The Watch - Ep. 32: 'The Watch': Announcing 'After the Thrones'

Episode Date: April 5, 2016

Chris and Andy announce their weekly 'Game of Thrones' recap show, 'After the Thrones,' streaming every Monday on HBO Now. Then they discuss 'The Path' (8:00), 'Better Call Saul' (26:00), and the state of the modern TV drama. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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To get $20 back off your first seat, Seekkeek purchase, download the Seekek app today and enter promo code BSPN. 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 joining me on the other line. He would follow Hugh Dancy anywhere.

It's Andy Greenwald! Big day, buddy. Big day, man. Hey, dude, you know what I want to tell you? Yeah, let me know. What do you want to tell me? We're going to do a Game of Thrones recap show on HBO Now and HBO Go called After the Thrones. That's so weird. Did I mention that to you by the way?

We could not be more excited to announce that we were doing a show called After the Thrones. It's going to be on HBO Go, HBO now, HBO on demand on Mondays. You know what, Chris? Yeah. It might be on HBO at some point too. Who knows? HBO L. That's a great HBO affiliate.

I love that one. Anyway, Andy and I are going to be hosting this show after the Thrones. It's going to be on Mondays. After the Thrones is what it's called. It will be on after the Game of Thrones. It's going to be... After every episode this season. Yeah, and it's going to be like basically if you like to watch the Thrones on the

Greatland back in the Greatland days, if you like to watch, you're going to like this show. It's basically two people chopping it up about Game of Thrones with their buddies. You know, we're going to have some friends on that you, I'm sure you know and love. we expect to have Jason Concepcion and Mallory Rubin on. It's going to be very, very fun. I can't wait to do it. Andy, it's just, you know, dreams do come true.

Chris, you know, I think it was five years ago when, and I first got in contact with people about joining a website called Granlin. And like the pitch to me wasn't work with your friends. It wasn't like, you know, have an opportunity to write with freedom and creativity and reach an audience. It was basically like, you're going to be on TV. TV kid. And you're going to talk about a TV show that hasn't premiered yet. No, we came so close. People don't realize we came so close to having an after the bridge TV show, right?

Yeah. On effects, but you scuttled that by refusing to watch it. That wasn't going to be me. That was going to be you and Charlie Rose. But we, you know, we held out for bigger fish and we got the biggest one. No, we couldn't be more excited to be doing this. Everybody over HBO has been so cool. It's been great to work with Eric and Bill on this. We're excited to to bring the vibe to another platform, man. And I think it's just like you can't ask for a better show to talk about the Game of Thrones. We just never run out of things to say about it. We're going to test that theory. No, I feel like this is an important thing to say. I don't, I mean, we're just getting started in the planning of the show.

We have a set that's being built. You know, I believe that we're being fitted for dire wolf pelts next time I'm out there, which worries me a little bit about the dander, but I'm just going to push through it because, you know, I'm a professional. I really don't think this changes what we've been doing in any major way because, as we've said many times, the thing about this show is that it is the most fun show to talk about precisely because of the, some would say, dangerous intensity of its fans, but also just the depth of the world, the surprise is still to come.

I mean, I think, I think we're, I don't know, is it crazy to say I think we're going to have a good time? Yeah, we're going to have a great time, man. And, you know, it's, those fans are what makes this, this the most fun. It's for me. Because, you know, like when we did watch The Thrones, when everybody came out to that bar in Brooklyn, when we had, you know, whenever we've gotten feedback from people, it just feels like this is like a really fun way to explore the world of this show to talk about the politics of the show, the, you know, the histories within the show, the absurd

theories for future episodes. So, I don't know, we're just so excited. you can hit us up on Twitter at Chris Ryan 77 and at Andy Greenwald you can go to the ringer.com slash after dash the dash thrones for more information and we couldn't be more excited

we'll see you guys on on April 25th but I feel like we'll be able to bring people inside the process a little bit right because first of all I know this is the real secret benefit of the show is that the number of airplane movies that I'm going to get to watch as I'm traveling out to LA to film this show is just, it's through the roof.

It's definitely, I mean, that alone is going to keep us in podcasts. That's why HBO brought us on is to make sure you were up on things that were popular on Vulture seven months ago. It's a thing, man. People love that. It is a thing. Two people tweet at you about it. Andy, where are we?

Let's talk about some other television. You and I wanted to talk a little bit about the state of television drama through the lens of two shows that we've been watching recently. And I wanted to open up this discussion a little bit by pointing people to another article written by Richard Lawson on vanefair.com, which was mostly about like scandal and how to get away with murder

and it was about kind of the state of OMG TV and how exhausting Richard was sort of finding, keeping up with these shows that he had initially, and the empire is in there, shows that he had initially sort of adored, but had because the churn of plot lines, and gasp moments are so hot and heavy on those shows. He had just started to dread seeing them on his DVR and,

and just sort of tuning in and kind of going through the process every week of watching those episodes. I thought that was very interesting. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think in general, the deep-seated existential dread that DVR bulk fills people with these days is kind of underreported. Potentially it's underreported because in the scheme of global problems, this doesn't even register, so I should, you know, put that in there as a caveat. But I do think it is keeping people from not only staying with shows that they may have enjoyed,

but certainly starting new ones, just because the idea of committing yourself to that much time is enormous, especially with so many things coming around the corner, including, you know, returning favorites like Thrones. So threading the needle, getting people hooked on something, and then getting them to watch eight hours, ten hours, fourteen hours of something is a lot. So I think it's definitely important to say before we get into. these shows. Like, neither of us envy the challenge that dramatic showrunners and writers have at the moment.

This is, it's weird to think about it this way because basically if you have a show or a pitch or a halfway decent pilot script, the odds have never been better that you can get someone to fund it. Absolutely. Like, it is, in some ways, it's boom time. And we're still living off of the boom, you know, that really started 10 years ago. And for every new outlet that wants to establish itself, they're going to buy stuff. They've got a lot of money and they want to get into production.

they want to build up that library. So you can get your show in the air to a degree that is unprecedented in the history of TV, but whether you can get people to watch it is a whole other story. And so we really wanted to focus in on two shows. One is a new show that premiered last week on Hulu called The Path, and the other we're going to return to Albuquerque for some more better call Saul talk. But I think we should start with the path because this is specifically in line with what we're talking about in terms of the challenge of getting people in the door.

Yeah, I mean, just playing off of what we're sort of talking about here that it's different, than what Richard was talking about this, OMG TV, we're kind of talking about shows that maybe suffer from a little bit of OM yawn TV, or you know what I mean? Like, these are shows

that probably could use a few more OMG moments. I mean, they're very different, these two. But I think that there is some useful comparisons and some useful juxtapositions going on in between the two. Let's talk about the path first. So this is a show,

I think it was created by Jessica Goldberg. Am I correct? That's right. And it was executive produced by Jason Ketams, who brought us Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, and I believe has a medical show coming on CBS pretty soon. And it stars Aaron Paul, late of the Breaking Bad universe, although you never know. Jesse could just be driving around out there. And I actually kind of like to think sometimes when watching the show that this is where Jesse ended up,

which is on an upstate New York Scientology-esque, Maybe Colt, maybe just a movement retreat, so compound rather, in upstate New York. And it is led by Hugh Dancy, who is standing in for a mysterious older, you know, sort of god figure who started this Meyerist movement, which is the name of the movement that they're all part of. And Hugh Dancy is kind of the leader. Aaron Paul is there. He is married to Michelle Monaghan, who is sort of a very high-level ranking member of this movement. And Aaron Paul is starting to, and when the show begins, Aaron Paul is starting to have. doubts about his faith in this in this entire process.

Can I just jump in and say, I kind of was hoping that the Meyerist movement was a cult devoted to the films of Russ Meyer. So it was just a whole group of people living on a commune who were super, super into faster pussycat, kill, kill, and beyond the valley of the dolls. I was very disappointed that it wasn't. I was really bummed out because I had this whole pilot written called the Moyerist movement, which was all about Jamie Moyers off speed stuff and guys who were just like some older pitchers were hoping.

hoping to make it into their 40s. Chris, what are the odds of that? Because I also have a final draft doc called the Moorist movement, and it's basically about people who love Bill Moyers, and they can't get enough of his even-handed take on the political news of the day through his various PBS shows. I don't know. I got to say I like the Jamie Moyer movement better,

but we can put them all into development, man. How about that? You know what? The truth is, Crackle probably just bought two of them. it's okay. You got us, HBO. You wanted us. It was pay or play, Mike Lombardo.

Just another quick note here. You were talking about Aaron Paul returning to Breaking Bad. Look, we love the god Aaron Paul. Like, he is terrific. One of the greatest TV performances in recent memory. But on this show, are you talking about him in the Surrach commercial? Well, we're just, look, we're just going to yada yada

that for now because he's back, he's back doing what he's does best, which is weeping in group therapy sessions. But he, but in this show, he goes from basically being a recent high school dropout in the Breaking Bad universe to being the father of Heath Ledger's 17-year-old clone on this show. So it's like it's going to be hard to walk him back to pre-high school. Yeah. Yes. I think that's going to be tricky to walk it back.

So anyways, the thing about this show is that on paper, this is a slam dunk. This is Hulu's, you know, they had the Stephen King adaptation that I don't think either of us have gotten to, although we have heard good things about 1122.63. But this is their first splash into original dramatic programming. Ketems is a, you know, has a proven track record. The idea of a show, you know, about a modern day cult is certainly juicy. The cast with Aaron Paul, Michelle Monaghan and Hugh Dancy, that is terrific. Like any cable network would want that cast, people been trying to get Aaron Paul back to TV for a while. The three of them have great chemistry.

Yeah, they're all great performers. that's why I was really shocked that this show is a mess. Like, seriously, I think this is this show is a mess. And I did not watch the entire season. Hulu sent the entire season to press for a reason, clearly. And the consensus from critics that, you know, that we like and trust and admire, who did make it through every episode, seems to be that the show, as many shows do, you know, found its footing late in the season, sort of figured out what it wanted to be about

and drew them in to a degree they hadn't expected. But, you know, we're reviewing this from the perspective. You know, this is the, this is the Hoy-Polloy review hour today, right? Like, we're basically saying, can you hook us in the way you would need to hook a casual viewer? And the answer to this one, I mean, we haven't even talked before we started recording, so I don't know if you agree with me here. But to me, the answer was really shockingly no. Like, I thought this was a really, really bad pilot.

And I want to, I can go through it and explain why, but I'm sort of curious, what your gut reaction to it was. I almost wish Tate had a special sound effect for this. I don't know what it could be. I disagree, son! What? Yeah. I don't mind the show.

I kind of like it. Wow. The Jamie Moyer movement. You know what? Just, sorry, I just got a call about an American's after show. You know, I just got to take it. I feel like, you know, I think it could really be good for me. It's going to be me and Bill Moyers talking about the sociopolit.

political era of the early 80s, so can you just, can you just hold a beat? Will I take that? Um, you want me to tell you why? I mean, yeah, I'll buckle up. Okay. So, um, this is actually, you know, has as much to do about what we're going to talk about with Better Call Saul as it does with anything else. But I think what I'm responding to is exactly some of the things you pointed out when you kind of rattled off the IMDB stuff there, which is the level of professionalism and, um, like, The good hands, I feel like I'm in.

This is obviously a show where you have to make an estimate for them. They have to say, like, how much are we going to show in the first few episodes to hook people? Then also keep people involved. Like, you know, we can't burn off all of our plot lines. We can't do too many reveals. We can't answer the major questions. Like, what is, you know, is this thing a cult? Is this thing a hoax?

Are these people violent? Are these people brainwashed? You know, is this, is, you know, all the questions that, you know, you would probably ask if you if you saw going clear or something like that about Scientology. All that aside, I feel like the performances are really good. And for a quote-unquote hour-long drama, it moves with a lot of momentum so that I don't actually, like, I don't, I'm sure you have really good reasons for not liking it. But what I'm seeing is something that's made well enough and has enough interesting stuff

happening in it that were I to have like tons of free time? I mean, is it going to go to the top of the queue and, like, it's appointment of viewing? No, not necessarily. But I am actually very interested to see where this is going. And a lot of that has to do with Paul Monaghan and Dancy and just how well I feel like they work together. Wow. Wow. You think you know a guy.

You agree to co-host a TV show with him. And then this happens. I really disagree. I mean, I think that there is a version of this. one thing that could be to blame here, and I don't know if it is. So I'm just going to throw this out here as a pure hypothetical, and I would love to find out the truth behind it. But there were, I thought, major, major flaws in the opening of this show

that are the sorts of things that are often addressed by very experienced network development teams. For example. Right? There are issues of reframing, issues of contextualizing, of perspective, of point of view, and of pacing, the sorts of things that, you know, if you go through the process of networks that are well established at this point, and whether that's FX or HBO or AMC or even some of the broadcast networks, like, who, you know, often very much go in the air in the opposite direction, right? But let's start with very basic things here with Meyerism.

Is it really big or really small? Do you have any idea? I think it's like, I think that they have been in the shadows for a long time. They talk a lot about how their former leader or their deposed, an absentia leader has kind of encouraged them to be very quiet about what they're doing. And now, Hugh Dancy's Cal character wants to bring them out into the light and start doing more press. I can track that, but I still think it doesn't work, right? Because what makes something like Scientology interesting is the sheer size of it, the immensity of it, the idea of the layers and walls. and secrecy and the sheer like legal and financial weight behind it, that people can be disappeared,

that they're menacing. Without that, these just seem like a bunch of weirdos in upstate New York. And frankly, we've seen menacing weirdos in upstate New York before done better on the leftovers. It's, I think it's one of those things where you get caught with the story that you want to tell versus the more interesting story, right? Because in order for us to be able to focus on this one family and their relationship to the charismatic leader of the cult, the cult necessarily has to be kind of small or else there's no way, like Ron, or whatever the dude is named, Miskavage, right, who runs David Miskavich,

who runs Scientology, isn't going to know Aaron Paul and Michelle Monaghan's characters if they live in New York and he's in, you know, a floating sea island made on the bones of disappeared whoever's. But if they're just an upstate New York, they can know Cal and they have a history with him. So it sort of tightens the circle, but it sort of lessens the drama. Okay. I mean, I think that there's like a lot of different, there's a bunch of different like outposts of this place and it sounds like the Peru one is where

like the lot of the spiritual stuff takes place, aka taking ayahuasca and that the upstate New York one is You are a big sucker. Yeah, any ayahuasca plot line I love. Yeah. But that all the stuff that takes place upstate is kind of like the central area.

You loved while we're young that movie last year mainly because of the extended shots of Ben Stiller ayahuasca barfing into buckets at a didmas Park house party. Come on, don't give away the first episode of the Thrones. That's a movie I saw on a plane. Anyway, just similarly, I just felt like the pilot was so muddied in terms of what story it wanted to tell us, because it wanted to tell us all of the stories. Like, was this a top-down story about people in power in the same way that, like, a, you know,

a vinyl is? I know that's not a one-to-one comparison, but that's a story that is a one-to-one comparison, but that's a story that is about the people who are running the business, and then everyone else is sort of looking up at them. Is this that story? Because it wants to be that story, but it also wants to be the story of this family. And it also wants to be the story of the young woman Mary Cox,

who sort of brought in, who would otherwise be our point of view character into it. And I felt like the fact that we're following all of them was extremely muddy. And because it was so muddy, the script was burdened with all of these things that felt like ass covering and backtracking in terms of their writing. This is not a shot at all at Jessica Goldberg's writing ability. This is just sort of the necessary spackle and, you know, the stuff that has to happen to make the story work.

And so I wouldn't blame, I'm not going to blame her for the, what do you call it, the Chiron saying where we were throughout the episode, which seemed kind of, you know, slapped on at the end. But every episode, every scene was basically like, Chris, it's great to be talking to you on the podcast we do every week, Chris. Chris, how long have we been doing this podcast? I know. That did, they did have a lot of first, like, and then direct address like that. There was a lot of, like, we just got back from New Hampshire. You know, I know that. That's not, here's what I think is happening a little bit for you.

And not to, you know, armchair cycle analyze you a little bit. But like there are right now, let's just kind of like off the top of my head, final billions. Right. There's, you know, what else am we talking about? The Americans. There's the path. There's 1122.63. There's The Walking Dead.

There's, there's Saul and coming up, we have O.J. and coming up we have Night Manager, which I think we're both, I'm into, I really like what I've seen so far. What, 10 to 12 hours just of drama maybe, like eight hours of drama per week that you're already looking at if you want to watch, if you want to keep up on all this stuff. And that says nothing about all the comedies, the Netflix shows, the Marvel shows on Netflix, all this stuff, right? So if three years ago, the Path had debuted, whether it was on HBO or Cinemax or whatever, Netflix, and I had said to you, what do you think? I think you'd be like, well, you know, it's really interesting. Aaron Paul is like such a good actor.

I think I'm going to stick with it and see where it goes, even though obviously they're trying to set up a bunch of different things in the first two episodes. And I think just now you just don't have the time to do that. What's that? I think that's true to a degree, but I also think, and I don't know, I should do some self-reflection here, maybe some sort of myerist eyeball training or something to think about how I feel about this. because I don't know how this has changed in relation to me not being a daily TV critic anymore,

but I think that I would have been more patient with this had I a professional obligation to see it through more because of everything that you're saying, because I generally am interested in shows that can pull themselves out of self-made ditches early on, and it's very possible if the show will be able to accomplish that. But really what bugged me was that I didn't think there was a single, genuine moment in the show that I'd seen so far. Not a single moment where I was like, oh, these are human beings. Oh, that's a human reaction. Oh, I can recognize that. I've seen that. I feel, I can tactile relate to the place where they are or the way the air smells or the way they feel about their chill. Like, none of it was real to me because so much of that hour, and I'm

specifically talking about the pilot, so much of that hour was just devoted to this grinding machinery of setting up this world. Yeah, I guess my counterargument to that. It's impossible to shows on pilots. I agree with that. My counter argument to that would be its TVness is almost the thing that's attractive to me about it. It's not it's like, that's what you're saying. Reflection of real life or the real world or real issues, but it was almost like it's almost self-consciousness of being a television show was comforting to me. And I think that this is sort of where I wanted to go with the conversation, which is what are we actually looking for from television dramas? Because we've kind of obviously come out of this golden age where

I think that there were these four to six central shows that a lot of people were watching and a lot of people were talking about. There was an entire vocabulary that came out of those shows about, not even a vocabulary for like what you could do with 60 minutes on a television channel, but what television could mean to people

and what kind of things could be talked about on television. And this is something where I think that, you know, this is not a dissimilar to what we were talking about with the 1996 music pot a couple of weeks ago, where it was kind of like, are we just getting older? And are, is there, like, are people engaging with shows on sci-fi and on the CW

in a way that maybe we were engaging with shows on AMC and HBO five years ago or six years ago? Is there, like, for every season, there's, like, a new crop of people, and they don't need, like, to have the water cooler that we sort of long for? And also, like, have we kind of had enough emotional experiences within the format of hour-long television over the last six years, that we're going

to need something to kind of come along and rip up the playbook soon, that there's going to need to be something that's basically like not a French new wave of television, but something like in that way of, we're going to just change it because right now the ABC plot, difficult man protagonist. I mean, I'm not saying that there's not like amazing things happening on television. from Transparent to the Nick to, you know, show, like the show, like to the Americans or anything that we love. But the centrality of it and the feeling that we're in a brave new world. I think we're not in a brave new world.

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I'd also like to tell you a little bit about Jackie Robinson, which is the new two-part four-hour film directed by the great Ken Burns, chronicling the life and times of Jackie Robinson, his breaking of baseball's color barrier, and the lifelong fight-free quality on and off the field. Featuring extensive interviews of Robinson's widow, Rachel, whose recollections and personal archive of photographs open up a window into Jackie's private life that is rarely seen. This two-night event premieres Monday, April 11th, at 9-8 Central on PBS. By a giant stretch, the most interesting things are happening in the half-hour format or in the limited series format. I mean, honestly, dude, I watched a couple of the episodes of The Ranch this weekend, just like in a haze just watching on Sunday. And this Ashton Coucher sitcom that is on Netflix. Chris, was that a good ayahuasca come down for you? It was.

I'm not even sure it's actually on. But, no, I'm just an Alicia Cuthbert completest. but wait is is leash is leash on that show cuthie is there man cathy is in the building I love I love that so many people were tweeting at me like dude why are Sam Elliott and Deborah Winger on the show I'm like that's fine you know they they need they have lives to support they can do whatever they want so telling me

there's a lot of like retrograde humor goddess Alicia Cuthbert is on the show I want her there she is I wouldn't watch it now there's a lot of like retrograde humor it's I wouldn't necessarily call it like the point is is that you know, it does a lot of weird things. There's profanity and nudity and really long, dramatic beats on this show. And it's kind of wild to watch it. I mean, just to see that it got made.

But you're right. The stuff that people are doing with 30-minute shows is so much more exciting, possibly because I think you just are like, no matter what happens, this is only a 31-minute investment, you know. but when you look at like a vinyl which I love like a lot I'm obviously a lot more into vinyl

than you are but like when you look at a lot of these dramas that go for 56 minutes or 49 minutes and they feel like they're 67 minutes or 71 minutes I think that that's part of what we're reacting to yeah I think there's no question and I think that

we were absolutely spoiled by being able to have get so many things out of a relatively large number of high quality dramas for so long, right? Because if you think about, let's, let's do it this way for a second before we even get into Saul. Like, let's make a, let's pull out the old, the old watch scratch pad, which is something I just invented, and talk about what do we want out of a, out of a cable drama, right? Because, okay, so number, number one, I'm going to throw a couple out, and then you tell me what you

think, and you can add to the list, right? number one is just basically we want to be entertained now whether that is being you know sort of shocked and dazzled and horrified like on a like a Hannibal or you know just just amused and exilerated by the surprising comedy chops of madmen right we want to be entertained so anytime there is a thriller plot or a who did it plot or whatever something to be solved like you need to have that element and i think that in general drama pilots have gone nuts on that because they need to get people hooked and that's usually the easiest way to do it is like a big question mark dangling over the end of an episode, but we want to be entertained.

Number two, and this might sound trite, is that you need to care. And I think this is where the path falters. What I mean by care is you need to have some warmth or engagement with the characters, because this is just the nature of TV, right? You need to want to come back week in and week out. You need to have some investment in these people. And I didn't feel anything for these people in early going in the path. And I even felt like they really kind of screwed up the expectation game because

the pilot first the sort of the hinge pivot point of the pilot rests on Michelle Monaghan tracking Aaron Paul to a motel right and seeing him go in and being like oh my god there's a betrayal there's a secret yeah but we just met these people I don't buy their relationship and frankly I don't care about it so I was not in at a moment that I needed to be in to keep going with the series that was sort of a failure of the writing in the first half of the pilot I completely understand what you're saying you're talking about keeping people entertained and giving people a reason to care, I would say that like my kind of scratch pad notes would be creating a world that I want to visit and explore. So, you know, whether, and that's one of the

things that we really liked about Happen Leonard. That's one of the things I'm really excited about for people to see in Last Panthers, which is coming out on Sundance this month, which is just a world that we haven't really spent a lot of time in before on television and exploring it. This is why people love the wire. This is why people loved six feet under. This is why people loved all these shows that kind of create that do world building and do it in a way where these little nooks and crannies of this universe that

you're seeing on the show are worth exploring. I think that the path has the potential to do that. And I'll just, I guess it's interesting that you're so out on it. I think I will stick with it for a while. But I think in general, and we can start talking about Saul with this, I think that there

is a little bit of a strain on the faces of these of these shows that are these 60 minute dramas and even with saul and we're asking you know we're saying like oh there needs to be a french new wave of of american television you could make an argument that um that saul is trying to be very progressive and formally inventive but they're doing it by exploring to be completely frank and i don't mean to be nasty about this but they're doing it by exploring the limits of border and they have truly turned this show which had the potential, I think, at points in the first season and it's high points in the second season to be an incredible sort of gothic, darkly comic look

at like the side of the underworld that we rarely see, which is like the schmose who are next to the actual bad guys. And now it's just basically about this is a show about clerical work. The show could have been

like the hubris of the common schnuck, right? It could have basically been, you know, egg noodles and ketchup, the series. And at times it still hits those notes and hits those highs. But, you know, when we talked about Saul a couple weeks ago, you know, I was sort of, I was a little bit more into the season than you were at the time. And I was suggesting that if there was an error being made in the execution of the season, And it came down to the fact that legal work fundamentally is not as thrilling or entertaining in minutia as building a drug empire or cooking an illegal drug. You know?

Yeah. Which when I say it out loud sounds that. It can be part. I mean, like, there's like large swaths of Michael Clayton that's just like people putting things in box and file boxes. But there needs to be some other tension around it. And I feel like the tension in Saul is so far off screen and in the distance that, It's just not enough, and I can't, like, just watching him, like, sort of try to make sure he gets his bonus from Ed Begley is just wild boring. It was, it's been exhausting.

Like, it really has, and it's been a bummer to see it because, you know, as we've said many times, there are few shows that are as, I'll actually turn your argument back against you. I don't think there's anything on TV that's as professionally made as Saul. Oh, no, yeah, you're right. I'm not in any way am I, like, disparaging the professionalism. of this show at all. I think they're trying to do something and it's not quite working. Right, we're seeing the limits of it.

I mean, the elegance of the execution here is something to see, especially the direction and the production values and the visual flare and just the little flourishes at the margins. You know, Ray Seahorn's performance is just wonderful,

and I love watching it every week, and it's kind of nice that she's been raised essentially to co-lead, not only because she's so good, but because she's one of the few characters we're paying attention to that has an unwritten future. So that helps a little bit with the watch, with the entertainment.

But exactly, we're, they've done a lot of surprising stuff stretching, stretching the, the space between beats we already knew. Obviously, he was not going to stay in this office forever. Obviously, he was not going to try being a lawyer, a good lawyer for a very long time or by the book lawyer for a very good time. Just like Mike was not going to be out of the web of, you know, the local drug economy for a long time. just working in a parking garage forever. However, the length to which we were to, the amount of

screen time that was given to, I think you really nailed it by mentioning that scene, where he's just sort of being disruptive and not flushing the toilet in Ed Begley's office, that was just, it was brutal. I mean, the show was, at that point, just ground to a halt. And I actually don't go along

with the people who think that if only the show was called Better Call Mike, it would be a little bit better because Mike is a superhero. You know, Mike is essentially Omar on the wire now in the sense that the fan favorite who is just impossibly cool. And because of that, everything, sorry to make the pun here, breaks his way. Yeah. Obviously, it doesn't once he meets Walter White.

But up to that point, everything does. There is no drama in watching a superhero get the best of every situation. It's fun. You know, the performance is great. But the more old friends we see returned from, you know, the old days in Albuquerque's, you know, back to life now because we're in the past, it's been, it's been, it's been dispiriting. You know, there really isn't that,

I wonder if there really isn't that much story there. And if, and if the story going forward for both characters is just how they got to where they were at the beginning of Breaking Bad season one, then I think we're going to see some serious audience attrition because the show needs to exist on its own merits. It can't just be, you know, joining up things that we already knew before.

Yeah, and it's entirely possible that we're going to get, I mean, there's sort of two versions of Saul in Breaking Bad to me, and this may be completely, this is just based on memory. I haven't actually like, like, check the receipts on this. But Saul sort of in the intro, when we're introduced to Saul on Breaking Bad, he seems like an ambulance chaser, right?

Like he's a guy who makes TV ads and it's better call Saul and he gets petty thieves out of jail and does ambulance chasing. And then sort of towards the end of the show, he becomes this completely connected mob lawyer, basically. You know, and that's, and then he has to go on the run. And it's fascinating, and he's an incredible part of the end of the Breaking Bad run.

But I'm not sure how much time I got to, like, wait to see him become an ambulance chaser. I mean, do you know what I mean? And I think a lot about where the show was last season and I wonder whether or not they kind of saw, hey, we actually got something here. People are responding to the show. Let's pump the brakes and see how we can stretch this. stretched this out over a couple of seasons rather than by season two and a half where, or, you know, by the midway through season two, John Carlos Spizito has shown up.

But now let me, let me make a suggestion here and see how you feel about it. What if these conversations were going on behind the scenes and we're not privy to them, but what if the converse, what if the, the agreement between AMC and Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould is that Better Call Saul is a five-season show? and season three, it's been renewed for season three, season three will finish the story of how we got from where we were to the beginning of Breaking Bad. So we will bring in Jean-Carlispozito for a one-season run.

We will sort of, you know, and it basically will be the story of what happened to Wexler and McGill and, you know, whatever happens with Kim that turned Jimmy definitively into Saul. The next and last two seasons of the show are, Saul in crawling out of the synobun. So all of a sudden the show after three years, pivots into becoming something all new about one last chance

for Slippin'Jimmy, what can he become now? I am in on that show. For five years? You're in on that show? For five years. You couldn't do that in two and a half years? I'm saying if you do the whole... Well, of course you could, but we're talking about the economics of contemporary TV where the ratings for the show

are really good. It's established a night for AMC on Mondays. Yes, and I am telling you... They're not going to shorten it. I think that the, for as much as we're talking about how things behind the scenes are changing in the, in the television industry, and, you know, the way shows are made, the way shows are developed, where they're put, how many episodes go up at the same time or whatever, all that stuff. I think there's an equally interesting narrative happening right now with the algebra behind audience attention spans. And I think that Better Call Saul is made by people who are used to. there being five good shows on television in a year, and now there are 15. And they may not actually all be good, but they think of themselves as good, and they have enough of an audience

to keep thinking of themselves as good, and they're going to do their thing. And it's, it's very competitive. And the competition for people's attention spans is so competitive that I just don't know if I want to watch this for five years to get past Cineabon. There is essentially a question here, like, are they enjoying making, they're clearly enjoying making the show. They're having fun. You know, they work with good directors. They have a great cast. They're bringing back old friends. It seems to be a very happy production in a lot of ways externally. I know nothing about what's happening internally. I think they are probably okay with the fact that they are outside of the conversation, so to speak, of what matters on TV, what's urgent on TV.

You know, it doesn't have, I mean, we made up that arbitrary who holds the TV championship belt for any given season. And Saul isn't, Saul didn't get it. But I think Saul is probably okay, not even really being in that conversation. The question is, do they want to flip the switch and try and go back into it by bringing the story into the present? You know, and seeing what you can do with a broken guy whose history we now know in excruciating detail. Or is the television economy such that, you know, they have this generous sinecure and they're doing what they need to do for the network. And five seasons of this, you know, when AMC goes over the top will be a nice little thing to have in the bag. And it's a, you know, it's a victory lap for the people who went nuts for

those six years of breaking bad, pushing themselves in the medium forward. I don't know, but it's, but it's interesting. For me, the main, the biggest thing about this conversation is just that I really didn't expect Saul to falter at number one, the number one point of the scratch pad. Like last year, even when the show didn't feel utterly essential, it was a throw, it was so fun to watch. Yeah. All right, man, well, that seems like a good as place as any to wrap up.

We're going to try and do a re-up this week. Might be somewhat later in the week, but we'll still, we wanted to get to OJ. we wanted to talk a little bit about St. Pablo and the new versions of Life of Pablo that keep hitting our inboxes. Thank you, Doug. Andy, you got anything else for the people before we're out? No, I'm just really excited about our After the Throne show. And if people have questions about it, I'm sure they will let us know. Maybe we'll be able to answer some of those as we get going on the long road to King's Landing, man.

It's going to be a fun season. I can't believe we get to do this. The boat has just shifted. We just put out to the narrow sea. We'll be there soon, baby. Salador Assan is at the helm, man. He's going to get us there one way or another. The sex pirate.

All right, man. Talk to you soon. Great job, Beretski. Thanks for listening, guys. Just want to thank our sponsors again. Team Mobile, they're here to solve the big baseball problem. What's the problem? The baseball season is full of games.

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