The Watch - Ep. 89: 'Black Mirror,' and Jimmy Eat World Re-up

Episode Date: October 20, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss Wolverine's return with 'Logan' (8:00), a run-of-the-mill episode of 'Atlanta' (15:00), the anxiety-producing 'Black Mirror' (22:00), and Jimmy Eat World (42:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the incredible television series, Black Mirror. Black Mirror is the smash hit television drama that the New Yorker has called the Twilight Zone for the Digital Age. Season 3 starts streaming on Netflix this Friday, October 21st. We are going to be talking about it on today's episode. And if you're worried about catching up Netflix as seasons one and two available now, and there's only seven episodes to catch up on in total. But since Black Mirror are self-contained stories, you can jump right in at any episode. As Charlie Brooker, the show's creator, put it,

each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality, but they're all about the way we live now. Follow Black Mirror on Facebook at Black Mirror Netflix. Once again, six original stories of the critically acclaimed Black Mirror will be available this Friday, October 21st, on Netflix. Get psyched.

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the raider.com, and joining me in the story. studio. He just drove in it in a visible car. It's Andy Greenwald.

I was my favorite part of the episode. Yeah, was a good episode. We're talking about Atlanta today. We're talking about Black Mirror, which comes back. Black Mirror, Full Disclosure is sponsoring our podcast today. Which is terrific because Black Mirror is great. I mean, I would have said that anyway. I was prepared to say that, but now I'm like, it's super great. And we will also be talking about the latest Jimmy World Record, Integrity Blues, which comes out Friday.

Also, very on brand for Black Mirror to be. secretly disrupting our podcast by giving us money. It's not disrupting if it's just sponsorship, right? It's not. I don't think so. I'm pretty into things that are disruptors. What are you trying to disrupt? I'm trying to disrupt your day right now.

First, we're going to talk, though, about the disruption of the superhero film. Oh. Damn, Chris! You're good at this. It is, we're talking about Logan, which is the, by all accounts, final Wolverine movie starring Hugh Jackman. Definitely. Directed by James Mangold. It is coming out next year.

Trailer dropped today. They broke out the Johnny Cash hurt, so you know that shit is good. If you put hurt in your trailer, you can't be lower than a six out of ten. Did you see the super cut of the... You could literally have Paul Giamatti filing his nails, and if you have hurt playing, I'm going to probably be like, yeah, I'll go see that. But this looks great. Do you remember the trailer for the Ashton Coucher Katie Heigel movie, where they played like

assassins? in the trailer had Johnny Cash's hurt in it? Yeah. Did they? Wait. But someone, could someone one of our listeners? I remember that movie, but did they make a super cut? Supercut of that? See if it works? I would have seen that movie. I like both Coach and Katie.

Anyway, let's get to this Logan trailer. They talked James Jim Mangled. I went there. To be clear, he does seem to be go by Jim. Okay, James Mangel. I guess I just read too many blogs where I'm like Jim, well, Jim Mangold's behind the camera again. James Mangold really wanted to make his version of a Wolverine movie.

I think that they were kind of like, we have accrued all this goodwill. Because he made the last one too. Yeah, and that was like a, I think that that was the world, one set in Japan. Yeah. And I think that they had wanted that to be even edgier

than maybe it was. And I think that they really pushed this. I'm not sure if it's R, but I think they, I'm pretty sure it is. Yeah, and I think also, it was basically like Hugh Jackman was like, I want out, and they were like, we want you in.

We want you to make one more and maybe show up in a couple more of these group films. And so the tradeoff was they would give them a little more leash. Yeah. You know, and here's the thing. A lot of these movies, you know, in a lot of ways we know what we're getting when we get a Hugh Jackman-Olliv-Rane movie. Generally, we're getting a not very good film. Yeah. The first one is awful.

Yes. The second one is fine. Is the first one with Leap Schreiber? Yeah. Where they, like, fight in like, nine wars? I just remember when I went on set of Ray Donovan a couple of years ago, right before the show premiered and I interviewed my man, Leav. Big hands, by the way, very, like, it's like shaking hands with, like, Johnny Bench's mitt.

Big guy. Do you think Johnny Ben shook hands wearing his catcher's mitt? That would be a weird affectation. Anyway, his silence spoke volumes. Like, basically, he gave me the Ray Donovan, I'm going to fix your family and fix your face look when I asked about his experience on the set of... Like, was it out yet? Was it already out?

Oh, it had been out. It was already a disaster. Yeah. But, yeah, go on. So, I mean, any one of these movies, whether it's a Batman movie or Superman movie, Wolverie movie, it's not necessarily the core property that matters. It's what you put around it. Sure. And, you know.

Yeah, what kind of movie you want to make. I know what it's like out on Wall Street. I know there's bull markets and bear markets. Uh-huh. But Wall Street respects bravery. And so does Hollywood. Fortune favors the bold. And I've been alone.

And sometimes I've had friends, but most of the time I've been alone, but I still hold my Boyd Holberg stock. Wow. And my boyd Holbrook stock is coming in. Yeah. This dude is playing the villain. My boy from Narcos is playing the villain in Logan, and he's looking diesel. He's looking smirky, just like the guy he plays in Narcos. He looks good.

He looks like he's kicking some ass. I love it. Can you imagine if the secret reveal of Logan wasn't that it's kind of. of like an alternate universe dystopian like old man film but it was season three of narcos but it was voiceover like narcos and he's like some might say mutants ruled the earth this guy might have something of a sharp hand shake that's yeah yeah extremely point holbrook voice i was impressed um it's a good trailer it's a promising start for the movie and and you know i think that in general it's interesting the the thinking behind fox's management

of the X-Men property. This is the time when we put on, like, the Hollywood business hat. It's also. It's very Toon's the Driving Cat. But it's very... Wait, what? I am? No, Fox's handling of X-Men is much like Tunes's in a station wagon.

I love... First of all, I love the reference. Don't change a thing. Second. I got it. I got it now. I almost let that one go, but I was like, no, I need to be not just your co-host,

but the voice of the listener, the voice of the fan. Toots is the driving cat. That's our generation's touchstone. Oh, man. Our listenership is skews across demographics. I do it for the children. I do it for the kids. Millennials.

What I want to say was, from a business perspective, it's actually kind of smart and creative. Because if you look at what you have, which is X-Men, this X-Men franchise, it is enormous, it is unwieldy. It essentially makes no sense. X-Men as a franchise is incredibly popular on the strength of two things.

One, its core idea, they're quote-unquote heroes with abilities, but they're hated and feared. that is a great, great concept and has lasted half a century. Two, there have been moments in the history of X-Men where those characters in that world have been used to great, great storytelling ends, like Chris Claremont's run in the 70s

or Grant Morrison's run in the 2000s. But if you really drill down, it's kind of nonsense. There are a lot of blue people. There's a lot of adventures in space for no reason for a franchise that should be earthbound. And there are a lot of different eras. And the one thing that I think has been really smart about the last few run of the Brian Senior movies.

You mean you're talking about the X-Men saga. Comic books and basically as an unwieldy piece of IP. The thing that Brian Singer movies have done, and I think the first two are really good, X-Men 2 might still be one of the, might be the best superhero movie ever made. It's really good. Everything since then, I think, has been pretty poor,

but the thinking was pretty good, because this idea was after first class was pretty good too. But the idea when Singer came back was like, let's steer into this mess that we've somehow repeated in the movies that exist in the comic books, which is, what is this continuity anyway. So they've made this idea instead where they will make a 70s X-Men story,

an 80s X-Men story. They switch the timeline. And they're like, we'll tell this version of an X-Men story. Right. And all of that is a way of saying, I like this as a way to make superhero movies because the Marvel movies are essentially all the same movie. And they're very enjoyable.

And there's shades of gray where Thor movies and exactly Captain American movie, but there's still quirks the same level of almost violence or whatever. In the best case scenario, I like the idea that Fox is like, we're going to tell an out-there time travel story. And then with this property, with the Wolverine property, we're going to adapt this Mark Miller story, Old Man Logan, which is from 2008, which is basically imagines a dystopian future where we won't spoil anything if they're doing it in the movie. But at some point in the past, Wolverine did something truly horrific and walked away from being Wolverine and is sort of drawn back in. Okay. It's a cool idea.

It's like a, it's kind of more Kurosawa-ish, and I'm sure that's what Mangold wanted to do, like the last Ronin, the last samurai kind of thing. Getting Patrick Stewart back of the car. Yeah, and you know what? I think that this is also outside of the comic books, I mean, outside of like what you're talking about within the narrative of the X-Men that stretches out across decades is this is shit Deadpool taught us. They found out, see, comic book movies now have been around for long enough that you

actually have a large enough audience of people who actually like. the characters and their roots in their comic book stories and the attributes that those characters have and maybe even some of the edgy behavior that happens in there that you don't have to soften the blow to get a mass audience like comic book culture is mainstream culture so you can make something like this you can make something like Deadpool that actually might have what would have been considered maybe in 2004 you know a little bit of a curveball approach and people might actually just be like this is the last you jacking movie I want to see something with like some emotional stakes that isn't always like, hit the reset button, everything's fine. He's a good actor who can do that. He is a character that can actually bear up under some more intense dramatic storytelling. Mangold, your guy Jim, is a really good filmmaker, just trying to make it work in the studio system. But I also, before we move on, I want to hit that point, which I think was a really smart one, which is, if you think about the first 10 years of the superhero movie moment, so beginning with X-Men in 2000,

Spider-Man and then into the Nolan Batman movies. And all the Marvel stuff, yeah. But leading into that, certainly, there was still this idea that we had to convince people that this was grown-up entertainment on some level. It had to be serious because, you know, even if it didn't exist in the contemporary imagination, it still existed in studio imagination. You had to avoid being the 1960s Batman show. You had to avoid quote-unquote comic book, even though people who have read comic books have

long since moved past that idea. but the idea of letting light back in, Logan's not the example of that, but letting different shades in, letting things be like Deadpool, letting them be funny, letting them be self-referential and make fun of the concept and not just accept the idea, it should be people punching and then a city dropping and the hero's emerging star of triumph. It took way too long, I think, for people to realize that, okay, we understand the rules now. We accept this, so what else can we do here? Yeah.

Let's move on, talk a little bit. Although I do want to say, I prefer The Guardian to the Galaxy Volume 2 trailer. Do you really? I thought that movie. I think that's probably the best Marvel movie. It was really fun. Really? The first one, yeah.

Okay. You were out on that? I'm not out on it. I thought it's delightful. I don't like what Pratt's doing with the sideburns. That is weird that Hugh Jackman finally solved his sideburn problem. Just as he passed to Pratt. Just took him on.

Okay, let's just talk briefly about this episode of Atlanta. Typically, we spend a lot more time talking about it. I wouldn't say that this was a bad episode of Atlanta by any stretch of the I quite enjoyed it. It's just like, I don't think there's a ton to talk about about it. It was basically like a sort of weird riff on Alice in Wonderland as he like sort of goes down the rabbit hole of this club. I like that. I think that this was, it's funny, when you've raised the bar so high and you've been so formally inventive to go back to an episode that it was probably what we would have imagined after one or two weeks, a boiler played Atlanta episode would be.

This should have been, it could have been episode four. Yes, exactly right. And I think that that said, it's just that our expectations are almost way too high. Because if the idea of this show without the inventiveness that they've done the last three weeks was, let's come up with an idea, a concept, let's throw our characters into it, and let's see how it shakes out. Yeah. I mean, it was essentially a bottle episode or a bottle service episode, as the case may be. And it was, I think the only thing was it was almost jarring to see us go back to this narrative where Erne is trying to,

trying to manage his cousin's career and it's not going great. Yeah. The benefits of that were we saw Darius back and we haven't had him do much. Darius is asking how do you bounce a bouncer? Darius is just the way that he delivered that whole scene. And then the whole thing with the invisible car was just, that's just legitimately laugh out loud, funny. The whole thing with, yeah, tracking the club manager and the spinning of the door, the wall, the sort of shock of violence that happens times two in the episode.

when Paperboy is like, when Ern's like, I'm not like you, and he's like, okay, I will be like me. Yeah. I have so much about the Paperboy journey, if you're going to allow me to do that, maybe you shouldn't, has been about him being like, wait, what am I really? Like, what can I be?

What should I be? And then finally he's like, okay, I can do this. I really like that how every episode of Atlanta feels like a story someone's telling you, not like those stories, but like literally you're at a bar with a really good friend and they're like, I have to tell you about this night I just had. And it just really felt like Earned,

telling somebody the story of his night following this clubman. And even the framing device that they use at the end with them at Waffle House or whatever, like that seems like they're telling each other the stories of their night. And that's how the internal logic of the episode feels. And so I just really enjoyed that. And the invisible car is hilarious. I just, you know. Two other notes.

Yeah. I really liked the woman the paper boy's flirting with. And she's like, what are you talking about? You came here to talk to like hot women and have a good time. and you did. I just, I really like that line. Yeah. I feel like that was sort of a platonic ideal

of what a night out could be, like if you don't want to be a lunatic person, but he wanted to be a little bit more of a lunatic person. Two, you know what I don't like? You know, I'm just out on? What? You don't need to vomit on television.

Oh, I guess so, but I, I feel like it was good that, like, he was like, I hate shots. I mean, that was funny in the moment. That happens. You know, as someone who still has a problem with shots after my 20, what would birthday was that? Do you want to talk about that party?

I have no problem talking about it. It was really, this is a thing, if anybody is younger, listening to our podcast, and listening to it for words of wisdom. Not that you would, you shouldn't come to me for advice, but if I could give you any.

This is a mentor-mente relationship here. Yeah, it's just that if you have a birthday party invite different, like, friend groups to it, have someone who's kind of the shot sheriff. You know what I mean? Have someone who's not designated driver. They can have a good time to within reason because they're going to need to pay attention to you.

Yeah. But, you know, when you hit that 23, 24, like, we're all used to being in bars legally area. Were you 24, 25 at this party? I thought I was 20. I don't think I was 22. No. It was older than that. And I basically what happened was, I was working at a record store, but I also had, like,

other friend groups, and I had friends who I was, like, living with in Brooklyn. And then I had, like, you and some other friends. You had me, man. Although I did not have you that way. Everybody showed up in like a staggered fashion as you're wanting to do in New York City. Yeah, because nobody comes on time. And then like for some reason the primary like affection delivery system back then was to buy shots. Let me tell you, that's changed.

I feel like this generation, no one does shots. So I still can't smell Yeagermeister without having a little bit of a gag reflex triggered. And I just distinctly remember, among other things, lying down on the floor of high five. and saying like, this feels great and just taking my clothes off. I didn't know you were going to talk about this. In the bathroom. In the bathroom.

And I think a lot of people do do that. Like when they get a little drunk. Dude, this is like, this is like Kelly and Conaway being like, people are telling me that Hillary did a bad job last night. You are just, you literally just floated that like a canary and a coal. No, it's really soothing to lie down on a cold tile floor. A hallmark of young Chris Ryan having a bit over-served was that, you know, You would know if Chris started taking his clothes off.

Yeah. No, not in, no, you make it sound like I just started stripping in the middle of the bar. I would be like, excuse me? To be clear, one of my most indelible memories was at a dorm party at college. You're visiting me at Brown, and I went into, it was someone's birthday party, and I remember I went into, to use the facilities, and I saw like a button down fly over the top of the stall. It gets hot. It gets hot when you get drunk.

What do you want me to say? I was like, Chris is feeling no pain. I also remember that when you, I saw you your birthday and I saw you were being very festive at the bar. And then I also remember turning, seeing you again. And realizing it was the first time in my life, I had seen the exact shade of pure ivory white that poachers in Africa prize in elephant tusks. Because you did not look the color of a normal Caucasian man. I looked like Caliban from X-Men. Nice way to bring it back.

Anyway. How do we get on this? So yeah, I respect throwing up. I respect it as a concept. You just don't want to see it on television. I just feel like that's been overdone. I feel like people visibly vomiting on television. Like, you know, we're good.

Yeah. I get it. And also, every actor has had a chance now in the way that all actresses in Hollywood, like write a passage you've got to do the birth scene. Is that true? No, but many people do. That's a weird thing to say. No, I feel like that's, you could do, you shouldn't.

But you could do a super cut of, like, many established actresses giving birth on screen. You imagine, like, Hollywood fixers sitting down with, like, you know, like, Tessa Tomp in there just like, you're doing great. You're doing great. Everybody's talking about you. Everybody loves you. But you know what? Nobody respects you.

You want to know why? You haven't gone through labor on screen yet. You got to do a period piece. You got to do a superhero flick. And you have to be fully dilated on screen, I guess. Yeah. That's... While explosions in the sky plays and Kyle Chandler holds your hand.

Yeah. That's what we all have to do. And that would have made your birthday night better if he had given birth. If Kyle Chandler had been holding your hand. You actually probably would have. You would have been like, the star of Homefront? What are you doing here? We're getting a little off topic.

Do you have any other Atlanta thoughts? No, but I am interested to see how the rest of the season goes. Yeah, what's Atlanta's version of, like, quote, unquote, stakes towards the end of it? Because there are only, I think, two episodes left, and it was very interesting to see the dizzying heights that the show reached. And, you know, they were figuring this out as they went. And so when they were writing the season, they couldn't know that these big swings were going to work. So having a more conventional episode slot in last night. made a lot of sense, but I wonder if it's affected

the way people will watch the show going forward. Yeah, okay. Annie and I are going to take a quick break, and then we will be back to talk about black mirror. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Uniclo. Uniclo offers the latest women's, men's, and kids' clothing, and accessories. This winter, we want you to stay warm with their line of heat tech clothing.

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Welcome back. We are here to talk a little bit about Black Mirror. That's the new Netflix show. Now, it's not a new show. It's been on, it was, it's a British show. It was imported by, I think, like, audience network or DirecTV a couple years ago. But this is sort of one of the big sensation, original sensations of the Transatlantic Television Exchange. This was about four years ago?

I think the first episodes were 2011. Yeah. So it's five years since the show premiered. I found out about this show through soccer Twitter. British guys would be, like, who I follow on Twitter, right, or, you know, have, podcast about soccer would be like about you know like now that match of the day is over about to tuck into the latest black mirror at charlie booker i'm really disappointed that you did not do that in full brummy accent you know what so uh there's a reason for that i do feel like i've been getting

a little like i'm just not specific with my accent work as much anyway point being is that this was a thing to that you know around 2011 or what like what you're saying uh and i started watching them quasi legally um and i was blown away they start to make them their way they're over here, like, people are watching streams of it, and then DirecTV gets them, and then I believe Netflix got them. So they've sort of established themselves. It was initially, like, very much a cult show. You know, it was like, it was almost like a weird word of mouth thing despite the fact

that Twitter makes word of mouth sort of impossible. It's like particularly, this is the cult surrounding the show, and we should be clear, it was a very specific thing because there were three episodes. It is an anthology show that sort of interrogates in disturbing Twilight Zoney ways are relationship with technology. And there was one season of three episodes and there was a second season of three episodes. And then last year there was a Christmas special. And that's it. And if you don't know anything about it, it's an anthology series. There's usually, in the past, there were three episodes per series, is what they call in England. They were mostly written.

It was creative by Charlie Brooker, who's a really interesting guy. We're both fascinated by him. He's done almost anything you could do in like media. A professional satirist, which is not really a job that exists in America, but I'm glad it does. So he has a show that is, I guess you could I would call it a much more like asceticly satirical version of something like John Oliver where it's called with a weekly wipe or Sometimes they do an annual one. I think it's called yearly wipe, but you can see them as on YouTube and He also wrote some very savage video game reviews Yeah, he wrote for the Guardian and he wrote like a sort of a satirical column for the Guardian But you know he does he's done he also did a couple of other TV shows he did what was the one about the one?

Dead set which was a reality show that has a zombie invasion it's like a Big Brother stuff thing and now he's got black mirror and obviously black mirror has sort of started to grow and grow part of the thing that was cool about black mirror in the beginning is since so much of it is about experiencing it like you can't really talk about it's like fight club you can't talk about black mirror without giving a lot of it away so people would just be like you got to watch this yeah you have to watch this i can't so it was a different kind of way of talking about a show because it would be really it would suck if i was like you got to watch this one because this is what happens. You never want to know what happens. You would tell people to watch it and they'd say,

well, which one do I start with since they're not connected? And I always would say start with the first one, the National Anthem, because the way that builds and the way your experience watching it changes as you're watching it is very instructive about what the show is going to do to you. I would also say that the experience of discovering this series before it was easily available was, I think, in a way pleasurable to us like a throwback in the same way we used to want to get import CD singles. We would read about it in the British press and then like seek it out and it felt very secretive and exciting in a way that media used to and TV hasn't. So Allison Herman wrote a really good piece on The Ringer about the new season where she kind of

wrestles with how hard it is to do social commentary without being too self-important. You know, because Charlie Brooker is like a very confident and, you know, a serbic, like, you know, pundit when it comes to talking about like our contemporary condition. He takes a very dim view of it. But I think it's the same way that people kind of like, like, like roll their eyes at sometimes what, say, like, an Oliver or somebody says, like, in their rants, you know what I mean? When they annihilate somebody?

Yeah, well, I mean, that's not John Oliver's fault. It's more, like, people, I think, feel like they're getting, they're preaching to the converted, or it's, like, basically, like, amping up the volume on something that they already feel, right? So we all already know, probably, I think a lot of us know, that our phones are bad for us, and the technology is sort of corrupting traditional ideas of human interaction. and, you know, behavior. There's a lot of things that it's doing that are, like, amazing.

I'm sure I haven't found any yet. Podcasts are pretty good. It was pretty cool to be able to watch Black Mirror before it was on America. Yeah. But that's what this show is about. It's about how technology is becoming this new eye of soron in the sky

that is, like, just affecting everything we do. So to be clear, there were only those six episodes plus the Christmas special. Netflix, again, this is kind of what Netflix can be good for, they gave Charlie Brooker and his producing partner a, basically, not a blank check, but a very big check to make more. We're not talking Chris Rock, buddy. We're not talking.

How much was that? Like two comedy specials for 40 million. I love that. That's a great rate. Yeah. Let me see if I can figure the math. Is that about 20 million for comedy special? Yeah.

It's terrific. He's underpaid. They gave, basically, to do 12 more episodes, which is nuts because that's three times. the number of episodes they had, no, sorry, twice as many episodes. After proving how good I was at math a second ago, twice as many episodes as they had done in total to date. And the way they did it was six and six. And they definitely opened up the crowd a little bit more.

One of the episodes in this first batch of episodes, half dozen that are premiering this week, Mike Schur from Parks and Recreation and the Good Place, co-wrote an episode with Rashida Jones. The cast... Joe Wright directed one of these new ones. And the cast of the first two series was terrific. John Hamm probably in the Christmas special is the biggest name. Yeah, I mean, Haley Atwell, Donald Gleason. Rory Cochran, no, about Rory Cochran.

Not him. Tobias Menzies. A lot of the people you know from British TV. Roy Conear, sorry. Showed up. Roy Cajoran. Dazed and confused. He was pretty good.

A tale of two of Rory. He's probably available. He's available. But this season, you know, casts a bit of a wild. They just announced that Jody Foster is going to be directing among the second set of episodes. So, as you guys could tell, this is all primer. We did not want to spoil anything. We have not watched the new episodes yet.

We are psyched to dive into them. And one of the things we thought we would do is, since this is kind of a unique show, where each episode is standalone, unrelated, and deserves a little bit more time, we thought we could do this kind of like the book club we keep promising we'll do. So this is the Black Mirror Club. The Black Mirror Club. So what we're going to suggest is we're going to talk about each one of these six episodes over the next six weeks. So we can watch them.

Yeah, so every Thursday? I think, unless we have a real thin month. Let's do Monday. We'll do one because we have Westworld and then I have my own divorce podcast now. I know. And by the way, I think it's going great. Congratulations on that. It's a solo pod. The first one we'll do is nose dive. Okay. I thought of San Juan Niro was the first one. Actually, you're wrong. I'm looking at the list right now. And I don't mean that.

Like, I've debunked you. I'm just saying. Nose-dive is episode number one? Episode number one is Nose dive. Okay. So I'll be doing. Howard, the luminous bracedawe. I'll do San Juanapiro and divorce. I hate it when we fight on air. We wanted to do this, though.

If you guys haven't seen it, or if you just want to argue with us, really quickly, should we just do top three? Should we do it? No, I think we should do it. So we want to, so we will now talk briefly about the existing episodes of Black Mirror. If you don't want to be spoiled on them, feel free to pause or fast forward because we're going to rank them. And we have not shared lists ahead of this.

So you want to go one, one, two, two, three, three. that like that? And I think we should go backwards. I think we should go seven to one. All right. Seven to one. And then we could talk about each episode as we go. Okay.

I'm very nervous about this. Because I feel like there is a right answer here. Okay. This is interesting. My least favorite one is the Waldo moment. That's my least favorite one too. Great. It's just not my vibe.

So I don't really have a ton to say about it. It's about an animated character becoming a candidate for prime minister, right? Well, to be an MP, the idea being that his future is limitless. It's a crude cartoon bear who basically raises both animated fingers to social and political propriety. It is very relevant this year in America. It is well-crafted. But interestingly enough, it's one of those things, I think, that the vibe, I think you're right.

I didn't like it that much when I watched it. I didn't like it as much because of it just wasn't, the vibe wasn't quite right. But it's one of those pieces of art that has been made almost redundant by 20s. 16. Yeah. Something that we're hearing. Did you see that David Mandel, the showrunner of Veep, has been like, we've had to start cutting jokes from the upcoming season because they've actually happened in a reality now.

That's really funny. I think Waldemoman is a sign. I think it's a great example of why Charlie Brooker is kind of a dark genius, but it's the least successful episode of like here. Yeah, sometimes you can be too right. Yeah. You know what I mean? Also, sometimes like British political satire is not super funny to me.

Although I was fascinated by the Waldo Moment that apparently when you stand for an election, you literally have to stand while they read the results wearing ribbons, like show ponies. So that's a cool thing. Are you being serious? Remember in the episode? My next least favorite one, but no shots, is 15 million merits. You know, interesting. That is a very popular episode.

Some people like that one the best. I'm not among them. That's the episode that's sort of like a, I'm going to keep saying dystopian because that's everything on the show. That's also what reality is now. It's kind of an American Idol fame thing. I like Daniel Kaluah a lot who stars in it. he was in Sicario.

Why didn't you like that one as much? And with a caveat that we love this show. I guess that one was the most like quote unquote futuristic to me because I also when I saw it I think I was kind of a little bummed out. I don't remember if Idol was still huge then

but I was like this weird like we're all watching American Idol thing is kind of a bummer to me. Because it was too real? Sure. I guess so. I was also just like, it was just one of those things that didn't quite connect. You'll see sort of where my tastes lie for better or for worse as we go on. My second to least favorite is White Bear, which is another episode.

It's interesting. I mean, I think I've had conversations with the people where every episode has been listed as their favorite. Other than Waldo Moment, I think. So we should just talk about the episodes as they come up and not repeat. White Bear is my favorite black mirror episode. I was wondering about that. You poker-faced me in the room. So there's not a lot of, um,

Black Bear is not a very visceral show for the most part. It can be very tense and depressing and anxiety producing, but this is one of the only episodes where they take all of the sort of ideas that they have and instead of it just being like this static thing that happens over the course of, say, half an hour, I think some of the Netflix episodes are quite a bit longer than that. But instead of it being static, White Bear is unrelenting.

And I actually thought, you know, some of the reveals in White Bear, which is basically a woman wakes up and she's being chased by a mob of her neighbors, all of whom are wearing masks and filming her with phones. And she can't figure out what's going on. She doesn't really remember much about what's happening. It's just straight up terrifying. There's not like that many layers to her terror until the very end. It becomes more terrifying. I mean, this woman, Lenora Critchlow, who's the actress, It's probably the most unrelenting and most demanding and just gutting performance in any of it.

And this is a very gut-wrenching series. Yeah. She basically screams in shock, horror, and terror for an hour. Yeah. It's very much like the sort of like the first, the middle act of 28 days later, where they're kind of like trying to get from the tower block to, you know. Here's what I'm thinking. As I'm talking to you, I'm actually shifting my list only because. When you're reminding me of it, I think that white bear in many ways is the best idea of any of it.

I think it is the most complicated and the most, in some level, devastating idea because it interrogates our desire to be spectators, but also a desire we have for, quote, unquote, justice and punishment all at once. So in many ways, it's the biggest, it's the biggest idea. It might be the best. And it's also the most difficult idea. And I think that for me, the way that the twist occurs, the way it flips, didn't entirely work. Sure. In execution. Although, interestingly, and I rewatched it, which was tough this week, the, it's one of those episodes where the credits come up and then there's a few flashes of extra scenes that fleshes it out and extends it.

And it's one of those things where it actually the repetition of the idea, this is an ongoing night. Yeah. Worked for me more. It bounced that at the end. And it also made me realize that that idea is essentially the idea of the Christmas special. Right. So there's a little bit of repetition.

I would actually, we'll move on. But as we're talking, just the fact that the idea is so audacious and terrifying, it's probably better than 15 million merits, which in some ways is successful because it's such an, it's not obvious idea, but it's a much more palatable and understandably immediate idea. Yeah. And like I said, that's my favorite one. What's your next one?

White Christmas. Yeah, I think that's about right for me. I think the thing about White Christmas is worth mentioning, there's a tradition, it's very quaint and very sweet British tradition that I'm into, which is the idea of a Christmas special. Yeah, Goughton does it, Sherlock does it, lots of shows. These short-seasoned shows that come back for a special based around the holiday. Can you imagine what an ER Christmas special would do right now?

It's a great point. Instead of just resurrecting things for unnecessary 12-20 episodes. A cheers Christmas special would be like, come on. I mean, if the contracts. were easier to do. Well, I mean, like, if you can sign anybody, I mean, Ted Danson is available, right? Ted Danson was at the debate last night.

Did you see that? I did. He ran. I was like, God. Was Vince Neal at the debate last night? I didn't know if that, my assumption, because of the literal flaming clown car that was around that side of the room,

I assumed it was a Vince Neal impersonator because I couldn't get the real one, but they probably could get the real one. Wow. It certainly looked like him. I thought it was Cato Caelin for a minute. Anyway, the degree of difficulty for the White Christmas episode,

was high because they had to essentially make a Christmas episode and then also make a Black Mirror episode. It's incredibly clever the way they did it. I really liked the twists and reveals in that one. I liked the fundamental idea that we won't get too into, but it's an idea that was also in the end of this video game that Jason Concepcion told me about, this idea where you basically have to reboot yourself, but if you do, a copy of you will exist trapped in the bad place. John Hamm is terrific in it because I think they wrote it for him. it's a Christmas special and it spends as much time

on horrific future visions as it does roasting potatoes. I'll be really interested to watch the next few episodes because I know that there are some bigger names. There is Bryce Dallas, Howard, McKenzie Davis is in one of these episodes. There are some bigger names in these. Typically what happened with Black Mirror when you were watching it, for a lot of the people in it, I had never

seen Haley Atwell really before. I had never seen Toby Kebill like that before. He's in an episode we'll talk about soon. Jessica Finley, Jessica Brown Finley was in, you know, 15 million merits. So it was almost a little bit jarring to have a, just to John Hamm being in this world. Yeah, not just a star, but an American star. Yeah, exactly.

They wrote it to him. I mean, he was doing draper-ish things, and that was sort of in a black mirrory meta way. But I agree with you. It'll be interesting to take it outside of the British Repertory Company that is British television, where these incredible, gifted theater actors will take the fifth lead in an hour-long anthology series. And it'd be very unshoy. Ray Spall is also my dude.

Love that guy. Race Ball's great. The next one I had was... This is number four? Yeah. I'm going to say the entire history of you, which I know is a crowd favorite. But in the same way that you found White Bearer difficult to watch,

I think I find an entire history of you difficult to watch. I find a hard to watch. This is Toby Kebill. It's basically about a guy who... We wind up getting devices or apps in our eyes that record everything that we experience. And you can, this guy uses it to repeat and re-literate, arguments with his girlfriend over and over and over again. And it's basically like, if you ever find yourself being crippled with the way some

technologies bring out the very worst parts of you, this is the logical extension of that. I didn't, I respect the shit out of it. Don't ever want to watch it again. I would struggle with watching it again too. I think that for me, that's my number two episode. And I think that it, along with the one that's my number one, are the best arguments for this series because they are brilliant extrapolations of who we are now,

of what we're capable of and what we're driven by, and the desire to document everything, to have proof of everything, to live every experience through the prism of a, black mirror of a screen. That also with the sort of delivered with a sort of perfect clarity of a short story, I found really moving. Side note, the entire history of you episode is the one that was optioned by Robert Downey

Jr. to potentially be a standalone film. I don't know if that's happening. I don't know where that is. The guy who wrote that episode created a new TV show for HBO called Succession that's coming up that I believe has nothing to do with eye implants, but you never know. You can only hope. I think we're going to probably be able to get through this last bit. I think National Anthem we've already talked about.

National Anthem was my number three. Yeah. Oh, we're in the same place? Yeah, and then what was your... National Anthem is the one about the pig. Yeah. It's the one you should watch first. Let's just leave it at that.

Although I would say that not all of the episodes are as in your face as that one. Some of them are more subtle. It's just such a perfect introduction to what this is and what it could be, and I never want to watch it again either. I don't know if I want to watch any of these again, to be honest. I tried with White Bear. My number two is entire history of you. That's my number two as well. Didn't you just say that was your number four?

No, number, no, sorry, I'm saying Be Right Back. Be Right Back is my number one. Okay. Be Right Back is Haley Atwell, Donald Gleason. It's essentially, it's a two-hander. It's those two actors, and they're tremendous. And that is the one that suggests that, you know, all of the information that we're putting out into the world for free about ourselves,

our likes or dislikes, who we are, we look like can basically be collated into recreating us should something happen to us. That's also this idea that's the one that feels to me like mythic and iconic and totemic because the ideas at play are essential to fiction. The performances are also extraordinary in that and I think it goes a long way and making it feel very real. This idea that like in this day and age there's nothing, there's no such thing as lack of presence that you can feel the constant presence of someone else. so why would death stop that is probably much closer than what you think.

And it's very haunting and very upsetting. But what I mean, though, is this idea that, like, one of the oldest stories you could ever tell is, could I bring someone I love back from the dead? And what is the cost of that? So to take what, you know, for other generations might be a ghost story and make it a story about technology is, for me, the promise of what the show could be and was and what we successfully did. Andy, to wrap things up today, we want to talk a little about one of our favorite bands

collectively. Jimmy World, who have a new album out tomorrow, Integrity Blues. And I'll talk a little bit more about that album with special guests, front man of the band Jim Atkins, who's coming in, coming into AG pod next week. I'll be on the divorce pod talking to, you know. Are we breaking up? So, you know, you guys will talk more about the new album, but I just went down the Jimmy World Rabbit Hole the other day.

Yeah. And really, really, really found, got caught up my feelings on that one. That is a band that is capable of doing that. It is a, the thing that fascinates me about this band, and I'm saying this is someone who wrote a book that was largely about them, it is such an odd and unique career because we both first encountered this band in the late 90s. They were sort of a poster child of an attempted exploitation. It was a major label heat check first because I think that they were basically kids from Arizona.

Basically, there was a moment. signed to DGC? Capital. Capital. So what happened was that first 90s emo wave that you were right front and center. The job breaker dear you post-Nirvana like people getting signed wave. And then basically my understanding of it is major labels came swarming to bands like Promise Ring and maybe get-up kids because they were sort of percolating. And they were rebuffed.

And so then they were like, well, who's one tier down? In Jimmy World were these little, they're kids. They're a year older than us. had put out an indie album in Arizona and, like, toured with Mineral and Christie Front Drive and got signed a capital. Yeah. Put out a record that was mildly received, static prevails. And then made... Statically received on my part, but yes. But then made essentially a masterpiece called Clarity. And I was telling a friend of mine about this the other day that there was like this time period around that, around that time when if you knew guys in bands and they knew booking agents and they knew people maybe at small record labels, advanced cassettes.

of albums would circulate? I remember you had Girls Can Tell by Spoon way before it came out. That's because Brit, when he was super depressed and dropped from his major label, gave me a CDR of it. This is the same kind of situation where they made clarity. And I remember a couple of my friends had it

and we would just listen to it nonstop in their band's van wherever we were going like playing shows in Providence or wherever in Worcester. And it would just be like, I think that the rationale behind the clarity at that point was like, this is probably the last record we'll ever make. so we're just going to go for it. And to listen to that record now,

I mean, for me, it was more like they were like, it was like a folk tale. Like they had made this great record. And everyone talked about how Lucky Denver Mint, the single, got on the soundtrack of never been kissed. That was going to break it for them. Yeah. Now, the comment I made to you yesterday was,

if you worked at a major label between 1998 and 2005, and you didn't get Lucky Denver Mint or work from their album futures into the top 10, just end it. Yeah. Just quick. Go play shuffleboard. But the truth is, if you worked in a major label, then you probably are playing shuffleboard.

But these were great, big, melodic pop rock songs that had a real heft, real weight to them, and they were great, and it got zero. It got zilch. It got nothing. It got them dropped. And then they crowdfunded their next record by touring. Bleed American.

And made Bleed American, which came out right around 9-11, and had a song called The Middle, and they blew up. And that album went platinum. And sweetness is on that, too. And sweetness is on that. one of the greatest songs of the last 20 years. In fact, you listen to these songs. But I can't believe how perfect these songs are.

The best song on there is praise chorus. Praise chorus. I mean, if you don't, don't's up there too. But a praise chorus, these songs that for us are essential, not just because they're like big-hearted pop rock songs, but because they are essentially about being a certain age and loving music and referring to music. They have all the mechanics and the dynamics of emo pop-punk stuff that was happening at that time. But then they are infused with not only like breakfast clubs,

soundtrack melodicism, but like Breakfast Club emotional content where it's like very easy to track but like subtly detailed narrative beats throughout the song. But let me say what is we're going to go. I want to come back and just give you the floor to do your

argument for why futures is and it's a correct argument is just a lost masterpiece, the post hit album post the middle. But I think that Jimmy World is fascinating precisely because of the fact that they are not interesting other than their music is, there's a ton to unpack there, and it's a joy to listen to. But they are caught in that

middle ground place that some other bands we could think of have fallen into where there is no story to write or tell about it other than, boy, that's a good song. It's the same four guys. Jim Atkins has been married to his wife for a number of years, by all accounts happily. They have three sons. They live in a mid-century modern home that was beautifully profiled in Phoenix New Times a few years ago. This is not the stuff of rock and roll legend or whatever. Yeah. And they're consistent. They keep making great records.

He keeps writing good songs. You know, I think parts of Chase This Light from 2008, invented from 2010, right up there with all the best songs they've ever done. But what is the story to tell? And because of that, they just keep going. I'm sure they're happy with that. When I interviewed them from my emo book, I remember talking to Jim Atkins, like he was some elder sage.

Yeah, right. He was 26. Like it was Van Barson or something. But he was 26. year old and he was basically like, I don't know, man, I just like writing songs. And I was like, give me a scrap here. Just tell me one time you had too many rolling rocks or something. He, he, I mean, I think he, so the thing that's interesting about futures, which, so clarity

is the most passionate album ever written about John Kerry? That's the thing. Clarity Bleed American Futures is just an incredible run. A great run. And Futures is like, it's really, really weird to listen to the title song of Futures because It's really fired up about John Kerry. Yeah, I think he wrote it in 2003 when it's just like, man, the dream team, Howard Dean.

We got Senator John Edwards. We're going to take down George Bush. But there's a lot of really great songs on Futures, which is a sort of dark record. It's also great because a lot of these bands, after they made whatever their mile breakthrough was, you know, played American, a lot of these bands were like, you know,

they were label was like, anything you want kid what can I get you in there like we want the guy who engineered do little to do our record so it was like all these Gil Norton and glen john's productions and these smaller bands um future sounds incredible and it has probably one of the top five pop rock songs there's like a degree of entitlement that comes along with power pop where everybody's just like if it was a more just world Tommy keen would have had a hundred number one hits and it's like but he didn't you know what I mean and it's like you know what I mean and it's like you're You would have invented Facebook if you were going to invent Facebook.

But there is a world in which work by Jimmy Eat World should be one of the classic pop rock songs in the last 15 years. It is so good. Despite God bless her and I love her, these really weird Liz Phair backing vocals on that song? It's so weird. That was also like, let's get, that's just reflective of who these guys were. They're like, we just went platinum. Do you think Liz Phair heard that song before she said on it? I don't think she knows she sang on it.

Yeah. I don't think she ever met those guys, but she definitely is on that song. That's so awesome that Liz Phair sings BVs on that. Futures is a very, that's a good album for me. That was, I mean, I think the people are 27. 27 is generally a transitional year. Sure. That's when the record came out for me.

Saturn's return. That's when it starts, pops off, you know. It is a incredibly dark and beautiful album for a bunch, made by a bunch of guys who are relatively uncomplicated. we should definitely throw together a playlist. We'll share on Twitter put on Spotify of our favorite Jimmy WorldFiles. But, you know, it's funny to come up against the limits of music criticism. And just basically, I mean, we're just being fans at this point.

But the narrative doesn't work. But the body of work, 20 years, is pretty unimpeachable. They're not big enough to need to have to do what, like, you two does, which is like every five years to be like, we're back to save rock and roll, sir. Thank you for that. Excuse me, Mr. President. We're boxed. Just, by the way, you just saved the podcast, too, in the 11th hour.

You can find me on a cold tile floor of a bathroom somewhere in Los Angeles this weekend. I think we should tap out on this one. That's fine. Watch Black Mirror. We'll be talking about nosedive on Monday along with Westworld. I got mad Orion theories, my dude. Mad theories. I can't wait.

And I'll see you then. Good job, Brian Skis.