The Watch - Dunkirk,' Benioff and Weiss’s Next Project, and Revisiting 'Twin Peaks' and 'Glow' (Ep. 169)

Episode Date: July 20, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the upcoming premiere of 'Dunkirk' (7:00) and the recent announcement of 'Game of Thrones' showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s next project (12:00) before revisiting 'Twin Peaks' and 'Glow' (28:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Spotify. Did you know that you can listen to The Watch and other pods from the ringer fam on Spotify? Yes, the streaming service that you know and love for music is also fully loaded with podcasts, as if Spotify could get any better. Find us in the podcast section within the browse tab when you're using Spotify on mobile. Or just search for the watch in Spotify. And while you're there, click to follow us and have our new episodes delivered right into your Spotify library. head to Spotify.com slash podcasts or more. Today's episode of The Watch is also brought to you by Red Box.

School is out for summer, and Red Box has the video games to keep you entertained. With other 40,000 locations nationwide, you can rent and return anywhere, and better yet, you will get a free one-night game rental from Red Box when you use the promo code, watch 5. That's Watch and the number 5. Swing by a box in your neighborhood,

or if you want to make sure the game is there when you get there, reserve it online at Redbox.com. slash games. The offer is valid through August 3rd, 2017, subject to additional terms, charges apply for additional nights, payment card is required. Getting into video games has never been so easy. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan and I am an editor at the rigger.com. Joining me in the studio, in 70 millimeter, in IMAX as it was meant to be filmed.

It's Andy Greenwald! I look so big. We are part of the Ringer podcast network. Whoa. Yeah, that's my Masked Man Show voice. I forgot to shout out the Masked Man Show last on Monday. Yeah. And the Masked Man Show is the best wrestling podcast of all time.

I think that's fair to say. So I'm going to say I love the Bass Man Show. Shout to Shoemaker and all the Ringer Podcast Network shows, produced by Zach Mack or otherwise. But extra special shout to those produced by Zer. Mac? Yeah. I mean, I like Zach.

Okay. I miss Joe, but I like Zach. He's not dead. I was just emailing with him. Everybody's still here. Andy, welcome to The Watch. Thanks, thanks for having me here on your podcast. You know, I am T-minus.

Let me see my clock. Four and a half hours from curtains up at Dunkirk. You're so excited. We're going to talk about Dunkirk. We're going to talk about Glow, right? Yeah, we're talking about a little bit about Twin Peaks. Just a sec, because we have a special guest coming on Monday. I'm excited about that.

So I'll have a Twin Peexie show on Monday. I got to ask you something, though, before we get into it. She seemed a little bit worse for wear, my brother. I am. You know, I went to a live music concert last night, and it's been a minute for your boy, leaving the home. And concerts start too late. I forgot that.

What time did us? So who did you go see? I went to see Hazel English, who was a singer-songwriter who I love. I put her on the Baransky Barbecue playlist. I'm shouting her out as much as much as. possible and she was playing at the bootleg and took the stage at a at a at a rowdy 1030 p.m. What time did you? What time were wheels down for you? When did you get there? 8.50. Oh, that's a little early. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. They need to have like a TSA for concerts.

For older patrons. It's just like you go in, you're like run right in there. Perfect sight line. See the show, but still feel part of it and then out. And bounce. Yeah. Listen, it was it was a really good show and it was it was fun to go out. But I have a And I feel like I can say this because Hazel made a joke about this on stage herself. But she took the stage. Songs are great. Kusick's great. While she was playing, she was sipping from a, not from a go cup of liquor. Not from a long neck bottle of a beer, but from a reusable blue water bottle, like camping naljean bottle.

Okay. And at one point someone was like, what are you drinking? and she was like water. Okay, so it was a cool show. I'm just saying, I want to give her a note now, and I feel like it would be in the best interest of everyone. Like, you say it's gin. Yeah, but she made the kind of music

that sounds like it's made by someone who drinks gin out of a water bottle? Say it's lean, you know what I mean? Say it's that purple drink. Like, I want to ask you as a fan of live music, like if you saw someone... Have you met me? Never. I was just trying to set you up in a way

that would flatter the question. Yeah. But like if you went to a show from a band you like and you're like, this is my night out, here I am, here I am with the next generation. And then, you know, they were tuning and they were like, excuse me for a second and like leaned over and put up a, you know, one of them like them fat bottles of kombucha. Would you be just, would you be offended? That's not what I, I wanted a little more. Yeah.

Let me think of a way to phrase this anecdote that I'm going to give you in a way that does not incriminate anyone given this state of our justice department. There is a famous band from the 1970s that was on tour with several indie rock bands in like sort of the late 90s. So the band, it's an older band from the 70s on tour with younger bands. It's supported by younger bands. Okay. And I heard from people who were sort of in the periphery of those younger bands that what this older band would do is finish their set. They had one song that everybody expected them to play. They would finish the set, go backstage.

A helpful assistant had. cut up multiple lines of cocaine for them to do. They would do the cocaine, come back out, do the last song. So that's sort of more in the line of what you're expecting. I don't. A commitment to both excellence and... Can I just do a side recommendation for a book called Storms, which is a book about Fleetwood Mac from the Rumors to Tusk Error written by Lindsay's

then-German-Girlfriend? No, I know. But in that book, they talk about what Fleetwood Mac did on tour is that when they would take the stage, their roadies would put on the speakers behind them. them a tray and on the tray would be bottle caps from like coronas each full of cocaine and they would like between songs just go pick up a bottle cap and just like you know

get a little giviocese 3 get a little giddy up yeah let me let me be clear I don't want these I don't want today's generation of musical talents to fall victim to the scourge of drugs no no incredible albums that were produced because of the drugs no listen I'm just saying it I feel like I just want more of the pageantry. That's all.

I don't actually want her to be drinking straight liquor. It's an interesting. It's like, what do you want from rock stars? It's an interesting question. It's just because I'm at the show. It's also because me, I'm like literally, I need to get out tonight. Sure. And then you need to get back home.

But exactly. So just two bottle caps for me, Governor. I'm not. Side note, I did meet Hazel after the show and she said that you're the one with a podcast. because Baranskis of the world have been coming up to her after shows and saying they learned about her from this podcast. We're responsible for like 1,8800th of her streams online, probably.

I feel great about that. That's awesome, man. You're always supporting young artists, and you did it for me. Thank you. I appreciate it. A young man still in his 30s. Do you want to ask me any questions

about how excited I am to see Dunkirk? Let's talk about Dunkirk. It's a big week on the ringer. Don't make me do your job. Yeah, no, it's a big week on the ringer. It's Christopher Nolan week. You're doing Nolan week. Yeah, I wrote.

I wrote. And you wrote about Inception. I did. And this movie, listen. What's your favorite Christopher Nolan movie before we go? It's kind of like a very hazel English answer. For sure. Yeah.

I'm in London. Let me take a swing from my own water bottle, which I carry with me. You know, I was not super hype about this film. And you know what actually got me hype about this movie? You're not going to believe this. What? Jeff Wells. Are you serious?

Hollywood Elsewhere? Hollywood Elsewhere. movie blogger Jeff Wells who's quite a character but I also know that when it comes to like hyped things he doesn't give a shit no not at all but then he flipped out over Dunkirk

and was like this is not just Christopher Nolan's best movie this is a masterpiece wow I can I'm just even more excited than I was five seconds ago so where are you with this I'm just really thrilled I think the reason why I'm so excited for this movie is not it's not it to denigrate

anything that came before it like Wonder Woman or Spider-Man or anything, but it's just been a summer of a lot of the same stuff for me, I think. I've been very immersed in, like, we've been very immersed in fantasy. It's just starting, man. It's just started. It's just one weekend. And, you know, anything that's rendered on screen is obviously going to be done so in a subjective

and to some extent, fictional way. You know, I mean, what is really reality when you get onto screen? Can you tell I watched Inception this week? Wow, this podcast is. And I think that, you know, he is one of these. few filmmakers for as flawed as he is, he is one of the few filmmakers whose movies are event movies that you want to go see in the theater. He even did an interview recently about just kind of being like, what's the upside of doing it, working with Netflix because

I believe in the theater experience. And to me, the Netflix is basically an assault on that experience. It's saying that there's no point in going out to these movie theaters. And he's like, I make these movies that are supposed to be experienced in a certain way. Now, tonight in Los Angeles, is Nolan apparently outfit the Man's Chinese Theater with like this is how you're supposed to see it, Jan. I am going to a regular 70 millimeter arc late. I'm not going to the dome. Okay. But I'm very excited.

And, you know, I'm going to see it. Yeah, I know. I'm going to see it either tomorrow Monday. We'll talk about it on Monday. We're talking about it on Monday. I think that as I've become more excited about it, I realized I was going at this the wrong way because I definitely have been a little. more down on Nolan recently because I blame him, which is not fair

for the... I coined the term creeping Nolanism in blockbusters that everything had to be incredibly dark and complicated and convoluted. That's not necessarily fair to blame him for it because he was... Even the flaws of his Batman trilogy

are way beyond in ambition and scope and in mastery of the form than most other films in that genre. But I realize I'm going about this backwards because I am not like necessarily hype for war movies full stop. There are people in the same way people love westerns or crime pictures. Some people love war movies.

But what I think that what finally made me realize why I should get excited for this is there are no, there's no tricks in this. You know what I mean? Like I admire the way he's always trying to like perfect JJ Abrams does this and not as well to a different degree, but they're trying to come up with a beautiful trick. And that's kind of why I like the prestige because it was a movie

about a perfect trick itself. So the metanist worked for me on that. By all accounts, he just wanted to make this war picture. That's why Inception is my favorite Nolan movie is the fact that it is in self, like, aside from being an astonishing kind of like entertainment and a puzzle to figure out, it's also like a commentary on the act of movie making and the sort of the con of storytelling on screen. I think you're absolutely right. There's a twist in Dunkirk.

You know, there's no twist where we're going to find out this is actually like just a lost scene from Atonement. Are you going to stick around for the post-credits teaser tag? Yeah. But like that sets up the Dunkirk expanded you? Yeah. Are you psyched for that? I do want to talk a little bit. It's interesting that we're talking about Dunkirk because the role of history.

Oh, I see what you're doing. In television and film. Here comes. Who gets to tell what stories and everything came up pretty big this week. Kind of a surprise, David Beniof and DB Weiss's new project for HBO is announced. And one week after Game of Thrones debuts to record shattering ratings and is obviously still the biggest kid on the block, HBO announced that they are going to be making a show called Confederacy. Confederate. Confederate, sorry, Confederate.

And that it imagines a world in which the South successfully seceded from the United States and that there's been two civil wars. And now there's going to be a third. Now there's going to be a third. It's slavery is still an institution. and it was going to take a sort of panoramic view of all the different characters and everything else that is going to be a part of that world. And the response to this was mixed. That's nice. Yeah, that's what it was.

The response to this is what the room is doing around the dog and the GIF, where he's saying, this is fine. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can read a little bit of the description here. It's basically, the sort of the big one that jumped out was that it will find. a broad swath of characters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon demilitarized zone, freedom fighters, slave hunters, politicians, abolitionists, journalists, the executives of a slave-holding conglomerate,

and the families of people in their thrall. Yeah. I have a bunch of opinions about this. My number one opinion at the start is we haven't seen the show. We haven't read these scripts. It is, I think, incredibly... reactionary in a not healthy way for art or the industry or anything other than Twitter to condemn something before it even exists.

That said, here's what I will condemn. HBO fucked this up. HBO exists in the world, our world. They have a Twitter account. They have people who work at that company who understand the political climate of our actual universe and the political climate of our internet universe. They should have known a lot better than to just, dump this like this. It is incredibly tone deaf of them to just announce with great, great fanfare

and vanity basically. That's really that great fanfare. I mean, they just put out a press release, right? No, but basically be like coming off the heels of this incredible thing, here's this next incredible thing, and then just leave it there, unprepared to respond in any way. And also, Beningoff and Weiss, and we've criticized them for this before, and I'm sure we will again, they checked out of press. They don't need it anymore. And after the response to the Sansa, scene two years ago, they stopped doing it, except with James Hibbert Entertainment Weekly. They refuse all press from that point on. So they're not going to comment either way, which is their right, but this is a situation

that could have been avoided. Now, in terms of one other thing, criticism to rebut, buried, not buried in the press release, fully present in the press release, is that Malcolm and Nichelle Spelman are also executive producers of the show. They're an African-American couple who are incredibly accomplished in TV. TV, fantastic creators and writers in their own right, and probably have a lot to say about the criticism of this and who gets to tell what story themselves. No one is commenting because, again, the whole system is not, they were not prepared to talk

about something that doesn't exist yet. I mean, they, meaning all the creators. Yeah. But this is not Benny Off and Wye stroking their chins being like, well, if we can do ice zombies, we can do slaves. Sure. Okay. So all that said, right?

That's all the prelude to say. I also would have deep reservations about making this project, mainly because I'm frustrated by alternate timeline, dystopia things, Man in the High Castle. Our world is pretty effed up right now in a lot of ways. And I understand that it is difficult to find a big sweeping, you can sell it on the poster genre hook for 2017. but these projects really tend to wallow in the appalling nature of other worlds,

in the same way that they do in Westrose, almost as if to shine a light on how we don't have those problems, and how much better we have it, if that makes sense. I do. I do understand it. I think that's, I don't want to use the word problematic, but that's worrisome, mainly because I think there are many, in my mind, there are better stories to tell, and I say that, I want to repeat myself. We don't know the story they're going to tell, so I don't want to pass judgment on it.

I would just say that as a fan and consumer of TV, just point blank, this doesn't excite me, you know, let alone whether it offends me or not. Obviously, really ambitious creatively, an ambitious project. There had been talk about these guys doing Confederate as a feature, and that they decided that the best way to sort of tell this story would be through HBO and through a long-form television series. And, you know, I think that there was initially a lot of, I think, couple people on Slack yesterday were like, man, I wish they were doing City of Thieves.

Like, I wish they were doing it. It was like a lot of like I wish and retro. For people who don't know, City of Thieves is Benioff's novel. It's really good. And he... It's about the siege of St. Petersburg. Yeah, it's a World War II story about a young guy who has to steal things to stay alive, basically. Seal something for the German army. And when back when they did press, when I had those guys on a podcast in 2012, Beniof told me that he's basically pocketed the rights to the book for himself, so one day he'll direct it. Okay. So, I mean, it's tough. I think I get distracted by two things. One is that HBO, which obviously has a relationship with this company, and obviously, like, we've worked with before. So there's that to consider. They announce a lot of stuff that never gets made. I would be surprised if they announced a David Benioff and Dan Weiss thing that did not get made, but they've done it with me.

Milch, they've, I think, done it with other people. I mean, like, pretty big people within the realm of HBO have had stuff announced. Things can fall apart very easily. Yeah, I mean, they had the corrections. They had Dave Milch's Murdoch's show that became, that went away. But now Adam and Kay is doing something that seems like a more comic version of a similar storyline. There's lots of things that are always going on over there, and they don't necessarily make

everything that they announce. I am, it's a shame that since, like, what you outlined, like, that they don't, they don't really do their own press. They don't really do a lot of press that they would kind of push this out on the plank to kind of get this reaction without any sort of follow-up. Ideally, what you would probably want is a more fleshed out presentation than a press release that's screenshoted and put up on Twitter or whatever. You'd want to have footage. You'd want to have a storyline. You'd want to have something that didn't say slave hunters, you know, and have people just be like, what the Fuck are you talking about. Let's just think about how we want to spend our entertainment time in 2018 or whatever. And, you know, we had a great time last week joking about the Star Wars Hotel and the Westworld experience. But one thing that was pretty serious, not serious, but that was meant sincerely that you said there, which is when you watch Westerns, you didn't want to go, they didn't make you want to go rape people. Like that, that, the sex tourism of it was a little.

I should specify, though, that, like, I mean, when I do watch Westerns, it's also not to watch people do community gardening. Fair. Yeah. So. But what my point is, you have to think about it in the context of the network and what HBO is giving us with Westworld is just a sort of wallowing in in a different era where different things were possible or permitted, right? Where they can sort of have it both ways. They can comment on

on feminism or the slow march of feminism, but then they can also hire attractive actresses to be hookers because they're robots and they take their tops off because that's part of the story. Similarly, in Game of Thrones, you know, there is enormous amount of nudity and sexual violence because this is the world, you know, that again, it's a fantasy world, but it's kind of medieval, basically. And you can wallow in that. And so again, when you think about it in total, which I think a lot of networks don't do, they have so many projects in development.

They're also investing in creators who choose their own passion projects, and they just kind of got to juggle it and see what works in terms of a lineup. But if you think about those shows that you have in the drama space and then you're like, we still want to make the biggest, noisiest shows on. TV that get the most attention. And then now we're also going to, they're going to have an quote unquote excuse or opportunity to indulge in showing slavery in a modern age. It's like, I'm not saying these things don't deserve to be seen. I'm just saying I wish that the gatekeepers at the highest level of television would think about other visions to show us. Not just happy visions. I'm not saying that. But think about what you can do with budgets. Think about what you can do with transporting us to other worlds. These things are very familiar to us. But, you know, look,

Alan Sepinwall, whose reaction to this on Twitter was incredibly, of course, because it was Alan, was very measured, I think, and very appropriate, was like if you had told me that a network would make a, basically a caper show on some level about the Underground Railroad, I would have scoffed, but Underground on WG and America was actually an interesting and compelling and creative show, and respectful show.

So anything's possible, but I think that the argument can be divided into, are we judging this one particular project? I don't think that's necessarily fair, but are we judging the television as a whole and what we get to see right now and how those decisions are getting made, then it becomes a little more ripe for conversation.

Yeah, and we should probably cap it there because anything beyond that would really be probably unfair speculation at a certain point. But I do... Let's remember, those guys are really good in making TV. And we actually are pretty big fans of there is outside of Game of Thrones.

You know, I mean, I... 25th hour is one of our... was one of the only movies that made both of our 25... Oh, you didn't have it on there? No, but I'm not saying it because I didn't like it. Oh, me and Sean had that. Yeah. Sorry. We are really big fans of these guys outside of even Game of Thrones.

I mean, like, at 25th hour is one of my favorite movies of the century. Amanda Pete is the greatest. Yeah, I mean, so it's, I think that they definitely have a lot of leeway, and I, I want to say, like, I kind of definitely, I agree with you in the sense that it's strange. I think one thing that popped up is this idea that you guys have. a blank check and a blank you could do anything probably and people would be like sure whatever you guys want to do this is their moment

this next project off of the most successful biggest show in television history you can do anything you want yeah and I think that that's what some people were disappointed by like the flip side and I would imagine they would say this although they won't you know until it's time to do press for this in 18 months or two years or whatever it is

is they taking on Game of Thrones as just two guys remember with no TV experience experience in their 30s and then successfully and steadily running this. I mean, that's something that I feel we still don't talk enough about. It is, you know, we look at what happens with the Walking Dead and, you know, and just the, the difficulty of making that show and the number of showrunners that's gone through. And then we've had a horrific, it was a horrific accident in death.

That's not necessarily someone's fault, but the production does seem incredibly stressful and difficult on that show in a number of ways. we don't hear any of those stories about Game of Thrones. Now maybe that's because you and I don't speak Serbo-Croatian. That's very possible. But these guys stepped up

and they make incredible... They're incredibly good writers. They're incredibly good storytellers. And they've pulled this thing off. So I think it would be wrong to bet against them. But I can understand why eyebrows are raised. Yeah, I think that there are issues of representation in television.

And when you see a show get announced that prop prop proposes, well, what if African Americans were still slaves, that's not like something that draws a lot of like Hosanas. That's just this fact in the matter. No, and I do but this is the sort of equivalency thing that this works this flatters 140 characters and I don't think it works

that well and just saying it into a microphone. But I would like to have a show. If you want to make, if this show is on some level about white supremacy in America, let's make a show about white supremacy. Just turn the camera on. I'm just saying like let's make a show about white supremacy. I'm seeing America. I know what I mean? Let's actually do it.

Let's not put on these other layers of a fictional this and a company. And what would this look like? And okay, but what about what's happening? Yeah, and I know that's a hard sell. But I think it's worth saying into a microphone because if, you know, if literally every show can be on. We don't need a dystopian hook for this. We're in one, man.

Yeah. Like, that's cool. It's actually not cool that we're in one. But, you know, if no show is ever canceled and everything is coming back and everything is getting greenlit. And by the way, here comes Apple, who is just a about to inflate the bubble 10 times bigger. Do it, man. Make something, go for it.

Yeah. Rip something from the headlines. No Dick Wolf. You know what I mean? All right. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be back to talk about glow. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Insecure Season 2. Creator and Star. Issa Ray is back with a brand new season of her deeply relatable series about friends love and Los Angeles. I love my friend Andy from Los Angeles. This is our show. Insecure. It's on HBO.

Set in Englewood, Season 2 of Insecure finds Issa dealing with the repercussions of her infidelity and the fallout of her breakup with long-term boyfriend Lawrence. Despite her attempts to embrace her newfound singledom and maintain a positive facade, Issa secretly hopes that she will be able to win him back. Meanwhile, Lawrence is slowly getting back on his feet, and while still conflicted about his feelings for Issa, begins to move forward without her. And Issa's best friend Molly faces her own set of uncharted waters as she reshifted focus to herself, puts men on the backburn, and seeks to help from a therapist. Not to mention, life of work gets pretty messy when she's faced with wage inequality

at the boys club that is her firm. This summer, Insecure isn't holding back and life is hella out there. Watch the premiere of Insecure Season 2, July 23rd at 10.30 p.m. on HBO! Today's episode of The Watch is also brought to you by The Big Homies at Hotel Tonight, that Hotel Life.

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All it takes 10 seconds, just three taps and a swipe. So get in on these killer last minute deals and download the Hotel Tonight app now. All right, Greenwald, we are back. Before we get into Glow, what do you think of Peaks this week? Let's talk Peaks. Okay. We haven't talked Peaks in a minute. I still think that watching Twin Peaks in 2017 is a singular experience that for me is

full of nothing but joy and wonder. Okay. I love it so, so deeply. and profoundly. It fills me with happiness. We're doing this throne show. People know about this. And I rush home to watch Twin Peaks because I can't live in a world where I haven't seen a new episode. I'm heartbroken that there are only like eight left, even though that's still a pretty good number. And I'm blown away by it. That said, I am appreciating, because I waited 25 years for this and because I do think that this is an accomplishment, an artistic achievement like nothing else,

I'm enjoying every second. If I were reviewing it week to week, I would say that the last two weeks have been tougher hangs. Yes. Because of the way that he broke the story, literally broke it into his pieces and changed it up.

And we have a guest coming in on Monday who's on the show. And we were trying to time his arrival with an episode that maybe flattered his... Should we say who it is? Well, yeah, Matthew Liller's coming on. We're very excited. People don't think it's like comical.

No. Although hopefully we can get him too. Yeah. Because he's a veteran of the AG podcast. I know, man. And a very nice guy. But yeah, Lillard is coming on and we're so excited to talk to him. But we were going back and forth for a while with him because, you know, do you want to come on after a big episode?

He has no idea. That was kind of what I wanted to bring up. Yeah. He doesn't know when he's on the show next. He might not even be on the Sunday's episode. Your mileage may vary on the Dougie plot line in this show. Give it to me. I drink it.

My mileage may have ran out at the last rest stop. At Bone City. But one thing that you've seen, that you see mentioned over and over again in every interview with the actors who have been on this show is basically like they have no idea what's going on. They're like, I showed up, like I just said yes immediately because it was David Lynch and it was Twin Peaks. And I showed up on the set and I was allowed to read the script off of like an e-reader or something like that. And then I went and did the scenes and I have no idea what episode they're in or what point of the story they're in pretty much. I'm sure that's different from McLaughlin or different. Only McLaughlin saw the whole thing.

And I felt like this episode, this past one, was the first time where I could see that showing a little bit in the scenes with, like, Seismore and Belushi, where I'm like, do these guys know, like... Yeah, but... Like, Seismore looked like... Seismore looked like he was reading off cue cards. Maybe he wasn't, but he was definitely like... The whole thing. Yeah. But it was, okay, but then this is actually kind of interesting that you're talking like this, because this is sort of what I was saying about Inception of my piece, which was that Inception in a vacuum.

you watch it and you're like, that's obviously a dream. Like this entire movie is a dream sequence. The only reason you wouldn't think that is because Christopher Nolan movies make about as much sense as inception does. If this was not a David Lynch show and you saw a performance, like the one where it's like candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy. Oh my God, that candy thing was so good. Was it good?

Yeah, it was good. Why is it good? It's so funny. I find it so funny. Because it goes on for like, it's like the Austin Powers thing where Will Ferrell's in the hole and he's like, I'm still dying. Exactly. Yeah.

They play the beat out farther? I mean, the thing about David Lynch is if you go out, if you take a few steps out on that plank, you are all the way out on it. You are either on the plank or you're back cowering at home for safety. Right. Everything that he does is completely flowing out of him, transcendental meditation, whatever you want to call it, from a very pure creative state. Everything is connected. So if you like, I just think it is almost, it's not, I don't mean to say it's illegitimate to have opinions about something. but I feel like it doesn't make sense to me

when people are like, I like this part of his Uber or I like this part of this movie, but it doesn't make sense to me to say to cherry pick parts because they're all coming from the same place. What you get when we see his films and I don't know if he's ever, if there's anyone else to compare him to.

It is like the tap opens, this pours out and then the tap closes. And for me, it's just, you know, it's artistically just invigorating and exciting and so weird and so funny, but also so dark and so disturbing. And what's been happening with the show for me recently is, you know, I've said this before, that the first, the original Twin Peaks was what made me a fan of almost of anything in a way,

in the way of interacting with things, but certainly of a fan of television and of, we joke now about expanded universes, but I was so deep in the rabbit hole for Twin Peaks and what things meant and the connections. And realizing that all of these 10 episodes that for some people are like, oh, this is just, he's just delaying or he's just showing off. No, he's making Twin Peaks, guys. like Cooper's coming back. Like the whole thing with the Black Lodge and Laura Palmer and what it meant like that's...

I don't think we've talked about in a couple weeks. He's still doing that. Every week I'm like absolutely blown away when I go... And I'm not like you. I have to go back and read up a lot on a little bit. But the amount of things that are in this show that are like casually mentioned in season two or something like that? No, it's not just season two. It's that the canon is really the movie.

Yeah. And not just the movie. It's the scenes that were cut from... the movie that you can now see on there was a box set and they're mostly on YouTube now so the David Bowie stuff. Bowie was supposed to be in the show too but he passed away but the

character's been mentioned Philip Jeffries a bunch of times like the you know there's a picture of Bowie at one episode like we've seen Philip Jeffries in Argentina so in the cut of Firewalk with me the movie the David Bowie character shows up suddenly in the FBI

office in Philadelphia and it vanishes right gives a monologue that is intercut with scenes of Bob and the little man from another place and cream corn, and it's very surreal and weird than he vanishes. In the original cut, which you can see on YouTube, you see him checking into a hotel in Buenos Aires, and then you see him appear in the FBI office, and he gives a much longer talk, not intercut with that scene. And then he teleports back to Buenos Aires with a giant, like, burned, like, it ignites the

wall behind him in the hotel, and the bellhop shits himself. Like, that's real, you know, but here's my, but I say it's real in the, that Lynch is making a TV show where all that was shown, where the scene where other Graham's characters brought into the hospital and they take the ring off and the ring matters, like, he's just still playing in this pool. And I love that. I love that we are having this weird story about who's Dougie and everything all over the place happening at once. But he's making Twin Peaks. We're getting there. We're getting to the place that he wanted to take us. This is still that. Yeah. I think that people have, I think they're in some, some factions of the fandom, or at least

that people still watching, they've just sort of, and maybe this is actually kind of brilliant, now that I'm saying it out loud, they've taken their hands off the wheel. They're not watching this to be like, well, what happened to Audrey Horn? Are we going to find out or not? Now they're like, well, now I'm just watching this weird show

about Dougie, and then sometimes it jumps to, you know, it jumps to Twin Peaks or it jumps to New York or it jumps to wherever the hell we're going next. Yeah, right. And they've sort of forgotten that they initially were watching it to find out what happened to these characters or the story of the world, but this is still, it's still there.

We're still getting there. I mean, there was a whole thing about Major Briggs. You know, and Don S. Davis, the actor who died, but he was, you know, lovingly, basically, this tribute was paid to him. He's brought back into the show, and there was the scene with Bobby and his father. That's all threads from the first thing. So it's the rare project that I think is working completely on its own as a work of just amazing art. But it is continuing the story. I'm just hype.

We don't know. When have we never not known to this degree of what's going to happen on our screen next week? Oh, I mean, I'm not, yeah, the misdirection or like the sense of wonder of the show is still there. I was just saying that like the actual in the moment watching of it sometimes is a little bit of a tour for me. But I also was never like I was necessarily like tattoo this on my face. I like I like the show quite a bit. What do you think about the way that he sort of created a new style of show, which is sort of like Saturday Night Live for Shugays where you know. There's like a musical break.

There's going to be a band performance with five minutes left. Yeah, it's fascinating. I also just really like directors. We've talked about this before, but I really like directors who are like, this is the shit I like. So sometimes I like 50s sci-fi, like horror, and sometimes I like Douglas Cirque melodrama. That looks like it shot as a soap opera. And sometimes I like music. And I'll just put the bands that I like, or that my son likes in this show.

I also got to say, McLaughlin is just incredible. The three performances that he's given on this show is three characters. I mean, the real duggie was a very brief performance. But it's pretty wild. that he can be that dead, basically. I just can't believe how much Naomi Watts there is. Naomi Watts is so good. Just side note, people are going to Comic-Con, we're not.

That's the end of the note. No, tomorrow, Friday, there is a Twin Peaks panel in Hall H. And friend of the pod, Damon Lindeloff, is moderating it. That's awesome. And it's Kyle and it's Naomi Watts and it's Dana Ashbrook and Kimmy Robertson, who plays Lucy. and, you know, when I spoke to Damon about it, like, he doesn't know what they're going to talk about because they're not allowed to talk about the show, basically. Right, right?

But they can talk about the episodes leading up to it, right? Yeah, but it's like, what could that even be? Yeah, right. It's just a wonderful thing, and I think we should just treasure it. It's not, I hope Showtime is happy with it. I think I'm sure they made peace with it a long time ago. It doesn't really matter. They're not, right, I know, but it's not like, I think they thought to some level they might,

when this thing came together that they would own the summer. you think that the way that, I mean, I would direct them to what's on HBO on Sunday nights, but yeah. Well, that's why it premiered in June, and it was supposed to be nine episodes, and it's 18. Do you think that they hoped that they had, like, making a murderer on their hands or something, or what? No, I think that they were operating under the new television economy, right, which is if something was even a quasi-phenomenon at one point in history, the intensity of that fandom will translate to the intensity of television coverage today, particularly of. of television shows that are not that popular in the scheme of things, right? Like the shows that we talk about,

the shows that Vulture recaps, in this grand scheme of things, few of them are popular. Game of Thrones is popular. You know what I mean? Transparent is adored and respected, but it's not exactly popular. Right.

So I think they thought that if they got the gang back together, especially for what was initially supposed to be just a relatively short miniseries, that it would get all the attention, or a lot of the attention. And I think the thing that they have accomplished is that they hung a shingle outside of Showtime saying we're open for business for something more interesting than Ray Donovan. Sure. Even though they run those ads that are like, if you like weird shit, get ready for Leo.

If you like Dartdale, get ready for Ray. All right, let's wrap up by talking a little bit about Glow. Yeah. You know, we're going to have, you're going to have, actually. I'm not going to roll with you on this one, but this is the showrunners. They're going to come in and talk to you in a couple weeks. Yeah, very excited to talk. I wanted to just put a bow on it because we both finished watching the first season.

And, you know, for as much as Twin Peaks is so unfamiliar, I found the experience of watching Glow. And I think we've mentioned this before, just very, very, very, very comforting. Because it's a show that, and it's very rare now for shows to know what they are when they start and to have their voice perfectly defined at the beginning. And even though there's off episodes in this series, and I think that. But there's a degree to which it kind of has that Silicon Valley thing where there's nothing's ever that wrong.

Like they figure out how to get past an obstacle or a hurdle or whatever. Like they figure out how to get back to a sunnier place, even though there's a lot dark stuff that happens in it. I just so impressed by the construction of it. Yeah, I don't really have a criticism of it. Like, do we need a season two of glow? Like, I don't mean, like, sure, yeah? Yeah.

This show is built to be... No, I mean, like, do we need it universally? Like, yes, I guess, yeah, right? Well, I'll flip it back to you. Like, do you think... I'll repeat what I said a few weeks ago, I find this show completely charming. I loved it.

I spaced it out because I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to have more episodes to watch. I think that there are two threads of contemporary TV that are very present in the show. One is we are living... I don't know if we're... I don't know if we're still in a golden age of content, to be honest. I mean, that's just a gross sentence to begin with.

But we are in a golden age of television acting. Alison Brey, Betty Gilpin, and Mark fucking Marin on the show individually and then together as an ensemble when they have scenes in whatever pairings that they have are outstanding. I mean, Allison Bree has always gotten credit for being good and she's always been good. I don't think she's getting enough credit for her performance in this because of what she has to do and be in the way she can switch between the broadness of being this Russian, you know, Russian, Russian, you know, Russian. flamboyant heel and then also being the kind of mousy ripply haircutted complicated

emotionally complicated person who did a terrible thing and has to live with it and also be our heroin kind of it's really amazing it reminded me of the of the trio at the heart of preacher a show another show that we think is up and down and doesn't really get mentioned in the conversation of the most important or most gripping shows on TV but anytime any of those three actors are on the screen we're like this, what are we, how amazing we get to have this.

The other thing that I would say is, I'm, and I want to turn this over to you as well, you said, do we need a second season of it? That was kind of like, no, no, but I mean it. Like, kind of concern trolling, like I don't really. No, but I think that's an interesting question to ask because the first seasons can be difficult, but they can also just melt like butter. Like this one, they were, this was so well made. I'm going to talk to Carly and Liz about this.

They got it. You know, they knew when to introduce the characters, how to play the ensemble, how to immediately make us feel at home with them and their world. We understood the stakes. To your point, we felt very comfortable early on because we knew the bottom wasn't going to completely fall out, which left room for them for more interesting, smaller things to happen on a more consistent basis between the characters. But they definitely made some choices to slow pitch the season, so it ends with a wrestling match, which is the first, the debut.

I guess the question is, or the challenge, is to find some. something as artfully constructed and as compelling for future seasons. Because how do you do it again? I mean, that's always the case. They have the built-in luxury of constructing this movie. Movie. Sorry, this show. That's interesting, he said movie.

Of constructing this show, you can always go to the sports cliches because you have a sport at the heart of it. So there's plenty of things that, you know, the way that they made this first season was very much in the tradition of, you know, like the same way you would make a play. You show people performing, getting their roles ready and getting the sets ready and getting their production ready and there's hiccups and people have drug problems and people find out that there's somebody's father. And then you kind of go through and... Those are the same people, by the way. Yeah.

You're only talking about one of the kids. Yeah. And then you have the big night, you know, and we get to the big night. And I think that I'm not actually well-versed enough in the gorgeous ladies of wrestling history to know what kind of comes next. Do you remember watching it ever? I remember watching it. I remember watching it. Well, I never watched, I didn't like wrestling.

And one of the reasons I like the show so much is that it takes the time to educate you and help you find a way into wrestling, which is because the people who made it didn't have a way either. Yeah, and that's actually they use Betty Gilpin's character as a really good sort of, like a way to end to be like, this is stupid, this is stupid way to get it. Yeah, and then loving it. I think that's really well done. Yeah, I think that there were a couple, there were, as you said, I mean, this is where we are with it. there are shows that you fall in love with

and then when you're just when you're on board you are on board and when you're on board with something small misfires or miscalculations or things where clearly they were sort of they weren't they weren't completely committed yet you don't mind you're like I just I'm here I'm here already I love it

and that relationship with a show just immediately being on board I think is incredible currency in today's television world because there are too many shows and you know honestly if you're not fully on board after one or two, especially of an hour, luckily is a half hour, you're out and you're not coming back. So for this show, yeah, the end, like some of the stuff at the very, very end of the season,

I didn't really understand why Betty Gilpin's character was leaving, and then I guess it's revealed that it was a plan, you know, it was, but it seemed overly busy, and I wasn't really clear on why that was happening. Right. But it doesn't, you know, it's fine. It's fine. It doesn't matter because there are the two party scenes. There's the robot party scene at the beginning,

and there's like the fundraiser at Bash's Mom's House. Chris Lowell, by the way, also great, just well cast up and down the board. Elizabeth Perkins. Yeah, so good, just ready to show up and, you know, the scene when Chris Lowell puts on the glitter over his eyes because it's all he's ever wanted to do. It's such a great scene.

Yeah, I didn't, like, there are moments in both those party scenes from, like, really? This seems very, very broad. Yeah. But at the same time, those episodes have Marin going up to the jazz band saying, do you have any blow? Because I do. Like, it's a pleasure.

Yeah. It's a pleasure. So they haven't announced the second season. I have no doubt that there's going to be one. Because there should be more shows. Honestly, there should be more shows like this unless shows like Confederate. So you announced anyway. You watched Glow.

I did. And you watched it in two bricks. Three? Three? Yeah. And then is that typically how your Netflix consumption has been going these days? Because I was talking about this the other day with House of Cards and how I was like, I know that if I, like, my wife and I were kind of like knocking out like one or two a night.

Yeah. And I was like, if we stop now, like, and the shit just went down, but we were both just kind of like, eh, you want to watch something else? But I was like, if we stop now, it's going to be like three months and then I'm going to be like, I can't remember what happened. Yeah. We are in a different boat because, so, you know, TV watching in general, is it a huge premium? Because we got the baby, so we're like too tired to watch anything.

Your baby's like, Narcos. My baby's waiting for Narcos. I did send you a picture where the baby looked weirdly like Wagner Mora as Boblo Eskabar. And she was like, finally, we moved past Escobar. Yeah, I shouldn't have put that sweater on her in that way. But so I knew we were going to talk about Glow and it seemed interesting. I had read good review. So I watched the first two when my wife was asleep, and I loved it.

And then the next night I was going to watch the third. And it was one of those, I'm going to watch this. I don't think I have time to watch the first two again. Will you join me? And then that was the episode that I talked about where it ended and she was like, this is a really good show. Yeah. I was like, thank you.

But that was a tricky bridge to cross, willing to jump in late and go back on her own to watch the other two. But then I got the golden ticket. Because when your wife is into the show or your spouse, your spouse, your significant other boyfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend, whatever. Then you have a plan. And then it's fun. Because there are so many other shows, like Preacher, for example,

where it's like me, like, crouch at the end of the bed on an iPad. The Inception Chemist's Sedation for You to Watch Preacher. Yeah. I have to make sure that her breath is rising and falling in equal measure with Ken Watanabe in order to watch it. Somebody's driving, like, intestines down a Texas highway. The thing is Netflix has to have some metric for that. Like, I guess they can't unless they're doing, like, full facial scanning through our Samsung smart TVs.

Yeah, right. But I do wonder, like, it's built so that everyone can watch their own thing. You can watch it on your phone, your iPad, whatever. Some people watch on your TV. But it's so much easier if you're watching the same thing together. And I know that I'm not just speaking from my household when there are great debates. Everyone should, I mean, I think all healthy relationships, people should have their own shows. And you should not try to force one show on the other.

But so much better when you can both watch something. I agree with that. I agree with that. I think that I'm much more, frankly, like, feel free go knock that out whereas like if we have a show together it has to run through us as a couple and if I have a show that I like

but I'm like you know I haven't seen you all day and I'm not going to see you say like some night this weekend but tonight I'm going to watch you know Dominic Cooper rip a guy's heart out right it's it's like not the best way to spend your time together with the love of your life well right the other night I think it was after after our dress rehearsal

for Thrones last week I came home and I was like Well, we finished at like eight, so some was going down, but I figured I had another, maybe a good 90 minutes left to me. And I got home, my wife's fired up, get me Roger Stone, you know? And I'm like, I respect this. This is probably interesting. But I can't see these people on my TV tonight. Yeah. I just can't do this.

So you're the complicated one. Well, I think long-time listeners of the podcast know that. Let's end on that. Andy, Monday, Matthew Lillard. Well, wait, Sunday. Do we slow pitch that? I feel like we should have put that at the top and just been like, Matthew Lillard. Sunday night.

Talk the Thrones On Twitter It's very confusing We know But talk the Thrones We'll tweet some stuff Just go to the It will tweet out the link

Or you can go to the ringer's Twitter account Twitter dot com slash ringer Or me or Andy's Twitter account We'll have the links there As soon as that is over After the, you know We go on after the East Coast

Showing Game of Thrones At the end of our 45 to an hour long stream There will be a new link I know The world's not perfect Then tweet out that link any time after say

9 o'clock West Coast anytime after like say 10 or mid to 10 or 11 on East Coast just just look at Twitter find the stream you can watch it there

I know some of you guys want a podcast or some of you guys wish it was it's all good it's right there you can watch it the watch goes on Monday binge mo goes on Wednesday also the other thing about the Twitter thing that some people were asking me about

because the live stream starts before we do that when you watch it back they might be like two minutes Yeah, just flash forward two minutes. You can do it, guys. Yeah. Some of you guys are like, it's not a self-driving car.

It's just two minutes. I swear to God, it's pretty easy. Monday, we'll talk a little Thrones again, but we've got Matthew Lillard. I'm so excited. I'm fucking pumped for Matthew Lillard. I have so many questions about the bridge, seasons one and two. And we'll talk to one piece. And scream.

And Scooby-Doo. He's great, man. He's been so great about doing this. I'm so excited to have him come in. And then we have other guests coming. Lots of guests. coming, but we probably shouldn't tip our hand because Hollywood's a fickle place. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, Andy, until then, it's been a pleasure as always. Today's episode of the watch is, as always, brought to you by Red Box. School is out for summer, and Red Box has the video games to keep you entertained. With over 40,000 locations nationwide, you can rent and return anywhere, but better yet, you will get a free one-night game rental from Red Box when you use the promo code Watch 5. That is W-A-T-C-H, and then the number 5. Swing by a box in your neighborhood, or if you'll be a box in your dayabhood, want to make sure the game you want is there when you arrive,

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