The Watch - Ep. 67: 'The Night Of,' 'Mr. Robot' and Frank Ocean's Return

Episode Date: August 22, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald on how 'The Night Of' will wrap up, the expectations surrounding 'Mr. Robot,' and Frank Ocean's return to the spotlight with 'Endless' and 'Blonde.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, California boys. It's Andy Greenwald. I feel weird. I don't know about this.

Yeah? I think I might go back. I felt like this would be good to work out live. So there was no airplane movies. There was only airplane shows. Yeah, I watched shows. You just glossed over the fact that I told you I'm moving back. I just know you're not, man.

When you commit, you commit. That's nice. No one else's ever said that about me, but I appreciate it. Yeah, there was a moment when I was a little dubious this morning when I was told that all my life belongings were still in New York. I thought that was a sign. But now they're going to be here. I'm sure they're going to be all in one piece. That's right.

That's right. I shipped them all as one unit. And he's in California. We're now an in-person, in-studio duo. Can you feel it crackling? I love it. I love it. I kind of missed the awkward delay. Well, I know, because what people wanted was more bans. I think what people wanted was more like cross-talk. I like not having to have the headphones on. Tate's loving it. He's got both of us in the studio now.

We're going to talk a little bit about. We'll talk a little bit about Night Off, but we're going to save most of our major ideas. is about the show for next week. We are going to talk about Mr. Robot and the big reveal on that show. What a week by us to take off. I know. We really dropped the ball. And then we'll talk a little bit about the two new Frank Cushin albums that have come out since Thursday. You didn't hear about the one this morning?

That's the good one. It's a good one. Yeah. But I should say, yeah. So sorry about the airplane movies. I watched three episodes in Animal Kingdom. And that's what we're going to talking about at the re-up. I got to tell people.

I know it's a little bit off-cycle. This isn't like a M-Andi's thing. Right? Like you aren't being paid to talk about. I feel like you really all of a sudden became true and a real kingdom. Here's what I want to say about that show. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. And I think we can have a lot of fun with it. Okay.

That's all. I'll check it out. If you're not in on it, Tate and I are going to start an Animal Kingdom podcast called Throw Your Bike in the Back. That is a joke you will get if you watch the first three episodes of Animal Kingdom. It's also a joke you will get if you subscribe to Andy's Twitter feed. Oh, yeah. Wait, I can't recycle? This is what it's going to be like in person?

Do you want it? I love the self-dap. Do you want it? My favorite move. I'm just saying, I've had a pretty rough week. So I'm just saying, like, if you want, if you want the original thoughts, you better get someone fresh off the bench. We saw some rigger dudes.

They were about to jump in here. I know. They were excited. Kevin Clark wanted to talk about Madman. Now, Andy is, I'm so excited that you're out here. Do we want to have this part of our relationship exposed? I just, I'm so excited that you live here now. I think you're only saying this because you were burning me.

I wasn't burning you. You just got to like embrace. You got to chill out. you're out here now you gotta let it let it flow how long does it take before it starts flowing two years yeah it starts flowing two years in all right and then it never stops i'll breathe easy i had one of those uh one of those those those those cold brews you got out here oh yeah it's it's coursing through me speaking of cold brew yeah your man naz can we get to the bottom of one thing really quick yeah cracker heroin oh uh i thought it was heroin that's what i thought there's a lot of team crack

I think people were just assuming that people, you know, from media or perhaps from personal recreational use, they think they equate that sort of gear with the ingestion of crack. I'm pretty sure it's heroin because they seem super chill afterwards. Yeah. I feel like the idea is to take the pain away, which I naturally associate with opioids. I've never recreationally ingested crack or professionally. I just think I should say that now that I'm in California. But were I to do it, the last place I would ever do it would be the tombs at Rikers. I'm just trying, like, one of the top five worst places.

Like, maybe locked in one of those, like, we move you pods that I've seen on the highway. That would be pretty bad. A dog kennel would be not great. Yeah. The 700 level at Veterans Stadium in 1981, that would be pretty rough. I think that would actually help that a lot. That might help. Yeah.

It wouldn't help you. It would end up in the tombs of Rikers. But anyway, I think heroin because it's a painkiller, and he's in pain. He's got long odds right now. Yeah, but his romantic prospects are looking up. So what did you think of the kiss? Hated it. Hated it.

Big picture, I enjoyed this episode a lot. I thought there was a lot going for it. I thought it moved. I thought it was a terrific performance by Broadway star Chip Zine is Dr. Katz. I want to see more Dr. Katz celebrity pathologist. Oh, man. God, he loved being on the stand. He was delightful.

My favorite witness was drug dealing waiter, but I liked the pathologist. Drug dealing waiter did not want to give up his sideline. Like he was, he's feeling a little exposed up there. So you, when you're testifying under oath, you can't get in trouble. Well, I think that's why they asked him if he was, she didn't ask him to say if he was selling. Like, I facilitate her or acquire things. They weren't there to. Or of a trade kind of thing.

They weren't there to bust his balls. Take his tips. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. But Dr. Katz, that guy, he's really seemed charming. But that's also why this show is great. At its best, they let actors just show up, have some fun, have these little bits where you can imagine them. It was like two veteran character actors get five whole minutes of screen time in a show.

And that's like, that's what makes this show special. I understand that there's this tension between whether or not it is embracing or running away from law and order tropes. You know what I mean? And I think that it's very fully criticized for like leaning into some of those things. but I just don't think any shows like imagine if all those great character actors who have appeared on Law and Order sometimes in multiple roles over multiple years

got five minutes of screen time to actually tease out a little bit of a character instead of just moving the ball five yards ahead, five yards ahead. Instead of being interviewed by police but insisting on continuing to move boxes or whatever the business they had to do in that scene. Yeah, I think the kiss was really disappointing.

I feel like there are moments when you know, the desire to move things forward. You set this up really well in the piece that you wrote for, what's the website? Twitter.com slash Andy Greenwald. Yeah, that's the one you should subscribe to. That's where all the bangers make their debut. It's like funkmaster flags, like all the street hit records.

You're the inflex we trust of TV criticism. All the street records debut there first before we put them on the podcast. No, the piece you run on the rear where you're basically like, as we're getting near the end game of the night of, I think that the people who were, I think, I think there are people, generally people are really enjoying it, but I do think there's some people who are coming off the wagon a little bit, not in a cracker heroin sense, but not loving it as much. And I wonder if those are the people who aren't familiar with the just inevitable drop-off that happens with British crime shows. And this is the first American show that is so purely like its British counterpart, not because it's adapted from it, but for the reasons that you talked about in that piece where it feels so gripping and emotionally. With the exception of maybe the Broad Church remake, but, uh.

But that felt so. That was such like weird karaoke. It was karaoke. It didn't feel right. In the way that it's completely enveloping, it's engrossing, it feels like nothing you've ever seen on TV before in terms of the detail or the emotional pain that's being inflicted. But in the audience, and then it slowly turns into law and order or clue because it sort of has to. For those of us who have watched a bunch of shows, and we were answering this on your Twitter feed, by the way, which is, I believe, hashtag slash armed robbery. Is it still? Chris Ryan 77, you were saying, you know, we'd recommend shows like Broadchurch. You said South Cliff is one that you really liked. Happy Valley, I really liked. as veterans of those shows, the sort of plateauing of quality in this? Yeah, you get used to it.

It doesn't bug me. No. But I do wish that they had pulled back on a couple of them. Obviously, his, Nause's father delivering the food was a little pat last week. The kiss was a bad one. Okay. I think because, more importantly, it's sold out Chandra. Like, we don't know where the show is going.

We don't know how it's going to end up. But it just seems like you've created this woman who was overlooked and looked down upon at her law firm. she's really risen to the occasion by all accounts, or at least by the account who's not show. It's done a cool thing by everything about the first few episodes of the show makes you think that Titoro is going to be Gregory Peck and he's not. Unless she gets removed from the case or something because the footage of her kissing her client. Yes, that was a tough jump to, by the way, this is all on camera.

Yeah, that was a rough one. But the point being, like, I felt like that sold her character out in a way that maybe serviced the plot of a TV show, but not the show that we were all hoping we were watching. I think that was unfortunate. Can I make a far-fetched defense of the kiss? Yeah. Okay.

The situation that they create, the context around it, it comes out of nowhere, but I think it makes sense within the context of the episode in the sense that it's a little bit hackney, but she breaks up with her boyfriend the episode before. So there's like a degree to which you feel like she's romantically unmoored. That's one thing. Right.

She broke up the boyfriend as giving everything to the case. Sure, right. And her life is kind of quasi on the line, too, because she goes and visits the Hearst driver who is the Zodiac killer and they talk about stuff like that. And then she sees his mom walk out on him in the courtroom. And then so she's seeing him being basically abandoned by everything that matters to him and not having that much of a reason to go on, you know. And they are in this small cell, which in itself is like a symbol of the intense quarters

that a lawyer and a client probably often find themselves in emotionally, and he's got his life in her hands. And I guess that's my defense, basically, that the stakes were so high and the emotions were so raised that that was her way of saying, like, it's going to be okay. This is how it was definitely discussed. I don't know if there was a room or if it was just Zailing and Price. And then Richard Price and Steve Zalindler were like,

and then she kisses him, bro. And then high fives. Yeah. And then drained their margarita Budwisers. No, I mean, but everything you're saying, I think is valid. I just don't think the show had room for that. Yeah, right. There's no room for it.

I mean, one of the points that you made in that piece that I keep referring to is that you run out of real estate for what you want to do. The first three episodes that are probably going to go down, first three, four, we're going to like them more, no matter how it ends because asking questions is often more satisfying on TV than answering them. Those, they used a lot of real estate to establish the tone. The tones, the possibilities of, and we see the limits of Terturo's life and what this sort of. of work has done to him and physically to his body. There was no room for that to happen with Chandra. So in shorthand, it just kind of seems there are better ways to communicate how I think an attorney can become too cut up in his or her work than have the one female attorney

make out with the dude who has Sinbad tattooed in his knuckles and smells like heroin. The last sequence of the show, the cross-cutting between Boxes' retirement and the jail, the Rikers assassination that they pull off, was. was very disturbing, but also incredible filmmaking. I don't know that piece of music that these. I'd love to know, I don't know whether that's an original composition, but I was very struck by like the music choice. The music and the whole thing, Jeff Russo, who does the music for Fargo,

like did the music for this, nothing is excellent. So I bet then I would guess that's him. At the end, that's, it was incredible music. And I thought it was just like the ambiguity of what Box is thinking, looking at his golf clubs, but also thinking about what has happened. over that day and then seeing Nas so complicit in a murder. Yeah.

And so and and. And fine with it. Not even being an accessory, being like the co-writer. Let's go get this dude. Exactly. And the, and the whole thing with the, um, what's it called? The asthma thing.

Ventilizer. Yeah, the, um, inhaler. That was, that was great. Yeah. Just, Bill Camp has been so good on the show. His performance when he's, when he's up there on the stand, this sort of the contempt that he has for the situation that he's put himself in, but that he can't.

Just so, what do you think he's thinking is like they do that from behind the back shot and he's about to walk into the bar. You know what I mean? Like that is to me the real mystery. Like I am very much wrapped up in whether he did it and whether he'll get off and what will happen in the next hour or 90 minutes that they are going to do next. But the real, the mysteries for me are the things like like box standing outside. Like what is Stone thinking when he's walking through Chinatown?

Like that's the kind of stuff that really fascinates me. Me too. And so I wonder then, we both are liking the shows for the same reasons, and we are almost less interested in the whodunit part. Next week's episode, this week's finale, is extra long. I don't know how long it is. 95, I think. Wow. Not sure, but I thought it might be.

So it's supersized episode. It's going to resolve what happened to some degree. Two-part question, answer it in however way you like. Sure. What do you think is the most likely outcome of the show as we've been watching it? and is there any version of it that you will find satisfying? Now, when I say that, obviously, we like this show, and that's not going to change, but do you think there's an ending that you will feel satisfied that was deserving of everything

that came before? I'm starting to wonder whether it is, Nas did it, but we'll get off. I was wondering that today, too. I think that it's not because all of a sudden they're, like, awakening the killer inside him in jail. I think it's that he, they have been making a big, big deal since he started using to his little flashback memories. Yeah, there's something there that hasn't been uncovered.

And yeah, like, so the fact that they are sticking with, they never say, this is what happened to him. He took ketamine, stumbled downstairs, passed out for a little while, and when he woke up, it's like, it's still ambiguous as to what happens in that lost time. What? But I think that something, whether it's a technicality, whether they get off on the... Yeah, what movie, is that like the usual suspects ending? what is the comp ending?

I mean, it would be prime suspect would be the like who's real Nas. But I think the real Nas is a kid who just was bullied and had a couple of bad reactions. You're saying Nas is like a kid was bullied. I'm saying Nasra Damas could have told us this. What do you think of the likely ending will be? I do think we're being pushed in that direction

because we're sort of running out of red herrings. And the red herrings are pretty red. Although Dwayne Reed is still in the wind and located on literally every street corner Manhattan. I like the Dennis Box was speaking for all. television viewers. Just being like, are you kidding me? This is not as clever as anyone thinks it is.

Do you think, do you wonder if like, if maybe like the last, the last day when like they were in there, before they went to like the red script from the blue script or whatever, like Price went in and just rewrote all of Boxes himself? Like he picked up the last deline's version and like Zalian had put in all the Dwayne rejokes. And he was just like, are you kidding me with this? Detective Richard Price. Yeah, I think, I think that's where we're headed. I mean, the fact that we don't know is pretty good.

It's cool. Yeah. I also think it's just going to be a neat trick to try and pull off, and these British shows have often stumbled up against this, which is the real ending of the show is kind of already written, which is this family's life is wrecked. Their livelihood is destroyed. Their family is pretty much destroyed.

The mother is sitting around wondering whether she raised a murder. His brother's kicked out of school. Nas now has a drug problem. They pawn the silver. Some very, you know, some hand tats that will make it difficult for him. him to work in hand modeling. Yeah, which is unfortunate because they were beautiful before. Yeah.

He's ripped, though, on the plus side. And he's got a cute lawyer-girlfriend. Yeah. So, actually, everything's looking up for him. And at least he doesn't have Xmo. Okay. Let's take a quick break for some words from our sponsors, and we'll be right back. I want to tell you a little bit about one of our sponsors today, me, undies,

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Let's talk about actually it's prison. Yeah. Let's talk about Mr. Robot. Wow. So. Yeah. You go first. Some stuff.

happened. Yeah, I don't know what you think. And the reason I'm saying you go first is not, I just want to, without being biased, I want to hear what you have to say so that I could be like, let me just play devil's advocate. I want to work through this with you because I still don't know what I think. Yeah, me neither. I watched the episode and, you know, I didn't watch it live. I watched it the next morning. So did you know? I had gotten enough tweets from our friendly, loyal listeners to suggest that something had come, something had happened, perhaps something we had predicted and others certainly predicted before us. But you had been...

It can't be that. Yeah. Well, I had not wanted it to be that. Okay. And I still never wanted it to be that. Here's where I am a little bit on the fence. I think people should read, I'm sure a lot of people did. Sam Esmell did a Q&A with Al-Sepin-Wall the next day.

On Hit Fix. On Hit Fix, where he talked about his decision-making and what had just been revealed. And one of the things that's interesting about this autour-driven era of TV is you can't pass the buck. You know, this isn't, this wasn't a storyline that got muddled in the room or wasn't directed correctly on set or whatever. Yes. He did all of it. He, you know, he certainly had a hand in every script and he directed every scene. So he's a remarkably, not only is he taking responsibility for all the artistic choices, he's a remarkably good advocate for those choices that he's made. So when I was reading this interview, one thing that I appreciated was,

and it's the same tack he took last year with the Christian Slater being his father thing. He doesn't want to, quote unquote, trick the audience. Yes. He wants it to feel almost by the time it's revealed he wants it to feel almost inevitable and obvious because and I think that's a very smart reading of how to not play with I'm listening to play with audiences. I think it's a very smart reading on how to interact with audiences, especially rabid, obsessive 2016 OCD fan audiences. So I think that that was actually interestingly done.

And when you think about it that way, that it was always supposed to feel a little bit off and supposed to feel like that. The way that it was revealed where, you know, Gloria Rubin's character, the therapist is like, Wait, where do you think we are? I thought that was haunting, and it was brilliantly directed as always with the reveals of where he actually was. Yeah, and I thought actually the way that that was handled where Elliot doesn't have like a complete breakdown, he's like, no, I know.

I know, like I had to do this to like get through it. And I didn't trust you, meaning us, the person he's always talking to the viewer, because we've been holding back on him. That's who we're talking about. I still don't, I assume that. But I think that if you also go backwards. Because in that same interview, Sam mentions that. you and I thought from reading that interview that there might be another layer to that

there might be a you that he is telling this to like it's almost a storytelling device that he is talking to somebody about I think that there is a little bit more to it than that rather than this like fourth wall connection I think probably there is but I think that there but so so I think that he's argued that very persuasively and I think it's interesting to consider it from that perspective um I think think there are two problems here. I'm going to try and try and articulate this. One, one of the reasons why the first season worked so well and because, and in many ways felt like a magic trick is because no TV show has ever successfully told a long-form story from the perspective,

buried deep in the head of an untrustworthy narrator. You can maybe do that for a movie. You can't do that for a series of television. And the fact that he could do it for a season was amazing. We're now at this point where the show is going to run multiple seasons. We don't know how many. three. It's definitely three. You know, I'm sure the network wants more, even despite the following ratings. And so now we have this almost impossible balance where all of the scenes with Elliot exist inside of his head and are thus suspect. Sure. But the show is now 50-50, or maybe that's not even correct. This is what we were talking about earlier. The supporting characters. And their adventures are sensibly, well, A, it's a very different show physically and narratively. B, that's, I guess,

real and Elliot's isn't real. And the big but the biggest so just balancing it at all is tough and I'm impressed how far he's gotten with it but the bigger problem in this season so far is that their story is more interesting and more compelling than the one that's been in his head yeah I think that that is an unforced error I don't even know if I want to call it it it's a it's a it's a problem that the show could not have predicted and we talked about this when it first came back which was that when part of the thing that mr. robot had going for it was the element of surprise nobody knew rami malik was Christian slater was like oh christian

later on a show. All these things. It was on USA. Everything about it was a surprise, surprise, surprise, Sam was a surprise. And then this year, there's a ton of expectations.

Just killed a fly. This year there was a ton of expectations. There's also a different world that it comes into, right? And we've talked about this for a couple of different satirical shows. Even though I think VEP was incredible this year, but VEP hardly seemed

out of the question. Right. In this year, you know? And so, In the world that we live in now, I think that that has been as much an obstacle for this show as whether or not it's taking place inside of Elliott's head. Because I think that it had its same interiority to the first season, but the exteriority made sense. Like you were like, yes, I understand. There are these hackers.

They are going to Brooklyn into Kony. You knew what they were doing. Yeah. There was a mission. I had a map in my head of what was happening. and now I think the map is always being torn up and maybe taped back together. And exactly what you're saying, there are other POV characters now. So what do you do when these other POV characters are existing in a visually similar world to Elliot that is different?

Also, the goal of the first season was contained within our main characters. They needed to accomplish things. We knew what they were trying to accomplish. What was happening in the margins, we didn't know, we didn't even know Philip Price at all until midway through the season. We didn't know what Tyrell's plan was, but he was the wildcard. It's almost as if this entire season is from a Tyrell-like perspective because what's actually going on, quote-unquote, is now off-screen. We don't know. We don't know who side anyone is on or what the end game is or what the big picture.

We know the stuff about the E-coin, and that came back again this week. So the idea maybe that they're trying to wreck the economy in order to have the only economy. Basically have the only economy. Right. But I think that the other concern. I have. It's interesting. This whole thing has been fascinating because at the end of the first season, when I spoke to Sam on the podcast and then you and I obviously broke down the whole season, one of the things that gave me the most confidence about the show going forward into multiple seasons was that Sam was adamant about the fact that for him, Mr. Robot was not about the gotcha moments or the tricks or the surprises. It was about the family struggle and the origins of Elliot and who he was, who he is, what happened, the origins of F society, the emotional story. And I feel like that's always better storytelling to folks. focus on what's interesting emotionally and then let the other stuff fall as it may. The concern I have about this season, and I think everyone would agree, and I look forward to asking Sam about this, I think that he spent too much time before this reveal.

Yeah. The episodes already were a little bit too long, but this took too long to get to this point. My concern is, what if the thing that interests Sam most isn't the most interesting thing on the screen? What if the internal struggle of Elliott isn't as compelling as he, He wants it to be or we might want it to be. And in fact, the hacking stuff and the global stuff is more interesting. Or that stuff, yeah. I think that the problem with the hand that he has played is that what if the character

of Dom's in interior struggle is actually, it's more relatable than Elliot's for sure. Yeah, which is, again, that's why she's there. Exactly. And that character has been developed really well. is really interesting, and now I care about her. And so all these things on the margins, I mean, I cannot say this enough. Like, Angela is, to my mind,

other than dumb, is the most interesting character on the show. Portia Doubleday is killing it. And her anguish and the vise that she is caught in at this moment is more compelling to me than the vise that Elliott has caught in because we don't really know why or what it is. So Sam said something really cool in this Sepinwell interview that people should check out,

where he's talking about how after he had kind of gotten through, I don't know whether it was the writing or the shooting process, I can't remember, but that he realized that subconsciously, he had internalized a lot of the lessons that he had learned from things like Empire Strikes Back and Godfather 2, that at the end of these first parts of a trilogy or of a series of films,

you usually have a triumph. But then the second film deals with the aftermath of that triumph. So in Star Wars, it's like the rebellion wins, but did they really? You know, and then in Godfather, it's like Michael takes over the family, but what does that entail now? In all those, in those films and traditionally in these sort of second parts, there's a betrayal. There's a Fredo. There is a Darth.

You know what I mean? You find out that Darth is essentially an active betrayal. Yeah, Landau. Thanks, man. Yeah. It sounds like Frado. I mean, Lando gets back into the good graces of everybody. Don't spoil the third movie.

Nobody knows that. Um, who's the... What if you just stop watching Star Wars after Empire Strikes Back? You're like, greatest villain of all time, Landau Colercy. Stab that dude in the back, froze him like a fucking ice cube. Yeah, exactly. What do you think... If you had to say that there's somebody of Angela, Darlene, Mr. Robot, who is the...

Is it Wellick's wife? Who is like the Darth? Who is the Fredo? Who is the... Because I think what this show could use and I think where it's going is that these characters can't stay in all these places.

No. I don't know the answer to that. I would guess it's Angela in some ways because the friction between those characters is building even though they haven't really shared the screen that much. But the idea that you're playing around here with is especially interesting in the context

of how we watch TV because Sam's obviously, you know, he started as a filmmaker or making movies first and foremost. Even though he's speaking about it, suggests a kind of retreat in the second part, you know, from the highs of the first part, and making it about suffering and making it difficult.

And, you know, I'll refer again to what our friend Sean Fantasy wrote on The Ringer last week, which I thought was really interesting, where he's basically saying the show is almost intentionally unlikable at this moment, and he finds that fascinating. The, the, and I'm not even going to say he's doing this because we don't know, But theoretically, if Sam knew what he was doing and was intentionally pulling back in season two,

is that a card that he's allowed to even play? Yeah. Because TV is for as much as it's like movies and as much as, you know, or as much as it's replaced movies in the conversation and it's treated artistically as a peer or even as a better than movies these days, it's lost to, there's the sense that has to build. What have you done for me lately? What's next? Get better, get better, get better, get better.

And certainly from a business perspective, I mean, the ratings are, a little bit, they're down by like 50%. And nobody wants that. USA doesn't want that. Even if that's the artistic choice he's making to pull back. And obviously they support him because the show just got renewed in the midst of this particular moment. Yeah. But that is a pretty interesting choice if that really is the choice he's making.

He's certainly taking all the time he needs. And I say that without judgment, because we've said it with judgment before. But I wonder, and hopefully we'll have the chance to talk to him about this. and, you know, in the weeks to come as things were revealed, because obviously now we're set up, the one question that wasn't answered, well, many questions, but one of the questions that wasn't answered from last season is who was at the door. I think it's pretty safe to assume now it was Detective Box, ready to just, you know, send him upstate. Yeah.

So, so immediately I would assume we're going to find that out next week, that we're going to piece those pieces back together, and maybe we're off to the races again, and maybe when the five seasons are done, we'll look at this as a challenging time that fit this puzzle piece into the bigger puzzle. TV still gets made week to week. Even though they made this like a 10-hour movie, we still have to digest it week to week. And I think it stumbled. I think it definitely stumbled by that metric.

I hope that when Sam comes in, we can ask them the most important question. About the pickup basketball? What about Lando Doe? What about Lando though? A couple other things, though, with this week's episode, I mean, even in the midst of it, like Leon just going full stabby.

Yeah, Joey going full badass. That was, I mean, that was exciting. That was a crazy, unexpected scene that absolutely, you know, is, are you killing? This is we're basically reliving a classic episode of Breaking Bad in the studio right now. This is weird. Except you just killed it. Yeah. One other thing I want to note, it's kind of interesting, we are now over halfway through

this second season. One of the main characters of the first season, Tyrell Wellick, has essentially not appeared on the show. And according to this robot is dead. This is something that I'm really fascinated to see how this plays out. Because if you, if this is a show where the, you know, it does some outlandish things, but basically tries to keep it 100 in terms of the things that have to happen for the story, he should be dead. Everything was set up for him to be dead.

They had the, you know, Chekhov's popcorn machine. We haven't seen him since. He is the most wanted man in the world. They had, you know, the president of the United States saying his name. Yeah. I don't know how you bring him. back to cheers, like as if he'd been away for a while. You know what I mean?

It's not, this isn't a sitcom. This can't just be a TV show at this point. Yeah. But that's a pretty bold move, considering he was one of the main characters of the show. So obviously we'll see him again in some form because the actor was on set and to do those dream sequences and stuff. That's the only way he is. And to call up and say bonjour. And to say, bonsoir.

Oh, bansoire. That means good evening in French. I don't know. But what, what do you? it's fascinating. It's dense. It's just, we're really dense in it right now.

And I think people are waiting for that next big thing to happen. And I wouldn't put it past the next big thing happening. But I think that my, my, my, you're talking about Wellick. I am still thinking that maybe there's another shooter drop with the Mr. Robot Slater character. Yeah, I would think so too. So because we started out and it was, you know, a person that, you know,

it was like, was, that Elliot thinks is there. You know, that he thinks is shoving him off a railing. And then it becomes a reveal that it's actually his father. And then, but he's not there at all. But he's not there at all. And then for this most of the season, it's been talked about. He's like, I am part of your consciousness that you've tried to suppress. And I'm here to help you and I like fix things.

I basically like get you through traumatic events and try to like do this and that. And I don't want to be at war with you. You have to let me in all this stuff. something about the world of this show makes me feel like he is a computer program. That's interesting. I don't know how that would be. I don't know how that would be either, but there's something about him not being a altogether friendly actor in his mind.

That makes me feel like there's something else to that character. I want something else to drop on that too because I realize one of the things I'm bumping up against is even if I'm going on the journey to accept that this dynamic between father and son is the emotional core of the show. show. It's tough to accept that when it's not his father. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. The moments, some of the scenes that Richard Slater and Rami Malik have had in the last few weeks have been among the best scenes they've had together in the run of the series,

you know, when he collapsed into his arms for the hug, like when he was just beat to hell, that accomplished what it ought to have accomplished emotionally. It might be the emotional high point of the series. But what stings is that it's not. him. So that makes it, it undercuts it in a way that's interesting and sad. But ultimately, all these father-son moments are not father-son moments. And we're getting some in flashbacks, although I don't even know if we can trust those. So, I- But maybe the show is saying, are they not? If your brain thinks they are, are they not? Maybe the, maybe the thing that

we're, right, that's a great point. But I think maybe the thing that we're actually talking about here, just to go back to the beginning of our conversation, is that we miss having a protagonist. You know, it's, maybe it's as simple as that. Elliot's been in a different show. Yeah.

Elliot has been, it's been the Elliott show and then everything else show. Yeah. That's pretty, that was pretty ballsy. And I think we're coming to the end of it, one way or another. But what was truly exciting about the first season was that we were in this place

where we didn't trust him and it was, you know, and we were disoriented and we were destabilized and we didn't know which way it was up. But we knew, we knew who we were with on the balance beam, basically. And this season, we're not really, I mean, we're certainly stuck with him.

But we're not taking those steps forward out onto the, I said balance me, my met tight rope, tight rope out onto the tightrope. And also the diving board. And the plank. I've been watching a lot, a pommel horse. Okay, well, we will try to talk about the next episode of Mr. Robot later this week when we will re-up. Yep, can I also just say, before we move on to our last topic?

Yeah, man. TV's about to get really, really good. Because not only when we have robot, we have the night up finale, my show, Halt and Catch Fire, love that show, is coming back this week. They sneak previewed. Do I have to watch the first season to get into it? No.

Watch the second season. I just read, that's a Twitter.com slash Andy Greenwald, oh, I'm not familiar with it. Only original bangers here. No, I mean, the third season starts this week. I think it's outstanding.

We've also got, You're the Worst coming back next week, the first few episodes, outstanding. and then the show I'm so excited to talk to you about Atlanta is coming in September. I love that pilot. I've only watched the pilot. I love it.

It's so good. So there's a lot of great TV coming up. Hopefully we'll talk Halt. Halt and Animal Kingdom this week. Yeah. Yeah. But you're biking the back. Tate loves Animal Kingdom.

Dave, do you actually love Animal Kingdom? I think the truth is Tate doesn't think it's a real show. I think Tate thinks I'm just making it up. What about Sean Hattosi, though? Hatozi. Barkin' though. Have you ever tried to say his name out loud? No, he is a big Boston sports fan, so I think he's like a fan of bills. Interesting. He makes his presence felt on this show, Animal Kingdom. All right.

Let's talk about Frank Ocean, real quick, because he only spent four years making two albums at least that came out in a spatter of three hours. Let's give him the respect he deserves. Let's give him 120 seconds. Let's give him five minutes at the end of a podcast. Thanks for your contribution, Frank. No, man. So Frank Ocean, long delay, not. long hiatus in between Channel Orange and the two albums we got this week after several delays, a live stream that was being broadcast via Apple Music where he was building something in a workshop somewhere.

Thursday night, he pops up, he's building a staircase and the album Endless begins playing, which is released as a visual album that you can listen to. And watch. Yes, so Saturday afternoon, people start tweeting that there is a magazine with an album inside of it at a couple of pop-up shops. And then pretty quickly after that,

blonde gets released to Apple Music. So now we have a lot of Frank Ocean to listen to. A lot of content. This moment reminds me a lot of when Radiohead released Kid A. In 2000. Yeah, where you are coming off of an incredible critical success. You've created a legion of really, really passionate fans. and then you kind of like go inwards, you know?

Not unlike Elliot, it's a robot. It's battled the interior. It doesn't all have to be connected, but I appreciate that. Not unlike Ellen Barkin on Animal Kingdom, TNT's Wednesdays. I don't know how I feel about this. This is part of the problem. I don't mind the surprise drop. I find the circus kind of fun now.

Like, it is what it is. But it does make my thoughts about stuff a little jumbled. I think I feel jumbled as well But I also think this much new content in this little time to discuss it I think it would be weirder to be like Yeah, this is bad, this is good It's gonna be what it's gonna be we're gonna spend time with it I think there's some obviously some great songs on it and obviously some parts that aren't

I guess what I'm saying is I can't even separate the album from the event right now Here's the thing that I wanted to discuss with you I think that what we are seeing now in a subtle way is the takeover of fan culture or geek culture in music Here's what I mean by that. We often talk, and we're not the only one to do this, we talk about, with great dismay, we talk about how the middle ground adult film has vanished from the multiplex. There is, you know, so that's why when, like, when Steve Jobs comes out and it's good,

we are excited. Or like when, it's almost like when Focus came out and there wasn't a superhero yet. I was hoping it was good. It really wasn't. Yeah. But it was trying to aim, it was trying to hit some mainstream beats, basically. All we want from life is out of sight. Yeah, all we want is that. But instead, you know, we get three and a half hour movies.

Like we get, you know, like a Captain America movie where an hour and a half of it is really enjoyable. An hour of it is punching. And then half hour of it is setting up other sequels. And it's just very, very, very, very, very busy. The thing that I was, that's what I was thinking about when he released all of this stuff. Because what he's doing is satisfying people who are desirous and have time to engage with a ton of. of stuff. There doesn't seem to be anything in this outlay of content that is in any way pitched at,

I mean, and I don't know if it should be, but I'm just setting this up, pitched at pop radio or pitched at a casual fan. There is no version of his five years of making music that is like, okay, but what are the 10 best songs in order that I could listen to and really understand where this guy is and what he's doing right now? He's put out everything he's been doing, and who knows, there might be more. I'm sure there is more. there might be more to come.

That is satisfying a very contemporary kind of music fan, super fan, but I worry that it's leaving. I worry. I'm not concerned trolling this. It doesn't matter. Some of this is really good. But it doesn't conform to a way that you and I, even though we try to be nimble, it doesn't conform to the way we often engage with us. I think it's just we were brought. We just are raised in a different, like with a different relationship to album releases, for one thing.

And to the narrative behind they. worked on this for a while here it is now they'll tour then they will work on something else it's it isn't that and that's great here here's my here's my number one thing it's interesting that you you're saying it's part of the rise of something very contemporary because part of it very much feels like a throwback because part of it and i know that some people have written i think karamonica may have mentioned this in his piece which is this sort of like this is the triumph of the tumbler aesthetic there's like a jumble of images and quotes and all this other stuff.

I think that's smart. You know, um, and it's fucking hilarious that I consider like tumbler aesthetic to be vintage at this point. Right. Uh, and you can shoot me in the back of the head when we walk out of the podcast studio. But that is true.

And, you know, I looked at God help me screenshots of his zine. And it, you know, basically I'm sure it's great and I haven't had a chance to hold in really dig into it. But it felt a lot like the early 2000s issues of vice that you was sort of page through at Kim's,

Like that was, and there's a certain early to mid-2000s aesthetic to a lot of it. The music, and I will say this for him, and not even I will say this for him, because this is what I love about Frank is it could only be made by him. Yeah. And it is uniquely, and like his music is signature. Like, I can't imagine anyone else making this music. There are moments on Nike's on solo. And by the way, the return of Andre 3000 on just his own track is just a beautiful.

moment. Or slide, you know, like slide on endless. It's just, you know, like, nobody else's when he just, he can just, it almost feels accidental. And, and maybe it's in keeping with the aesthetic of the whole release, or it's like, maybe he'll do it, maybe he won't. It's almost hesitant. But when he stumbles into this greatness where he just basically is tripping over everything that is alive in the music and in him and he's, he's rapping, but he's not really. And he's playing, but he's serious. And he's flirtatious, but he's sexy, but he's also. laughing. Like he somehow finds this vibe. And I keep wanting to say the word light because it does feel like he's very light on his feet in those moments. You know, when he just says, there's a line

in Nike's where he says something about Trayvani, look just like me. And then he dances somewhere else. And he's, it's all alive in him in this moment. Everything is magic hour. Everything is dissolving into the night, like before you even get an idea of what it was. That's when he's at his best. Yeah. I think it's, it's challenging to be at that, to be consistently in that moment for 17 tracks or across multiple zines or whatever. I think you jokingly compared it to Mr. Robot a minute ago, but I actually, I think it's valid in some ways. Someone tweeted at me yesterday saying like burn notice got double the ratings of Mr. Robot. Why does Mr. Robot get renewed and burn notice is no longer on the air? First of all, I feel like there should always be a burn notice on the air

because people love sunglasses. But I think the answer to that is that when Burn Notice was on TV, was a very, very different, not just USA was different, but TV was very different. And Mr. Robach gets nominated for Emmys and is liked by quote unquote the right people, the people who drive conversations or who tweet about stuff. And, you know, they can sell that to advertisers and USA can rebrand itself with the younger audience and blah, blah, blah. So it's not more popular, but it's more fiercely beloved. Yeah. And that made me think of Frank Ocean.

We were saying that, you know, that Sam in many ways has, they gave him a lot. and he took, as he should, he took everything he was given to him in terms of creative freedom. And maybe it was too long and maybe he took too long to do these various reveals in the show. But that was his choice and that was the power he was given. And that's what the marketplace allows right now. And I do think that's sort of the way I feel about the Frank Ocean record. There are moments of brilliance. There are too many moments probably.

But that is the way people connect with music or that is how music connects with people right now. You give them everything and you let them sort of it. But that's what you're, I think that that's maybe what you're reacting. not negatively. Andy and I aren't talking about the records themselves is because we're still processing them. And we could sit here and talk about like his obsession with cars and how amazing that is

and like the detail. I mean, I think Frank might be my favorite lyricist working right now. Interesting. It's like just because so much of it is like these John Ashbury lines that drift off and then never resolve and details and conversations that are like snipped and put into different things. But one of the things I think we associate with

somebody who works in and I you know I'm sure that he would say these are not fucking sketches these are paintings but one of the things I think we associate with someone who will make one tracks one minute one track six minutes and here's the song that has a voicemail and then it kind of doesn't end that's like a prince of all thing or a Ryan Adams three records a year or guided by voices three records a year or someone who has like a much like more immediate faster production line that you are like, okay, I take it all in whole over the course of X amount of months or years.

And then you build the like 50 song Ryan Adams playlist. You're like, that's Ryan Adams. But with Frank, it's like there's just rumors. And then you get one thing that's, you know, people had to basically like bootleg to chop up into tracks. And another thing that we're still, it's so gauzy and we're trying to get our heads around. It's not like, oh, there's a Frank Ocean album every nine months.

I just noticed there's a conversation that we have often now. on our show when major artist release records where I can there's no more get off my lawn thing than I will ever say which is basically when I'm whether I say it directly or I try to like dance around it where I'm like show me the hits and you mentioned that's that's the same thing we talk about with TV where you're just like I don't have time to wait for you to get good yeah or I mean you know it's like you could you know like Picasso could paint a still life before he painted something before he painted Wernica right but don't you think Channel Orange is still life Deohead did creep before they did, and they had let down before they did idiotic.

But isn't thinking about you as still life, though? I don't know. I mean, I don't, I wanted more of, I wanted not four years between records. I wanted to see the progress. I wanted to see him make the hits before he retreated. And, but we, you know, we've talked about this with like, with Kendrick Lamar too. And the thing that he does where he makes, he gives the pop hits to other people or makes appearances, but then his records are very introspective and thinky.

The real, I think at this moment, the true geniuses are the ones who make their own music to their own muse and then move the culture in that direction. Then through sheer force of will or talent or stubbornness bend to the whole culture. So if the more time we spend with this record and the more time other people making music spend with this record and it influences them, then I will be very excited to be proven completely wrong in this first day. Which I haven't said it's bad. I just don't know. I don't, yeah, it's, that's what happens. We don't know. We don't know, man.

We could all be happening inside our head. We don't know, dough. What about Ocean Doe? All right, we'll be back this week or later this week. Solo dough. Maybe Thursday, perhaps. I think Thursday's going to be a tough one. Thursday Friday?

Thursday Friday-ish talk Animal Kingdom Halt and Catch Fire on the last most recent episode of Mr. Robot. But here's the thing. We can just do it now. Anytime you want, man, I'm available. We can just roll here. I think Tate is kind of in a orange jumps you right now. Tate is always available.

All right. Tate thinks he's staying at his mother's house. Give me a live. Great job, Branski. Great job, Britsky! I want to say thanks to our sponsor, Siso, brought to you by Take My Wife exclusively on CISO. Yep, that's right. S EESO.com. It's ad-free streaming comedy with new originals, quotable classics, late night, and stand-up specials. Take My Wife stars real-life comedians and real-life wives, Carmen Esposito, and Ria Butcher. Both of them you may know-no from their stand-up podcast, put your hands together,

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