The Watch - Ep. 51: 'Game of Thrones' Finale, 'The Night Of,' and Jay Z's New Single

Episode Date: June 27, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald on the 'Game of Thrones' season finale and what's next for the franchise, HBO's new miniseries 'The Night Of,' and Jay Z's return to the mic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's a thrill you just get to get lost. You just jump right into that Discover Weekly playlist. To see your Discover Weekly playlist, go to Spotify.com slash Discover Weekly Now. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line, yelling the great game now. It's Andy Greenwald. I don't think people appreciate

how much you've been just cocking back the hammer to unleash that voice. Peter Dinklage is not Scottish. No, but there was a moment and there was a moment we were filming the finale of our TV show After the Thrones when we were gathered all around a giant pinball machine, which is normal.

That's just kind of how we would roll on Fridays. So was there a Dinklage voice saying something like that in the pinball game we got this going? It was just the, I think I just said you're in the great game now so many times. You did. In various permutations over the last three months and especially on that last day of shooting after the throne switch, incidentally. Thanks everybody for watching. Oh, we're going to get to that. I'm going to address. You have your thank you, your Lin-Manuel Miranda sonnet to read. Anyway, I just kept saying it and then it just started creeping in the kind of Sean Connery Hunt for October, Scottish Russian thing started happening.

Yeah. And I went with it, man. I did. I explored that character. You did. I mean, I think I just need to come in and editorialize a little bit when you say that you were, you just tried it so many times and so many permutations. No one was inviting you to per se.

Like, this was sort of a self-generating. It was not a requirement. No. Yeah. And it wasn't like it wasn't like it was a request, but this is like what you brought to the party and we were enjoying it. Yes. It was a good time.

And, you know, it was, you were letting off a little steam. And I think people like accent work. I think that's mostly what we were going to talk about today, was accent work. Yes. It turns out, I think that, like, doing a John Snow voice, which is an accent for Kit Harrington, too, to be fair, right? He is performing an accent just as much as Peter Dinklage is. That voice is easier to do, I think, than Tyrion's voice. Would you agree with that?

Yes, because Tyrion does, like, a weird. like hybrid American British theater actor kind of thing. Because Peter Dinklage is an American theater. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. But I was saying more like if you were going to be imitating one or even performing

one and putting on an accent, like John Snow just sort of has a broody, you know, ride sooth. You know, like that kind of like real low kind of thing. Where if you're tearing, you're just basically doing like... Right south. That was terrible. If you're doing backflips basically all the time and that's a tricky. It's trickier, higher level difficulty. Sure is.

So Andy, we've come to the end. And then we came to the end of Game of Thrones. That's all I got. I'll talk to you next week. Okay, buddy. That's it. That's the thing is that this expectation that now we have something else to talk about is it's crushing. To be fair, we have, we do have a lot of stuff coming up. We are excited to talk about a bunch of different TV shows, a bunch of different contenders for the completely arbitrary championship belt that we invented a few months ago and I've only revisited twice. Obviously, Game of Thrones has held it for the last 10 weeks and we're ready

to bring on some contenders soon. And we'll talk something today and we'll talk some Thursday. But we've got to wrap up Thrones a little bit more. We just got to squeeze a little, little bit more out of the werewood tree, a little more sap out of it, right? Yeah, there's still pieces of fray pie to dig into.

So we came to the end of this season six. And I, you know, there's always going to be debate about the way the Game of Thrones seasons are structured. And I think that inevitably as seasons go on and as shows go on, there's going to be, I wouldn't say lulls like, oh, this is unacceptable, but there's like lulls of action, you know, and there are a lot of scenes of moving the pieces from one side to the other. To be clear, you're saying lulls, L-U-L-L-S, not L-O-L-Z.

There's just straight lulls, yeah. When Ian McShane is in, it's just nothing but L-M-F-A-O. But I do think that it's worth saying. I mean, like, they ended this season with two pretty huge uppercuts. Yeah. I mean, in episodes 9 and 10. And it was, it was, we ended, you know, you get to the end of 9 and you expect maybe a come down episode in 10, a scene setter for the next season, something a little bit more

contemplative. And they, uh, they did not do that. No. And I think, you know, we were, we were absolutely expecting that. And I think, I don't know where you stand on this. I feel that nine. from a purely technical and adrenaline standpoint was probably the most amazing thing they've pulled off, but I think that 10 was probably the best episode of the series to date.

But I say that with the caveat that you couldn't have made that episode in season one, two, or three, or four. Because obviously the first 20-minute set piece, when Searcy burns it all down, is absolutely riveting filmmaking and it's exceptional work by everyone involved. But everything else that was so gripping and entertaining and, you know, the hits kept coming, even after those first 20 minutes, that's because things were paying off, things that had been set in motion one, two, three, four, five years ago. And that's the reward of investing this much time in something this expansive and, frankly, something this expensive.

Do you think it was the best episode they've ever done? Yeah, I think it's in the conversation. I think that it's hard to say because I've started watching the show differently over the last two years than I did the first few years. Oh, really? Why? What's different? No, I mean it more because I think the Red Wedding was, I don't remember what else happens in Reins of Castamere.

I just remember my expression of shock at the end of that episode. With this final episode with Winds a Winter, I thought the real key to this episode was the fact that no longer were scenes happening in, in a vacuum. And that even artistically, scenes were transitioning and talking to one another in a way where they didn't, you didn't need to say like, well,

thematically, this is all about this. No, I mean, the Little Finger conversation went directly into the Benjin showing brand that went back to the genre. I mean, it was just every scene sort of turned over

into the next one in a way that felt, quite frankly, like much more cinematic than television. I agree. I think the thing, the risk that Game of Thrones runs, and let me preface this statement by saying that there actually is no risk, it's hugely profitable and successful for everyone involved. But they raise the stakes with these amazing set piece episodes and these amazing payoffs and, in

this case, literal explosions, that it does spoil the audience, you know, to expect that that's something that can happen all the time. And it can't, for two reasons. One is narratively it can't happen because you have to do build up and you have to set up these things in order for them to work on a level other than just, just sure. shock and awe. But it also just doesn't work in terms of production. You know, they simply can't afford it. Even if the budget is the biggest in history of TV, you can't constantly be doing that. And so I feel, let me also preface this with another thing. Can I double preface?

I want all the caveats. All the caveats, my dude. I realize that because we did our after show, people will not necessarily believe my critical opinions about the show going forward, which is fair enough. I enjoyed doing the show. That's an L I'm willing to take. But what I wanted to say is... Take the L with dignity. Nothing but dignity. Take the knee. I

think this was the show's best season. And the reason I think that was because... Okay, let me give you three reasons. I think I'm going to do three reasons. Don't you hate it when you set yourself up for a number and you're not sure if you have all the numbers set up? I never understand how people can do that. I'm going to prove to you that they can't, that they shouldn't. I'm going to say a number of reasons.

reason no I have three I have three I figured him out thank you for letting me stall reason number one was just the majesty of those set pieces in those final two episodes and in fact I'll add a third the hodore sequence those three alone were just truly exceptional it would be hard to imagine three better things on TV this season the other reason is the sheer sense of excitement and momentum that I can't help but think has to do with the fact that Beniof and Weiss have outstripped the books and obviously they're moving so quickly now Varus is capable of teleporting through space and time, and the ocean really no longer simplifies anything at all. The Varus Merman shit is getting real. How else can you explain his ability to move through sea bodies? I can't possibly imagine. I just hope he got some nautical miles, you know, so we can maybe take another trip after this whole war is done for free, up in business class.

But the third thing is the quiet moments I thought this year were pretty spectacular. Now, of course, there were episodes that were lulls in comparison to the bigger thing. In this case, I mean L-U-L-S. But those episodes were also lulls. What I mean is the writing flourished in a lot of ways this year and a lot of the quieter scenes. You know, I feel like the people who were complaining about episode seven and eight will point to, like, the Tyrion drinking game scenes. When I found those to be some of the most charming and enjoyable and best-written scenes of the year. Now, do they seem like they're from a different show than the one that did the 20-minute Godfather montage that ended with the destruction of an entire.

swath of a city and 12 main characters, sure. But this show contains multitudes. And I like that stuff. And does it? And I don't know, but I get the impression, like the sum of the senses, like the sensibilities, some of his sense of humor, maybe Benny Off and Weiss's sense of humor, is slightly different than Martins. Do you think? Now, we're maybe saying this because we just came off of a Friday on set when our maister Jason Concepcion spent, I would say as much time as you spent saying, you're in the great game now, son. doing as his George R. Martin imitation and talking about how all the characters have certain amounts of moonblood. Yeah.

Well, not all the characters. Listen, we don't know. I haven't read the books. You know, it's possible. But it does suggest a slightly different sensibility, yes, and one that plays better on TV and one that maybe plays better to a general audience. So I enjoyed those scenes. Would you be... So there's been...

I think that they've confirmed, they've confirmed that the season is coming, they're coming back next season, big surprise. And then there has been discussion about how their vision for the end of the series is to do truncated seasons. Yes. The next two years, right? Like the Breaking Bad style. Yes. Is this show ending too soon or not fast enough? Well, I mean, the fact that we're even asking that question is a sign that somebody's winning, right?

I mean, it's generally pretty clear when one way or another. You know, Breaking Bad obviously ended at the absolute apex of its popularity, but I don't think even the most ardent fan at any point in those last two seasons would have looked at the chessboard and been like, oh, no, we can stretch three more years out of this. It was built to end in a certain amount of time. I think that they've made the pivot now. They've made the turn, you know, towards the finish line in a way that now the stories that are left to tell are the only stories left to tell.

But that, of course, being said, this world is enormous. And had they changed things up and decided to run six more years a year ago, they probably could have done that by seeding more characters, you know, taking harvesting more from the books, really leaning into the moonblood thing and just giving people like Jason what they want. Well, that will be the interesting meta narrative going on, or the narrative outside of the actual show is if the book comes out, say next before next April, how far ahead of the, you know, will the book outpace the show?

Will we then go back into a world in which the end of the show or the next season of the show is mapped out in another text? And we get back into that same old tension. I think that at this point there's such distinct entities and our book readers and friends Jason and Mallory have just a terrific. It's like the Magna Carta of nerddom upon the ringer today talking about things like this. but in relation to the books and how what an epic troll move it was to name the season finale Wins of Winter,

which is the name of the book that still hasn't come out. What would you have named it otherwise? Um, you know, lit up. I mean, what would you call it?

I'm not the father. That's good. I don't know. I'm not the father. But the vibe I get based on nothing other than the fact that, as you know, I'm terrific at picking up vibe. That's just like always what I do. Just walk into a room, I'm like, get the vibe here. I figured it out. It seems like Martin is

really in a vise of his own making here because he seems adamant in whether it's fueled by peak or frustration or resentment or whatever it is. He seems pretty adamant that the two roads have diverged and they're not really going to cross over much anymore in terms of the narrative he wants to tell. The thing that I think has got to be very daunting is it does seem like he's, gave them a lot of his best material before he stopped participating in the show. And the real bind would be if he now feels the need to better what they've done on the show, which probably ends up meaning he making it more complicated, which honestly probably isn't better. You know, and I think we may have said this on the re-up last week, but the number one example of that for

me is this thing with like this character of cold hands whose helps Brandon the books. And Jason and Mallory explain this to us. All the readers are like, well, that's Benjian. It has to be. Benjin is a thing. Benjans coming back. and then apparently Martin says no that's not and of course it makes more sense it's just easier sometimes and also but even even his but he actually only said no in as much as he wrote something in the margin of a book right that was like that's not benjamin that that actual he maybe he just was trying to obfuscate intentionally because that was just a note to his editor and he didn't want to be boxed in about what he was going to do but you know it does seem clear and mallory writes about this in her piece she she's actually i think

on some of excited to have two-track narratives, you know, the one that, the very rich, very detailed, moonblood-drenched one on the page, and the TV one, which is the sort of the, you know, which just definitely moves as quickly as Veras through the, across the narrow sea. I think the two seasons thing, we don't know, I mean, they haven't confirmed anything. We don't know. It just seems to be sort of understood that it will probably last two more seasons and that they want them to be truncated, it's pretty unclear what that conversation is like, because the ratings are still so good.

I'm sure the network, on the one hand, the network probably wants more episodes than just, I don't know, 12 more, 15 more, whatever it ends up being. But at the same time, they're so expensive to make. They also don't want to overstay their welcome. They don't want to destroy Benny Off and Weiss and their production team. It's kind of, it's interesting. And I also wonder if, you know, one of the reasons why a lot of these AMC shows like Mad Men have split seasons is because then contractually you can call it one season so you don't have to

give everyone a raise, you know, and you can just film them all as part of quote unquote one season and then stretch it out. So there's a lot of factors of play determining this, but you have to think that in their office wherever they are in Hollywood, they know what they're doing because it's too, there's too many moving pieces for them not to already know, right? I think what I would kind of hope for that just, just because I think it would be cool as a storytelling device is if, is if The show ends and it ends with the way the book ends. But if it just kept, but the books, so sorry, if the show had an end point and then the books just kept going. I mean, I don't expect him.

This is his life's work. I mean, I would hope that this isn't coming at the expense of, you know, that those book of short stories about, you know, like Alice Monroe style short stories he wanted to write. but I would hope that Martin, you know, if he has all this history in these books, would also have a future. And to me, sometimes I was, you know, when we were watching Tower of Joy last night again, I was struck by how simple and wonderful that story would have been to tell as a show. The whole Rhaigar, Leanna, Ned, Battle of the Usurper, Battle of the Usurper, Battle of the Trident stuff, would have been awesome to see as a fully played out show. And I wondered whether or not it would be something where he could just keep telling the future history of this story for as long as he wanted to.

It doesn't have to end with someone sitting on an Iron Throne with the head of the Knight King on their lap. We may have pitched this before, but I feel like it's worth pitching again. I mean, I think in general there's no stupider or more overused phrase in Hollywood at the moment than expanded universe. But this world may be one of the very few that is absolutely worthy and deserving of. further exploration because, I mean, as you're saying, my God, like the entire thousands of history, cultural history, magical history, royal history, all of these things that exist in this world and that people like Mallory and Jason seem to know absolutely everything about, I think it would be a total shock if when HBO announces the end of Game of Thrones, they don't, if this can

currently announce a companion series or anthology series or mini series or, you know, something, whether it's like the Dunkin Egg stuff that I've heard people talk about, Or, as you're saying, you know, more about the Roberts Rebellion or something cast forward and, you know, a thousand years after the events of the show. But the really cool thing would be if they just basically kept the property, the expanded universe in-house, and then let people take shots at it. You know, do an anthology series where you get, I don't know, do a series about the Kingsguard and have Richard Price write it. You know what I mean? Like, there's got to be, I know we saw very little evidence of it, but there has to be a comedy in this world somewhere. You know, there has to be a different kind of procedural.

We made jokes about the bravosi trauma unit, but it's crazy to say that would actually be entertaining. So all of that is... I think the only comedy would really come from the Croatian extra who flashes his bits in Serzi during her shame walk. And it ends in tragedy when that guy gets his head smashed against a wall. By Danny McBride in the remake. Yeah.

Last thing to say, before we move on, is as we get closer to the end, and the character sheet gets winnowed. And that's a ridiculous thing to say because this character sheet is still the biggest on TV. But we are down to basically John is the hero, more or less. And with all the problems that contains, because generally in genre stories, the heroes are less interesting than the villains. And we have, we have Uron who we only saw twice this year, but I guess figures somewhat in the future. We have the Knight King who is a terrifying villain, but is essentially a CGI force of nature at this point.

And we have Circe left. And I just think that when you pull back from, you know, fandom of the show and being involved in it week to week, how clever Tyrion is, how majestic and cool and basically, you know, increasingly unstoppable De Nera seams and how John's storyline is the most Joseph Campbelly thing we've got in terms of orienting ourselves, the creation and maintaining of the character of Circe might be the show's greatest accomplishment. Because she is playing the role of a villain in some ways, but is such a titanic creation, full stop. and the fact that we completely understand her humanity, despite all of these monstrous acts, maintaining that across these five or six years to the point where now she's just done her most horrific thing. And I feel like a lot of the coverage of this episode has been, I don't want to say sympathetic to her,

but at least attempting to understand where she came from because there's a very clear path where she came from. I think that's a very impressive achievement. Absolutely. Any anything else we have to take care of with Thrones? I think that's pretty much it. I want to say, thanks to everybody for watching our TV show. That was really fun to do.

And we didn't really get a chance on screen to thank people like Aisha and AJ and everyone else on the crew who helped us do it. It was very, very silly and weird to do a TV show, right? But it was kind of fun in the end. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we couldn't have done it without Mallory and Jason's expertise. Obviously, Andy and I love to have fun with this world, but nobody understands it like those too.

It's a little worrisome how much they understand it. Like, there were moments when we, I mean, we generally didn't cut because we just went all, you know, we would go straight through when we were filming. But this week when they were, what was it this? It was this week, right? When you were like making fun of a potential character's name and they were like, oh, no, it was actually, it was actually Marvin. It wasn't Martin, whatever. And then they just went like into deep Dornish dive. That is wild.

And then they can also keep NBA and MLB stats in their head at the same time. It's pretty impressive. They're, they're both little. So when are we, so when should we announce afterballers? should we announce that now? Free ballers? I feel like that's a better... Maybe we should just do that on Facebook live.

I mean, so far no one has... Yeah, no one has responded to the pitch that I actually gave to our HBO executive, which was just let us do vinyl season two. Oh, yeah. Just turn on Periscope and let us do it. With all the snow that was on our set, right? And I have to say, you know,

if we're just doing a little airing of grievances, you know, when I watched The Night of, which is this amazing show, we're going to talk about. Before it they ran an ad where they were like, your old favorite shows, and it was like Deadwood. And they were like, your new favorite shows, returning shows, ballers, your new favorite shows, vice principals. I kind of wanted there to be a fourth square where it was like, and other shows, and you were like waving a sword at me. I kind of thought. And then it would just be like, yeah, not really. And then it would go back to the other three shows. Yeah, they really

fucked up. Can we say that now? We can. They totally did. They really caught an L on that one. Let's take a quick break to talk about Blue Apron. Not all ingredients are created equal. Fresh, high-quality ingredients taste better and are better for you, so it's important to know where your food comes from. I personally really love going home and knowing that everything I need to make a fresh, healthy meal is waiting for me already. It cuts out the whole rigmarole of going to the supermarket, standing online, oh,

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promo code B-S-P-N. Bookes.com, promo code B-S-P-N. Speaking of the Night of, Yes. We wanted to give people a little bit of a head start with this one because HBO's put up

this new film, sorry, the first episode of a new limited series early. So the actual premiere date for the night of is July 10th, and it has already been released on HBO Go.

And I think Andy and I both very, very, very highly recommend it. It's directed by Steve Zalian and written by Richard Price, which is one of, I think, me and Andy's safe to say, favorite authors. Combined. You know, I think I might like his novels more than you, but you still like them quite a bit. Yes, and I like his screenwriting too, which I think is a little bit underrated and always interesting. Yeah, worked on Seasons of the Wire, wrote the screenplay for Clockers. He wrote Color of Money, which is one of my, I think, is actually the underrated, like, top three Scorsese movie. And he wrote Sea of Love with Al Pacino and the lovely Ellen Barkin from Animal Kingdom.

The Night of stars Riz Ahmed from Nightcrawler, you will remember him from. And he plays the son of a New York City cab driver. He goes out one night to go to a party. I'm just setting the bare bones of the plot here. goes out one night to go to a party with a friend of his he borrows his father's cab to do so and while he's out he picks up a young lady they have a they strike a connection

things seem to be going in the right direction and then everything that could possibly go goes wrong could go everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong and that's a good setup it's a very fair way to phrase it and I think the other thing to know going into this show is that it has a kind of interesting Genesis because it was originally, it was based on a British miniseries called Criminal Justice,

and it was the passion project of James Gandalfini. This is what he wanted to do as his post-sopranos TV work. And HBO sort of... And he was supposed to play the John Turo character in the end of... He was going to play a sort of, yeah, down on his luck, sort of basically a bottom-feeding defense attorney who gets caught up in the case. Defense attorney, yeah. And he partnered with Steve Zalien to do it, and HBO actually passed on it.

And then they re-orchestrated it because they had initially pitched it as an ongoing series, maybe with a different case every season or something. And HBO passed on it and they came back as a miniseries, HBO green lit it, and then Gandalfini, you know, horribly and sadly died a month later. But they kept, so they kept the project alive. Trituro came on board. And this is just, it's pure class, first of all. It is so engaging from the first moment that the story starts.

And we always talk about senses of place and real places. And just there's an opening shot in Jackson Heights and Queens. And you are in Jackson Heights and Queens. Not just because they filmed it there. Oh, yeah. They took the time to consider how to frame the shot and where to frame it and who to populate the frame with. And the one thing that Richard Price always brings to everything he does is this almost like musical versusimilitude in terms of police language. Like I don't know if cops actually talk like this, but cops should hope they talk like this because he's so good at communicating.

it. It's a micro procedural. Well, once, uh, Nas, the character, the main character is, is brought into custody, uh, which is not, not a surprise. Um, it becomes about the minutia of police work and criminal investigations, but also in, it becomes about the minutiae of what the emotional toll must be to be someone accused of a crime. Yeah. And it is, it's so tightly wound. It's shot by Robert Ellswitt, who's done a bunch of stuff for Paul Thomas Anderson, shot Rogue Nation, maybe it's impossible Roanation.

But did last year's Nightcrawler, it feels basically like they've, it has like a very Zodiac feel from the Fincher film, the Zodiac. And the way that Price gets inside of these characters, and it doesn't hurt the fact that they

called in every single good character actor in New York City on their night off. Like Kevin Dunn, everybody who's in there, who's the guy who plays Klein, the desk sergeant? Oh, exactly. I was like, I know that guy. Great to see him there. But who, who, what that guy's name is, I'm blanking on right now. But, but there, but the people on the show, um, you mentioned, like, yeah, Kevin Dunn from Veep does a similar thing that he did in True Detective, where he just sort of rumpels his way through a scene and you're immediately there. And by the way, if it's that

easy to get the HBO All-Star Day players, why can't Kevin Dunn walk through the after the throne set? Like, can we bring that up, too? Like, if he was just... Seriously. He was just hanging out in the back, drinking some of that beer we never opened. But Michael K. Williams shows up in it. Max Cassella, Paul Sparks. Plus a whole bunch of other, just that guys who are always the perfect people to play

rumpled cops. And last week we talked about Midnight Special, and I called out Bill Camp. Ben Shankman is... That's right. That's Ben Shankman, of course. But last week we talked about Midnight Special and Bill Camp, who just has an incredible that guy face in his role in that movie. You're just watching him.

Oh, yeah. He plays the investigating detective in this, and he's just tremendous. Of course he's ready to come off the bench and someone just needed to pass him the rock to play this part, you know? But he plays a guy named Detective Box, who you get the impression is sort of a heavy-hitting, you know, a homicide detective in this precinct. And the way that they kind of start to set up the interrogation scenes reminds me of my favorite episode of homicide life on the street, the Araber episode, where Andre Brower interrogates. the fruit stand salesman about the murder of a young girl, and then the entire episode is actually set inside of the interrogation box. But the obvious, like, understanding of the dramatic possibilities of an interrogation scene,

it's just I can't wait to watch the rest of this. And I hope people check it out because it is really, like, crime filmmaking and crime storytelling at a pretty high level. Can I just throw in one other thing, which is to say, you know, it's essentially my job to watch television, I found this excruciating to watch. Not in a bad way, not in a negative way, but especially the first hour, which sets up everything that's to come when Nas, and by the way, Riz Ahmed is a star. He is tremendous.

And see him in this now before, so you can talk about how good he was in it before he stars in Star Wars Rogue One and Jason, like a Star Wars movie. Yeah, right. the summer. Right. But when you see that the vise clamped down on him and the mistakes that he makes for being trusting or fearful or scared, you know, and everything that happens to him, it's really hard to watch for me.

I found it just agonizing. I just started texting you because I just couldn't even look at the screen. Yeah, it's the same sort of feeling that you get when you're watching Making a Murderer and you feel it all kind of tumbling into one bad. Do you remember when we talked about that great episode of girls this year? And I was talking about how, like, one of the things I loved about it was that it reminded me of the way nights in New York can go sideways in the best possible ways and in ways you never would expect. Yeah, this is the worst possible way. This is the flip side of that.

This is like if I had seen this episode in 2003, I basically would have moved to the Midwest because things could go real bad in a hurry. Especially if you pick up, um, magic Molly eating dream girls. So I know that we'll keep talking about the night of as the episodes become available to people. And I think what we're going to do is do a re-up this week where we concentrate entirely on Preacher. Is there anything else that you have been messing with before we go, the television? What I want to ask you, just to sort of, to revisit this championship belt idea, because we're going to consider Preacher for it. I'm excited to catch up on it. I'm going to look at Roadies because I feel like we have to.

like in the same way, like if you loved, like, if you loved a car and the car crashed, you have to, like, pay the respect to the car by looking at the car and, like, seeing what happened to it. I feel like that's how I feel about Cameron Crow's career and probably roadies, which I haven't watched yet, but I will. But I'm not optimistic. I've been putting it off, even though it has a Lindsay Buckingham cameo, which is almost enough to get me on board.

But I feel like we should revisit that idea because, you know, we're coming off of a time when Game of Thrones basically always is going to hold the belt for the quarter that it's on. We said initially that there's going to be a different belt holder for the four seasons, more or less, of the year. Game of Thrones is always going to win spring as long as it's on. I think it would be impossible. Otherwise, we didn't see people versus OJ coming, both in terms of quality or in terms of the way it grabbed people's attention in the first part of the year. So I'm wondering, obviously the heavy favorite for the summer season, as evidenced by the one billion Twitter responses I got when I even suggested it being a conversation is Mr. Robot, which comes back on July 13th. is it possible for something else to hold the belt is the first question

the second question is yeah sure we made it up we got up the rules but do come on play along is it possible okay for something like night of to hold the belt in my feeling is it it's almost impossible unless it grabs people's attention like making a murder or people versus oj because so it's almost like you're proposing that there should be like shadow an intercontinental belt yeah or shadow of jeremy corbin's shadow cabinet.

Yeah. That worked out great by the way. No, but like an intercontinental belt that that is for stuff that's not getting watched but is good. So I guess that we could call that the Americans belt. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, or the rectify crown or something. Yeah, like there are shows that are just always good, but they can't hold the belt because

of the arbitrary rules. One of the things that we're going to be talking about for the rest of the year, probably for as long as you and I are doing this podcast, is whether or not Game of Thrones is going to be the last of those shows. I mean, we have this series up on the ringer. this week called the undeniable, which is basically searching for things in a world where there is no more monoculture and where there is so much, everything is niche, everything is appealing to like small but passionate, it's acknowledges as good. And Game of Thrones, which has its detractors, it just has a momentum now that

I think is undeniable. But is it going to be the last of that kind of show? I mean, are we ever going to have a show like this where pretty much across the board, people are like, I mess with this show. I think, I mean, I've long felt the Game of Thrones is the last consensus show in terms of the big picture, because it's not just that people think it's good or that they get pleasure out of it. It is the feeling that everyone is watching it and you're missing out if you're not. I think people versus OJ came on pretty strong. Now, obviously the ratings are not even remotely comparable, but the way it entered into the cultural conversation was pretty striking. And the way people who didn't watch the first episode were basically shame-billed into catching. up was interesting. So I think that the probable answer to that question is I don't know if we will

have another TV series like Game of Thrones, but we might have a continuing series of TV events. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about that too. I was thinking about if they started casting out Black Mirror and I know McKenzie Davis from Hall and Catch Fire is going to be in it, but if they had sort of kept the ball rolling from where they were with the Christmas special, and if you got Robert Downey Jr. in Black Mirror or something for an episode, how that could become sort of an event television

because of the topic. It's got a mystery. It's got something to talk about. It's got things that people would want to have the theory about. But if you were able to view that with Star Power. I agree with that. I think the one thing, the one counter is that I don't think anything on a streaming service can

have the belt. Not because of quality, but because of the delivery system. Because, you know, Black Mirror, which is one of favorite shows. Definitely check it out. I think the episodes are on Netflix. The original British episodes are on Netflix now. And I wrote a big piece about it for Grantland back in the day, if you're just hearing about it for the first time now. But the new, so the Netflix basically hired the creator Charlie Brooker, who's probably a genius, to make 12 more episodes, which might be crazy, considering he'd only made seven total prior to that over a number of years.

But the thing is, is that Netflix is going to make these 12 episodes, and I bet they're going to be, you know, I bet a third of them are going to be astonishing. Another third are going to be, you know, scandalous. Another third will be whatever. But they're all going to appear at the same time. So there won't be that sustained feeling of elation and discovery and word of mouth that I think is key to having the belt. Because, and I think one of the reasons why we created the belt was because we missed that feeling. And we, and not just because, you know, it helps us with a weekly podcast, but that feeling of being invested in something,

the feeling that you described when you said, I can't wait to watch the rest of the night of. I mean, that's what we really, really love about TV. And maybe that's all you can ask for at this point. I mean, I think that there's also a way to think about the bell on a week-to-week basis that gets granular about episodes. But since episodes are being digested in so many different ways now, it's almost impossible. You could do that when it was when Lost or Breaking Bad or Mad Men were on and these things were parceled out over a several month period of time.

But now I just feel like I, you know, I know from the small sample size of my own house that my wife thinks orange is the new black is incredible this season. I just haven't had a chance to watch it. And even, but even she is having the problem of not looking at conversation about Orange is the New Black because she's only just now finishing the season. You know what I mean? And we haven't even talked about it.

We haven't talked about Unreal. We haven't talked about a lot of stuff that's been out there. And if you are talking about it on a granular level, like with moments, then, you know, this fall or maybe I think it got pushed to January actually. But like, but when Homeland comes back, we're going to want to talk about that first episode because we're going to want to know if it's, you know, if it's fascinating or a tire fire, you know, and that that conversation can suck up a lot of oxygen and be interesting. I think we found in this last season, even though we were both more or less back on board with it as an entertainment, I don't think it necessarily justified or sustained the conversation for its entire run. Right.

You know, similarly, you know, I'll be curious, you know what? I'll be curious to see about when it comes back is the reaction to Fargo season three, because the second season, I think, was, I'm not alone in saying, I think was amazing. And I think a lot of people now feel that and they feel it. But the discussion about it seems to sound like everyone felt that way right away that this was brilliant. When I don't know if that's how it played out week to week, it was more cumulative. So the expectation game for the show might now have finally surpassed the relatively, you know, not modest, but the non-game of Thronesy week-to-week numbers.

So that'll be kind of an event when that comes back. That'll be interesting to see. But again, that's not even coming back this year. Right. I think all of this, by the way, on our parts is a very elegant and hopefully successful way to distract people from the fact that this podcast is just going to become a vice principal's podcast. Yes. When we change it to let the boy watch pod, yeah. I'm not sure.

Like, we're acting like, you know, we're acting like we're casting around for stuff to talk about with Thrones gone. But you have to understand that there is a new Danny McBride TV show premiering. soon and a Jason Bourne movie. And Walton Gaggins is in that Danny McBride TV show. Exactly. Like, there's an argument to be made that during July, you and I will basically just be doing a Jerry Lewis telethon of podcast, and then Tate can just turn on the microphone when he wants to or not.

Because this is as good as a cat's. What are we doing a podcast and benefit of? Well, you know, I think people have been asking that for a while. But, you know, a number of charities. For Ashley Sheifer, BMW? Exactly. A number of charities. We like to move the money around.

Yeah, yeah. We don't want to commit to anything now, but, you know, we're going to do very good charity, the very best charity. Only the best. Chris, did you have any thoughts on, you know, the ringer and our, it's a website that I believe you're involved with? Mm-hmm. Did a bunch of stuff last week, some really good stuff for the 20th anniversary of Jay-Z's reasonable doubt. And our friend Sean Fantasy wrote a really good piece about that. And then almost as if he's aware of the chatter about it.

about him. Our friend Sean Carter released a song last night. DJ Khalid in future. He's a part of us. I think that's part of the thing right now is that Jay has been part of things. You know, but he hasn't really done something in a while. We know that he's paying attention to the internet because he learned about memes. So that's good.

That's right. So maybe he set up a Google alert. Like when he did the Abe Simpson meme on the Drake song. And he just came in the door, took his hat, and went back out. His golfer hat. It's, God, you know, I know we've talked about this a little bit. I don't think this, this song is that good. But I was, here's the thing that I was going to say about Jay-Z, just the 20th anniversary of that record.

Well, let me ask you, can I ask you a question? Well, God, I love it. What's peak Jay-Z to you? Oh, see, okay, well, that's sort of the question I was. was going to answer before you asked it. Because I was going to say, interestingly, you know, we live in a cycle of hype now where generally, it's actually existed before that now, but very often rappers' first albums are considered their masterpieces because like, you know, in the same way with writers, like you have your whole life to work on your debut and then you have to

do the second one in eight months. Yes. I didn't, I wasn't that, a reasonable doubt is an amazing album, but I will not pretend I was up on it when it came out. I liked it for the biggie track because that's who I liked. And Jay-Z already has a completely unique career, but maybe the most unique thing about it is that his career followed maybe more of a rock template, which he's kind of counting on now that he becomes a classic rock, you know, touring act. But he kind of peaked, you know, three, four, five albums in. Is that fair to say?

I mean, I'll look at the discography and give you a real answer. You know, you have to have a favorite. I do have a favorite. But I was specifically talking about the fact that for as much as reasonable, it's the 20th anniversary of Reasonable Dow, which is a classic record. I don't consider that his classic record other than the fact that it introduced an artist who would dominate a lot of categories for a long time. Peak JZ is Black Album. That's the answer. Yeah, no, I know.

I know. I know we were getting there. I was just trying to milk it, man, because vice principles isn't on yet. I think that volume three is still, volume three is the second. And it's, and I go back and forth. Really? Oh, yeah. All right.

Okay, that's interesting to me. Has anyone ever sounded better over a rap beat than Jay-Z Unso Ghetto? No. But I also think, I think volume three is maybe the most interesting of his records because it's so, they're so, it's so, it's so dense and there's so many different styles and different producers. And so many tracks that you sort of forget are on there. But I really, really, really, really do love the blueprint. maybe also because of, you know, of when it came out and the effect that it had just on his career, on the world and how much time you and I spent listening to that record among others.

But, and the fact that it was basically all Just Blaze and Kanye beats. But where do you think critical opinion has landed on the Black album? Because that album was top to bottom a stunt. But Jesus Christ was it a successful stunt, right? He was going to do one track with all these producers that mattered to him, and he was going to retire forever. I don't know where critical opinion is on it. I mean, I think it's his best. collection of songs it's the best collection of songs that speak to one another you know the

the first song my first song in December 4th talking to one another yeah I think that it's impossible to walk away I mean he he made the best final statement you can possibly make and he made it way too early in his life yeah I mean did did he know I mean was this all because he is generally smarter than most musicians. Was he celebrating the fact that he was, was he self-aware enough to know that just because of his age and the way the culture worked, that it would be very, very hard for him to stay on top,

on top, but stay on top, having climbed up and battled his way up, you know what I mean, to continue to defend his turf, because I'm picturing his, the first 10 years of his career, like John Snow and Battle the Bastards, right? Right.

You can't stay up there forever, so he basically drove his sword into everybody's throat and then jumped off and then everything he's done since has been from a different place. I think that leaving rap had a lot, not leaving rap, because I don't feel like it was ever like a very definitive exit. I wonder whether or not he was somebody, he's so savvy. Maybe he had even a grasp of his gifts and like what he had left to say, you know, and that he knew that he could continue to put out stuff like Kingdom Com.

or Magna Carta or whatever. But it was ultimately like all the important stuff has to go in one notebook, you know? Yeah, that's probably true. And he famously never used a notebook. But I think it's interesting about these last few appearances. And we've talked about him a couple times in the last few weeks. And we jumped on all the way up remix, the Fat Joe remix, and he's on this track. And he briefly was on the Drake album.

the thing that the thing that was so amazing about him especially and this is what volume three showcases better than anyone is just how nimble he was and flexible and could basically do anyone's style or be himself over any kind of beat i mean big pimpin like i don't know if anyone other than the extended you know the cha serrano family knew about uj k people who really really loved rap and lived in the south knew about ugk but in terms of on a national audience and then he just like brought them on and he let bun b basically body him on that track too yeah out of respect. But the point being is that he was that gifted. And the thing that's interesting about these most recent appearances is that the voice is still good and I'm excited to hear him. But it

kind of reminds me a little, this is a terribly dramatic comp. But it's like watching Ryan Howard trying to hit fastballs, he just, the bat speed is just slow enough that he's missing him when he used to hit them. Yeah. Right. He's still being creative and he's still trying to match what he does to these various beats and he's, you know, he's with future on this track. So what's Jay-Z's a heel injury then just getting older working that would be the dude that would be the darkest place ever to end of podcast if we were basically like getting older is the equivalent of having the st louis cardinals blow out your achilles heel and then they sell rid in your home turf that is just great job we think we have the best we have the best record in baseball and then

that happens um well if people want to hear more about jay i do recommend that they check out sean and Justin Charity and Donny Quack did a really good podcast about it on Thursday. So they should definitely peep that. Yeah, much more expensive than what we did. And I would say the one thing that he had left to do, I guess, after retiring, was to be a pop act. And when Empire State of Mind went to number one, he accomplished that. Yeah. But so what was the Achilles' heel?

I mean, other than getting older, I don't, that really may have been it. I mean, he rose to the occasion on Watch the Throne, and there's great stuff on there. But that may have been the... I mean, maybe that's what he needs is, like, one really great collaborator, you know? And I don't think it's future in DJ Khalid. I mean, I don't think. I'm sorry to go out on a limb there. Oh, what a time to be alive. What is, uh, what does Tate think about Jay Z in 2016?

It's always good to have the youthful perspective. I love Jayze. He loves Jayzee, man. And nobody's, nobody's mad at Jay. They just want the best for you. No, nobody's mad. I don't want him not to rap. It's just been interesting.

I mean, by the way, that's the endorsement that he needs. you were talking about him needing a collaborator. He needs me on this podcast being like, oh, you. Hey, yeah. Keep rapping. Keep rapping, pal. We'll be back.

Did I, wait, did we, I'll let you go, but did we ever talk about on this podcast when I interviewed him for Spin? When I got him on the phone and it was to get a secondary quote for a Fallout Boy cover story. Do you remember that? No. Yeah, I remember, I remember your Fallout Boy story. He was, that was when he was president of the label and he was just like, He basically, he was so nice and he basically thought this was the stupidest thing he'd ever done on the phone and he played along. It was great.

He really, he basically was like, I went to a, I went to the concert at Irving Plaza with my wife and there were so many kids there and they knew all the words and they really enjoyed listening to the music. Are you saying that Fallout Boy was his Achilles heel? I'm saying, listening to Jay-Z describe what was literally the Wikipedia definition of rock and roll concert to me as a reason why he thought Fallout Boy would be the biggest band. in the world. Yeah. Was memorable. That's what I'm saying. All right.

We're going to do Preacher. I'm going to watch Preacher. We'll be back later this week. We got Preacher and everybody check out the night of. And thank you for watching after the Thrones. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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