The Watch - Ep. 79: 'Transparent,' 'Fleabag,' and 'The Good Place'

Episode Date: September 26, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the transcendent return of 'Transparent,' Antoine Fuqua's magnificent new film (8:00), the evaporation of the fourth wall on 'Fleabag' (26:00), Netflix's 'Easy' (36:00), NBC's 'The Good Place' (45:00), and the professionalism of 'The Ranch' (53:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Jaguar, the art of performance. To learn more about the all-new Jaguar XE, visit jaguarUSA.com. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, he's been to Shelling back. It's Andy Greenwood!

Oh, shalom, my friend. Good to have you here. An extremely Jewish episode of The Watch today. Well, one and a half, yeah. Is that a crazy thing to say to start this episode? It's a little weird. But we're talking about transparent, so it's okay. One and a half Jews up in this piece.

Andy, it's great to see you. I want to talk before we get, we're going to talk about this sort of state of television comedy right now. This is our TV check-in week. We're going to check in with some new comedies today. We're going to check in with some new dramas on the re-up. Yep. If things feel a little weird, it's because, you know,

we went a whole week with just guests. I know. Like human barricades between us. Now it's just us in this very, very dark room. It's not that dark. It's not that dark, but it is warm. It is a warm. It's a different room.

We haven't recorded this before. So we're checking the vibe. Before we get into comedies, I do just want to tell our listeners a little bit about a small film that I saw this. It's an independent film, a film from the heart. It's called Magnificent Seven. I heard about that. I think that people probably, this is an interesting one where, like, critics have not been very into Magnificent 7.

I think fans have been. And I count myself as a fan in this case. Okay. So I'm a really big Westerns fan. I didn't know this about you. It's a very low bar to clear to make me enjoy a Western. You literally, before we started rolling, before Tatehead record, you said the words, Westworld is going to be dope. Yeah.

Is that because it's a Western? I mean, it's as hard. I think that, I think Westworld will be dope for other reasons. than that because I love Jonah Nolan. I love his work. No, but it helps. It certainly helps. I don't really need a lot. I need a town and a horse and some guns help. Okay. And Magnificent 7 not only clears the bar, it hurdles over that shit like Edwin Moses. Okay. So you have Denzel who the whole performance seems to be based around this idea that his look in this movie was that he was washed and he's like, no, you are washed because watch me ride side saddle and shoot guns

through buildings. Washed up? Like washed up? That's a phrase that kids use. Is that a phrase that kids use? Are they? Is that a mean? He's like, oh, you're washed, yeah.

I thought you meant like his whole look is that he's clean. No. No, no, no. He's got a very interesting mustache. Pratt is going full Jurassic. He's hamming it up. But he is just like turkey bacon compared to the God Peter Sarsgard. It's pure.

uncut Peruvian Flake Sarsgard. Two scenes, like three scenes, and he's just like, whatever direction he got, no one else was C-Ced on that email. So he's just like, I will be weird, creole Trump

and just shout about because you know who wrote this thing, right? Pizzolato. No. Yeah, he wrote a draft of it. It's Nick Pizzolato and somebody else was credited. No. So there's a whole opening speech about capitalism being close to godliness, and that's what gives him the right to just take over this valley

and take it away from homesteaders. Is he Sheriff Ray Velcro? Yeah, but everybody is, there's a lot of vibes like that. Nowhere else felt more so, if that makes any sense at all, than Ethan Hawke playing a dude named Good Night Robeshoe. That's just terrific. Who is a ex-Confederate sniper with PTSD who sees owls in his dreams. How is there room for that?

There are seven of them. Yeah, I know. How does one of them have a player card with that much info on? Oh, also, Vincent Donofrio has the weirdest accent choice in modern American movie history. In modern American history or modern American DeNafrio history. Yeah, I thought that became, was assumed. Yeah. So two thumbs up, two guns up, loved Magnificent Seven.

Now, you, one thing that we should say going into this, you are an avowed Fuqua head. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You Fuqua with Fuqua. Fuku that. You love that, dude. So what did he bring to this movie other than Denzel Washington? So he is obviously a Westerns fan. He knows that there is like a dopamine hit from a beautiful vista and a horse riding across the vista.

But Fuku can Fuku with some action movie scenes. So there's two set pieces in this movie when the Magnificent Seven first arrived in town and the final huge battle that are really, really, really good. really, really solid work. Here's my question about the movie, because, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm Mr. I'm Joe Popcorn here. I'm a little skeptical. Joe Popcorn's with me. That's true.

You're Anthony Lane. I am Sir Joseph Popcorn. I'm usually going to the Art House, but I'm considering this one. Okay. Because I love Goodnight Robes Show. I like what you're telling me. The trailer for this movie. Yes.

A lot of people got shot in it. A lot of guns. A lot of shooting. My concern, this isn't from some moral standpoint. point here. I would like to see a Western where it was also a Western, where it basically, is this a Western where people are like shooting six guns and it's a Western, or does it essentially just turn into like the NES game Contra? So your question is how much reloading happens? You know, that's well put. Yeah, that is, that's what I'm asking. I got to admit,

I don't think Fuku would with the facts when it comes to reloading. I definitely think there's a couple of times where Deadzel lets off like 27 shots before he's like, I need a bullet. You're saying, but they do, but there is like, ammo does come into play. You're saying Mr. Smith and Mr. Weston were not consultants on the film. No, no. And that didn't take you away from it. There isn't like a dude who's just like, yes, it's 1864, but I'm really into flame throwers. Which is 1870s.

So, you know, they had like slightly higher technology. Oh, it's antebellum. Yeah. I apologize. In fact, the Civil War, its shadow is cast over this entire film. Does the movie end with, with, you know, there's a, like a little line, everyone laughs, they high five, freeze frame, whatever, they run the credits. Is there a little, like, tag for the magnificent expanded universe for the magnificent eight? No.

Okay. I don't think so. I guess. You don't think so because you didn't stay? Well, no, I did stay. I would just say that, I just don't want to spoil anything. What about the part at the end when Thanos appears? And he's just like.

And Chris Pratt just throws on a dope mixed thing. of 1870s radio jams. And he's like, I'm ready to fight you, space guide. Yeah. Does that happen? No. You know what's nice, though? I feel like our listeners, Joe and Josephine Popcorn,

I think they'll be pretty psyched because it's nice to hear you happy. If I not been happy at these last couple weeks? You're pretty jazzed on this movie. Yeah, well, because here's the thing is I just like, I think that if there was like 20 westerns or 50 westerns made per year, this would be relatively unremarkable. But to see something that's just actually excellent. Executes the five things you want the baseline Western to do.

Yeah. It was great. Can I just do a little like Andy's Hollywood talk aside here? Come on. I'm trying to come up with a new bit since I don't go on airplanes anymore. Andy's Hollywood talk. This isn't, it's working title. This sounds like whatever the L.A. version of New York One would be.

Andy's Hollywood talk. Listen, do you remember there's a show called True Detective the second season? There's a moment when Ray Velcro. I wish they called the True Detective the second season. It's shocking to me that they didn't. Yeah. True Detective, the anticipated second season. When Ray Valcora walks into the apartment in Hollywood early on

and there's a dude in a bird mask who just shoots him, but like jokes on everyone, it's just blanks. And it was just like, you know, he was just being worn or something. I kind of had one of those. I had a little Hollywood brushback the other day. Over the weekend, I was picking up a little dinner with my family. And a guy came out to me and he was like, Is this going to be another one of those situations where you don't like people talking to you when you eat?

That's really true, but I wasn't eating yet, so it was okay. It was all above board. But a guy was like, hey, do you do you do TV reviews? And I was like, I dabble. Sure. It's been a while, though. The name's Good Night Roeb Shoehub. Critical Gun for hire.

And I was like, yeah, he's like, yeah, man. He's like, I like, I like listen to you when I disagree with you. He's like, but my buddy doesn't. I was like, oh word? He's like, my buddy, Nick Pizzolato. The God, the Ohio legend. And I was like, I guess he wouldn't. Let's just be enjoy your tendory chicken.

100% transparent here. Yeah. I like Nick Pitts-a-Lah. Oh, so you don't. But that was like a little threatening, right? That was a little like brushback. Yeah, I think so. I think that's a little weird.

It's a little weird to be like, guess who doesn't like you? Yeah. Also, pretty easy guess. Yeah. Pretty like top three I would have guessed. Not so much of the surprise. Boy, that's a cool. You put me on the spot.

What, like out here? Just in general. Um, the pre, your previous co-host on this show from season one. The watch. That dude. The dude in the bird mask. Yeah, the dude in the bird mask. I would be like, what do you think about loss?

And he'd be like, burr, burr. Dennis. Dennis hates me. And, um, and Doug from title. Because we really put him on blast. I know. And Nick Pizzolato. Those are the three.

The three who are out to get me, the magnificent three. Um, all right. Well, I look forward to seeing that movie maybe in 18 months. Yeah. I cannot wait for it to be on TNT all day long. Just forever. Yeah, it's really,

it was really satisfying. Is it better than 310 to Yuma? Um, I think so. Okay. Yeah. I was testing, I like that movie,

but I was also just testing your Western bona fides. But it's a great example of movies, a movie that I wish they just made more of. It's a shame they have to like just remake all these classics, although feel free. I would, there is, there is a Rio Bravo remake that is dying to be.

made right now. Oh, speaking of Mr. Hollywood talk. I'm just, it's just like, why can't we have a cool Western hangout movie? Of just, just dudes hanging out with horses? Yeah. I feel like you just want to go to like City Slickers Fantasy Camp. Like, you just want to get some dudes together and like Panhandle. Name

bad westerns. What, we're, like, bring Debbwood back. What are you guys doing? Just like, what's the problem? Wild Wild West. That was a bad western. Yeah, I guess so. See? I got answers. You do. Let's talk about comedy. Because we both love to laugh. love to laugh and to hack.

One of the major themes we've been hitting over the last couple of weeks, especially as we talked about Emmys and how malleable the shows are within these sort of fixed categories that the Emmys had was the expanding definition of what a comedy is. And

obviously this slate of fall shows, which is kind of fun, it does feel like it's a fall TV season right now. There's so much on to watch. So much to watch. So much is good. But from the order reaches a streaming television to the most traditional network slots, we are seeing experimentation. Yeah.

We are seeing people saying, like, what is, does an NBC 30-minute show really have to feel like every NBC 30-minute show? So with that in mind, we wanted to talk about a couple of these comedy with quotes, comedies. There are a couple we want to talk about, and we're going to, I think, discuss them and say whether we're in or out on them. We probably won't do too spoiler-heavy because we'd like people to watch them. That's the funny thing about these comedies now is that there actually is quite a bit of plot. So we want to talk about Flea Back on Amazon.

We want to talk about The Good Place on NBC. Yes. We're talking about Easy. Yes. On Netflix. The return of Transparent, Transparent Season 3 on Amazon. And then we each have a wild card that we're bringing to the party. You're bringing a show called The Range.

It's about Bruce Hornsby. The Ranch. Yeah. The Ranch. Which you wrote about. I did. On a website, The Ringer, last week. Bro Bible.

And I watched. I watched a. speechless in ABC comedy. Oh, okay. But we'll circle back around to that. Let's start with transparent. Because I feel like this is one of the four or five big shows on television right now. It is.

Big in terms of its importance, its critical appreciation. I don't know. Who knows what kind of numbers it gets? I still feel weirded out by reality, even though it's the third season at this point of this happening. But this is one of TV's major shows. It's certainly one of the most critically lauded and critically watched. It drives conversation within the,

industry and people are paying close attention. It wins Emmys. It won best director. Pretty much single-handedly established Amazon as like a home for creative talent. Absolutely. Absolutely true. And it's so weird to me that Amazon's just like, here's more. Here's five hours more.

Here you go. And it just all drops out there on a weekend. And it seems odd to try and find our place in the conversation. So we are going to revisit it because I think we only watched a couple episodes. Yeah, I think we often grapple with how to cover. It's representative of. of how difficult it is to talk about streaming shows in general, because you get this huge chunk of content.

It's like, we don't know when to talk about it. How many have you guys seen? How many have we seen? When do we start talking about? But I think with Transparent, we can talk about it generally enough. The thing about Transparent that also catches me off guard every time, is the third time, is that it is still tonally, unlike anything else on television.

It is still button pushing and challenging. Button pushing sounds like a little pejorative. I don't mean it that way. But for a show that I could not. wait to have back in my life. And I turned on the first episode. There are moments where I was like, oh, God, you know, it made me cringe where it's difficult to watch or it's uncomfortable to watch.

Or you see the characters that you've grown to know. I don't know if we love many of them. We love some of them, certainly. Behave in ways that they've been behaving for past seasons. And I'm covering my eyes. I'm like, I don't know if I can do this again right now. Right. But that said, it's already in this third season, once again, running right into areas of

these of the Pfefferman's lives into cultural issues and gender issues that I just didn't think a TV show would do. And this show just Kool-Aid mans it right down the door. We, Kate, when we first started this podcast, it was in an era of shows. The two of us are you in Dennis? You mean Dennis, but then when you, when you were brought on against my best wishes, we made it, we were starting this pot at a time when, um, the big shows on television, the sort of critically adored shows on television were almost reluctant.

participants in television. You would often have these, like, I think, what I'm thinking of is Breaking Bad and Mad Men, where it would seem like you had to drag it out of the creators kicking and screaming, and then they chopped it up into two half seasons. And Amazon comes back now three years in a row, like clockwork, and is remarkably consistent.

I guess what I wanted to ask you is, do you think Amazon, do you think transparent, has taken a leap at all? all because around this time I think when shows are really ardently watched at the time that they're on that's one thing sometimes when there is that late appreciation of a show like breaking bad and to some extent like madman you start to see well in the third season they know more people are watching the fourth season they know more people are watching and they've started to change the show so I was curious whether you thought there was a different is it a different

show now than it was when it started I think it's a really good question I don't know the right answer to that. I think you're right to immediately sort of frame the question in terms of the realities of production. And I'd love to be able to talk to someone at Amazon or Jill Soloway about this, but it does seem pretty clear that they knew what the, you know, Amazon does this whole charade with like voting on your pilots, whatever. They don't really pay attention to that. I mean, they look at it, but that doesn't matter. They want to be in business with the people they want to be in business with. As soon as Jill Soloway turned in the transparent pilot, which I still think is maybe the best pilot, maybe that Mr. Robot, the two best pilots of the last five

10 years. They knew what they were, they wanted more of it. And they knew they wanted to be in business with her and with the show. And so I have the sense that they just put her into production. Yeah. So, you know, as much as when the first season premiered, they were like, it's been renewed or guess what, season three. There's a green light.

Sure. In order to hit these deadlines, there is a perpetual green light on this show. When we talked to Sam Esmail last week, one thing that's pretty clear is that he's going to talk to USA about having a different production schedule, which might not mean, which might mean not making that July premiere date because he wants to make the show the way he wants to make it. Whatever Amazon has done or however Jill Soloway works, it's a machine. Right. They hit these spots.

They hit their marks or whatever. And they do it every year, and that has to affect things. On the flip side of it, you know, for people who read the really strong Jill Soloway feature in the New Yorker last year, this creative peak, I don't know, I don't want to call it a peak because she still could make even better work. But this creative explosion from her goes along with some very dramatic change. in her own life and her own perspective on gender and sexuality. And so it's interesting to, it's like when a, you know, when a musician hits those two, three, four albums where they're like, they're making the music, but they're also living their lives in a way that

complement each other. It does seem like she has no shortage of inspiration. You know, it's probably not fair to read too much into it, but at the same time, she's very public about that stuff. Yeah, and I also think that it sounds like, you know, that New York article and a lot of interviews since that have touched on the, like, pretty progressive, inclusive way that this show is made. And I do think that one thing I would say about it is that it seems like it is,

its perspective is widening. Not that it already had a very specific and unique and needed perspective anyway, but it's starting to open up a little bit more. I would also say it's a show that's uniquely situated or uniquely set up to respond to critics from all corners because if the first season was about Mora's transition and coming out that's not the end of a story. It's the beginning of the story. Right. In many ways. And so whatever criticism existed from the trans community or

basically criticism coming from the left of the show, the show is uniquely situated to respond to it because her journey was just beginning and her experiences could broaden and deepen and continue. So you know, you come back with this the season premiere season, three, and you see why Jeffrey Tambor won an Emmy, you're not quite sure why he won it for Best Comedy Performance, because this is just an unbelievable, dramatic performance on top of everything else. The first episode is completely focused on Mora, and it's a remarkable performance. It's a very discomforting episode. I think it was hard to watch at times. And one thing

that struck me was that, and I don't know if this was the case in the first season, but this season, maybe more than the past two, seemed completely uninterested in episodic divisions. There really was no resolution, even mini-resolution. It was the beginning, you know, it was like tipping something into an ocean, and then the subsequent episodes follow up on it. You know, they used to talk about shows like The Wire and would be one of the sort of blurbs you'd throw on it is novelistic, and that's what this is starting to feel like to me. It's starting to feel like an actual family epic.

Even though it's not necessarily covering like a huge swath of time. I mean, it's just, it feels like it relatively like one after the other. Like you're saying, it's just the pages are turning, not the chapters are flipping. But over time, I think you're just seeing this entire family change underneath the umbrella of what's happened to Mora. And it's just a fascinating television show. It's just, I think it gets to the larger conversation that we're having here. And it just because it gets nominated for comedies does not mean its intention is to be. funny.

Although it often is very funny. It often is very funny, but I think you can transition to other shows that we're talking about here by saying, like, how much do we want or do we care about that being a part of the show? Well, let me ask you one other thing before we move on. How do you find a balance between what you obviously knew immediately was just this almost journalistic accuracy in terms of the inner workings of a temple steering committee? you know, which she just got real deep in the weeds.

And I was like, how could they? I haven't been back to synagogue since I made my own beanbag proposal, frankly. First of all, that was only eight. Chris has been making beanbag proposals in every meeting he's been in for 20 years. How do you think I've risen to the ranks of the ranger? And why do you think they're also comfortable over in the office on plush beanbags? It's just that slug line life. How do you square the accuracy of that aspect of the show with the complete farce of

Nathan Fielder's character? Well, yes, but also Josh's apparent Limitless Bankroll At an independent record company in 2016 Yeah Let me tell you something He could not afford the top button to button What's the name of the band that Nathan Fielder comes in

And he's like, this I felt The way I felt watching this band is the way you must have felt watching Like cookie fuss Cookie Fuss, yeah Fussy pants And he's just like, yeah, go ahead and sign him, man He was like sign him, I don't even care Like listen, you can't like Brad Pitt and Moneyball

A record industry in 20th It is kind of wire season five where it's like you get to the end, you get to this one part and you're like, you just bump up against it. Do you think somebody actually is saying this about Snapchat and Periscope? But here are the things that I really like about the show and will always bring me back to it. Well, three things. Number one, beanbags. Love them. They conformed your body.

It's great. Two, the siblings. I just, you know, you and I, we don't have them. We don't have siblings. Dennis was really the closest thing you ever had to a brother. and we all saw what I did to him. But I love, I find, because maybe I don't have any siblings, I love to see the relationship between them.

And I think that, you know, I don't know. It freaks me out. It's wild. Yeah. And the relationship only does freaks me out. I just can't even imagine. But so that's one of the reasons why I will always find the show compelling. Number three, the goddess Judith Light.

I. Big, big, big moment for her in general. I love going to shell. Let me just tell you that. I think that performance is so amazing. I think that character is so ripped from the headlines of real life. Like, I'm not going to name names. I don't know who and whose family listens to this show,

but I know ladies like that. I've been to their one-woman shows, and the relationship, and also with Buzzy, Richard Mazur with that. Those one-woman shows called Passover dinner. I'm just, I'm not saying anything. But all of that stuff is just, I'm 100,000% in on.

I love her performance. I think she's great. And so, you know, we'll check back in on the show. But, you know, maybe the thing to say about it before we pivot is just, I don't think the show cares more people are watching or paying attention. It is so completely devoted to its own path. Yeah. And you know what? This show is a lot of what this show does is a challenge to, like, the usual way of thinking about things.

Yes. So maybe some of our bullshit ideas about what are you going to take the leap, you know? Yeah, it doesn't. Like, who cares? But it was interesting to see how many, there were a bunch of, like, rando people just appearing on the show. Yeah.

Right? Like, not that randah, like semi-famous people in their own, right? Like, J.B. Smooth. Yeah. And Shishuers Amada from Saturday Night Live had it was the receptionist at the medical clinic. You mentioned Nathan Fielder, who you broke my heart the other night at the HBO party when you said

he does look a little bit like me from behind. It was like, thanks. Only for mine. Big slot, friend. And so that was interesting. If anything, that took me out a little bit. To have those faces. So you recognize.

To have people you recognize. I'm like, what do they do in this world? Although it's nice that people want to come play in their sandbox. Okay, so that's that show. Before we get into talking about fleabag, we know it's a little rude to interrupt, but while we have your ear, let's have a brief conversation about manners. As the British like to say, manners makeeth the man. So it's no wonder that Jaguar's first ever compact sports sedan,

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It's a much smaller sample size. Yeah, it wasn't like I was like, you know, rant. But I have been really like forced to just recalculate on this one. Yeah. Now, the first few episodes of the show, why don't you set it up a little bit? Okay, so Fleabag is a show that's on Amazon now, six episode first season. Might be the only season. Created by, written by starring an English performer named Phoebe Waller Bridge,

who is tremendous. And we'll be... Anne will be on the Andy Greenwald podcast on Wednesday. She sat in that seat you're sitting in now. We had a great conversation. And I realized in that conversation, I didn't set up what the show was anymore than I did here. So basically, it was based on a one-woman show

that she did at the Edinburgh Festival within the last couple of years. And it's about... It's a fourth wall-breaking comedy, question mark, about a young woman who seems to be the life of the party she's very bawdy, she's very sexually frank, who as the series goes on, you realize is not having any fun in her own life.

And it's about her relationship with her best friend who passed away, her struggling business, her very sort of emotionally distant sister. And just to give a little context about her, you know, she was on this show crashing in England. Well, she created that show too. She created it. And I guess if I could give people, I mean...

And that shows on Netflix now. Yeah, and it's not as big... I don't think there is necessarily as popular. This would be as if Lisa Kudrow did the comeback, like, a year after. Here's the thing. Five months later. Here's the crazy thing about this. So she was, you know, she had a name for herself in, like, in theater, and she was on Broadchurch season two and was had a career going.

Crashing as a script she wrote when she was really young. It was more of a standard sitcom. And it's about, like, 20-some things who live rent-free and a disused hospital as, like, custodians. Which, by the way, post-Brexit England is a darker place than I thought. And it was sort of on a pile of scripts at, I forget if it was Channel 4 or wherever she did that show. When Fleabag started to get heat and like BBC wanted to do it and Amazon came on to finance it, then the channel that owned crashing was like, oh, we want to do this too. Really? So she did, and then she had to write the rest of the scripts and Fleabag and she did it all in like an eight-month period.

It's incredible that it comes from the same mind. I will say that. Yes. And I think she said that too. She had to basically like time travel into her 20-year-old self and then be the 30-year-old self for Fleabag. Also, the sensibilities are, like, completely different. Very different show. Although there are some, yeah, but I'll be interested to hear your interview with.

I really want, I really think people should watch this show. I thought this was tremendous. And one of the reasons I thought it was tremendous was the way it confounds expectation. Because the first episode you watch it, you're like, oh, I get why people are naming Lena Dunham and girls in comparison. I sort of, it's sort of, you know, it's, you think you get what the show is, and it's good at being that show. And then for me, it was the second episode got a little deeper. And the third episode got a little deeper. And then you get to the fourth episode, which is just one of the best.

episodes of TV I've seen this year, and it knocks you flat, and you realize that all along the show was a different show, and I love that feeling. And I think it's kind of interesting, it's an interesting reflection of how TV works now that you can do that. She knew she was making six episodes. You know, when we talk about, when I talk briefly about speechless, the ABC comedy, which you really shouldn't compare these two things. But the problem with that pilot is it just, it has to be a pilot. It has to do so much stuff to tell you, this is the show we are, and it's really just an advert. It's a billboard for itself. Yeah, yeah.

And then the show it's going to be is the show it's going to be in like 10 weeks or two years. If people stick around or they keep making it. Fleaback didn't need to do that. It could draw you in more slowly. I think I found that a little bit. I needed to adjust to that. So I've been trying to think about why it took me. I like this show more than I did when I started.

I still don't know if I'm like zany for it. Did you finish it? How far into you go? I watched that fourth episode, which I thought was great and I haven't watched the fifth one yet. So you know how people sometimes will be like, I can't watch another serial killer show. I can't watch another crime show where like there's just dead bodies everywhere or something like that. That's how I feel about Louis type shows. Well, you're living in the wrong decade, my friend.

Because I, it's never really been, it's like it's something brain chemistry wise. I've never really felt comfortable watching that kind of comedy. And I know somebody you would say, that's the point. Yeah. I don't like that feeling. Like I don't really enjoy that feeling when I'm watching a show. and it's just like, aren't I terrible? And isn't this awful and awkward?

I'm like, fuck, get me out of here. But that's exactly that feeling and reaction, I think, is what Fleabag responds to. I think it's a misdirect. You think you're watching someone who thinks she's clever and, you know, but in fact, the conceit that she takes advantage of in the beginning of, like, turning to the camera, doing the Jim Helper, like, ye. Yeah. As more and more truth is revealed about who she is and her relationship to people,

the imposition of the audience, becomes painful for her in a way that's really interesting. And to that extent, it's like a brilliant, like, formal, yeah. In a, like, invention to do that. Yeah, I'm just saying for me, and it's like, this is actually, like, we are at a point right now with, there's love, there's better things, there's Louis, there's this show, where a lot, there, it's comedy that's playing

on the mundane discomfort and awfulness of everyday things. You know, I, one choice I made this weekend that was a weird one. was we were like, let's watch a movie maybe. We haven't watched a movie since I was on an airplane alone when I say we. And I remembered that I was pretty... Your wife was like, let's go see Magnetton's and seven. Well, she went out to see it. And I was home alone.

I remembered, and I thought this was kind of cool, that Netflix had gotten the rights to all of Albert Brooks films and put them on. And I had a whole thought about that that I wanted to do on a podcast at some point, which it seemed like a really smart... This is not with me. with you. Dennis and I have a little side hustle going. That's super weird to be like, I'm going to do a podcast. I was going to talk about it with you, but then I didn't actually watch any of these movies

to back it up, which was basically like everyone knows that Netflix has no movies anymore. Yeah. And that's sort of a bummer. To these days of they're like, big shorters on Netflix. Holy shit. It's worth watching. Like even we can't believe it. Yeah, right.

Did you know Brad Pitt was in this one? He was. That it seemed like a smart way forward for these services that can't get. new releases or can't get very much, but if they could, like, go all in on an autore or a filmmaker and basically be like, we are curating this director like a TV show. Yeah. Like, that seemed like a very smart... As we'll probably talk about with easy. Feature to do. Right. And so they had Albert Brooks and I was like, okay, great. So, and I realized I'd never watched his, I mean, I'm a big defending your life guy. Me too. I love that movie. Mostly just because it makes me hungry, though.

Me to the sushi bar scene. Yeah. That is a very important scene. And by the way, Netflix didn't get that one for some reason. But that movie clearly influenced the good place, which we're getting to a second. So I watched, it's called Modern Romance or something, I think that's what it was called, from 1981. And it is very pleasant and it is very clever. And Albert Brooks really is, and was a titan of a certain kind of comedy. And what I realized, my wife and I realized, is we were watching it is it was very comfortable

and so familiar that it was no longer really that entertaining. Because the DNA of this movie of like a guy's trying his best, but it's actually acting like an emotional monster, but it's low-key, and it's just trying to figure it out and stumbling through stuff, and stuff happens, but not too much. Like maybe it takes a couple of quailudes, makes a couple phone calls,

as you do in apparently the late 70s, early 80s. It just is everything that we watch now. Yeah. But with more like, I gave you pink-eyed dude jokes, like everything that Judd-Apita does, like all the shows you were mentioning,

that is the DNA of comedy now. And so to watch the movie that started it actually felt a little predictable. And I think they, you know, the Judd-A-Talow tree, like there's the branch where it's like, we're going to take a very high concept idea or traditional idea,

whether it's the end of the world or the night before Christmas or whatever it is, or a Midnight Run-style buddy movie and just apply that improvisatory stone sensibility to it. And then Joe to Apatow himself. We'll do it to Ghostbusters. Yeah, exactly.

But whereas Judd-Apitao is making more sort of introspective. He's trying to do late period, Woody Allen, but he's still really only good at early period, Woody Allen. Interesting. That's quite a, that's very succinct That's a take So yeah, that's where I'm at with Fleabag

It's just a kind of I think everybody has their thing You know, some people don't like physical comedy Some people don't like Profane comedy Some people don't like... Like Westerns Some people don't like Westerns

And some people don't like being made To feel wildly uncomfortable Which is where your beanbag plan comes in Yeah, so it's just like everybody sit Forget all the Mishagas Listen to you! Listen to half of you But I'm excited to keep watching Freebag, and maybe, like, once I do, I will do a podcast about it. But let's talk about, you should.

I think that would be great. Let's transition to easy, because I think there's a good connection there, which is, for a long time, we have definitely talked about how the bottomless pockets of these streaming services could potentially be a boon for indie filmmakers who basically can't get money to make movies anymore. or to fund them to the degree that they would want to. And certainly, we just mentioned Woody Allen. He has an Amazon series coming in a month. Joe Swanberg is an incredibly talented, incredibly prolific filmmaker. He's younger than us.

He's made like 20 movies. And he basically just bangs them out. Has appeared in tons of like-minded movies or his peers' colleagues' movies. And has started directing for TV as well. He directed looking, he directed on love. I think, did he do a new girl? Very, well, could have because he and Jake Johnson, and Jake Johnson is his muse, basically.

And Jake Johnson appears in this series we're going to talk about. So it seemed like a perfect marriage that Netflix was basically like, hey, you're doing this anyway, here's a bunch of money, make a series. Just out of curiosity, do you think they were like, here's a bunch of money? Or do you think they were like, here's a consistent distribution platform for your work? And we won't tell you what to do creatively. Yeah, I'm sure that they came to an agreement, but he met with them.

Right, but we're not talking like Marco Polo money or bloodline money. it down, well, no one, like, tonight's presidential debate, no one will be talking bloodline money. Yeah. The United States government can't afford that. But, so it seemed, you know, so basically he made an anthology series, eight-part series called Easy. It debuted on Friday. And it's very much in keeping with his work. It's about, you know, youngish to a slightly olderish professional people in Chicago coming

together and falling apart over issues of sex and money and, you know, in work. and it's a very nice setup in that it's you know the episodes are standalone but characters a minor character and one will appear in a larger role in another one and I've watched I watched two of them which is not representative of the show but especially with an anthology series right where some are going to clearly stand up above others and the cast he got together for it is really great but my feeling watching those first two was a little underwhelmed which I think is kind of an unfair reaction. I think it is probably built into it. But it really felt like what I was saying about Albert Brooks movies. I'm like, well, he's got some interesting people. He's put him together

and maybe some stuff will happen. But maybe it won't. And that's the risk you run with that kind of filmmaking in general. But it felt maybe because it was a TV show and he could just chase the moments and had enough space to do it, that it felt a little flat to me. Whereas his movies that I really loved like like drinking buddies or happy Christmas those were the best moments that he was chasing a framework those were like it's the drinking buddies was about whether or not you're ever going to clean your life up and get on with it or whether you're going to keep chasing like whether you're comfortable whether you're going to stay in your comfort zone forever and happy Christmas is about the same thing a family disintegrating over a holiday period which is something I think a brother

and sister yeah but what I think gets me about this is I'm totally in touch with like the shit that's happening. Like I got it. Like I know. You know, this is sort of what I'm talking about. Like I don't necessarily, I still like some escapism in my entertainment. And I do like to be transported sometimes. And being transported to two years ago or one year in the future in a, you know, urban myew like that I'm very familiar with, with people that I'm very familiar with, with problems I'm very familiar with.

I sometimes just don't need any more shows that do that. And I really do like Swanberg movies. Don't get me wrong. And I especially like it when he applies his aesthetic to other genres, like horror. Like, I love it. And, you know, he's in your next. And I fucking love it when he's in that. But it's just like a weird thing where it's like, I think I'm good.

It's, you know, the thing that makes his project, and it's basically one project that he's been doing for his professional career, the thing that makes it really interesting is that he is devoted to filming everything. and then seeing when magic happens. And when that does happen, like in his last movie, Dicking for Fire, I think I've talked about this with other people. We talked about it. I think I talked about it in an interview maybe when Jake Johnson was on. But like there's a moment in that movie when Brie Larson,

there's a scene between Brie Larson and Jake Johnson that eventually, I don't even think there are words in it, but it's just one of the more astonishing emotional conversations. I mean, that in quotes, that I saw on any screen that year. It's just tremendous. And that happened. I mean, he finds the movie. It's mostly improvised.

The feeling I got from these first two episodes of Easy were he had an idea and he chased it. And he found a couple things. Elizabeth Reiser is really good in the first episode. Kiercy Clemens is really good in the second episode. But like the takeaway from the second episode, which is this young woman who's really willing to change herself completely and try to be vegan for a woman that she's met at a club and is kind of maybe in love with. But then she doesn't have to change. She can just be yourself. Yeah.

We didn't go very far. You know what I mean? We had a lot of good intentions at the same. starting line, but the finish line wasn't that far away. So sometimes what happens is you'll hear about a show that's going to come on and you'll be like, that's a pretty high concept. I don't know how you're going to make more than five episodes about it. You mean like designated Survivor?

Or like the good place. Right. But sometimes when you hear something about Easy and you're like, well, I guess you could make a hundred of those, but let me know the five good ones or like, you know, what I, it's like I almost wish there was more high concept applied to Easy that it did have. because when I think about the sitcoms or like the romantic 30 minute comedy is that I like

I don't even know what to call these things anymore I think about happy endings or how I met your mother and there's a little bit of like I like the screws to be tightened a little bit I like jokes that need that have like a long set up and payoff I like romantic plots that like

actually have momentum and tension so it's interesting to watch like yet another one of these like I felt like a couple of them have left me feeling a little bit flat. But I'm interested to see if there are other, because it's an anthology, there might be other stuff in there. But that's the thing.

But we're bumping up again on this idea that we cannot, we can't really compare these things one to one to one anymore, and even though they're being delivered to us in the same bite-sized bits, you know. And average, I think marketed as like, young people are in love, you know. But to transition to the good place. So when I, so the good place is on NBC who was created by Michael Schurer,

who created Parks and Recreation, was on the office for many years. And I talked to him on the podcast in like December, January, and he was, and I asked him why he was doing this show for NBC when he probably could have made a show anywhere. And, you know, he really, really believes in, I mean, you can tell from watching the show and from anything he's done that he's kind of an optimist and utopian about a lot of things, despite the world constantly proving him wrong, that he believes in the big tent. Like, he wanted the biggest possible audience, the biggest possible sandbox to play in. and he has once again, I think, made an incredibly compelling argument for what networks could and should do. This is, it's striking to say, a lot of thought went into it and a lot of care and shaping on how to do this show. Yeah, you can tell that there is, you know, you can tell that Mike probably really likes things like Game of Thrones.

Or just like levels of depth of thinking about the rules and geography of the world that the show takes place in. Remember, he says, and he means it very genuinely, and he can explain it very cogently, the biggest influence on Parks and Recreation was The Wire. Yeah. And I think the shows actually complement each other really well. But in this, like clearly, you know, Game of Thrones lost. He wanted to play in that world. But so this is a show about the afterlife, and it's essentially about the universe.

It's about can people be good and what it even means to be good. And Kristen Bell, Ted Danson. What's wonderful about it is that, you know, you see Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, creator of Parks and Rec, back on NBC Thursday nights. I'm like, okay, well, we're just going back there. We are going to service people with what they want. It's not where it feels like. It's not, right, in the same way that CBS or ABC, like they have comedy brands and they

pitch to those brands. This is not that. This is a heavily serialized show. You can't. I saw him tweet the other night when right before the third out, because they put two up on last Monday. After the voice. And the ratings were great.

And then ran the third one on Thursday. And the ratings were good also, which was pretty surprising. But he had tweeted. there's the third episode is on Thursday. I strongly recommend you watch the first two as if, like, you're going to need these to understand where we're going. And it's a smart bet, basically, on where TV is now, because people are kind of used to that. I mean, I'm still can't get over the fact that when, you know, high schoolers told me they discovered friends on Netflix, they were like, yeah, we watched all 208 episodes in order. Yeah.

We binged it. I'm like, you didn't have to. There really wasn't that much continuity, you know? But how would you keep up with, like, the monkey? And then it's like... Great point. Is Tom Selleck back? But this show is built for how we watch TV now.

And so far, I mean, I just think it's wonderful. I think it's much like Parks and Rec, it is aggressively wonderful. It's also that you get Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, they're pretty watchable. Here's the thing about Ted Danson. Probably, I mean, I don't want to say, I don't want to make a blanket statement. I was going to say the best leading man or comic leading man on TV. His performance group damages disagrees with you, but yes. comedic leading man,

but also his performance in Fargo. No, he's incredible in damages. He's just like a... He's an incredible actor. Yeah. And he's an incredible TV star. And I think 20 years ago, that was an insult. Now it's an enormous compliment.

Yeah. What a run for him. He's never not worked. Damages, Fargo. CSI. CSI, this. Bored to death. Yeah.

He, by all accounts, he just really loves to work and do different things. And he's just having a great time on this. In the same way that, like on Brooklyn 9-9, when they got Andre Brower, like they just pitched to him. Like they know how to make him the funniest he can be on that show. Like these, the writing staff of good plays is mostly like Parks and Rec Vets and Alan Yang, who just won an Emmy for Master of None, wrote the second episode. They know how to handle, like, prime talent like Ted Danson.

And he's great. And the supporting cast of people I've never seen before, the guy who plays Chee-D is terrific. I'm really impressed with the show. Yeah. I just, I think that what a lot of people saw that he was coming back to NBC and Thursday night, the assumption was that it would be pleasant, like it would be fun, but he doesn't want to just be pleasant and fun. And I was thinking about why I don't watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine with any regularity. It's not because it's not good every time I watch it.

It's just because it's good every time I watch it. Yeah. Whereas this show is making an argument that a comedy, a traditional comedy, not like some sort of post-comedy drama that's a half hour long, can still be relevant in our TV conversation. We should talk about the two picks that we have, that are kind of ones that we didn't both watch. The wild cards. Yeah, wild cards. So we've got, we've gone through easy, we've gone through transparent, we've gone through flea bag and good plays. Those are all eminently worth checking out.

Yeah. I am a big fan of The Ranch. I don't want to, we don't have to get like too into it. How did yourself with this? No, I'm not even like, can I just say one thing? Yeah. As a, someone who does not have a title at the ringer.com, I was really impressed of this week.

Oh, thanks. It was a whole week devoted to the sort of TV that, that. Erring in plain sight. Yeah, so shows that we just don't normally talk about with the same intensity with which we talk about, say a night of. Right, because one of the things about being a TV critic, which I once was, was that... According to that guy in the restaurant, you still are. I don't apologize to that guy right now for, I feel like they're coming for me, was that we all kind of were having the same conversation about the same shows.

Yeah. Certain things that move the needle. It's deeper or wider. And so we go very deep into Night of Conspiracy theories or Game of Thrones paternity theories or whatever it is. Well, completely ignoring things that are very popular and lasting. Like, there's a great piece on Conan O'Brien. There's a Juliet wrote about suits, the show I will never watch until I get to host the after show, and then I really won't watch it. But you wrote about The Ranch.

Yeah, so The Ranch is a show that reunites Danny Masterson and Ashton Coocher. Finally! Probably need to flip those guys, right? King Cooch is the draw, and it also stars one of my favorite comedic actresses, Alicia Cuthbert. She's on that? Yeah.

Oh, I'd watch it. That's all you had to say. And then co-stars Sam Elliott and Deborah Wendellie. Leish. Yeah. My leash he's back. Yeah. She is very funny.

Did you say Sam Elliott and Debra Winger? Yeah. So weird. Yeah. Sam Elliott and Debringer are in a 20-episode season of a sitcom with profanity and diagetic music that's on Netflix. It's just like this is 2016. There might be some jokes or some sensibilities in this that I can totally understand people not particularly liking. I don't agree with everything.

Like, it's an interesting litmus test of what you kind of will and will not. tolerate, it positions itself very much as a red state comedy. Yeah. But I would not call it necessarily a conservative comedy. I think it's set on a ranch in Colorado. They're going through a really tough economic time. Ashton Cochard has come back from a failed athletic career to kind of live it up as a hometown hero.

Yeah. But he like comes back and his family is kind of under dire straits and he also is falling in love with his high school girlfriend. So it's a pretty good setup. Is that leash? Yeah. It's a pretty good setup for like your normal. sitcom and there's a lot of really cool formal invention.

It's shot on the soundstage, but some of the sets will be like outdoors, quote, unquote. Scenes will like kind of run much longer than they do in a traditional sitcom, and they are much more willing to play with dramatic moments than usually you'll find. But because it comes from people who have written for two and a half men, who have starred in 300 episodes of sitcoms, It's just like really professional. Like those guys really land planes. And I, it's like,

because you can watch them in 10 episode brick, so the first one is already out. And then the second half of this first season is coming in October. And then they're going to do another season next year, same way where they put up 10 episodes, three or four months off, 10 episodes. It kind of replaces the 24 lost,

Breaking Bad style. Like, I have to know what happens next. binge watch and replaces it with, I just kind of want to keep hanging out here. But isn't that, like, that replaces a type of show that I don't know if we ever landed on a name for it, but, you know, people would ask me at Granlin, like, do you watch the league? And I would say, yes, but. On planes. But from myself. Yeah.

Like, I would come home from a bar or whatever back when I would go to a bar and watch three episodes of the league. This is the private relationship that we have in television. It's like you watch Bordane. Like, I will watch on a Sunday if I'm hung over. I will watch boarding for six hours. Yeah. That's a great hangover move, by the way. I fully co-signed.

It's interesting. You're mentioning that. I checked out Speechless, which is a comedy on ABC. It has a sterling, like, behind the scenes, like, the people who made it. Scott Silverie, like, worked on friends. He created, was it getting on, getting it. What was the go-on, the Matthew Perry's sitcom? Jake Kasden, Melvin Marr, who helped Shepard fresh off the boat.

Like, professional people made this show. Yeah, same thing, yeah. And it's admirable. Like, this is the thing. It's in a weird, making a sitcom in 2016 on a network is a very weird thing. So the quote unquote hook is that it is the disability sitcom. Because Minnie Driver, who, by the way, whichever executive made the decision to let her have her accent,

her real English accent, is the winner here. Yeah. Because she's finally, like, free to be a perfectly good and funny, like, actor. Whereas, like, when she's on About a Boy being American, Like it's just people, some people are constrained by doing accents. Sure. She's terrific on the show. She's a lot of fun.

She's the sort of hard charging mother of three. Her oldest is in a wheelchair. He's unable to speak. He has a, like, a Stephen Hawking sightboard that he, that he, you know, he can put words up on his screen. The young performer who plays that character who I should have looked up his name before he did the podcast. It's terrific. John Ross Bowie plays her husband as a good comedic actor. It hits all the buttons.

The thing is, with a traditional sitcom, though, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter your premise, really. It doesn't matter what you're trying to be, how you're teaching us lessons, how you're making us see members of the community that we hadn't maybe looked at before. Those are all noble things that get you greenlit and get you on the air. But a sitcom like this, it just lives or dies on the chemistry of the cast and whether you want to hang out with them, whether they become your family. And the manic nature of these family sitcoms, how much they have to prove in their premise pilots. By the way, family sitcoms didn't used to have premise pilots. You know what the pilot of family ties was?

There's a fucking family. No, I think in modern family, they, like, adopt a baby and kind of are still acting like it's a documentary. Remember? Like, it's like, there's like 17 things happening in that show. And that's a perfect pilot, too. That pulled it off. But, like, all the shows we grew up with, which, you know, maybe the jokes are better or the, you know, they're single cameras instead of multi-camera.

Growing Pains. Who's the boss, starring the goddess Judith Light? Family Ties, like, whether, you know, family ties was better than those, but we watched all those shows. it didn't matter the setup. It was just a family. And then the writing and the acting made it. And then the people on the shows would either be stars or they wouldn't.

It would be Kirk Cameron and Michael J. Fox or it would be... And Cedric Yarbrough, who's from Reno 9-1-1, plays the guy who basically becomes the kid's voice in the premise pilot. He's great. He's having a great time on the show. Is premise pilot actually a technical term?

Yeah, a premise pilot. There are pilots that begin, like, in media res, which we're joining the world. Gotcha. And a premise pilot is a pilot where it's just like, here's... So here's how John Bull became a jury consultant. Yeah.

But I didn't watch that show. Right. But basically, most pilots these days are very prentice. Like if it's a premise pilot for House, it's like, how did House become addicted to painkillers or whatever? Or it's like first day on the job. Yeah, right. It's a big... You don't know me, but my name is Gregory House.

And so in this one, it's basically proving the case for its existence and explaining to you how these characters got into this predicament while introducing us to the characters. That sounds fun. It's really hard. And to do it in 21 minutes and make it through all the round of notes, it's a miracle anything gets made. But that was my feeling of watching Speechless. It was exhausting because it was trying so hard. And then maybe in five or ten episodes, we'll check back into it. But because it was made in the meat grinder of the network process, it might not get to those episodes.

Whereas these other shows we've been talking about, which obviously have different goals. But maybe the best comparison is The Ranch because they just knew what they wanted to do. Yeah. Also, I think that they came to Netflix and probably, probably were like, this is what we're going to do. And they were like, great. Right. Let us know when you want to stop.

Whereas speechless, what attracted ABC to it was the writers, the producers involved. And I'll say that word again, the premise. They were like, we would be interested in expanding, you know, ABC rightfully prides itself on having a very diverse slate of family comedies. Yeah. And having comedy with a disabled family member, like that's not something that many shows have done. So they were interested in that. It wasn't like Greenlight Mini Driver Project.

Sure. But by the way, more people around this town should say that. Even if they're just sitting at a like an intersection. Absolutely. That's how I'm going to order a coffee from now on. I'm going to say I'd like a large mini driver project. So should we tip what we're going to be talking about on Thursday? So if any of this stuff is on, people can kind of start to watch it for what we're going to talk about.

What we're going to try, I haven't done it yet, but I promise you that I'm going to check out Gomorra. You're really not going to enjoy this. I'm going to strap on my mining helmet and go into the dark, dark, dark, corridors of the Italian mafia? Yep. You're so excited for me to watch this. What else did we want to check in with? Queen Sugar?

Yeah, we should check out Queen Sugar. People are talking about that. I haven't seen that yet either. And we could preview. Luke Cage is coming Friday. That's right. But I don't know if we're going to be able to see that. As is Westworld.

It's coming over the weekend. So we could sort of talk a little bit about that coming into it. Oh, we'll preview Westworld. Yeah, because I've seen Westworld. Yeah, but we could talk a little bit about Gamora, Queen Sugar. We could check in on Halt if you want to. Love Halt and Catch on Halt and we'll talk a little bit about Atlanta. The state of drama.

All right. Talk to you then, man. Great job, Regge.