The Watch - Do We Have Old-TV-Show Fever? Plus, ‘Dark’ Season 3 and ‘I May Destroy You’

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

With Netflix adding ‘Supermarket Sweep’ to its catalog and Peacock debuting a large library of old TV shows, are TV shows from the '90s the most valuable thing for a streaming service to have right now (19:51)? Plus, we break down the latest episode of ‘I May Destroy You’ (31:36) and the first two episodes of ‘Dark’ Season 3 (38:48). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by an oral history of the office podcast. Fifteen years ago, the American television landscape changed forever with the launch of a new series that struggled initially, but became one of television's most beloved and enduring comedies. An oral history of The Office pulls back the curtain on what went into creating this unstoppable force in American popular culture and why it continues to resonate with new audiences today, hosted by Brian Baumgartner, who you know as Kevin Malone, and produced by Propgate content. The podcast features interviews with the cast and creators from the fictional Dunder-Mifflin paper company

and reveals some never-before-heard stories from the people who were there from the very beginning. You'll hear from Steve Corel, John Krasinski, Rayne Wilson, Ricky Jervase, and more. The show is now out. So check it out and listen for free on Spotify. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. And I am an editor at therigger.com and joining me on the other line. My blue check for life. It's Andy Greenwald! What a tough afternoon for us, Chris. Do you think this is too niche? Do people know what we're talking about? I am full of high-octane, high-performance gasoline today

because we are recording before 2 p.m. West Coast time. So your boy is still on the upswing. I have to tell a watch listener or something. And now that we're really talking. Welcome to Thursday. Dare I call it the re-up. We haven't called it that in such a long time. But usually, Andy and I record later in the afternoon.

To accommodate certain people, who can say? You know, who can say? Well, it's to accommodate certain people's certain dependence. Sure, sure, sure. But like, I'm willing to do that. I love you, man. And I love this podcast. But I am so much more hype for this episode today

because I feel like I still am riding the vapor trails of my morning coffee. You know, the purity and the energy and the protein in my breakfast is still flowing through me. And I'm just ready to rock, man. It's 1230 in Los Angeles. Everything's going great in the world. Let's talk about pop culture amongst friends. God, I wish I could meet your energy level. I'm having a real, you know, protein roller coaster myself.

Just had cereal this morning. Thought I would be eating lunch before this. This 1230 thing, it's thrown me. So it'll be interesting. There's just a different dynamic. I'm making excuses before we start. Did you want to tweet anything yesterday when Blue Check Twitter was down? No, I've been going through a series of blocking myself on Twitter.

Like just to kind of, it's really not for anything other than the fact that I feel like my attention span is being shredded by being at home so much. So I just like constantly am like refreshing. So I just kind of like, I only have like one device that I can look at Twitter on and it kind of. it's kind of not very pleasant. T-Mobile sidekick or something? Well, she's still, that's the thing, is that, like, if I ever try to block Twitter for myself, like, I can count on you and my wife being like, did you see this and sending me tweets all day?

That's true. And I apologize for that. My problem is the only things that I want to contribute to the discourse, not in a podcast format, and we're very lucky to have this platform to communicate our deeper thoughts on the launch of subscription streaming services and the like. But every so often I'll have a thought that I kind of want to share. And this morning, I wanted to have this thought. And I thought about sharing it with you.

And I was like, maybe I want a larger audience for this thought because I feel like I'd like other people to share it. And the thought was, isn't it weird that in 2007, Bruce Springsteen released a Magnetic Fields album? Because he made this album magic that essentially was Magnetic Field songs. Like he was deeply inspired by the work of Stephen Merritt. And I feel like that is very specific to, two of my interests. Three, if I liked 2007, too. And I was like, maybe I'll find other people. That was a good year. What was it? Yeah. But I was like maybe I got married. Oh, yeah.

I mean, there were a couple other things. But like, a young, it was a good movie here. Let me tell you, a young senator from Illinois stood up in front of the country and said, yes, we can. Yeah. For the first time. Okay. How about that? Gen Z. fucking Zoom or co-host. But look, the point is there is no appropriate place. And maybe it's better that there's no appropriate place

to share that thought. If I want people to listen to the Bruce Spring Seen song Girls in their summer clothes, people have their Spotify accounts. That's cool. That's fine. It used to be like that, man.

We used to just be able to log on and share takes like that. I think it's a slightly more charged atmosphere now. Now I'm ready to cancel a hipster jam company. So I know where to put that thought. That's what I'm fired up to do this afternoon.

But really, we should talk about pop culture because among other topics, I made you and our listeners a promise a week ago, much like that young senator, charismatic senator from Illinois, who's now getting into the podcast space. We're not feeling the pressure. No, not from him. I made a promise that I would do my homework and catch up on you would watch a TV show.

The premier German language science fiction opus of our time Dark. And I did it. And we're going to talk season three today, among other topics. Right. So what,

the first two episodes of season three today? Boy, was that a... No, it's not a dig. It's not a dig. It's not a dig. I was just saying, we're going to do the first two episodes season three.

I think we can chat a little bit about I may destroy you, although it was another heavy one. And it was another one that I thought was, I don't know that I have a ton more to say about what the show is doing after this episode than I did last episode, which is essentially lauding its use and careful deployment of ambiguity.

And leaving it, I think, I think leaving more of the viewer than it's maybe even getting credit for at this point. So we can talk a little bit about the most recent episode of Ibitistory. I wanted to ask you a question that sort of is borders on the personal, but it also is certainly in the professional. Every once in a while, we have, we have, we have. asked you to talk a little bit about this, but I noticed this week that the Writers Guild, who is obviously the major union representative of screenwriters and the like in Hollywood, and they had been in a longstanding, I guess would you say, at an impasse with the talent agencies of Hollywood, right? Yeah. Over this idea of packaging. Now, just for newcomers,

can you explain briefly what packaging is? Sure. Or do you need your lunch first before you? I mean, it'll be interesting. We'll see if I'm going to take some energy out of my deep, deep analysis of small-town German incest. But we'll save that for later in the episode. I'm sure I still have enough gas in my tank for that. So packaging, this is the back of the notepad scratch version of it,

the packaging is an industry practice that began quite some time. ago and when it was initially talked about what it referred to was this idea that what made super agencies and there's a they're basically now big four uh william morris endeavor c a uta and icm and i'm represented by all four it's incredible by you different quadrants of my work so in different fields yeah yeah that is an amazing flex by you um the idea was that if you were with a high-powered agency, they could use the strength of their client base to basically build a package of a project that was ready to go, ready to sell, ready to film. Meaning, if a, I'll use CAA as an example, if a CAA client wrote a script, CAA had the internal wherewithal to pair that

script with just the right director from their client list, just the right megastars, and get it set up. And in exchange for that service, they would also, they would get a direct payment from the studio for their trouble. They would get a cut from basically carved out of the budget that went straight to them. Over time, that came to mean, that became almost just pro forma for almost any, any deal where it would necessarily need to be packaged within an agency. but if a writer at WME wrote a pilot script that got picked up to series by someplace, WME in negotiating the sale of the script to the studio on behalf of the writer would request in exchange a piece of the package, basically. So they would get a certain amount in the line item paid to them.

And the supposed benefit to the writer would be that their commission fees would not be taken. generally as a UTA client personally 10% of my earnings go to my agency right but if it is a a UTA packaged show or project they do not take that commission nor do they take it from any UTA writers in my writer's room or on the camera crew or in the cast okay that was how it was defined and then when did the conflict basically or when did this start to get called into question this practice i think quite vociferously over the last few years as all manner of the industry has shifted and changed and the ground underneath writers has changed a bit and the agencies seemed quite primed to take advantage of the shifting sands and writers felt a little bit exposed as certain guarantees in the writing career of which there are of course none because it's you're still a writer but certain things like shorter season orders um you know uh more cutthor competition reduced back end because when you make an original show for netflix it will never sell again it will always live forever on the netflix servers as opposed to getting sold in to syndication or ultimately ending up on a streamer.

So that definitely put more of a spotlight on the packaging process. The second piece of it was in an attempt to head off massive changes in the industry, the major agencies. I don't think ICM was involved in this, but WME quite cavalierly, CAA as well, UTA to a degree, started to get into production themselves. And that started to be a giant red flag for writers, basically the people representing us and our fiduciary interests were also, content makers.

And that took different forms. WME, like in part of launching their IPO, has a whole company called Endeavor, where they're actively just making shows for various people. They're in multiple businesses at once. UTA has a 49% share, so a minority share of a production company as well, et cetera, et cetera. So the WGA had a vote a year ago, and they were like, no more of this, hard, hard, hard line. No more packaging fees and no more production. You are our agents.

And that's what we want you to be. It got acrimonyas super quick. It went on much longer. It's still going on much longer than people expected. I think the last of the mini major agencies signed off a couple months ago. But the big four had yet to crack until this week, proud and yes biased and slightly conflicted of interest to say, my agency UTA. Your boys. It became the first of the big four to sign on with the guild again.

And I'm so happy. Because it means... I'm so happy. It means you get your agents back, right? Yes. And I am one of those rare and lucky creatures who I love my agents as people. I think they're great. I miss working with them.

I like working with them. But I'm also very proud to be a member of the union that provides health care and structure to my day and life and career and took a very hard line on something that was not easy to do. So it's... a good, it's a good outcome. The outcome itself, what was sort of materially established? Was it, is it, was there some sort of compromise or was UTA just like, you guys are right? No, it's a pretty smart compromise. I mean, the thing I think that was the sticking point in a lot of the negotiations was the WGA held a very hard line saying you have to immediately disentangle enormous part of your business. And what the UTA deal suggests is a way forward, which says that they will, they're going

they begin to sunset packaging. It's going to take two years to detangle, but the immediate change. Because they have deals that are already in place, et cetera. And they've been operating in a certain way. But the big change, and this is something that I also appreciate from my own experience, is there will be complete transparency about packaging. And, you know, potential showrunners or existing showrunners who sell a project will be given the option saying, you can have a package in exchange for what it does

for the commission. Like, I am okay with entering this level of business with you or I am not. And if you are not, then it'll proceed. Okay, it'll proceed as well. Would you say that, and feel free to say, like, I can't really answer, right? Or you don't really know. But would you say that the advantage, is there, are there advantages of packaging from a writer's side? So like, let's say you, you're going out and you're saying, okay, I have this show and somebody is like offering you that, I guess, service, for lack of a better term.

What are the advantages of having that happen? Because I guess they could make a lot of things happen because they control a lot of levers, right? It's a little, I think one of the issues is that it's very opaque. A lot of, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but this is a bad metaphor because cooks in the kitchen generally don't help themselves to slices of pie. So maybe I should reconsider my bad analogy. Maybe my agents, yeah, exactly. If it's jam, it might be.

So it gets complicated where it's unclear exactly who is benefiting from what. If it is strictly a you are my representative in a fiduciary responsibility responsible role, I get what you're doing. You're negotiating a deal for me. And you are getting a return on that. And that's that. There's a cleanliness to that. If, you know, and I, I don't think there's any issue in being transparent about this.

I am a UTI. I was an M again, a UTA client. So UTA had a, had a interest of a package on Breyer Patch. Sam, S.M. Our executive producer and friend of our podcast is a CAA client. CAA had a package on my show as well. I don't work for CAA, but they took, they had a line item in the budget that they got.

Rosario Dawson, wonderful star, wonderful human being, a CAA client. Was she packaged and offered to us? No. Did the script get put on the top of her pile to read because she's a CAA client? I'll never really know the answer to that. And I think the not knowing is the part that I'm uncomfortable with. I'd love to say that it's because she responded to it. it and it certainly worked out to everyone's best interest, but I don't actually know. And I think

that is an uncomfortable position to be in. That said, writers in my writer's room who got the job and we're excited to work on it. And then we're told, oh, by the way, by their agents at UTA or CAA, we won't be taking 10% off these paychecks, they're happy. But it's a pretty complicated not to untie. And I've been pretty fortunate in my own navigation of it. Okay. So, This announcement about UTA and WGA making their agreement came out. There is a suggestion that the ball is moving in other places, too, correct? I would think so. I would think so.

In some of these pieces, there was a suggestion that UTA's adoption of certain standards that the WGA requests are tied to another major agency agreeing as well. But those chips haven't fallen yet. But I will say that for writers and also for the town, gross as that sound, as that sounds, it is a, and there are many people probably who won't go back to agents, by the way. It's not necessarily what's needed for everyone. Some people might be very satisfied with just a manager or a lawyer, and many, many, many people have been never not satisfied being represented by the fine agents that are at different agencies. But there was a lot of uncertainty

in the industry. Looking at the summer, there was also a major deal to be made with the studios, and many, many people expected a writer's strike on top of not having agents, which was really a bad case scenario for everyone. And obviously uncertainty rules every industry and every town regardless because of the state of the world. But that deal with the studios was done remarkably quickly and well. So there will not be a work stoppage despite the fact that all work is stopped. Was the deal that was done with the studios more of a stopgap thing?

Or is that because I know that... You said another three-year extension. Oh. So there will be presumably labor piece for three years. And a lot of the work in that deal from what I understand about it was laid by the good work done by SAG and the DGA. Look at you guys. Just figuring it out. Working together.

But again, to be clear, not working, and certainly not together. So, you know, one can never really say how much the uncertainty in the larger world influenced the decision to make these deals happen. I can just feel grateful that they were made. Okay. I mean, I think that's pretty much all I was curious about. I mean, I think that we, for our purposes, I was really more curious about whether or not this, what like sort of practical impact it had on the way shows get made

and what kind of shows we might see going forward and whether or not this packaging thing was more about keeping up with the pace at which streamers were demanding content or whether or not, you know, there was any like sort of takeaways to be had from all this. I mean, I think from my understanding of it, and I'll be clear again, like I'm relatively new to this industry on the side of it, and I was not involved in any of the actual negotiating sessions. But the feeling that I got from the line in the sand that the Writers Guild drew was really a sign of the deep, deep uncertainty and anxiety about the direction of the industry. The centralization of it, the lack of control writers had over their careers, because the goal is obviously to get something made.

but there used to be some level, as I said a moment ago, of security in it, that if you were working on a 20 episode a year show, it would take a year of your life and it would take this much time and you could guarantee certain amounts of income within it if you were lucky enough to be working and the sheer amount of uncertainty in that. And then looking around and being like, okay, so if residuals are down, opportunities are down, span of employment is down, but these agencies seem to be building production centers. They're planning for the next great upheaval. what are we doing about it? So at least that was my read on it

and it seems to be moving in at least a slightly more heartening direction. Even while the uncertainty of the industry, this is a conversation we've been having for a while, is only going to deepen because we don't really know what can get produced and what the appetite for it is and how much money there are,

obviously Amazon and Netflix and Apple are not running out of money anytime soon. Do you get a chance to check out of peacock at all? I have not. Okay. I looked down it. I thought I would give you a little bit of a report card from that. A little book report.

It's really interesting. One of the things that's come up a couple of times when you and I have talked about this is you saying, by the way, I think you're looking at this wrong. Like, I think I kept bringing up Peacock as if what's their original programming? How is this streaming service going to compete with Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus, whatever? And you were like, think about it a little bit differently because it's also TV. like it's still going to have channels. It's offering a live option essentially

and also a pretty traditional option. And I was pretty surprised how much over the last couple of days that I actually used it as such. So mostly in what is now becoming kind of common with these launches where a service launches

and they immediately make something that you want only available through them. Like the Mandalorian, for example. Like the Mandalorian or even Even yesterday, I really wanted to watch Liverpool versus Arsenal, which was not a satisfying use of my time, but I really wanted to see it, Arsenal 121, only available on Peacock,

not available on terrestrial cable while it was live. So it was very, and that is one of the biggest matches of the Premier League season every season twice a year. And I, you know, dialed up Peacock. And so in doing so also spent some time watching its collection of essentially live channels that they have going at that, you know, while you're there.

And then perusing their library. And it's not that much different than, um, than I, I think we discussed on Monday. But one thing I did want to point out is that I, I feel like we're having a very, uh,

very obvious like nostalgia wave in these streaming services where I think a lot of very old stuff is getting really, really front shelf merchandising. Um, you know, not only on Netflix where they're doing supermarket sweep again. I don't know if you saw that they've, And Unsolved Mysteries.

Unsolved mysteries is new episodes. Supermarket sweep are literally episodes from the 90s. And it's like, I watched the one last night with my... Because by the way, the reboot is just people sweeping supermarkets and spraying them with high test organic. Like just... It's not funny, but it is like... It is really weird.

The land of abundance. Also, everything... For real though, Chris, would you or would you not watch 15 minutes of CCTV footage of people just hosing down Gelson's. Like, I would watch it. That would make me feel great before I go in. There's a lot of scenes in Dark Season 3 that actually look like that. But I was really struck by watching supermarket sweep.

How many of our groceries, quote unquote, just came in boxes back then? Right. In, like, cardboard boxes, you know, just like tied, you know, like all these, like different products that were in boxes. And also just, I was really. thrown off by like there's there's one game that they play in supermarket sweep where they ask contestants to guess like which one of these three things is over two dollars and it'll be like everything in the 90s no it'll be like kudos granola bars remember kudos uh yeah i do there's a lot

of chocolate drizzled on them yes hamburger helper and ortega hard shell taco shells which one do you think is more than two dollars say it again the kudos the kudos the kudos hamburger helper and Ortega hardshelled taco. I don't know why. I would say the kudos. No free ads for Ortega. You're right. I would say the drizzle bars.

You're right. The drizzle. Why is that? Is the drizzle that much, that expensive? No, those are unnecessary items. Whereas like hamburger helpers like, let us help you make dinner. And hard shell tacos is just like. Here's some hard corn.

Here's some hard corn. None of the soft. Remember, I mean, people don't understand at some level. I get you have to choke down moldy jam every so. often, but to grow up white in the suburbs as I did. Was to be a child of the hard corn. In the 90s, it was to be like, Taco Bell invented a soft taco. I mean, I'm humiliated to say that now, but like, that's the world that I grew up in.

I still like a hard shell taco. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm saying I thought that a fast food restaurant on City Line Avenue in the corner of City Line in Haverford, like, invented Mexican culture. That's not cool. Life is all about learning. Can I say one other thing about supermarket sweep? Of course. Again, not to just say that we are totally out of touch with what the way things cost now,

because let me tell you something, I buy a gallon of milk very frequently for my children whose bones are forming. So I'm down with that. But I was reading, this is plug right into our demo. This is our hard shell taco demo. I was reading Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety last night. Great novel about academics sleeping with each other. And from the late 70s.

And there's a moment when early on as the character is remembering he and his wife's arrival to Madison, Wisconsin, like for his first teaching job after getting his graduate degree. And I'm unclear at this moment. I sort of forgot when the book was written. And I don't remember what year of this would be that they've just graduated from graduate school. And it's pouring rain and all their belongings are in the car. And he drives up to a hotel. And his wife's like, oh, I don't.

know if we should use that expense. We only have a certain amount of money. And he's like, you're pregnant. Like it's soaking wet. Like, let's at least see. So he runs into the hotel. And he says, how much, how much for a room, clerk? And the clerk says, $250.

And I was like, well, for a hotel room. Yeah. That's pretty reasonable. It's like a Marriott. Yeah. And then they're like, with a bathroom, it's $275. And then I realize after he has this conversation with his wife that not only is he referring to $2.50.

for a room, it's far too much for their budget because they have I think $150 in Travelers checks to last until he gets paid at Christmas. So... Academics back in the 70s.

But then it's also like you read the white album, the Joan Didion book. Right. And it's like she and John Gregory Dunn have not done anything like of not of value. but have not been paid at all in 1968 for anything.

Right. Like maybe did some dialogue touch up on like a movie or something like once, but live in a fucking mansion in like, you know, the Hollywood Dell or something and just have like lavish parties all the time that you could really stretch a buck. But on the downside, Chris, they had never had a soft taco.

No. And wouldn't for three decades. So, you know, I'm just saying it's easy to look back. We've digressed. The reason why I brought up supermarket sweep and the reason why we got off on this is I was struck by how much peacock was like, cheers, murder she wrote, Rockford Files, Here's 12 seasons, dig it.

Now, that might be some personal algorithm that I have already bestowed on the peacock to give back to me in terms of, but I'm not really watching those shows. I thought it was fascinating the library. play that they were making. Well, I think, I have to say, I think that's pretty smart. And I think that it speaks to the, I mean, the jury, the success failure jury is still, that's how juries work, right, is still out on the name, Peacock. But the inclination to steer the name more towards an NBC brand than a Comcast, Universal,

USA Network, Shineheart, Whig company, whatever, is telling. and I think quite smart, because you and I are always referring to the value of the HBO in primatur, right? That, like, that still means something. It's still sort of the crown jewel. And if it's on Sunday night on HBO, that still means something even amidst all of the streaming clutter. I would say that of all the, and people love brand talk, this is going to go over well with the zoomers, that of all the established TV brands, I would say the one that has the most affection built in for it outside,

at least with our generation, and maybe the generation just before or just after, outside of HBO is NBC. That partly because of its long history of shows people really loved, mostly sitcoms, mostly, you know,

whether it's family ties, Cheers, Seinfeld, The Office, etc. 30 Rock. Unlike all of the broadcast, it's broadcast brethren, NBC was very much centered in a place in 30 Rock,

where you knew that's where Letterman was. That's where Saturday Night Live was, is. And it feels like a living place and little things that could be cynical brand synergy or it could just be LOLs in the office, but like Brian Williams leaving the news desk to jump up to weekend update or whatever, it gave you the sense that there was a place where people worked. And it had a sensibility to it. And I think that that hasn't totally diminished. And steering Peacock into that built-in effect. is extremely smart because I don't think CBS has that.

CBS certainly has a, as a, had one reputation. It's unfortunately has had a much worse one recently for what's been going on behind the scenes there. But CBS, ABC, Fox, they don't have that same thing built in. And Max, HBO Max, whatever that is, since they're sort of steering away from that HBO brand, it is an, it is an opportunity there. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to check out Brave New World, which is sort of the lead original that Peacock launched with partially because

I think I was too busy like sort of digging around and looking, oh, they've got all the, all of Battlestar Galactica, they got all Friday Night Lights, they have all of this, they have all of that. And because I sort of immediately got lost

in tooling around in what is essentially their live functionality and looking at all the cable channels, cable channels, what all the channels that they have kind of brought under the same umbrella. I was incredibly charmed to be watching Sky Sports is what I'm telling you.

And you were using the free option. You were just watching it the way it is with limited commercials. Your boy might have stumped up for a research project there and gotten the premium no ads. Oh. Yeah. Well, I like to be a part of the conversation. Look at you, Rockefeller. 275 with a bathroom is nothing to you.

Well, so moving on, unless you wanted to talk more about the novels of Wallace Stegner. Thank you. Hotels in the 70s. What? It was in the 30s. That was the review. Oh, the 1930s? Yes.

Oh, I thought you were like, it's the 1970s. The present day in the book is, but he's remembering when they approached Madison, Wisconsin in 1937. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes much more sense. I was like, that's a pretty good deal for hotel no matter what year.

Even Joan Didion could have afforded it. I want to talk about I May Destroy You before we go to a break, and then we'll come back and talk about Dark. Do you have any takeaways? This was an episode that, I think might provide like a format that the show will continue to investigate, which is essentially like introducing a seemingly tertiary character and then diving deep on that character. I have not watched ahead on,

I made a story. I'm doing it week by week, but it felt like if this is going to be a 12 episode season and it's not going to be a step-by-step kind of quasi-mytery about Arabella, kind of, you know, figuring out what happened to her, this is what's going to happen. They're going to have characters like Theo. and they were going to think that they're one thing, and then they wind up being another.

And I think the thing that was great about this episode and great about this show is that you get to the end, and you don't know, I think your mileage may vary on where you land on who Theo is and what she's going to mean to Arabella and what Arabella has meant to her and how you never really know somebody unless you are that person.

And I thought it was, I will admit, it was not like an easy episode to watch. I don't think that that's really what this show is. There have been a few recently that I found a little bit more difficult to get through than earlier episodes, but I still think, you know, all the usual Hosannas that we say for the show apply, unlike anything else on TV. Yeah, I think that it was not, it's never the most pleasant or easy watch, which is not a bad thing at all.

I think one of the reasons that we might be reacting that way and others might feel the same way is the reason for that is also one of the things I think the show should be praised for, which is to say that it is a destabilizing viewing experience because you don't know what each episode is going to be. And I don't mean what it's going to contain or discuss, but I mean literally what is the storytelling mechanism for this episode going to be? I did not expect firing up this episode for it to introduce a new character and then devote the entire episode to a flashback centered on that character. That's the kind of stuff that Atlanta, we praise Atlanta for that or the most elastic programming of our time. And I think that the show should be lauded for that. And it continues to just kind of keep viewers on their toes because it can be anything and it can do anything.

And I think what it's doing at this moment that is really worthy of celebration is, look, let me take a step back. It is very much a show of the moment because it is, if anything, above anything else, it is running straight towards the most challenging and complicated issues of our time, whether those are, race, gender, class, assault, safety, the internet as good or bad or just future of our lives. That makes it very much of the moment. What I think makes it greater than the moment is that the show and Michaela Cole explicitly refuses to conclude almost anything. refuses to give anyone and include ourselves as viewers an easy way out. It doesn't, it's not only does it not attempt to solve unsolvable issues,

not problems. It is, its project seems to be committed to showing all the threads and knots and complications and how you can keep, you can approach this. I mean, at the beginning we talked about it being a detective show, but the show is almost about the limits of that kind of detection

because you could just keep, take, okay, so that happened. Take a step back. Take a step back. Take a step back. Who is to blame? Who is culpable? Who has done what? And who owes what? To whom? It's dizzying. And I think that kind of lack of resolution in terms of a casual watch can leave viewers feeling floored or dissatisfied or frustrated. But I think that that in itself is the project. And I think it's worth commending. Yeah, I think the project is also about chronicling how people change and what changes them. I mean, I thought that the last two episodes actually,

the episodes have concluded, and I was watching them with my wife and I'm just like, I feel challenged by this show in a way that I feel challenged by like really great literature or I feel challenged by like a really provocative piece of literature where I'm like, this did not end with the piece of the grammatical endpoint

that I expected it to. And I don't feel like it's been given a period or an exclamation point. I feel like it's been given like this kind of ellipsis or in a question mark. And you're forced to kind of consider it for longer than five minutes after the credits roll, you know? And it also keeps you very alert interrogating your own assumptions, meaning we flash back to Theo and we see she's up to something and then we're introduced to this stepfather. And immediately, alarm bells go off like what's up with a stepfather? Yeah, yeah.

Is he skeevy? Is he sketchy? Is it intentional that he looks kind of like, Robert Carlyle in Circa train spotting. Yeah. Minus the mustache, respect to Begby. But then, you know, cell phones and cell phone pictures and being the generation we are, I'm like, this is a horrifying nightmare. But then for young Terry and young Arabella in that group, they're like, oh, this is cool. This is neat.

This is helping. This is everything is a little bit askew from what you might expect it to be. and no moment is, quote, unquote, safe, I think, for the characters. And because of that, no moment is safe for the, for the viewer. I think that even shows that are, quote, unquote, challenging, I don't even to put in quotes. I just wasn't sure if that was the right word or not. Like, even like a boundary pushing show like The Wire, there were safe spaces within

the show, which are kind of old-fashioned TV. Like, when you were in the police department with bunk, you were like, well, at least something horrific isn't going to happen here, you know. And I think you could probably extrapolate that to other shows too, like even Breaking Bad for all the peril that put its characters in. There were moments maybe if just like when Badger was on screen or something where you were like, this is a respite. This is a breath.

Right. And I May Destroy You Doesn't provide that even when we're, you know, with like Kwame and Terry and Arabella. It could turn at any moment. We're going to take a quick break here from sponsors. And when we come back, we'll talk about the first two episodes of Dark Season 3. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Blue Moon. Don't you think some once-in-a-blue moon moments should happen more often than once-in-a-blue moon?

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celebrate responsibly, Blue Moon Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado. All right, we're back. It's Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan and a bunch of German people traveling through time and space. It's dark Thursdays. It's dark Thursdays. days and it's also we're concluding a show that we've been

talking about for the better part of three years I think right? It's crazy. Well, I didn't talk about it for a better part of a year. I think that one thing that's going to be cool about our conversation, I don't want to have too much of a meta talk about the talk, but I do think it's going to be very interesting. Just so you guys know, Andy has just watched

all of two and now is watching three right up against each other. I watched it as God decreed in when it was delivered to me season two a year ago or whenever. I, like Adam,

declared war on God. Yeah. So that's why I watched it the way I did. But I feel like, just based on the text messages, that you seem pretty fired up about everything,

whereas it took me a while to get into the rhythm of this. Well, I would say a couple things. And people have heard me say, dribs and drabs of this as I was catching up. But, look, it's no question that it is just,

life is a little bit better when you have a, like a big serving of a show to get into and you can portion it out the way you like. That's just fun. It's also fun, and people know this about me and I think you as well. It is especially fun for us when we are able to have synchronicity within our homes and marital harmony and have our spouses on board with us.

And so my wife's journey with Dark honestly is in many ways more breathtaking than Yonis's because what began with a great deal of disparagement and mockery has now, the student has become the master, the maister. I don't, my German is, I'm still working it into. The tan house, yeah, right. But she is now coming into the room with a look that is usually reserved to what did you or did you not do regarding the dishwasher to just drop mind bombs about German. German time travel theory.

Like, we are all in over here. So being able to go from season two to season three with just 24 hours between them has been a boon without question. Is your wife on the boards? Is she on the message boards? She doesn't know what that sentence means, which I'm grateful for. Okay. Because her big breakthrough yesterday was she said.

Where I was like, that sounds like somebody who's been spending time on Reddit. No, she's suddenly just like finding, you know, finding a different voice within herself. Like the big technological breakthrough thanks to Dark was that she said, quote, and I'm quoting, I used Google Translate for the first time because she wanted to make a, I'm texting you in German joke

to her friend who was also watching Dark. So that's where we are on the tech spectrum. So there is no Reddit happening. But she's just dropping mad theories. And that's a lot of fun. So, it's a lot of fun. First two episodes, DejaVu and Survivors, the Survivors. And I felt like, I actually felt like Survivors was one of the coolest episodes of the season.

It felt like the show that, it felt like a show that was like more in mid-flight rather than setting everything up, obviously. That's because they let your boy Trant Cook. And they let my guy Trant Cook. I do think Dark has a little bit of ensembleitis where there's just so, many people and each one of these characters has had their backstory really developed and shown that rather than, I mean, beyond the fact that they just have to land the plane in terms of like, here's how time travel works? It's also, how does this stuff affect more than a dozen people that you actually might have feelings about? It's, I think that, and we joke about German

engineering, but I just admire it. I just think that when presented with what is essentially an impossible premise to pull off successfully. I think that the creators of the show played to their strengths and admitted what the project was and never really went away from it. And part of that was, I would be shocked if any season of the show will be as good as the first. And I think they're okay with that. Like the first season, it's always more fun to be asking the questions where you

are a little bit in the dark too. And they were able to introduce us to, you know, two dozen. characters who are far more related than we ever would have realized in some deeply uncomfortable ways, but made us care about them and understand them and center the show as a place about family and secrets and just overlapping lives. Second season was a lot of moving pieces, and then now we're on to resolution. I mean, that follows kind of a traditional trilogy pattern. What's nice about it is that, and partly, you know, I kind of credited to the fact that this is a director-driven show. It doesn't make much sense to say that when you think about how purely

complicated it is. But my dude, Barron Bo Odar and Yantya Friis, I believe, I want to say, and they are partners in life and creative partners. He directed every episode of this. And I don't think you can overstate how important that is for a show like this, which just demands so much of not just tone and vibe and mood, but also just consistency to understand. We talked about this a little bit the other week of like who is who in any moment. It's really the most impressive single, directorial vision on TV since Mr. Robot, I think, in that regard.

But just to say that it is a directorial-driven show, so it just kind of stays being what it's being. Like, scenes on dark are scenes on dark always. There's always going to be someone asking a question, someone staring, people getting too close together, certain framing. And three seasons in, I'm grateful for that as the guard race, as we explore some insanely heady and complicated topics.

You are never watching any other show when you're watching Dark, and I find watching Dark to be very pleasurable. On the off chance that people are sort of watching along at this pace where they're on episode two or three, I would rather you kind of handle reactions to any plot stuff in the first two episodes because I don't want to necessarily give anything away because I've finished the season. So I would say that... So the third season for people who are now watching it know that it creates what,

I mean, in Lost, it was called like the sideways timeline, basically a mirror world, backwards world, which again, speaking to the directorial vision here, it's simple, but I love that they made it a reflection that every set and the work that the production designers do on the show is just mind-blowing to not, so like Jonas's house throughout the eras. They also made it an apocalyptic or in-credible run on bangs, you know, where they just bought every wig of bangs wig, like in- I've got 10 minutes of material on this if you're ready for it. but that they also flipped the orientation of all the homes for this mirror world.

It's just a little thing, but it really is cool and it matters. So we've introduced this new world. It was kind of odd to me, I guess, in terms of clarity that they didn't say the quiet part loud, at least until the end of the second episode. And this is something my wife is all over, which is that old Jonas, or middle-aged Jonas, not Adam Jonas, but sexy, sexy 50-year-old Desmond from the Hatch, but German Jonas, never went to the sideways world,

that that was news to him. So that our young Jonas, who acted like a fan who hadn't watched the show to the first season when he entered into the sideways world, by the way. It's like, you spent two years being like, a world without me in it. And then he gets the world without him in it.

And he's just like, I'm here. I bin here. Marta, do livest. But that he didn't know about this. So this was new territory potentially and something new was developing. And at the end of two, that Jonas stuck in the 19th century has a big tantrum because something new has happened. Yes. Right.

Right. Yes. So that's where we're at character-wise. But, I mean, but this shows fucking wild, man, because Trant Nielsen was not on anyone's power rankings. That dude was not on anyone's game board heading into season three. And then suddenly he shows up in this episode. And I have to remember like Mads and Ulrich and all this. And then also I guess we should remember that he was having an affair with Claudia Teateman.

But then he's Regina's father. And here's what I have to say about that, Chris. Do you remember in the early days of this podcast when we were more ratings driven like the industry as a whole? And we would talk about ratings. And we would say, have you ever met a Nielsen family? Now, let me tell you, Chris, I found all of them. They are all in the small German town of Winden. And they're all having sex with one another.

It is like birth certificates underneath the chair. and an Oprah taping. You're a Nielsen. You're a Nielsen. Everybody's in Nielsen. It is... Talk about commitment to the bit. Because I had a whole run

when I was midway through season two where I was going to be like, Chris, the Germans are all in on Ancest. Like, that one is okay. Uh-huh. But now it just turns out everybody in the family is fucking and that's okay. It's like every single character

is like I am actually my own father. Like that's not even like a literal transition. But I think that you push past a point where it's like, can you even really track this family tree anymore? No. No. And even, again, my wife, who is watching this now like a hawk when I was like, oh, there's Trant Nielsen. Because by the way, she's doing all this without having seen the first season. There's Trond Nielsen. Fun fact, Jonas's great-grandfather. And she said, please pause it. Why? So that is still going on without question. I'm going to ask you this, Chris, not just as a fan of dark and as my good friend, but just as a human being in the world. When you watch, Charlotte and adult milky eye Elizabeth caress each other's face in this circular

infinite motion that can only occur when a mother and daughter is with a mother and daughter because they're both mother and daughter. Are you all in? Are you like, that's a bridge too far? Like, Chinatown was intense. This is just, I, I'm, are you, do you ever struggle with that? Because I get, the thing about Dark that's amazing is they were like, okay, what if we took all these ideas and time travel paradoxes

to an almost logical, if not immoral, a logical conclusion and what happens? Like, they're doing it. But does it ever take you out of the enjoyment of the drama because you're like, that's just weird? There's a central relationship of this show that I think still resonates no matter how complicated it gets, and that's Jonas and Martha.

I think that there is like a love story. Just one boy's love for his aunt. Right. But, like, I think that as this season goes on, you will see that, like, they kind of break down, break it down to like where we're all just ones and zeros or stars or whatever. we kind of get away from like these sort of designations. But I understand what you're saying.

The further it gets away from that, the more difficult it kind of becomes to parse and also have an emotional reaction to. It does though do things that I didn't expect it would do. And part of this is just a good decision making, I think, made by the creators. Part of it also might be the intentionally limited nature of the show that it was built to be these three interlocking seasons. But the fact that everybody gets to time travel. Okay, didn't expect that, honestly.

I don't know if I was ready for like Magnus in the 19th century, not my favorite character or plotline, but it's cool that the moms get to time travel to and try to deal with their shit, which is pretty raw stuff. But also that you get these moments that you'd almost become so clinical about, it's possible for the show to break down into such a clinical exercise of like who is who to whom,

that you almost are caught off guard when Katarina goes to, Ulrich and you are in the insane asylum and you are reminded of the fact that underneath all of this like heady Reddit stuff is the storyline of a character who was one of the stars of season one his reward for going through time to find his missing son

was to live 34 fucking years in an insane asylum? Yes. That's not cool. No, it's not. And that you can that and that is a big moment when Katarina goes back because you're just like I think one thing that the show is having a hard time communicating is

how time lapses. And, like, Catarina's been looking for him for a long time. Can I ask you one last thing? Yeah, sure. If you, like, do you just buy the, because one of the conceits of dark

is that everyone is on dark, as I said. And one of the things people do on dark is if you're sitting alone at a table, say in a mental institution, and someone sits with you, you don't look up. No.

Now, I've never met anyone comfortable enough in their table not to look up if someone came and sat with them. But if you don't look up, boy is it make a more dramatic moment. And so it's, you know, that's cool. But like, you're at Starbucks and like you're enjoying your green tea, whatever.

And someone just takes the chair opposite. You're going to be like, hey, hey, I just want to know. I think on Monday I would like to discuss a lot more stuff about like habits on dark. And also just like, what are we doing about food? What are we doing about like, you know, does, does Bayern Munich exist in the any of the timelines of dark? like, are we watching soccer? Like, what is happening? I'll leave it at this.

It took me three seasons to relate to any moment or character in dark, which is not an impediment to being a fan of it. Sure. And I didn't expect it to be the character it was, but when young Noah enters into the home, wearing the same, like, nose and mouth covering buff that I wear everywhere now, and it's just like, I'm looking for food. I've never felt more same by character.

Same energy. Let's wrap it up there. Greenwald, always great to see you. We'll be back on Monday. We'll keep talking about dark. We'll have a bunch of other stuff to talk about and a special guest. As always, thank you so much for listening to The Watch podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. Great job by us. Good energy. Keep that same energy, Tiana Taylor. Have a good weekend for instance.