The Watch - ‘Confess, Fletch,’ ‘Abbot Elementary’ Season 2, ‘Reboot,’ and ‘House of the Dragon’ Episode 6

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about the quiet success of the Jon Hamm movie ‘Confess, Fletch’ (1:00), the sincere comedy happening in the second season of ‘Abbot Elementary’ (14:09), the best episode of ‘Atlanta’ Season 3 so far (26:41), and the 10-year time jump in the latest episode of ‘House of the Dragon’ (36:18). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Chris Ryan. am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line my young white avatar it's Andy Greenwald I'm excited for today I don't know where we're going shanatova yodel kid what's up baby wow so this is this is good is that right no no what how do you say it like shenatova yeah that that's my bad you got it half right which is appropriate for your cultural background Happy New Year to you too, my friend. I didn't know that Rush Ashana was such like, was still like a really lovely like culinary experience, you know?

Because my Passover experience is frankly, not my favorite dinner of the year. Oh, no. No, I mean, the experience like the people is amazing, right? But it's like a lot of dipping stuff in saltwater, right? Well, I also feel like what, should we talk about the shows we're going to talk about or should we just get right into the Ashkenazi culinary

Well, I was just going to say, the reason why we're going on Tuesday today is because yesterday was the Jewish New Year. So I say happy New Year to all of our listeners of that faith of the OG tribe. You're doing great. And today we're going to talk about television,

but it's been a while since I talked to my guy Andy Greenwald here. We're going to talk about House of the Dragon, as usual. But we're also going to do Abbott Elementary, which returned for its second season last week. We're going to talk a little bit about Atlanta and a little bit about reboot, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Great. And a couple of bits and bobs and like news news items, loose ends, that kind of thing. But I was just, I was just

excited to see your face. It's actually been a while since you're going to have hung out. So if you want to socialize for a minute, we can do that, you know? You want us do that now? Well, I get paid either way. So like we can. Incredible. Incredible. I really like, Chris has been doing some interesting, like, just sort of outside the box coaching today. Yeah. Just for so people are aware. So I got a text from Chris being like, can we keep it real loose today? But also, can you watch these six things? No, that's not how it went.

We talked about what we were going to do Tuesday. And then today I was just like, I would like to have like one of those kind of more free flowing, mature conversations, you know? I'm ready. I think that, you know, just a little programming note from my own inside the box brain. Everything was set up beautiful for this podcast today. You know, everything was lined up. I'd watch some stuff in advance. I had some thoughts.

They were marinating. like jars of pickles on the shelves of my ancestors on the Lower East Side of New York. And I was even going to throw in a bonus for my guy. Yeah. I was going to throw in a bonus for my guy because what happened on Sunday, just for our listeners, edification,

I was doing as I often do on Sundays, which is attempt to watch the Eagles game, and then, you know, text some funnies, some bans to my boy, CR. and I made a joke about Fletcher Cox Sacking the living ass out of Carson Wentz but I was like confess Fletch and Chris is like, good film, let's talk about it

and I was like, oh no, I've done it. I've been too clever for my own good. So I just wanted you to know I dialed up the John Hamm starring Fletch film last night and I was like, this is amazing. Bonus content for the pod, but you never, even in this new year, I want to say 5788,

definitely don't have that in front of me. You did that. Didn't you say what it was on your Instagram? Yeah, but like, once it's on the Instagram, Chris, it's out in the world. It doesn't belong to me anymore. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. You know what I mean?

I don't constantly have my own stories playing. It's like folk art. I get you. Yeah. So, do you say folk art? It is. So you had the thing we're like watching most of a movie and you're like, this is all working. Like this is going to, like, this movie's going to end in an hour and 40 minutes,

which is a healthy bedtime to podcast. the next morning, and then you get the sick kid wrinkle. The sick kid, you never plan for the sick kid. She's fine, everything's fine. Non-COVID sickness. Shouldn't be legal, frankly. It does seem like we should have gotten rid of those things. It's either like, let's have COVID and no sickness or sickness, but no COVID.

I can't do both. But also, what's weird is that, like, post-COVID kids, in the sense of, like, kids who have had COVID, which might have, but also, like, you know, just people have lived through this. She thinks it's really funny to, like, have a coughing fit, which is part of this cold package she got. Uh-huh. And then be like, I'm giving everyone COVID. I'm like, no, we're not there yet. That's not funny yet. You know what I mean? Like, you actually, I actually said she had to stand outside of a coffee shop yesterday and coughed into the open air. Yes. That's good. That's good. You can't do that. Not to. So I didn't see the whole movie. Very charming first half. How much you enjoyed what you

saw it, though, right? Yeah. Did you watch it? I did. I really, really liked it a lot. I think that that is a movie that if they could just make four more of those, I would be just delighted. Greg Matola directed it, who directed one of my favorite movies at Ventureland. It's probably the best use of John Hamm in a non-FBI or a fighter pilot officer role that I've seen since Mad Men. It was probably the best use of his talents other than the town or Top Gun Maverick. well, flow from progressive insurance would like a word. Well, here's the thing is like, first of all,

like progressive, you have my number. Feel free to ask me to be a pitch man. But now have you been reading about like what it took to kind of make confess Fletch work? Ham like basically, well, he did two things. One is he gave up a bunch of his salary so that they could do some reshoots

and do some fixing and stuff like that, which is very noble. Then he also bet on himself and I think was taking more of like a back end type deal. Now, if you just look at Twitter, you would think Confess Fletch is sort of the most beloved film in America right now and toppling, you know, don't worry, darling at the box office. And in fact, that is, I just don't think that's the case. But I hope that the goodwill, here's the thing. This is a perfect movie that should have come out in theaters for a few weeks or a month or two or whatever.

And people had like a small but healthy audience and then had a great second life on home video. That is essentially like the model for a movie like this. And, you know, it's available on video on demand. And then I believe it eventually is going to Paramount Plus. But this is the problem. You have to sort through all this calculus when you're trying to figure out where you can watch a movie. Also, this was the most old-fashioned experience, media experience I've had in a while because this movie does not exist.

And I think that was what kind of happened to the distributors too. They were like, well, we've made something. We definitely have made something. We have made something worthwhile. Yeah. We have made something low-key and charming. We have made something that will be quite meaningful to very passionate groups of not very many people. Like people who, I mean, many of us, certainly you and I love the Chevy Chase movie Fletch based on the Gregory McDonald character.

People have been trying to make a sequel for years. Different actors have been come on and come off of it. But more importantly, like the idea of a modestly charming, low-stakes personality-driven comedy. with LAPS, yeah. Is wonderful, you know, and I saw Matt Bellany was asking this, I think, or this is just, this topic has been floating around kind of the industry ether for a while, which is like, okay, so you have entities like Netflix and Amazon and Apple wanting to make movies broadly. But what does that mean?

Does that mean for Grayman, Grayman? Gray man, yeah. Or, well, the plural, Gray's man? Graham, yeah. Or do you make 10 confess fletches? You know, like, personally, obviously you know where I land on this spectrum, but it was just odd to have something that is really good. Yeah.

And emerged into a world with absolutely no place for it. You know, it was like a fish being born into the ocean that can't breathe. Like, this is just not an ecosystem for it. Yeah, you know, I mean, I've been giving this a lot of thought since we talked most about Andor last week. And I think we're going to talk about it again on the next show on Thursday when we get into a little bit more in depth after the fourth episodes come out. But there is like a philosophical debate to be had about whether or not it is ultimately depressing that this is what Tony Gilroy is quote unquote forced to do now. Right. Now, we talked to Tony Gilroy.

He seemed delighted to be doing this. He's thrilled. And it's obviously the best funded, most, you know, elaborate. most, the deepest production he's ever worked on aside from like ghost writing on Armageddon or whatever. But, you know, is there a world in which you're almost depressed? One is almost depressed that there is not, he's not continuing to make like Michael Clayton's or whatever original ideas set in the real world that he had. And that he has to take all of his screenwriting know-how, all of his dialogue writing chops, all of his story structure architecture

and put it into the Star Wars universe. To that, I would basically be like, Like if they're going to make it anyway, I would like them to make it well. You know? Yeah. It's not like we're going to escape that. And the more I think about this stuff is that Andor is really kind of, to me, it's like the way Westerns were in the 50s specifically that I'm thinking about. But as Westerns just became the language, we're not the language, but the delivery mechanism for a lot of Hollywood storytelling in the 1950s, or one of the major ones. You had crappy Westerns. And then you had Anthony Mann, Westerns.

You know, you had you had Westerns that were really thoughtful and interesting, but also action-packed and entertaining. And then you had Westerns that were fast, cheap, and out of control, or Westerns that were kind of clap-trap. But this is like, if that's sort of always been the case where you have to Trojan Horse in your ideas through whatever model you can use, I'm fine with it being Andor because Andor is like deeply, deeply satisfying. I totally agree with that. I think what's tougher to wrap our heads around and maybe not even something we can. box into a small conversation here is just the experience of feeling once viable constructs just fall out of history, like fall out of favor. You know, it's, there was some, there was some stuff I read, I guess it was, yeah, it was this year, right? Because it was the 25th anniversary of the Oasis album, Be Here Now, which was their like infamously cocaine addled and bloated follow up to

what's the story of morning glory. I remember queuing up. I didn't have. actually say that, but I thought it would be cute to get the record day came out and being like, I guess it's good because it's loud, but actually wasn't that good. And so the 25th anniversary stuff was odd to me celebrating it. But what I guess in some level they were celebrating was, boy, it was wild that the big rock and roll follow-up that everyone was waiting for was a thing. Like that that was a piece of culture that would be delivered to us. And weirdly, we're having to wrestle with that now in. in the visual medium, right?

So Confess Fletch is so good in such a modest way, and it feels normal to us because it feels like movies, right? Like this was a movie that would be on Cinemax or shout out local Philly Cable, like Prism at 3pm if you were homesick. You know what I mean? And you'd be like, boy, that was enjoyable. Maybe I'll watch it five times, so I'll never think about it again. That doesn't exist anymore.

And I was trying to touch on a similar thing when we were talking briefly about how I watched, or maybe we both did watch the first. on a flight. Yeah, it's been on cable a lot recently. So I keep running into it, like an hour into it once he starts noticing things are going wrong. This doesn't exist anymore.

And you could make the case that there is confess Fletch energy in some TV shows, although shows like Lodge 49 don't really get to have long runs. So I don't know if that's true. Or you could say that, you know, if the firm was made today, would be a 10-part maxi series. And sure, but it's less good that way. Yeah. And so I think part of our grappling here is with that. You know, I think partly because I love it and I love him,

I think the Tony conversation is slightly separate because I think that that's, you know, he's a, he's a screenwriter with a bag of skills and talents, and he's finally lucked into a big score. It's working out, and he's making a Tony Gilroy show that people are watching and talking about. The Greg Mottola's of the world, like, this is what he's been doing since daytrippers, you know? And what's the economy for that? And we're not in the position in this podcast to be like, what have we lost if we don't have

Annie Mummolo sitting her kitchen on fire for a weirdly long scene. Dude, she's so fucking good in this movie. But so is Roy Wood, friend of the pod. Like, she's great performers having a good time and I miss that and it shouldn't be a TV show and it's odd. And all of this, Chris,

out of a movie I didn't even finish. Look at us. We're so good at this. So you plan on finishing it? Yes, but look at this nose-to-tail podcasting. You know what I mean? Nose to Dragon Tail? Should we talk a little bit about Dragon?

You want to start there? Well, no, we could, why don't we talk about the things? Let's talk about some newer stuff, some stuff that we're really excited about. Then we can kind of get into a state of the dragon situation. So do you want to go with a very delightful second season premiere of Abbott Elementary or one of the fucking funniest Atlanta as I've seen in a while? Well, let's let's just run through these comedies, right? I mean, Atlanta nominally is a comedy. It's nominated for the Emmy's a comedy.

This was a very funny episode. We have Abbott Elementary, and we also have reboot. And I feel like they are all three examples of, one, how totally confused this category is, if we're thinking about it as Emmy voters. I mean, these are all ostensibly the same shape product. Sure. But they couldn't be more different.

And watching them, not back to back, but watching them all kind of together was interesting. Watching them all on the Hulu, in fact. They were all in the same box. Yeah, yeah. Let's start with Abbott. Because I think, like, Abbott is a show that I just have very uncomplicated feelings about. In the first few scenes of this, or first few shots of this episode, I think Ava, the school principal, shows up into Jalen Hertz jersey, which pretty much means, like, the show goes into my jugular.

I thought that it did a really good job of kind of doing what the, you know, obviously a lot of people have compared it to the office. because of the mockumentary style filmmaking. And I kind of wonder whether or not the next step for this show is to turn the dial up a little bit on the sincerity and emotion. Not that it wasn't a very sincere and emotional show last season, but putting Quinta Brunson's character in such a place of like kind of vulnerability and everybody helping her, whereas like in the first season, it starts from a place where everybody is just like,

ah, the new kid or whatever. I feel like it's very much modeled. on the office's trajectory towards this being kind of like a show that not only makes you laugh but obviously also you're like really invested in. Yeah, and this show, this episode did it brilliantly.

I mean, I think there are few things as pleasurable as watching goodwill pay off in real time. And I'm talking about the Eagles off-season into this season, of course. You know, with just like great additions, everyone's feeling good, and then three and O. I mean, what could be better?

But specifically with Abbott Elementary, What are you going to do if we lose like four out of five? Are you just going to stop talking about the Eagles and you just pretend like you never watch any of it? I'll pretend I was never a fan. Yeah. I'm too vulnerable. Yeah.

I can't do it. I've been pretending to be good at being a sports fan for 30 years now and I can't. I got to be me. When it comes to TV shows, though, like Abbott, what a run as we talked about when we were doing our Emmy round up the other week, right? like goodwill, of course, but really a absolute out-the-gate universally approved hit in a very old-fashioned sense. And Quinta wins the Emmy well-deserved. Charlie Ralph wins the Emmy, incredibly well-deserved as well.

And then to hit the ground running, obviously they filmed and wrote them film this episode before any Emmy Love came, but they knew they were onto something. And when you feel that coming from the metaphorical locker room, they know what's hitting. they know who to pass it to, the offense is working. It's a really exciting thing as a TV fan. And I thought this episode was absolutely delightful for a bunch of reasons. One, you're mentioning the Jalen Hertz jersey. Like, this show gets the specificity of the place where it is set so, so well.

And often you have TV shows set in cities with good intentions and good faith. They're people creatively involved in it. But maybe their experience of the city doesn't fully capture the larger, population of the city. So, like, you could make a show set in Philadelphia where the psychodrama of the sports teams doesn't weigh over everyone's waking moments. I mean, I have met a couple people in the city who experienced life that way, but not many. No. Right. And so putting the Eagles front and center in this opening, putting the almost cult-like adoration of gritty, front and center in this thing, it's just smart writing. You know, it's just writing with a

specificity and a point of view, not just because it goes to our jugular, as you said, but I think people respond to it. Like, oh, these are people. I get that. Our cities have this. We have these weird quirks and passions. It's so inclusive in its specificity in such a beautiful, wonderful way. It's, but it's also nice because once you, and this is sort of like my favorite part of falling in with, especially with these comedies that have long runs, is this kind of feeling that you are getting a return on investment? for your time spent with the characters, right? Not to put it in this transactional way,

but there are even now nuances to some of these people that weren't there in the first season or the interconnections between their relationships that I think is just like really nice to see. And it's interesting to compare that to reboot. So reboot is a show that like, you know, obviously comes in with relative to TV and to this kind of TV show,

kind of a lot of star power, right? Yeah, oh wait, wait, even before, I'm sorry to cut you off, because I want to go into the Star Power thing too. I just want to make one last Abbott point, because I'm so sorry to do this. You were a point talking about the turn towards sincerity. Well, not sincerity, but just like almost like a...

You can feel them developing the rom-com and also... Yes. Yeah. But also, in terms of the end of this episode, is like a 40-second run of just like absolute tear-jurking moments of hope and humanity and celebration with welcoming the kids back into school, and Gregory finding the ADA desk that Barbara was looking for, and it's earned.

Because they have found this vessel. Because I think that people who make broadcast television have been wrestling with the responsibilities of being broad, of speaking to large swaths of the country, making them feel something that isn't necessarily political or hot button or divisive. And I respect that responsibility or at least taking it seriously. But often what I found in my few samplings of This Is Us or something, which is not, I'm not to ding that show or it's fans. but often that attempts at like big tenting comes from enormous enormous like this is the meaning of love and now someone is dead yeah yes it comes from these big emotional events and what abbott is doing is harnessing that same intention and reward on such a purely good like not debatable thing which is we should be caring for the children in our communities and educating them and it doesn't feel mockish because of it you know it's i was very impressed by the way that they, the way that it runs the table in terms of what it's doing and the emotions

it's trying to pull, which is different than what reboot is doing. And we should now pivot, because your point was actually a very, very important one that I'm going to do. Well, I mean, I was just saying that there's two ways of doing this. Obviously, one of the cool things about Abbott is it is either introducing or reintroducing viewers to these talents. So maybe you've seen Cheryl Lee Ralph before, but never quite on this kind of platform. You've never, Quinta Brunson essentially came out of nowhere. I mean, for all intents and purpose. purposes. There's barely a person on reboot that isn't like somewhat famous or notable. Like even the kid, so reboot is a show from Steve Levittan, who's one of the co-creators of Modern Family,

which I, as you know, like quite a bit. And then it's essentially a show about a show being made, which is a reboot of a famous 80s sitcom. 80s, 90s, I can't remember if it was 80s or 90s. I think it's early 90s. I think it's 90s just for the age of the actors. That's right. And it stars Rachel Bloom from my crazy ex-girlfriend, Paul Reiser, obviously from Matt about you and aliens and all this sort of stuff. Kegan Michael Key from Kean Peel, Judy Greer, Johnny Knoxville,

and then lots of like one or two episode like, oh my gosh, look, it's Eliza Coupe kind of situations. So pretty much down the line, like eight people deep, it's like old pros or really, like really, really funny people. who were then thrown into, I don't know, would you say that the, like, the characters in reboot are likable? No, not necessarily.

And I think it doesn't really matter. But I think it's supposed to be, like, kind of a little bit of a satire of people who are aging out of their fame in Hollywood and have this one last chance to kind of redeem, but, like, revive their careers. Yeah, it's interesting. it kind of is trying to have a little bit of the satirical bite of something like a Larry Sanders or the comeback in terms of, you know, look at what, look at your idols.

Like, look at what showbiz really is. Look at how craven it can be. And also, let's play a little bit more adult. Let's use bad words. Let's have nudity. Let's like, let's not do the stuff that you could do on ABC. But it's Steve Levittant. And also, he's helped on the pilot and maybe beyond by John N. Baum is a writer. I really like who created Party Down. And he's doing the reboot of that. as well, and that reboot is name-checked in the pilot of this reboot. It's an interesting marriage because, not between the two of them, but between, like, creator and project stars network, because it's a great idea, first and foremost. It's of the moment, but also kind of timeless in people getting together to work out their differences while getting back to work. But it's also very, you can feel Levitan is so good at doing the kind of comedy that we were just praising with Abbott Elementary.

Like, let's not reinvent the wheel. this wheel rolls. It's funny. We get it. But it's a different moment. It's a different idea. And I think it's targeting a different audience. So that's some friction, I think, early on. But the biggest friction, to me in the show, and I've only watched two, there are three up, fourth ones coming this week, all the caveats. Like, comedies take time to gel, except when they're Abbott Elementary, apparently. But like, normally they do. And that's absolutely fine. The difference between writing a pilot that is a great sales document that reads funny and then integrating the particular personality, charisma, vibes and quirks of the cast who are then performing this sales document, that takes five or

six episodes to see the dailies, to be around them on set. That makes sense. So we'll give it time. But the oldest TV adage that I'm concerned about here is the one that stars don't make TV shows, TV shows make stars. This is like, what was that? Remember the Lakers team where they were like, Carl Malone and Gary Payton are going to win a championship now? This is going to be fun. Yeah. I know that was the Steve Nash team, but yes, those, like super teams, basically.

There is an element of that here where I'm just like, these people bring their own gravity. And their own gravity isn't necessarily used to folding itself into pre-existing characters, and then those characters having, you know, both friction and chemistry in all the right ways with these other people. That was what I noticed. Like, when I watched the pilot,

and this might also be the nature of a comedy pilot, I liked it. I like everybody in it. But it did feel like Kagan, Michael Key, and Johnny Knoxville, and Rachel Bloom and then Paul Reiser, like showing up and being themselves and reciting their lines. It did not necessarily feel like an integrated ensemble and a comedy show that I'm going to watch for seasons to come. Right. And I think that you could make the argument that within the world of the show, these people have not really seen each other in decades for the most part. And that they are coming back together and essentially cashing in slash try to save their careers because they're trying to do, this grittier reimagining of this, why is this guy in our house?

We're just a crazy couple who loves to argue. We have this kid. Like a TGIF. Yeah, it's essentially, but I think that the idea is that Rachel Bloom has come from like more of an alternative comedy world and is doing jokes but not funny, quote unquote, which is part of the, I think, a joke that's in the trailer itself. I really enjoyed it. I got to see a bunch of these episodes.

Like, it's almost strange because it seems to be, I don't know if they're doing another season of it, but it seems to be conceived as a pretty limited run. So I almost watched it more as like, kind of a British show, you know, like an eight episode British show rather than like, oh, this is going to be another new sitcom that runs for, for 10 years. I completely miss that. But I don't know that that's like officially the way that they're pitching it or not. It's just the way I felt while watching it and based on what I understand. It's just like a very, I would say that the stuff I saw like tells a pretty complete story, but I could be wrong. that's also, I mean, it's amazing.

Like that lends itself to the kind of, not struggle I was having with the show, but, you know, it's a little confusing because it was moving in two directions simultaneously. And I wonder if my experience watching it, I thought that they were trying to fold these larger, more contemporary ideas and personalities into a show that would run for a while.

Like that was still the goal. It certainly could, but it certainly doesn't have to. It's also certainly super-exper, You think so? Yeah, I mean, Levittan alone, like, to, you know, he's one of the most accomplished TV creators of the last 20, 30 years. So just to get his new show is not going to be cheap. And then he brought major actors who, you know, could lead their own, or at least their

quotes could sink other programs. I wonder if it shot on the Fox lot, because one of the big things, like when you go to the Fox lot for like a screening or something like that is there's all the places where they used to shoot Modern Family. And I wonder if Steve. 11-10, I was like, I like it here. I'm just going to shoot it. Like, literally, we'll just make the Foxlot the character.

I mean, why not? Like, that's what, you know, that's what people can do at this level. I mean, the show itself is on Hulu. And in the world of the show, the show is being rebooted on Hulu. But I don't know if that was pre- or post-merger stuff. Can I just say a little, like, you know who's really enjoying his golden years is Paul Riser? You're right.

He is great. And you know what? Has pretty much always been great. And there was a moment, I guess, I don't know whether it was ego or placement or whatever, like, you know, post mad about you or it was just like, I guess he was either writing and directing or making, he had a sitcom that was like the Paul Reiser show that NBC was trying to build around him. At a certain point, he seems to have embraced something that we should all be so lucky to embrace, which is, fuck it, I know who I am. And his performance on The Boys this last year was just great. and he's sort of channeling some of the same toxic energy in this, and it's just a pro's pro.

And so maybe that's because he has experience being someone with a particular set of skills and blending into an ensemble, but he's chosen what he's doing on this show so decisively that the scenes that he is in absolutely work because he has like, he's laying down a baseline or something that everyone else can then. I think this stuff with him and Rachel Bloom

is my favorite parts of the show. I agree. I agree. And that's actually the most Yeah, that's the most Hulu of it and the least TGIF ABC. But how many have you watched? I've watched quite a few. So I think there's eight episodes

and I watched like this year. I don't want to give anything away about like plot twist or anything like that. But I stuck with it. I really liked it. But sometimes we can, sometimes Chris, you can affect the markets in real time. I don't want to do that. You look what I did to the pound. You're doing it to me.

I went to England twice and look what happened. Now look at it. You, look, Liz Trust, it's cool that you have her ear. But I don't know if you are the best advisor. Do you think that when shit like this happens, like what's happening in England, like I just have to make space shows now. I can no longer lampoon like modern life accurately? Yes.

I mean, remember, yeah. I mean, there was a moment when I remember writing about this for Grantland that we're like House of Cards and Veep were both on. And everyone was just like, wow, finally someone's showing us the real DC in its house of cards. And then Trump gets elected and we're like, nope, it wasn't that one. It was the comedy. Like, I do think, I do think that. Let's talk a little bit about Atlanta, which we went into pretty in depth when the first two episodes went up.

But I just wanted to say that, like, I think sometimes we can be wet blankets about this show. I had very uncomplicated feelings about this episode. I think this is the second time I've referenced the lack of. complication in my feelings. Sorry for being repetitive. But this was really fucking funny and really inventive and interesting. And as somebody who has spent a lot of time waiting for musicians in his life, the waiting for DeAngelo sequences of this episode were really, really good, or the experiencing DeAngelo parts. And I just thought, you know, maybe it's because it was more rooted back in the rap music world. I don't know. Just the whole YWA,

anonymous segment where like they go and have like these aging rappers trying to find their white avatars to manage. I was, I laughed. Collecting them like Pokemon. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

this show, as we have said repeatedly over the last years, does not need to do anything for us and shouldn't be, should not be trying and it is not. But it was very nice to be reminded like how good these guys are at doing this thing, at just doing this level of side eye. parody of something that is our world, but slightly, slightly crooked. I thought this is a great episode. I thought it was really funny, really surprising. I'm really into something that is emerging,

which is this idea that all of Atlanta is connected through like ducts and trap doors. Yeah. And that there's something even sort of deeper and richer about that, which is like, in a way, it's a highly stylized, like, Lynchian version of what Alfred learns in this episode or what is communicated to him, right? Which is that like things that different people read white people might think of as a moment of stability or security or being engaged, you know, fully bought in to the marketplace of earth in all senses can be temporary, can be fleeting, cannot be trusted, or not reliable. And that the idea that the black spaces of Atlanta or maybe pop culture or media or whatever

need to be connected through janky closets and funeral homes and that there's another way to connect these worlds but it's not straight, it's not direct and it's not easy. It's a pretty powerful visual metaphor that is really popping and working this season.

Also like is it pretty like convincing you could talk me into like DeAngelo being a collective hive mind at certain points because like there was definitely years where I was just like is this guy exist? on the same astral plane as we are and like what is going into it? I thought it was

like a really creative way of trying to like almost explain the unexplainable enigmatic figure that certain artists like take on. You know, I mean, whether it's Prince or D'Angelo or whoever. Have you ever had, what's the worst experience you ever had waiting for

a musician? I was going to ask you that. I'm trying to think, I mean, one thing that definitely might be different in our experiences is that the most like in the field reporting traveling with musicians or traveling to talk to musicians experience I had were with straight-edge emo dorks. Yeah, I straight up have flown to cities and musicians have not been there.

Yes. They're like, I never had that. He left. And I was like, okay. What was the worst? I had to fly to Memphis to interview somebody and that person wasn't there. Yeah. But did you have, like, how certain were you that the person was in Memphis?

You know, it was before texting really was like exploding, but it was pretty clear he was not in Memphis, I think. It was tough, though. I remember a colleague that's been flew to interview the front person of a rock band, and then the person was in a hotel room, but wouldn't let our colleague up. So then, like, did a phone call from the house phone up, and then the person agreed to let the writer come up,

and then they talked through the closed hotel door. Oh, wow. You know, so I feel like that is compelling and also frustrating. The last, by the way, before we move off of Atlanta, because, look, the show just confounds us and is operating on a different level than most shows. And so talking about it week to week doesn't necessarily, I don't know, doesn't make any of us,

the show or us look good often because it can zig and zag, and we don't really know what the big picture is until we see the whole picture. But I did want to revisit one thing about last week that, I just constantly have to be reminded with this show that watching it as who I am, I am not picking up on a lot of what's being transmitted. And I just feel like it's important to acknowledge that, specifically because I was talking about some of the frustrations I had

where so much of the episode was earned in therapy telling, not showing. Not necessarily that we needed to see the flashback of him in college, but like the airport incident that he's describing, right? And I was sort of focused on what that did for the narrative storytelling. And what I didn't do was talk about how, in many ways, a lot of what the episode was communicating was the historically complicated relationship between black men and therapy.

I didn't comment on that. I'm not saying I'm commenting on it now, but I glossed over it to be like, oh, storytelling 101 or whatever, this frustrated me. Whereas the moment when Earn tells Alfred and Darius that he's going to therapy and their reaction is probably as significant as anything else.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that, I don't know. I try not to get too hung up on like whether or not, I mean, you can only, like, interpret what you see on screen, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, should we talk about it?

Oh, no, I can't. No, I could do what's not on screen. I'm sorry, are you challenging me? That's why you've got such deeply held beliefs about the second half of Confess Fletch. Exactly. 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.

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Get me one of those maister teas. Oh, do you want me to do like the, so I, let's put it this way. I think that during the episode, I believe that when you were watching this most recent episode, which featured as people must know, a time jump, 10 years, new cast for the most part. Emma Darcy and Olivia Cook taking on the two main roles of Renera and Allison. I think when you were watching it, you were like,

who's this guy again? What is this dude doing? Why is this person mad at this person? Yes. And I'm not gonna, I'm not dinging you for that. I think that there's an argument to make that this show is sort of leaving the dock

of casual appreciation, like people being able to be like, I'm not dedicating my life to House of the Dragon. I am not going to read these books. I want to watch a show that feels like interesting and fun and cool and is transporting and is involving. But they are really, really, really either a swinging for the fences or swinging and missing, depending on what side of the plate you're standing on.

Right. With how fast they are moving through the story and how quickly they leave behind plot points, character motivations, all the stuff that is usually the building block for these kinds of 60-minute dramas. A million percent. I think that... And I say that as somebody who likes it still. Like, I like this show, and I'm, I especially enjoy this last episode specifically because of the two new leads. I want to talk about that.

There are many things to be positive about, especially Olivia Cook, who I think is just an awesome actor. But I want to call attention to something. So speaking of awesome actors, Matthew Needham plays Laris, a character whose name I definitely knew prior to reading the interview with Matthew Needham on Vulture today. And in the interview, someone is like, wow, you know, that really escalated, like Anchorman Fight. Like this guy who is just sort of like hanging around is now straight murdering his family to please the queen. And Matthew Needham's answer is, well, it's been 10 years.

So their relationship has changed quite a bit and what he's willing to do for the queen and what he sees his role has changed. And I was like, cool. Sounds like a good TV show. In fact, I would argue that Laris and Kristen didn't change at all. While other actors took over roles, those guys look, they're just McConauging. They just stayed the same age. It's incredible.

It's beautiful for them. But do you know what I mean? And because of that, we're not just robbed of like the development of there. Like, Patty Constantine looks like Dan Aykroyd and nothing but trouble. Concededine, I've done a full 180 on Constantine. I was waiting for him to die over the last few. few weeks, like the scene in Monty Python on the Holy Grail, where he's like, I feel better. Like, I was like that, I was watching it purely comedically. He collapsed at the end of the last

episode. And I was like, well, what a legendary run for Patty. Back to the West End with you. Nope. Now you have three hours in the makeup chair, my guy. Now I want him to survive six seasons of this show. Oh, he has to increasingly looking like the cryptkeeper. And then when he goes out, he has to become a force ghost. You, from your lips to no longer Miguel Sopod. I love it. I want to come back to the positives and Olivia Cook and all that. It's just the Laris thing is frustrating because it's not just that we were robbed of 10 years of like this guy manipulating or scheming or the relationship between him. Need him and Olivia Cook are doing great work together.

Olivia Cook's awesome. It's that the character, like finding out his name is literally a portmanteau of Littlefinger and Varis, two characters who we desperately could use in this show, both for their, you know, their energy. electricity, surprise, 4D chess, whatever. He's a cipher for that type of energy that the show needs in a way that I found more frustrating than not. I think, yeah, I keep going back to Olivia Cook as the positive. Feed me some more before I tip the apple card over. I've spent a lot of time thinking this week about what would have happened if this was the first episode of the show. So I understand the first five episodes.

I think that there was some really cool stuff in there. I guess I understand why they felt like they wanted to show Allison and Reneira as friends. Allison and Reneer falling out. The different paths of their lives take. All the ups and downs of being Damon Targaryen, wife homicide, you know, meeting someone, killing someone, just the usual shit.

But there's a part of me that wonders whether or not like it's almost like the Andor lesson. Like you could have just thrown me in the deep end. And I wonder whether or not, let's say you start a scene and you get, Alison walks into this dining room after going through all, like her day and Laris is sitting there. And this is the first time you were seeing Laris.

Would you be any less confused or like, would you be more confused if that had just been the first introduction of this character? And all of a sudden she's got this guy who's in her ear and is telling her, you know, you've got to get your father back here. I hope you know that I've been a good servant to you. And meanwhile, like my brother and my father are just like in the fucking way here. And, you know, if you're questioning my loyalty, my loyalty is to you, not to them.

And then beat, beat, beat. And you still get the end. You still get the, what if this was the first episode of this show, it feels like a different show, first of all. Because like, I feel like Emma and Olivia are both bringing like a kind of, I mean, with no disrespect to the previous performers. a vitality and kind of like an electricity to the performances. An urgency. Yeah, which comes with being mildly disappointed adults rather than optimistic and spoiled kids, maybe. I don't know.

That's why people like listening to us. But I wonder whether or not it would have really made that much of a difference, you know? I think it's a great question and a great what if. It's interesting to me because on the one hand, you can see it as making things easier for audiences to track this story historically, to show us them as children, to walk us through some of the inflection points of tension between new characters, different houses, et cetera, et cetera. The flip side of that, though, is an incredible, incredibly difficult, incredible degree of difficulty for the creators.

Because now, week after week, you have to do the almost impossible job of introducing someone in the first act of an episode, making you care about them because they're going to be dead by the end of it. Now, you could make the point, as I've seen online since the episode aired, that, is it Harwin? Strong? Laris's brother was there. Break bones. Previously.

But not to the casual fan. I didn't know who that guy was. I wasn't checking for him. I didn't know his house allegiances or responsibilities. Now he's the father of three princes. Yeah. And then he's Audi 5,000. And, okay.

Same with, is it Lena? Yeah. Damon's wife. Different actor who just gets put into the childbirth meat grinder of the show, which is becoming a thing. And I think there's another piece in New York Magazine. I think it's probably worth reading about that that I find really interesting. I don't feel any more entitled to comment on whether the womb is the battlefield of the show

than maybe Miguel Sopachnik and Ryan Condal do. I think there's an interesting argument to be made that this piece in vulture makes that maybe dudes like us aren't the best spokespeople for that. particular argument. But regardless, okay, here's someone interesting. Now here's a different actor playing her. Maybe she's more interesting. Nope.

She's gone. Like, that's incredibly hard for creators to do. Every episode, you're basically starting from scratch and you're not doing the thing that, and this has been a kind of a overarching theme of our podcast recently, which is people like their stories with their characters, Abbott Elementary, Succession, Game of Thrones. Like, week to week, over multiple seasons,

we see the highs and the lows and they're going to a place. And the thing that really just kind of perplexes me about House of the Dragon is, boy, there's really going to be an issue with who's going to be king, huh? Seems like, now, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but the people won't accept Renera. And so Allison might have to do something to insure it for her kids. That's the vibe I'm getting. Are you getting to say that?

Yeah, that happens. That's actually how Confess Fletch ends is. I'm trying to check my bias, because I, I think that and or, like, for instance, is a show that we obviously adore. I had to do when I was like running around and my text messages being like, oh my God, fucking Godhead Gilroy, he snapped. And I was like, but make sure you watch all three. Yes.

And I was doing all these like kind of like fine prints for my recommendation. And I wonder whether or not in six months we'll get to the end of this House of the Dragon. season and we'll just be doing fine printing about like, just skip the first five episodes or just read recaps of the first five episodes or like, do you don't have to worry about the first five? That would be great. But I

also want to say that it seems like the people who have read Fire and Blood by George R. Martin, or at least the Wikipedia of it, are thrilled. They love seeing characters that have existed in their heads brought to life by great actors and set pieces

and the intrigue and that excitement that we remember very well as non-book readers in the early seasons of Game of Thrones, the smile on people's faces when we'd be like, that Rob Stark really seems like he's destined for greatness. Right. You know what I mean? And there is fun in that that I do not want to begrudge. Like, I think people really are enjoying it.

It's expanding their relationship to something that matters something to them. It matters a lot to them. It's expanding their relationship with this world. But you also, if you are on that side of it, I hope you can hold the same empathy for those of us who don't have that relationship to the material. Because for me, do you remember when you would get jury duty in New York and before you would be vetted in the jury, you would watch a video, or they would be like, justice didn't used to look like this on these shores?

And then it would be like, cut to Somerstock actors being like, burn the witch, put her in the water. And then Ed Bradley would emerge with a hoopie. And he'd be like, I'm 60 Minutes Ed Bradley. And what you're seeing is what used to happen with witches. Now we have judges. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting from this show. That's the vibe.

Can you have a assumption of it? Can you have a successful show that is narrow-casted towards obsessives about the world? Well, this is, in some ways, the question of our media moment. That's why I asked. Yeah, I obviously, we say no, because we don't want that to be the answer, but also we don't want to have to watch every episode of Moon Night. You know what I mean? like we don't want that.

We don't want it to be homework. We don't want to see things that basically affirm our pre-existing notions of a world or a character of a book we've read once. You know, we want to be surprised. And...

I wonder if it comes down to the source material and the execution because I wonder whether or not, like... I feel like my big complaint about like all the X-Men movies was always like,

this is too broad. Like the things that I care about about X-Men are the seventh subterranean level of X-Men. It's not even like, like, child of the atom. You know, will we ever be safe, you know? You like Longshot and Dazzler and the Mojovers. No, it wasn't even like that kind of level of character as much as it was like just the really fucked up family dynamic of that group of people over the course of like hundreds

of issues or whatever. And what your, your thing about heroin is completely right. like if you just watch the episode with the wedding where he breaks up the fight and then in the next episode he is the father of three children by the queen or the princess and then at the end of that episode he is a burnt to a crisp if you don't know anything about the strong family about harwin about him being the mightiest man in the land of all this stuff he's just he's just a redshirt right it's exactly right it's just a red shirt and the thing that game of thrones did that all shows do well, but they took the time to introduce us to people so that when they met their fates,

and in some cases, they didn't meet their fates for seasons, years, and you couldn't believe it, you know, the amount of detail or time you're spending with people. It also gave the room to surprise, not just with their ultimate ends, but with their turns, their behavior. You know, I haven't, you guys won't be surprised to hear this. I have not rewatched Game of Thrones, but watching House of Dragon Week to week has caused me to remember certain things that I I know, and I apologize, super fans. You never forgot this. And I know it's insulting on some level for me to be commenting glibly

about things that matter so significantly to you, culturally and artistically. But like the Jamie Lannister arc, remember he gets his hand chopped off? His arm? Like, that's what he was good at. And then he had to come all the way back from that. And then at the end, he ended up back where he started. And that is epic. That's epic storytelling.

This is a different model of epic storytelling. Well, it might be a different kind of story. You know, I mean, it is specifically like a family civil war. I think that like my initial complaints about it being like, man, they're just really in one room or another in this castle. You know, like, nobody's really like, I think I reacted really positively to when they did the hunt. Because I was like, this, like, Game of Thrones. They're out in the world. There's a trip.

They're doing stuff. They got to eat. Here's what the restaurant looks like. Whatever. They're out there. I think the first few episodes got us with things that are good for the franchise. Like surprises. There were surprises. And also, yeah, insane detail and world building. We've had very little of that over the last few weeks. And I don't know if that's the nature of the story or the nature of the budget, which is, you know, enormous, but also has limits. I just kind of can't believe how uninteresting these people are. And if you're making a show that is about who's going to get to be the ruler of this place, dude, show me the place. Show me a single person with an opinion about. them. And they keep saying, the people will never accept Renera. Who? Okay. What's so good about it?

I don't know anymore. You know, I remember Westrose and it wasn't great. It wasn't a great place. So, you know, I don't know. I mean, do you feel, can I ask you one last thing? Of course. Because I know, Chris, you are, people know a lot about you. You know, you're on the mic a lot. But I don't know if they know that you are a pretty committed poll watcher. You know what I mean? Like you like to mix it up. And the Dave Wasserman sense, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So. And I've seen enough sense. Yeah. Do you, okay. But Chris, like, are we misreading the room here? Like, do we all want Renira to win because of our progressive mindsets and we like Emma Darcy and we like Millie Alcock?

But really in the latest Houston Chronicle poll of Westro, she's eight points down. Do you know what I mean? Like, because they're not showing us the room, are we just misreading it? I don't know. I mean, it seems like a very tenuous. it seems closer to the way England's fix a prime minister where you just sort of like lose the room

at a certain point and that can be it. So there is an entire like swath of that episode where I'm like man Allison is running shit. Like she's really like she's really getting after it. And then at the end she's sort of left like I don't have like my base.

I have this guy who limps and kills his dad and I have my estranged father and my dad or my husband who's falling to pieces. I agree. I just think that it comes down to, it's not just that I don't understand what the people want of Westrose. I'm not looking for the Howard Zinn HBO Max spin-off here necessarily, although Casey get at me. Kind of seems like rich text. I don't really understand because of the amount of time you spent with them what

Reneira or Allison wants because, look, say what you will about Circe. You know, and the stories have been written, the posthumous pieces. I get it. She loved her kids. She disavowed fascism at the end. you know? She loved her kids. That was baked into the character. Now, I'm not saying that Allison doesn't love her kids. It's just that we just jumped 10 years. And now her kids are David Tennant's kid jacking off out of a window. Like, I don't, it all does seem a little parlor games, like court stuff. Like, I just want to win because my life is boring, as opposed to I wish something concretely tied to you. You would like a little bit of downstairs to go with your upstairs is what you're saying. I love it. Yeah. It's great. You fixed it.

it. Hey, before we go, do you want to talk a little bit at the Last of Us trailer? Oh, yeah, we should, because that was the big debut in front of Dragon, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think it looks amazing. I've never played Last of Us. No, me either.

I really like Pedro Pascal. I mean, everybody knows how often we go back to Chernobyl as sort of a central text of this podcast. A million percent, yeah. Yeah. It's a show I definitely watched. No, but it looks remarkable. and it's a really, really well-done trailer,

and I would just say it seems to be kind of continuing the sort of trajectory of, let's keep the CGI as minimal as possible. Let's do more practical world-building. Let's make people feel a little bit more immersed in this place and that it's not just a cornucopia of animation in, like the way Andor kind of is emphasizing practical effects. this is what HBO should be good at,

which is to say, I've never played the game. I walked away from that trailer not entirely sure if it's a pandemic or a zombie apocalypse or both. What they're leading with is the human stakes in a terrifying world, which again is what HBO does. That's their bread and butter, you know, and so it'll be interesting, you know,

we're done talking about As a Dragon for the day, but that was so unfamiliar for them to do a kind of almost reverse engineer, start with where we ended up and see if we can make an HBO show out of it. This feels more on brand. And it is connected

because it's Oberyn, Martel, and Leanna Mormont, right? That's right. I was kind of struck, wasn't there like a legendary like HBO passed on Walking Dead story? Everybody. Not legendary, but everybody.

But like the HBO did pass on it though, right? I think it's, I don't know if Walking Dead was specifically pitched HBO, but all of those transformative AMC shows were Shoburned Breaking Bad and Walking Dead were getable. Everyone passed on all of them. This seems like a suitable replacement. I don't know that

it'll be the phenomenon the Walking Dead was, but it seems to have the similar vibe. Will you be playing Last of Us before the show comes out? Are you inviting me over? Because I feel like you have a PS5, but then you staged this whole pandemic. I thought it was pretty weird when I told you that was it Golden Eye that's coming out on Switch? GoldenEye's coming back, yeah. And you were like,

you were like kind of like just dismissed me. Well, because we played Perfect Dark, which I know is based on the same engine. I was still ruled though. Like GoldenEye's still really good. I never played it. Isn't it basically Perfect Dark, but with James Bond?

I think so. But I didn't have the machine. So we would go to someone's house, right? And we'd look, this is 20 years ago stuff that's coming out now. I'm a little vulnerable, you know? Like I feel, I feel attacked. You're right.

You just don't know what happens at the end of Fletch. No idea. You don't remember video games from 20 years ago. Does the end of Fletch get the dragons right? And you just want to know who to root for at House of the Dragon. I'm a simple guy. I like broadcast comedy, okay, watching half, half of movies, and then having strong opinions about other stuff.

But that's also been my lane. Like, I don't think this is a zag. I think people know what they signed up for. We'll be back on Thursday. We're going to talk some more and or we're going to talk some reservation dogs and I will be talking with you, the listeners. Thank you to Kyah McMullen for producing us today. We'll talk to you about about 36 hours. Yeah. I feel like I'm on shaky ground. No, never. We almost, we started recording today. And Chris was like, you can go take some more time. And I was like, do you have someone else in the green room? That's right. How many people are in the Zoom right now? The entire cast of Bougu Knotes.

Incredible. I can't wait to listen to that. I'm going to that's why I'm going to spend the next 36. hours listening to your Boogie Nights rewatchables 12 times. That's part one, yeah.