The Watch - Ep. 117: SAG Awards, 'Split,’ ‘The Young Pope,’ and ‘3 Mics’

Episode Date: January 30, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the highlights of Sunday night’s SAG Awards (8:40), the ‘Stranger Things’ victory speech (12:10), and why ‘La La Land’ is a lock for the Oscars (21:05). Then they give a quick rundown of M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Split’ (24:55) before examining the social parallels of ‘The Young Pope’ (31:00) and the state of stand-up comedy through the lens of Neal Brennan’s new Netflix special ‘3 Mics’ (41:28). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm going to get some underwear. That's, even if you said that, that would be a tough look. Yeah, it'd be a weird thing to say. There's nothing wrong with buying underwear, but it's just like, why would you, make that your errand. No, you've other things to do. You're a busy guy. Yeah. With, uh, in addition to looking great and feeling great, all Mac Weldon products are crafted with, uh, natural fibers and they have built in performance capabilities. So they work hard too. They even have a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally anti-microbial,

which eliminates odor. All that and they are shipped right to your door. And if you don't like the first pair, you can keep it. They'll still refunds you. No questions asked. Go to macwelland.com and get 20% off your purchase using promo code watch. So what are you waiting for? I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com, and joining me in the studio, knock, knock.

It's Andy Greenwald. Whoa, it's good to be back. The Coca-Popa. Good to be back in the same room. I appreciate you not making fun of my red velvet slippers from my giant oversized ruby ring. I'm glad that the tiara fits. It's weird because it was in Washington, so I'm glad they've, They brought it out.

We got it back. Yeah, it's in good shape. Andy, this is The Watch. Today we are talking about the SAG Awards. We are going to talk a little bit about Split, Mnate Shaman's new movie. And then we're going to talk Young Pope for a bit and Neil Brennan's new stand-up show, a stand-up special on Netflix called Three Mikes. So that's the table of contents.

I'm looking forward to it. How was your weekend? Fine. Chill, right? Yeah, sure. Sure weekend. Yeah. I just wanted to say I had a, I had a,

really good experience yesterday because it was a weekend of deep sorrow and terror in general. Did some college interviewing from my alma mater. Yeah. Yeah. Go Aggies? Aggies, yeah. Are you as impressed as I am, but I got that right? I'm very impressed.

Did you watch my mouth start to say sooner? Did you see that? I'm thrilled with myself for that. And I got to meet wonderful, inspiring young people. 90% of them were first generation to this country, children of immigrants. A lot of them were going to be the first kids, hopefully, to go to college.

Yeah. They were so much smarter than us. Are you sure? They were so smart. They were so... Were they just like mimicking stuff they read on Wikipedia? No. No.

I interviewed a kid who was just like, when I read about the Nobel Prize winner's paper that proved that like established the moment where ice cubes become vapor before becoming liquid that made my day. And all I want to do is teach math to other people because it excites me. I was like, oh, my God.

Was he able to rent? America's already great. All the songs on Green Day's Lookout Records albums? So maybe it's a different kind of smart. Yeah, maybe he's not CD smart in the same way we were. But no, and they were calm and they were focused and they were so impressive. And I hope they all go to great colleges.

And so I was talking to this one woman who was just like, young woman, she's from East L.A., and she, like, lives in a two-bedroom apartment with, like, three siblings and has to take care of her kids half the time, and she wants to be a lawyer, and she wants to, like, give back to her community, and she's, like, a distance runner, and she was so inspiring, and she was like, so what else, what do you do for me time? Like, what else do you do for me? Like, what can I do? Yeah. And, you know, she's like, I think it's important to take time for yourself at the end of the day. Like, I like to do some reading. I was like, what do you like? Did she run goop? No, seriously. I was like, you are a wiser or more. more mature than I am. And she was like, I like to read. I was like, well, what do you like to read? You know, outside of school. And she was like, well, currently I'm reading love in the time of cholera. I'm like, I'm like, relaxing. Super impressive. Super chill book. She's like, or I'll watch my favorite

TV show. And I was like, what's your favorite TV show? And I assume she was going to be like, oh, the BBC had a ripping adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, you know, or on the alternative, I thought she would be like, you know, ABC's the middle is a good hang at the end of the day. She was like, well, my favorite show. She's like, I really recommend it. You should check it out. If you haven't, it's called The Walking Dead. And I was like, oh, word? She's like, yeah, like, at the end of the day, like, it's a really great way to, like, unwind.

And I was like, oh, is that so? But the thing is that we, I sometimes thinking about this one when I'm, like, watching, even Young Pope, but I'm like, I feel like I can't really, like, leave the room or read, you know, a magazine. Have a second screen experience. Yeah, we're having a second life experience where TV used to be that. And it's partially because Young Pope is half an Italian. You have to look up to see what your man Silvio is saying. What if it wasn't an Italian?

But yeah, but I think that there's still like a lot to be said for television as a passive experience. This is what, this is the other thing I wanted to say about that, which is that it's always good to be reminded that the great majority of people who watch television don't do this. Yeah. They don't need to do this. Like, for them, like, Walking Dead, pretty crazy, man. Did you counter her with, do you think it's going to stick the landing? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

I was like, do you think all this? That should be the only question you asked college applicants. I leaned in making the Namaste hands. And I was like, do you think showrunner of people has played a role in the show's lack of consistency? Do you think that they have a comprehensive understanding of the world they're building? I was like, do you realize that the walking dead are actually the living? Did that work for you? Anyway, I wrote, do not accept on her application.

No, I'm like, that's what, two things. That's what TV still is mostly for. And anytime we go too far in the other direction with, expecting everything to be half an Italian, whether literally or not. That's not what a lot of people want for their TV experience. I don't want to go too far down this road because I feel like it pulls it the thread of this podcast. So basically, this is our last show. Thanks, everybody.

No, but I also just think that this was another reminder. And I really recommend, by the way, Chris, I really recommend talking to young people. They're dope. Yeah. I really think that people should also remember that for as much as we try to like surf, the tide of changing, watching habits, and the way we process and receive all these shows. And we check in. You like to look at the boards.

You like the Reddits. We watch things that are on streaming services. This next generation that's coming. And, you know, this is the story that I told from a few years ago about the kids who are just like, who are like the only shows that they watch on television were Game of Thrones and Walking Dead. And then they were like, do you say you write about television? Do you also write about Netflix? And I was like, yes, I didn't realize that was a separate category. And they were like, have you heard of a show called Friends and a show called Prison Break?

That makes me feel... Because we watch all of those episodes. That makes me feel like the younger generation is in trouble if they're like, have you heard of friends? Well, to be fair, she was also like, have you watched Ava DuVernay's the 13th? Right. Because that, you know, that was pretty lit. But they were basically, it's an important reminder that the consumption model is not based on new content. It's not based on whatever the hot new thing is the way we are still focused on it.

Yeah, that is true. Maybe we could stand to talk a little bit more about something. season four, mom. Well, it's possible. It's possible. Or go back further. Like, maybe it's time to do that Rockford Files episode we've always wanted to do. I'm just saying, like, 400. We don't have anything for the re-up.

Maybe we should just watch the Rockford Files. It's just important to say that people have been asking me recently, like, is this a bubble? You know, not just, because then I'm like, I'm not John Landgraf that you've got the wrong number. I think you meant a different kind of bubble, but yeah. Because this is all going to end soon anyway. Four to 500 new shows a year is definitely unsustainable, but it's not just

unsustainable because they're competing with other but because television is competing with the entirety of recorded media on television at every moment and that's what people tend to be watching so in other words it's been great doing the show with you Katie Nolan and I are going to start watching the Rockford files together starting Thursday and uh the Nolan files peace peace and peace be unto you it's it'd be great um let's talk a little bit about the SAG Awards that were last night uh interesting award show actually did not get i didn't get a chance to see them live uh I know that you though have a couple of takes and I have one based on the

the archival footage that has already come out. Sometimes I think that the person who is, who should be wealthiest in the world, the old joke was that the person who should be wealthiest in the world is the person who thought to add the word repeat to the back of shampoo bottles because then everyone started repeating, washing their hair and bought twice as much shampoo. Is that really an actual say? Yeah, it's a thing. Well, someone said that to me once.

And they pulled a quarter out of my ear. Anyway, the person who was like, you know, they're doing. doing these award shows anyway. Like, let's put them on TV. Yeah. You know, like SAG Awards wasn't a thing that was televised. Yeah, also really well targeted right between the football weekends. Like, not a half, I don't think like 15 people would have watched this if it was AFC,

NFC, NFC Championship weekend or Super Bowl Sunday, but. So here are, here are my observations, my takeaways from. And you can, you can give me the up or down. Number one, the big, the big headliner was that Stranger Things won outstanding performance, by an ensemble. And that's noteworthy because this is, that's the award that is most unique to the SAG Awards. Yeah.

It's kind of an interesting award. And this is the SAG Awards are voted on by the actors. And it made me think that actors, like ordinary humans in America, really love Stranger Things. Since Stranger Things has been on, the narrative about it has really split like high-low. Even we've been like,

well, it's not, you know, the O-A was more ambitious or whatever. We really loved watching Stranger Things. Yeah, I thought that really the only thing that would happen with Stranger Things was that the memeification of Strange-O-O-Wing. Stranger Things turn people off to it. Yeah. No, well, I think that's possibly true, but I also think, and I've mentioned this on the show before,

that talking to people who work in TV, people are very, very, very... Salty. People who make TV are very salty about Stranger Things success. It reminds me a lot of, like, an alt-rock band in 96 who score like a... What was that band, Sammy? Remember them? Oh, yeah, Luke Wood, who later became an A-R-H-R-Gy. Did they have, like, a quote-unquote hit?

They didn't have a hit, but their second record, Tales of Great Neck Glory was like a bidding war and was on Geff Okay, like just take a good by Better Than Ezra, which was basically following the Pixies model and anyone could have just gone, dun, dun, dun, dun, but they did, and they had a smash. It was good song. Yeah. And, but everybody was just like, all I have to do is write a Kim Deal based on. I could have done that. First of all, I love that.

I love that character. I want to bring him back. Second. That's Lou Barlow from Seven. Oh, I figured. No, I don't know. I think the follow-up to that is Better Than Ezra's second season was, was, was, really good.

Was it? No. Yeah. Well, but I think what you're talking about is basically a lot of people out there share the Duffer Brothers' interest and adoration for Spielberg, Carpenter, early 80, sci-fi, VHS Court. Yeah, exactly. And so.

But they did it. They did it. And it was interesting to see that, like, as we got into the award season, you know, we both talked ourselves out of Stranger Things chance of success at the Golden Globes, as it turned out correctly. But people really liked, people really loved that show. I won't just say liked. Yeah.

And, you know, I think that people who generally, in the larger voting pools for Golden Globes or Emmys, they might be like, well, it's not intellectual enough. It's not simply technically skilled enough or whatever. Actors are just like, actors are raw motion balls, man. They were like, we loved it. Do you want to talk a little bit about the acceptance speech here? Well, that was my next point. My next point was that Winona Ryder's face is our greatest living special effect. It was kind of a combination of Kare DeLaya at the end of 2001 as he goes through the model.

Mellith meets Chevy Chase and spies like us when him and Dan Aykroyd are doing G-Force testing. You know what I mean? And they're like, this is easy. And then like their whole face starts moving like in different directions. Their faces turn into Lando's little buddy from the Millennium Falcon and Return of the Jedi with the extra chin flas. I don't know what my face looks like when I would. And if I was on stage when David Harbour was shooting a shot like that, like I'm not sure what my reaction would have been. We will shelter freaks and outcast those who have no homes.

We will get past the lies. We will hunt monsters. And when we are in a loss amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions, we will, as per Chief Jim Hopper, punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the meat. I often wonder, like I imagine if I was going to give a half-time, speech, right? Which is something I think

you imagine? I definitely am like if I was going to give a halftime speech, Al Pacino or any given Sunday or Billy Bob Thornton in Friday Night Lights and I was like, look in your heart. You know, like I just got into it, right? As soon as I got any kind of like affirmation while I was doing it, I know that I would take it too far. Yeah.

You would eject the fuel cells like a rocket shit. I would be like I'm going with like Jim Lovell just be like manual reentry. You got this. I got it. And I know that as soon as like Taraji P.

Henson was like, yeah, good job. I'd be like, and another thing! First of all, I would do that if Taraji P. Henson supported me in any way. I would immediately go to 11. I would take it way too far. So while I know that David Harbor just really like tried to hear Jimmy on that one, like he really went for it, I kind of respect it because I just know that as soon as I got some feedback, some positive feedback, I would be like,

and we're going to bring back Tab because that was the best soda! You would do Howard Dean. Like all of a sudden, that looks less crazy in retrospect. I would be a combination of like Rick Flair and like Barack Obama. Like I would just say whatever, yeah. I'm just saying not everyone is fit to be a community organizer. That's what I mean.

We all want to be. We all want to grab the mic and stand on the soapbox and be like, okay, but there's a reason Coach Taylor never raised his voice. You know what I mean? He was a very effective. communicator. Yes. And he kept it on a simmer.

So shout out to Harbor, though. Yeah. I mean, the- Shoot-or-hoot. The other thing is, I'm not mad at it, man. Like, I really think it was an interesting thing to listen to that speech. And people should check out the speech that David Harbor gave for three reasons. One, to fact-check what Chris just said and find Politi-Fact-rated, true, accurate.

Two, for Winona Ryder's face. Three, for Taraji. Actually, in Courtney Vance, too. Courtney Vance is like, okay. Okay, this is happening now. Courtney Vance is like, you look at he's scrolling through his Google phone. He's got Bleacher Report Team Stream on. He opens up a new tab and he's like, actor going crazy from Stranger Things, question mark.

He's like, oh, okay, not bad. But look, you know, you have to find your way into the art that you make. And the thing is, Stranger Things is an interesting test case because what David Harbour was saying about it in a political speech is all accurate. It is a show about fighting monsters. It is a show about resisting bullies. It is a show about banding together as freaks and outcasts. And you can say those words in the current context, and it feels quite empowering. It's also that that show is a nostalgia escape route, you know.

It's kind of interesting to see people reframe art as overtly political and as, you know, as bomb throwing or as a bomb, B-A-L-L-M. You can just watch Stranger Things and zone out. I think we'll see a lot of stuff in the next couple of months, both being celebrated. at the Oscars and just stuff that's being released and people coming out and being like, you know, this is sort of not cynically, but trying to recast it a little bit as like an overtly or young, we're going to talk about Young Pope, which is even though it's filmed before. And so three other, two other, three other points before we get to bring it back to that, to what you're just alluding to, which was my final point about it.

One is the crown is real and it's not going anywhere, baby. The people really like the crown. The crown is the new downtown abbey in terms of like that's going to get nominated. That's going to win stuff. We might have to look at it. I'm just warning you now. I'm happy to watch the crown. Are you happy to watch the crown or you're down there?

Yeah, I'll watch anything. Really? It's such an easy date. So that is a thing, I think. That was interesting to know because Claire Foy won. Your Man, Lithgow won. So that is going to be a serious contender at the Emmys, especially this year because remember, we're months away from it, but remember this year,

no Game of Thrones. Yeah. Because it's premiering the summer away from the... So the crown is real. Crown is real. I think Denzel has a real shot

to win best actor. I'm going to say this right now Denzel watching it is winning the best actor award. I think the thing you have to think about is this. Now, obviously, so Denzel won last night.

I stuck my neck way out there thinking he was going to win the Globe. Casey Affleck won. When Casey Affleck won the globe, people were like, it's a rap. You know who disagrees with you? Brie Larson.

Brie Larson. Brelearson, not too. She'll be giving that award away, too, right? It's kind of interesting. I think the thing you could say, and this is purely, this is, we're putting on our visors. We are Kevin Dunn in luck right now. Oh, I thought you were like, we're John Gruden.

We are, no, walk it back. We are purely prognosticators in this moment. I'm not even talking about the politics of it in this case. I'm just talking about like the gamesmanship of Oscar jockeying. I think that you could make the case, the Casey Affleck is going to win extracurricular brouhaha aside because he won the Golden Globe and because the performance is outstanding. But remember who he's up against. This is not him versus like Eddie Redmayne.

This is Denzel fucking Washington. Yeah, okay? Denzel Washington, one of the greatest screen actors of our time. Denzel Washington, beloved. This is his passion project. You saw what he said in the trailer. He really puts it all in the line in this movie. Yeah.

He definitely, definitely, definitely could win. I just think he will. I'm taking the blade of grass, throw it up in the air. The wind blows it. I'm saying it's going that way. Did Kevin Dunn do that in luck, I stopped watching after the horses died? Yes, but with a horse hair. The other thing is that Hidden Figures won outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.

And I do think La La Land is a La La LaLac to win. I'm going to take the visor off now because I don't deserve it. But Hidden Figures, I feel like if we could ever see the vote totals, you know, I feel like Hidden Figures is just coming in strong. Hidden Figures definitely could win Best Picture, but not this year, not against La La Land. Not because it, maybe if it had been released earlier. I think if everything, there's, it's a very interesting conversation to be had about, like, how these campaigns are built. And we've seen over the last couple of months a couple of movies for a variety of reasons really miss the, like basically the award buzz windows.

Silence is a really good example, possibly because it's a three-hour movie. About priest torture, yes. But, you know, I saw a movie this weekend that was supposed to be, it had been talked about in Oscar conversation in the summer. which is gold starring Matthew McConae and they had talked about McConae he may be getting a best actor not

and Gagan is Gagin back Stephen Gagin who did Siriana and it's basically like if somebody was like you know what I really liked was the last half of Goodfellas I'm going to make a two hour plus version of that

but like worse and with none of the music really making sense so it'll be like it's set in 1989 and Matthew McConae is Reno Nevada but Joy Division is playing sure sure

But that was a movie that a lot of people were like, yeah, like McConaughey and like prestige, like searching for gold. It's like multi, it's like a treasure Sierra Madre, but like new and also about like our crazed stock market. And it just misses the market, you know, like enough so that it doesn't work. And there's been a bunch of movies like that. Live by Night was supposed to be like a prestigious movie. And that I saw like a report this weekend that it lost Warner Brothers $75 million. So enjoy the Cape. I feel like you could, seriously, the Cape fifth.

I feel like you could have stopped what you were saying when you said, that was a movie. Yeah. Because there is no silence greater than when a movie just doesn't work. Because it's just the one thing. There's not the second episode still coming. You know, if you miss your window and you miss your audience or you miss your mark, you're done. Yeah. And despite all the money, all the time put into it, it's just, it's a deafening silence.

So all that is to say that La La Land has had the exact opposite of silence or Live By Night or Gold. It has had just such a blessed kind of like, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's sort of survived. It's backlash. It has just sort of gracefully walked along this path, and it's going to win Best Picture at least. And it's a remarkable run because it debuted at the festivals at the beginning of 2016, and they paste it correctly. They platformed it correctly.

And you're right. I mean, we talk about pilot season and sort of the anachronistic ways that television will work out how they're doing these shows. I mean, in some ways, I'm kind of skeptical about this idea of releasing something in New York in Los Angeles on Christmas Day. and then releasing it three weeks later everywhere else and hoping that the media will somehow... Because I know personally from our coverage of things, and it's not just because we're in L.A.,

it's just because you kind of can't be last to release your pieces about a movie. So you kind of have to put out all your coverage of a movie or a television show when it gets first released, whether that's in Chicago or not. And I think that that does hurt movies like silence, where you have, like, Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield interviews

out six weeks before anyone can see the movie. It's a really good point because there, and this is, let's put aside for a moment the question of what press actually does for something in this day and age, although I do think it matters for movies. It's not a net negative. I mean, like it may not be as important as the press thinks it is, but I don't think it's

unimportant. But it's very bizarre, this idea of doing a regional release when you have such a national press. It makes absolutely no sense. People do want things immediately. They talk about things immediately. As you said, they watch the stars on TV. They read the interviews and whatever they re-interviews in these days,

they listen to people talk about it on a podcast, and then they wait, there's already something there to fill that void. Plus, the crown is on. Just stay home and watch the crown. It's an interesting point. One other thing about La La Land, again, this is not an argument I want to make

because art for art's sake does really matter, but the other thing, in another conversation with one of these college applicants was when I asked a movie or a TV show or anything that had inspired them recently, they said, this one young woman said that she was, her whole science magnet school was taken to a screening

at UCLA of Hidden Figures. And it was like incredibly powerful. That's awesome. And I, you know, I wonder if like the theater students from the theater magnet school were taking a La La Land and be like, everything can work out if you just do a one woman show. Right. I don't know if it's quite the same power. Not that that

always matters. Last point, and I think you alluded to it already, I just want, I just hope America is ready and buckled up for the most woke Oscar ceremony of all time. Are you ready for this? Sure. Is Jimmy Kimmel ready for this? I don't know.

Yo, I'm just saying this is going to be real, real woke. And I think I'm all for it. I support it. I'm very curious what people are going to say. Do you think Mel Gibson shows up just in full brave heart regalia? First of all, the fact that Mel Gibson is showing up is a whole other conversation. This is fascinating to me. It is the most inside job rehabilitation I've ever seen.

Not that I'm weighing in on it either way as an individual in the world. But Hacksaw Ridge, couldn't you put that in the same capacity? category with Live by Night and Gold? Like that's a thing that sort of happened that people didn't see. Yeah, that is sort of the action movie or the sort of genre movie version of the Weinstein company movie about old Europeans that somehow gets nominated for Best Picture every two years. It's just weird to see the beneficiary of what is clearly like, not, I don't even

mean this a negative way, but like old boy network cronyism. You can move levers if you try hard enough on behalf of certain things getting in the conversation on behalf of someone who was cast out literally who was completely

cast out of the party of the club years ago. It's very bizarre. But he does have a good beard. Okay, so before we talk about young pope, I just wanted to tell you like a funny story here.

And we were talking a little bit about the influence of pop culture media and press around movies and I went and saw a splice it on Friday night. It's a new movie from M. Knight, starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor Johnson, I think her name is, from The Witch. Don't know it.

Unfamiliar. Basically, three girls are at a, like, a Beniggins-type spot for a birthday party. So far, I'm in. And, like, there's a dad there, and they leave. And next thing they know, they're kidnapped by James McAvoy, who takes them to an underground bunker somewhere. And it turns out... Is this 10 Cloverfield Lane?

No, it turns out that James McAvoy has multiple personalities. It's almost as if they're split. Yeah. And et cetera, et cetera. Like there's like a, it's basically it's McAvoy, Betty Buckley Place's therapist who believes that the split personality, the people suffering from split personalities also might possess an almost superhuman quality and supernatural quality. And it goes on and on.

And so right now I just want to, I'm going to spoil it. this for Andy because... Should you warn people that are going to spoil for them too? So I would skip ahead. I'm going to try and keep this to a minute. So if you don't want to hear the end of split, skip ahead like a minute. Okay, here's the funny thing, right?

So everybody's like, I can't believe the end of split. I can't believe it. It's like so crazy. This is the chatter on the boards? And I was like, oh, I never, but I would see that as a headline or people in the office talking about it. I'd be like, oh, okay, okay. And so I was like, I'm looking forward to finding out with the end of splitism.

And me and my wife goes see it on Friday. And I was like, there's a huge twist in this. You warned her. There's a huge twist. She's like, I can't wait. Let's see this twist. Was she like, I would never have expected that from an M. Night Shyam one. So we get to the end of it.

Yeah. And I'm like, is this the twist where it's like, it's sort of the end. It's like, and I was like, oh, is the twist that like he is superhuman? That's interesting. And then it gets to the credits tag. You know, like after the beat after the director. So the movie ends. Yeah.

And then it's like. And there was like one last bit. Did you know there was going to be something? I didn't. Because I really did good job not reading about it. But you sat through it because you were just like... I was like, hold on a second. Like as we were getting up and she's just like, I got to go to the bathroom.

You let me know what happens. Yeah. Let me know who the gaffer was. Yeah. And it turns out that this movie is a sequel to Unbreakable. No. And it turns out that I never saw Unbreakable. So I was like sitting there.

And the entire theater. He was like, oh! And I'm like, huh! That's amazing. So he stealth built an expanded universe of his own superhero nonsense. And I am stealth from Philadelphia and did not see the follow-up to sixth sense. Oh, by the way, neither did your boy here. This is the non-unbreakable podcast.

But it was like definitely like, fantasy was like, I'm really looking forward to what you think about split. The end is pretty intense. And I was just like, okay, man, I will. So it's just Sam Jackson. a wheelchair at the end being like, gotcha. Bruce Willis at Silk City Diner, drinking a coffee and being like, yes, there was one, Mr. Glass.

Wait, really? Yeah. That must have gotten people pretty psyched. I mean, I was psyched for Silk City Diner. That's what I'm excited about. Yeah, but. We used to go there and get grilled cheeses and hope Questlove would be there.

Yeah. Just maybe he'd be there. Yeah, just spinning. He wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't ever. Okay, so let's take a quick break. We'll come back.

We'll talk about the belt holder, young pope. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Movement Watches. You know, I recently got a Movement Watch for my mother-in-law. Oh, that's nice. I got one for my wife. Yeah, I mean, Movement Watches just makes beautiful, beautiful products. It's really, they make lovely gifts. They make lovely gifts to yourself if you are, if somebody who enjoys keeping time on a risk. Or if you deserve it.

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sitting court side at Sixers games. And Kevin Hart. Yeah, they're like, but Kevin Hart, to be fair, we'll show up. Yeah. Like for a Hollis-Thompson game two years ago. Yeah. But M. Knight is like, I'm reserving this spot for when M.B. Hoys the Larry O'Brien.

I am completely fine with that. I've done a 180 on him just since we realized that. So let's talk a little bit about Young Pope. The funny, I think that with other shows that we've been obsessed with or really lauded, we've been able to get really deep into certain plot points. or talk about, well, they did this right or did this wrong, or I hope they do more of this. And we haven't really for this show.

We've kind of almost taken this show, and we've been like, it's in its own little box, and you can, like, get into the box or kick the box away. But you can't, there's not like, oh, I would just, they've got to give Keaton more screen time, or how are you leaving this plot line dangling or whatever? Have you noticed that this has, like, been a kind of unique artifact that we've talked about?

And I almost feel like I don't even know sometimes what to say, although I do have a point about it this week. It is so dazzling and so occasionally bewildering. And it is just... And sometimes boring. It can be a little slow. Yeah. It does not operate under any rules that we recognize as TV shows.

You know, I just think about the moments, the greatest moments in, let's say, episode, I know to get the numbers wrong, in episode four, to my mind was when the prime minister of Greenland presents the Pope with the largest halibut ever caught off the shores of her nation and Voyello just starts saying that it's a lovely fish like a sea bass that you can cook in a light broth. How am I surprised that that's your favorite moment?

It's so funny and weird but that what does that add up to? What does that I don't know that it all it doesn't need to I just mean that like the thing you know we'd love to talk about theuteur era in television and the risk taking and everything but TV by its very nature is essentially always

going to be a plot delivery device and everything around it, the flourishes and bells and whistles that we draw our attention, often remain bells and whistles. I think it's very rare for a show to be, and this is why I think a lot about, I've been thinking a lot more about Mad Men recently,

because if you think about the way Mad Men constructed the season, or even an individual episode, they were these tiny, complicated, intricate jewel boxes of human behavior and emotional thinking. And what the season was about, well, there was the season where Lane died, I guess, that's a season, you know?

they didn't follow those rules. And especially now that I'm working in that field, you see that. Like you see that you have to keep moving the ball. Best intentions of what it could be sort of fall away in terms of what it probably has to be. And here we have, to use a sporting analogy, we have Sorrentino, like as the quarterback of his TV show, and they hike in the ball,

and he just sort of pulls up a lawn chair and sits, even while everyone's running at him. And he freestyles. That's what I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about. It was because I've been trying to think of what this reminds me of, this show reminds me of, or what his filmmaking reminds me of,

especially within this show, because I think it varies from movie to movie that he does. And we've had a couple of examples over the last few years, whether it's Jill Soloway on Transparent or Carrie Fugganaga on True Detective or Soderberg on The Nick, where you're just really seeing the footprint

of a director who is in charge of almost everything about their show. And it used to be a writer's medium or producer's medium. Of course, Stephen J. Connell produced Unsub back in 1989. That was a great producer. Who other than everyone else on Earth could forget.

And what Young Pope is doing and what Sorrentino is doing in it, when people say something is a lot like Martin Scorsese, they usually mean, oh, it's got, you know, it's using pop music in a kind of juxtaposing way, and it's the camera moves are like this, and it's about mafioso, you know, cursing.

Someone does cocaine and throws their head back. Yeah, exactly. Or it's got that kind of kinetic energy that so many of Scorsese's movies have. But one thing that Scorsesey does is place primacy on the camera. Like the camera is the point of view. It's not from a particular character's point of view or a sort of flat third person point of view the way a lot of madman is where you go, there's a scene of this character, the seam of this character.

And you can just see. There was a little bit of this in the, Nick where a conversation would be happening in a room and then the camera would just go somewhere else while that conversation was happening. And Soderberg was almost saying, like, I know for the purposes of television that this conversation about this exposition conversation needs to happen, but I'm more interested in the light bulb or the hallway or whatever. And it's kind of an interesting undercutting of the script because remember the thing about the

Nick was Soderberg was like, give me this raw text that you veteran television writers have written. Right. And I'm going to do donuts on the lawn. Yeah. And I will literally point out how. basic this exposition is by finding something else more interesting in the room. Well, what you're seeing with Young Pope is a marriage of, it's all Sorrentino, right? It's not some script that he has taken and tweaked a little bit.

I'm sure Silver wouldn't be dismissive of the screenplays, the teleplays for the Nick. But there was a couple of shots, yes, in four and five. In five, I think when Lenny and Desolier, is that the other guy's name, the redhead guy? are walking around the grounds in their track suits and it'll cut away from them for a second or there was a scene where there were children and they're running away from the convent and it does this, they're running on one side of the road

and it does like a 360 pan of this countryside and then the next thing you know, they're like right in front of the camera. And some of that stuff is just style, but some of it is just this assertion of Sorrentino saying like, it's my eye. And it's a show that's about God. It's a show about someone almost assuming the role of God.

The director is actually God here. I mean, the director, he's saying the dialogue can be cute. The tone can shift. It can be about power. It can be about fame. It can be about whatever. What it's about is like how I have decided to take these lush, already incredibly romantic settings that will evoke so much emotion in people.

and just ramp it up. It's almost like what Michael Bay does. You know, it's that it's pushing everything into an almost celestial level. And I think I, over the last couple of episodes, even as I like waver back and forth as to whether this is like a shadow Trump show or something like that,

I continue to be enamored with it because of the camera work. Yeah, let's just think about the speech of the Cardinals in episode five. I mean, I have no knowledge of how they did this, but it strikes me the first thing you think of when you see that is that, Sorrentino took some images like Renaissance paintings,

ecumenical paintings of, you know, of like baby Jesus or like, you know, sort of round babies with little devilish faces that exist in these old paintings and said to Chute Laude, do this. Right. Be this baby. And I will drape you in gold and velvet and silk. And you will look preposterous and you will rule. And it is one of the most striking shots I can remember seeing in TV or movies in quite some time.

He opens essentially with what you think is going to be a knock-knock joke. Right. He, and then he devilishly, and I use that word intentionally, spits this spits pars. He does. About what does fondness get you? What does friendship get you? What does public opinion get you? And it gets you nothing.

Reaching out. What is being open meaning? Yeah. And it's so brilliantly shot, especially as it cuts to these amazing faces of the Cardinals and just the masculine energy in the room. the ordnateness and the money and everything. And what it does brilliantly is it shows you that absolutism is a little bit alluring at times, you know, because to have someone sit on a golden throne draped in finery and be like,

you know, nuance is the way to go. It almost doesn't match up. Yeah. It's tricky. It's very tricky for someone to get up there and be like, well, I think we're going to open up and we're going to be friendly with this and that doesn't matter so much. If you have someone, I feel like there's a part of all of our lizard brain. that when we hear a strong man,

or I wish I could say a strong anyone, but it's almost always a strong man, say, not take care of it, it's easier this way, it's done. That's part of our lizard brain that's like few. Oh, good. Oh, good. That's easier. Even if you're in complete opposition to it, it's easier to have a complete opposition, you know, and that's what is so insidious and terrifying about the young pope

and fill in the blank the comment you want to make here. Sure. And that's why I just I am continually struck by the way This show has timed its release in this country Again we've said before it is not It was not intentional It just kind of happened this way

I mean it came out like last Last month two months ago on It came out in October I think so maybe so maybe And we said maybe maybe the geniuses of canal pluse Plus were like just they were they were You know they stuck their finger in the air and they they They saw the way the winds were blowing But it can be a crapshoot you know because we're not talking about homeland this week

were taking a break, but when you see what happened IRL this weekend in terms of Muslim American relations and immigration and politics and CIA and just people, veterans of foreign wars, and then you see what Homeland is doing this season because it thought the whole world would be, they took a bet and it was basically a bad bet. Yeah. Or a good bet. Well, it was a more optimistic bet that the world would be in a different place. Well, not a good bet.

Yeah. I mean, either way. But the point being, Homeland, you would think of. and this is not a criticism of them. They had no way to know. No one could predict any of this, really, really. Certainly not on a TV production schedule. Homeland is a show that it's almost uniquely suited,

you would think, to be able to tell these stories, and maybe they will at some point. Paula Sorrentino coming in from Italy, making a 10-hour show about Jude Law dressed as a rich baby, who would have thought that that would become this de facto zeit-guise show to a degree that it has? Its ratings are fine. Is it?

They're not good. No, I mean. I mean, I don't know what good is anymore, but like I don't think that it's, I don't think it's tearing up. This isn't a show for everyone. Yeah. If you are not willing to go on the ride that you started, that you described at the beginning, which is this is a, okay, you can go looking for contemporary relevance, and I certainly am, but you have to be willing to go on a purely aesthetic ride here and just go with it. You got to go with it. You got to turn to the camera and wink.

Okay, let's talk to wrap up a little bit about this Neil Brennan special. It's not as much that I wanted to talk about Neil Brennan's comedy or anything, but I think it kind of plays into what we were talking about in the beginning of the episode about passive television watching and sort of, you know, I think that there's a real pressure or because we're so consumed with the newness of things. And then, you know, even if you don't watch something live, it will get disseminated online where it's like, you've got to see John Oliver eviscerate this person or you got to see. David Harbour's amazing speech, you've got to see this. And sketch shows, S&L, they get, like, chopped up and sent out in bits. But there's something, no matter how much formal invention you add to it. Neil Brennan actually does do something quite interesting with this three mic show. There's something that, like, is always going to be the same about stand-up.

And there's something about it being on Netflix and kind of being like, you can watch 20 minutes of it, and then you can stop. Or you can watch the whole thing. Or you can watch six hours of stand-up. on Netflix. That is actually quite comforting and almost this nice throwback to the way people, I think, used to use television a little bit more as a nightlight. That's an interesting point. I was actually going to come at it from a different way, which is to say that I find

I find comedians, the stand-up comedians, more interesting and more relevant and more, I don't want to say demanding or worthy of time, but I'm more interested in investing time in them now than perhaps any time since I was watching George Carlin specials when I was allowed to stay up late or whatever in the 80s. And I think it's partly because stand-up, basically being a stand-up comedian is being a open book. That's your job, right? It can be, yeah.

To jump up in front of the microphone and then dig deep and just like everything on everything and usually, hopefully funny things, but sometimes painful things and weird things and taboo things. And that makes them uniquely suited to be like the Knights, K-N-I-G-H-T of this internet era, right? Like, that's why comedians make the second best podcast other than this one. There's this intense, like, constantly processing the world and oversharing that almost fits the moment. And so it makes sense that Netflix is backing up the brink struck.

Right. So they've made a deal with Chappelle. They've made deals with Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld recently. Almost impossibly lucrative deals. Yes. Like outrageously lucrative deals. and they've become the place where, you know, Aziz Ansari will do a special for Comedy Central once and then it'll go to Netflix. Amy Schumer did HBO and then I think Netflix, right?

Like they are in that business in a big way and they've really opened the checkbook. Yeah, and it's when you go to the front page on Netflix, like a lot of those shows, like their shows, they promote those shows. They are, I bet for as much as they pay for them, it's pretty low overhead in terms of actually producing them. Yes, they're very low production. It's really your pain for the right to have them. for the most part, uh, it's a very easy relationship to have.

I mean, you can just direct people to go watch your special on Netflix. If people are just searching around for something to watch for a while, it's on Netflix. Granted, like some of the references might be out of date in a couple years or whatever, but for the most part, so what Neil Brennan does in this show,

Neil Brin is the most famous for being one of the main creative engines behind Chappelle show, he's a pretty interesting character because he's basically, he's the guy behind the guy of so many guys. gals. Like he, and he was Chappelle's co-writer and co-producer

and he directed a ton of Chappelle's show. He's the guy who told Jimmy Fallon that he should hire the roots as his backup band on late night.

He's the guy who was originally, he co-wrote with Mike Schur who went on to create Parks and Recreation in The Good Place. He's directed episodes of Inside Amy Schumer.

He is a comics whisper like he knows people, he knows everyone. He's incredibly well respected. He co-wrote, he wrote for like Seth Myers who he's good friends with.

with his White House correspondent's dinner that killed. He's that guy. He's in the room where it's always happening. But the interesting thing about him is that he was never the guy. He was always that guy. And so for the last few years, as he jokes about in the special, he's made a concerted effort to build himself up as a stand-up and test that muscle. Yeah.

Resulting in this show that ran, I think it ran off Broadway and then they filmed it. And you were going to talk about the sort of formal innovation. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't even know if it's, I wouldn't want to say that it's innovative if it has been done before. but in this episode, in this show, Brennan does Z. He has three microphones set up on stage, and one microphone he does one-liners.

Off of no cards. And one mic, he does sort of more traditional, observational stand-up humor, but like kind of paragraph long jokes or whatever. And then in the center of Mike, he basically just talks occasionally with jokes about his battles

with clinical depression and his life in a very, like, stark way. And it's really, it's striking because he gets up on stage and says the thing that anyone who knows about him has been thinking, which is you're the guy behind the guy. And, you know, and so what did that do to you when Chappelle went to Africa and walked away from the $50 million deal? Some of those millions must have been earmarked for Neil Brennan.

He talks about his insecurity and his relationship to fame. It was interesting to watch. I respected the idea of breaking it up like that, but it just didn't land for me because the best stand-up does all of it. you know, the very best hour-long set you'll see from a Chris Rock or Louis C.K. Or any of the other Titans, combine all three of those things into a seamless hole. To separate them like that felt very ungainly to me. Like you'd get into one vibe and then you'd take you out of that vibe.

Like the parts that landed hardest for me, he has this whole run about like testosterone operating in men's minds. And like he likened the voice in your head to like a prisoner doing like side bends. Yeah. It's really funny. And I sort of wanted a, I wanted it to be a complete whole. I didn't, it didn't work for me, but I sort of appreciated it. And it's sort of interesting that I guess people who are real comedy heads, and I'm looking at you if you're one of them.

But it's like, it's sort of like respecting the process, like seeing that all work together is what you're supposed to appreciate. Yeah. And I think also the one of the things that's changed since you and I were like watching, you know, guys with like their suit blazer, like, with blazers with their sleeves rolled up. With the improv sign behind them. Comedy Central and just doing like,

the thing about ladies this weird, you know, like is that more and more of the process of being a comedian has become part of like the mainstream conversation about being. So this idea that, you know, Chris Rock or Louis C.K. Go to the comedy seller or something and just workshop material, but are almost actively bad at what they're doing because they're trying to build a set. That's part of it.

And they're trying to see how certain things sound phonetically or the rhythm of the jokes and everything, and it's not necessarily for public, mass public consumptions for like this sort of like watching. It would be like watching LeBron shoot, you know, and it's just like he maybe's going to miss, but he maybe's working on a part of his game. Yeah, it's almost the lo-fi aesthetic in music.

Yeah. The mistakes are part of it. But that has become, between that and split-sider and all these places that kind of give you an inside look at what comedy is. And listening to Marin. Like in Marin, yeah, of course. And there's a lot of stuff like that. You almost, the life of a comedian is now as,

big of an industry as the comedian, the comedy itself. And I think what Brennan did there was with this that's interesting is almost make that into a very like formal exhibit. He was like, this is what we all do. And I am rather than putting it all together like what you were sort of asking for, he's like, I'm going to show you how these things are separate, but they can all exist within the same guy. And on the same stage.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. All of this conversation sets up very nicely a conversation I think we're going to have in a couple weeks when Pete Holmes show crashing debuts on HBO because Pete Holmes, uh, comedian briefly was a late night host after Conan, uh, host that You Made It Weird podcast. And this show that Jud Appetow produced for him is loosely based on his real life where he was sort of a relatively sheltered conservative guy, married young, his marriage fell apart and he just threw himself into comedy. And in the show, he's basically, he's homeless in Manhattan living on like, like crashing. That's where the title comes from on like Ardy Lang's couch and, uh, um, uh, uh, a T.

Miller's couch and other comedians. I really, really like this show. I really, really enjoy the show. I think people are going to like it. But I particularly like it because it does the thing almost effortlessly that Judd-Apital's funny people tries to do. And a lot of these podcasts sort of try to do indirectly, which is really makes this work seem artistic and admirable in a way.

It's not so inside baseball that it's just, you know, it's not just people just, you know, patting each other on the back and laughing at each other's jokes. I killed last night. It's not so much that. It's just like the question of like, he actually does this thing where in the episodes when he finally gets on stage with these open mics and he's fine. You know, he has some funny jokes and observations. But people are like, the people around him are like, why are you wasting everyone's time?

Like you're living on a couch and your wife left you. Why are you too scared to talk about that? And it sort of makes the process that we saw in a polished state with Neil Brennan's show, hour-long show, into the work of a serialized half hour. Right. So I find that pretty interesting. going forward. But just to sum up, what is your, you have plenty of content. You said earlier, Chris, you said, I'll watch anything. What is your stand-up diet? Like, how often do you sit down,

fire up a stand-up special? You're like, let's do this. Pretty rarely, yeah. So, like, are you asking me what my passive TV is? No, which is another question. I just wanted to know, like, if that was part of your regular diet, like every so often, you'll see that new one and you'll throw it on. I'll always, like, I feel like there's randomly, like my wife and I will give a net, like, we watched Michael Chase comedy special a couple weeks ago. Netflix is especially easy for. It's right there.

Oh, I've never even heard a Jen Kirkman joke before. You hit play. And then you're like, got it. It's just not like a huge passion of mine. But I think part of it has become like you can, I watch baseball and I'm like, there's a lot of games, you know? But if I cared about advanced statistics or understood something about like prospects or like what it takes to put together this kind of like at bat or.

like how guys like develop more pitches. I might be able to like more into it. If I was into the extra layers of baseball, I think I would be a bigger baseball fan, obviously. If I was into, I don't really care that much about Joe construction in the world of stand-up and I don't really care about like the trials and tribulations of working material out. It's like never just, it's just of all the things I care about in the world. It's just pretty low.

But that's, I think that's an interesting point of view to have and I think it's universal, but it depends, but it shifts from field to, field. Like, I don't, like, there are, there are restaurants, like highbrow restaurants that have tasting menus that you can go and you can drop considerable money on it. And it's just like, that's an interesting work in progress for a young talent. I'm like, I wanted to be full and I want to have my $300 back. You know what I mean? Like, let me know when you get your third star. Like, then we'll talk. Then I'll spend the money on it. And I actually bring that attitude. It's a pile of sesame seeds in the shape of a bagel. What we're doing here is, uh, we use a little bit of

burnt onion flax seed and, uh, sea anemone. You have to swamony. You have to swamony. You have to swallow it whole, otherwise you can't escape from your dreamscape. I feel that way actually about stand-up, which is, you know, Chris, you know me. Love to laugh. I want to laugh. But I'm dubious of a

show that is intentionally saying, I will make you laugh. So unless it's someone that has been vetted, like, if the new Louis C.K. special drops, I'm like, grab the wife, fire it up. Like, let's have a good night. Do you have a favorite? Like, do you remember, like, when, you know, because like in middle

school, though, like, it was. a big deal. Like, I remember, like, Robin Harris was really big for us. Really? Yeah, I used to listen to Robin Harris a lot. And, um, George Carlin. Death Comedy Jams. Dennis Lerner, No Cure for Cancer was a big one. The Carlin one, Carlin had a run

where he just, just took apart airplane travel where, you know, he like did the whole announcement, and they're like, any bags you might have brought with you, and he just does that Carlin face, he's like, I might have brought any bag. You know, and they're like, in issues of extreme turbulence. I think my favorite comedian is you pretending to be

George Carlin. If there is further turbulence, and he goes, roof flies off. And I think about that every time I get on a plane. I really recommend that. Also, do you remember the Robin Williams one where he just talks about, like, being on cocaine a lot? And this was like, we knew Robin Williams, like,

cuddly fuzzy Robin Williams. And he's like, they were like, rainbow suspenders, Robin Williams. And he talks about, like, being so high when a cop pulled him over. He's like, his face is a cheeseburger, you lunge. That chin is like, Formative, right? So there's all, yeah, I remember all that at that age, like when you want to know what the limits of funny are.

Yeah. So maybe we just become conservative. Big or blacker was huge? Well, when Chris Rock, yeah. When Chris Rock basically, we were like, oh, the guy who wasn't, didn't get enough shine on Saturday Night Live and was surprisingly good in New Jack City is suddenly the greatest standup of all time or of the current moment. Yeah, it's probably not the best strategy to only look for, like, oh, Aziz has a new hour dropping. Like, you should probably are Hannibal Burris. Like, let's, it's probably valuable to go lower down on the food chain.

Maybe you should go back to the half-out. Scouting. What about that? I'll see you at the car. See you at the cellar? Yeah. But for real, though, maybe that we should bring our TV thinking to it. Like, an hour is kind of a commitment.

Maybe we should go back to the stand-up half hour. Yeah. Don't get ahead of yourselves, comedians. Yeah. Relax, guys. Think about our time. Okay, we're going to be back Thursday. We'll update the watch list, let you know.

We have a couple things we're going to be previewing for the weekend and for the weeks to come. I know Big Little Lies is coming. Girls is coming before that 24 legacy on Super Bowl Sunday. Falcons or Patriots. These are the football teams? Dirty birds! I mean, who do I...

Ask me again. Who do I want to win or what I think is going to win? Falcons or Patriots? Do you want to win? Falcons. Okay. But who's going to win? I mean, I think evil wins.

Until then, nice seeing you. Good job, Bransky.