The Watch - Ep. 121: The Grammy Awards, 'Legion,' and 'Girls'

Episode Date: February 13, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the cultural importance of the Grammy Awards (1:00), Beyoncé’s performance (8:30), and Adele’s victory (10:33). Then they discuss ‘Legion’ and Andy’s experience working on the show (16:55) as well as the return of ‘Girls’ (33:08). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are brought to you today by A Divided spy. Critics are calling Charles Cumming the air to John LeCarray. Uncover the truth in a Divided Spy from New York Times bestselling author Charles Cumming. Book List gives a Divided Spy a starred review, calling it an airtight espionage plot full of unanticipated twists. For more information, visit a Dividedspy.com. I need supports 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 ring of the room. dot com and joining me in the studio, this Grammy belongs to you. It's Andy Greenwald! Thank you. Thank you. You know, being the light for all the artists in the podcast space is a, it's a burden, but it's also a crown. And I take it seriously. Here's the table of contents. Andy, we were going to be talking a little bit about the Grammys from last night. We were going to talk about Legion, which is a show on FX that you played, you played a part and it's creation. I am Dan Stevens. Yeah, right. And then we're also going to talk about

the television show Girls. So let's get started, Andy, with the Grammys. Yeah. Yeah. We talked with Chuck last week about culture being viewed through political lens. And it was really nice to Chuck to come on and talk to us about that. You could check out that episode from last Thursday. But that certainly was the case Sunday night.

I think it was definitely like the things that people will remember about it. Even in the like world of did someone win a Grammy or not is this idea that there are institutions that are not keeping up with the times. Yeah. And I think that's basically, whether you're talking about the government or you're talking about the recording industry of America. Industry of America. That it's just basically not representing what people feel and think and love in music.

To be clear, I don't know if the Grammys ever did keep up. I mean, of all the four major awards, they've always been just the most often comically out of step. Yeah, I think that there are sometimes in fun performances that they're. Grammys, but the idea that the Grammys ever had anything to do with, or even like, propel, I mean, I guess in pop music, it matters if you win a best new artist, people might check you out, or if you win best album, people might check that album out. Yeah, it definitely, it has always correlated to sales, but that also could be the fact that, like,

you get a four-hour-long commercial in prime time. Sure. And people see that you're the best of the best. And, you know, one of the reasons why the music industry has cratered is because of the loss of the casual fan, right? I mean, you can't, to sell 10 million records or 20 million records like people used to do, you're not just selling to people who go to record stores. Yeah, I think the music is creator too because nobody has to pay for music anymore.

Well, right, in a way. But I'm saying the casual fan will now, you know, maybe this makes you more than casual, but we'll pay $9.99 a month for subscription service. And then when Adele wins or they see Chance the Rapper wins, they'll be like, okay, I'll put that in my cue now. But there isn't the same, like, now everyone has to buy this to be part of the conversation. anymore. Yeah.

But to your larger point, yeah, I think one thing that the Grammys has done smartly over the last few years is it's tried to, to the best of its abilities, make the show almost a distinct entity from the nominating process and the voting process. So that the show is this sort of celebration of the music that is exciting, performance that is exciting, and steering towards the one thing that the Grammys have that all the other word shows don't, which is they have the best Rolodex. So you can get these collaborations and collisions that you might not otherwise get. Now, the problem is that you can't really have two narratives in a three or four hour broadcast like that. The reason why, you know, the Oscars still kind of is the most naturally flowing award show is that it's all about movies and it builds. You know, we always complain about how the Golden Globes get a little bifurcated because of TV and movies. The Emmys always get a little lose the momentum because then they do comedy and then drama and the miniseries. Grammys is just

it's all over the place So it was inevitably going to come down To these two women against each other Your Oscars point is good There's only one theme for the Oscars And that is a celebration of the movies And the movie industry And Damien Chazelle

Yeah and I'm sorry That's this way That's this year's And but even in this year's Oscars I would be dumbfounded If there isn't largely A really warm

Pat on the Back feeling of We're here We're doing America's most where we're making America's best export, you know, and we are on the front lines of articulating the national, like people's national, like, anxieties and national aspirations. And, like, even if they're actually making Transformers dark of the moon, it's like there is like a feeling of pride in what they are doing.

And with the music industry, I just think that there's always been this huge underground, this huge subculture to music. that a lot of people are drawn to, and they look at the idea of music being a popularity contest as not the point of music. And a lot of people find music to find themselves, and a lot of people find music to shape their own identities. And if you then ask for people to validate, like, that music,

I don't expect the music that I love to win a best album. Music has always been, and I mean, this is why moving to writing about TV was actually many ways freeing because TV is much more celebratory. People are excited about success, whereas music because it is so subjective and so deeply personal and so formative. People are much more possessive and territorial about it, and they don't want to share it. And also, to your other point, there isn't really, I mean, there is punk cinema. Is there punk television? I don't know.

But basically, these things are much more difficult and costly and collaborative to create and promote, right? So there isn't, you can't say, let me be clear, you always can say that there's something else that was left out. But those industries are a little bit easier to wrap your arms around in terms of having an official award show. Music is not that. But the flip side of that, on a positive sense, is I don't think there will be in any of the other award shows. There will not be a moment as electric as Buster Rhymes on stage or Q-Tip kicking down a figurative wall with Anderson-Pock and a woman in a hijab. That was out-of-body-level exhilarating in a way that these other shows can't. So kudos to the Grammys for trying to do all of that.

And you know what? Like with Tribe, this is what their album did as well, is that Tribe Call Quest is still a absolutely beating. Like, it's a beating heart. It is not a reunion tour. It is not a museum piece. They didn't get out there and pay tribute to the people who came before. You know what I mean? Like, they obviously pay tribute to Fife, but it wasn't, they are not like the senior citizen circuit.

They are like making incredibly current art. Yeah. Sometimes very prescient art like that comes out before that, you know what I mean, that anticipates a world. Yeah. You know, and that is, that was like phenomenal last night to watch. Yeah, obviously that was our both of our picks for the best performance of the night. And I really recommend people checking it out. I tweeted a live link to it.

Yeah, I'm back on there. I'm regretting. I'm regretting some choices. But it was, you know, it was so affirming to see that performance. And to what you were saying, like, you think about older groups reuniting or reuniting with a change in membership. One thing that's been really special, I think, about Tribe called Quest, is that they really are Q-Tip. I mean, he's the captain of the ship, has really embraced the first word in the name. You know, they are a tribe.

Yeah. That's what Micah wrote something really good about this on the radar. I think that if you see the people. people on stage, like Anderson Puck is a, you know, a vibrant, exciting young artist. Consequence has always been their pal. Buster Rhymes has always been their pal as well. And it felt like, it felt very natural. Their Tribe Called Quest could be this evolving collective of whoever is contributing.

I mean, Jack White is on the record too. And suddenly they feel more alive than almost than ever, which is, you know, a tragedy that Fife's not there to enjoy it. But by the way, Q-Tip is a hell of a live performer now. Yeah. That was crazy. Yeah. That was exciting.

So it's an incredible platform for people to see artists that they may not normally get a chance to see live or in that context. Like you can obviously pull out all the tricks when you do a Grammy's performance. You have like it's like a playoff game. You have, you know, NFL playoff game that you have to get a first round by and you get weeks to plan for that team. But I would say that it's kind of like going off the point I was making is that Beyonce doesn't need the Grammys. Like it sucks that she. Well, she doesn't need to win Grammys. Yeah.

She uses the Grammy Awards as a... But part of her power, aside from the fact that her music is great and her videos are great and her films are great and that she is doing this thing in a world which, like, is not usually that supportive of somebody who wants to kind of... Dreamgirls wasn't that great. Dreamgirls wasn't that great. Lemonade. You know, I mean, I think that she is showing people, the part of her achievement, which is, like,

doesn't even matter, but like part of it is like, I can do this my own way. And while it would have been great, she obviously submitted. for these awards. There was an expectation that she would win some. I think even Adel. And obviously, Adele thought she should have won them. I think that she,

her career is proof that like the Grammys are this like arbitrary bullshit popularity contest voted on by people who don't matter. But it's also, you know, for her it's the Venice Biennall, right? Where she's just like, now is the time to unveil a new direction,

a new look, some new inspiration. And what she did on that stage, I mean, that's like nine and a half minutes. Much of it with spoken word, much of it with just tableau and imagery was incredibly beautiful, incredibly powerful. And I also think what she might not get credit for, and believe me, Piancé gets all the credit. I'm not going to pretend that she doesn't in this world. But it was very challenging. And it was challenging in a way that is less pump your fists than what Q-Tip and Buster Rhyme said.

Yeah. She gets on this stage very pregnant with a spoken word thing. about remembering your mother's hips and her internal velvet and it's this like incredibly powerful matriarchal feminism and that's on CBS on Sunday night.

And if that made you uncomfortable well like that was the point. That was the point of what she did and I think that alone is pretty remarkable. And I also say I have to say the flip side of that is well first of all, Adele, I don't listen to your records, Adel,

but you still seem like the best hang in the universe. she seems like the coolest hang ever. Adele's great. Just like just realer than real up there. And what she, you know, let's be really serious. Like to be on stage, to win the biggest award, and to basically say that you're not sure if you deserve it, and then to speak glowingly about the person who you think deserves it,

and have exactly 0% of that speech come off as contrived or bullshit, it, that's pretty wild. Yeah. That is truly wild, you know. And it also, for me, I found that really moving because it did create something that I think is the Grammys at its most utopian best, which is creating the facade of a shared community of artists. I shouldn't even say facade because it probably does exist on some level.

You know what I mean? But like when Adele is up there saying to Beyonce, like, we look to you as artists, but also just her and her friends, who, by the way, invite me any time. I would love to hang out and have a few loggers. Loggers. They look up to her, too. Yeah. And the idea of artists communicating with artists and being inspired by and challenging each other is one of the most moving things about being a fan.

That's the best, man. I love it. And it's one of the possible things about watching these shows. And no offense to the dude, who I'm sure is caking up off of it. But, like, I don't know who else was checking for, like, Mike Posner being like, I also took a pill and a piece on my man. Like, that was really inspiring to me. Yeah, I mean, I think that his success may be inspiring. We've been talking about this pretty much.

since we started the watch is this run that we've been on of artists clearly speaking to one and other through their albums that have been coming out. I mean, whether, I think, you know, I don't even know where you want to start the chain of events, but whether it was like Black Messiah through, you know, Chance and Pablo and Kendrick and Beyonce and these albums that are clearly, and that influence is spreading, that influence is permeating itself. I mean, as is just like people are making pretty provocative art. I think that's great.

I just, the Grammys as like the thing that checks off a box for you. Like, that's, I understand why people are upset for Beyonce. Yeah. I understand why Beyonce would be like,

what the fuck? And I understand why Adele's like, yeah, I didn't deserve this. You did. But, like, this isn't a McLemore situation. Yes.

Like, Adele is a hell of a singer. Yeah. I think that, I think people should check out our pal John Caramanica's piece in the New York Times. It just went up about Grammy's so white. You know,

I think it's a, I think he articulates it very, very well. And, And, you know, if anything else, watching those performances from the Prince tribute to chance is just exultation, which once again made me really can reconsider my religious affiliations and devotions. The Grammys really were on television, this remarkable celebration of black music of the African-American contribution to our culture and to the music that moves us. And even Sturgele Simpson, who is a very talented singer-songwriter, he had the Dap Kings behind him. Adele makes soul records.

It's undeniable. And to be able to watch the through line and see it expressed and be glorified by all these different artists in different ways is moving as a fan of music. And it's just one of those things where what you're seeing does not line up with the trophies that are being handed out. And, you know, it's always a difficult line to walk. These things don't matter, except they kind of do. And so I think John articulated it well. Shout out to John. Shout out to John.

We're ready to move on to the Oscars, right? All right, let's take a quick break from our sponsors, and we'll talk about Legion! Hey, guys, we just want to tell you a little bit about Harry's. You know, Andy has been staring at me all day because of the excellent, close shave that I have from my Harry's razor. You look amazing. Thank you, man.

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Yeah, you get to bring it back. Cool. Do you get started now visit the blacktucks.com slash BSPN and experience a new way to rent. The blacktucks.com slash BSPN. Okay, I'm not going to keep saying Legion. Why not? I don't know. It's just like if I have to say Legion a lot, it's going to get a little bit boring. You do saying at just the top of the segments? Sure. I really like it. Anything you do that's like, like DJ Collett is fine with me. This is obviously a unique television show for us to talk about because it's one that you

had a role in. I worked on it. So we are trying to think of like a creative way to talk about it because ordinarily we would make some jokes and we would say what we liked and didn't like. We would give things belts. We would all this stuff that we kind of can't really do. No, I think, look, I mean, I am obviously biased. I was a co-producer on the first season of the show.

I am too caught up in it to really have, you know, to have a fully objective opinion. Can I ask you a question? I've disqualified this from the belt, just so people have been asking. I obviously think this is ready to grab it. Are you like the Roger Goodell of the belt? What if I disqualify it?

Wow, you can be the Paul Taggliaboo. You can be the Paul Tagliaboo. That means I've been retired for like 10. Oh, doesn't it? Oh, no. Yes, you can ask me a question. Is that true? Like, can you, I'm curious just as like somebody,

can you actually not, when you watch it, are you thinking about things completely, separate from the show, basically? Like, are you like, oh, yeah, interesting? No, because so some backstory, just so people know, I think. We may have talked about this a little bit before, but, you know, you know, Chris, other people know that before Granlin, I'd wanted to get into writing for TV, and then when Granlin started, I stopped that up completely.

When I was going to be leaving Granlin the same week, they shut down the website, which was very convenient for me, I guess, although tragic in many other respects. I had thought that maybe I would spend some time pursuing that. And then right around that time, Noah Hawley called me. And so I had not met him. The only time I met him was when he was on my podcast in October, I think, for Fargo Season 2, which had just started. And he called me out of the blue and said that he was going to be working on something that he thought I might be a good fit for. Would I ever be interested in doing that?

And I said, yeah, I've got some free time. I'd love to do that. That's a project that hasn't moved forward yet. Hopefully it will. I think it's sort of been announced so people could probably put the pieces together as to what it was.

But that was another thing that he was doing. And then when that was over, he asked me to move on to Legion. And so my role, people were a little confused about this, a little deep industry stuff,

co-producer. That's basically a writer's title. I did not produce anything. I thought you put Dan Stevens's high C in the morning. Just hot content. Just that's what I produced.

I was in the, what it means is that I was in the writer's room with four other extremely talented individuals for 10 weeks. And when I came on, the pilot that you guys have all seen, hopefully by now, was already written. And Noah, as you know, directed it and brilliantly directed it. And so he was in pre-production for the pilot during a lot of the time we were in the writer's room. So in terms of the stuff that I actually was able to be in the mix for in terms of sharing ideas and commenting, really begins with, really begins with three, 103, but two was in flux as well.

Gotcha. When he was there, because two was being rewritten by him. Gotcha. So I also, as I said before, I did not write any of these scripts. You did not invent the X-Men. You know, it's actually a bit in dispute right now. The Jack Kirby estate and I are in deep litigation, so I can't really talk about that. Bigger picture also, like, I want to talk about the show, obviously.

I'm excited about the show. this is not my show. I'm not the mouthpiece for this show. So there are going to be a lot of things where I just sort of can't talk about because this is 1,000% Noah's show and FX's thing. So that said, try to crack me. Try to break me. Okay.

I think that I want to start with talking about this more than any new series that I've seen probably in the last few years. I'm trying to remember the last show that was like this is one where it is such a dense, an involved pilot that I like almost I know that this sounds like I'm hedging but I almost were reserved judgment for whether it's like a good show or not like I think that the craftsmanship of it the performances in it then this obvious like depth of feeling that's happening within the show makes it a good show oh yeah it's like I literally and I like I'm I'm the fucking target

audience for a lot of reasons don't understand what's happening do you know what I mean like so yeah that is I want to investigate that because Because I want to talk a little bit about what Noah seems to be trying to do here in terms of like the structure of this show. And I have watched two, but we won't talk about two yet. He's kind of like undoing a lot of, you know, and over the last few years we've seen a lot of people tinker with television visual vocabulary of television, but also the storytelling structure of television. But often what will happen is people will take an episode to play in. and have it be like, here's my little laboratory. We're going to do a bottle episode,

or we're going to do something about a side character that you thought wasn't important and we're going to explore their lives. And no one's doing away with A plot B plot, with the structure of scenes, with whether or not what you're watching in any given moment is actually happening. And on a level that I think is like,

it's like watching a guy on a tightrope. You know, it's like watching someone walk along a tightrope and you're just like, the funny thing about this is unlike Westworld, where I think we all kind of within a few weeks and with the help of Reddit and everybody else, like, I see where this is going. Or I basically see where this has to go for it to pay off.

I have absolutely no idea what the roadmap is for this show. I'm going to answer that by talking about a different show completely, what I've been thinking about it, which is I've been working my way through the first season of one day at a time on Netflix. and the devil with the yellow eyes on that show during the dream sequences is very disturbing. No, I've been watching that show

and I'm really enjoying it, but mostly I'm kind of an awe of it in terms of what it is able to accomplish in what appeared to be a very hoary format, you know? And it's very moving. Like the show just has room for wild levels of emotion. Yeah. You know, the episode where

the lead character and her mother, the Rita Moreno's character, you know, are squabbling over the grandmother's role in the family, and they just talk to each other, and the actresses have tears in their eyes. And it's just like, my God, this is human experience being performed in this sitcom. And I was trying to think,

why were they able to do that? And one of the reasons I realized they were able to do that is because by choosing to be a multicam sitcom, they have opted out of what television essentially has become for a majority of creators and viewers, which is a plot roller coasterce. a plot delivery system. Often when we, and I mean the collective we, people who are just chatting about culture,

talk about TV shows, you know, sticking the landing, hitting its stride or whatever. It's really about what plot has it fed me? Yeah, is it going to pay off? What ride are you taking me on? How can you shock me next? How can you surprise me? And I think that pendulum has tipped too far in that direction. So what I find really what I find really exciting about Legion as a person who's watching it and liking it,

but also someone who's excited to be a part of it before it was actually made, was that Noah seemed to have created something where the internal lives and emotion of the characters functions like the machinery of plot, that they will be going, and this will become more clear to people after you watch two and three, but what's going on inside of people really is the drama and the excitement, you know, and the excitement in a way that sort of inverts what we've come to expect. all of the flourishes, you know, there's a gun battle at the end of the pilot, all of that can be refracted through the personal emotional journey of character.

And David is constantly, seemingly constantly aware of that. So I find that really interesting. I found it very, really interesting. Also, just to people know, and you know, Noah's talked about this, and I think I mentioned it before, too. Like, before working on it, we did not read X-Men Comics as homework. Sure. Luckily, I had already done that to credit.

But, you know, the name. that he told me to investigate were Milan Cunderra, Oliver Sacks, and our boy Paulus Sorrentino, who went on to create the young pope after I watched his movie. No, but like The Great Beauty is a movie about subjective

internal experience, but played broadly. And so that's sort of where it was going. And so for me, it's helpful to kind of put that in the larger context of what TV is trying to do to get out of this wildly successful box that it's found itself in. I think the plot point is really interesting. The idea that television being this delivery system for plot,

but I think that what's fascinating, and I can't wait to see how it works itself out on Legion is there is a ton of plot. There is things happening in multiple realities and multiple settings at once, seemingly, all maybe within this guy's head. And I saw a quote that Noah had that was basically like, this is the right way to tell this story.

This is the right way to represent this character's subjective reality because of what's happening to him. And I think that it is a very brave and fascinating way to think about superpowers, which I know is kind of like this thing that's sort of like lingering. It's going to stay over this show because like if you just wanted to make a show about a guy who was in a mental hospital, but also possibly, you know, had powers, but you could make that show, but you didn't have to name it after a character who maybe Dr. Professor X's son, right? But the idea that that feels like a sickness,

that superpowers can also feel like a, is like a sickness is something that you don't really see investigated very much. It gets hinted at like Spider-Man, the idea that these powers are almost like this off... It's an enormous responsibility. And also just like an affectation of puberty almost. You know what I mean? Like that...

Right. So it makes the subtext text. I mean, the thing that has been compelling at the X-Men over the 50 years that they've existed isn't, ultimately, isn't, you know, that it's cool that dude has claws. It's that it is this really resilient metaphor for, yeah, for it, not just for adolescence, but for difference. For being an outsider. For being an outsider, one form or another.

You know, Jim Ponawazek had a really, obviously was a really positive review of Legion in the New York Times, but I really liked his lead, which was basically like, you know, why is the flash in such a hurt? You know, why don't, why, these, all these things are metaphors, analogies, you know, and they are worth exploring. I mean, I think some of the more interesting stuff done with Batman, not in the movies, but in the comics, has been like, what's, what's really wrong with this guy? Yeah, right. So it is, it is, it is an potentially smart, interesting way to examine it, I think. Yeah. And also just like, you know, I was happy that my dad, who has never been a big fan of,

comic books, found the show interesting. Yeah. Because it's not leading with the thing that some people don't like. Now, obviously, it's much more tried and true to lead with the stuff that people really like and then try to get them, hit them with a salad later. Like, the old, you know, Jessica Seinfeld put spinach into brownies. You know what I mean? And then you put the lotion in the basket kind of thing.

But... What? Jessica Seinfeld put spinach and brownies? Yeah. Seinfeld's wife? Yeah, she had a whole cookbook being like, drink your kids into eating food. And I was like, nah. The whole point is to just be like eat your food.

Yeah, it's also like spinach can be good. You don't need to put it in a brownie. Yeah, you just get like an herb dressing on it. Just watch Popeye. That's the best I had for spinach ever. What else do I want to say about this? What else do we want to talk about this? Can I say one thing about it that I feel totally qualified?

Dan Stevens is so good. Yeah. I mean, you guys also should know. Like when you're in a writer's room working on the show, for a while there's no cast. Then he was cast, I think, like two or three weeks into me being there. everyone was excited but you still don't know they shot the series

after our room's work was done so then when I finally got to see the pilot and see everything it's like oh yeah you need someone who can pull this off and be charismatic and be a leading man and be funny

and be alive and also not be annoying you know because this person has all these quirks and ticks he's really good we were I mean we were on his train before because of

the guest the guest and walk him the tombstones. Yeah, that's right. He's quite good and walk among the tombstones.

He's so good in that, dude, and also high maintenance, maybe his secret best performance. What do you think about the idea? So what ordinarily happens is that a pilot will come out. It'll set up the origin story, or maybe not even the origin story,

but it'll set up the stakes of the show. It's like, this is a show about a guy who is an advertising man in the 1950s. Well, this show sounds good. What is it? And he's going to, you know, he's an advertising man and during a time of an,

an enormous flux in our society, whatever, and then we find out that he's got some other issues. Was that MASH? Yeah, and I think that we find out at the end of the pilot that David is very wanted by like a variety of different, like groups of people, that he's got some trauma in his life that he is, that may be because of his illness or may have, like, affected, like, what has happened to him.

You shouldn't leave him alone in a kitchen. I should not leave him alone around any sharp objects or pools. and then there are these people who may or may not be figments of his imagination or may or may not actually be present in the, is he experiencing a memory of something that he has already done and somebody has come back through his memories to help him or what have you. All of that stuff is incredible. That's like, so that's like in some ways you get the visual language of the show,

which is discursive and it's basically multiple voices talking at once. it's unlike a pilot in many ways because I don't know, it hasn't set the table for anything, or the table is not a table. We haven't gotten to the place where a lot of the show will take place. We haven't met. We meet, I guess, a few of the cast, but the rest of the cast shows up at the very end.

So the audience is left to wonder who they are, what they're doing, what their aims are. Right. And that is pretty rare. You know, the pilot really is its own journey. bringing you up to speed and putting you quite literally in the head of a character, and then what they're going to do with that character. And, you know, I would say that was also the work of the writer's room,

which is like, what do you do? Now what? Like it was such a before opening statement. And, you know, the exciting challenge of being a small part of the show was that, you know, Noah's mind works in that very similarly creative and subjective way, which goes by feel and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, intuition. And so when your job in a writer's room is really to just sort of like just help, you know,

shepherd ideas or try to like keep things afloat, it was a unique challenge. I think we will obviously be talking about this show a lot. We'll continue to try and sort of feel our way through how we're going to talk about it. But it's obviously like a show that's very much in our wheelhouse, even if you hadn't worked on it. Yeah, I would be really psyched. But also hopefully we can get some guests on to talk about their involvement and things, you know, to add some perspective, so I don't sound... Hugh Jackman?

We can get Hugh Jackman to be like, why wasn't I involved? Patrick Stewart just auditioning. Because I do want to be able to have a conversation about the show without sounding like a proof-of-life hostage video. Yeah, right. But I'm really excited that people watched it and hopefully liked it, and we'll see where it develops going forward. Okay, let's talk a little bit about girls before we go.

Final season premiered last night, up against the Grammy. So, obviously, season six. Season six. Big look for the god Riz. Just so happy for him. Like just every, all he does is, is swish his shots right now. Can we just sidebar it? Like, what kind of a year?

Can we compare this to anyone's year? I mean, Riz Ahmed really put himself, I'm going to count this as a 2016 thing. Like, this is quite a, quite an enum he put together. Yeah. Night of. Rogue one. Rogue one. So the biggest movie of the year.

One of the, one of the, I was a biggest, one of the best shows. Yeah. The OA. and now girls and what's pretty great about him as a performer's first of all he is totally likable and charismatic in all of them but he has this thing as an actor

where oh and Jason Bourne he has this thing where he which was terrible but you know he was in it I totally forgot that he was in Jason Ball I think everyone wants that he was dope and Jason Bourne all of his characters he has a thing that only certain actors have

where all of his characters are just absolutely inarguably him there's a sort of like wide-eyed credulousness to all of his characters, but he's able to just change the dial setting so that he can be kind of a dopey positive surfer, but then also be this guy in the O.A. who is incredibly supportive in believing

in Britt Marling's, what's the word, nonsense, but a professional person in the federal government. And in the same way where he can be a pilot who is, he just, he, I actually would add a little bit of, The OA, the Night of, not so much Rogue One, and Girls, he also takes characters who,

I mean, in the end, there are some fan theories of what his involvement in Brit Marling's sort of fate is. And then there is also, you know, in the night of, up until the very end,

people were like, well, maybe he doesn't remember, maybe he doesn't know what he did, maybe he is capable of that. You kind of can't tell what his attention are. Yeah, and the same thing for girls where it's like he's this incredibly sweet, you know, beatific,

like surfing instructor, who is actually like, you know, is just DTF? Yeah, exactly. And like his girlfriend is coming to town. I just love the like the wintering at Atlantis stuff. Can I also just say, I want to just give us the, for the month of March, the woke podcasters award because we began our conversation of a show called Girls by talking about the guest star boy. Really proud of us. Stay woke.

With girls, I think, you know, my. thing is that I don't really think that any of the characters in this show would actually be friends anymore and that's not like it's like any long running quasi-sickcom show where characters are sort of like still living together for no apparent reason

but it almost seems kind of arbitrary in a way that isn't at all true to life like there are moments that are still very true in girls but sometimes I'm just like did did you guys get driver for like five minutes here and so you shot him eating yogurt and being naked or whatever with Jessa.

Like, it's just the sort of actual setup of this world is still, is actually now like just sort of so far past it's sell by day for me. So I have a conversation coming up on the pod that hopefully we'll be able to get into some of this stuff. But in terms of... It's with two Jackman. Because we're going to do our new Monday segment, ask a man about girls. Okay.

I think it's going to be pretty interesting. Just pulling back for a second, once again, thinking about this in terms of just like, as a television fan or as a television fan or as a time, television show, not even specifically to this program. Girls is very unique because it started as, you know, being made by someone who did not come from a television writing background, came from an independent film background. And, you know, the first few seasons really felt experimental, not always in terms of the visual aesthetics of the show, but in terms of what's going to be about this person, or this

is going to be a short film for a week, or these people aren't even going to be a part of it for a while. As the show has gone on, it has become more and more yoke to the tracks of a television show, which has often resulted in great things. I mean, the Jessa and Adam relationship, we talked about this last season, was in some ways the most sitcom thing in that, well, these characters haven't been paired off yet, but in many ways it revitalized the show

and even fired up the lead character into a new direction. But it's almost like Adam and Jessa would be the type of people who would be like, you know what, we found each other, and now we're going to go on like a year-long road trip to buy. And I wonder, not only is that accurate to the world that the show seemed to be chronicling,

but also because of the world worked in the first few seasons where I don't really understand why any of them were friends or how much any of them were friends. You know, then you begin to wonder what the attachment is. And so the biggest example of that for me was this week was that Ray has nowhere to live except with this guy who he went to Staten Island with once. Yeah. They're best friends now.

Right. He lives there. Yeah. I think that's my major issue with the show is that none of them have other friends. But isn't this such a TV thing? Like it's because we're holding it to a certain standard. But like the friends on friends you're like, yeah, you guys are friends. But I love it when Karpowski and Driver are together.

Sure. They're really funny. They're really fun actors. I think they just made a decision that it was worth steering to that. Now, like, am I? So far we've got, this is the best thing in girls and why isn't girls friends? We're killing it today. But, you know, the love triangle that we're now in for this final season of Ray Shoshan

Marnes, it's this thing where like I don't know if, I don't know if this is the meal I ordered, but boy, these dishes are enjoyable to eat. Sure. You know, it's, they're fun to get. Like Allison Williams, I think, gives her best performances on the show often in these circumstances. Like the circumstances playing off of Karpowski, who's great. It feels, the other thing about the show I would say this season, I'm very curious to see where it goes, is, you know, if you're making a fifth season of a show, you're making a fifth season of a show, and you're still taking time to explore things you want to, and you're still swinging and you might be missing. But you're sort of moving in a lot of directions at once to see what works.

When you're making the sixth and final season, then you're making the sixth and final season, then you're, you're still. you know going in that every decision you make has added significance. Now, some people can crumble under that, some shows can crumble under that, but there's intentionality behind everything that I think is probably different than when you're making a third, fourth, or fifth season. And so to see, so what Lena Dunham is doing with Hannah in this first episode of the season probably speaks to what she actually wants to say about the character overall. And I think the show has been pretty, you know, I'm going to not say what I was going to say.

I was going to say it's been ambiguous about the direction of the character, but I think the show has been about that vagueness and ambiguity of the character, which is tough to sort of to play yourself. I also need to just say one thing, though. Yeah. It's actually been like one of the more consistently funny shows. Like, I always laugh. Yeah.

It has the unfair maybe burden of meaning something every week or meaning something every season or meaning something in general, and it obviously has been a lightning rod for criticism ever since it started. But just like on a scene to scene. line to line, you know, there is always something in girls that I laugh at. Yeah. Andrew Reynolds this week, that whole scene. He's just going to have a small networking orgy in her room. Okay, so Thursday, we will be back.

We will probably wrap up Young Pope then. A little taboo islands. Oh, another letter. I thought the post had been disrupted by some storms. And then we will see what else we can see. You can check out the watch list. Share the pod with a friend. We really appreciate all the fan art.

Thank you for such kind and loving representations of our physical. Follow us at the Watchpod on Twitter. It's a great website. Very supportive place. Actually, all of that community has been really nice and helping me put toes back in otherwise fetid water. Okay. Yeah. Oh, and also, guys, we're still reading David Downing Zoo Station, a thrilling comedic novel about creeping fascism.

Yeah, we still have to pick the day we're going to do the book club episode. But please, if you've read the book, if you're reading it, you have topics, questions. Send them at the watch pot of Twitter and we're collating them. Zach's keep an eye on it and we'll make it a conversation. We're looking forward to it. Thanks for listening guys. Great job, Brandsky! Thanks again to a divided spy.

Critics are calling Charles Cumming the heir to John LeCarray. That is quite a mantle. Uncover the truth in a Divided Spy from New York Times best-selling author Charles Cumming. Booklist gives a divided spy a starred review calling it an airtight espionage plot full of unanticipated twist. Charles Cumming is awesome. By the way, I have read several of his novels. Read a divided spy by Charles Cumming. For more information, visit a divided spy.com.