ceiling in whether or not he can outthink and out-talk someone, whether he can talk his way out-of-a-situation. and I really just thought in a sort of

tapestry in a cast of character actors the fact that the star has decided to kind of seed the spotlight to these other performers is such a brilliant move, it's so cool we can actually, I mean if you want we can talk about some more detailed parts of the finale.

I do, I just want to counter one thing you said. I think that what we've seen in the last two episodes that we're responding to so strongly was actually the superpower hitting kryptonite. His superpower has been his glibness. Sure.

Right? And we did see it. And his compartmentalization. His ability to be like, I can almost be killed in a desert, but I can then come home. Yeah, and it's always like say something. And he can say it,

and he can get out of danger. He can slip, but he doesn't fall. And the moment that ends, you know, where his confidence in his own superpower ends, is the moment that dude puts the gun in his face. in the episode of Vince Gilligan directed,

the name of which I'm blanking on, Bagman. I think that was episode seven. And the guns in his face, and it doesn't work. Someone shoots everyone to getting him out of it. And from that moment on, I think he's wrestling and dealing with

the loss of that power. When he talks to Mike about, when does this end? Like, when am I going to get over the PTSD? And Mike's like, you know, it's different from different people. and Saul really just, Jimmy really just wants this part of his brain

to be shut down again. He doesn't want to feel scared. He doesn't want to feel traumatized by cereal bowls. And it's a great performance and it's a great piece of writing. And as, this is something that comes up in our conversation with Tony Dalton,

the brilliance of, I mean, we keep adding different layers of brilliance to episode nine, but Kim out Saul's Jimmy with Lalo. Yeah. Jimmy is able to maintain, a baseline of competence in this heightened situation. He doesn't break from his story. He adds a few new details each time, but he essentially is holding the line. But he's not able to lift the

boulder when Kim comes in and brings the fucking hammer in a way that someone in this world ought to be able to do. And so his own role in the world that he's chosen to be in is suddenly suspect. And that's a fascinating place for the show to be. Was there any particular part of the 10th episode that you wanted to discuss or anything, a standout scene. Obviously, the set piece with Lalo and the tunnels is pretty remarkable. Yes, for me, the most interesting thing was that Better Call Saul is now Briar Patch Cannon because Jimmy and Kim checked into the Hawkins Hotel. That place has some interesting guests. And, aka the Andalus downtown Albuquerque, that was fun to see, although they kept it pretty much as it actually is because they were probably,

if you had asked them, they were probably like, yeah, it's the Andalus downtown. That's the beauty of shooting Albuquerque for Albuquerque. No, I mean, it was interesting in the way that the plot choices and story choices they made is kind of keep you on your toes. The Mike Gus's plot essentially stayed in neutral. I mean, Gus is like, we continue on with the plan. The great work goes on, and that was it for that story. And I will not release Nacho for as long as he has used to me.

Right, more or less. that was the end of that storyline for this episode. The Jimmy, the Jimmy storyline is very internal. He doesn't really leave the hotel. I really liked the not-cho stuff because, as we were saying, I think Michael Mando's performance has really, really grown and grown on me over the course of the season, partly because one of the things that he does so well, and he kind of did this in orphan black, too, is that in the midst of the pathos and the emotion over his father and everything,

there's just like something he does with his eyebrows where he's just so fucking pissed he's in the situation, you know, that I really love the anger that's lurking behind it. He's never like, I'm so psyched to be at this hacienda or pretending. He doesn't want any of it. And so that was an interesting choice. I really, really enjoyed seeing Donaladeo again. Stephen Bauer. Yeah. I think Stephen Bauer's performance is, you know, if there's any DNA of where Lalo came from in the Breaking Bad universe, it's there. Yeah. But it also helps us by that Lalo is as showy as he is, which is another thing we talked to Tony about. So I really like Stephen Bauer's performance a lot. I like when the show that, especially this show that is so often pretty, um, austere isn't the word, but it's a little bit more

it's a little more lived in, you know, and not as fanciful at times as other shows, but it, it, it does indulge its south of the border stuff sometimes in a way that I found kind of dramatically interesting. And then, you know, the set piece, the, the set piece, the fact that they keep finding ways to do things that tick familiar boxes in our storytelling brains, like, oh, what's the distraction going to be, the door is going to get open, what's going to happen? Obviously, you know, even though you're on the edge of your seat, that Lalo's not going to be taken out in a way that you would expect if he's going to get taken out. And then the one little twist, which is that he gets out and he goes back. Yeah. And it's just one of those little decisions that upends your

expectations and also defines the character. It's also why no shot really is wasted on this show. and I mean the entire series, the Lalo physicality in this scene is completely foreshadowed by the physicality in the travel wire scene in season four. His meticulous, being able to think about angles

and think through detail and think through scenarios really is explained by his interest in the details. He says he has a head for numbers. He's always asking people to repeat themselves, to tell him about it, to break down scenarios for him, to break down situations. When the count is short at a stash house, he wants to go to the stash house and see where they're keeping the drugs and where they're keeping the money.

When he's making tacos, you can tell he's like a meticulous cook. So I thought that the fact that he goes into that bathroom and the bathtub is there and he lifts up the fake, the sort of the doorway, the trap door into the tunnel, and his mind is just going and going and going and you can tell that. that he's plotting out how to get out of this impossible situation. So I love the fact that they didn't, again, going back to the same thing I said about Saul, they don't make Lalo a superhero.

He stays in character. He's the guy who would know how hot a skill it is because we've seen him cooking all season long. And it's just such brilliant writing to keep that stuff threaded through the entire way. So kudos to them. I mean, like, it just makes you watch a show in a completely different way

if you know everything you're watching could have something to do with the character later down the line. Not to be, because we don't want to be just completely

showing the show and praise, I would say the one criticism, it's not even a criticism. So maybe I am going to keep showering the praise. But I would say

that for as much as, and you know, we don't even need to talk about it this week because we have before Tony Dalton's performance, one of our favorites, if not our favorite on TV

at the moment, Ray Seahorn, the MVP of the show, MVP of the season. I'm interested in what they've done with Mike. Because as I was saying the other week, Mike basically... Is D.S. X. Machina, right? Yeah. I mean, he's also... Sorry, I mentioned Crypto Knight before, but he's basically Superman. Yeah.

And we know that he's surviving this whole season and thriving. And he can basically accomplish anything, get anyone out of anything. they took two really strong runs at the character. Obviously, people remember maybe Better Call Saul's best moment early on was the, I broke my boy episode early on, where we find out how he became who he became. Then one of the reasons why I loved season four, I loved the Germans building the Super Lab.

I love the relationship with Werner and Mike, and Mike's emotional fallout from that whole thing, which, you know, lingered, over the first half of the season, um, was really strong. After that, Mike is essentially Mike now from Breaking Bad.

That was his last transformation, I guess. And which isn't to say there won't be more interesting things with the character, but if you're looking at it like a like a mixing board, Mike is now pushed all the way to 10, which is where he begins at Breaking Bad. Jimmy slash Saul is probably at a seven, right?

Gus is always Gus. There's no difference. And the rest of the characters are, we don't know yet. But Mike, it feels to me, at least from what we've seen, beginning in the second half of the season,

he is now a chess piece to move around the board to help set up Breaking Bad, less, and already the dramatic potential for the character was always limited because of we knew what happened to him. That's a really interesting thing to say. I hadn't really thought about that. And I think I just find Mike so cool, you know, to watch. And that's okay.

But he's, you're right. We're talking about an all-time TV character. Unless there's something completely, I can imagine a couple of things. that Mike will react to. But unless there is like another flashback or something, it seems like he is sort of done evolving. I mean, the thing that's left to play with

is the relationship with Nacho that they have really steered into in these last two, three episodes. With Mike asking for his, basically his release. And, you know, I think we can all assume there's no good ending for Nacho coming. And we keep in mind that one of the more compelling things about Mike in Breaking Bad was his fondness for Jesse Pinkman. he has this paternal streak in him that, you know, is surprising considering his exterior and his

body count. And so, you know, if you want to think about where he could go emotionally, it's probably there. But other than that, I mean, it's kind of wild to think that where this season ends and it ends, not definitively, but ends with like just a hard pivot to now here comes the thunder. Lalo knows, you know, he says, I know who sent you. So he knows that this is a Gus Fring operation. He knows that Nacho set him up and let the guys in. How is not, how is Lalo coming back ready to kill Gus? He won't succeed. Jimmy and Kim, he won't succeed on Jimmy. We don't know about him. And Nacho, he's probably going to succeed. How is that going to be stretched out for 13 episodes? That's the question for me. I think they'll figure something out. Oh, I

I have no doubt they will, but that's the question. Because we also have to understand, like, I would think that it is probably a better than 25%, 35% chance that we're also going to get some post-breaking bad stuff, right? That's the next question. And that was the last thing. Traditionally, what they have done is basically they start each season with a flash forward ahead of Blake Breaking Bad in Black and White in Omaha,

Jimmy on the run, as Gene, the Cinebond manager. and each season I think it's gotten a little longer, right? Yes. I think that for, I think that there's, it's very much in play that that some of Better Call Saul is actually also about the post game. So here's what I wanted to throw at you. This is my, I'm going to put on my, my Swami hat. Sorry, I left it at the office. I don't have it here in my home. I think that this, I think that next season, the last season of Better Call Saul will obviously wrap up. the pre-breaking bad stuff.

I think that it will wrap up the story of Gene in Omaha, but I also think it will leave the door wide open for post-Gene Saul slash Jimmy. I think that these guys have, know what they do. They know what they're good at. People love it. They have beaten the odds so many times that there is no reason for them to walk away from the table and be like, we finally cashed out, we've done everything there is to be, to do here. I'm sure Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks, well, Jonathan Banks would be done, but I'm sure Bob

Odin Kirk would be happy to spend more time with his family in L.A. and not in his, what I hope is a very nice home in Albuquerque. But I can't imagine they won't be doing more stories. I can't imagine that there won't be more movies for Netflix or whatever. And maybe when they started this journey five, you know, five years ago, they thought that the gene thing would be the end of Saul with some to some degree, but my prediction is that it won't be. I have a similar prediction. I don't think Kim's going to die. I

for a while there, I was a little bit skeptical about how much they knew about Saul while making Breaking Bad. And I think you could make a bunch of different arguments in both directions. And Saul's such a ham in Breaking Bad, so it's kind of hard to tell sometimes

he's just a complete, it's not a completely different character, but he's quite different. Especially if you go back and watch of the earlier seasons. Like Saul, you're just not really sure how they're using Saul. He's much more like comic relief

in those early seasons to me. But he never acts like somebody who's the love of his life was killed. True. And I just think that the fact that Saul is, Gene is on the, in Nebraska, Kim is from the Nebraska, Kansas area.

And I just have a feeling that, that she gets out, and maybe he's gone to look for her. And I wonder whether or not the next show, the next show that they do is Kim. Now, I don't know how they operate, how they do Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul outside of the drug trade.

It seems like for as much as those characters that are on the far periphery of it, like Walter White or Saul Goodman, are the focuses of the series, it still feels like the drug trade gives the shows the central tension. it needs to get by. But you never know. And there's nothing to say that Kim doesn't become a drug attorney. Well, I think if you ask me right now, friend of the cartel weapon to my head, I agree with you

that she doesn't die. And I think that her continued existence safe somewhere might be the one thing that Gene holds onto, knowing that he has to keep his distance, but maybe unable to do it. The Kim thing is so interesting because she is essentially a reverse, not a reverse, Walter White, but she is the most enlightened character that's been given screen time, I think, in the Breaking Bad universe, in that she working for Mesa Verde and becoming a high-paid partner was her Heisenberg moment. And she looked at it and looked at herself and was like, this has no value to me. This is connected to my own psychology and my own inferiority.

and what I really, really care about doing is helping Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr. Sort through cases and vanilla folders and boxes. Shout out to that, by the way, I love him, and I love him in a dramatic role.

So would I like to see, not necessarily even Breaking Bad veteran Vince Galegan and Peter Gould, but just TV veterans, these guys do a story about a dogged public defender played by Ray C. Orrin. Yeah, I would watch that show. But I think you're right,

that it's not, even if you take the word drug out of it, these shows are always about characters who want to be one thing, but become enveloped in something larger that is both appealing and appalling in equal measure and where they net out with that. So you're right that without that engine of something of the larger nefarious cloud, it's hard to imagine a show in this universe. But, you know, they keep surprising us. I want to end our Saul conversation here with a comment that I saw on our Facebook page, the watch Facebook group. And a listener named Brian Ward said,

after watching last week's BCS, so he's referring to this second to last episode, Bad Choice Road, I thought of something. The show staff is at the peak of their powers right now, which they weren't when they started doing Breaking Bad, the first few seasons were just learning how to do it. What would Breaking Bad look like

if it had been done by this crew at this moment as a sequel to Better Call Stahl instead of Saul being a prequel to BB, without the restrictions of sinking up the show. So would Lalo necessarily replace Tuko as the early boss that Walt and Jesse go up against? Would Kim be in Breaking Bad if she doesn't die? How much better or worse would it be? Or would it just be different?

I will say I have found the filmmaking in this season, the stuff that Peter Gold did was like such an amazing twist on very Cohen brothers. Like every shot is just like leveraged to 9.5 in its style. Kim's eye going through the peephole, Lalo dipping down into the tunnel. I mean, they seem to have an almost more sophisticated understanding of how this world looks now.

There's a weird part of me that would almost be like fine if they remade breaking bad right now. Wow. Well, you know, we are going to be starred for content soon enough, so maybe people would be ready to tune into it. I think, I just going to,

I know this is boring, because what ifs are the lifeblood of podcasts. But you're like, we can't, yeah. You can't, and you can't for two reasons from a technical and stylistic point of view. And Breaking Bad was no slouch. Sure. Because Michael Slovis and the work Ryan Johnson did on the show early and late when you came back. In my limited experience making TV, what I learned was just when you think you've started to figure it out is when you're done and then you want to do it again.

And so this is a unique thing where these guys, this team, figured it the fuck out to a multiple Emmy award-winning degree, and then they got to stunt, which is what they do in the show. So you kind of can't have one without the other. From a storytelling perspective, again, I just think you can't cross the streams because what was truly surprising and engaging about Breaking Bad in the moment was that we didn't know where Bottom was. We met a kind of a milk-toast guy at a inflection point.

point in his life, whose only connection to the nefarious underworld was his burnout former student. And then they met Tucco and Crazy Eight, right? And then there was another layer. And there was another layer. And there was another layer until basically they were in hell. And if you know how deep it goes at the beginning, it changes your understanding, I think, in your appreciation of the journey. Whereas, again, part of the deep salt bath soak of Better Call Saul is that we know what's just outside of his door and he doesn't. And then now that he knows, which is where we are in the narrative now, it's pretty devastating.

It's a testament to how Good Better Call Saul is that I would even entertain it. It's true. That I would even entertain doing something as sacrilegious, as redoing Breaking Bad. So what you're saying is Breaking Bad is your Final Fantasy 7. That's right. I think that's a great place to end, Andy. We'll get into our conversation with Tony Dalton. Again, apologies about the audio.

I think his personality still comes through. We just had a couple of technical difficulties, but it was really a delight to talk to him about shaping this, I mean, this kind of Cooperstown character that we've got on our hands. And I never would have guessed that Better Call Saul, this late in its run could come up with a new character, although obviously Lalo is mentioned in Breaking Bad. I never would have guessed that they would have come up with a guy as indelible as

Saul and Kim and Nacho and Gus and Mike, but they have with Lalo Salamanca. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Woop. At Home Fitness is more popular than ever now. People are trying all kinds of new activities like online fitness classes, running outside, and more. But more importantly, how do you know if your body is staying healthy and adapting to your new training routines? WOOP is the fitness tracker that provides 24-7 personalized data into your body's activities,

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you're stuck at home. For our listeners, Woop is offering 15% off with the code watch at checkout. Go to WOOP.com and enter WATCHH at checkout to save 15%. Sleep better, recover faster and train smarter. Optimize your performance with Woop. Tony, thank you so much for joining us today on the Watch podcast, man. We have been such huge fans of your work this season. It's just been a revelation to get to watch you work on Better Call Saul these last two years. Thanks, man. It's been lots of fun to play the part of Lalo. Before we get going, Tony, we're just so glad to see you that you're also at the moment, you are clean-shaven. Before you joined us, Chris was saying that he's growing a mustache.

In honor of Lalo, I was so inspired. If you have any thoughts, because I thought maybe he just had a big drink of chocolate milk, because that's all I could see. I think people have a lot of time on their hands right now. And they don't have to be in an office or in the street. So listen, I was not for the mustache of Lalo. But they kind of asked for it because they said I didn't look Mexican enough. And I swear to God. And now it turned out to look not so bad.

So I just shaved it up because I did a movie, but I'm going to go, I got to go back for the next season. There's something kind of, first of all, we did not intend to make this a mustache-centric podcast. So please don't think that we did. Let's go for it. But we all have a lot of free time these days. There's something about the mustache that is so integral, I think, to the character

because it makes him so much more swashbuckling. No, it works perfectly. It works perfectly. I think Peter Gould said something like it's sort of this Mexican-Arel Flynn kind of thing. Yes, I mean, the only thing is like a rapier sword. You know, you need like an old-timey Three Musketeers kind of good thing. And maybe a small cape. It doesn't have to be a big one, you know, like the small ones.

No, just something tasteful. Like to the waist, to the waist. Now we're talking. But yeah, you know, Tony actually with the mustache, it's a good segue one of our first questions, which was really about where Tony begins or where Tony ends and Lalo begins because I was wondering how much of some of the characteristics that people have grown to really appreciate or at least be in awe of with Lalo, if not quite love, because Lalo is obviously a pretty scary individual.

How much of that stuff is on the best? page versus what you've brought to the character. I know that the script is sort of wholly in the better call Saul world that that you guys are really operating with some really high caliber writers. But I was curious what kind of things may be from your own gestures, your own sort of physicality that you're bringing to the role. Yeah, very high caliber writers, man. Those guys are amazing. I mean, to begin with, those are the guys who create the whole thing, you know? So it starts with them. It starts with theaters, starts with Vince, starts with all the writers. And then, you know, you show up and you see what you can bring to the table, you know.

That's kind of, that's kind of the work. That's what you got to do. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's weird. Sometimes it's not. In this case, I think that it worked perfectly, you know, because one of the things that I wanted to do was make him more charming, you know, kind of like a light, light character, even though he's a sick, sick human being who's a killer and stuff, but a guy who doesn't take everything so seriously. How much of that was what was communicated to at the start? I'm curious about your entrance into this world where you, did you enter into, was it an audition situation?

Did they call you in and were you a Breaking Bad fan? And when you got in there, how was the character presented to you? Yeah, then I went to the casting in there on my birthday for the callback and a couple weeks later they called me. send me to Albuquerque. And when I started reading who the character was there, I think, because in the cast, it's different, you don't know what really you're sitting yourself up to,

but I know I was in good hands because it was, you know, Vincent Peter and this show. And it just ended up being Lalo. So I just kind of, you know, showed up with this idea of this guy being very charming, very, you know, very kind of elegant in a certain kind of weird way. And they liked it. I appreciate that they also,

let me do that because they're not very lenient as far as what you're supposed to. You know, you do do what's on the paper, which I respect. But in this case, I think that they just saw maybe a little inkling. And then I think that they started writing it towards it. So it's sort of this merger of, you know, Frankenstein and his monster, of, you know, them writing something and me kind of going, you know, and they go, okay, I like that. Yeah.

But it's pretty, it's so great to watch because. the show has such a classic all-time villain already, and Gus Fring, who is notable for being completely still. And so it's a wonderful counterpoint to have someone who can't stop moving in the way that he can, whether it's with his words, his face, his body. It's a wonderful contrast. Yeah, like I said, I wanted to, I saw right before I went to this whole thing, the casting process and everything, I saw Better Causeball and Breaking Bad.

And everybody was so serious and stoic. So, you know, taking everything so seriously. And I saw this interview once a while back. It was with Jeffrey Rush. And Jeffrey Rush was doing a movie called, I think it was Elizabeth with Shikar Kapoor. At least he was being offered it. And he said he didn't want to do it because he's just done Les Més with Hugh Jackman or the other way around you, but it was something like that.

And he said, you know, I don't want to play another villain. And Shrek Kapoor said, no, but this guy kills with a smile. And that always was in the back of my head, like, wow, that's a great idea. And Jeffrey Rush does a great job. He does the same part that he would normally. He just enjoys it more, you know? And that was years ago when I saw that and I said, you know, if I ever get the opportunity to do something like that, I'm going to totally take it. And this presented itself.

And I was like, this is it, man. I mean, it's all in, you know. Let's smile all the way here. For as much as Lalo obviously has this sense of showmanship that Donald has. Aladio points out in the final episode. I also really recognize how meticulous and detail-oriented he is. He's a mechanic. He's a chef when he's kind of on the case of, he sort of becomes Sherlock Holmes in these last two episodes where he's sort of tracking down Saul's car, investigating whether or not he's being lied to. I was wondering if you kind of look at acting in

that detail-oriented way. Are you a real meticulous preparer? Are you, are you, are you deep in the research? Are you always interrogating space between lines or is it more of a feel thing for you? Well, I think you gotta do, I mean, I've been doing this for a while now, and before it was more meticulous, and then you go for, you know, what you're

feeling. And then there's also this sense of, no matter how prepared you are, you always have to be sort of very, you know, unprepared in a certain way. Like, yes, you do know your lines and you're ready and you came with something, but you got to know this so well that when you're on the

set and you see, you know, what's going on, you might take a different turn and do something completely different because it presents itself and that's kind of the mood of what's going. And, you know, it's not like you show up like a stubborn person going, this is the way I'm doing it. You're open to who the other actor is in the scene, what the director is saying, what the tone is, where the camera's coming from, what the space is. And all those kind of things make you, you know, if you've been doing it for a while, it kind of makes you go, okay, well, hear what I can do. Like, for example, I think that scene in the last episode where we walk in, and to Kim and Saul's apartment.

And I was like, nice, I like it. You know, it wasn't written that way. It was like, oh, it's a nice place. And I was like, you know, let's just see. And then, you know, I walked with my arms open and stuff. And it's like, that wasn't something that when we did rehearse, even came by. But when I walked in the apartment and stuff, I did it that way. And they were like, yeah, that's it.

That works. So it's sort of this merger of everything, you know? We're definitely going to return to that scene before we're done talking to you because Chris and I were just in awe of it and all of your work in the scene. but I did want to specifically ask you a little bit about the finale, which we're recording this Monday afternoon, but no one will hear this podcast till after they've seen the episode. I think a lot of people are tuning in tonight,

expecting or at least fearing for potentially the worst, for a number of characters. That's the beauty of the show. There's a sense of foreboding and anxiety with every episode, especially when you're late in the season. I'm wondering if it's similar for the cast, or has Peter and Vince communicated to you that you'll be okay tonight,

but who knows for next season? No, man, they don't tell us anything. We don't know if we're going to tie or not at all. And the only people that are scared are Michael Mando, you know, Patrick, Ray, and myself. Because Bob and Giancarlo and John, they know they're good, you know. But also, there's this, you know, you don't know, but it's okay. I mean, it's not like, oh, my God, I need to live.

It's not real with you. It's like, if you have an honorable big, cool death, that's also kind of cool, you know? So it's all good, honestly. So instead of a big, cool death in the finale, you instead had a long, cool segment of death dealing. Yeah, man, I was kicking some mass. So I wonder about that experience.

You get sent the script, you know, when it goes to a production draft, you see all the stuff that Lalo's going to have to do. What is the process for, within the production of, you know, whether it's fight training, whether it's time spent and rehearsing in this, on the location where you're shooting it. And what was that experience like doing all that craziness for this finale?

Well, look, to be honest with you, it's a lot more difficult to do a scene, for example, like I did with Bob and Ray at the end of nine, than it is to do, you know, jump into the hoops and killing people with guns and stuff. Because, I mean, yeah, we did do, you know, I went a couple of times to see if I could get through that tunnel, you know, and stuff like that.

And if it looked good, if I came out, and all that stuff because they wanted to make sure that, you know, we're not there on the set and I didn't know what I was doing. But, you know, we'd already been working for about five, four or five months or something. So we were already like on track. They already, we already knew what we, you know, what each other was capable of. So when it's usually action sequence, it's not that, it's not that complicated. It's just one shot after another shot after another shot.

When you do things like the one with Ray, that has so many more levels of, you know, complexity because it's not only what the scene is. It's, what are you going to do? How are you going to say it? How are they going to say it to you? You know, it's not just, okay, here you're going to shoot him and then you're going to run into that town and then you're going to shoot these guys. It's a little more, there's a more, you know, a bigger grade of difficulty. I don't know if that's the way to say it, but yeah. You've alluded to that scene in episode nine a couple of times and Andy and I spent a huge chunk of our pod last week breaking that scene down, Tony. I, I wondered if if that felt like being back on the stage.

I know you have a lot of theater experience. And when I was re-watching that scene before we did this pod today, there's a couple of master shots that feel like you could be watching like a Broadway production of a scene in Bad Choice Road. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's different because stage is stage. You know, there's not a camera. It's live. But, and as far as, you know, learning the lines, yeah, it was a complicated scene and there was a lot of things going on.

There was different emotions from the beginning to the end. And there's a different sort of, which is interesting, sort of this power play where at the beginning of the scene, Lalo's in charge, you know. And then at the end of the scene, Kim's in charge, which is amazing, you know, be able to pull that kind of thing off. And, but yeah, we rehearsed that a couple of times

and, you know, showed up to the set. And we did that one in two days. My scene was in one day. So basically eight hours. of that, eight or nine hours. When you see the lines, that line tell me again for the first time in the script, that's already become something I've seen people like sort of tweeting back and forth to each other.

It's become one of those memorable, unforgettable lines from this better call Saul experience. Does it jump out off the page to you the first time you read it? Like, oh man, like this is one of those lines? Yeah, it sure does. I mean, a lot of them do. I mean, you know, there's a lot of them in there that you go, oh, man, this is good stuff, you know. Even all the scenes with ball. You're the guy for this, you know.

And that's one of the cool things about this gig is that, you know, they give it to you about maybe two weeks before you have to do it or 10 days. So you know what's hard and what's not hard. Like that tell me again, Lange, I mean, I said it to myself, you know, 10,000 different ways to see which one was going to work, you know. And still you don't know because you can show up to the set and be completely mistaken. But, you know, how are you going to say it? Because if you say it right, you sell the line. And if you don't, it's like, oh, man, you missed it. You had it there.

And that was yours. And, you know, you're going to score the goal and you fucking missed the goal, man. It happens. And you have to, you got to get it right, you know? I love the way you described the transfer of power in that scene, which is so palpable. You know, the audience, I was just like, as sitting in the audience for that scene, I was just suddenly noticed that I was not leaning back on my couch anymore. You know, it was like I was watching a match, you know,

on the highest level of ability. And just on a technical level, when you're with two other performers, like Bob and Ray, who have been playing these parts in this world for a little bit longer than you have, Bob, you know, much longer, obviously going back to the other show, three actors with different styles, you know, and you've had different number of scenes with each of them, what does that feel like over the course of the day, sort of feeling each other out? I mean, I keep going. Both of you have now, Chris and you, Tony, have used sports metaphors for it.

And I wonder if it's like, are you testing someone's backhand? Are you switching from soccer to tennis, by the way? That's good. That's good. Are you testing the backhand for a little? Then you see, okay, well, he's hitting that back. Now I'm going to try a drop shot. I mean, are you, are you, where, is there a level of play in that, even though it is, you know,

a very intense eight hour day of work? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, even from the scenes with Bob and the, when we were in the jail scene and stuff. I mean, with everybody, there's a level of play. That's one of the good things about this career. Sometimes he's just playing tennis against the wall, you know? I mean, just to keep your tennis going.

But not with these guys. Of course not. These guys are at the top of their game. They're unbelievable. And also, they're super generous. So they'll let you propose or they'll give you, you know, like, what do you, maybe come closer and say, you want to be a friend of a car.

I'll say, yeah, that's good. So it's like we're talking to each other. Also, I mean, like you said, they've been around this show longer. They understand it longer. So I'm just kind of there listening and taking notes and trying to stay afloat. Is that apartment, is that a set or is that location? Where? The Kim and Jimmy's apartment.

No, that's a set. That's a set at ABQ Studios. Uh-huh, yeah. When you're doing, when you do that scene, Tony, with Bob and Kim, and you kind of are running through it, when you re-watch it now, I was curious whether or not you feel differently about the scene at all because I was kind of wondering

when I was rewatching it whether there's any part of Lalo that wants to believe Jimmy's story even if he doesn't believe it. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of things going on there. Yes, there is a part of Lalo

that wants to believe Jimmy's story, but also, Lalo doesn't care. You know, it's not like that important to him. I know it's important to everybody else, But to him it's not. You know, the guy's a smart guy. He's part of the family.

He's, you know, like if you're, you know, if you're like rich kid's son, and you're going to start at the mail room and then go all the way up and then one day you'll be VP. I think that that's what Lalo's doing, you know. He's going up the ranks. He was in charge of maybe San Diego or that area,

and now there's part because Hector's in a wheelchair. So, yeah, okay, so all this stuff is happening. He's like, I don't get a shit, you know, fine. You know, there's always shit happening. He's so much more into something else that he couldn't care less. But then at the end of episode 10, they got personal. They went to his home where he wanted to just relax and chill out and be maybe a little kind of like a rich narco guy.

And it works done. You can relax. And, you know, they killed the nana, the nanny, you know. Well, it's interesting. You mentioned Hector and you mentioned Lalo not caring about things. I did want to call attention to one of the moments that I think your work is so masterful in. And, you know, it's the little moments that kind of make the larger character. And specifically, it's the moment in the previous episode where you say goodbye to Hector

for what you imagine might be the last time. And, you know, as you turn back, Hector has the birthday cap on his head. And he's just sort of been emasculated and reduced to, you know, this sort of sad figure, someone that Lala respects a lot. And Lalo turns back and so much emotion, different emotions are on his face in that moment. I was curious, just as an actor, if you use moments like that to bring in decisions

you've made about the character that might never even make it onto the page, like his history with his CEO, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you get, you know, you want your character to have as many layers as possible so that, you know, he's more interesting. And there's not a lot of moments where you can see Lalo caring.

So if, you know, what you know that's on paper is that family is everything, you know, that they say, Salamanca, Familia is all. Then you know that, you know, Ector is somebody who's really important in it, even though nothing else is. But that, Ector is. So, you know, that's the only moment where you can show true emotion and totally break character because it's justifiable, you know. It's something where you go, oh, okay, so this guy's actually, you know, maybe not that bad. I mean, maybe he is that bad, but he's still, you know, he's also got a heart, even though he's crazy, you know.

Yeah, you understand his motivation a little bit. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Where he's going, where he's coming from, everything. And just to wrap up, obviously people who have watched this finale in this phenomenal season of television, know that we're headed to what appears to be a pretty gnarly endgame. Lalo is fired up, as you said. it's personal now, he's furious, he's got some targets probably on his mind. A full head of steam built up for season six, which now the recording of is, of course,

like everything in Hollywood in question. I'm just wondering what, you know, prior to this horrible situation we find ourselves in what the schedule was meant to be, were you meant to be going back later this year and, you know, what the latest thinking is in the Better Callsaw Camp about what's possible. I think that from what I have understood, From what I understand, we're still set to go. We always had September and we're doing September. We start shooting the last season. Oh, that's great.

So it wasn't before then, so that you weren't even set to get back there until September. No, it was always going to be September because these guys are just writing it right now. I mean, what I do know that they're doing because they told me is that they're, you know, they're writing like this, you know, to resume and stuff. Yeah. Which he said with something's kind of weird. But it's still, I mean, you know, they're getting the job done, you know. Do you have a happy ending in your mind for Lalo?

Is there something you'd like to see him do before his run on the show ends, however that may end? Yeah, maybe open a cafe or a travel wire franchise? Yeah, exactly, yeah, travel wire franchise. I don't know, maybe open up Lalo's tacos. He could use Nana's recipes, you know? He could finally give a big tribute to her. Lalo or Nana? La La La La Nana

That's what it is Wow Well Tony man Thank you so much for joining us today I'm sorry to do you guys Yeah Tony Tony thank you so much for joining us today

And thank you so much For the work you did these last two seasons But it's just been incredible to watch you every week man Your performance is our favorite thing to watch on TV right now It's just Thank you so much That's really nice Thank you for talking to us too man

And please stay well Stay inside other than the lovely balcony You're on Thanks a lot, guys. See you, man. Take care. All right, guys, thank you so much to Tony Dalton

for taking some time out to talk to me and Andy today. We'll come back on Thursday. We'll hit the Devs finale, which will be a week old at that point, but that's okay. And we'll probably talk about Mrs. America, and we have a bunch of other stuff on the plate.

So stay tuned. More conversation about TV and pop culture coming on Thursday.