The Watch - Ep. 26: 'The Watch'

Episode Date: March 10, 2016

Chris and Andy return to the TV grind by breaking down the 'Game of Thrones' trailer, 'House of Cards' (11:00), 'The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story' (18:00), and a special edition of Andy's airplane movies (34:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch on the Channel 33 podcast feed. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and with me in the studio, he chooses violence. It's Andy Greenwald. Feels good to be here. What's up, man?

We're coming in hot. Yeah, you can subscribe to Channel 33, where you will find the watch and dozens. Not dozens. A few other podcasts. You can subscribe to us on iTunes SoundCloud or Stitcher, and I really, really would love it if folks listening would go to the ringer.com and sign up for that ringer newsletter. I'm psyched about people discovering the literally fours of other podcasts

they can find on Channel 33. It's ever-growing. Andy, we are here on a Tuesday. Tuesday night. Yeah, in Los Angeles, mere hours after Game of Thrones' first real official trailer for season... Six? Yeah. You lost in Westrose a little bit there?

there. Andy, we are here mere hours after season 6th, Game of Thrones trailer really dropped about a minute and a half of goodness. And that's going to be the topic for our first In-N-Out. You thought we forgot about In-N-Out, we didn't. Oh, no. No, no, no. Nothing like Rubrics for the true watchheads. You know, I know, can we throw another format on top of In-N-Out

even before we talk about it? Sure. Winners and losers of today? Chris Isaac. Big, big winner. Big winner. Didn't get to sing on the actual trailer. No, but people were thinking about him. So it's about a minute, 45, Seconds. Yeah. First glimpses of season six.

And surprising no one, it looks like dragon flames. It does look like dragon flames. They are also keeping your boy, Kit Harrington, lying prone on the ground or on planks of wood, what have you. So anything that he is doing that is ambulatory? Yeah. I feel like they're really like, they're sticking to the script here to the extent that there is one, but there isn't a script. So this is sort of the cool thing about this is this is going to be the first season. that isn't based on a book.

We're all blind now. This is pretty exciting. Just like young aria shucking. All little Arias shucking oysters and hoping for the best. Look, you know, I can only imagine how much time they spent just culling this trailer because they want to show us some things but not show us too much. It's the mystery box. So, Circe hasn't had time to grow her hair out, but Bran has had time to grow into at least small forward height.

It's the air up into the north. It's very... conducive to thin and ages you. It's like Benjamin Button. Look, we're not

going to get it to and do it now. Obviously, the answer for both of us. Can I speak for you? Yeah, yeah. We are all the way in. All the way in.

We are super psyched about this. We're so psyched that we are actually going to punt a little bit. Yeah. And we're going to do our first official Game of Thrones season six preview pod on Monday. With some special guests.

With some guests. We are, of course, incredibly excited to be talking about the show again this year. We can't wait to do it. Yeah. Just the final note that, as if I was, wasn't already in, the thing that just like pulled me to the center of the room onto the

dance floor. My man, Davos. Well, that was what I was going to say is that the coolest thing about this trailer is we've always talked about our favorite part of Thrones is when they mix and match the characters. So somebody will be like kind of on a journey with one person, but then all of a sudden it's like Brian and Jamie are hanging out or, you know, Tyrion and, you know, Bronel will be together or whatever it is. The Davos moving around is going to be my little thing I'm really looking forward to this.

Davos has just been the slow burn. Yeah, everybody loves onions. All right, let's move on to the next one. Andy, it's really kind of like a little bit of a late pass, but I know that you really had a hot take on this Ghostbusters trailer. Listen, if there's one thing this trailer needs, it is just a burning, no, scorching hot opinion from someone who makes his name on the internet. I just want to say, we talked about a moment ago how much time they spent on that Game

of Thrones trailer. They should have spent more time on this Ghostbusters trailer. That's all I want to say, because I am not one of these dudes, and I'm sorry, ladies, it's all dudes who are out there being like, how dare you touch my childhood with this profane reboot? Right. Let me be honest with you, I don't care. But. Cybar? Yeah.

If Ghostbusters is the thing you really care about? Yeah. Isn't that kind of weird? Like, I'm not trying to say that you can't, if you're into Star Wars or Star Trek, I get it. It's got an ethos. Sure. There's a mythology to it. Middocloreans.

It's just Ghostbusters. Like, Bill Murray doesn't take it that seriously. Chris. Bustin makes me feel good. So why wouldn't I get upset about it? And it is true. Like you can kind of grow up and you can always tell yourself before you go to sleep, likely alone. I am afraid, no ghost.

Yeah, look. The thing about you just said about Bill Murray, the reason Ghostbusters is good is because Bill Murray never cracked the scripts. Yeah. That's what's brilliant about the movie. But it's a delightful film and I'm not trying to take anything away from it. I think this is a great idea. I love this cast.

I'm super supportive of it. I think it could be quite good. The problem with this trailer, the thing that bummed me out about it was it felt like every other movie. It turned it into another one of these kind of sloppy, slovenly will find the movie in post-improvy, apatovian, phigian things

where it's just like, I guess they're going to slap each other a little bit. Like that's the best you can do? Like how many episodes, how many hours of Croatian outtakes of the Thrones people go through to be like, Davos has got our kicker. He's got our hammer line.

And then at this one, they're just like, that's going to leave a mark. But it's not like they're like, Ghostbusters can't, like, is not going to be like we got to hide Kristen Whig from people. You know what I mean?

And I think that my issue with it more, like, and it's an issue in the sense that it's like I had a thought and then it left my brain was just that like Jurassic Park and Force Awakens Jurassic Park or World, Jurassic World and Force Awakens before it, it seems to be a note for note remake rather than a reboot, which do your thing. I mean, it's your IP, but I'm just saying like you just have just been a little bit more imaginative. It looks like it has like almost every single beat that the first one did. I just feel like they kind of caught an L on the trailer.

Like it's usually the hype machine is so well manicured and managed. It's kind of interesting that they may have botched the rollout because then you saw like there was a fan cut of the trailer that people think was better. Now, to be clear, I did not actually watch that fan cut of the trailer, but I just wanted people to know that it's out there. In case Bustin is your thing and it makes you feel good. Out. I'm out right now in the trailer. I'm still in on the movie. I'm like one foot in, one foot out.

Oh, look at you. Are you comfortable doing that? Yeah. Well, yeah. Because I feel like I have something coming for this next one and I want to save my outrage. You ready for this? Yeah, yeah. So Andy and I, we don't want to get too bogged down in like, you know, ogre screaming, nerds.

Yeah. But Captain America Civil War running is going to be the longest Marvel movie ever made. Yeah. Apparently. Come on, man. You're like, like get your, come get your boys, Kevin Feig. This isn't the godfather too. It's Iron Man and Captain America fighting.

This should be a 27-minute movie. Do you know how many people are in this? movie, how many people had to get serviced, how many just lost man hours drinking Remmy Martin and talking about Spackling in Atlanta? Why is Paul Rudd in this movie? Because he signed up, man. They're all in it. This is the kind of weird thing where it's like, I wonder if they were trying to moneyball it and they sign all these people to like nine movie deals. And then like Marvel became very successful as a movie properties. And they were like, oh shit. Like all these people have to be in this movie. No, but can I just say like, it's going to make the same amount of money at two

hours and 30 minutes that it is at like 80 minutes. So why don't I just make two? Turn into three movies. They are. They're going to do that with the next two. Look, I'm just like the length of this. There's already a Batman versus Superman. It's going to be, what, two hours, 34 minutes.

I got places to be, man. Yeah, not watching Batman fight Superman. No, or both the movies have the same problem. If the movie is about Batman punching Superman, why is Aquaman jumping out of the, why is he just jumping into the club? Why is he coming out of the ocean? Like, did somebody order fish fingers? What is up with that?

He's Long John Silvering? He's Arthur Treacher Delivery guy. Like, yo, anybody hungry? Yeah, fresh catch. Nobody asked for you, man. What if Aquaman is just like, I really need to talk about, like, the conserving water? No, exactly. And, like, saving the Galapagos and helping out all the turtles out here.

He's like, actually, here's an inconvenient truth. Like, what if that was his role of the movie? Actually, you know, I would respect Zach Snyder if when Jason Momoa opens his mouth, It's just the sounds of the Mariana Trench, like those sound cloud loops of deep water exploration. It's like, ooh! I'm going to run a counter. I'm never going to respect Zach Snyder. That's my counter.

Just keep your movie shorter, dogs. It's fine. Yeah. You can, comic books are light. Why are the movies so heavy? Didn't there used to be a thing when, like, you could maximize your profit because you could have more screenings? I don't know what's up with this. Yeah.

Can we call, like, like, John Regal, air to the Regal cinema? Like, like, Boyd-Regal. Just to be like, guys, hot take from the theater chains. Like, we want more of these with shorter movies.

I don't know, man. Let's get on to Sunday night television. We had a couple, like, I think we talked last week a little bit about this TV championship. And we should say, by the way,

just to jump in, in case some loyal watch listeners aren't glued to Twitter, we did our last podcast as a special guest podcast on the Bill Simmons podcast. Oh, right. So you may have missed this episode.

It's kind of an Easter egg for fans. You've got to go hunt it out. Yeah. We talked about, just a recap, we talked about this idea that we're going to continue here on the watch. If you want to find this show, we just go to Bill Simmonspodcast.com or search for Bill's show. It was last Friday we recorded it. We introduced this idea.

I like how you're acting like at the credits for 10 Gloverfield Lane. Someone will jump up and let you know where to find that podcast. Jason Momoa will do it. The idea was the TV championship belt, which is something we're going to run with here on the watch, which is basically for every season of the year, and I believe the birds told us that there were four seasons, and to everything there is one of those, right? Yeah.

The idea being that there is one show per season that kind of captures viewers' attention and kind of the zeitgeist and a certain level of quality. See, I'm thinking like it could get taken any week. You could get snatched? Yeah, but that kind of segues nicely into what we were going to talk about, which was basically that we have a group of shows right now

that none of them have pulled away from the other. There's a pack. Well, we gave the belt to someone. OJ is out in front, like, you know, like riding in the yellow jersey up the, up the Alps. Like, we see it there. We see Sarah Paulson's beautiful perm. But you're saying that maybe it was doping. Like, it was Sharapovying it.

And so it might get pulled back into the back. Well, I do think that the, it's sensational. You know what I mean? So I think it's very much like it. And this is part of what we wanted to kind of point out with the belt is that it's not just like aesthetically the best. It's something that kind of capture something. Yeah, because going back to Thrones, this is still what we love about TV, even as we're moving into a more, I guess, democratic, more spread out, streamier universe where people just watch things when they want,

whenever, you know, at any speed or any pace, we still really love the idea of a TV show being able to capture the national attention and conversation. Yeah, absolutely. So there's these shows. There's vinyl. There is... Saul. Better call Saul.

Better call Saul. Walking Dead, which we haven't really touched on this season. And now we have House of Cards back. And you can see O.J. out in front leading the pack. It's got the yellow jersey. You can see Sarah Paulson's Perm out in the distance. But one show that I think we used to consider a candidate for the belt, at least in its first season, was House of Cards,

which came back Friday, all of it. All the episodes are available for season four. I've watched seven. I know you've watched a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about where this show is at. Yeah. Well, you're very positive on it. And I found myself, you know, I watch it, but I'm not a fan of the show.

You know, I think the show has revealed what it is, and what it is is a ruthless machine, not unlike the characters that it presents. You know, it is devastatingly snackable and compelling. And it's, you know, I can't, it would be hard to imagine a show with rhythms better suited to Netflix's own algorithms in the sense that exactly they know how to end the show

so that when the next window pops up, like going to the next one, you are psyched for it. You're not dreading it. They know what they're doing, you know, and I appreciate that. It's a very well-made show. But honestly, the thing that it reminds me of is, stay with me on this, strap on your yellow jersey.

There was an Instagram feed run by a pseudonymous blogger or internet presence called Jacques LaMert. And if you're watching Top Chef this year, this person outed herself and revealed who she was. But the schick behind this Instagram feed was, right, pictures of beautiful, like food-pourney, perfectly lit photos of, of stunningly composed plates. The kind of stuff you would expect at like a new, like a Noma in Copenhagen or something, just like artful, minimalist, totally swanier, as they say.

Okay. And then you look closely at the pictures and the pieces of the food, it's like ripped up twinkies and fruity pebbles. Oh, yeah. And it's made with, kind of made with hot garbage that's really bad for you.

And what I'm saying is... Really, wait, you're blowing my mind right now. This is what House of Cards is to me. It is beautiful, it is snackable, it is empty calories that ultimately will leave you with a stomachache. And because the show is kind of just contemptuous of everything, and I respect its dedication to that. But it bums me out after a while, you know.

And I've criticized the show for other reasons before, like the political stuff. Like every time a actual, quote unquote, news commentator pops up just so eager, so excited about getting that call to perform what they do and basically son themselves, I feel like, to be like. That's right. You really hate the depiction of this. media in this show. I hate it. I hate it when they're like, they're basically admitting

what they do that they're frauds and they're doing it on this show too. Wink, wink, wink, we're all at playing the game here. I think it does a disservice to people who do real stuff. And I think it also... I can't believe you're taking this seriously. Listen, though. I know, but it bums me out

for a while. I watch a couple of them and I'm into it. Yeah. And I'm impressed. Like, little stuff like this season brought back what's his name? I don't know the names of these people. But Bob Birch? No, the dude. Big Birch guy. That's Larry Pine, Lucas, right?

Lucas has been in lockup. Not just bring him back, started with him. Started with him ring finger deep. You know what I mean? Like, that dude has become like a storyteller in the grand oral tradition. Alan Lomax recordings in the prison. He's a very major figure in this first half of the season. I just wanted to say, though, that was great.

Like, that's the sort of thinking, diabolical thinking that a show should be engaged in. Like, what threads could we possibly still have to tug? Oh, there was something that was left untugged. Let's tug it. And I realize that's basically what he's helping his cellmate do too. So I'm trying to have this conversation on two levels. I respect that, you know, it's well chosen. I think election stuff, like going back to, I still ride for that West Wing election season, you know.

Election stuff is fun to watch. But the show fundamentally bums me out because I think it's sort of both flattering and disingenuous this idea of political figures as grand Machiavellian Shakespearean actors when they're just, it's basically either it's Veep or it's like what's actually. happening the news, which is 10 times scary. Right. So that's my... I feel like I just grab the mic from you when you're the guy that came in hot on the show. No, I think...

Okay, so there's a couple of different things happening here. First of all, Lucas plays a significant role this season. So you've got to let that string roll out a little bit. What do you think about Lucas's scruff? I think that if you are helping a white power man masturbate in jail, like, you kind of maybe want to, like, have a little bit of facial hair. Because that dude doesn't have many options for, like, just coming off as, like, prison tough.

Yeah. Now, neither do I. No, and I like that he's kind of like, I'm going to play up my intellect in jail. That's always like an interesting word. It worked for Albert Brooks and out of sight, you know? Yeah, that's a great call. So your problem with it is that you're taking this show way too seriously. I know.

And I don't think the show takes itself too seriously. You're talking about some kind of deception, like as if they're pretending like it's this French food, but it's actually a twinky. But in reality, I think that what's throwing you off is the packaging. So it's still a twinkie, and I think they know it's a twinkie. And if anything, they've just been like, take away the kale, take away the lovely red wine. It's a twinkie. And the episodes themselves actually have been engineered now.

I mean, you talk about those last five minutes. I find that a lot of, like, quote unquote, prestige television will do the hammer in the last five minutes to keep you wanting to watch it. But the first 40 minutes are rather dull. In this case, I think that they've really trimmed a lot of the fat from the episodes. And they've kind of just come to a realization that this is, We've always joked about this, slow food scandal, that it's basically a soap opera. I want to say, I didn't say this, I should have led with this. I think what I've seen is better than season three.

Yeah. There's no question about that. Because there's no bird watching, because they learn from their mistakes on this show. And I do think that if it had, I would be interested to know what a world in which House of Cards is on every week looks like, or really, I don't care what the world looks like. I care what that house of cards plays like. The sliding doors version of our universe where the show isn't streaming. Yeah, right. It's like, that's the most important.

The only thing is different. What House of Cards is kind of done is industrialized David Fincher. And in the same way that vinyl has started to industrialize Scorsese, although I think it's doing it a little bit. It's doing it very artfully. You know, basically, there is no composition of this show that doesn't look like it was shot through a prism of all of David Fincher's lenses. And even though he's not, I think, really all involved in the show except in name only anymore. Yes. they've taken his sort of visual sensibility and turned it into a style book that anybody can execute.

And while that is happening, I feel like they've really just sort of bored down to what they want this show to be about, which is a hysterical struggle for power. And for some reason, I find it utterly watchable. I wouldn't consider it at all one of like the best shows on television, but it's so addictive. I just don't find it fun. And like I think TV should be fun. we've talked about how one of the things we appreciate most about OJ is just how entertaining it is. Yeah, but it's interesting that we're... The show gives me a stomachache.

I don't know what it is. But what do you think it is? Why is OJ somehow can't be fun, but House of Cards is not? I think that OJ is using the prism of something real and taking a tone that is as tabloidian sensational as the event itself and the coverage around it to actually deliver some strikingly intelligent and smearly. commentary about today. The conversation we had about OJ when we were doing the belt talk on Bill's show on Friday, we spent a lot of time talking about the sneaky way the show is doing great, taking great strides for diversity on television.

You know, Trojan horsing really important work, I think, in terms of representation on TV. And again, what we said on Friday was not just casting actors of color, but giving them an enormous range of emotions and opportunities and what they're playing. So on that show, because Johnny Cochran is a larger-than-life figure that people are invested in and interested in, we don't just see him being loquacious in the courtroom. We see him being urgent and passionate and humiliated and then loving and flirtatious with his wife, and we get to see all of it. Yeah.

And the show is using something. It's almost the reverse house of cards. right, because it is using something that feels light and inessential to actually do something that is sneakily essential. And I feel like Hasso Cards is using the trappings of something important to do something that is deeply frivolous. Now, I'm not against frivolity. That's the, if there's one takeaway from this podcast, pro frivolity, but I just, I just don't

enjoy it. Okay. Let's take it this way. Yeah. Do you think that three years ago or four years ago, you had more of an appetite for frivolity? Well, what I would say is. like personal. I mean,

do you remember? I had to spring in my step then. No, but is your is your appetite for something being frivolous or dismiss or like easily digestible or whatever you want to say about it bigger when you're like, I'm watching 20 shows? Yes, that's what I was going to say. I guess what I was going to say is there is a

regardless of how you feel about House of Cards, it is a, how many episodes in this season? 12. 13. It is a 13 hour commitment. watch it. And if I'm not enjoying it, if it doesn't move the needle above like a six or a seven, all I'm doing is thinking about the shows that I'm not watching

that I haven't either tried out yet. I don't need to catch up on. You know, this is going to become the running gag of our podcast. But, you know, still haven't finished Daredevil. You know what I mean? Yeah. Still haven't finished it. And season two's coming. I haven't watched Happen Leonard yet, and I'm really curious about that. Like, there are these, I just got the screeners for the Hulu show, The Path.

The Path. You know, like, we haven't watched 112263 and I think we'd probably like it from everything I've heard about it. So this doesn't make for good podcast copy. No, it does because it's a very real like experience of television. I just mean first to list of things we wish we were watching. But that sort of, now that I'm not watching everything and writing about it, I am now entered into that same marketplace that I was once, you know, serving as a wealth management consultant for. Well, it's interesting to, I'm like, I have the X number of hours and I want to use them correctly. It's interesting, too, to think about whether you look at these shows in a vacuum or in relation to one another.

Like, I prefer watching House of Cards to Better Call Saul right now. Interesting. You prefer watching OJ to House of Cards and like whether or not that one relates to the other. Like, does it mean you can have, basically, like, are you evaluating these things on their own terms or within the context of what's also on? And that actually is why we were sort of talking about that belt in the first place is because shows don't exist in a vacuum anymore. I appreciate you making that point because I think that I am, I think my, my relationship with vinyl is more fluid and changing than I thought it would be because I am able to watch it on its own and not comparing it to the other shows on at the moment. If I had, if I had been reviewing the show as a critic, you know, I would have watched the six that were sent out and I would have had a fixed opinion and I probably wouldn't have revisited it for a while. Yeah.

I did not watch any of them in advance, except the first one so we could talk about it. You know, and I didn't like the first one, was so-so on the second, really enjoyed the third, and so on. And so for me, that show is, and I'm not comparing it to the others. And the fourth to me is the best one. Yeah. But I'm not saying, I think I would have more easily slipped into the trap of saying, well, better calls all is superior. So I just don't have time to continue to evaluate vinyl. Maybe what's nagging at us about this or what's underneath a lot of this is that, and OJ obviously feels important right now,

but we haven't had a show that upended our expectations or made, it really paid off in a while. And even something that's like thoughtful and beautiful and amazing as the Nick, I think fell into a little bit of like second seasonitis, same as the first. Like they kind of hit a lot of the same beats in the second season that they had in the first. And even though it was like kind of revolutionary and the way it was shot and the way it ended. And the way it ended, sure.

But it's not the first time something like that is. happened on a show. Someone performed surgery on themselves. No, but I don't want to give away what happens at the end of the nick to people who haven't seen it yet. It involved injecting cocaine, not a spoiler. Yeah, well, it happens on vinyl, too. That's true. Yeah, the idea that none of these shows are really, like, pushing television any further than where it is right now.

They're either good, they're frivolous, they're... You know, I had an interesting conversation with someone today where I, someone who has a very, very strong... Someone who works in TV. And I was talking about, don't roll your eyes to me, I was talking about the Americans coming back, and the fourth season is starting in a week. And I was saying, you know, I think it's the best show on TV. I do.

And I think the fourth season, I've seen the first four episodes of the new season. I think they're absolutely brilliant and just totally did my head in. And this person was like, what are you talking about? And I generally agree with this person about TV. And he got really upset about it because, not because he thought the acting was poor or the storytelling was bad.

It was because he said it was visually drab and uninteresting and it looked like TV. Therefore, it was just TV. Interesting. And I would agree with that. I think the main... Just slap the quattado out of their mouth and just say get out of this Uber. I did. I did. And I agree. I think that the one

knock against that show is I do think it's visually uninspiring. And I think the argument that it's sort of intentional, it's like, you know, it's filmed in winter and it's supposed to be, you know, Soviet and all these things. I think that you can only beat that drum so far. You know, because in a world where Soderberg is

directing the neck, in a world where Fincher directs the first house of cards, or you have a show like rectify or, you know, where something is just visually stunning or surprising. It's hard to make the case for something when it looks like everything else.

And I realize we're just never going to bridge this gap because it depends what you're looking for in TV. What standards are you, what standards are you holding each TV experience too. Right. And it's becoming increasingly hard. This is funny that we're getting meta here, but this is increasingly hard to do what we like to do, which is compare them.

Yeah. Because they are such unique, walled-off experiences now. And one of the reasons we have the belt is to try to push back against that, but also to try and knock down those walls a little bit and suggest that they're all swimming in the culture and sometimes one of them is able to swim to the surface. Yeah, and I think that there's any, at any given time, you could see something that was like a sitcom have, be like the best show on television. That's very special episode of Mom. Yeah.

That knocked. Yo, I mean, this Megan Fox New Girl Run, man. Yeah, I know. In the first email where you were like, we got to talk about the belt, you threw New Girl in there. I know. I think you parenthetical question marked it. Yeah. Which I appreciate.

It's really the typography that gets me into this stuff. You know, but then there's other stuff. But you're right in the sense that something like New Girl could be in the conversation, because I think for everything we're talking about, and we're going to get back to some of those other shows in more detail. I think our favorite thing on TV, just our favorite tiny thing, is Jessa and Adam on girls right now. Yes. We love this. Yes. We were talking with Bill about this yesterday.

He's all in on this, even when he's not fully in on the show. Like, people are, people, this is. We want to talk about wearing the yellow jersey and pulling away from the pack. It's like that plot line. I mean, like, and Girls has been, I think, pretty funny this year. Yeah, it's been very good this year. Just watching the two of them together and you're just like, I can't believe it took you this many years to do this. I know.

I mean, one of the great joys of watching a lot of TV comes from the fact when something just, when something incredible can be pulled out of found objects, you know, like it's basically not to go back. I already mentioned Top Chef once, but when they're like, here are the six ingredients make a masterpiece. Yeah. And you can. Like these are the same, these are the same ingredients we've had. That's the crazy thing, right? They won. And someone figured it out.

I don't know whether it was like a, I don't know whether it was something that had been percolating, something someone had been pitching for years and they finally were like fine. I also think I thought like this season, I thought this season you were going to have like one shot of Adam Driver coming into Ray's coffee shop like, great cup of Joe, Ray, and then like J.J. Abrams would just put a black bag over his head and take him back. But he walks in still wearing the Kylo Red outfit and he's like, well, this is weird. They're doing crazy things in Bushwick these days. executives watch like what happens in girls.

Like, God damn it. I'm going to stop you right after Do You Think Disney executives Watch Girls. I'm just going to stop you right there and say, it's pretty hard to know. That is a delightful thing. But like we were saying about the Netflix show Love, like Gillian Jacobs just slays on that show. But I haven't felt any burning desire to go back and watch all that much more of it. Right. Because there are all these other things going on.

I wanted a quick thing about Better Call Saul this week. the episode that was on, we're recording this Tuesday, so the episode that was on last night, the fourth episode of the season. People seemed, you know, we've noted about that the reaction to the season had seemed kind of muted, considering how excited everyone was for the show to debut last year.

And this was the one that a lot of people were ready to jump on and be like, okay, Saul's back, this world is back, because it felt a little more Mike-centric. And the argument, you were... Yeah, it was Sean Collins had a piece. he's the observer a couple weeks ago where it was like, this is the mic problem for this show,

is that he's almost too interesting. But he's also almost too interesting, but he's also a superhero because we know he's unkillable at this point in the show. So it becomes like Lucky Luciano and Boardwalk Empire, where it's fun to hang out with these immortal guys doing the cool stuff adjacent to the plot. What do you think happens in the OJ show? Terrific point.

But Jonathan Banks is just so good, and they're being very inventive about how they're revealed, feeling what he is and who he can be and what he will become. But here's what I was thinking about when I was watching this episode. It's kind of low on elder care specifics this week. So I know you must have been a little bit fun. Yeah, it was really funny. There's a part where one of the lawyers who works with Ed Begley says,

Sandpiper doesn't even matter to this law firm. And I was like, well, I'm glad we made a show about it. Exactly right. But here's why I realize some people are, it's rubbing some people the wrong way. Because Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould in their writer's room and the whole team down an ABQ. They do certain things really, really well, and we've talked about them, you know, at great length, just in terms of the way they construct their story, the way they come into it sideways, the way they build tension. These are the same skills that they flashed, they honed and then just

excelled at on Breaking Bad. What they do so well is minutia, like how a small thing leads to a chain reaction to make a big thing. Yeah. And, you know, it's a scientific method, basically. I I use that phrase a lot when I was writing about Breaking Bad. What's interesting is to take a small, you know, the flick of one domino and how it turns into a cascading, I was going to say, raging river of dominoes, which is a terrible metaphor, but stay with me. Just imagine it's like being crushed by Majongtiles. Jason MoMA comes out of it. He's like, I'm in the wrong metaphor.

The point being, that stuff is super duper interesting. The manoeisha. The minutia, the dominoes, if you're doing it about a guy becoming a drug dealer and criminal. You're absolutely right. People love that. This season, or on this show, they are taking that same patient, delicate, dedicated approach to the law. And for a guy who's going to wind up working in a synobon.

And, exactly. And I have to say, you know, I'm married to a lawyer. I'm familiar with how long things actually take as opposed to the way law and order presents legal cases. You literally wiped up the law. Document. I am married to the law. I swear by it. Document review, that's a real thing.

Building a class for a class action suit. That's real, dog. That takes years. And I appreciate that Better Call Saul are using that, the people who make it, are using that same patient approach. And especially because, you know, they have the, they have the rope. They can do that. They have all the patients, they've earned our patience and trust.

But fundamentally, I don't think it's. as interesting to as large an audience. And I think that that might be where the splintering this season. Yeah, I should know better. I love Breaking Bad and I know how these guys do their business. Like everything matters. But it's a different business. And it's like when I was like, you know, I joke about Sam Piper, but every time I've

mentioned it, like, everybody hits me up, be like, you remember what happened to Gus and where he was at and where like all these people, you know, like. Atio Salamanca. Yeah. It's just like the importance of senior citizen facilities throughout the Breaking Bad verse or whatever. but I understand all that and I sometimes forget it while watching it and that's actually a problem

because you shouldn't have to be like it all matters for having an important hour of television and like I we for as much as Mike is a problem because we know about his killability for a while Jimmy's a problem slash Saul is a problem because ultimately he's just the drug dealer's lawyer and ultimately

this is this sort of interesting thing about where they're going to try and retrofit the Saul character because he was comic relief who showed up in 10 scenes a season or something like that for the first few seasons of the show and he was kind of an afterthought and I I surely appreciate the exploration of like this world I love the Albuquerque Albuquerquee underworld like this but it just I I can't I'm surprised that I am back at the place where I am now which is like did this have to be a show I here's the one other thing I'll say in favor of the show because I'm still enjoying it which was

in this episode, there's a scene with our man Tuko is back, and Tuko and Nacho are there. And the scene is shot in a tacharia. It's like La Mito Kuala Takaria, clearly a real place, whether it's in business or not, I don't know. And immediately it feels like a real place. Yeah. And I just want to just have a little shout out for location shooting.

Yeah. Because to go back to my favorite show on TV, The Americans, which shoots in my neighborhood in the dead of winter, and it tries to turn my neighborhood into Washington, D.C. in 1983, so it's just like bland on top, on off white, on land. It could be anywhere. It kind of doesn't matter. And to see a place that it is a place elevates it.

It elevates the scenes, and it keeps me visually engaged in the show. So there is something to be said for that. And I always think it's worth mentioning. It's so funny that the Breaking Bad Pilot, you know, was written to be in California, to be in Southern California, to be like inland empire or outside of L.A. and then AMC or Sony was just like, you know, there's this thing called tax breaks. Yeah, right.

And they were like, I guess, we'll have to rip up the script, change the locations. And then Vince Gilligan flew there and was like, oh, this made the show a million times better. So get out there and see America is what I'm saying. So one other thing, moving off TV for a second, you know, I know you love this. It's one of your favorite things about our relationship

other than putting question marks into parentheses and email it to me, which is that every time I come out here, which is a lot, I watch something called movies. I like to just get into the cinema Andy's Airplane movies Andy's airplane movies The flight out here

I saw a good flick And I wanted to touch base with you about it And I feel like it's okay to talk about movies After a few months Because you know this one's streaming on Amazon now That's how I saw it on the plane So I watched End of the Tour To the David Foster Wallace movie

It's Jason Siegel and Jesse Eisenberg And I really really really liked it Almost maybe loved it I really enjoyed watching it but and I was surprised that I did you like the movie right yeah yeah James Ponsol might be like one of my on the low top three

favorite filmmakers right now did you spectacular now is that his movie yeah and he did a bunch of episodes of masters master of none oh right but isn't he also doing like the stand or is he doing one of those big no I think that like he was part of it for a while but like he wanted moving on from I'm not sure he's doing

I'll look up what he's doing now he hopped off you just talk for a minute but here's why I was surprised that I liked it because I'm not a day David Foster Wallace guy. Like, I've never read Infinite Jest. And I'm not even one of those people who, like, pretends they've read it, but didn't read it. Like, I don't even have the talking points on it. I know that David Foster Wallace wore bandanas and liked lobsters and had an, you know,

unfortunately took his own life. How many nine years ago now? No, eight years ago. So I didn't know if I would like the movie because I didn't understand the cult that is surrounded the author that it was about. Right. But what totally blew my mind about this movie is. in a way that was really affecting was that I couldn't believe how perfectly it captured a certain

dynamic and a dynamic of interviewing. And a dynamic of interviewing, particularly when one is young and one subject is also young. This basically captured everything that I remember from my life starting out at Spin like 10 years ago. And you went through experiences like this too. When you are, you know, you're young, you're hungry, and you kind of want the spotlight too, but you don't know if you're worthy of it. And there's this weird like you want to be friends, you want to be part of the story, but you kind of have to be outside of the story.

And also ultimately this weird lack of empathy that exists. Because one of the things about the movie, and I think this isn't giving anything away, but there's a, you know, David Foster Wallace suffered from depression, among other things. And we know that just from the bullet points of his life. And in this movie, he talks a little bit about that. And Jesse Eisenberg, who's the sort of hot shit reporter,

Rolling Stone reporter from New York, comes to talk to him. And he's basically like, why aren't you, having the time of your life because you have this best-selling book and isn't everything great for you and he cannot he he just is completely unable to appreciate the depth of someone else's experience he has no place in his brain for actual unhappiness or you know maybe feeling empty despite all outward validation and that really rang true man it was just such as it got this really intense thing about being young and trying to get the story and i just didn't think let me put it this way

before watching this movie i didn't know if that vibe was worthy of a cinematic exploration but there it was and I don't know if other people who didn't have that journalism experience appreciated that about the movie or what they got out of the movie other than it being a not like a pretty smart two-hander as they say yeah I was just really struck by it I really enjoyed the part of like the element of the movie that sort of went back to the the 90s sort of underground part of it where it was everything was kind of a rumor or a secret right and you would go to these events like whether they were readings or concerts and and you didn't really have a media apparatus to tell you about everything about somebody so people had mystery yeah and i think that he was a figure that had a lot of mystery surrounding him even though obviously you know he had his admirers and that's sort of the part of this story is that jesse isenberg wanting him to be a a kind of bigger-than-life icon and it's just a guy living in minnesota and teaching and kind of having a lot of self-doubt so i thought they just really captured the time period in a really

economical way. It's something flashy. There's a little bit of music in there, but just the kind of bumming around these, like, this circuit of clubs and bars and bookstores was really fascinating. But also there's this moment in the end of the movie when David Foster Wallace goes outside to scrape the ice off his car, and Eisenberg is alone

he plays the writer David Lipski, and he's alone in Wallace's house, and he walks around narrating what he sees in the mundanity of it. You know, like the Alanis Morissette poster on the wall, and the empty diet right bottles, and then he goes into the sanctum sanctorum. He goes into the room where the magic happens,

and it's just this dingy, poorly lit, filthy room with a computer on it. And it's just this intense reminder that I think everyone gets away from, people who are completely removed from the art-making process or celebrity process, and people who write about it or cover it, which is ultimately it's someone just struggling with stuff.

It's someone alone in a room trying to do some work. and that's true for everyone. That's true for people whom we love and talk about like Kanye. That's true for people who write the shows we're talking about. And to see it and realize it's not that glamorous, there's a moment when it's just a struggle. And it's that struggle. The struggle is real, as people say.

These are small points, but it was really striking to see them captured in a movie. Yeah, it's an excellent movie if nobody's seen it. It kind of got criminally overlooked at award season. But I think that that was just one of those things where they probably gauged its chances. I'm surprised Siegel didn't get a little bit more play. I agree.

But, you know, it's funny, you were talking about Better Call Saul, and you were like, you still sometimes wonder, why is this a show? Everything about this movie screamed, why is this a movie to me? And then you realize what makes a movie good is when you find the story that's important, that you want to tell within the bones of other stories. Yeah. This is not a biopic of David Foster Wallace necessarily. This is not a movie even necessarily about the book that David Lipsky wrote about their interview or the Rolling Stone interview. It's about the anxiety of influence and jealousy and just in the art-making process in a way. You know, so basically what I'm saying is when I write the book about recording this podcast with you, right?

Yeah. Like the movie that they make of it will be pretty, pretty interesting. Let's hope. So Jason Momoa is playing me. Who's playing you? Renner. Why do you got to get ridder? Why do you have MoMA?

Because I was just riffing. I feel like that. You struck blood there. You get Renner? Damn. It's cold. That's why you're going to win. You're always thinking.

We'll be back Monday. No re-up this week. But we'll be back on Monday to talk about Thrones. This has been The Watch. Make sure you sign up for the Ringer news letter on Ringer. The Ringer.com. Great job, Bransky.