The Watch - Breaking Down ‘Watchmen’ Episode 7 and ‘The Mandalorian’ Episode 4 | The Watch

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

Chris and Andy recap their Thanksgiving holidays before diving into another plot-heavy episode of ‘Watchmen’ (1:00). They break down the big reveal in “An Almost Religious Awe” (13:16). Plus: an unspecified amount of time at the farm with Mando and Baby Yoda in last week’s ‘The Mandalorian’ (37:57). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, hooked up to an elephant, it's Andy Greenwald. Buddy, happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Happy Thanksgiving, Kaya.

Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving, watch listeners. Happy Thanksgiving to our listeners. Chris, you want to know what I'm grateful for? You. Because every Monday, you deliver me a warm cup of coffee. Well, now I'm on the hook for it. I feel like if I didn't bring it one time, I'd be trying to send you a subtle message.

Like, Amanda brings her own hot beverage. That's right. Well, how was your break? By the way, before we even talk about our break, a minute ago, before we even hit record, we were just starting to chat about pop culture. A little bit, yeah. Come on, no free takes. How is my week?

I feel like you and I have very different thanksgivings now, which is a shame because, because we used to have the exact same Thanksgiving. We were really locked in with each other. Thanksgiving was high season. It was the original podcast. For your boys. Yeah, it was when we would both go, be home from college. We'd have wheels, a little bit of money burning a hole in our pocket.

We'd see a Sixers game. See a Sixers game? And then... Go get into some trouble. Famously... Go park our car in some weird parts of town. Without question. Yeah.

We would do Thanksgiving. My family would do it at my house, my parents. and we were a later eating family. Yeah. So we had a friend, we have a friend Matt. His family would eat at like one. Yeah. You know, and they would be like completely like just on the couch by like three.

Yep. My family ate around 6.6.30. No, no, no. Because I was going to say you would be like knocking on my front door asking if I paint houses at like 5.15 p.m. No, no, no, no. I know my mom and I just talked about that this weekend. Okay. And she talked about how unsatisfying.

fine Thanksgiving dinner's worse and experience because she would work on the food for like nine hours and my dad and I would be done eating in 35 minutes and I'd be like gotta go to Andy's

and I would get up I would go to your house that's right you would be usually I like Matt and I by a certain point had a little bit of head of steam if you know what I'm saying

and we would sort of kick in the door got a good buzz going waving the 4-4 and Andy's dad would just be like well hello Chris hello Matt we're just beginning to sit out the turkey, it's accoutreement.

So we'd watch you eat, which is always cool, watching it eat. You sort of hover on the margins, like vultures. Yeah, we'd walk into different rooms. Sometimes elderly guests would be there, wondering who the Reps galleons were. We make it sound like we're like riverboat pirates in Davy Crockett times. Like, we would come by and we would make a lot of lovely conversation with your family. Right. Then we would take you out.

We'd take you out into the night. Take me away. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like that anymore. Which was always kind of a weird proposition in Philly because it was like only a few. You bars would open after Thanksgiving dinner. The smart ones. But we found them.

Yeah. Yeah, I was in Philly this week. So how was it as a father? As a father of daughters. As an Irishman. Yeah, you look good. Thanks. Thanks.

It's a nice visit. It's a nice town. You know, my folks are downtown now, so we get to spend some time in the city. On the Avenue of the Arts. Big, big, like, like winter wonderland set up at City Hall. Nice, yeah. North Park.

Yeah. A winter wonderland in Philadelphia is very special because there's an ice skating rink now, which is great, and there's like a, you know, a little heated room where you can get some, some pints of yingling,

some hot toddies as you made. Some heated yingling? Some more, it's like Christmas miracle it's called. But there's also like little booth selling local artisan crafts. And primarily they are watercolors of gritty waving the American flag.

Yeah, I was going to say, is the sculptors who are working primarily in pretzel. It is. I really am regretting not getting you the oil painting of Tobias Harris gazing at the Ben Franklin Bridge

that I saw. That's my version of Vito Corleone staring at the Statue of Liberty. There really is one of the, I really did see a painting of the Philly fanatic kneeling, weeping over the American flag and it said, never forget. And I was like, never forget.

Never forget when we were in the World Series. Never forget our collapse to 81 and 81 the last two seasons. Never forget the tenure of Gabe Kapler, America's manager. I don't know. But otherwise the city is still good. And I have to give a shout out. I already did it on Instagram to one of the iconic legends of Philadelphia, which is still going, which is Bob and Barbara's Lounge in South Street.

Yeah. It actually is amazing. I thought you were going to give a shout out to the iconic Philadelphia legend in New York Times. No. Oh, because of our presence there this weekend. But I mean, I was sure that piece was never going to run in print because that's fine. And then it ran in print. So it was on my parents' kitchen table the day that we left very early despite not visiting enough. So that was good look for me. Thank you, New York Times. The other thing that I appreciated about that story that they ran was that they revised the headline for the print edition. So the headline now said Andy Greenwald has finally found what he's always wanted and it's just like

is this something the New York Times has been on? Is that really what the headline was? Yes. Is this a story? Because they don't really have to worry about SEO in the paper. But is this a story they've been tracking for years?

Right. Is this insulting to me? Like, is it insulting to my wife and children? Yeah. Yeah, we're all upset about it. Anyway. Bob and Barberas was a bar that Andy and I used to go to

which has been there for semi-frequently. 50, 60 years. And it's just great I don't know. There are fewer and fewer places, certainly in New York and probably in Los Angeles, that are the same way they've always been.

And this bar where you can go into it, and it's literally like the same clientele. No one there is cool. Everyone is drinking the same thing, a Philly special, a can of PBR, and a shot of Jim Beam. And jazz band playing. It was great.

Yeah, you love jazz. I famously love jazz. That was really fun. But anyway, but this idea, this is a big pivot, a big, wide swing. to say this idea of Thanksgiving as some sort of feast of content as much as it is a feast of turkey is totally foreign to me.

We just called it relaxing. Yeah, but it would be like relaxing, like reading old comic books that we had in our childhood bedrooms. It was not like these great dumps of television shows and the Scorsese movies. So the idea that this is like a special time to indulgeous is not something that I'm able to take part of it. This is a couple of, I'm trying to remember specifically what I'm talking about, but there have been a couple of shows that... If I figured out first, I'll tell you. Well, it wasn't Dark around now? The first season of Dark came out around now? I feel like Thanksgiving is a really good time to launch a show.

Well, a couple years ago, we were talking about this, which is that this was traditionally, the movie theater, there was always something, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But for TV, this was a dead zone because people figured, you know, everyone's home with their families or they're traveling or they're going to the movies. It was Netflix that figured out... Oh, people are home with their families. This is actually the best time to drop a lot of content. So now people are jostling each other to do that. Do you want to touch on some of your menu that you served up at home? Sure, yeah.

I mean, I just, I hit every quadrant. It was really, I watched a little bit of the morning show. Okay. Still going strong. Is it? Yeah. I'm not going to bore you with it since it would make any sense with you. Knives out.

that in the movie theater. Yep. I believe you've also seen it. I have seen it. Yeah, I enjoyed that. And then just got into the watch to the Irishman, you know, just really like, and I think we started it really late on Wednesday or something. Okay.

So I can't remember what time, but like... Obviously, you finished it early on Thursday because you're a sinist. No, I, I felt fine about watching half and half. It's not that I couldn't finish it. It was just that we started it so late that we were getting really tired. But Masterpiece, Amazing Fest. Like, not overrated at all. Did you feel, and I'm saying this because I really want to see it,

and I really wish I could see it in a movie theater. And I feel like that's not likely to happen. So I probably will, like most of the people who watch the movie, watch it on Netflix. I don't feel great about it, both because I don't want to be able to get up and control my own ability to get up because I will take advantage of that. But also, I do wonder about seeing a Scorsese movie on, I don't have a very big TV.

I think it's just great to see a Scorsese movie. And I think that if what he needed to make this particular film, which is a three and a half hour meditation on mortality, and do it the way you wanted to do it with the de-aging process, and Netflix was the company that was like, you can do it this way. And I think a lot of people are going to see this movie. Clearly. And their access to entry will be somewhat lower than maybe, you know,

spending the money to go to the theater. I'm just glad a lot of people are going to see Joe Pesci act, you know. And it is, to me, it was a little bit. But it felt a lot more like silence than it did Goodfellas. You know, and it's a lot more about, you know, the interior of a character rather than like this flashy kind of movement through time. I mean, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of the Hoffa stuff in Irishman is about America

and that time in the century and the Kennedys. But for me, it was much more about like trying to bore into this very nonverbal character that De Niro plays. Frank. I'm very excited to see it. I have to give a special shout out to, a true hero that I encountered on my on my travels. Thanksgiving is a time people give thanks, have gratitude.

Obviously, there are a lot of human interest stories on the local news, newspapers. I'm thinking of the gentleman from Philadelphia who caught a baby that came, was being tossed out of a burning building and then use that opportunity to talk about Nelson Aguilar. A special shout-out goes to a guy named Adam Weinstein who may never hear this, but a guy I went to high school with, didn't know him very well. at the time I knew his older brother a little bit better, a couple years younger than me,

is out here now, he's an agent, and happened to be sitting right behind me and my family, he and his family, on the flight back. You were in a very popular plane. That's right. That's right. The watch co-host Amanda Dobbins was on both of my flights,

which was great. And it was very nice to see him, you know, reconnect, and also as a similar number of members of his family, and a similar iPad-centric, Disney-focused curated viewing situation going on. He's also watching the Iger counter. No joke.

He was reading the Iger book. Really? He was. It was a full Disney pluse experience in Road 34. But the most amazing thing was, you know... Economy pluse? If only. No, no, no, my friend.

Just straight up steerage. there were a couple people doing Irish folk dancing behind us. It was a merry part of the ship, is what I'm saying. Anyway, just to say that we were on a flight with them and had the same number of children around the same ages, and it was a long, extremely turbulent flight. Yeah. And we're a baggage claim because these days...

Any time you can fly over something called a bomb cyclone. You got to do it. Yeah, you really felt it in the hips when the plane was really swaying. Were you flying in a mini-cooper? felt like it. But, you know, all these dreams that you still get to live in of, like, watching things and not checking multiple bags on trips. Yeah.

But anyway, at the very end of this, you know, the light is already failing here in Los Angeles. This is a six-hour flight plus whatever. Their children are restive ours are as well. And he says to me, we're going to rush home because we're going to watch the Irishman tonight. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Who's the we here? Him and his wife. Yeah, do you know what I did, honestly?

I saluted him. Yeah. Not all heroes, man. Like, I don't even want to know if he made it. I don't even want to know if he made it through 10 minutes of it. Sure. It was the initiative, the passion, like, that's what you want to see out on the field. I was just, God bless you, man.

That's incredible. A lot of Philly and the Irishman. A lot. Is that true? Yeah, yeah. A lot of Philly. Get a little Villa Dora shout out. Fantastic.

Frank Rizzo. You know who else? You know who else is from Philly? silly. Cal, Angela Abar's husband. I don't know if you looked at Piedipedia. Oh, is Cal a Philadelphia? Mm-hmm.

I didn't. Let's get into the Watchman. We're going to talk Mandalorian, too, right? But we should... You know we're talking. But we should... Mando! The new episode is on Disney Plus! We'd like to come over. I have turkey leftovers.

The sandwiches are delectable, sir. Sourdough bread really makes it. Watchmen. Watchmen. Let's talk Watchmen. I did want to say... And obviously... An almost religious awe, episode seven.

So, spoilers coming. Yeah. I know that people got, obviously, the big reveal was, and the big surprise and big twist was related to Cal, Angela's husband. And people were falling over themselves with excitement saying, like, oh, his name is Calabar, like, Angela Abar, and it's like X Calabar.

They were coming up with all these puns for his name and all this construction. But I was like, no, no, no, his name isn't Abar. That's not his name, because we've learned in this. episode. In the flashback, Angela's father's name was Avar, so unless he took his wife's name, which is not so common. Kyle's name is Rickin? He has a different, different name. And I haven't really gone into this PDPedia stuff. Yeah, it's cool. But one of the things on there. Tell people what this is. Well, so HBO's been putting up PD, Lori Blake's lover and, and, and, and, and, and

co-agent. But, you know, we could lead with his off-duty extracurriculars. Files, like, related to that episode and fill in the world a little bit. have been posted on HBO.com, and I haven't really been looking at them, but I did look at this file, and it was the accident or whatever in the hospital from this so-called car accident that he was in. And the most important thing about it is that Cal's place of birth is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That's great. The home to all real superheroes. So now they can add Cal to the watercolor of gritty. Just weeping. Fascinating, fascinating episode. Do you want to start with the macro of how we felt about the episode in construction?

I think that there's inevitably going to be a little bit of a come down after an episode like episode six. That is both so intellectually provocative and emotionally draining and actually physically and viscerally draining because it was all these series of oners and whipping around and actors moving in and out of scenes. And so much of it was about the inheritance of trauma and how it affects generations going forward, in a lot of ways. I think this show has actually been about that, even though it's also about the place of the role of superheroes in our society.

I think that, you know, if he was going to say, like, this is what the show is about. I bet Damon would say it's about how trauma gets passed down through the years. Yeah. But the thing that I've loved about this show for the first few episodes is the way in which the world building, which is so intricate and so thoughtful and so funny

and so well, well, imagined has always been in the background. Like the thing I loved about the pilot, for instance, was that all these sort of references to things like Redfordations and, you know, I don't know, like Angela, like Vietnam being a state, that was sort of in the background of people interacting, of Angela having a dinner with her co-workers and singing Oklahoma songs or even going forward, like the interactions between her and Tim Blake Nelson's character. or even in the looking glass-centric episode,

the way in which the Tim Blake Nelson characters seemed to interact, like go through his day, and even though all of the stuff that he experienced with the squid was there, a lot of it was just him sort of pursuing a case with that in the background. And then I think with this episode specifically, that seemed to flip, right?

And I'm speaking mostly about the Lori Blake investigation part, which I think is a necessary evil, where she has to say, like, what's happening and someone actually tells her. But, yeah, I didn't dislike this episode by any means. I was, like, quite awed by parts of it. You know, the elephant reveal, the cow reveal, parts of the Lady Troops story. But for the most part, I think that we're just seeing the lazy Susan turn around a little bit.

And now the world building is actually they're going to have to, like, kind of address that head on. And there's a little bit of a difference in tone because of that. I heard you paint yourself into corners. Did I? No. that's the nature of making deeply plotted television. And this was, yeah, I think this was a weaker episode, which is totally fine. Yeah.

That's why there's seasons, you know what I mean? There's down episodes of succession. There's down episodes of everything. The degree of difficulty in what Damon and his writers are doing is breathtaking. So many balls are in the air. So many storylines have to be serviced. They're operating not just in multiple timelines now in terms of making us understand the past through ample flashbacks. But also, this show has always been operating in multiple levels of comprehension.

It is servicing a show for people who are deeply versed, not just in the original comic book, but all the lore around the original comic book, as well as possibly these PDPDi files that we're talking about. and the casual fan who has, for the purposes of this podcast, become represented by our wives on the couch. Sure. So there are many, many different, there's just so much happening at any given moment. And with all these moving pieces, and I almost want to reach for a watch metaphor

with all the gears that are connected because that's such an essential image to this show, there's going to be an episode where you particularly notice the gears grinding. There has to be. And in terms of the momentum of a season, and I do think, and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to Damon about this, he's been at this long enough that he can probably pick his spots where this is going to happen. And dropping that after what may well be the season highlight, you know, it's worth noting just for the full understanding of people listening that I didn't get them, but the people who got screeners, their screeners ended after last week's episode. Yes.

Yeah, the initial batch. cap was cut off after those. So that usually lets people know that this is a crescendo of sorts. So dropping it there makes sense, and then also dropping it, well, putting at the end of it, a mind-blowing reveal that potentially kicks off the very end of the season. Sure. So all of that is to say, I get it, but there were a lot of conversations, a lot of expository conversations, and a lot of flashbacks.

I mean, it is a very delicate thing, and it's being done very graceful. the tutorial thing was very clever. I am very curious, just from a structural point of view, how much of the constant flashing back and now the interlacing of flashbacks between Angela's own life and what she learned last week. From Will. From Will, and from his memory and his life,

how much of that was scripted as such, how much of that was something they found in edit, how much of that was something they found they needed in edit in order to keep the ball in there? Well, what I mean is you can put together the episode as you see fit and as you imagine it to be as scripted, and then maybe you're watching it

or you're watching with other producers or other trusted people, and they say, well, I don't really follow. I don't really know what the intention was there, and flashbacks are a way to help underline or support your point. You can remind people what you're talking about. And Damon, the show is extremely well edited, and so the editors are doing a great job of weaving in the flashbacks,

so they feel like little bursts of memory. They feel very organic. But I am curious if those were there because Damon looked at what he was doing and said, this might be too much. This might be too confusing. It might be too complicated. Okay.

So meaning once we get all this hooded justice information and then that that kind of goes into six or seven rather and there's going to be a mixture of Angela's memories and Will's memories, you're saying that he might have been like, what do I need to add here? I might need to add a few more memories. I mean, you'd have more flashbacks here. We might need to make this kind of a staccato drumbeat throughout the episode. There were moments like that previously too that I noticed,

like even in the Looking Glass episode, little flashes to him from the cold open when he was a teenager in New Jersey or flashes to the metal insides of his hat. Little nudges, you know, to basically say, in case you're not following, look, look. So, you know, handholding is not the right word, but supporting an audience that has every reason to be blinkered and bewildered watching the show at times makes sense to me. Right. I like the things I like about this show are the things that are not going to be answered at all. Yeah, I think I agree with you. It's sort of the questions that it asks. Like I was really into when I was thinking about it more how every one of these characters with the exception of Cal who we still don't know, we don't really understand who he is.

You know, obviously we think, you know, he's obviously, quote unquote, Dr. Manhattan, but whose body was he inhabiting? And, you know, what was the origin? He chose the most perfect vessel God has created of Philadelphia. But when you think about Angela and everything she went through in Vietnam and looking glass and what he went through in New Jersey or in that experience with the squid and Lori and the sexual assault that her mother experienced and the heartbreak that she experienced from Dr. Manhattan leaving her. You're dealing with characters who are trying to shape their identity out of their past pain. you know and then you've got this new character who comes along in lady true who's like well what if i could alleviate that what if i could eliminate that what if i could recreate my mother so that she could watch my accomplishments and be proud of me and also be proud of me and be my daughter at the

same time and what if that was just like this the most pure um manifestation of familial love that you could possibly even imagine and what she means to these broken people and i i think that That is something that operates way outside of whether or not, like, Keene, who's now essentially a bond villain, who's, like, not doing a very good job hiding his plan. I mean, he's essentially told, like, two different groups of people about it now. That's sort of off to the side. But what I'm kind of primarily interested in is Damon and the writer is asking, how do we cope with this stuff? Like, how would you cope with this stuff? Would you put on a mask?

Would you choose to face it? Would you become cynical and sarcastic? Or would you try, you know, how do you meet it head on? Yeah, and I think it's worth pausing for a second here to say. What's emerging and what I find really exciting is this is what interest Damon. This is what Lost was about. This is what The Leftovers was about. This is what Watchman is about.

And he may be the first example from this Autourish Golden Era of television of an artist who is making a body of work that continually makes runs at the same thematic terrain like a novelist would or a painter would or a filmmaker like Scorsese would. Not saying Damon is the Scorsese of TV, but I'm saying that... It's all one show.

Generally, when we've spoken about the great creators of television, they make one great work, which isn't to say that they haven't done other good work, but David Chase, for example, worked for decades doing very good work on a number of shows good, Northern Exposure, I'll Fly Away, and not as good, Colchak, the Nightstocker. And then all of that was poured into the seven-plus seasons of The Sopranos. And since then, he's done things that I found really compelling as well. I really liked his movie, but he hasn't returned to his medium because he sort of didn't like TV. He always wanted to be a filmmaker.

Right. Right. Vince Gilligan is essentially making versions of the same show again and again and sort of staying in that world. Well, I think it's almost interesting to watch Gilligan realize that that's the case. Yeah. Right. Like they ended Breaking Bad and it felt so final. Yeah. And then they found that, oh, it's not that there's like so much more stuff that we need to tell about this area as much as the things that interest him are happening in that world. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, I guess there's a small group who have operated on a high level over a period of time.

over a number of different shows in this era who've done this. And it's interesting to think about TV as a medium that hasn't quite had that kind of, I mean, there are obviously Norman Lear. I mean, there are people who have had long careers making great television shows. And you could say Norman Lear is, you know, what has always motivated him is families and working class

and what it means to be in America. And I think that would be a great dissertation. I'd love to read that or think piece or whatever. But in this era... It would definitely just not get a think piece. I'm going to knock. You have the time. I love it.

Lindeloff, for sure, you can start to make the case from Mike Scher. Amy Sherman Palladino, maybe. For sure. And that is actually, like, then you get into whether or not style is actually that. You know what I mean? Like, Amy Sherman Palliorea definitely has themes that recur throughout her shows. But her and Sorkin, in a lot of ways, have a way of understanding the world that's expressed through the way that their characters talk. Yes.

Right. Interact with the world. So I find it really interesting. interesting. As someone who is a fan of filmmakers from, I don't have my list handy, but like all the way back to like Ozu to like Noah Bombok or something, right? No, I don't have a list. But like who just essentially keep making the same movie. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But it's like did you ever see the black crows behind the music? Wow. No. And maybe. There's like at the end, Chris Robinson is talking. I'm actually being sincere about this. And he's like, oh, you know, he's kind of referring to like some some of the bands get very caught up in like taking this giant leap forward or completely changing their sound or whatever.

And I think he's just talking about what the Black Rose did over there's. And he's just like, it's all one song, man. Yeah. Yeah. And it is. I love it. I like the idea of like, yes, when you're in the moment, you want to see artists zig and zag and reinvent themselves and find new ways of expressing themselves. but I think in totality when you look back,

and that's why I like what you're saying about putting the watchman almost in context with the other shows that Lendelves worked on, because then you kind of start to think of it as part of a giant piece. Yes, and so circling all the way back to your very accurate observation that this is about people dealing with trauma or legacies of trauma, the Angela piece of this was, I'm still processing, basically, which is I don't think we knew the degree, that she had experienced trauma herself.

Sure. What is presented as her childhood story is so awful, so deeply upsetting. He found this absolutely adorable 10-year-old actress to play her who plays it all implacable, right? She seems to be surviving first and foremost through all these terrible situations from witnessing the death of her.

her parents in a terrorist attack to being put into an Oliver Twist-esque orphanage to being rescued by a grandmother she didn't know existed for all of 20 minutes. Yeah, it would be like Batman if Alfred died immediately. I mean, we need more origin stories. But she gets, she's Bruce Wayne. Right. So she is, her hallmark is that she is incredibly strong, incredibly tough, a survivor. and hard to read.

And with two episodes left, this one cracked her open a little bit, not as much as she cracked Cal's face. But I'm feeling a distance from her now, now that we have known, because as much as we're going to focus on the revelation of Cal, there's also the piece of she, our main character, and what felt like often our point of view character was lying to us or hiding something deep from us. And so that makes me feel a little more distant from her right when I want to be closer, Sure.

Which is, I think, leading to my slight remove from this episode. She is probably the most often repeated line of dialogue that Angela has had this year has been what the fuck is going on. Yeah. And it turns out she knew a lot more than she was letting on. Yeah. So what do you think of the white supremacists want to harness the power of Dr. Manhattan or become Dr. Manhattan?

Sure. Plotline. Yeah. Sure. I mean, I think a couple things. very sincerely, and I may have said this earlier in the summer from the Seder Breyer Patch, and I say this, you know, the show is coming out soon, my show. Plans are terrible. Plans are extremely hard to make and almost always full of holes. And basically, the thing you have to work

the hardest to hide, I find in a television show plot-wise. If you do your job, you care about the characters and you care about the world so much that the plan, the plan, the plan, lot, whatever it is that it's all going to turn on, is secondary or tertiary to what you care about. So, yeah, I mean, it's a comic book story. So they're going to be super villains. And a couple things make a lot of sense, which is this idea that if there was only ever one true superhero and everybody knows his origin story, why wouldn't people be trying to harness this always all the time? Sure. So that works for me. And again, like, I'm less focused on that than I am with the larger thematic thing that was revealed this episode.

And in fact, it was set up with some fairly expository dialogue, which is when someone talks about, I think it's Lori Blake in that... And the Austin Power scene where she drops to the floor? Exactly. But also the Austin Power scene because she's performing Basil Exposition prior to that. It says Will Reeves was Hooded Justice, the first superhero, and a black man had to hide his face in order to be this because he would be too skinny. scary. What's so fascinating about the episode is the only place the most powerful being in history

could hide in plain sight on Earth is in the body of a black man who no one would ever look at as the repository of, you know, galactic superpowers. Those two poles of the show's existence are fascinating and extremely dense. And here we are presented with them at the beginning and at the end of an episode. Okay, so we can put a pin in that. We'll be back, and we'll be back next week to talk about Watchmen. Yeah, and by the way, what's the name of the actor who plays Cal? Yeah, Abdul Mateen.

I'm so glad he has more to do because I really enjoyed his performance. Yes. I really enjoy his presence. And everyone's talking like, oh, trying to make some Excalibur pun with his name. Cal is Superman's first name, dude. It's Cal L. We'd have to bring it back, dude. I'm just saying, like, that's the thing.

and he's hiding in plain sight. Yeah. And I love it. And there are many, many things on the internet already about going back and seeing how he's weirdly dispassionate, explaining the end of human life and what death means to the children. He's often wearing blue. And that we never understood who saved Angela on the White Knight,

how that happened. And that constant repetition of that scene, he kept saying, you know, she passes out. They never find who shot her. And she ends up fine. But also that when he kept saying, Are we safe, Angela? Are we safe? Yeah, right.

And she's protecting him or he's protecting her. Right. And also the fact that Larry Blake keeps calling him fucking hot. That's right. Which happens frequently. Do you care that, like, on one side of it, there's, like, Lady True, who's the smartest person who's ever been born, and she's other than Adrian and that she is creating this Millennium Clock,

all this, like, science with the elephants and the... By the, can I just say, when we saw the elephant, I giggled. Oh, yeah, it was great a bit. It was such, it was delightful. But do you care that like she's got all this, she's like, I can clone people. I've got this clock. I've got, I've recreated the Vietnamese environment here, the weather system. And then just like in the basement of a mall, like the 7th Cavalries, like we created a trans-dimensional travel gate.

And that's it. Like, even though we're just like the 7th Cavalry. guys who live in trailers? Like, does that seem like a little too convenient or are we going to find out you think that Adrian is helping them somehow? It's the nature of the show. I mean, there's almost too many ideas at play, which is never going to be a real criticism for me.

It's a comic book. And I think a lot about the original Watchman, which everyone, you know, reveres, that Dave Gibbons, the artist's grid, you know, of the exact same number of squares on every page and all the storylines are the same storyline and they all overlap. I do believe that the way that, you know, one thing is happening high up in the sky in a tower and one thing is happening below in a basement is an attempt to mimic that storytelling structure where it's all being told literally in the same frame and all at the same time and all leading to the same stroke of midnight events that we're heading to in the sense of the series.

So it doesn't bother me at all because I think it's it is actually respecting the source material in that regard. Good. Okay. I just wanted to check. You worry about me. You worry about me. We're going to be back to talk about Mandelurian after a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by The Real Real. Own iconic luxury items at unreal values with The Real Real, the leading reseller of authenticated luxury consignment from top designers.

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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 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. It's pretty mind-blowing. So basically, you can experience iconic scenes from the Star Wars movies that involved

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Let me just sift the bone broth. Oh, it's Mandalorian time, baby. Kaya. Play the Chernobyl music. Play my Chernobyl music. It's the recap of Sanctuary. An episode with a lot of BDH because it was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard.

Nice. And here's the recap of Sanctuary. Baby Yoda just flipping switches in the razor crest. Love the baby Yoda turns on the car stereo memes going on Twitter. Excellent stuff. Great stuff, Twitter. Really undefeated year for you.

Twitter? Yeah. And then Mando spots a diner, kind of like the Trump's America diner. And he's just like, let's land here, let's chill out and decide to set his bird down. But even here, you can get avocado toast. It's just a great gastropub with, you know, Spotchka and Boat and Broth. Everything farmed a table. It's meant to be shared.

Of course. Have you been here before? Before, let me explain how our menu works. She literally does that. We have neon blue shrimp pulled from family harvested waters. Yeah. The krill are right out there, just scooping. It's incredible.

Mando and Gina Carrano goes straight, Bellator. Yeah, that's a UFC thing on one another. And then they have that John Woo moment, which I didn't really understand, like, is that, was that all in jest? I don't know. Or is Baby Yoda so cute that they were like, how could we blow each other's heads off? I think it's more that. this little guy's just sipping the tea. By the way, RIPCirmit sipping tea, Giff, you had a good run.

I know. You're done. I know. Damn Daniel, he's gone. Forget it. Mando almost takes off, but some farmers are like, protect my farm, please. And he goes for it because he needs, like, a red roof in to chill at. Yep.

He falls for the lady from Twilight. Do you know that she was in Twilight? I think she was in a sequel. Yeah, with the werewolves. She was part of that crew. That's cool. and he teaches the farmers how... Did Twilight really have vampires and werewolves?

That's what it was about? I saw all the Twilight movies. What? My wife was... I'm not even blaming my wife. It was a cultural moment, yeah. I'm sorry. Kaya, book the studio for the next two hours.

Wait, you know this about me? No. I've seen all the Twilight movies. You have? Yeah. I don't think I can process this until Thursday. The lamb becomes the lion. I don't know what...

I don't know what that means. It means it's like when Kristen Stewart is like, like, I love you to a vampire. Wow. And then is also like, I'm pretty into you to a werewolf. God. And those two ancient rivals. God.

She's used, so that's like a, that is a Kristen Stewart trio, Thruple, much like Charlie's Angels. Yes. It's basically the same movie. Tale is Oldest Time. Who else recently had a Thruple that we were reading about? Uh, the poet Robert Lowell? Because your boy sends, sends Chris hot links to New York Review of Book Stories. Oh, that's.

That's right. That's right. Anyway, he teaches the farmers how to go straight Rainbow Six. On those guys, Clatunians. I don't, don't ask me. And for some reason, they have an ATST. That's cool. Like, I don't know, did you get that at CarMax? I think that you can get one heavily discounted these days.

Yeah. He heavily discounted. Off sticker? He almost goes mask off in the show in his episode. He gets real close. Do you think he got close? Omera is just like, let me see those baby blues. I think she was more like you can keep it on.

Yeah. She was cool with it. But then somebody tries to take out Baby Y and Mando's like, can't happen. Big disappointment from this episode. Okay. There's just not enough Carl Weathers. When he walks in, he's like, Mando! Mando, the Spachka is so unctious.

It has an umami kick. No, it's that he would be talking about how important the collagen in the bone world. Is that you with Baby Yoda? Oh, I can't believe it! A couple things. Listeners should know that we've been texting this joke to each other. Loud Kreef Narga? Loudly.

Yeah. In some of our texts, Kreef has become an Epstein conspiracy theorist. So, which fits. It flows. Oh, you're telling me the cameras failed, Mando. It seems highly unlikely. He owned an island. So.

Did you see? to you the Prince Albert interviewer, Mando! I have it on my Tivo, if you would like to come over later. I have to say, I watched the recap for the previous episode, and in the limited context, it's very hard to believe that was real. I know that we watched episode three, and we joked about it, and then in the recap, it's like... You think that we're amplifying it, and we're not actually, I'm not actually turning the dial

that much. It's crazier than I had ever, ever imagined. They all hate you, Mendo! So at least he's still out there coming. This episode, look, there's a thing that we talk. It's such a fine line. We praise the show for its simplicity. And then you have an episode like this where it's literally,

it's the Incredible Hulk TV show with Bill Bixby, where he just wanders into a town and helps some locals and turns their entire life around in 19 minutes. Minus five at the samurai. Yeah, and then moves on. So I guess I appreciate how just zen-like, how pure it is in an almost zen-like way. It's, is it copying? Is it an homage?

Is it just a light Xerox of previous texts? I'm not sure. I will say that I've never related to Mando Moore when he was trying to get his child to stop pressing buttons in his car. Yeah. I've never related to him less than when presented with a steaming, mug of broth. He had to forego it. No, no, no.

Because his fashion choices, like, I could be wearing the finest shirt that I own. And if someone put a bowl of ramen in front of me, I would be like, goodbye shirt. There is no slurping with that. I don't think he's doing it

because he's worried about staining his... I'm just saying that's my version of wearing armor. Okay. If I had something nice and I couldn't give up hot soup because I liked soup so much. Yeah.

She's like, when's the last time you took off your helmet? and he's like yesterday, that means he went to the finest locovore restaurant on this planet and didn't eat anything. Yeah. I mean, may they have to go. Yeah, but then he just has to get one of those like takeout tins and what if he gets fries? They don't travel well.

They seem to be doing very well for themselves in that fishing village. They're doing great. Yeah. They've made a lot of money. Thanks to the noble efforts of Pillboy from The Good Place, which bumped me right out of the episode. I'm sorry to say. That's right. It was an idyllic krill farm.

Who are they, are they trading the krill to the cafe? I'm just kind of... Like, what's the economy in that place? What is the economy of it? Well, I think, okay, so they're probably entirely self-sufficient. Okay. Okay. And then they're, presumably, there are a couple of other bars on the planet like that.

Right. But actually, it does not seem to be that effective. It's not like they're, like, right outside of town. It sounds like town's like a day away. Can I make a suggestion? Sure. To the Raiders with their giant army slug. slaughtering robot car, go to the town.

Go to the town. Take the town over. And raid the people in the town. Because in the opening moment of this episode, they're like screaming victory. And then they're just... And then they're just... But after they've just reached elbow deep

into buckets of shrimp. Yeah. Like, look, we all love a nice... Frito Misto. A nice Frito Misto, exactly. I assume they provide their own tartar sauce. But what have we really accomplished here? Yeah, I mean, also, if you have that kind of advantage,

why are you just doing Smokey the Bear with it in the forest? Like, go assert yourself. Also, we only have this one life. It's limited because they had to work all year to get the krill that they got. They're not going to get raided again. You know what I mean? They're like, Mando. Help us for a year?

I don't understand it. I think he's there for quite a while. How long would it take you and the rest of the Ringer podcast staff to become proficient enough with long sticks that you could plausibly... Fight off a clitunian? Just run them through with your windstabs. Kaya? We're talking Kaya here?

Kaya probably already knows that. I'm talking about the other people. And I think we all know who we're talking about. I mean, what's basic training in the Army? Six weeks? I don't know. Yeah, like, I don't ask me. So, yeah, I think it would be a little bit, it would be a little bit of a challenge.

They take very few casualties, it seems like. It all works out. Yeah. You know, another very, you know, closed-closed-off episode. Each of these episodes begin with spaceship arrives. They end with the spaceship departs. I like that a lot. It's very Star Trek in that way.

It probably owes a lot more to Star Trek than I think I understood in the beginning, just in terms of, like, the way at which... I mean, it's also just, like, any Western TV show where a guy rides into town and rides out. But not just Western TV shows. Like shows we grew up on Night Rider 18. Yes. Like they were mission-based shows. Guess what?

Those shows were fucking popular. Yeah. And we loved them. Yeah. And we've gotten so far away from them. Yeah. And I think that the, what the Star Wars IP buys you and what they're using that capital for is to make a show like that again.

The interesting thing is that when they utter certain things or the arrival of baby Yoda, but like when Gina Crono is like, yeah, here's the deal with how we cleaned up Endor. And then I had to be. become like a basically UN peace observer, like during the kind of handover. That stuff changes the stock market a little bit. Like, I mean, it's interesting how they throw these little lines in in the background. And then when you look online, true Jedi heads are really like piecing it all together. Do you think when she closes her eyes, she hears the Jub-Jub song just playing on a loop the way I hear the songs?

David Holmes Haywire music. That's a we hear. Yeah. Still shout out Carano. She's great. Yeah. She's two for two. Let me tell you something.

I knew that when they parted as allies, there would be no normal handshake. Oh, they would do the fucking brothers-in-arms handshake? The Predator? The Salone over the top. See you in the next world. Mendo, I see you are using my handshake from Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was the governor. And in retrospect, led from the center.

His vision of republicanism is dead, Mando. Let's wrap it up. I got to get you. out of here. You get a hot phone call you got to take. I got to get out of here. Mandelaar and still got it. I just, do you want to talk about more about the Fisher wench who is just so thirsty?

There's just not a lot of single guys, you know? I guess not. Not a lot of single guys who don't smell like krill. Pillboy and that other dude who are like such betas and they're like, what? I don't know to do that. So they go hire Mando.

Yeah. And, you know, he's tall. Yeah. He's dark, he's handsome. Sure. I guess. You have no idea? I mean, it is pretty wild that she's just like, yeah.

Here's my question. I love you. Just to go. He's like, this guy wears a helmet all the time. You sure? Quick follow up to that. He's also a bounty hunter. But here's the real thing that's not being talking about.

And he has a fucking old man baby. So this is my point. That he just rolls with. Chris, that's his boy. She refers to baby Yoda as your son, your boy. So there is a not zero chance that inside of that helmet, he's an old-ass Yoda. Right? Like, that was my main thought, is that she's like, it's cool.

That is, I mean, if that happens, then this is better than Irish. But 100%. If they just fucking age Pedro Pascal into old Yoda. But she's playing a numbers game where she's just like, keep the helmet on. Sure. And I'll marry you. The mystery. Because if I took that helmet off and the first thing to unfurl are your old-ass green Yoda ears,

then I have gambled and lost. And you just, like, suck down a frog. You're like, num-n-n-n-n. She's like, it's cool enough that you're like this. You get what I'm saying? This is a great exit. Exit review for you. That is part of it.

Yeah. Your boy is happy here. The child is happy. Give him another set of child robes. So when is baby Yoda going to start throwing the force around a little bit more? Because I think, I feel like... You want that? Well, he certainly could have helped out against...

No. Teach a man to fish for her. I don't know what they're Teach a man to fish and he'll never be hungry. Right. And it's ironic because these are fishermen who are not hungry. But the metaphor is about fighting.

Yeah. They didn't need his help. No. They couldn't do them. But like when he's huddling with the human babies and children who are like five, and he's like,

I'm 50. You know what I mean? It's a little bit like Mickey Rooney, you know? Yeah, I know. Just like being one of the lollipop guild age 38. Or it's like when you find out

that like every. teenager from sitcoms in the 80s was actually 31. Yeah, or what's your name from End of the Fucking World? Who's 30? By the way. Let's talk about that. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah. And you think the security cameras just failed? It's all

connected, Mando. We'll be back on Thursday. You don't think I'm on to something and you're afraid of the truth. We'll be back on Thursday and we've got a very, very exciting guest next week. We have a special episode on Thursday as well. I don't think it's going up Thursday, though. Oh. Oh.

we're doing two of it. No, you don't, I mean. Kaya, can you talk to my people? Well, we've got some special guests coming up to end of the year. So Chris is going to let me know about our schedule off air. I'm going to hammer my own head. Yeah. And Joe Rogan's going to come out.

Fantastic. Can't wait. See you next week. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by the Real Real Shopper consign at the Real Real Real, the leading reseller of authenticated consignment from top designers. The 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 ReelREL's team of authenticators,

shop or can sign in store at the Reelreel.com or download the app, and get 20% off select items with the promo code, Real.