The Watch - Can ‘The Acolyte’ Break Through the 'Star Wars' Institution? Plus, the ‘Hacks’ Season 3 Finale.

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about the news that ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ director Shawn Levy is potentially being tapped to direct the next ‘Avengers’ movie (1:00). Then they talk about the first two episodes of ‘The Acolyte’ and how director Leslye Headland is doing her best to walk a tightrope between making a show that is appealing to a general audience and also hard-core ‘Star Wars’ fans (12:21). Finally, they talk about the season finale of ‘Hacks’ and how they felt about Season 3 as a whole (46:50) before playing an extra snippet of their conversation with Rembert Browne about ‘Clipped’ (1:10:53). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis.

Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trim Faya. Tap this ad to learn more of it. about Trimfaya, including important safety information.

This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com.

I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, he's so excited. Carrie Ann Moss has a huge part to play in the accolite. It's Andy Greenwald.

Wow. Wow. You usually don't get that granular in the intras. I know. Well, you know, I feel I'm pretty revved up today. I could tell. Today, I was just driving behind Andy on the way in. Andy and I have very similar vehicles.

His is powered by a little charger that goes into the side of it. And mine is just pure Saudi go juice. And I'll tell you, I think I took that hill a little faster than you did going into the parking lot. Not true. I accelerate faster my little golf cart.

There's no supercharges on the Fury Road, son. You should also tell the people that then you parked and then came up behind me, knocked on the window in a way that I haven't heard, since the mainline police officers the night in high school when I was just hanging out in the car

with some fellas. Yeah. They were like, how's it going? I was like, great. It's going great. Pete's blonde ale, strawberry blonde on you?

No, no, no, that wasn't the issue. Remember that night when I took like 14 revivrin and drank? First of all, it's just vibrant. It went through the marketing department. They were like, you don't. Revivrin would suggest. you're dead.

Yeah, that was a legendary night. I didn't know if you would have talked of... I like that you're getting more free with your past. I mean, like, look, my relationship to over-the-counter trucker's speed is well documented. Yeah, we were like, not 21. Yeah. And some of us came down, came up to Boston to hang out with you in your apartment.

And you were like, gentlemen. And you had like one six-pack of strawberry blonde ale and an over-the-counter box of vibrant. A fan of beans. Yeah. And you were like, Shall we dance? Have you listened to this Yoletango Long Blair? Oh my God.

By the way, this is a big show. We're going to talk hacks. We're going to talk the Acolyte. But I did want to jump in on a conversation that's been raging on other podcasts. And I know that there are some listeners who like to keep the stream separate. You have my undivided attention.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Maybe you don't dip into the other. Maybe it's best if we don't acknowledge the other podcasts that you appear on because this is podcast prime as far as I'm concerned. But I couldn't help but notice because it was served me in a video

that our friend Sean and Amanda, who host a podcast called The Big Picture, were shocked and delighted to learn about your past fronting a hardcore band. Yeah, first of all, I just want to clear up that it was not like I was, you know, this wasn't like I was in terror. Like, we played one show.

Yeah, but I'm here to tell the listeners of both podcasts. I've seen the video. I'm the only one who knows what this looked like. And so Sean and Amanda can goggle out all they want. I can be like, no, we got, I've seen it. I'm right here looking at the guy who I saw moving at a speed that I've never seen a human being move before. The video looks sped up in my memory.

It looks. Well, we were playing, he's playing blast beats. Like, we had to keep up. No, you kept up. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It was a beautiful thing. Thank you.

You weren't at that show, though, right? No, no, no. No. I didn't go back to Boston for two years after that vibrant night. I haven't come back in a long time. I was scared. No, no, I don't know if you told me. I don't, frankly, I don't know if I was invited.

Oh, no, because wasn't I already in New York when that show played? Yeah, I think you were. Then you drove down I-95 with a VHS tape to show me. No, it wasn't like that. It's not like it was like, here's this new Jim Jarvish film. I have to show the world. No, you were rightfully proud of it. It was cool.

Do you think you could get after it like that again? Like, could you dig deep for one night? No. You sure? No, I probably, like, if I dug deep and didn't, worry about tomorrow. I think I could find something deep inside myself. At times, while karaokeing,

I feel like I, I'm not screaming, but I feel like I hit those notes, you know, like emotionally. But I don't think I could get thrown into a drum kit again like I did in that show. It was beautiful. Yeah. It's great to see you. It's great to see Kai. It's Thursday. We're going to talk about

the new Star Wars show, Act like, did you have anything you wanted to, entertainment-wise, you want to talk about before we got into the topics today? It's been a while since, we've done one of our patented close reads of TV. Well, there's, no, we have a lot to talk about today, but there was, and we are going to, you're saying, we'll get back to Top Chef next week. Yes.

One, there's one thing, we haven't discussed this, but one thing came across the transom that I thought was kind of interesting, which was the news that Sean Levy is being hotly tipped to direct an Avengers movie or the next Avengers movie, and followed that up with the fact that Jordan Peel has taken a meeting over there. Yeah. saw that. That was like one for them, one for us. You know what I mean? Well, I guess I wondered if you had any take on this because I think that there's a version of this. And maybe this is a conversation, once we have some more concrete facts, we bring Joanna Robinson in on because she has,

she kind of reads the tea leaves, I think, better than anyone about this stuff. But there's a larger conversation to be had about the stuff that's coming out from Marvel recently, such as we've decided when we make TV now, we're going to do it the old-fashioned way and have a showrunner who enacts a vision. literally on the show Vision. They've also done quite a fairly, I would say, outsized job messaging that some of those shows you just don't have to worry about whether you've seen any other Marvel stuff

or ever will watch any more Marvel stuff after that. It's their standalone stories and that you'll be brought in, they'll take your hand and bring you into the world of Daredevil or whatever. Well, I think that that's, this is actually, maybe it's not even a standalone conversation. It's a segue to the Acolyte because

it's interesting to me if Marvel is signaling that they want to let people in who will who know how to do this stuff separate apart from Feigy being like, we got this, we've already storyboarded the action scenes, you just come in, bring your energy, and then we'll just keep making the movie we want to make for a year and a half. Like Sean Levy, who did the Deadpool and Wolfrene that's coming out the summer and, of course, Stranger Things and many, many other, didn't you do the night at the museum movies? The Adam Project, I think he directed as well, that Netflix movie with Brian Reynolds. Oh, and all the light we cannot see, didn't he do that?

I think he directed some of it. I don't know if he directed all of it. I thought that was his passion project. Yeah. He's, when you bring in an established director, that is a different collaboration than it is if you grab someone from the Sundance circuit and put them in the big chair. And it is similarly with TV, is the story Marvel's letting the grown-ups back in because they know they're faltering artistically, which feeds into the larger question about all this stuff is, is the brain. brand bigger than the filmmaker or storyteller. And that's something we're going to get to momentarily

when we talk about the accolade. It's an ongoing conversation within these larger companies. If I had to guess, Sean Levy is the new Rousseau's for those guys, and they are like, we love what you did with Deadpool and Wolverine. We are going to center Ryan Reynolds in this bridge moment getting to Fantastic Four and X-Men. So you think the Avengers movie is going to become a Deadpool movie?

I just think that they are going to make a lot. I feel like Deadpool, unless I'm like completely wrong, is going to make a ton of money. Yeah. Is going to change like everybody's like kind of tolerance level for what they'll watch in a Marvel movie specifically, like in terms of the blood and action and cursing. I don't necessarily think that's going to be what like Secret Wars is. But I do think that they are, it would be quite silly to let Ryan Reynolds walk away from things until Deadpool 3 or whatever it is because this is. just Deadpool and Wolverine, not Deadpool 3. I would imagine that this is like,

we have kind of found our Fabro-Downey situation. Yeah, I think... And then with Poole, not Jordan Peele, deadpeel. With Jordan Beal, I think that sounds a little bit more like James Gunn, where it's like, hey, go find something that interests you in the treasure chest,

and we'll leave you alone to do that to some extent. I think that's probably right. I also wonder, because for what it's worth, everyone has taken a meeting with Marvel over the last 10 years. It usually doesn't... But there's no point in having Jordan Peel come in

and then be like, but we've storyboarded 45% of this movie. I don't think there is either, but it's interesting. To your point about the Deadpoolification of this, like, it does seem like Marvel has an understanding that, you know, what's the Rick Petino's speech?

You know, except it's Robert Energy Jr.'s not walking through that door. Chris Evans not walking through this door. He literally just said I would be happy to walk through the door again, though. I wonder if financially they're willing to make that commitment. They might need to. I think they're keeping their options open. And I, for the record, like, he will play that part again at some point.

There's no question about it. But how about a different basketball metaphor, Chris? Golden State Warriors, we're going to rebuild while we win championships. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It turns... Two timelines. The two timelines thing did not work for them. So the Avengers, the next Avengers movie being led by,

I mean, for reasons within their control and outside of their control. Like, Chadwick Boseman probably would have been the star of this movie. It is horrible that he cannot be. But Brie Larson is Captain Marvel did not work out for either Captain Marvel or Brie Larson, I don't think. So there are two timelines that, like, we will have a new Avengers movie led by the next generation of Avengers who we've successfully seeded in these movies leading up to it. I don't think that worked. The new Avengers movie is also clearly Secret Wars, where different universes, multiverses collide. so you see different versions of characters.

We also have multiversal fatigue. So a dead poolification of that where some of these multiverses are goofy or funny or different vibes, like we've been saying Fantastic Four and X-Men will be, that makes sense. And so if you're conducting it more as a entertaining circus as opposed to a star vehicle,

do you notice the language in that article about the Sean Levy part of it was like, is it Levy or Levy? I'm going to keep switching between the two, sorry, until I get confirmation. I haven't gotten to that chapter of his biography. Let me know when you do The other language in it I thought was interesting

Was this new Avengers movie is an ensemble movie No shit Yeah Is there canonically any point where Deadpool is in the Avengers Or adjacent to the Avengers? When the Deadpool movie The first one really hit Oh yeah he was with the Russian guy

Colossus, right? Well he's an X-Men Yeah I mean Oh right not the Avengers That's embarrassing for you, Chris. You know what, I'm doing okay. Chris?

I'm fine. I know you were busy going to hardcore shows or whatever, but... Just dropping $60 on a gas tank. Love in life. No, but when the first Deadpool movie hit, suddenly Deadpool was with every character in Marvel, in the comics. But the character was created by Rob Liefeld as,

like, with New Mutants, X-Men World. That's the world he comes from. That's why he was part of the Fox deal. I love nothing more than doing like 25 seconds of like, what do you think this means for like these corporations? And then like, let's go. 10 minutes later, your eyes are wide and you're saying Rob Leifeld. Yeah, I'll say it again.

I can't draw feet either. It's fine. Hey, bud. There's a new Star Wars show. Yeah, let's talk about it. We're going to connect this because I think when we get to minute nine of, of like what's Marvel doing, what's Kevin Feigy doing. No, not totally enough. I was going to say it seems like 14, but it's fine.

You know, you start saying things. You start saying things like new mutants. I'm always saying things. And you start saying things like West Coast Avengers. And you start saying things like... I do. You know, like you just make references to things that I'm tangentially superficially aware of, but maybe not an expert on.

And... You knew Colossus was Russian. I want to give you credit. I don't often like to do... We were texting about this before the show. But we were texting a little bit about Ackleight off mic. I thought you made a really great point, which is, I think, a good entry place for our conversation

about Leslie Headland's new Star Wars series. It's the first non-Faloney Star Wars series since Andor. I think that's notable just because Dave Faloni's remit at Star Wars grows and grows. He is overseeing so much of the storytelling over there. You don't think he was overseeing this also? You don't feel his thumbprint? I don't. We'll talk about it.

I don't. We should talk about it. But this is set, what is it, 100 years before the events of a New Hope, right? Uh-huh. I believe. And it's set in a Star Wars world where Jedi's are still, Not before a New Hope, it's 100 years before. A phantom menace, right? Phantom menace, yeah.

My bad. And Jeddies are still up and around and flourishing and protecting the universe, but... It's the high republic still, I believe. There's some emerging tension of, like, I think that just generally, like, a sentiment of, like, why are these guys always using magic and, like, running around and telling us what to do, right? Like, a little anti-Jed Jedi sentiment is burgeoning. Right. Yeah. And Leslie Headland is telling a murder mystery. a detective show within the context of Star Wars. That alone has made me interested enough in this show to continue because that was what I, you know, we were originally sort of,

it was suggested that the Obi-1 series was going to be a noir kind of Jedi detective. Remember that shit? And, um, yeah. But I'll say like a lot of the stuff, some of the stuff that's in this show, I think is the West Coast Avengers of Star Wars. it's the it's the sort of more like second third level down lore needs to matter to you for it to be of significance now I think that there's a lot to like in this show and I think there's some stuff that

hasn't quite worked for me but do you think that there is a parallel to you know maybe like you said Marvel kind of like now moving into like well we've told these 20 stories now we got to tell the next 20 to Lord of the Rings cutting up the pie in 14 different ways, and in this case, trying to find some point along the timeline that hasn't been excavated already. Yeah, I mean, I think, to be clear,

I want to make sure we're going to talk about this as of the show that we're watching. We've seen two episodes, but also in terms of the larger storytelling project, I think it's just unequivoc, we have unequivocal proof now that audiences have limited, sorry, mass audiences,

general audiences, we used to call them, have limited interest in some of these gigantic franchise worlds. People love the Avengers, but they might not care about the West Coast Avengers. Sure. People really, really, really want to see the Fellowship of the Ring. They might not care about the Rings of Power as much. And in this world, like, people really like certain things about Star Wars. And then there are some people who care passionately about the entirety of the canonical timeline.

And the scripture of the Force. And like, who should use it for what purposes at what point? Or just the existence of the High Republic. Like, this was a time before the empire. So, and what that meant. And when Jedi's were running shit. Like, people are... So this show, I think, is trying to do a pretty difficult tightrope walk of making a show that is interesting...

I mean, this is the tightrope walk that all of these IP projects have to have to walk, right? Interesting on its own merits as an entertaining television show for general audiences, of which I now consider myself part of basically, and also servicing those who are going to be rediting every reference or thrilled by some, the inclusion of some ideas or what have you. That is a very, very challenging thing to do in a 37-minute episode of television, let alone just an eight-episode first season, while also introducing new characters, et cetera, et cetera. Let's start from, let's start from the positive place. Yeah, sure. I am a Leslie Headland fan. I like her work in movies, Bachelorette. I like Russian doll a lot. I like the direction. She's done on other

TV shows. I like her. She's been on this podcast. She's awesome. As we've been saying for years since this was announced, she is the person, the type of person, but also literally the person, who I would love to see these larger companies trust. In building off of our Marvel conversation, the reason I say the type of person is because not only does she have a different perspective on these stories and this mythology. She is someone who is like creed with actors and the indie world, but also just loves this shit and loves and grew up, you know, like many of us did with the action figures and the movies and stuff.

But she's not like at the Sean Levy level of like, I demand this to become my show. This is a perfect, this felt like a perfect marriage to me. Yes. I also have been really impressed with the press tour that she has done, the promos that she has done, where she's talked about what she was trying to do with this show. I think actually in this case,

it's been actually very helpful to hear her talk about where she kind of was coming from in terms of wanting to tell a Star Wars story from the perspective of the bad guys, essentially, and also getting under the hood and asking, would there be people out there who would have good cause to be like, what's up with these Jedi's?

Yeah, you know. That's interesting. And it's also a little bit sneaky radical for a franchise that is like the Catholic Church generally about protecting itself and its story and its control over what the narrative is and what good and evil mean. Yeah. She also brings with her, you know, just an, I think she's an interest. I think she has an interesting aesthetic and she has her own idiosyncratic taste. So the cast of this show does not feel like the cast of a lot of these other shows in a good way. I mean, you'll recognize people from previous Leslie Headland project.

Charlie Barnett was the kind of funny and, like, surprising male lead of Russian doll. Rebecca Henderson is Leslie's wife in real life and was in Russian doll. It's hard to recognize because her head is shaved and she's green in this. I think Amanda Lestenberg, who's the star, playing two roles, which we'll talk about, is really good and really charismatic in both parts. and I credit Leslie for all of that. I think there's the challenge, and again, the show could get better over the course of a season.

And I'm going to try to hold on to my two points of view here, which is unlike some of the other super-tepid TV storylines that have come out of Lucasfilm TV, like Obi-1, there is someone, there's life here.

There is someone trying stuff here. There is someone, interested in some things here. And it's not just the story that she's come up with or the performances. There's some visual stuff that I was like, that's really clever. I like that. The automated prison ship where the robots are chairs. I think they put it this way.

There's a lot of these series non-Andor post, say first season, maybe two seasons of Mandalorian have felt really inert to me. I've chalked it up to the volume. I've chalked it up to a certain. acting style that I think is pretty native to like the felony way of doing things where it's not unlike the cartoons where like these characters are standing in a room doing very dense exposition about like Star Wars universe.

I just feel like it's very limited and it's blocking. It's very like stiff. It's very cold. And I don't feel that way about acolyte. I thought it was like a very lively and I thought at times like cinematically exciting like the pod escape that's in the first episode. I thought it was very good. I really enjoyed that, and it felt like it was building to something,

and something exciting happened, and there was some cool shots. And when she lands on the ice planet, I was like, this is really interesting. Like, I wonder what's going to happen next. And that is not something I found myself feeling in Obi-Wan or Assoca or Book of Boba-Fet or any of that stuff, to the extent that I was able to finish any of those shows. There's also, at its best, there's a marriage between intention, character, and action.

So there's when Sol has, and we'll get into the specifics, But when Saul has a battle sequence in the second episode, the way that he fights physically matches the character that Li Zheng-Ji is building in a way that made me interested when often a lot of these fights leave me cold because it's just super people doing stuff against super people. So to get into the specifics of the show, we're set in the High Republic.

Our main character is played by Mandela Stenberg, is a former Jedi, which is in itself an interesting thing. Right. Who kind of, she quit the academy, and her name is OSHA. which I believe stands for occupational safety and health administration. She's there to make sure that there's a first aid kit. Well, she's also, interestingly, she's an unpaid intern in her job, which is, or she's a paid intern.

As a mechanic. Yeah. A mechanic. Yeah. Oh, would they just say it in a fun way. Is that what that is? I think so. I thought they were saying it like Freaknik.

I also think that's supposed to be a, like, it sounds like most of the time, that's droid work. And so this is mechanics are like lower down on the sort of vision of our post-AI future. kind of interesting. So, and she is, yes, so she's just living on the margins having left the Jedi Order when, as it turns out, her heretofore thought, deceased identical twin sister May, also played by Amanda Lestenberg, is running around killing Jedi, who are much easier to kill than I had previously thought. and this causes an investigation from the Jedi Order, and we get sort of a, yeah, like a gang of detectives. They meet up with OSHA, and then we get Lee Jung-Jay from Squid Game.

And he plays a guy named Saul. Charlie Barnett, who you mentioned before. He plays a guy in Yord, right? Yord. Yeah. And then Saul's Padawan, played by Daphne Keene. Who was the Logan? She was X2, right?

She was Lil Logan. X-23. You got, you're so close, buddy. X2. Can you name Colossus' sister? Tatiana. Ileana. You're so close.

That's cool. I'm impressed. And now they're trying to catch up with May and stop her from killing these Jedi, and there seems to be some sort of Jedi conspiracy going on. Yeah, and on the May side, she's being aided by a, kind of sounds like a bounty hunter fixer kind of guy, like a little bit of like maybe a dark Han solo vibe from Mani Jacinto's character. Camere.

Camere. And he seems to have both skills in apothecary. And mixology. And smuggling and lots of stuff. So he's, he, when he shows up in two in the second episode, I like the MPH went up a little bit on the show. Okay. So here's why, and we should talk about this. Mani Jacinto is great in the show.

Mani Jacinto is funny. Yeah. And charming. And I'm glad I thought he was still flying around in circles waiting for his time in Top Gun Maverick, man, that sucks. He's just waiting for his... It does suck. He's still in Coffin Quarter, like, is it my turn?

He's just playing. What was the name of the football they played where there are no rules? Two ball football. Is that what it was called? The Oklahoma drill? I don't know. Remember, they're playing offensive defense

and John Hamm is like, this is chaos. Yeah. We're in khakis on the beach. Great movie. The reason that the show picks up when he comes on the screen gives me a chance to express my now fully formed incredibly deeply held belief that is both, I wanted to send it out as its own tweet or podcast statement, but also speaks to my criticism

of this show through two episodes, which is this. The Jedi suck. Jedi are fucking boring. Jedi are uninteresting, self-serious, stodgy scolds, and we have to stop with them. Or we have to rethink this serious. Or we have to have a pharmacist who's like, these guys suck, let's poison them.

Or let's get them drunk. Let's get them some strawberry blonde ale, a case of viverin, in some cases in this show, revivarin, and put them to work. This is so wild that we've ended up in this place. And I want to talk to you about this, because we are kids of the 80s, and Star Wars was everything,

and we played Jedi Warrior. We had the lightsaber toys that went, whoo, who, like, you know, the whistling sound through them, and I thought that was incredible. And when you think about those movies, we weren't alone, leaving the core trilogy being like,

imagine if there were a lot of Jedi. That would be so cool. That would be so sick. And then, famously, Phantom Menace begins in 1999, and the Jedi are just tax collectors. and they suck and they're boring and then they're just sit in a room

you put Samuel L. Jackson in robes and all of a sudden he's boring too. The only times Jedi's had been interesting was when Alec Guinness was playing Obi-1 Canobi. The last one. Thinking not giving a shit about what he was doing and thinking he was a paycheck

and just sort of being a little puckish and laughing because he was speaking gibberish in Tunisia. That was fun. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. Yodo was fun in the second. second one because he was Frank Oz, who also does Miss Piggy. Name me a cool Jedi after that. No, I mean, they don't laugh. Driver was the cool Jedi because he was like, I want to destroy this thing. Yes. He was interesting to watch. I mean, he was Jedi, right? No, he was Sith. That's different. Once you

have a personality, you're bad. You have a different name. Oh, okay. So you're specifically saying the good guys who have the force are boring. Tell me, show me the lie. And so now you have a show that should be about, A, a different era that could feel different than the Star Wars we've seen before, that is set in margins of the universe, as many of these have attempted to be, that we haven't really seen before or explored. And then you have this deadening cloud of self-serious people coming through it. And what I feel when I watch the show, and I'm potentially projecting, but what I feel through these first two episodes is the spark of life that Leslie Headland is as a person. And a man Lestelber has.

It is as an artist. And some of these actors that she's hired being smothered by the institution. Like, there's a moment that I thought was really interesting. I think it's in the first one when Daphne Keane's character, Jackie Lon, I'll say it so you don't, I know you was on the tip of your tongue. She's a Padwan, right? She's a Paduan, they're just showing off. She's a Paduan. They get on the ship.

And Yord, your guy, Charlie Barnett, is shirtless. And you could feel that the. intention was to be like sexy-ish. Like there's some sex in this world that like maybe he's hot and the other one is like, wow, shirtless Jedi. But it's, but it's, it's, it's presented and edited to us like a safety video they showed a 16-year-olds when they drive for the first time. Like it is completely devoid of any tension. So he's like, aha, I should put on my clothes. Clothes are what humans and Jedi wear? It's like, what was, what was this moment intended to be and what was delivered to us. There's no life in those characters. And so the show itself is, feels like it has

its arms tied behind its back as it's trying to move forward. That is both a critique of the culture of Star Wars where we're at, but also, unfortunately, of the show, which I think around that black hole in the middle is showing a spark, is drawing my interest. Yeah, I mean, I think you're Right. I think that there is... We have probably... As two middle-aged Ben... Let's say it. The limit of how many times we can watch

a Jedi who has taken the teachings of the force and, like, distorted it. And now is, like, whoever that guy is in episode one, who's standing off... Who trained you? Yeah. Right, on the rock. Whoever he is that keeps getting referred to...

Mm-hmm. I have some theories. But... And then, you know, and some young person who's caught in between good and evil and which side will they go to. I think we've seen that story several times, and then when it gets into the minutia of,

you know, whatever is going on in Mandalorian and whatever's going on in Asoka about, like, you were promised this sword, but then you left it, but then you came back for it, but I have it now and all this stuff.

The Dark Sabre? Yeah, and it's like, I hope that this works out for you guys, but this is not like Hamlet to me. I think that we've probably gotten enough of those stories, which is why we react so strongly, I think, to the Rogue One, and,

thing of like, what was it like for a guy who was like, I'm a stowaway or I'm a, you know, like, you know, what was it like for somebody who was like, I am a prisoner who is stuck out on like a planet somewhere? Yes. Also, when you have stories where there are good guys who are completely good and they're so good they don't even smile, those are children's stories. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like, I watch Bluey. Like, I watch a lot of kids programming with my kids. Star Wars is for kids and should be, and it can be beautiful in that and thrilling and exciting. What was wild and continues to be wild because we're going to get more about Andor was Tony Gilroy being like, okay, I'll hang out here, but I'm going to tell a grown-up story.

And what the way that trickles to, so I feel Ackleit moving in two directions at once. It's trying, it wants to be one thing, but it is still kind of held back by the other instinct. It's also an essential problem that I know the very smart people who work at Lucasfilm wrestle with all the time, which is what do people want out of Star Wars? Do they want big stories or small stories, but maybe we can try to do both? And that doesn't always work. So if you take Andor, Farix, which is where a lot of the season is set. Yeah, the first three in the last couple, right? Yes. Time was taken to consider what this place is. Who lives there, what their culture is, why they live the way they live, and how they feel about the empire.

or about politics or about the larger whatever. And so there are these things that stick with me, like the timekeeping guy, you know, who's banging on the drum or the parade at the end, and or dug in and gave us something specific and relatively small. Within the first two episodes of the Acolyte, much like a lot of the other Star Wars stuff we've gotten, especially the last trilogy,

we blazed through four to six planets we've never heard of. And in the background of some of them, there are spice merchants wearing little hats. People worked on that and designed it and considered it. And every so often something comes across, I'm like, oh, this is a noodle shop. There's noodles in the background of the first. And that's interesting.

I'm not saying that people aren't working hard on considering it. I'm saying the story is moving so fast that it's just background noise. On one hand, I appreciate the pace. I do feel like it was a little quick. It is not like Asoka. I agree with that. On the other hand, there's a moment in accolate that you can do like a kind of A, B test of how you feel about this.

Because I'm trying to be careful not to be like, this is bad and more like, there are certain things that matter to me that don't maybe always work in every show. And when we talk about a show like this, we are trying to do two conversations. Because we are talking about the larger project and this show, and this show is not bad.

I am eager to watch episode three. Yes. And Koganada directed episode three, and it's supposed to be good. Yeah, I'm excited about that. But there's a scene towards the end of two where OSHA and Soul and

Yard or whatever I think they're in space and May is like on a planet down the street from the Jedi temple that she needs to go into to kill on her kill bill list of people who have wronged her

and they basically arrive at the temple at the same time. The people who are out in space and the person who was down the street. it doesn't really matter. But in Andor, Stellan Scarsguard, comes from outer space, lands his ship, talks to a guy who parks his ship, gets on a tram or something. Yeah. And goes into town and then is like, where am I and tries to find the thing that he was going to go do? That's in the pilot of Andor. So it's about what matters to you not only in Star Wars, but in storytelling.

Now, I think that after 10, 20, 30 years, I've just been conditioned to not give a shit about this stuff anymore, but it still bothers me. Like, I'm not going to cry about it every time. No. Someone jumps from a planet to a planet and arrives two minutes on time, you know, like, exactly on time where they need to be. But I am going to respond with great passion

when someone's like, I wonder how you would get from, like, where you park your spaceship to the town. And that's what Tony Gilward did. And it doesn't necessarily mean that every show has to do that. But when it doesn't happen, and when they're arriving as this woman who was three blocks away, gets inside of a place and they're like, we've almost caught her. She just left. It's like, she would have been fucking gone. Well, you can always be anywhere, which is diminishing returns, especially when one of the places you go, one place is dusty and another place is sandy and another place has a tree.

Okay. That's fine. And again, I want to be careful to shout out a lot of smart people are thinking. thinking about these things and working on these things. There was a conversation, I am sure, about this. Could this whole show have been said on Corrassant? Like, there's a version of it where this is a, there's an assassin. Yes, in the high, and someone was like, that's not what we do.

We want to keep it moving. We want to have starships. Like, it's not, it doesn't tick the boxes of what we, the controlling regime of Star Wars, believes we should be doing. That's fine. The problem when you try to do both paces at once, fast, slow, big, small, is you have something like,

let's continue your point about where May is going. And she's going to assassinate a Jedi master named Tormond, who's played by your guy, Dean Charles Chapman from Queens Gambit. And he is levitating in meditation. Yeah, he's like in a silent retreat.

If you Google any of this, you find out that he has taken the barash vow, floating in a silent state of force meditation for over a decade, this vow was introduced in the Star Wars Darth Vader comic book in 2017. Okay, that's interesting. So something we don't know about Jedi is they can, like, monks meditate for years at a time

and they're communing with the forests and all this. That's kind of interesting. But because of the pacing needs of this show, that word does get said. I heard someone say it. But otherwise, it's just like a cool visual that is resolved within five minutes of screen time because he comes out of it to kill himself. Right. are you about the culture, which is not something I thought I would say out loud, or are you not?

Are you real hip-hop? But do you know what I mean? Like, it's weird that something that is interesting and detail-rich is a throwaway in a show like this. I thought that TV was the place we were going to get to explore this. Well, yeah, there's, to your point about like this could have been set on Coruscant and it could have been, like slipping in and out of rooms in palaces and in Jedi kind of, you know, conference rooms or whatever. Like, if you're going to make it such an expansive every episode, you're introduced to

four or five people, at the end of every episode, we have to throw down a huge Easter egg slash tantalizing idea of like, what if Wiki's had the Force Two or who's this Sith standing on a rock? And like, I get it. Like, it makes me want to watch the third episode right now. Like, there is a part of me that's still kind of like, I'm kidding. curious. But I think we're getting a little bit deeply into the mechanics of the storytelling. And you've said it three times. I actually like this show. I thought it was like, I thought it was like pretty cool. I don't think it's like the best show of all time. But I thought it was like this actually was moving fast enough and was interesting enough to me to keep going.

I am rooting for the show because I think the other thing is that in success, whatever that means to the Disney Corporation, we could get more of it that's more Leslie, honestly. So you feel like this has a got Faloni fingerprints on it? I think anything, I don't want to blame one guy. Let's just say quote unquote, Faloni. I intentionally said the Catholic Church before, like an institution, an entrenched institution in order for anything new to happen has to pass through a lot of hands. and a lot of typewriters, let's say, a lot of emails, a lot of meetings. You can feel that. I think that the better way to talk about this show, and maybe we will, maybe the third episode

will be great and we'll have a different reason to talk about it. That's not about why it exists at all, or how it came to exist at all, not why it exists at all. We could just say, like, the triumph of it. But the better way of talking about the show is look what Leslie got through the machine, as opposed to look what the machine did to Leslie. And I'm saying this, I've not spoken to her in years. I don't have any inside information about this whatsoever.

I just feel that a creator who is vibrant, who is funny, who is lively, who's interested in the collision of people, whether that's violent or sexual or both or humorous or whatever, that heavy, heavy wool blanket of Jedi does not feel, it feels like something that she is laboring against. That just feels like what the institution still produces and what it believes. I guess what it believes, is it the fandom want? Is it a familiarity? My concern, let me do one more thing. It's not relevant to the show. It's like one more step back. Sure. Concern trolling from the biggest, highest order is my biggest concern is because it's a little bit of both, because some bets were hedged in the boldness of the storytelling, that this ends up in an uncanny valley of the fandom is annoyed and the casuals are like, when is this? What is the Republic? And it just silently streams. Okay. So that brings us back to the beginning of what we were talking about

in terms of like, is there a Star Wars curious person who is like, I have Disney Plus for a variety of reasons, but I'm excited when a new Star Wars show comes on because maybe it'll be like Mandalorian season one, right? That would just be cool. and they're like, they're having timeline stress. Right. Because if I, I wonder whether or not

we're over indexing for our own, like, obvious, perhaps shame about knowing what the timeline is. Right. Versus what people actually get bothered about. Like,

does anyone, is any, is, is it, doesn't everybody watch that scene and they're like, I get it, that guys have it,

like, a vow of silence. I don't need to know that it's something that, like, happens to Jedi's when they are ashamed of something or whatever and so on and so forth. Sure.

So I wonder whether or not, if you pulled 10, it's a good question, if you pulled 10 people who watched Accolate and you were like, explain to me where on the timeline this is, even though there's a scroll in the beginning, would they be like, who cares? Yes. It's before Phantom Menace. Yes, but then, should the Jedi be awesome?

When I, my understanding, I don't, I don't, this may surprise listeners, like, I don't read the Star Wars comics. I don't actually know what the Republic is. the show, I was like, I don't think the Jedi are awesome. No, no, but I mean, the Jedi are the focus of the investigation. I mean, like, they're like, why is this girl so bad at these Jedi? I guess I just thought always, when I heard like Knights of the, Jedi Knights of the Old Republic or whatever, and when, you know, David Beniof and D.B. Weiss were going to do a movie set in that era. I was like, oh, this is going to be like Camelot,

but with laser swords. Like, that sounds sick to me. That sounds cool. I think it sounds more, but then in practice, it's just like, well, they're just kind of administrative skull. living in each town. That in and of itself is sort of a weird choice. I also just think that show me, I want a spark. And so you pointed out like the pot escape scene is a spark. When Manny Jacinto shows up, it's a spark. The fight between Saul and May is a...

I agree. The opening fight with Carrie Ann Moss, I was not... I was like, I don't know these people, and they're just swinging. It's just another kung fu fight. And again, I'm not a kung fu fan. I don't immediately respond when people start doing cool moves. But that second fight was character-based, so I got it. But my thing is, what percentage of this show,

a show that over eight episodes reportedly cost $180 million to make, is just set in more dusty rooms with second floors? Where Carrie and Moss's fight happens, it's a bar with a kind of a balcony floor. Yeah, an open-air kind of. There's a Jedi, yes, the Jedi temple on a dusty place that could be any other place is kind of a dark room

with rocky walls. The place where Saul and may have that fight is a dusty town square in a place. This is volume shooting, I imagine, or maybe it sounds stage shooting

and I'm not sophisticated enough to tell the difference, but all of these places could be anywhere. And so I don't know what, it just feels like something that, like, tear it down and do a new

Excel sheet about where we're putting the resources, almost, because it doesn't spark. Yeah. No, I hear you. I mean, I think that honestly, like, I fired all my, like, I don't like the way this looks bullets. Like, with the other shows. And I finally, I just want to say one other the thing, which is I hope that I don't think our pods in the business of being aggregated. But like, I've learned after watching the show that, of course, this is being review bombed by like hateful.

Is it? Yeah. Jesus. You know, because a woman made it or because it's a very diverse cast or whatever. And like, fuck all that forever. I want this show to succeed.

I am frustrated with some of the institutional conservative nature. The institutional, yeah, just like these institutional forces. Well, I think I said to you, I was like I found this pleasantly Star Trek-y in places. Yeah, especially that opening,

Mechnik. Yeah, and I think that there's like almost a Star Trek version of this show where after they had to sort of established like, it wasn't me who killed her, it's my twin, and so now they're searching for the twin. Surprisingly, you know, they find her in the second episode.

But the search for this twin, the protection of these remaining Jedi, and the getting to the bottom of like what happened with this fire where there's two competing tales, about like who killed who here. That would have been like a kind of neat, just straightforward investigation,

investigative procedural within the world of Star Wars. And I see the bones of that. But there's a lot of planet hopping in between. And there's a lot of like, we better get a wookie in here at the end. You know, like to show that there's more Star Wars outside of this Star Trek thing. Yeah.

It's also something to just be pay attention to is like, where does this fit? anymore. Like when this was greenlit in 2019, it was greenlit in an era when these companies, like you're saying Jordan Peel taking a meeting with Marvel, like these companies were taking meetings with everyone. Did Jordan Poole take a meeting with Star Wars that we don't know? I think Joe House would be happy to send him to a galaxy far far away. No, he actually had a nice little end of a season. Come on. Yeah, Jordan Poole? Are you zagging on Jordan? I'm not zagging, but I think he, they moved him to point guard, and I think that he played a little bit more responsibly.

Wow. Yeah. I play fantasy basketball, so I had to keep my eye on. No, that's the only reason you have to pay attention to the NBA, right, as your fantasy basketball team. But in a time when we're going to take flyers on people to build new corners of this galaxy. And since then, not just because of the contraction in the industry, but because of the consolidation of the Star Wars brand under Dave Faloni, where everything that he's doing does feel part of a larger project, whether you like it or dislike it, the project of I'm canonizing everything that we did in animation and bringing it to life. and we are also building it together for a movie that has now been announced that will theoretically not only be a summation

and a capstone on everything we've been doing but also fill in the blanks of how we got from one trilogy to another in a way that sort of like makes everything neat and whole. If you are running a major corporation or if you are running a, you know, a questionably profitable but very, very high profile sub-defendant,

vision of a giant corporation, like Lucasfilm is to Disney, being able to show Bob Eiger that, look, this is all connected and it's all part of a plan, much like Kevin Feigey did with the first phase one and two or whatever, that's got to help you sleep at night, honestly, than being like, we're just taking creative flyers. So I think there are reasons why the winds feel different. All of that is to not only just sketch out the terrain we're dealing in, but also say, again, why I want this to be good and why I want it to work. Let's take a quick break and we're going to come back and talk about hacks. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul

predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere

and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime.

Visit Amazon.com slash Prime. to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas, terms apply. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo,

be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active Cash, terms apply. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce, and some very tasty, limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch,

as is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels, make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Okay, Andy, we're back.

We're talking about the Warner Brothers Discovery Television Show Hacks, which just concluded its third season about a week ago, I think, right? More or less. Yeah. We had talked about it up through episode three, I think. or four, they'd been releasing basically two at a time over the last few weeks? And for the record, I think they were in a crazy crunch to get this out before the Emmy window closed. Oh, okay. That makes sense now. Because one of the reasons that HACS works for as a non-DCU-branded

Max original is that not, yes, it's good, but also it wins Emmys and is nominated for Emmys. Yes. And I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to do so. I'm sure it will. And so as much as I hated the release schedule of this season, they had to get it out before the month ended. Yeah, strangely, for me, not a binge show. Like, I like watching A HACs a week, but was not something that I was like, let me, I think I watched a bunch of it

the second half of the season in a chunk. Yeah, me too. So there's a lot of different ways to talk about this. The one I was going to ask you is whether or not you had considered the idea of what happens when, like, a TV show becomes an institution. So this happens pretty much, cross genres and it happens whenever a show is successful. It has to become a self-sustaining

enterprise that engages its core audience, makes it kind of recognizable to newcomers who are like, yes, I just binge seasons one and two of hacks, and this season of hacks reminds me of those. And the way you do that is essentially taking half steps back and half steps forward. So you present rather than what might be a truly interesting. dramatic obstacle for characters to overcome, you basically make it like, what if you were really well off and you got even better off? You know, like, I think one of the appeals of hacks, aside from its sense of humor in the first two seasons, were the rise of this person who, when we first meet Deborah Vance, is kind of not rock bottom in any way that's financially, but I

think artistically and within the culture. In terms of her soul and how she's feeling about her life in her career. She is, like, lonely surrounded by her trinkets and her staff and not feeling like she ever got the respect she deserved for the trailblazing comedic career that she had. Right. And that these personal traumas derailed what would have been, you know, one of the great comedy careers of cultural history. Right.

And then she meets this woman, Ava, who becomes a writer, who then brings her kicking and screaming into the 21st century. and into the 2020s to understand that, like, there's a huge world out there of people who feel like sometimes these jokes have marginalized them. Yep. And there's a, it's a very funny conversation to watch the two of them negotiate Ava's hypocrisy,

Deborah's insensitivity, yada, yada. There's also just a lot of good side characters. And ultimately, like, I think the show did a really good job of playing with, like, the intensity of professional. relationships that then cross personal lines. So, like, betrayals that happen within a workplace that actually feel like betrayals that are happening in a personal life.

I loved this show. And I still like this show. The third season of Hacks for me was, like, a little flat, pretty much up until the finale. I think that there were some highlights. I think there were some parts that I laughed at real loud. Yeah. But for the most part, I kind of felt like,

this is what happens when you're like, we can't deviate too much from the thing that people like about this show, which is these two people bantering back and forth. So we're going to keep them like kind of like suspended in animation. And we're going to kind of create the gestures of like, Ava could do something else, but she's just loves Deborah, you know? And Deborah can do some other things, but she just loves being Deborah, you know? And the kind of like cycling in place that happened in this season I thought was really interesting.

and I almost felt, and this is spoilers for the rest, obviously if you haven't seen season 3 of Hacks, I wouldn't listen to this. I almost felt like the finale of this season was the trio of creatives who make the show being like, yeah, we know. And then shoving that stationary bike

off the side of a cliff. Now, fool me three times. Yeah. In the fourth season, like they could just be like, never mind, one year later they've made up and now are like working well together on a late night show.

Yeah. But this was like a very, a very significant, you know, gut shot that Ava pulls on Debra and that Debra had pulled on Ava before that where she basically is like, oh, the network's making me hire somebody else as a headwriter, and then Ava finds out that, in fact, that's Debra's choice not to hire her as a headwriter. I agree with you completely on my affection for the show and my feelings about this season. I also would like to live in a world where we as appreciators of art, and intention can be mixed on something that we still like.

I feel like that's not a popular way to be on a podcast or whatever. Because this season, as we discussed earlier, and ultimately through the end, did not really work for me. But I think that with all the caveats of like the talented cast and the talented writing and the humor that I did enjoy throughout and the cast of characters in the world, I think I disagree with you on your read on the third season. Sure.

I because to me what I admire so much about Lichie Aniello, Paul Downs, and Jen Statsky is all over this season but I also feel like maybe the returns on the investment weren't as great and what I mean is this to me this season was a

comedy in search of a situation the first season and we've talked about this every time we talk about hacks we've talked about mostly in the complete positive that Jen in particular, who worked with Mike Schur on Good Place and other projects, and Lucia and Paul just being the generation that they are and having worked on Broad City,

they believe that in the, both artistically, but also where we are in the moment culturally, that all TV shows should move. That serialization is important, that you shouldn't rest on your laurels, that you should keep pushing and keep pushing. They're also talented young people who want to tell stories about human beings

who move through experience and change and grow, right? Like their language is comedy, but their favorite shows list, like all of us, is probably also Mad Men or shows that are more traditionally drama. So they want to do that type of storytelling within the language that they speak and that they love so much. At times, in the run of the show,

it's felt really, really bold, such as we have built this Debra world in Las Vegas, we've put Ava into it, and we have every little character here from the antiques dealer to the mayor, and we understand the casino culture, and then they blew it up. We were only there for one Emmy-winning season.

Then season two, they put them on the road. And suddenly... Lori Metcalfs are a little bit, you know, and it's a different world, and we're seeing how they exist outside of it. And it took a second... She's going to these clubs where she's got all these memories of, like, oh, I was here 20 years ago, and this happened.

And she's workshopping material and trying to change herself and change her act. And I bristle a little bit because I was getting comfortable. And I think generally when artists push audiences or themselves out of the comfort zone, it's worth it. And it worked. I thought the second season was really triumphant. This season, with the caveat of, to your point, changing but also keeping people connected, felt like they had maybe outkicked the coverage in the sense that the stakes of this season was suddenly a very, very successful person who has just reached this crew. career and artistic capstone, now wants to become even more successful and wants to do even better

and get a talk show. Those were challenging lack of stakes for me in a way because she has already been succeeding so much. And the show felt like it was so inevitably pointed towards her continuing to succeed. But also that desire to keep it moving, there was no place to sort of settle in with people and situations that we liked. So first three, two episodes have to work very, hard to get everyone back together again and blow up the life for Ava that we'd given her at the end of the previous season. It also has to work very, very hard to find a reason for Jimmy and Kayla to be around all the time instead of being on the phone or for Marcus to have something to do. Right. Now that Deborah's not concentrating on QVC as much. Right. So he had his sort of arc of

maybe I don't want to work for this person, which was played out a miniature in the background. So my main takeaway was about the storytelling mechanism was I never ever want people to settle. This is the show they want to make And the best thing is that they are empowered to make it But for this season, it felt like it had pushed too far In ways, just in terms for my enjoyment of it. So I guess your description of the three seasons Or the two seasons is really good

Where you're like, first we set up this world in Vegas, it would be easy to make the Parks and Recreation version of Vegas. Exactly. And they didn't want to do it. But that was there. Ava has just sort of settled into life as the joke writer for this, you know, grand dame of comedy, there's all this Vegas funny stuff. You could do an episode where it's a charity golf tournament,

an episode where they're opening the new casino here, and then an episode where, you know, she plays at a retire. I mean, like, there's just so much to do there. You could definitely have a lot of fun with it. The second season, like you said, is on the road. The third season, I thought, and I mentioned this, like, earlier when we talked about it, and I really, I don't, I think this is a bad habit of mine where I'm like, what they should have done is this.

because who fucking knows why they didn't or maybe my idea sucks. But I think that it would have been cool if the third season just started she has the show. And this is what it is like for Ava to be the head writer of a show that Debra is doing.

And now that there is all these different eyes on her and the stakes are much different is A, you get the energy of what's it like to put together a late night show and the behind the scenes Larry Sanders part of that. And B, how does that new stress change their relationship when it goes from trying to revive your career

to trying to reach a new audience, now you're successful, how do you stay that way? And that might put a different kind of pressure on Ava and Debra's relationship. So I was like, that would be cool. And instead, you spend the entire season trying to get to the point where she gets the show and right at that moment,

their relationship fractures. But you're getting, but you're describing season four. We're going to get it. Like, it's been renewed, which is great for everyone involved. Like, I don't want this show to stop. I also would love to take the long view in that a show that tried and never stopped trying and pushing over five seasons, and maybe season three was weaker, but to me, but it set up an even stronger season. Like, that's awesome. Yeah. That is how TV ought to work. And commenting on it in the moment can be kind of the enemy of that progress.

Like, I want them to keep going. But I think it's interesting for us to have the conversation about what, you know, the things that didn't fully work. And in another point, point that I would make that is clearly a struggle, that I love seeing them work out in real time, is that kind of not just historical sitcom tendency, but also very much a Mike Sure tendency, which is you feel the creators falling deeper and deeper in love with their own creations in the same speed, if not a little bit ahead of, the audience falling in love with them. And the way that plays out on screen is everyone is rewarded. So the end of this season, Ava is suddenly being told by their world's John Oliver

that she's a genius and the best writer that he has and she should be head writer. I believe in Ava. I haven't seen that. So I'm being told, I don't mean like I've gone over her portfolio. You saw her packet. No, I don't mean that. I just mean that, like, that sudden sincerity came as a jolt.

Just like the sincerity when Jimmy's like, Kayla, you aren't just a clown. She's played as a clown. Yeah, they have. I would say that that is something that happens in almost every plotline is that there is a secret genius. Like, Marcus is in fact the visionary merchandiser. Kayla is in fact like a go-getter.

These are all the best people. Christopher Lloyd's one episode cameo turns into like a secretly great screenwriter who has this fatty arbal. I do think that like it's weird how like sometimes the jokes on this show need a sentimental or serious button. Yeah, or even like Christopher McDonald's Marty, who is now nice. Is now nice. And that is the way, that is the movement of sitcoms in the last 20 years of maybe not 30, 40, all of characters. The edges sand off as we fall in love with them. And what once was sort of abrasive becomes quirks.

That's just what happens with TV. And I'm, I love, I'm not against that movement. But it is an interesting thing to navigate when you are making a show like hacks, which wants to be a drama at times. as much as it wants to be a comedy, or at least it wants to do the inverse ratio of a madman, which was the funniest show on TV when it was on,

but also winning best drama. So, yeah, again, in the spirit of like pushing that penultimate episode where Deborah apologizes for her unwoke comedy is a wild one. It's wild.

Especially now. Yeah. But it's also like, there's just two buckets with which to draw for a conversation. One is, yeah,

fucking go for it. Like, if you're sitting in a writer's room with funny people who have ideas and thoughts and are living in the world,

like 10 times out of 10, I would want them to follow, follow their passion and their actual world that they're living in and try to work it out a little bit through their art. Like, that's what you should do.

The results I'm not sure about, frankly. Like, I just, it felt a little bit muddled for her, to sketch out the intensity of her position, which I think was interesting and earned, and then also have to sit through it and apologize for it.

I don't know. I mean, we could talk about our own feelings about comedians apologizing for bits they did in 1982, which I think are different than Ava's opinions. But it was interesting that if you pull back, within the moment, the scene work and Gene Smart, that's excellent. When you pull back and you look at like the log line

or the beat sheet of the episode where it's like, Deborah apologizes for a joke about dyslexia in 1983 and her reward is a positive New Yorker profile that gets her a late-night talk show. That's some real, like, are we sure we care about the High Republic stuff? It is.

That is some maybe log-off for a second stuff. Yeah. You know, but again, the show is a emotional show. It is, the characters ultimately is about a show like many great shows in history about people who love each other. And so there is no plot line where Debra doesn't get late night

but suddenly starts opening for Shane Gillis and becomes even more popular. I don't think that I'm pitching in season four Chris once. Come on. But like that's on the table. You know what I mean?

I think it's tricky over five... I know it doesn't sound like it because we've been critical and I'm eager. I'm more eager for season four than I was for season three, honestly, because I want to know what they do next. But I think my note would be when we feel the momentum of a show

that is moving always towards rewarding and love and people winning, how do you combat that? Because I have seen people talk about it and cover it as if the Ava's twist is like Breaking Bad or something at the end. Chill out. A little bit, right? Because Deborah is going to make things work with her sister.

You know what I mean? Like, I just feel that the language of the show has told us this. Well, also, the J. Smith Cameron being cast as that character, or recast really is that character, right? Wasn't Kathy a different actors? I think that's right. I think that that's like a significant... Look, I admired the fact that over the course of the season,

if you go back and look at it, knowing what you know at the end, that a lot of moments that were played as kind of daffy, sitcomy fun, like the Tony Goldwyn arc of like this network president who kind of falls for Debra on the golf course and has like this one night stand with her. That's like, wow. Like I guess this is like kind of, I don't know if this is romantic, but it's whatever it is. And like there's this whole thing where she like wears black the day that she finds out she doesn't get the show and kicks his ass on the golf course and that turns him on. And she still gets everything she wants. And then she.

But like if you go back and watch all these moments that were played for like laugh. over the course of the season, they are actually also could be read as dramatic moments that point towards Deborah's insatiable ambition monster in the pit of her stomach that's going to destroy

any relationship or daughter, her sister, her headwriter, her relationship with her agents, and also spurs other people to be killers as well. Because even though it's a funny scene or it's pitched as comedy to be doing a fatty Arbuckle

biographical film that Jimmy is trying to get a shut-in to release the rights to, but instead makes his 200-page screenplay with different fonts. You could go turn around and be like, Jimmy's a killer. Like, Jimmy did whatever it took

to set up this other comedian to get distracted enough by this project that he would leave late night. But that's why I think this show is so fascinating and deserving of our continued attention, deserving of a long conversation about it, even when we're bumping on aspects of it, because these three, Jan Lucia and Paul, know how to tell story.

They know what makes good TV. I think they have, I mean, I've never talked to them about it when they've come on the podcast, but I bet they have really good taste in the shows that they like. They are making a prestige era drama about broken people and ambition and capitalism, but they're doing it as a comedy. And does that work? I don't know. It worked like gangbusters for two years.

This didn't work for me, although I don't think, I think I'm more on an island about the season than others. It's hard to judge intent. I mean, I think that's like another thing that we were just kind of struggling with when talking about the acolyte, where it's like, which part of this is Leslie Headlands and what part of it is corporate Disney? I mean, I don't think that's an issue here, but your points really well taken. I don't know, I think Abbott, for instance, Abbott Elementary, is a comedy. I think I meant Governor Greg Abbott.

Not a comic figure to me. No. It's a comedy that has serious. things to say about like the state of education and cities and stuff like that, but is mostly a fun workplace comedy. And I think it's written as such, but I wonder whether or not like Hax is written as a drama

that then has jokes in it. Yes. And I don't think I would have made that distinction before the end of the season. I think that if you were to ask, and I don't think they're coming on for this season, but maybe they'll come on or we'll talk to them at some point in the future. I think that all three of the creative

brain trust, all three members of it, would say that they are obsessed with the personal, emotional, complicated relationship between a Debra and Ava and also this specific Debra and Ava. And that's what motivates everything for them. It's not, you know, in a different sitcom universe that like, oh, it's time to have Gary's Old Town Tavern

challenge the gang at cheers again. That's not motivating. Let me think about what must go through comedians' heads. It's like, you and me can do a podcast and it's like good or bad, and then we go off and do other things. I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, then you go do another podcast.

But if you're a comedian and your, your, your whole job is, like, did you, were you given, like, these signs of success for your, like, for your, for your, for your humor? And you're constantly being evaluated for it. And it's like, this joke killed or this joke bombed. I, I think it must do some crazy things to your head. And I think that this show reflects that pretty well. Yeah, I thought some of the best moments of the season were Monster Debra moments. Like, when she,

uses her daughter's recovery meeting to road test jokes about Mario Canton. Yeah. Like, she doesn't turn it off. Her behavior in the Christmas episode with her sister, she cannot turn it off. I thought that that stuff is very interesting and compelling and well-sketched out consistently over the seasons. But then it becomes hard. You know, maybe it's a little, maybe my feeling as an audience member is a little bit like Ava, like whiplashing, just in terms of how I'm being treated.

and what I'm witnessing and how to process it. I think everyone's line for this is going to be different in terms of what's working and what isn't on a show like this. I think that the takeaway that I do want to end on is they are also working very hard, I think, and it's an ongoing thing. And I think the best thing you could say about a show, which is maybe what their answer would be if I said to them, you know, you keep pushing in this season you push in a direction I didn't love,

is that like that's that's the point right they're working it out themselves season to season and I want to exist within a universe and also like comment on a industry that allows creators to do that. Thank God you you do exist in that world. What where where people miss the mark yeah thank God I haven't been canceled for my material that I used to do in the 90s when when my friend Matt played me a jerky boy CD in 1991. We were produced by Kaya McMullen. We'll be back on Monday to talk about Top Chef and the Richard Linklater movie Hitman. Oh yeah. He's hitting Netflix this week, right, tomorrow? Tonight, I think. Yeah, or tomorrow. Did you know I saw that movie in the theater?

I did. I just want everyone to know. Yeah. Kaya, thanks. Thumbs up from Kaya. Everybody have a great weekend. Oh, but wait. Whoa. Whoa. Do you want me to do it? Nobody go anywhere. Yo. Hey, we had an interview with Rember Brown last week. Yep. Remember is our buddy from the Grantland days. He is also a writer and producer on the new FX show Clipped. We had a conversation with Rember about a major part of Clipped in the first few episodes that we didn't realize like that would be really spoilery. So we are now going to play you.

We Clipped that part of the Clip Talk. It's the clip of Clipped. And it's the clip of Rem talking about a special guest star who arrives on the show. Now, if you haven't seen Clip, don't listen to this. Or if you don't... I don't know if this clip does show, you could be... They felt very protective of the appearance of this actor, which is now public.

But now we can say. Okay. Lavaver Burton plays Lovar Burton on the show. It's such a... You're worried. It's out there. Yeah. I saw a picture of L.Var Burton at the clipped premiere party.

Okay. You know? Well, I mean, he's just a guy in L.A. Maybe you wanted to go to a party. That's true. I saw Mina there, too. Yeah. It's like, I don't think she's in the show.

Although, you never know. Yeah. Anyway, I thought Rem gave a really interesting and detailed answer to this question that we clipped. From the conversation, now we're going to share it with you. Because we are nothing, if not complete us. And we get our buddy on the podcast one more time, even though he's not in the room with us. One of the cool things surprises, at least to me early on, is that when Doc moves to L.A., his family hasn't moved here yet, he's staying in some sort of luxury high-rise.

And his neighbor that he meets in the sauna is Lovar Burton. And my question is, how many people read for the part of Lovar Burton before Lovar Burton got the part? So back to the conversation of like where you, you know, where you prove your impact. Sure. Like my wife, Andre and I were on vacation in Dominican Republic. And we were trying to, you know, we'd been having this conversation about this character we wrote, which is, you know, the person that talks to. And, you know, we had an idea about what type of person this was. Like, we knew it wanted it to be a black person of a certain age.

We wanted someone who felt comfortable playing themselves. And I remember when the conversations were happening, a group text started, and I was, you know, trying not to look at my phone because I'm on vacation. But I... Yeah. But I actually thought. thought of LeVar. So that's not factually accurate.

He was not, LeVar Burton and Doc Rivers were not sauna buddies in 2014. That's part of the show. Wow. Look at my hard-hitting reporting. Chris was just like, I guess that's gospel. I won't even ask about that.

Wow. But I remember thinking about, you know, you have these lists of like, you know, a hundred black actors of a age, you know, and it's like, who makes sense. And, you know, when it came to LeVar, it was like, wow, like, if he'll do it, LeVar as LeVar, it feels like kind of powerful because LeVar is a black man, but he's also kind of like an American institution, you know. And also the kind of person

that you would willingly talk about everything in your life. He's a friendly face. Yeah. But the idea of Lovar Burton, like, having, like, rage and, or, like, the idea of Lovar Burton wanting to talk about race or wanting to, like, as Lovar Burton, I'm like, that's super interesting. So he was into it. And so we talked about it. And then Gina reached out to Lawrence and was, like, you know, obviously, like, want Lawrence to be into whoever the character is. Make sure he's not like,

I mean, fuck the bar. Yeah. And the one person in America. That guy was from the Patriots 2008's 2012 Super Bowl. And this is like honestly my favorite, like one of my favorite stories of the whole show. Gina reaches out to Lawrence.

And it's like, what do you think about Lavar Burton? And Lawrence was like, well, you know, that's kind of crazy. Because me and LaVar, actually kind of became like good homies in the past. Oh, wow. A couple years.

And you know, it's like, oh, that's awesome. And then he was like, and you know, like, it's crazy. The place where we like kind of hang out and talk is in a sauna. Oh, my God. What? Was it always written as a sauna or was it that was like a part that came from Lawrence and Lovar's relationship? Sona was there first. Wow.

And he was like, yo, like. I knew there was an element of truth to those scenes. I could feel it coming off the screen. Yeah. And, and, and Gina was like, I mean, should we, like, reach out? Like, how do we get to LaVar? Lauren was like, oh, I'll give you his number. Like, it's a homie.

And LeVar, Gina talked to LeVar, Gina sent it to him, and LeVar pulled up. And it was, you know, I was thinking about this. I thought about it the whole show, but I really thought about it as I'm just, like, in Video Village watching Lawrence and LaVar. Yeah. You know, something I've always, like, cared about. Like, back to, like, 10 years ago, like, you remember when I had my little podcast? Yeah.

And, like, for the first, like, 12 guests, they were all black. And I remember being super into it. And then I had Chris Hayes. But, um... Everybody was Chris. Um... But I remember thinking, like, there's not a ton of examples. and popular culture of just like

the world getting to just like watch two black people just like talk to each other about what it's like to live and that's always been something where I'm like more of that, more of that, more of that, more of that, more of that, you know, that's very different than like first take like two black people yelling at each other with the moderator, you know, just like two people

and so, you know, watching those, that scene and watching Lawrence and LeVar kind of talk through stuff and a very just like we're not too famous people we're just like two black men seeing that come to life and then also you're getting some of that

with just like the players talking to each other about how to navigate this thing and all the aspects to consider that became like a really important part of the show to me because going back to it, it's like, yes, I'm Doc Rivers, but I also am someone that has these black men's careers in my hand.

And I like, I want to do right by them, but I also like want to, you know, be a championship winning coach, you know? How do you figure out the balancing act? So watching Lawrence and LeVar, do their thing was one of those like, I can't believe I'm here watching this moments for me, like,

in terms of like my whole career. That seems like a alone or a reason to do it.