The Watch - Ep. 69: 'The Night Of' and a VMA Recap

Episode Date: August 29, 2016

Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald offer their differing thoughts on the 'Night Of' season finale (2:00). Then, the two give their takes on the VMAs, including the performances (and nonperformances) by Drake, Taylor Swift, and Chance the Rapper (26:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, the crown tattoo was a great idea. It's Andy Greenwald! To be fair, I got it. The king stays the king! I got it on the producer's side, so Isabella can see it, which I think means she respects me.

me more. Yeah. How are you doing, man? I'm okay. I'm okay. A lot of content last night from you guys, from the culture machine. From women.com? Yeah, man. From, uh, the political, political sphere. A lot to process today. Was there a lot of political sphere commentary? I thought you wanted to do a hot weiner pod. Oh, no. I don't want to, I don't want to delve into that necessarily. That's fine. I want to see the documentary even more, though, now. I want to talk about the night of too. I want to talk about the night too. I do think, because as we're pulling back the curtain, I think people should know that we've now created a, speaking of the night of and call of the while, there's kind of a Jack London situation on the watch podcast now because now it's like whichever old wolf gets to the studio first

gets to sit in this seat yeah that's why i'm a little throat off i'm back into i know you look back under the spotlight your body language right now is a little bit like you're hunted how does that feel um night have came to a conclusion last night yes hour and 45 minute episode about right hour 37 it was like yeah um it was a long episode it was long and i feel a like the general consensus was, that was weird. Is that what we do now? That was a weird. We just take consensus?

Well, no, I'm trying to just base it off of whether or not I feel like people were satisfied with the end of the show. Do you want to know if I was? That's exactly why you're here. I was super satisfied. Okay. I was really surprised how satisfied I was. I thought it was great. I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed the whole length and breath of this episode is very long. And here's my take on this. When we were talking about the season as it was going along, we both were coming at it from a very particular point of view, which is, which was kind of, we were being realists. We were saying all of the ambition and artistic faints that we saw in the beginning naturally become, as you put it, a game of clue. Mysteries, you know, these things start very, I'll say ambitiously, but ultimately they become whodunit or an episode of Law & Order. And we were fine with that, because that is the. method that we've seen through a lot of British crime shows. And I think we were okay with it.

And we were mostly, I went into this assuming I would be a little bit disappointed with the reveal, because I assumed we were headed towards a reveal. Yeah. And that would be that. Because, you know, one of the things that I, we certainly talk about on the show, and one of the things that I am constantly fascinated by, and even write about a little bit in things such as the book that you're always reminding me to finish, is that the long, fair point.

the long arc of television shows bends towards them becoming television shows. Yeah, of course. What I mean is, and that's not, I usually say that as a good thing. Like, you know, the pilots of shows are when people have big dreams, big questions, you take great aesthetic risks, but ultimately TV sort of normalizes. You have to have, and we're talking about this, and we've been talking about Mr. Robot. There are TV rules for a reason. Because you have to sustain something over long term.

Things have questions inevitably have to be answered. Things become a little formulaic because if we're being honest, we like formula. We find formula comforting and worthy of return. turning to week after week. And so that was kind of the dynamic that I was prepared to bring to the night of because I thought that's where you were headed. And what really surprised me is that it didn't really do that. In the end, they pulled up the nose of the airplane, so to speak, and pointed back up towards the bright sun. It was artistic again at the end and a little bit ambiguous, and it was a much richer project because of it. There are very few, even contained

limited series that when you reach the end, make me feel even better about the journey we went on. And this did that for me because it ended with these moments of art, of artistry, of ambiguity, and of emotion that wasn't necessarily resolution, but we settled into it and we stayed there. I think that you're on to something there. I mean, obviously, we've been talking for a lot of the weeks that the show has been on about the show's relationship to what we consider traditional crime fiction, whether it's novels, but specifically the TV shows like you're talking about Law and Order. and I think that we had sort of imagined it as a like a slightly like mischievous relationship or perhaps a formally inventive relationship.

I heard these two old hands, Steve, Steve's alien, one of like Hollywood's most respected and sought after screenwriters. Richard Price, one of the great crime fiction authors of the last like 30 years basically, and that they would kind of toy around with some conventions, but at the end of the day create an incredibly satisfying thing. And I know that they started this project several years ago before things like serial and making a murderer. And even a true detective season one became these sensations where people felt like the water cooler conversation about these products were about like who done it. I'm going to investigate this myself basically. Even if it's a piece of fiction, I'm going to piece together screenshots and like look at clues. And then in the last two episodes, I definitely. feel like they turned around and they were like no the show's not about crime shows it's about

people who watch crime shows and i i think that's it was it was amazing like i think when i realized what was happening in the last 15 minutes of that show yes i was like this has been basically like a critique of me you know because i am somebody who loves crime shows i am somebody who's like frankly quite obsessed with you know the the morality and the the what it says about our like us as a society and the kind of red meat who done it stuff. So in that sense that you were hungry for resolution and surprise and the, and the ticking of the boxes that give us satisfaction when we watch crime shows? Yeah, I think that what happened was it started for me in episode seven in the beginning.

The first scene after the credits is Detective Box comes across a black woman who's been murdered. Yes. There is a, it's a throwaway scene where he just says, how come this is a very, a very similar. murder to Andrea Cornish where are all the news trucks and the other detective is just like this is just a typical homicide uptown this isn't the Upper West Side this is right he was just kind of like welcome you know he's like you know why and that's it it leaves it and then it goes forward and then at the end of the episode box realizes oh I've I think I'm wrong I think it I think it might be somebody else who committed the Andrea Cornish murder and you're like oh noz is gonna this is great we have like a

like a sliver of light and he then gnaz is the accomplice in another murder and that murder is shot in a way and presented in a way that is easily the most viscerally gripping. The end of last week's episode. The end of last week's episode. And then I just started thinking about all the little things that they've been

peppering throughout this series. Everybody's always watching a crime show. Everybody's always watching the first 48 or a Judge Judy kind of show or something like that. People are commentating on what their character typically would do. They're talking about, like, you know, you don't have to be right. You just have to convince them that they are wrong. How about all the stuff in the witness stand last night when people kept turning to the judge being like,

I can do that right? That's not right, right. Can I say Fifth Amendment? Because they've been watching enough crime shows to know the role they can and can't play. And then what happens when Helen is cross-examining, Naz? And she, first of all, holy shit, that was an incredible scene. They cast these actors who are patient. Yeah.

And that often means that they're veteran actors, because they were. waiting for their chances to shine. And, you know, Michael K. Williams had very little to do in this episode, but what he did was brilliant. But in other episodes, he had a ton to do. Yeah. Genie Berlin, throughout the season, I was wondering, why did they cast her? She's such an odd presence.

She's such an... People have seen her in movies for years, but maybe not recently. It was for this. It was to get to this episode. And that's cross-examination scene. And the way she took her time and owned the screen, because she wasn't going anywhere, and she didn't have it anywhere else to be. No.

She was there for that scene. And what was she saying in that scene? She was saying, even if you didn't do it, you did it. Yes. Well, think about the other moment. I thought you were about to say this, the sliver of light for Nas. It appears in the previous episode, but this is the week where box finds the guy who probably did it. Goes to...

What are you waiting when you put fucking cuffs on you? Were you like, were you waiting when you put cuffs on you? Get the fuck out of here. And then goes to the DA, goes to Helen. And it's like, I think this is the other guy. And she looks at it. And she looks at the evidence. Oh, in that face she makes.

And she's like, I think we got more on the kid. Right. Her job is the close cases. She's also like, it's the face you make when you realize you've driven 45 miles the wrong way on the highway. It's also the face you make when you realize you've been doing this for 40 years and you have a pair of tennis shoes under the table ready to put on the second you can take off your pumps. Right. And that scene alone, like I know we sort of got away from belts and mini belts and I think Stranger Things held it for the summer. But a tiny little doll belt for the show for that moment. That was an incredible detail

And the kind of detail We championed in the first two episodes I didn't think there would be room for At the end of the season. But all these things about I think that this show was just basically about challenging our ideas about what

What mysteries are And what these murders and crimes are And there's been a lot of really legitimate criticism of the show for basically giving Andrea Cornish No agency in this show That Well and Chandra got

Fucking run up the river Yeah no and But everybody is At the end of the day At the end of the show, John, everybody is basically at the same place or worse off than they were when the show started. But let's think about specifically the Chandra example. You know, Stone and Glenn Headley's character's name, who turns out to be just the coldest, coldest ice cube in the tray. Alice, I think it's the character's name.

They keep berating her for being young and for being inexperienced. And she, like many young inexperienced people, wants to prove that she is not. But you can't prove that you're not inexperienced. And the biggest mistake she makes is she confuses not guilty with innocent. Specifically, she doesn't think Nas killed Andrea. And I think for many of us in the audience, unless those of us who are expecting a kind of, you know, a clever twist, thought he didn't do it. But the brilliance of the closing statement by John Stone is that he lists the crimes they did commit. So she thinks that he's innocent of this crime and therefore he is some sort of hero or some sort of good guy.

who has been railroaded, and as we've learned of these last few episodes, he's not exactly that. But he even in that closing state, it's the same thing. So she's saying that Helen says to Nas during her cross-examination, even if you didn't do it, you did that. You let her die. And Stone says, in his closing argument, what's reasonable doubt?

It's just what you think. And we imagine these things because they're attached to these documents like the Constitution to be absolutely permanent or... Inviable. Yeah, exactly. And they're not. And it's that idea that everything that matters is redacted because it's inside somebody's head.

Yeah. And it's inside our heads that we have these ideas of guilt and innocence and this and that and justice. Sure, what was justice? I mean, this guy's addicted to painkillers or heroin or whatever it is, and he's smoking alone by himself. His relationship with his family is destroyed. His future is potentially destroyed.

The best case scenario is to take John Stone's advice, which is to say, fuck it, and then maybe end up in 30 or 40 years not wearing shoes. I mean, that's not really working out that great for him either. I think we talk about the fact that it left us with ambiguity. I think one of the more amazing things pulled off by this show that really elevated it, the whole series in my mind, was the way that Price and Zalien pulled off this finale because they did. there was one suspect left. First of all, we know from crime fiction and from television shows that if they were going to pin the blame on someone else, it had to have been someone we had met by now. And that's one of the hardest things to do in any kind of TV show.

I didn't think about the financial advisor. I didn't see that coming. To his credit, Jason Gallagher, one of our buddy who works for the ringer, he had said on Friday, he's like, it's the accountant. I just want everybody to know. Did he mail that to himself in a stamped letter? He did send it to me. I have Slack. That's impressive.

So I didn't see that coming. I'm no Jason Gallagher. But maybe it's because I'm not invited. I'm not on Slack with you guys. I think that's the real issue here. You would do great on Slack. I think I could really crush on Slack. I think I really could.

I got some more Speedman takes in the Hopper. So I didn't see that coming, but it was dealt with so deftly to the point where we get it, we get just enough of it. But it doesn't become the story of the last episode. It is not a who-done-it. It never was. but we had that little bit of that satisfaction. I think that was pretty impressive.

Similarly, we were talking about patience of these performances and these actors, like Bill Camp, a little bit on the sidelines for a couple weeks, just lurking, but with this incredible presence, some of his best work to date in this episode, wearing that ridiculous golf outfit, getting to flex one last time with the whiskey in the accountant. And seeing the killer everywhere he looked because it was just the back of somebody's head

and just like he had to know. And then he cracked his last case, but everyone in the office tells him to get out. And at the end, he's a schlub wearing an NYU security jacket because he just needs another job. And it's almost as if him caring makes that other detective feel like you're saying I'm a bad detective because you're caring.

Because you care too much. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit just to kind of drive home the point I'm making here about the cat at the end, which was a very odd and I think pointed way of ending the series, right? Because the cat had, and the cat had become kind of like this viral sensation.

Or just like a fan favorite, I think, of people who just been like, is he going to, like, what's going to happen to the cat? Sir Pounce has to work in the off season. Yeah. But that extended shot of Stone's apartment. Yeah. Where you're like waiting and you're waiting

and is what's happening and is this just going to be a slow fade out on this guy's tattered life and then the cat runs across the last second in it. I'm sure lots of people, I had no first hand, we're like, oh, thank God. Thank God the cat's still alive after the ASPCA ad and after everything. But why do we, like, that's what we're caring about?

I think that was. You know what I mean? That's like at the end, like it's playing on how much we are open to manipulation. Yeah. Also, I think it was in its harshest light, which is a light I like very much. You know, it was a timely reminder of something that I've seen floating around. the internet a lot recently, which is, you know, if Syrian refugees were puppies, people would care more. People get weirdly invested. I'm sorry, I said weirdly, I'm not a pet owner, but they get very

invested in animals much more than people. And we have seen, as you mentioned, Andrea Cornish, the other victim last week, we see these bodies, we see these characters who are either bad nor good, but are our protagonists, our avatars, just basically flipping through gory, grisly crime scene photos, like they're just on like flipbook on their iPad or whatever. and we care about the cat and that's what we care about and I like that it left us with a moment that for some viewers might be a ray of sunshine

or a ray of hope but I think for people more sunk into this type of storytelling this type of world I just felt like it was really confrontational I actually felt like at the end the show was quite confrontational about the audience

about our relationship to crime about our relationship to this world that we would prefer to experience through documentaries and reality shows and fictional shows, then actually grapple with... Yeah, and it didn't give us anything to latch on to, other than that, intentionally. If you think about

in less sure hands, this could have been a hero narrative about John Stone, coming off the sideline, proving himself after being disrespected, getting better, getting it together, but he didn't want to do the closing argument. He, and the end of this, he is no better or no worse. He's not rich. He's not famous.

He didn't, he's not Perry Mason. He's just sipping his, I don't know how many ath beer of the evening, taking a couple extra sips, watching bad TV before he used to go back out. Yeah. And it's the old lesson of Wire season three. It's people like Bunny and Stringer who try to change things or maybe get emotionally invested in the outcome of something like Chandra. Like, it's just, you get crushed by that.

You get chewed up and spit out. And what currency does he have? What is he rich with? He's rich with knowledge that, like, he's right when he tells Chandra that she's going to lose the, potentially, obviously he didn't lose the case, but that she's essentially going to lose the case for him by calling Nas. And it would be a dreadful mistake. Yeah. And Nas is like, yeah, do that.

But he's right, that it was a mistake. But what does he get out of that? Very little. I do have to say, the only real disappointment I had last night was the callous treatment of Dr. Yee. I think that John Stone made a serious mistake, first of all, going to Canal Street. because I have a lady out in Bushwick who will get you some stuff. So now all of a sudden it's like we're going to go back and we're going to revise how it's.

It's not Chinese herbs. It's Dr. Yi himself. You don't think maybe it was like he was having an emotional reaction to having his emotional balance was gone with the cat? I would say he was not also using the product correctly in that moment. In the sense he was inhaling it without water. Yeah. Without water part. Actually, I was told that's preferable, but it's not exactly pleasant.

It's a little gritty texture. I don't. I don't. I mix it with it. water, you know. But I think that he was, he, in a frantic moment, he was reaching for a lot of different lifelines. Yeah. And, you know, Chris, I don't know if we should go in this direction, but I think a lot of medicine, Eastern and Western, is psychological. And it's really about your mind state and what you believe. Really interesting look from you today. So, pet ownership is,

is a, is a collective why? Pet ownership is a crutch. And medicine is basically psychosomatic. I mean, I just feel like there's a healthy balance between the two traditions. Okay. I think things are at their best when they're balanced. Like, you can like it. Between the two traditions or between just like grinning and bearing? No, between Eastern medicine and Western medicine. I think similarly between liking animals and valuing the fact that we are humans and that, you know, we're in the human race. I'm just saying.

RIP, your mentions. I'm just saying. I think a healthy balance is important in all things, including television seasons. And I think that that's why I'm very happy that this wrapped up. A couple final questions for you about the show. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. Now that the season is over, I opened up my own flipbook of Grizzly Crime Scene photos,

aka... I think of a herb store. Well, do you want on my long-term plan out here in California? People are more amenable to my way, thinking, I think. You're going to get a dumpling place going in the basement, too? A dumpling place and... First of all, very different traditions, Chris. Both Eastern.

I know. No, I opened up Wikipedia, and I looked at Criminal Justice. this season one, which is the show this was based on. Yeah, so spoilers, I guess, I know what you're going to say here, but I just don't because anybody's like, I got to watch Criminal Justice now. One, the god Ben Wischaw was the star. Yeah. I did not know that.

And your man, David Harewood was in it. A lot of our men and women were in it. CIA, because there are only... Homeland CIA Chief. There are only 17 actors in the United Kingdom. It's crazy. But first of all, that makes me want to see it because this dude is a dude from London Spies, from the James Bond movies.

He's a fantastic actor, and I would love to have seen what he was doing with it. Starting in the Crucible on Broadway on the Great White Way right now? I don't know. Where is that? Is that near here? But what was interesting to read about it was that it seems, it seems, people have watched, if you watch any of it? I don't know.

It strikes me as very, very less, it strikes me as very different project than this one. It seems more of a piece with the kind of, hmm, scratch your chin and grab your couch crime procedures like Broadchurch that we were talking about. It was only five episodes. it did not seem to, and again, I could be wrong, come from the same, like, hard-boiled tradition that Richard Price comes from. It did not seem to play with issues of race and politics the way this one did. I guess what I'm saying is it seemed a lot less interesting than this. And I wonder if that's why.

There's a very unique credit on this show because it was adapted. It was based on something else. Peter Moffitt, right? Peter Moffitt, yeah, Peter. But the credits for this show for the night have said, created by Steve's Alien. Richard Price. The acrobatics to get that. I haven't seen criminal justice.

David Shoemaker was saying that he watched it and he was struck by the similarities actually. So I'd be interested to check it out. It does seem like a couple things overlap, including the Chandra stuff. Oh, okay. But it seems to be a little bit more. At least, you know, the bards of Wikipedia might, you know, might not have captured the exact emotional tenor of the show.

You should, as a just a side project, be like a Wikipedia entry policy. just go through and add a little bit of flair. What makes you think I haven't done that? Should we give a shout out to our friend out here, Brian, whose greatest claim to fame was editing the Property Brothers Wikipedia every week to make it so that the two Property Brothers were just brothers named Jonathan and Richard Property or whatever? And he's now banned from Wikipedia for that. Someone did that?

He was unemployed for a while, I think. That was what he was doing. Holy shit. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. What a bit. Last thing, I want to ask you about it, do you want to ask you about it? do you want a season two?

And if you did, in what framework would it take? Would it be a John Stone takes on another case framework, or would it be a two-detective? I don't want to know what happens to these people. Neither. Nope. I think that would be a real, like, step backwards. I think the whole point of how this ends is to really, like, throw the ball back to the viewer

and be like, look what happens. You like, see, like, it's getting... And we don't do that anymore. I know. We don't do that. anymore. Here's the thing. Take advantage of the fact that there's no more tape. I was very gratified to hear the voice on HBO say and now the series finale of Night of. Look, the point of Nas as a fictional creation is so that he would end there. Yeah. The place his life

essentially did end. Yeah, I love the ambiguity of looking over the water. Maybe he gets clean and he's okay and he and his family move out of that neighborhood or that house or whatever and things work out. People probably not. Generally the way storytelling has gone, We've gotten away from the fact that one of the most powerful things you can do is walk away. You leave us with something. Yeah. And certainly on TV, that's not as common. And so I appreciate that.

I think that we were getting a bunch of tweets this week being like, was this supposed to be true detective season three? But the brand was tarnished or whatever because it felt like. Yeah. But to that point, you know, I think that HBO is clearly very much in the business of highbrow crime procedures and investing in people. Anybody who's seen after the Thrones knows that's the case. Exactly. Thank you for saying what I felt too modest to say. But, you know, any network that is investing in Richard Price to this degree or Dennis

Lehane or these other characters, you know, or the people who are working on David Simon and Pelicanos, they're working on the Deuce. And Price. That's what they're in Price is on the writing staff for that, too. And Megan Abbott is on the staff for that show. This is what HBO is, they do this stuff. Yeah. So whether it's all one thing or an anthology series is sort of beyond, it's not the point.

All I'm saying is sorry, regardless of whether there is a The Night of Season 2, there will be more than Night of's. Yes, I think that they, whether or not, Aesalian has said that he thinks that it could be something that gets replicated. But I think that what we're being sort of taught by these limited series is that people do envision these things as eight episodes. Broadchurch should have been just the few episodes of the first season. Yeah. I mean, it's true detective. people, there were parts of the second season that were like cool, but I think that as an eight-episode thing,

True Detective was just, I really liked it. I didn't need that to feel like. Do you want to know how I felt about it? Do you have any links you could send me about? There's a website, Twitter.com. Okay. Slaggy Andy Craneh. I didn't say it. You said it.

Let's take a quick break. We'll come back to talk about the VMAs and that we'll take off. Find tickets online for sports and concerts has been a confusing process for a long time. It's always been hard to find. the best deal for that game or show you want to go to, and none of those older ticket sites want to change that. But Seat Geek is different. They've come along and created an amazing app and website that makes it easier than ever for fans

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music awards. Big fan, right? Yeah, yeah. No. No? Not in like a bad way, but it's just, it's not my bag. Was it our bag? It was for a while, right? Like even in the Arsenio years? No. Like 20 years ago? I don't like award shows. Wow, this is taking a turn. No, I just don't. I mean, I just think that there are now a spectacle. I mean, now. Because they used to have integrity. I'm not. They don't have a,

this is sort of a bad way to start like a podcast segment. It's just, it's not really like, I don't ever really enjoy myself watching an award show. I always, I find that I'm just like watching a car crash. There were a couple years of the VMA, because the VMAs are so completely divorced from any cultural thing that people care about,

like videos, I mean, John Cameronica, our friend had a good piece in the time. last week saying videos are actually kind of ascendant again. They sort of matter, visual albums and et cetera, et cetera. But essentially, like, nobody watches a video of music awards to see, like, oh, you know, was the Dutch dude who directed the chain smoker's vid properly recognized for his work in the field?

Like MTV, spoiler alert, doesn't play music videos anymore. So that's not the point. But what was interesting about them for a couple years is they did seem like the annual temperature taking of a certain brand of pop culture. who's up, who's down, who's feuding, who's whatever, who matters and who can break through. That's a really good way of putting it. And that alone made them kind of interesting. I think, you know, Night Up was on last night, so I didn't do the deep dive that perhaps in my younger days is a cultural argonaut I had to. But I think we both paid attention a little bit.

We saw what was going on. Jason and the bloggernauts, you know what I'm saying? That's better trade. Say trademark Chris Ryan to have Jason Gallagher email you about. about that. I think the general consensus is this was kind of a tirefire,

but not even necessarily a enjoyable or noteworthy. Would you rather watch something that is boring, but very, like, well-produced? I mean, I think the VMAs

were very well-produced, but they were well-produced to create a certain kind of atmosphere, which is one in which anything can happen. Whereas, like, say, the Emmys and the Oscars are a little bit more buttoned up. But it feels like, I mean, that's because it's like four hours long.

You can't generate, you can't artificially generate viral moments. You simply cannot do that, right? And the VMAs at this point, that is essentially what they were trying to do. When they were like, we have invited Kanye to give him four minutes of time. What will he do? Well, we know what he's going to do. He's going to talk. If you give him the time, he's not going to be crazy.

Like, he's not going to surprise anyone. It takes away the element of surprise. You can't create that. And I think that the problem with last night in many ways was that they sold out the other half of what the show could have been so spectacularly in pursuit of those moments. So I had a couple questions about things that happened last night that I'm just going to hit you with. Can you confirm you have not seen these questions ahead of time? I have not seen the questions ahead of time. Can you confirm that you cannot remember the last time I prepared something in written text for our podcast?

This is a little bit unnerving. But go ahead. Is it unnerving because you have your back to the door? Well, because I'm just so used to having these be like kind of a groundling's yes-and kind of thing. This is still that. This is still that. I did very little prep work. Okay.

This is a not like the decamerin. But it's your favorite book. Chris. So one of the moments. Is that how it was pronounced? I always thought it was decamron. That's decamron. That's actually that, see, this is groundling stuff.

If this was after hours, if this was a re-up, we could have chased that rabbit down the rabbit hole. So there was this moment when Drake appeared to introduce Rihon. Yeah, yeah. Who was being awarded for being Rihanna. Love both those people. I do, mostly. And he, you know, basically was like, I love you.

I have loved you since you were 20, since I was 22. Yes. And this is in the wake of like them being supposedly a couple. Sure. And she basically, she basically like dabbed away from him. Like would not give him. He went in for the kiss and she was like, give me the jawbone kiss there. And also apparently mouthed.

that wasn't funny. Right. And he's like, I am madly in love with you. You are perfection. And she was like, you're short. Yes. Right. Yeah, yeah.

So I have a Drake question for you. Yeah. Do you think we secretly like, because we like Drake? Because we're short. Speak for yourself. I've got at least an inch and a half on you if I stand on my tippy toes. Do we secretly like Drake because we all know he's trying too hard, that he's not fooling anyone. Is that why we like him?

Because the whole like recent Drake thing where he's like, he's got. and all swole, you know, and he's carrying himself a certain way. And he's, like, sitting on top of the CN Tower in Toronto. And he's being so serious about making serious music. But he's a fucking cornball. Yeah. Like, he is the dude from DeGrassey. He is a suburban Jewish kid that I can relate to.

So do we like him for that reason? So when he does stuff like that, a lot of people are like, he caught an L. But actually, that is more emotionally vulnerable than when he's like, hmm, you know, I just, I don't want to spend time fighting, but I've never had a girlfriend clearly. Like, you know what I mean? Like, when he's just like, oh, I'm kind of. So you're more interested in him because he does the like fake Lloyd Dobler bit to Rihanna? I don't think, no, I'm not saying I'm more interesting, but I'm saying is this.

A lot of the coverage of Drake is that he's sensitive, right? He's so sensitive. He's like, oh, I'm so conflicted at the strip club. But really he's sensitive because he's clearly a grade A goober. Right. And maybe that's why we and many people like him. But so that's question one. And question two is, does he know that?

He, I think, I am starting to think that they all know. everything. I am starting to think that everybody is totally aware of what they're doing and how it looks and how it's being perceived. And I think it's easier or probably a little less crazy making to assume that and be surprised when somebody's like, oh yeah, Taylor Swift has just no idea of what's going to happen next. It's like, no. Like they all know, Drake knows, like he's on Instagram.

He's on Twitter. He knows what people are saying about him. It's all chess moving. Yeah, I think that basically what it is. is is that he probably thought that may I don't know what the state of his relationship Rihanna is but like if she if Drake and Rihanna kissed that night right on stage it becomes like this huge deal and if they don't kiss it becomes a huge deal so what's the law like what's the L to take there's no L I just think it was interesting that he did well I'm saying he seemed I mean

I think you're taking the more cynical and probably accurate read on that but it would have been like if Drake just gave a very competent. and warm speech about Rihanna and then got out of the way, nobody would be talking about Drake today. I guess what I'm saying is what part of Drake do you find most compelling or charming? Literally the like literally the music. Right. But I'm also like way too old to care about the meme part.

Yeah, I don't care about that either. I just mean, and I mean this in the best way possible, I think one of the reasons why I like him and I almost, I feel like it came to terms of this last night, is that he is such a poser. Yes. And I mean that in a good way. Oh, yeah. Because he is, he's.

He tries. He tries really, really hard. He's a cultural chameleon. And one of the reasons why he's had this crazy run of success this year is because he brilliantly was like, I'm going to reinvent myself as this global. He's a lot like Taylor in that way. This globalist pop superstar. I'm going to pull together these threads that are happening not just in this country,

not just in Canada, but like all over the world. And make a song like one dance, which is probably the number one song in every country in the world. So when he then he's like flexing next to Khaled or Rick Ross, I'm like, that's awesome that that dude can do that. And of course, it would all go away if he stopped selling. records. But okay, all right, that was question number one. Okay. How are we doing so far?

We're doing great. Is not showing up, you mentioned her, so I'm going to this question next. Is not showing up last night the smartest thing Taylor Swift's ever done in her career? Yes. Did you see that she was apparently on jury duty? Yes. Yes. Not only was she on jury duty for what I believe was Nause's trial. Can you imagine if she stood up there like, how's my jury doing? Yeah. Taylor Swift stood up. It was like, funny story. not only was she doing jury duty, she was like patiently taking selfies with everyone else during voir dire, which I don't think you're supposed to do.

Nope. That's cool. It's a good way to get yourself off a jury. Aren't you supposed to just, they literally say like don't use electronic devices. But I think they also say like don't be a global superstar who will influence everyone's behavior in this courtroom. What were the lawyers just like cool, Taylor Swift? Was she waiting to get jury assigned or was she actually on a jury? I haven't spent that much time on Tennessee legal blogs recently.

Right, because you're too busy rewriting Wikipedia pages about criminal justice. I'm too busy writing questions to prepare for our podcast. But, you know, speaking of performative, performed ELs that I don't care about too much, Taylor Swift took one, I would say, right, recently. With the Calvin Harris stuff, and then the Hiddle Swift stuff, which just seems too phony for words, even for someone who is generally pretty phony. Not showing up, though, is why she's a genius, I think. Because I think she saw going in that's the shit show.

She saw going in that no one is going to win on Beyonce's night. You cannot lose if you do not play. I think that's right. Is that something you said on After the Thrones? No, it's something. Because I don't listen to most of that. It's another wire quote. I'm really turning into an old white man.

I'm just like, remember that part on the wire? No, then next week you're like, you know, season two was the best season of the wire. That's the oldest, whitest opinion there is. Okay. Agree. Taylor Swift not going is the right move. There is nothing she could have done. We have the data.

There's no sample size that needs to be bigger. she would have just fucked it up. Okay, so the follow-up question to that, let's bear with me here, is showing up and just laughing and having a good time and dressing like a Super Mario brother the smartest thing,

chance the rapper could have done because he is this bright spark of creativity and everyone feels wonderfully about him and everyone's excited to see him and he became a meme himself and Beyonce hugged him, but he didn't contribute. He was basically there.

Like when I watched the parts of the show that I watched, which was not all of the parts, I was like, you dumb-dums, you have a real star there, and he's not even on stage, and he kind of comes out looking like a million dollars for it. Yeah,

I think that actually we are kind of hitting a point with Beyonce where you just shouldn't try. Yeah. Especially when it comes to, like, putting on a live performance. Because if she's going to get 25 minutes and a blank canvas, Brittany got Xed out by doing that. Like, that is one thing that was like pretty obvious

was that, like, they had there was obviously i would imagine like separate paths of negotiation about who would be there and who would perform and stuff like that sure and i think everybody probably like likes brittany but it was like that was a tough look for her to to go on after that yeah that is to perform a song nobody knew and to perform a song with g easy first of all i just want to who the fuck is jee i have never i feel pretty lucky that i don't know what a g easy is i don't know what a 21 pilot is either i'm cool with these decisions i've made in my life yeah but i felt bad about that i mean i don't understand, I still think I'm missing something with the Britney, because the effect, the affection,

the Britney affection now seems, she seems like she's in the perfect place, because she's Vegas, and the affection for her seems very vagus. It is, people have this love, this protective, fierce love for her, because she got chewed up and spit out by this awful celebrity machine, no doubt. But the affection for her now seems purely camp. Not that she didn't have good songs, but they, but people love her because she's been through the ringer. no shout out to your website

but do you know what I mean like very little of it if it ever was is about like I can't wait to hear that new Britney banger or I've always loved her songs and her artistic uvra so I think she's fine like she's in the right place so to bring her back into the Lions Den

in that way did not seem fair I think that it's this is why I think Beyonce is not only is she a unique artist but she's sort of unique as a cultural icon is because she is you cannot really prepare for that no so i'm sure given brittany's longstanding her standing as a long-running artist that this the ramp up to this album rollout and these singles or whatever has been like pretty well considered but just like everybody

else whose record came out around lemonade or anybody else who tried to do anything around that and anyone else who was trying to perform last night tellingly conier did not perform that that even though he brought out San Pablo, like the tour, is by all accounts awesome. Like his live his live show right now is very, very dope. You're keying up exactly what I wanted to ask. So,

the, I feel like for what they were trying to, what MTV wanted for this evening to pull off moments that they wanted to create, artist needs to be able to do, a musician needs to be able to hit three different points

on the, I was going to say quadrants, that's bad math. three different points on the triangle. Yeah, sure. You need to be able to bring spectacle, artistry, and surprise. I think there are only two artists, contemporary artists, and I want to know if you think of anyone else,

who can do that consistently. It's Beyonce and Kanye. Now, I'm not even saying that because obviously we are big stands for both of them. I think that you, I would suggest you could make it a quadrant because I think that the one thing that you have to have going into spectacle,

artistry surprise, is just, um, something that people are already engaged with because I don't feel like we live in a world right now where you can be like, unless you are, I mean, I guess Beyonce is a little bit different but unless you have an absolute hold,

I guess Kanye and Beyonce are the exceptions of the rule. You can't go out and perform a new song at an award show. Right. You can do a medley. Maybe Adele could do hello. What Kanye, like when you came out and did Love lockdown eight years ago, now. And run away.

He does new songs because he brings all those things and people are so excited to see him do it. The one, I think the most damning decision they made last night, and it really did surprise me, is they had no sense, this sounds like a very old white man thing to say too, but bear with me, because it's part of what we're arguing for. There were no tributes to David Bowie or Prince. And both of those artists, not only were they huge parts of MTV, but they were artists who hit those three points or four points. every time they came out.

And I don't know why there wasn't someone basically at Viacom beginning the day those people passed away trying to create the ultimate tribute. Did they feel that that's for the Grammys is what I'm saying? Maybe, but they did. I mean, I think that MTV has done quite a bit to like celebrate. Oh, MTV did. Yeah. And the company did.

I mean, the people who work at the VMAs, why didn't someone have a desk being like, who can I get to contribute to this that would be meaningful and surprising? And thus, we could create a moment. Or was that two Grammys, you know what I mean, in the sense that Grammys look backward? Because the other thing about this show, it didn't look, that surprised me, it didn't look backwards, but also didn't look forward at all. And my final question for you. And this came from my previous question, which I scrapped when I was workshopping the questions. Rob Sheffield wrote his usual annual great piece about reviewing the VMAs for Rolling Stone.

And he mentioned that this year was noteworthy that there wasn't even a 21 pilot. There wasn't even the honorary rock slot. There was no rock band at all. And so the first question is like, oh, is rock dead? It's like fucking obviously. But the real question is, is there any subculture left for a show like this to strip mine? Because I'm not saying like the old days were better. But I am saying that there used to be, I did think there were times when the MTV would use this stage and platform to grab something that was bubbling and basically turn on the tap.

And sometimes that was cheesy, like the year, quote, unquote, Rock was back and they had the hives and the vines and the strokes playing. Yeah. You know, there was the year that they invited Dashboard Confessional to come when Emo was popping off. It was weird to me that the quote unquote unknown artists who were invited to the party were like G. Easy or chain smokers who are completely faceless pop superstars. They also have huge hits.

Yeah. First of all, I ride for the chain smokers. Those songs are fucking dope. But I don't want to see them on the award show, frankly. And when they were like, Halsey, I guess, because maybe Jay Jamie Iveen, like, push the button and said, like, you really have to try to make this person the thing? Right. So, but instead of looking at it, like, cynically, like, are they missing things that are popping off on Vine or whatever?

Or band camp or God knows what? Is that even a relevant question to ask in 2016? No, I think MTV, which was incredibly important to generations of people when we were probably in high school in terms of turning us on to new music, probably made that pivot around TRL to become. the conduit of pop music. And whatever pop music means at that moment. But when we're talking about the idea of an event that's really just like a platform for feuds and alliances and viral moments and stuff like that, that's like, in a lot of ways it does exactly what it says it's going to do, where it is, this is where pop meets up

to kind of go pop and like burst. I would say, I would take that a step further and say that the TRL moment. So like, I don't eat arcade fire to play there or whatever the next archa. Okay, fire is going to be. I guess you're right. But it's a decision not to become the conduit for pop, it's the conduit for celebrity, which falls closely behind.

Right. And that's really what that award show is in the business of being. And I want to be clear because before that you were right. I didn't mean to be that glib because MTV and MTV News and all these other aspects of the company are doing music coverage and doing great, great things. Yeah. I mean, specifically the VMAs as this annual celebration of this.

But I just think it's like it's weird. I think it's because. we have such distinctive memories of finding out about, I mean, I didn't know who the pixies were until I saw Frank Black video on MTV probably, you know, when I was in high school. And that is sort of what,

that idea of it being something that is revealing emerging culture is just really tough for them to compete with other things out there. I guess so. I guess what I want. And the music video is not the delivery system through which we find that stuff out. But I guess it's hard not to go back to the hobby horse that we always like to ride, which is, I wish there was a bench of bands who are ready for that stage.

Rock bands specifically? I often think that way, but it doesn't have to be. I mean, Chance. Chance is the one that I was thinking of. I think Chance is the most exciting, the most optimistic, the biggest superstar. What's funny about this? And he could own that stage. I think you're right.

And Chance is amazing. But this was an argument or a conversation I feel like used to happen a lot when we both wrote or worked for Spin Magazine a long time ago, which, you know, like even in the beginning of the 2000s, where it would be this idea about when someone was ready for this kind of amplification that would come with being in spin or, you know, and a lot of there were a lot of things that went into that. But in some ways, wouldn't have been, it was great to see chance there. Would it have been cooler to see Vince Staples perform? Would it have been riskier to see like schoolboy NYG play? I mean, like, they don't, it would have been awesome. But like that's the kind of thing.

that wouldn't make any headway the way chance being like, I'm here and I'm so excited to be your designer being like, I'm here and I don't have a shirt on. You're right. I mean, we're also at a point where there was a moment in terms of cultural ubiquity where MTV was MTV and the VMAs were the VMAs. And it almost didn't matter what they did because the ratings were going to be what they were. So they could have said someone in the C suite of that company could have been like, Vince Staples and YG representing the West Coat and Schoolboy, like, we're going to

do a segment. Or Yadi and Lulis Uvert. We're going to do like a regional hip-hop thing and we're going to basically do like the, you know, the Cifers, the BETT Award Cifers are going to do like the double XL freshman cover. We're just going to do that. But they cannot do that in this ecosystem because every moment they're losing viewers and every moment they're not getting enough viewers.

So what they need is Nikki Minaj to say something sideways to Miley Cyrus. Like that's what they need first and foremost and anything else trickles down from that. So that's more of a comment on the larger media landscape than the show. show itself. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think we got that all taken care. I think we're done with the larger media landscape. I can't tell you how nice it is to see you prepared. It's just like, it was good. You know, we're cutting down on the, on the exasperated size when I start talking. That's good. I just have to keep them inside because you're looking at me now. All right. We'll be back for re-up later this week. Sure. I mean, it's just a, I just hop on the 101.

All right. No big deal. Until then, thanks for joining us. Good job, Renski.