The Watch - Breaking Down the Season Finale of ‘Watchmen’ | The Watch

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

The season finale, and potentially the series finale, of ‘Watchmen’ aired last night. Chris and Andy talk about what it takes to wrap up a show like this (1:10), how closely the show hewed to the source material in the end (8:25), and their favorite parts of the final episode (38:25). Plus, a temperature check for ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,’ just a few days ahead of the premiere (50:56). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the Real Real Shop or Consign at the Real Real, the leading reseller of authenticated consignment from top designers. The Real Real Real has women's and men's luxury fashion as well as fine jewelry, watches, art and home at up to 90% off retail. Every item is authenticated by the Real Reel's team of authenticators. Shop or consign in store at the Reelreel.com or download the app and get 20% off select items with the promo code Reel.

Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal is proud to serve over 8 million members, including active duty military, the DOD, veterans, and their families. You'll receive a lifetime of membership benefits with Navy Federal, and you can easily access accounts, transfer money, pay bills, and deposit checks with the Navy Federal mobile app. Visit NavyFederal.org slash watch for more information. Call 1-88-8-4-2-6328 or download the Navy Federal Credit Union app, message. and data rates may apply. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, he walked on water to get here. It's Andy Greenwald. Chris, I'm a little shaky today. You're always shaky on Monday mornings, man.

Oh, that's true. Yeah. I don't think this is not your prime time. I just, you know, long-time listeners know that I rush here on Mondays to be with you and Kaya, my two only friends, from school drop-off. Yeah. And I got to tell you, I'm a little scarred from what I saw this morning. It was third-act zombie movie.

Why? In there. Flu-season, baby. Oh, no. I'm so glad you came here directly from there. And I'm walking around. So wait. Are kids just like complete, is it like mash tent?

Like, what's going on? They're just not there. Oh. It's just like you walk in and seven-faced. look up and they're usually 24. Yeah. And the teachers who were both out last week also, we're like, oh, we're happy to see you.

But, like, you could tell they were a little surprised. They were, like, hoping maybe to keep it at seven that day? And then full disclosure, you know, I woke up feeling a little scratchy today. Uh-huh. I got, I'm feeling major Brendan Gleason and 28 days later vibes. You know what I mean? When it's just like, I know what just happened to my eye. Uh-huh.

But I don't want to tell you guys yet because, like, you're my friends. and family. So you and I are spending actually quite a bit of time together today. Yeah. You're done. You're done, dude. We share everything. Greenwald, it's really good to see you.

Is it? It was until you walked right in here. The concept of seeing you was really cool. We're going to talk entirely about the finale, the season finale, possibly the series finale. Yeah. Of Watchmen. Episode is called See How They Fly. It aired last night.

obviously Andy and I have spent the last two and a half months talking about this show or just two months. So what did you, let's just get right into it. What did you think of the finale? I think my main feeling and it, you know, and it was pretty consistent right from the top of the season, was one kind of of awe and gratitude because I think that the audacity of this show, in terms of its storytelling, in terms of its ambition, in terms of the thematic sandbox, it wanted to play in, in terms of the larger, you know, metastructure of IP that we are always talking about on the show, you know, in the sense of what people can and can't do with these

sacred cows. And maybe in retrospect, it's quite significant that Damon chose to spend the first episode of his series blowing Gatling Gun-sized holes in cows, sacred or not. Shooting that frozen shrimp. Well, no, that was later, right? It was a full surf and turf season. Yeah, that's right. I'm just so, I'm impressed by it. I am grateful for watching it and I am excited by it. Those are my main emotional reactions to the show.

Step down a level. I think I had some questions, concerns, and discussion items, as my old social studies teacher might say. But I really wanted to lead with the sort of shock and awe of it because I don't want to discredit that. And it's something that we said to Damon last week, having not seen the finale, having seen up to it. You know, obviously he was feeling very sensitive about the finale and how it would be received. And judging by at least just the critical response, it's been rapturous. I don't think he has anything to worry about in terms of that. But I really did mean what I said to him.

And I think we'll probably unpack it a little bit more today, which is this journey was worth the ride, regardless of endings or landings or wherever you want to put it. I think that the, again, back to that word audacity, I think the audacity of what he tried to do in nine episodes of television is just unparalleled and potentially insane. I don't think there was any way to wrap even Dr. Manhattan-sized arms around all of it. But I love that he tried.

Yeah, I think it was a show that only could have happened in 2019, both in terms of its content, in terms of the kinds of things that it was grappling with and reckoning with and pushing out into the light that had sort of been in the dark for too long and also doing so in an incredibly entertaining manner and an incredibly exciting way of telling that story.

And so I thought it was a really breathtaking glimpse at something new and sometimes a distracting service to something old, which is also a very 2019 thing where, as you and I talk about all the time, we're constantly kind of in this push-pull tug-of-war with. Well, we can't make anything that people aren't already aware of. Yeah. We can't do anything that people already don't have some store of emotional investment saved up, you know, with because otherwise, for whatever reason, we just don't trust people with anything new. And Watchman was new, but Watchman was old. And I think at the end of the day, it was interesting having Damon in here because I think he was thinking about sticking the landing and answering the questions.

And, yeah, I don't want to speak for him, but that was the sense I got from him. but I thought that he stuck the landing and answered the questions. I mean, everything that you would kind of wonder about that show for the most part was answered. The thing, the only kind of like, and it wasn't like a bad taste. Like, this was one of my favorite shows that's come out this year and in many years. The only thing that kind of bothered me was he at the end of the day had to turn the car back towards the Watchman parking lot. It was parking space. Really surprising.

Of the many things that were surprising about. the show, the structure was particularly surprising because I think a more standard way of approaching a material that is, no matter what you want to call it, whether it's a remix or a reboot or a spiritual sequel, the more logical way to do it would be to begin with the clear connections to the original source material and then deviate in potentially exciting or wild ways. He did the opposite. And I think that's what has confounded people to some degree, again, in ways both positive and negative. The first few episodes of the show felt pretty radical

and radically untethered from this sacred book that, I mean, he refers to it, you know, as the Old Testament of this story, of the original Alan Moore Dave Givens comic book. Post episode six, which I think is generally and correctly recognized as the high watermark of the series, it took a hard turn back towards connections to the point where no character

no major, quote-unquote, new character, was untouched by the events. There was some link. And he gave, he did a really good, he's done a bunch of interviews since the finale aired last night. My favorite was InVulture with Angelica J. Bastion, who did a really great job writing about the show this year. I agree. And, you know, I highly recommend people check that out. I highly recommend people check out Micah's videos on The Ringer that have been recapping the episodes and Daniel Chin's pieces on the Ringer that have been recapping the episode. but in his interview with Angelica, Damon said this because they were sort of talking about, you know, the connections between characters between the new characters that he had sort of, that they had pushed out in the show versus their relationship to characters in the book.

And he said, and all of those iterations, I was vehemently shouting at the top of my lungs. We're not doing Watchman babies. I don't want everyone on the show to be related to someone from the original Watchman. Billy Crystal and Princess Bride Voice. It's so predictable and so obvious and we're not doing it. lo and behold, it felt like story gravity. It's the same conversation around Star Wars right now. Yes.

Is it cooler that Ray is not related to anybody from Star Wars? Yes. Or does the story demand that she is? Because when you're talking about myth, that's the way myth works. It's so interesting. You know, again, like, Damon is so smart about this stuff. And if there's something that we are quote unquote concerned about, rest assured he has spent weeks laying up awake thinking about it,

being much more concerned than we'll ever be. And we'll be able to answer to his decision-making very eloquently and very thoughtfully. I think that in the second half of this show, you and I should probably do a little Star Wars 9 spitballing because we're going to be seeing it later. And then hopefully we'll pot about it as well. But like all signs... No, let's just skip it. You think?

Let's just not mention it. I'm fine with that. All evidence, especially in this sort of shadowy Ryan Johnson, JJ, Abrams, it's not Flamor, it's a one-sided, out-of-context comment spree. But all of the sort of whatever's floating up from this movie and even the title seems to suggest a repudiation of that idea that was introduced in The Last Jedi, that what if she's just the daughter of trash farmers? Yeah, kill the past.

Kill the past. And Rise of Skywalker has always suggested that the Jedi are done, but there's going to be a new race of knights called Skywalker's, and she's a Skywalker, and whatever that means. You can tell by the tone of Andy's voice that... I'm super into it. Yeah. I think it's a great idea. But this is what I'm saying is like, what is story gravity?

Well, that's the thing and how essential is it? And I guess, you know, there is a symmetry to it. There's a beauty to it. There's a neatness to it. Watchman is about things happening, all time happening all at once. And so, you know, thermodynamic miracles or coincidence, whatever you want to call it, that's baked into the architecture that predates Damon's involvement in it. In terms of making this a Damon Lindelof show, making Lady True a, I don't know if she's a villain,

making her a larger-than-life character who ultimately just wants her dad and mom to be proud of her, definitely puts her in the Lindelof universe, which made it interesting to him, I think. I feel it's fair to say that. And I think made it tonally vibrate tonally with a lot of the rest of this show. That made sense.

But, you know, it did feel... There was a sort of story gravity, if it pushes down on them in the writer's room, I can also make the argument that as a viewer, it can feel oppressive. Like you're feeling pushed and there's a weight pushing down on you into this certain way of it being where all the pieces fit. And then there's something, this seems odd when I'm about to say. But I think that as a viewer, sometimes smoothness and resolution can be dissatisfying. Well, this is...

Despite what most people think. I'm not actually bringing this up specifically as a critique. I think the only reason why I felt that gravity and I, I felt that pressure you're talking about is because the first six episodes of the season specifically, seven to, is a god walks into A bar seven? No, that was last week. That was eight. So the, but specifically the first six episodes.

Seven was Lori Goes in the trapdoor. Right. So the six episodes, I felt like they had liftoff. I felt like they kind of transcended gravity. I felt like we were seeing something new in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways, what I mean is not they swapped Tulsa in for New York City, although that was fascinating. And that there was not only a, there was an obvious understanding of everything that had happened in the Watchman world from 1985 on, but also the world. Like it felt very relevant to the world that we live in.

And there were so few comics that have that explicit connection. Like, for whatever reason, Watchman does. It did when it came out before. And it proved, Damon proved that it could again. And Damon proved that it could again. So I think that that was what, when we get into essentially Lori and Looking Glass reenacting the end of the first watchman. Yes. I was kind of like, okay.

Yeah, this is cool. Like, I'm glad Lori got this kind of closure, I guess, from the first. Last time she was at Carnac on Antarctica with someone wearing a mask. And she was asked to keep the secret, you know what I mean, and go through this. but the way that they imagined Lori in this phone booth calling an absent God who also happened to be her ex, that was the thing that I was like, oh my gosh, I've seen this. But there wasn't, I think ultimately there wasn't room for all of it,

which is not necessarily a fault of anyone. Nobody's fault. It's just part of, I think part of accepting the show into your heart, which I have done, is accepting just the sheer magnitude of its ambition how many things it was trying to do all the time like Dr. Manhattan. unstuck in time. I mean, that is maybe the best on-screen versus off-screen analogy we can work

with, that he was in that box wrestling with all the timelines at once. I mean, as a critic, I loved coming up with these elegant metaphors for the creator within their work, but there you go. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that.

I think that what you and I are grappling with, and I know we're going to pivot into some of the things that we truly unreservedly love, too. But I think the thing that you and I are both grappling with is that for six episodes, Watchmen seemed like a show that was doing Herculean work grappling with 100 years of American history and the parts of American history that usually are not grappled with or touched or put on television certainly. And for the last few episodes, it felt like it was doing Herculian work grappling with a 30-year-old comic book. That was part of the challenge. That was, that was the mission Mr. Lindelof that he chose to accept.

It was. Yeah. And one that he took extremely seriously as discussed in every interview. And, you know, we, it's sort of funny to,

for the last decade, basically, Damilindolov's been asked about how and when he is going to end something. And now we're like, why did you end it? Yeah.

Because that is actually what I'm saying. I mean, like, and there's another, it was just sort of an aside, in the Volture interview with Damien was like, oh, we wish we could have done more with Lady True, but as the show was moving into its endgame, it had to focus down on Angela and Cal.

Yep. Okay. But like, take it as a compliment that I am upset about that. Yeah. Not like mad throwing my cable box out the window, but upset just like, you had something incredibly special here. Yeah, I went back and forth on it. I definitely sat in front of this microphone

and talked about how it felt, almost too big, too rich with possibility to end. I actually think in the sense that Alan Moore famously never went back to Watchman, and then it took DC 25 years to get the moral courage or cowardice to start mining, strip mining it for parts that they did with a sequel series, et cetera. I think it makes sense that Damon's done. I think he did leave, everything he didn't leave on the floor, he left in the gym. You know, there are these, as he talks about in these interviews, they're clear,

tendrils of stories that could have been. I think the thing that for me felt the most lightly serviced at the end was this Seventh Cavalry slash KKK slash white supremacy storyline. Now, let me say what the show never stopped saying about representation and power and abilities and masks and why we wear them, that never, that really never diminished. And that is very important as well. But just in terms of what is the villain. in a structure of a show that felt,

and it's interesting, in the beginning, it felt like it had kind of villains, and then it transcended that and became about something else, but then in the end, it was more comic booky, but without those villains, or sort of servicing them in a way

that felt overtly comic booky in not always the best sense of the term. I mean, I would say the low point, for me, as a viewer, of the series, was Josh Wolk doing a Bond villain speech in his underwear.

Yeah. James Wolk. I'm sorry. I've missed, somehow, really normal name, James Wolk. The hardest one.

But also, like, just unique enough that you think you'd remember it. And I think we've called him, well, because James York, Josh Wolk. Josh Wolk worked at Volcher.

Yeah. But we've literally, like, come up with almost, and we also both really like him as an actor, so it's kind of funny. Sorry about that. I was not prepared.

That's, I'm glad you brought that up. I wanted to ask you about that scene. So in the finale, obviously, the sort of last act features Senator Keene giving a long speech

as he is undressing and wearing the OG Dr. Manhattan girdled tighties you know Banana hammock Yeah I like those because you get the high hip

too He gives like a long speech basically explaining why he's doing what he's doing and what he plans to do with his newfound powers And a state of the world

speech about Redford Yeah and it And a state of the world speech about certain anxieties that are out there in our world now of people who are raging against this supposed oppressive nature of social justice. You know, I'm saying, like, I don't,

I shouldn't have to apologize for things that I'm getting like two 40-year-old white guys can't have a podcast anymore. Unbelievable. He does all this. He's taking all his clothes off to a rapt audience, literally, of white supremacists. Would you do this in front of your dad? No, I don't think so. By the way,

Flipside, dad did not seem too upset when Junior turned into a puddle of goo. I was checking for those... Senator Keene, the elder Senator Keene, someone of a limited emotional range. Fair, fair. But even once he gets annihilated, yeah, everybody's still sitting in the pews there. But he gives this speech, and I was, you know, I remembered at the end of the Watchman comic, Adrian gives a similar speech explaining his whole master plan. Yes, he does, yeah.

And Night Owl and Rorschach are like, dude, like, this is crazy, you can't do this. Mostly they're like, this sounds like bullshit, but then they're like, you can't do this. And he's like, I already did. Why would I tell you about it before I did it? Yes. Now, I did it, how many minutes ago did he? He is the smartest man in the world.

Yeah. Self-described. I guess he is. I can't argue it. So I'm not saying that Senator Keene... You can't argue the point? By being like not the smartest man in the world, are you so dumb that you would while undressing, explain to a room full of people, including Angela, what you're doing?

Well, he did power his plan with, you know, scientific mumbo-jumbo machines all clearly branded with an enemy's logo, as Angela pointed out. You know, they were all pilfered, apparently with permission from the true corporation. That's true. Which also seems like a bit of a self-owned. I don't know. It's just... So what were you going to say about that part? It's just that only that it felt it's okay is what I want to say about it.

It felt a little imbalanced because that portion of the storyline, which I want to say again, and I imagine this happened in the writer's room as well. That wasn't as interesting to me as the other stuff. So it wasn't serviced as heavily, and I'm not faulting that decision, but it did feel a little light in terms of two people want to do the same plan, but one plan was a stalking horse for the actual plan that was going to come. a minute later. Okay. You know, sure.

I get it. But there was a, the show earned so much in so many beautiful ways, both in terms of its writing and its production and its just modes of storytelling, that when you hear both Adrian and Will give their sort of thesis statements about masks, it resonates on a number of levels, on a comic book level, on a racial level, on a societal level. So that then the more mustache twirling villainy of the guy just saying, and now I'm going to do this, and we're going to get revenge because it's hard to be a white man these days.

That felt less satisfying in comparison because so many other things were done so beautifully. But we also had a lot of other moments in the show. What were some of the things about the finale that you did like? Well, starting from a macro level, I really, and a lot of this, you know, these are sort of feelings that I picked up on and then I did read that Damon interview with Fultcher

that I thought was really excellent too. Basically thinking about this, as an origin story for Angela and whatever may come ahead. And I thought it ended in a perfect place. And I thought that the one lingering feeling that I was starting to notice as the series was clearly heading towards the finish line, was this idea of Dr. Manhattan and his power.

And, you know, so much of the... One of the central tenants, you know, what is Will Reeves talk about when putting on the mask? He talked about feeling fear and anger and powerlessness and attempting to claim power. And when you talk about that in terms of like a depowered superhero,

it's whatever. When you talk about it in terms of a black man who has experienced the level of trauma that that character had experienced, it means something quite different. So it did make me think that, well, okay, so this is the end

of Dr. Manhattan and then all of his power, I guess, dissipated because none of the two people, neither are the two people who wanted to take it. Lady True and... And to the senator, neither of them got it.

James New York. Yeah. This is sort of painful. that no one got to have it because is that a good or a bad thing for the universe? Right. And then Will Reeves has his line, he was a good man, but he should have done more with it.

And you think about there's a sort of selfishness in a way of having enough power to literally create life to do anything, omnipotence, and to hide it away from yourself so you can just live a quiet life. That is a fascinating idea and one that I think a lot of people can I don't know, relate to. But, I mean, none of us are sitting on our own omnipotence, but a lot of us would choose comfort

over conflict. Yeah. Whenever possible. Dr. Manhattan was a... It was pretty moody. He was a stay-at-home dad, ultimately. I guess. Yeah. But he was also like, I'm taking my toys and going home. Yes, but when he decided to come back and play, he removed his own abilities, basically, and just wanted to just chill.

Yeah. And so... Try to make these waffles. I mean, why not? But... So then opening up this idea that had been seated throughout, that, okay, the really radical thing would be to take that power and put it into someone who has processed trauma,

who has seen, you know, thanks to her father's medicine, seen quite a bit of the 20th century, suddenly empowered, is really exciting and really provocative, and I thought was a phenomenal way to both end of the series and to sort of reframe everything that came before. Because I started to worry, worry. I hate it when in our role as commenters or critics we start to adopt the language of concern trolling. I wasn't worried.

I was entertained. Yes. That's the thing is like I think it's worth noting is that at no point during this season was I like looking at my phone. I loved watching this show. Nor was I ever like, I don't know. I love being able to talk about this show. Yeah. This is what we want.

This is one of the most provocative shows and intellectually stimulating shows that has been on television in a really long time. But just to say that the one thing that I was tracking near the end of the other. episode was what was ultimately Angela's role because she started the series as this incredibly dynamic, strong, active protagonist and then became a receptacle for other people's knowledge and experience. Quite literally. In terms of her grandfather and then also in terms of her role with Dr. Manhattan. And then there was a moment when she's saying goodbye to Dr. Manhattan to Cal, which she becomes

again briefly, where, and Regina King can play the hell out of anything. But she's the mourning spouse in that scene. God, she's amazing at it. But I wondered if that's all she was going to be now. Right. And is she just going to end up taking the kids, taking off the mask and picking up the kids? And I was really glad that the bedrock of what the show,

the spine of what the show wanted to be, was really about her and what was going to happen to her because of everything else. And that we re-centered at the very end. What did you think of, because this is an idea that I've been sort of chewing on since I saw the finale, is this idea that anybody who wants that kind of power,

there's something wrong with them. because that sort of suggested that sort of Adrian sort of says that about why Lady True needs to be stopped because Lady True says I'm going to take Dr. Manhattan's power and I'm going to make a lot of Priuses. You know, I'm going to save this world.

I'm going to get rid of all the nuclear weapons. Right. And she needs to be stopped because you know, anybody who would want that is suspect. Right. I guess. But is it because Angela receives it as a kind of inheritance?

What is the reason why Angela taking the egg at the end separates her from? Because her motivations are obviously altruistic with them. And she hears Will and Will says, he could have done more. I'd love to hear Damon speak to that. You know, I think that there's clearly something, again, I mentioned a moment ago about Lady Tru's Achilles' heel, in a way being her need for her parents to approve of her, you could probably make an argument that her inability to let go of what she didn't get. makes her suspect, right? She's not as advanced, let's just say, psychologically speaking,

because Angela has had the run of this series, not to mention the run of her life, to process unimaginable loss, her own, certainly with her parents and her family, but then also now through her grandfather a century of loss and trauma. And maybe that makes her more, quote, unquote, worthy. The other idea that I think is a provocative one is this sort of, I mean, it's built right into the show, this sort of chicken and the egg idea. sure. I did feel this acute sense of, oh, we're taking the one superpowered person in this fictional universe and removing him. So then what is this universe? Which is a pretty interesting idea. Yeah, right. Or if you can't look to the stars and say, come save us. Then what can you do?

Right. But maybe one of the things being said here is that the power exists in this universe, right? It's just a question of who wields it for how long. It's Thor's Hammer or Captain America's shield or whatever. It's the McGuffin that powers everything else that's to come, which might be a good segue way to say that I do think that Damon was being genuine in these interviews when he says that he's done with this. But, you know, someone else might pick it up. I mean, Regina King doesn't seem to be done. Really?

Yeah, I mean, in the variety piece that ran about it, and they talk to Nicole Castle and Damon and Regina and Nicole Castle is like, I'm still like kind of coming down from production. and Damon says what he has been saying, which is that, you know, obviously, I guess, never say never, but for the most part, he thinks it would be interesting if someone else took the reins or...

I think that's right. I mean, I think that's a really healthy way to look at it, and I think that that is exciting. You know, I think that he certainly did not take this mantle lightly to pick it up and do this with it. And, you know, was brought at times, at least judging from, you know, conversations that we've had with him or that he's,

he, you know, publicly was brought quite low by the weight of this. To do it again, not only would, like, doubly violate the witchcraft curse of Alan Moore, who never would return to this and didn't want anyone to return to it, I think it would kind of, I don't know what the quite words, it wouldn't contradict the power of what he did, but it would be, it would be curious. Yeah. And that might not be the case if he waited 20 years to come back to it. But I think to say, let's give more, and we are in a let's do more culture.

Sure. I was really pleasantly surprised to see the stories in the trades a week or two ago saying that Watchman was a hit. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because Twitter not always real life. I mean, it is the belt show. I mean, it's definitely had that kind of electricity around it, where it's like you can feel people talking about it. You can feel that it is shaping a conversation among people and asking people to think about things that they ordinarily don't.

think about. It introduced, you know, the Black Wall Street massacre to a lot of people who didn't know about it. There's been some fantastic writing about that this year. And I think it also gives the people in charge at Warner at DC a jolt of something that they have, that they have been lacking, which is, I think I usually, when I go on this tangent, I usually put it, I give credit to John Landgraf, who told me once, whether on this podcast or elsewhere, you know, that he has like a Venn diagram of things he looks at when he's looking to renew things, and it's not as simple as it used to be. It ratings matter, but so do award recognition, and so do critical commentary.

Rotten tomatoes. You take that? You take the statues. You take the RTs and the RTs. And you take the likes, and then you're just like renewed. But it's also the sort of the buzz or whatever that means these days. And for DC, you know, Wonder Woman did really well, obviously. An Aquaman made a ton of money, but they're not getting a lot.

of that like, oh, but this is also worthwhile for important piece of it, which actually is part of this sort of, you know, it's a vague construct, but you kind of need a little bit from pile A, pile B, pile C to be running at least what appears to be a successful media company. So I didn't say that to cast aspersions on the success of Warner Media, but merely to say, I don't actually know what makes it successful. Sure. But it's sometimes it seems. It was a win for everybody involved.

So the conversations about having more are happening. Yeah. And doing more happening, whether they are in like, please, please, Damon, don't let this go mode. Or they are in, cool, we agree this is a special flower and we're going to tend to this garden for a while and see what takes root. I want to talk. The reason why I brought up that question about the desire for that power being a reason not to be bestowed it, you know, and that idea that Lady True as Adrian's daughter and having the same sort of almost

is pharaohistic a word? Sure. I'm making it one. Pharaohistic desires to be like a ruler and sort of a, if not a conqueror, I mean a conqueror, but also like the guiding sort of north star of a galaxy.

Angela doesn't have that. Angela, Angela, like that is what he means in some ways when Will is like he could have done more. in some ways it means he could have done less. He could have been less interested in starting life on Europa and creating utopia for Adrian to sort of play out his days in. He could have just actually come back and fixed some things here.

Yes. Now, you know, heavy is the head that wears the crown, and I think that would be a fascinating investigation is to see how somebody who is pretty unambiguously good, although obviously gets into some pretty high-tension interrogation techniques at various points in the season, what she would do with that power. And that was like an incredibly powerful image. And for all the faux cut to black soprano's sort of endings that we've had over the last 10 years or whatever,

not a tremendous amount of those, but we've had some ambiguous endings. I thought that the stepping out of the water was one of the most powerful endings that we've had. You know, and I loved it. And also loved it for the same reasons that I think Damon speaking about in these interviews, that it wasn't really ambiguous. No. It was just beautiful. Because we don't, that's another story.

That other story starts at that moment. There was nothing, nothing in the nine episodes of Watchman that suggests she just dunked herself. Right. But it ended at the right moment. But you're speaking to something, too, that I think is really interesting. And one of the reasons why I think we're just grappling with the multi-tentical giant squid nature of Watchman, which is that almost any one of these tentacles are threads. depending on your vegetarianism and metaphors,

is any one of these could be its own, is its own rich text. This idea of an actual God and what, who is ambivalent, is so fascinating, you know, and I think there's something that's really baked into our culture that can be reflected in that story, like, you know, how people like, you know,

Elon Musk or people like him, is there anyone like him, want to put life on Mars before they work on fixing life here. Right. You know, there's this like, well, this is done. Yeah. And I'm going to start over, and I'm going to do better this time

because there's such ego baked into it. It's like you could end homelessness or you could build a cyber truck. Like which is more valuable to civilization? Right. I may have tipped the scales in terms of people. Clearly, people might know what I think about it, just like rises.

You're like trucks. Rise of fucking Skywalker's. Trucks, bro. But that idea is so interesting. Rolling up on your kid's school. It's been. You might need to. You might need Bain's mask next time you go back to your school.

God. I was, exactly. You were born in the flu. I was born. Remember when you were a kid? I don't know if your doctor. Did your pediatrician have, you walk up and there's reception, and then there's the sick room and the well room for waiting room?

It's like a foundational memory of my childhood. the pediatrician's office that I went to, there were two different rooms, dog. I don't think I had that. Yeah. I think it was just sort of assumed that if you were at the doctor's office, you probably weren't super healthy. No, but pediatrician, like you have your annual checkup,

and you're not about to be there, like, catching the croup. I don't really have a lot of pediatrician memories. Do you want to unpack that now, Lady True? Like, if they're, what, were you born of human man and woman? Or were you a sample? That's right. I was just a syringe in Carnac. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by American Express.

I am one of the lucky few with a commute in LA that only takes about 15 minutes. I apologize. I know that most people are stuck in bumper-to-bumper, brutal 405 traffic, where they see their life passing in front of their eyes. Not me. I come into work in a great mood because it only takes me a few minutes to get here, but I still make the most of my drive by listening to my favorite podcasts. I'll get a head start on shows like House of Carbs, Binge Mode, or The Big Picture, and then I'll finish up the episode when I get into the office.

It's a great way to ease myself into the day. And no matter what your morning commute looks like, you can ease your mind a little bit, knowing that with Green from Amex, you're getting three times points on travel, including transit-like taxis, ride shares, subway swipes, and even ferry rides for those of you who get to enjoy a nice breeze on your way to work.

Learn more at Americanexpress.com slash green from Amex. Terms apply. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Bose. Bose AR is a first-of-its-its-kind platform that is an audio-first approach to augmented reality. Bose-A-R-enabled products have motion sensors embedded inside that can detect your head orientation and body movement while you wear them. AR-enhanced apps can then use this information to offer you tailored audio content. So Disney and Bose are working together to bring fans a new immersive audio experience based on the beloved Star Wars movies, available in the official Star Wars app and exclusively for Bose's.

AR-enabled devices, fans can journey through an immersive, 360-degree audio-augmented reality timeline of Ray's lightsaber, with spatialized sound for unique, gesture-driven interaction, where the user can freeze the scene, move towards elements, hear new content, and experience the story from new angles. What does that mean, right? Well, it means you basically get to live inside the world of sound that is Star Wars, following along with the sort of history and trajectory of raised lightsaber throughout the movies,

you can put yourself in these iconic scenes and hear it in a completely new way. My favorite is you get to be in the lightsaber training scene from Star Wars A New Hope where Luke is fighting that droid that's sort of flying around him, and Obi-Wan's talking to him, and Han is talking about, you know, how he prefers blaster over a lightsaber. And if you move your head, if you move around the room, if you move your head up and down, you can hear it from, all these different angles. It's like being Luke Skywalker, honestly. It's pretty amazing.

To celebrate this partnership, Boes will be releasing a limited edition Star Wars QC35 headphones to visit Bose.com slash The Watch to learn more. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the L Word Generation Q, a bold new series for a bold new generation. Get wrapped up in the lives of a fun and fabulous group of friends that they experience success, setbacks, sex, of course drama in Los Angeles. This fierce crew is doing it all from confidently starting new relationships to taking on the patriarchy and running for public office. The L Word Generation Q is now streaming only on Showtime.

I want to talk a little bit about things that we'll remember from the season and the stuff that we love. Sure. I wanted to give a special shout out to, we kind of got into this in the episode before we talked to Damon about the idea that this was a kind of a. so much of a piece of the other things that he has done and Lost and Leftovers. And I thought that the style in which the story was told

for the most part was so breathtaking in terms of the almost short story collection style of which it was done, which obviously harkens back to Lost and the way Lost would have a central story that was happening on the island and then usually do a character-based flashback of some sort. Three, there would be an A and B story on the island

and then the C story would be these flashbacks to the A story. Right. And each episode would have thematic coherence and they did that 20 times a year. That's fucking crazy. And Hurley built a golf course. That's right. And I especially loved, and I don't think he had done this before

because, you know, obviously lost, starts with the crash, leftover starts with the disappearance. The in-media res way in which he told this story, which they told this story, how as soon as it starts, everything is already happening. and even though it ends with this the first episode ends with this incendiary

inciting event of Judd's hanging you feel like you're catching up you're sprinting to catch up with this world and all of the little like sort of breadcrumbs that lead back to Watchmen

but also lead back to American history that also lead to our contemporary state of affairs were so interesting and so exciting but never at the expense of this propulsive, thrilling story that I thought was made all the more propulsive and thrilling by the original score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which I just think is remarkable,

which felt like a character of its own, the way in which it kind of made this suburban utopia dystopia out of Tulsa. And just the feeling of, how many different things must have happened before we started watching this show and the way in which I thought it was an absolutely masterful piece of creating a world

and it was up until the very last second it was on. Yeah, I loved it and I loved it as much for its content as for its messy shape. Like I don't I don't watch TV shows for need and tidy

resolutions. There are TV shows that'll do that, and that's great. And sometimes the tidy resolution will come in the episode, you know, and you can Detective Benson or what does she know, Arch Sergeant Benson. I mean, she's been a detective in the SVU unit for 22 years. I don't know. She better have some sort of honorific. Um, or can you imagine what her, she's Dr. Manhattan. Can you imagine what her pension plan is like after just banking 22 years on the hard special victims beat? Anyway, I love that it was all out there. I love that the show, you could have a conversation with 10 different people and 10 different, 10 people could have 10 different reasons why they loved the show or aspects of the show that they loved and they considered to be the main

text of the text and they'll all be right. Yeah. It is really exciting and inspiring to see something sanctioned by the highest levels of power, both, you know, in terms of Warner Media and HBO and its prestige and premature, but also a franchise and a piece of IP as valuable as this. And watching people play with it, really play with it, like clay, you know, and try out new things, it was really thrilling. It was really thrilling as a viewer, as a creator, and then, and then I'll say also as a podcaster, because we dream of shows like this to cover. Yeah, we don't get to do, we don't get to do shows like this where it's worth talking about every Monday. Yeah, and that we could talk about through any number of prisms, whether it's a

media story or a story story or a, or something that calls. us to go into a deep Wikipedia Tanahasi Coats dive or you know enjoying the high level nonsense of like the PDPDA entries that come out including the one that dropped this morning that that pretty much

confirms the Loub Man theory. Yeah, the PDPD stuff is really interesting because it's like 10 years ago that just would have been the show. Pedy would have been a character and maybe he would have a report of the week and he would be the C plot

and it would be PD filling in the sort of gaps between what happens when Rorschach's journals get published by the new frontiersman and how does that lead to Jane Crawford at the end of this season essentially using Rorschach's last words before Dr. Manhattan

if you're going to do it, just get it over just do it. You know, paraphrasing. No, no, no, you're right about that. My face was just falling because I'm trying to think about that character. The Jane Crawford character? Yeah.

That was a tougher one. Just in terms of, I don't know if at the end of the nine episodes, I tracked her. Sure. And the Crawford's, the Crawford piece of it, mainly because the villains became that sort of mass of villainy at the end. They were just eliminated with a light show. But again, even within that, as you're pointing out, there was the nod to the original. There was the sense of symmetry. There was the sense of time all happening at once, which was central to Damon's conceiving.

of the whole thing. Yeah. You got anything else you want to talk about with this show in particular? Do you want to move on and chat a little bit about Star Wars?

Really curious. No, just it's... You want to talk about Marty Scorsese and Bob Iger's Summit? God, can you imagine? Can you imagine? I was thinking about

what it must be like to schedule that meeting. Why do you take the meeting if you're Marty? Uh, well, I actually think that, not that I would describe any, like,

completely and defarious reasons behind, uh, anything like, Iger seems like a good enough person, but like... Yeah. I guess we should have Iger counter music here. Big fan of this podcast. We're talking about him.

Drop the Trinobes. There is a lot of stuff because Disney is in control of a lot of catalog now. Yeah. And Disney, you know, Matt Zolorsites wrote that piece about Disney pulling Fox titles out of rec theaters and things like that. So I think that there could be some actual value in having a powwow about, you know, the future of movies and stuff like that. If it's just to be like, dude, you got to see rap. Wagner Rock. Can you imagine that? If Martin Scorsese at 80 walks into Bob Iger's Burbank, his terrarium, Bivarium and Burbank.

Yeah. Kind of Lady Drewoffice. And he's like, Marty, big fan, loved Goodfellas. I love another movie. It's called Thor Ragnar. Both movies. Thus both said, I mean, by the way, this is a conversation for another day, but the way people treat Scorsese mob movies, He's not dissimilar to the way people treat MCU movies. Right. Like, you're zigging. I don't mean to. I'm just saying that like...

You're the Zag Lord today. Come on. I'm just saying if Marty made a silence too. Uh-huh. No boogaloo whatsoever because of the aforementioned silence. That would be one thing. But he made The Irishman starring his guys. And his guys are his guys.

And this movie, and you know, we'll talk about it maybe the new year when I fucking finish it. I was going to say, do you want it to say what episode of the Irishman you're on? I finished the pilot. But, shouts to Sean Fennessee. But, you know, the fandom and the sort of like, oh, we got that guy, you know, like that aspect of it. Uh-huh. I mean, there's a moment in episode one of The Irishman, the Netflix miniseries. You're killing me right now.

Where it's De Niro, Pesci, Keitel, and Cannavali in a room. And fucking Villaduroma in Philadelphia, man. I'm like, these are the only Avengers I recognize. Oh, yeah. So you're saying you're on, that's like, but you're like, the sort of fandom of that.

I'm just saying that he, I fundamentally agree with Scorsese that there's a difference between artistic ambition in between the movies that he makes and other people, and other great autours make and what Marvel does.

I think both are kind of incredible in their way. Sure. But that there is an aspect of the Mean Streets, Goodfellas, casino departed Irishman run that plays to a pop or more popcorn sensibility that puts it the conversation can be similar.

Okay. But all I wanted to say at the end about watchman was just what a joy it was to have the show and to talk about it. And I am very curious what, if any, ripple effect it might have on the next few years of development. Because it was different. It was different. you know, in, for all the ways we've talked about, it was different.

Yeah, do you think it's singular or do you think it's something that you can learn lessons from? My fear is that it's singular, but because, honestly, it combined three things that, three great tastes that don't often go together. One is, you know, extremely valuable big brand IP, which is to be protected at all costs. Two, like just, you know, black belt level TV craftsmanship and care. in the form of Damon, there aren't that many people like him who can operate on that high of a level. All of them are extremely, you know, well rewarded for their efforts and are very busy. Three, a commitment to a level of bat shittery not usually seen in things that aren't the OA. Yeah.

You know, or other types of programs that are just seen as plucky swings that don't actually connect and find an audience. And you combine all three of those, you get something really noteworthy and special. it a complete success? I think it's actually transcended that binary. I don't think of it. I'm not thinking that it stuck the landing the way I think that's in Damon's head, the way like did Law stick the landing. I think that it is, it is itself. It was a brilliant piece of storytelling. Yeah. So I don't know. I guess I'm not fully up to mystic. I drifted away for a second because I was just thinking about what would have happened if Alan Moore had texted Damon back

with just like fireworks emojis Firework, firework, Eggplant and was like sorry, big thumbs. Fireworks, fireworks.

And he was just like get this bread. As Kaya says every morning when I walk in and she's like rise and grind let's get this bread. Yeah. What would you like

how does it change if he gets a a blessing? I mean I'll just for the third time of this podcast refer to Lady True's face when Osamandias teleports away

before her greatest triumph. Right. You know, what would her face have been if he had teleported back and given her a hug? I've been like, want to have a catch death?

Let's get this bread. Yeah, that's true. Lady True and Osamandias could have, they could have come up with some pretty cool cyber trucks. Without question. I thought the spaceship

she came up with on the fly. Yeah. With its like, you know, fucking goldman group sleep system. How about the Mandalorian? You know what's funny about the Mandalorian, Chris?

Huh? People just like it. Yeah, you know, it's great. It is essentially a space western, which ultimately Star Wars is in general. But I just think, like, the week-to-week, mission of the week style is really suiting my brain right now. I think people are enjoying, like, just new hits of it every week. It's just, it's pleasant, it's enjoyable. There's a baby Yoda.

Has anyone mentioned that before? The thing is, is I want to know where's the baby Yoda coverage? Chris, that's a real breakout character, I think. There's potential there if they knew how to be a hard. Which, don't tell anybody. Because maybe Star Wars is going to get a hint and they're going to start making toys or something like that. And speaking of Star Wars, everyone should be listening to Binge Mode Star Wars. Remember, you can just say, hey Google, play Binge Mode podcast.

Sure. Playing the latest episode of Binge Mode, Star Wars, the Mandalorian, Chapter 6, the prisoner, Star Wars. Hey, Google, pause podcast. What else? What else? What else? Well, no, I think we were going to just briefly. You seemed psyched to talk about Star Wars.

Well, I just wondered, we haven't actually, because we've had the Mandalorian to talk about, and apologies, not this week, because I'm behind. But, um... Do you want me just to recap it for you? No. The last two weeks? No. RIP Baby Yoda. What?

No, I'm just fucking with you. That'd be amazing. Also, it'd be crazy if I broke the news to you. And that's how I broke it. I'd appreciate it. Actually, I would want it to come from you. It would not come from me. You know what I mean?

Because your phone would explode because of how many tweets were going off about it. I misquote Dr. Manhattan. I didn't want to be alone when Baby Yoda died. So thank you. We haven't actually talked about this movie, because there has been a lot of other content. Yeah, yeah. So let's just do a quick check-in,

because we're both seeing it. Okay, yeah. So one to ten, two questions, both a one-to-ten scale. First question is, how excited are you to see this movie? 10. This is always the best moment. Really?

The second before you see it. Okay. For the last however many years, when did Force Awakens come out? It's only been fucking four years. Force Awakens came out longer than four years ago. No, it came out in 2015. Okay, so for the last four years. Isn't that insane?

I thought so, I was like, well, it must have been 2012 or 2013. But 15, 17, 19. They just dropped them. It wasn't. Okay, so the trailer for Force Awakening came out in like 14, right? Yes. So for the last, so almost five years, I think that the one thing that's never gone away

is my anticipation for these things. So, you know, I started re-watching bits of the trilogy, the most recent trilogy, over the weekend in anticipation, more than anything, just to kind of remind myself of, like, what's up with Po? What's that guy doing? Hanshot first. Oh, the recent trilogy.

Yeah, the recent trilogy. I got the first trilogy, I think I got it. I have no idea who Po is. Full disclosure, no idea. You know who plays him. Yeah, that's why I know. It's Oscar Isaac in a spaceship. Right.

Hello, you had me there. But I was just like, did I miss something? Like, what is it stake for Poe going into this movie? And, you know, what I wound up doing was rewatching a bunch of the trailers, which is pathetic, but also is when I'm almost at my happiest with this. Right. Because you kind of get the taste of everything without the bittersweet aftertaste of like, what? You know, like, and so I think I'm at a 10. I'm really excited.

I don't think, I think that the trailers for this movie I have been sort of the least enthused about of any Star Wars movie including solo, but I'm almost hoping that that is a, that's a good side. Because they've been saving it.

Yeah, yeah. I'm almost hoping that there's something in this movie that is like just profoundly awesome. For some reason, Richard E. Grant is the one who's like almost spoiling it online. Have you seen that? No, but I love that guy. Yeah.

I love that he's a part of it. second one to ten question is what is your optimism level in terms of what you think this is going to deliver for you six and a half six but don't don't take that as like faint praise okay like I I think that they will do something in this movie that's pretty awesome would you like some faint praise yeah I am I am a horizontal line emoji okay I'm five and five okay do you think it's because you're in your 40s or do you think yeah I mean I

also, people have heard me say this before, and I will go into the movie with an open mind, but I don't know what questions this movie is answering. I don't know, I don't care who Ray's parents are. That's not something that the first two movies has taught me to be interested in. I think I'm interested, if anything, in the Ray Kylo dynamic, because the Last Jedi I did a great job of, as we've said multiple times, killing the past, making to me, I mean, that movie was made from where I am as a Star Wars fan, basically, and your mileage may vary on that. But saying this CGI nothing is a nothing in Snoke, that the past doesn't matter and kill the past, and then now we're going to be about something new. And there's something more to be said here, you know, and that these

characters, you know, you can read John Boyega interviews where he's like, I missed my pals, but I actually think that Ryan Johnson took a beat to do character work on these characters that really were more just cool archetypes in Force Awakens. Well, I thought, you know, he's gotten a lot of flack the last couple weeks because he's been pretty like, we should have listened to like the Reditors, you know? But. Always, always a mistake. I think he had, he did get a raw deal in the second movie.

Like, I thought his character was really pretty cool in the first movie. When he was in a space casino with Justin Thoreau? I just think he got like kind of set on a lot. like a vision quest. But I think again, this was, we talked about this the other day, maybe it's an abundance problem. But I think that a Star Wars movie

about Finn is an interesting movie. Right. Actually, the most interesting, I'm going to just start throwing out stuff without having thought about it at all. This is a podcast, right? I believe that's the format. We need to break for weather.

One second. Traffic and weather on the fives. A stormtrooper removing his helmet and then removing his armor is the simplest and most elegant and probably best origin story this entire franchise has had since Womp Rat shooting Farm Boy becomes Space Night. That's so cool.

That's so interesting. And it's baked into this because everyone was faceless. All the Stormtroopers, when I was a kid, I don't know if you were the same way. I thought they were robots. I did, yes. And then, oh, those are people in there. That's interesting.

Well, they talk. But I was like, who knows, like, Maybe they just have like dope voice program. Robots can talk, bro. I mean, I was watching Transformers at the same time. I have a robot that comes into my room every morning and says, rise and grind, let's get this bread. Be nicer to Kaya. She puts on that suit.

She doesn't get paid extra to do it. And then Poe, like, okay, like dashing space pilot. That's also a show or a movie. Maybe it's more telling that I said show. But these movies had to be about something ultimately. And I think what they were, so far, what it seems to be that they're going to settle into is being. about just giving everyone a little bit more of what they originally liked.

Yeah. And resolving it into something larger. It was always Palpatine. It's always about Luke's holy bloodline or whatever. Yeah. And then on we go. They had the first three movies, obviously,

you know, in the late 70s and 80s, early 80s, revolutionized the pop culture world and the entertainment industry and introduced the idea that you could 360 a movie and have it be something that was a theme park ride and toys and a lifestyle and essentially like a... Yeah, extremely young thug voice lifestyle. 12 months, a year sport rather than just a movie.

Yeah. The second batch of movies were very... And I don't care for them very much, but we're obviously like, we have to pay George back here. And if he wants to make a movie about, like, parliamentary procedures and tell this story, like, We got to let them rock it. And these next three movies were about hedging bets. They were. That's ultimately what they were about.

They were about the old characters, but also the new characters. I think that was always the sort of thing. That's been the thing that has kind of nipped at the ankles of this entire endeavor, of solo, of Rogue One, of Mandalorian to some extent of, we got to always kind of have an out here. and that was sort of the most disappointing thing about all of this stuff where it's like, hey, hey, well, we just said, that's just what Kylo says to Ray. We don't even know, like, maybe she does have important parents.

Yep. And it's because, like, you didn't like your feedback. You focused grouped it with a movie, and now you guys are kind of backing off the statement, and that's fine. I don't necessarily think, I love That Last Jedi. I don't think it's, like, eight and a half.

You know, it's pretty good, but it's, I'm not necessarily like, now you're just desecrating Ryan, Johnson's artistic statement. I think he had a viewpoint on that. I think he was like, what if all this stuff, and this kind of ties back into the Watchman stuff, what if all this Joseph Campbell bullshit that we talk about

is just like one version of how things can go? And what if it would be more powerful if someone from nowhere, from no one, could be as as as the son of the most important powerful being in the universe? Go to the scariest part. of the script, of the project, not as a viewer, but I'm saying if you're writing something and there's something that's freaking you out,

interrogate why it's freaking you out. It doesn't mean you're always right. Like, maybe there's a good reason that you shouldn't, you know, do that. I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of a glib way to say something deeply, like an offensive thing that you don't want to make a musical about. Sure. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to save people, a twisted, not enough coffee analogy.

But generally, it's definitely more interesting as a writer, and I think as a viewer, to see someone run towards the scariest part. I think that the story that Damon told us last week about JJ, you know, attempting something that felt radical at the time in a Star Wars, sorry, in a Superman script. And then, you know, having that whole thing taken away because the internet freaked out. I think that was an interesting anecdote that I'm actually going to be actually going to be thinking about for a while because it's framed it to basically to show JJ's bona fides as like a risk taker and someone who's chasing the best version of the story. the caveats that I would throw on it are one, what lesson did he learn from having that taken from him by people who were angry about stuff like that?

But also, within the scheme of things, wondering about making a small tweak to Superman's parentage while still making a Superman movie is still making a Superman. Sure. You know what I mean? So how radical can you even be? I think Watchman at this moment is probably the most successful version of it,

but even it was struggled with that wrestling match. And that was dominated our conversation about the finale. Yeah. So the truth is, there's no way, this is an impossible job to make this Star Wars movie. Yeah, of course it is. There is no way to satisfy everyone. And for me, I guess the biggest question going into it is not who Ray's parents are, but who ultimately did they decide to satisfy?

And what kind of movie does that leave us with? And then it'll also, what kind of podcast does that leave us with in terms of discussing what it meant? The one thing that Mandalorian has sort of taught me is you don't have to overthink it. There's no reason to turn the faucet off. You don't have to be like, and now the force is over. Or now the force belongs to someone else. Or now evil is wiped out of this galaxy. Clearly, that's not the case.

Clearly, there will be something else in two years, and another dark force will rise against a good force, because that is the central part of the story, is the battle between good and evil. And sometimes it gets into more nuanced gray areas between what do we do to be on quote unquote the side of good. And that was like one of the coolest things about Rogue One is the Cassian character, who was also getting his own spinoff.

But we're going to see a po show or we're going to see a fin show. And we might even see a Ray show. You know, they really, Disney Plus is a thing. So nothing ever really ends to take something from both Pharrell Williams and Alan Moore. And even though I think we're going into the final. movie of this iteration of Star Wars, I think it's just the beginning. Yeah. Boy, I'm ready to see it now.

All right. Thanks. For Andy Greenwald. That's me. 5-5-5 flat-face emoji. I'm Chris Ryan. For Kaya, we have another pod Thursday. So we have our best of the decade pod with Sam S-Mail.

So usually we do best of the year. Yes. Oh, that's running Thursday. I have so many regrets about my list already. Do you really? Yes. Immediately as soon as we were done, I changed my mind. Too bad.

I'll caveat that shit. on Twitter. By the way, for people still listening, cue the Chernobyl music. Sam requested that we do not talk about Mr. Robot with him. Yeah. He does not, he wants to let these last few episodes speak for themselves. We should say, I am letting them speak for themselves because I am woefully behind. It is a personal and professional mandate. I cannot wait to catch up and watch these episodes that people are raving about, but that is

why we have not talked about it yet. Hopefully in the new year we will. But there is no Mr. Robot talk in our Sam podcast by request of Sam. And I'm sorry because I know people really want us to weigh in on that or people have asked us to. Yeah. But we're just not yet. But we did make a two-hour podcast about the best shows of the decade. So I hope you guys like that. We did do that.

And you know, who else is heavily featured on that podcast? Kaya McMullen. Your personal robot. No. Let's applaud Kaya for another great year of watch pods. Thank you for producing us, Kaya. This will be the last time we're in the studio together. So we have Thursday, we're going to do.

the best of the decade, and then I believe Monday, Andy and I will have our Star Wars reactions. Oh, yeah, we should. Yeah, we can record that whenever, but I look forward to that. All right, Frandy, Kaya, this is Chris. Thanks for listening.

Great job, brands. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by the L Word Generation Q. Oh, hey, you're still listening. Shout out to Post-roll ads. So what are you doing tonight? No plans? Perfect.

Watch an episode of the L-word, Generation Q. Fire up your Showtime app and settle in for a great night of TV. Today's episode of the Watch. Watch is brought to you by The Real Real Shop or Consign at the Real Real, the leading reseller of authenticated consignment from top designers. The Real Real Real has women's and men's luxury fashion as well as fine jewelry, watches, art, and home at up to 90% off retail. Every item is authenticated by the Real Reel's team of authenticators, shop or consign in store at the Reelreel.com or download the app and get 20% off select items with the promo code Reel.