The Watch - Gail Simmons on the Finale of ‘Top Chef’! Plus, ‘Dunk and Egg’ News and ‘The Boys’ Season 4 Premiere.

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about the news that production has begun on another ‘Game of Thrones’ spin-off series based on ‘The Tales of Dunk and Egg’ novellas (1:00). Then, they talk about the first few episodes of ‘The Boys’ Season 4 and the direction the show is heading in its final season (13:56). Finally they are joined by ‘Top Chef’ host Gail Simmons to discuss last night’s finale episode and some of the competition changes that were made this season (36:09). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Gail Simmons Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dave Gonzalez, and I haven't read any of the books in George R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm Joanna Robinson and I've read every book in Georgia R. Martins, a song of ice and fire. And I'm Neil Miller and I have also read those very heavy books. Years ago, we hosted a Game of Thrones podcast called A Storm Spoilers, and we're thrilled to head back to Westrose to cover the second season of House of the Dragon on the Trial by Content feed. We'll be using our book knowledge to dive deep into each episode and answer your lingering questions. so send us a raven every week to trial by content at gmail.com. Follow and subscribe to trial by content on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast to join us on Thursdays

where these two will explain to me which Targaryen is right. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, Gusokumab. Taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis,

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Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com, and joining me in the studio, The Dunk to My Egg. It's Andy Greenwald.

Doesn't that mean I'm your big burly protector and you're the king? Oh, that's true. Sorry, the last part, as I said it out loud. I don't know if I describe this burly. It's great to see you Thursday. Shout out to the East Coast, sweltering out there. That long conversation with my mother about the amount of water she has in the house.

So that was great. Do you want me to talk to her about what it's like in Arizona? Just to like set perspectives? Any couple of news items. We're going to maybe talk about the boys. And then it's just a delightful guest. Gail Simmons joined us to talk about the finale of Top Chef Season 21, which aired last night, obviously spoilers for that.

If you haven't watched it yet like Kaya, sorry to her. She's a peacock adherent. Yeah. And you just have to wait. When the quality of product is that good, you just have to wait. Anyway, Andy, I wanted to ask you something. I'm about to tell you a little bit about a new show coming in our future, 2025, I think. It comes from the Game of Thrones universe.

Great. I had forgotten that there is an advertisement running on the Ringer podcast network that suggests the watch will be discussing House of the Dragon every week. Is there an ad? What does it say? Mal does it. And it's like, here's the rundown of Talk the Thrones, House of R, the midnight boys were all doing House of the Dragon business

and of course your boys at the watch or something along those lines. Of course your boy at the watch. And I realized that it wasn't in haste but it wasn't planned that I was like well I guess we just don't have to talk about this anymore. Do you feel like... Are you feeling the pinch from Big Macs?

I'm worried about the Better Business Bureau what's Elizabeth Warren's thing? Consumer Protection Bureau. Worry about them. I'm worried about you know they came after Zinn. They could come after us. I was wondering if you were going to speak on this. Your silence, were you mourning in private? Are you okay? Well, I was mourning in silence because my mouth was full of Zinn. I get it. I'm on a text message thread with Craig Horlebeck and Bobby Wagner,

which is mostly about, what was about weightlifting, but I never did any of that. And then now it's mostly about Zin, even though neither of them use. And now it's just, we were just, I was like, this is going to be a real turning point in American history, if they've been end this thing. I'm really curious how your levels, not our audio levels, but just your mood levels will change if your nicotine intake. Like I said, I'm a minted

adherent, a lozenges here, and a lozenges. If they come for the lozenges, watch the fuck out. Watch out, baby. Yeah, I'm going to... Straight Waco. You know? Like, when I say straight Waco, I mean, maybe I'll go to Waco and visit Chip and Joanna's new hotel. We're all Larry McMurtry's books on.

I hear it's another wonder of the world, Chris. By the way... After a couple days, Do you feel any different? Well, I wonder, you know, one thing that people do a lot now, I know when there are large cases is they go judge shopping. You know what I mean? They, like file the case in a place that will be more potentially sympathetic towards their particular argument. So I think there's a case to be made that those who might be neither team green nor team black, but team DGAF might.

want a podcast for themselves. Sure. That doesn't seem so fun. I think, I was like, well, we're done then. I mean, I think what we'll do is we'll check in intermittently. I don't know if you'll watch it every Sunday night religiously. You know, it's your Sunday. You know, I can't tell you what to do.

Much of my Sunday is religious. So I appreciate that. All of them. I'm going to keep, yeah, I'm going to keep up with this show. This is, Chris, I'm in the business of television. I know, this is where I'm at. I can't ignore it. I can't put my head in the sand.

I was wondering whether or not the news of a new game of phones show held the same interest to you now. So let me just give you guys a little bit of a background in case you missed the reporting this week. It was in all the trades. Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which is the adaptation of George R. Martin's, I would say beloved novellas about these guys dunk and egg. I like to say Dunk and egg, but I know it's not that. Dunk, long pause. And it's Duncan Egg in the same way his Duncan's friend is Benny

Benny oftenwise Remember that? That was a problem for us Yeah, you know what Egg stands for right? No Agon No, is it? Yes

I mean, I haven't read it Me either. But not this Agonne. No, because this AGOD is an asshole I don't know if he needs any more screen time. It's a later, it's a later... I got you. There's lots of AGOs.

And that's something I've known for literally minutes since we ran into Joanne and Mallory in the hall just now. I'm surprised they talked to you at all. Honestly. This series is called Night of the Seven Kingdoms. It's going to be sort of show run written by Ira Parker who worked on The Sympathizer.

Also, Ryan Condal is involved. This is George O.N. Martin. Episodes are directed by Owen Harris, who did two of the best Black Mirror episodes. Be right back in San Juan Paro. And Sarah Adina Smith, who worked on lessons in chemistry. It has an awesome cast. And that's why I'm kind of like...

And don't just gloss. Sarah Deena Smith is legit. She's awesome. That was very exciting to me that she's involved in the show. Did she do the bus episode of Lessons and Chemistry? She's got a horror movie in her if she does.

She did a horror movie first. Oh, did she? Yeah, and then she did the Hannah show for Amazon. She's really talented. Okay. She got her start. I'm not doubting you. She directed an episode of, what was the Duplas Brothers show?

The Room 2. I'm going to get it wrong. Oh, the anthology series? Yeah, Room 10. She worked a lot. She's awesome. Anyway, this has a really. cool cast, which is what really piqued my interest.

Finn Bennett, who is awesome as Jody Foster's son on True Detective Night Country. Oh, yeah. Tansan Crawford from Tiny Beautiful Thing. Sam Spurl, who is incredible on Fargo as the kind of Javier Bardem-esque weird evil figure wandering around.

And Daniel Ings, who's unbelievable in the gentleman, and is really good in sex education. Yeah. What about Bertie Carvel? Yeah. He's from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, among other things. Did you watch Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norol behind my back? What's going on? I watched it in front of your back. I watched it.

We never talked about that, though, right? Some things are just for me. You never read the book, right? No. God, that's a good book. It's on the shelf, and it's Phoebe's. Yeah, it's not mine. Has she read it? I think she got like midway through. Oh, I'm starting, I feel like I talked it up to her. Yeah.

I don't know about fantasy. And I was like, Phoebe, it's so interesting. If you care about Victorian English. Every time you tell her something, she turns to me after you go away. She's like, I wish she would shut up because he made me read Jonathan Norrel. I got to have vibe. You know when I got that vibe? Norway. I've got a lot of that. Yes. I know you're asking me. And this is high quality. Are you still open to the idea that something interesting can come out of this franchise despite your ambivalence about House of the Dragon? Yes, because the thing that I think is

crucial in any of these exercises, in any of these big IP rollouts, the challenge is to go from a single, like the main, the mainstream, the main vein of the content. And in this case of Game of Thrones, like with the Boys, for example, which we're going to talk about later, a show that is everything. It's all of the tones, all of the characters, all the types of storytelling, telling a definitive existential story about the world. And then the creators kind of have to pull the emergency break and Tokyo drift and be like, okay, actually, what we're going to do now is separate the strands, and tell a smaller bore story about something you might already know about how it was resolved

or this type of story when previously we were telling you all the types of stories. That's been a challenge. What's interesting to me about this one is, as you were alluding to, like House the Dragon, probably not my vibe for a TV show. That is a very specific plank of the Game of Thrones experience,

which was not my favorites. I did not really care about Targaryens or Dragons or actually who was the king. So if this show, if really proved this Night of the Seven Kingdom show, proves their commitment to telling diverse stories in a known world, then I'm in. Like Mallory was saying that this is, at least on the page, charming. These are like Arthurian legend type storytelling, which I'm in for. That sounds great. I am curious about their just a larger project's commitment to diversifying.

that way because people like what they like. And there is a built-in assumption, I think, with Game of Thrones that it's going to be savage. The only thing I would note is just that this is a century before Game of Thrones, as I think House of the Dragon is... You told me it was like 200. 200 years. You know, as we know, the John Snow series never really went anywhere,

or maybe it was more like of a sort of a wish to do it, and they never got that off of the ground or they decided not to move forward with it. That would have been the first step forward. And I think that across the board with franchise storytelling, I think it's time to start moving forward. I think Star Wars is set entirely in the past now.

Game of Thrones is set entirely in a pre-Denaris poof world. Even Marvel is chipping around the old timeline is going to be in like, we're not going to go past. Well, they're also going to. Sideways. They're multiversal storytelling as opposed to. And I think I'm ready to see something that is post-ray, post-every, you know, let's go post all these.

It's almost like you want a brave new world. If that's the case, I've got a Captain America for you. One other piece of news. You know, there's two things we love on this podcast. I can't wait to hear what you say they are. It's the fucking Edmonton Oilers. Yep. And it's Apple Television. Sure. It is long time listeners know we are day ones for both products. Lady in the Lake, the trailer for, I thought, like a kind of almost shelved project. I mean, it wasn't, but this is a thing where a couple of shows we're seeing now.

They're coming out. They haven't had a season since 2022 because of COVID and strikes and stuff. And then there's some stuff that's been done for a while or has been in post or being worked on or kind of maybe did some reshoot. I don't know, but presumed innocent, I think has been. been done for a while. Ripley was done for a while more or less. Yes. And Lady of the Lake, another thing here.

I want to know, because this thing looks fucking incredible. Alma Horel directed all the episodes. She directed Honeyboy. Is that the name of the Shiloh buff movie? Natalie Portman, Moses Ingram, starring fucking Wood Harris is in it. Set in 1960s Baltimore, it's a crime story about an investigative journalist and looking into these two unsolved murders.

Man, do we need to like start pickling TV shows, let him sit on the shelf for a little while? Well, there's certainly a case to be made that a lot of things have been, have suffered for being rushed. Yes. That is not the case with these shows. I mean, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm old enough to remember when Lady in the Lake was announced as a Natalie Portman, Lupita and Yungo two-hander, writer Dre Ryan was adapting it.

Now it's Alma Harrell's show with Moses Ingram from, you said, Queens Gambit and from Obi-One. I, this, this knocked me back, honestly. Yeah, the trailer is incredible. The trailer is really exciting. The show looks really beautiful. And more than anything, what made me so excited about it. And we should say it's based on Laura Lipman's novel. She's a great Baltimore crime novelist.

She's married to David Simon, who created The Wire. I'm here for a Baltimore set crime story. That's, I'm already here for that. But what the trailer suggests is that they were all caps going for something. And that has been a knock, I think, again. some of our con... That's been a knock that we've laid against Apple. That it feels like kind of anonymous somehow.

With the star power is like the thing that sort of wipes out everything else. Smoothed out edges. Yeah, safe. And I got to say, there's a version of this story that I learned from the trailer that could very easily be safe. You get a celebrity to come down

and be like a, you know, a crusading white woman in the 60s, investigating racially biased murders. There is a lifetime version of that, quite frankly. We've seen versions of this story before. This, Laura Lippman wouldn't write that story, I don't think. But regardless, the talent attached didn't seem interested at all in making that story. So it's interesting.

It's exciting. I mean, if they're more exciting shows coming on any service this year, great. But, you know, we're watching. We're watching you, Apple. We're watching you TV. We'll take a quick break. We're going to come back and talk about the boys. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul

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We got it. I got to like get energy. I'm trying to balance the scales here from how we're going to do today versus Monday. We made a special guest next week to discuss Shorzzi, which I'm very excited about. Is it Connor McDavid?

Are you going to watch all of Shorzzi? Yes, I booked Connor McDavid and Leon Driesidal to come on the pod to talk about Shorzzy. Those are hockey players. So that's, right? So I want to talk about the boys today. I just want to ask, we can save it for Monday if you'd like.

I like you're asking this on Mike. Did you ask? Did you watch Presumidinness at episode three? Yes. And. Oh, so you want to... That's what you want to do with it. I want to know if you liked it.

I love this show. Good. Are we done? Yeah. Should we throw to Gil Simmons? I would just say, without giving away anything, in case folks haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet because it's obviously been a very busy cultural week. Yeah.

I would just say that this was the episode. I still love this show. Like, I'm so, I'm so into it. We got the Davey Kelly red herring Palozo started. A hundred percent. I'll say that... Which I'm here for. it's summer, it's hot, confuse me.

No, look, this is what my friend Justin said over text. I hope he doesn't mind me calling him out. He was like, this used to be a summer movie, this show. It is perfectly timed to have out right now. I think, and I'll, you know, one episode doesn't mean anything in terms of the larger construction of the season. I do think the first two episodes were exceptional in a way that was like wildly elevated and thrilling and surprising and a lot of that has to do with the direction.

Greg Yattanis came in this episode and delivered a very, very solid job. It did not feel as textured and as tonally, a aesthetically elite, let's say, as the first two episodes, which is what happens when episodic television we switch directors,

especially one who may not be, may not have been in the prep and everything from the beginning. Also, to your point, the show is built, we now have three episodes to prove it. It is built to be a streaming show in a way that Apple actually doesn't stream.

And what I mean by that is every episode ends on a, you're going to pick up one second later cliffhanger. I sure did. That is a Netflix model of how you get people to watch the next episode. Apple, God bless them, drops episodes after the first two, is dropping these things weekly. So that coupled with the fact that it's like,

oh yeah, here's the David E. Kelly suspect parade. That did, you know, I guess I'm having trouble articulating it, but I think you understand and I think you agree with me that I love this show. But there is also like a holy shit, this is incredible.

And a holy shit, this is just what I want to watch. Yeah. And the jury, no pun intended, is out. But any show that has, that weasily Nico, any show that has Sars Guard

doing like these like gods are SARS card things. This is the episode where they were at the bar, right? Yeah. And like, what's up with Tommy Moldo's

casual Friday shirt? That's what I want to talk about. His shirt is unbelievable. This is what I, I shouldn't have said

it wasn't as aesthetically gripping as the first two because someone decided on that shirt and I love everything about it. This show has been so tonally killer

that the first, like a tiny, tiny discordant note through me. And that was when Rusty takes solace in, if he has that in

tense scene at the dinner table and, like, takes a moment in the bathroom, and Barbara comes to join him. And do you see that, like, they have a tub, but they have the, like, cedarwood bathtub tray? Yeah, where you can, like, put a candle in your book, you know? Like, that's, that's not in the savage household. Not in my savage. One second. I need to just check something. Are you Googling the shirt? No. Hello, my name is Renata Rinesvah. I wasn't that far off. A lot of people online, I've seen you talking about my pronunciation of Renata Rinesva?

Yeah. Not that, I was not that off. No. Okay, I just watched her Criterion Clause in her saying her name. I think the bigger issue was that as someone who very publicly traveled to Norway recently. You know, is she Norwegian or Danish? Chris! She's Norwegian.

Come on. Okay. We went to Norway. I know, but... The only thing people were talking about was her and that movie with Nicholas Cage. which was directed by a Norwegian. There was one other thing I wanted to say, which is that I personally would not go to an abandoned grain silo and meet with a boy who had been blackmailing me.

Would you meet with a boy in a grain silo under other circumstances? I feel like you're setting yourself up. I just, I mean, like, the entire setup where he's like, everyone is like called the cops, and form the authorities. Do not go on your own, bring legal representations so that you do not incriminate yourself. He's like, no, I must drive.

my acura to this grain silent. Rusty plays hero ball. It's amazing TV. But I just... You want my note? Yeah. From the episode? Jaden's not much of a pitcher.

How dare you? Jaden has a lot on his mind. Yeah. And he's been biking all night, apparently. You know what? So does Nick Castellanos. Doesn't stop him from fucking going yard, does it? That's why champions are in Philadelphia.

It does stop him like eight times out of ten. He's batting 211. If his son is not in his eye line, he cannot perform. This is going to be our segue, because I still feel like my observation that the relationship between Nick and Liam Castellanos is similar to Homelander and his kid. And his kid.

And Ryan. I feel like that should have gotten bigger play on our text thread. I still love presumed innocent. I just wanted to bring up a couple of elements. Well, here's my question about presumed innocent. I don't think, at this moment, I don't know if I love any actor more than Bill Camp. That said, in my understanding,

and we might need Kai to chime in on this, I was under the impression that you can't have a dream that you're not in, that your perspective through your eyes is in every dream. And in this episode,

old Bill Camp dreams about Jake Dillan Hall dreams about Jake Gillen. Yes. And unless he's in the corner being like, this is weird, you can't have that dream.

That's interesting. Oh, you think that's a feature, not a bug? I think that everything is in play for this. could tell me that, what is it, the sort of sell-by-date has gone on, like, we're past the point of where a lot of people know what the presumed innocent twist could be. And we're not going to say it on this spot. And we're not going to say it.

Or David E. Kelly was like, I have an even better idea than Scott Toro, writer of presumed innocent. And he's like, I got a new one. And if that's true, Andy, if you just unlocked this case. Wow. Can we re-record this, Kaya, with me being like, guys, I don't know if you noticed. You're you, so I guess now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose I don't dream about other people. No, you're always in your head.

I like that my new thing on the, like, when this point- But it would be awesome if you were like, I just dreamed that I was Napoleon, you know? No, but then that would still be you. But if I dreamed, no, you have a dream that's like watching Ridley Scott's Napoleon. You know what I mean? You can be, you can look down and realize that you are someone else or you are being treated as in a different way, but you are the POV protagonist of a dream. I also want to just point out, and it may be celebrate, that when this podcast started 12 years ago,

the whole schick was that I was some sort of like learned TV scribe who studied and read, you know, crushed tape. And you were like, what's up with that? And I'd be like, oh, Chris, now. And it's different now. Now I'm Forrest Gump being like, the way she talked about her kid made it think there was a fake kid, the end of House the Dragon. And in this one, I'm like, that guy dreams wrong.

Yeah. I'm just stumbling through life. Kai, are you Googling, can you dream outside of your own personal experience? I don't know why Andy was going to toss to me for insight. I just feel like you know stuff. We don't know. How to dream. Because you're young still.

It hasn't been crushed from you. I know that we're on a little bit of a time crunch, but something that's been happening for me recently is that I'll wake up kind of like around, you know, four or five. Text me, brother. And then I go back to sleep. I figured out like the position I need to. to lie in to fall back off.

And you know how I know I'm falling back off is when, like, I'll be thinking about Nick Casayanos or whatever. And then all of a sudden, like, the train of thought has, like, basically turned into a dream. And I'm like, oh, I'm dreaming. This is great. I'm going to fall back asleep or I'm falling asleep. That's sick.

But I almost am like, can I start to control my dreams? Have you ever done that? Lucid dreaming? Yeah, that's called lucid dreaming. I have had one in my life, one very intense memory of lucid dreaming. What happened in it? I was like, I bet I could fly. And I was like, oh shit, I'm flying.

Like, it was boring, but it was cool. Well, it's just as long as you're like not. I was like, oh, wow. I know how to pronounce Renanin Rondonvich. I am a Castellanos. Speaking of Nick Castellanos, the homelander of our personal lives, let's talk about the boys, which is back for its fourth season. You know what, Andrew Greenwald?

I forgot that the season three is aired in 2022. It's been a minute. What happened in 2023? What were we doing? Why was there not an episode? That's right. How was that? How was the strike?

Yeah. It was sick. It was great. And here we are in 2024, a season of TV that was made, you know, in the shadow, I guess, of Donald Trump's presidency. What? I just mean, like, it's more probably rooted in a 2019 to 2021 era. I mean, the entire show, like, it started a number of years ago. Yeah.

But like I just mean in general, like because of the amount of time it's been on the shelf, it coming out in 2024, you might be like, boy, this is quite on the nose. You know? Yes. And I just, I don't even know if I have like a larger point I want to make about the boys in general. It's just that this has been interesting to experience seeing it, you know, something that's been kind of on the shelf for a while. And also something that pretty blatantly requires you to have watched Gen V. Or at least it's recommended for you to have watched Gen V.

day spin-off series so that you can fully understand some of the plot elements that are being brought into it. I don't know how in-depth we're going to go. The fourth episode just went up. We didn't get a chance to see that yet. But how are you enjoying season four so far? Well, big picture, I really like the show. I really like the actors on it, and I always have a good time watching it.

I am finding that this season is not clicking into a groove as quickly as previous seasons, which is interesting because they still only make eight of them. And I think that... So we're halfway through this season already. Although we haven't seen the fourth, which may swing things in a certain direction. But, like, definitely the big, big, like, what is the season about? What are we headed towards? In season two, it was our friend Ayakash as Stormfront in season three.

It was Jensen Eccles as Soldier Boy in the past story and Homelander's parentage and all these things. I guess Firecracker and Siege. And also they were doing, like, Huey and Butcher becoming soups temporarily was also a major thing. Yeah, that's right. This season has felt a little bit more diffuse, and also, I think, the sharpening and the, the, the, the specifying of the satire into very, very clear one-to-one analogs between their world and our world, I think has, I mean, people seem to be having a good time online. I don't understand that I haven't had a good time online since 2014. But, like, people are like, ah, ha, ha, ha, you insoles didn't know it's always been making fun of you. Okay.

I mean, there's some pleasure to be gained from that. I took that personally. Yeah. But I also think that there is, it's really tough to satirize this moment in America, both because it feels very pressing and because it often is itself almost self-satirizing. I think that this show is also so broad

in terms of, it's not global, but it is a national show in the sense of like the characters zip all over the country and now one of the characters is likely become president or vice president. So it's moving in a lot of direction, so it's hard to focus in. And when it does focus in, I do find like the reveal that the firecrackers animus towards Starlight is because she was mean to her to beauty page.

A lot of trauma this season, man, man. I feel like that's kind of less interesting than a more cynical read of why Marjorie Taylor Green is like that. You know, it is the TV playbook. You make every big problem, an intimate problem. I get that and the show succeeds. and continues to succeed because I'm like, I like these characters. And now this scene

is between M.M. and A-Train. I don't know if they've had a scene together before, but that's cool. And let's shuffle the deck again. And now these guys are together. But at least through three episodes that shows M.O. of like, now five people are going to Harrisburg to murder a bunch of others. And we're just going to

roll with it. I've been having a harder time keeping up with that or just sort of going with the flow. I think you're on to something. First of all, on like just a practical level, I just, I really do find an hour and six minutes to be a very long episode of television. And especially when you're given three of them to watch, that's just a personal preference. It's not really a criticism of the show itself.

It's just they've chosen as has a couple of these Amazon Prime epic blockbuster series to lean into that being the go-to runtime is around 103, something like that. I'm unpleasant sometimes. For me, I think that these stakes. are so high on the show because of the physical capabilities of most of the characters that the rug getting pulled out a couple of times where you're just like he could end it all here but then he changes his mind. It starts to feel a little bit numbing after a while and yeah.

I completely agree with that. I also think we should, when we talk about the show, we should mention that Eric Ripke, who's the developer and showrunner, said that next season will be the last. I think that's clearly a good thing for the reasons you're saying. I'm not like, oh, I hope Butcher actually dies, but I'm like, they're ticking. clock of butcher's illness from the soup drugs seems to correspond with that. Though I do find that I can sometimes with a boy's timeline stuff, I'm like how much time is elapsed?

But it's the deadening effect of all longer running TV, which is, you know, I remember burning through the first three episodes of the show, like snacking on them because, oh my God, what can't they do? Like anything can happen. But at a certain point, you have to like have load-bearing floors and everything anything can't happen anymore. So you end up with a scene like in, I believe, the third episode

where a friend of the show, Colby Minifie is there as Ashley and Homelander and Sister Sage, who is a new addition to the show that I'm liking a lot, even if the writers, I can't tell if they know the difference between being smart

and being telepathic. But that's something else to unpack. Or being candid? Right, well, she's just like, clearly your pubic hair is graying. I can see from the circles under your eyes. I'm like, I don't know. if that's smart.

Seems a little like invasive. Anyway, they're in a room. Those three characters are in a room with a lady who they're interrogating. There's only one person who's getting their head lasered through in that scene. And it's someone we haven't really, we have seen before, but someone who is not a regular cast member of the show. That kind of is a problem. It's kind of a problem where Homelander can identify Huey by the aroma of his sweat,

but can't go to the hospital where his father is checked in under his own name to eliminate Huey. Homelander can do anything. That's the terror of the character, but he cannot kill Butcher or Huey because they are the protagonists of the show. So that is a delicate balancing act that I think mostly the show is so entertaining that I'm willing to overlook it, but it also makes me feel better knowing that there's an end date because they can start making decisions. Yes.

There's, I think, also maybe a little bit of a feeling like the, at least so far, like the Firecracker is not that much different than Stormfront in terms of like what are you saying with this character that's different I suppose her relationship to Starlight is pretty worth noting and that the idea that like both within each character there is both a bully and a hero

you know? Yeah. I don't know. I think it's it remains like a really high level execution of a story that I personally maybe am like feeling a little bit like this is really good but perhaps I've had enough but that's just, I want to stress that's personal preference, that's not

like technical or I'm just curious what the show wants to do honestly, because if Homelander can do anything, then let's go. Let's see what happens if he takes over the world. And maybe that's where we're headed in season four. But it's tough to do that

while also making a CIA procedural about goofs with access to machine guns who can kill and in the case of Kimiko get shot with impunity and none of it matters. I mean, they have an office. They're just sitting in an office in Manhattan.

And as long as they're there, they're like on home base of than a big game of tag. And so that sort of saps this idea of like, is Annie going to reclaim the mantle of Starlight again? It saps it of some like stakes, honestly, right? Because she's just walking around. Well, you could also have like,

it could also be an issue with the dispersion of screen time across a dozen relevant characters now, right? Like you're not really focused in on like, this is a story about Holander and Huey or Holander and Butcher and they're sort of clash. It's like we've now kind of expanded the story so much that sometimes you can be like, oh yeah, that's right. Like we have to do some MM stuff. This is cool.

Yeah. Can I just, there's just a couple small things. Susan Hayward, I really am enjoying her performance as Sister Sage. I really liked the throwaway from the deep about being friends with Shia. That was good. I mean, Chase Crawford deserves some. flowers for this performance. He really seems to understand the assignment. It's selfless.

And it's really going for it. I also am very much enjoying the, it's a very low-key thing. I mean, it's not anyone's list of the most important things of the season, but that the VOT has recast Black Noir with a superpower but very needy actor

who is constantly asking about his motivation. And I learned is played by the same actor who played him previously, but who wasn't allowed to speak. That's good. And that was so nice. Now they're letting him play character. And still be on the show after Homelander ripped out his spinal column. I remember that. That was actually a moment where I was like, wow, anything can happen on the show.

Did you have all your, remember that like who won the week or like who's going to have the throne odds? Were you like, Black Noir? Yeah. Secretly his show. Who's the boy? Yeah. He's the best number one boy. Greenwald Top Chef wrapped up last night season 21.

We're going to be joined by Gail Simmons in just a second. We talked to her a lot about this particular season of Wisconsin, which she's, You and I have been not mixed on like, I like, I will watch Top Chef until I evaporate into the ozone layer. But I think we were like the level of cooking maybe isn't up to the level that we expect over the last couple of seasons, the Buddhist seasons, All Stars, all that stuff. We also spoke to her about some of the changes in gameplay that happened this season. It's always awesome to talk about Gil. Is there anything you want to say about TC before we get to go? No, obviously our conversation is full of spoilers for last night's finale and for the season as a whole. Sorry, Kyya. I love getting the chance to talk to Gail. It's very kind of her to keep coming on. It's a nice way to sort of reaffirm the way I feel, which is I love this show deeply and I love this franchise. And when it has a down year, I don't like top chef less, but it makes me curious about why that would happen. It also is a unique thing. The show is so consistent and so consistently successful that they can tinker with it.

as they did this year, or deal with a potentially diminished talent pool for this year and learn from it, because it's not like they're getting canceled. So they're going to make more. I think our thoughts about this finale are pretty much in our first few questions. I believe so. And throughout. So I thought it was a frustrating and kind of disappointing season. I think you spoke for me in the first question.

I was rooting for Savannah. I did not get what I wanted. No, but that was also, you know, sometimes this happens, not often. She was out. Like there wasn't a moment where I was still holding out hope for her. We both, I think, felt that like, I thought Dan was the winner. But then when I thought about it a little more,

I was like, I think Danny did just enough to earn the title that they... I felt like they kind of want to give him. She talks about it better than we could. Yeah, she does. And Gail addresses this right off the top. So let's get into our interview with Top Chef Judge and co-executive producer, Gail Simmons.

And three-time guests on the watch. And three-time guests on the watch. We'll be back on Monday. What shall we be talking about? I'll watch it. No, I just don't know. I just don't know. Have you watched this episode this week's?

I have. Am I going to like it? I don't think so. But I liked it. I loved it. Yeah? Yeah. Say, blink three times.

Do you know what it is? It's like, I think you now have however many hours of tape on this show. It's not different. No, I get it. I mean it. I think it's better now. Yeah. It knows what it is and I might not like what it is.

But I'm just happy for you, Chris, because this is, you're in your prime right now. got House the Dragon back. You've got the Boston Celtics planning a parade. It's just like... I'm doing a Talk the Thrones Live episode, by the way, at the LRA theater with Mallory and Joanna. You can buy tickets at the ringer.com slash events. Are you talking to me or to our listeners? I'm talking to like the kind of liminal space between you and Kaya. Do I have to buy a ticket? I'm dreaming in third person. Do you think that that would be a safe place for me to be that night or unsafe? I think it's a very welcoming community. And we will get to our interview with Gail Simmons and we'll be back on Monday with a bunch of TV talk.

This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply.

This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. it. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale sign storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Gail Simmons, thanks so much for coming back on the watch. Is this your third time? Third annual appearance. We're honored. I think, yes. I love talking to you

guys, number one. Number two, I'm grateful that you watch the show and appreciate the show the way you guys do and you've shown us so much amazing support over the years. So thank you. We're definitely deeply engaged with it. This was a unique season. for us as viewers, I think, in a lot of ways. I'm very curious to hear about how it was for you as a judge, as a co-host of the show in some ways. Andy, why don't you jump us off here? Yeah, because we definitely want to talk about some of the changes that occurred the season and the overall shape of the season. But we are recording this on Thursday morning.

A new winner, season 21 was crowned last night. We want to ask you specifically about the finale. Yes. Watching the episode, as we all did last night, it seemed that it was. a two-horse race at the end between Dan and Danny. Correct. I am usually pretty good after 21 years of guessing where you guys are going. It seemed like Dan had won based on consistency in terms of delivering a more consistent

course-to-course meal aside from tuna that had a mouth feel like grapefruit. Which, as Kristen explained, should never really need to happen. And just to be clear, that's not good. No, this is what makes you guys elite is that when Kristen just says that's wrong or Emerald is like, this pasta was incorrect. At that moment, we knew. Incorrect.

So I have a lot to say about this subject. Okay. And I want to be really, really honest. But I also want to be careful because it was a two-horse race. We don't make mistakes. That's the first thing I want to say. You know what I mean?

And not because we're perfect, but because we are a four, sometimes five-person panel, and we talk it out. It is still only based on that one meal, not on the cumulativeness of the season, which I think some people, for example, I got an email from a friend who is a very big television producer herself this morning, literally right before I spoke to you saying the same thing to me.

And what I told her is as a television person, as a producer of content such as you two are as well, there is a lot of editing and there needs to be because we have so many hours of television. We have eight cameras over the course of three full days for that one episode

and it comes down to 46 minutes, right? Or in this case, actually, it's a full hour because it was an extended episode or whatever it is, 65 minutes or whatever. We don't want to make it obvious and our post-production team

does a really good job of this because it would be really boring if it was the other way, right? If it was obvious that it was Danny the whole time. And Dan cooked some amazing stuff, and he did cook consistently. But they cut out a lot of our criticisms of Dan because they don't want to make it obvious. And I think what they do sometimes is bump up our criticism of the winner because they don't want to make it obvious.

And what ends up happening is it sort of swings the other way. So the audience is going with that edit, and they only have us to trust as their taste buds. and what comes out sometimes is that it feels like the other person should have won, which Tom called me at 10 o'clock this morning with that same comment. Maybe they over-edited it. Like they swung it too far in the other direction in an effort to throw everyone off the scent. And it's frustrating because I'm not saying Dan didn't do an amazing job. He had two exceptional courses, but overall, if you go,

back and actually listen to the criticism of Danny's dishes, it's like it needed a grain of salt. Yes. Like we found nothing. It was sort of like one dish, you know, that muscle dish was hard because it kept slipping off my fork. Like that was the only thing I could find. That's not really a criticism. A criticism. The texture of tuna is a real criticism, right?

Like it did not eat well. It was not delicious because he cooked the tuna in a way that he himself said was jammy. Yes, that was intentional. Doesn't mean it was good. Love that jammy fish. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard because it's a real balance.

But overall, Danny's, I'm, you know, spoiler alert, it's all around. But here we go. Don't listen if, you know, if you haven't watched. But Danny's meal was far more sophisticated, far more nuanced, more finessed. I'm not saying he won by a landslide. Sure. but he won fair and swear. And that took a lot of thought from all four of us.

And we feel strongly about it. That is very clarifying and helpful to hear. I did think it was interesting, though, in the experience of watching it, it did feel, well, two things. One is that even in the finale, you could see threads of things that had run through the entire season, some of which were sort of surprising, which was some spotty storytelling,

some consistency issues. And most maddening, I think probably even for the judge, as well was just some persistent basic technical errors. Yes. So seeing all those things crop up and all the three finalists, I interpreted the decision at the end, and I'm absolutely not suggesting that it's never just on the merits, but there did seem to be a larger, not editorial mandate,

but a mandate from the judges table, from you guys, that of what a top chef winner ought to be in terms of ambition, in terms of... Technical proficiency. Yes, in terms of... of yeah, how high you aim. Because the takeaway from Dan was that he seemed to be flying, he was consistent and he was solid and he was delivering.

My impression of Danny's meal was that he just took much bigger swings. And slightly missing on bigger swings is of more value for the title of top chef than, you know, batting 500. Batting 500 is actually really good, bad baseball metaphor. No, it's a very nuanced question. No, it's a good baseball metaphor. I get it, and you're right. It's a tricky conversation though, and I'll tell you why. I think you're right overall. We are not, we are not judging with a preconceived notion of what we want our top chef to do with their career. And we do not believe, nor do we want to give the impression that if

you are going to be the top chef, you have to be a fine dining, wheezery executive chef of a New York City restaurant that is like Michelin aspirations that is not and many of our

top chef winners are not and that is not what we think a top chef needs to be all the time you know there was the Buddha effect a little bit sure that's what we want to ask

I think how it was perceived yes we'll get there but let me assure you Danny and Buddha are very different chefs yep both both deserving of the title,

both incredibly talented. And you're right that our chef needs to be technically proficient. That doesn't mean that it needs to be hyper-modernist in any way. So, you know, if I think about the winner of the season before Buddha, Gabe, if I think about the winner of our all-star season, Melissa, and backwards, they're all very different chefs with very, very different styles. So I don't want people to take away from this season that it was that Dan wasn't precious enough,

that Dan wasn't fine dining enough because that is not what it needed to be. But I do think there is something to be said for the fact that the technical proficiency and that ambition to push yourself, regardless of in what direction, right, to challenge yourself to bring us something new, is something that feels like you are leading in whatever you choose to do,

you know, as someone in the industry who will be, I'm not, we don't judge them on who they could be. We judge them on who they are and what they gave us. But you can tell so much about a chef from these dishes. And I think it's really about knowing that that person is, as you said, like taking a swing for the fences, throwing it all down. Look, throwing it all down and it being failures

and it not working is not okay either. But the flaws in what Danny gave us with these huge swings were really minor in the kind of grand scheme of things. A pinch of salt, a little more direction or possibly a different plating presentation without changing any of the flavors of that muscle dish. That's all we were talking about.

we were really nitpicking, but they have to show something or else it becomes very obvious. And on the flip side, we have to give positives for every dish, even when those dishes are not amazing and when there are really big flaws because we have to think about that big picture

and how they play against each other. Remember that it's a bell curve, right? They are not treated in isolation. It's just which is the best of these three dishes, period. And that's all we can judge from. So it's complicated a little bit. You know, you talk about these sort of, there's a archetype of the tweezery, New York, Danny Meyer, Michelin Star chef. And then I think the reason why I was so drawn to Savannah was because she wasn't that.

Admittedly, like when she was first introduced, I think there was like a raise your hand if you've been nominated for James Beard Award. And she was like, not me. That's right. And that to me is like the old fashioned romanticism part of Top Chef that there's somebody out there cooking, not in obscurity, but like working their way through kitchens and is not in the public eye yet who could make something really special and introduce themselves through the show. She had a tough finale. She had a tough finale. The first cook on the cruise ship and then I think the finale was tough. And I was curious, you know, when you're watching a game, you're cheering

for a team and they just, they kind of lose it in the second quarter. I kind of felt like when Kristen says, what did you do with the ratio of, of, of, flour to eggs on the pasta. I was like, well, that's the moment. That's the moment. And is that is that like, do you look up when Kristen says that and like, ah, you know, like, are, how quick is the recognition of Savannah knew in that moment? But is that, that's a fatal. Well, Savannah knew because she also knew what was coming. And I think it also shakes your confidence, but she knew before she gave us that pasta. And I think I can say a lot about Savannah because I adore her. The first thing I'll say is she knew it wasn't her best cook. She's very self-aware.

She knew that pasta wasn't right before she served it to us. We didn't know what else was coming. So she had two more chances to nail it. You know, we didn't vote her off at the pasta course. We always go to the very end. And sometimes the very end is what sweeps it. And with Danny, that sort of was the case. Like he had this beautiful meal.

And then that dessert, Dan's dessert was lovely. It was simple. It was great. but Danny's dessert was mind-blowing. And there's a difference there, right? Savannah's dessert didn't measure up. I'm not saying we made the decision on the dessert, of course, but we go all the way to the very end before we make our decisions.

The other thing about Savannah, which is also why I love her so much, is exactly to your point. Look back at the, especially the last like four episodes before we get on that cruise ship. She crushes. Yeah. she wins consistently, I think, the last three elimination challenges in a row and maybe a quick fire, definitely a quick fire, or more, before we even get on that cruise ship, she is the one to beat. And she kind of like rose like a phoenix. You know, we didn't suspect her. That happens a lot. You know, it certainly happened with Evelyn in Houston. It happens. It's like not that we underestimate people, but we just don't see them coming in a way. And they grow so much. much and then all of a sudden we're like oh wait a second savanna is here yeah melissa in the all-stars

like that melissa in the all-stars and i still think about melissa's i think about melissa's dishes in that all-star finale a lot but i think the most about melissa's taramisu that um the milk tea terramisu that sort of you know chinese italian incredible simple awesome obvious but completely unprecedented dessert and how she did so well along the way. And then that dessert came and we were like, there's no competition here. And so that's sort of what happened. And but Savannah is really proud of herself, should be really proud of herself. And so should Dan. I mean, they both, they both did amazing jobs. It comes down to very small things. Right. So you mentioned a moment ago the Buddha effect. And I'm curious about,

about your sense of that. So just to take one step back, as you said, we love the show. We are completely engaged in the show. And even in moments when we are critical, it's because we love and we can't wait for more. That said, I had a perception that I'd love to just share with you and I'd love to hear your response to it, which is last season was such a crowning triumph, 20 seasons, global all-stars, contestants at the highest possible caliber. And a show, and you're an executive producer of the show that had come off this outrageous run of an all-star season and then navigating a pandemic and finding wonderful contestants and pulling off something really difficult to pull off. This season felt like the show, the operation of Top Chefs, is still operating on an absolutely

elite level. This was the first season in a while where I felt like the contestants were not necessarily up to the challenge on a consistent basis, that maybe the show's expectations had outstripped the talent base. And thus we got a lot of things like a contestant not baking instead of roasting or not understanding storytelling in a way that might be necessary. There have been 21 seasons. There have been contestants that falter all the time. But overall, that was my takeaway from the season.

I wonder if you could just share your thoughts on that. It is something we've talked about. And what I wonder is, is that how you might feel? and I don't know the answer because we came off of the all-star season so everyone's last memory of the show was this all-star season, this international all-star season

of winners and finalists and London and Paris and so it was so big that anyone we brought on as just a regular season again of great but American cooks who are all unknowns and who have never competed

before and we take them to a city that no one really knows outside of the Midwest as well as we want to show it to them, is it just going to take a bit of a reset? And we got so used to everyone competing in that all-star sort of arena and there is going to be a bit of an anticlimacticness perhaps. That's one possibility. The other possibility, is just also coming back to the States and really wanting to push to find great storytellers and find an amazingly diverse cast

with I think we did. And sometimes we need to kind of rethink what that means. To the point of my like, not every top chef has to be a fine dining elite. Michelin Sard winner, even if Danny is that,

but you know, the other two finalists were certainly not, but they were so fantastic at so many things. I also think that we are trying to also re-hash the conversation of what makes a great chef and re-teach that because it's not always what we think. You know, the face of being a chef is changing.

And we want to show that. And we want to show these people who otherwise wouldn't have the platform to do their thing, even if their thing is still in the making, is still in progress. And I think that's important too. they aren't all fully formed yet like the all stars were, right? I think that makes sense. I guess I just wonder on a personal level or interpersonal level,

when you get to the penultimate episode with the fish meal, what are you, Kristen, and Tom, saying to each other? Because, I mean, it was a disappointing showing. Yes, it was frustrating. I wonder, what do you say to each other at that moment? How do you perceive it both as the judge, but then also later as an executive producer? We get frustrated sometimes because we have high expectations for sure.

And, you know, in our last episode in Milwaukee, there were some disappointing meals. And we were like, it shouldn't be that way. On the ship that last episode's meal, the fish dishes, there was confusion. There were a few things that went wrong in the cook. And so the final wasn't exactly as, we had hoped. But we also understand that there's no such thing as perfection. And we don't take it as a write-off. We are not writing off these people, because we also know that people have bad days. Savannah is an example. She had so many spectacular days. The final meal wasn't one of those days,

but she's going to go on and cook tomorrow and it's going to blow us out of the water. And I have no doubt about that. So it really is like a snapshot of time. Dan actually talked about that, little bit in the final episode, how he really wanted to focus on this snapshot of where he is right now in this moment. And in a week from now, in a month from now, in a year from now, and when he looks back at that meal, he might think, oh, I never cook those dishes if I had to do it all again. But in the moment, it showed us a lot about them. I think Savannah, for example, is an amazing storyteller. Maybe the best of all of them. For sure, she was. I also thought Dan, Dan's smile throughout the finale was what I'll take away from it, because he did seem to

to be relishing it. And that was a beautiful perspective to have in the episode. I think his perspective all the way has been remarkable. And obviously he was there competing at the highest level with limitations that no one else had. And same, by the way, in our All-Star season with Sarah Bradley, completely differently. But remember, she was competing with Buddha, with Ali, with Gabri, all the while, burning double the calories, breastfeeding a newborn, you know, on the side. And so you also have

to think of like the full picture of them as a human. And Danny was the best meal that day. But these three people, I actually think really rose to the challenge. You know, you were talking a little bit about being a reset. First of all, I completely agree with you that there's probably a, it's like I do a lot of NBA stuff for the rigor. And it's like, it's like not having Stefan LeBron. in the finals. You know, there is going to be an emotional come down from that regardless, which is why Boston's finals kind of has an asterisk.

Let's get into it, guys. Let's get into it. You talked about this being a reset season and there were some tweaks to gameplay that I wanted to ask you about. Specifically the changing nature of LCK with Sue's arc of the course of the course of the season. And then the mid-season

tweak to quick fires, both you and Tom coming into the judge's table there and quick fires impacting sort of the criteria that you were using for eliminations. And also the quick fire, taking out immunity from quickfires and only doing all money and putting the immunity in our elimination challenges. These were all very intentional changes. We did not take them lightly. and they were really big for us.

Can I ask that they, were they planned before the season, or did they happen over the course of production? No, they were planned before the season. I think coming back from London and Paris gave us a chance to reset. We took so many learnings home from shooting that international season.

It was an incredibly challenging season from a production standpoint. I mean, I had the time of my life, but it was an incredibly challenging season to shoot in and of itself, and then the queen died, and then it was like fashion week when we were in Paris.

Like there were so many external challenges that you'll never see on camera but that really played into the way we had to shoot the show and the challenges we were faced with. But it was so big and so, you know, and then we came back and Padma decided to leave.

And so it just gave us reason to rethink a lot of things. Every department gave feedback of what we wanted to change, improve. And it gave us a chance to really, as a village have this like town hall like okay what are we going to do differently what can we really listen to and make changes to and all of these changes that we made felt like they were addressing and tackling parts of the gameplay of the show that we'd never been able to do before and 20 seasons

later it's really hard to see the forest for the trees and i'm so proud of donnie our executive producer and her team and the challenge teams for letting us make these what felt like really radical changes to us, even though I'm being dramatic, you know? And, and Padma's departure, too, and bringing Kristen in gave us even more reason, because then she came in and asked all these questions that we'd all sort of taken for granted. And she had her own style and her own thoughts about how she wanted to be as our host. So that also played into the feel and the change and the look of the show. All that said, I'm going to reverse it a little bit. What did you guys think of the changes as viewers? Did you like them? Did they frustrate you? I,

really liked the quick fire change changes because I felt like in the back of my head, I was like, I think quick fires need a little bit more weight. You know, it seems like the immunity is one thing, but there was, you know, there's lots of reasons for that, but like there's something inherently unfair about like, here's your assignment, you have 28 minutes, you know, blah, blah, blah. That's always going to be really hard. But now all of a sudden there felt like a more holistic relationship between the two halves of any episode. So that was cool. And it also made them work hard. also because there's no immunity given. Right.

And so you can't just slide through. You know, there's always an element of a quickfire where we've always tried to figure out, like, all you have to do is, even if you lose a quick, you don't have, there's no motivation. Yes. Yes, the winner gets immunity, but there's no motivation to not just to even mess up.

I even wonder if among chefs there's like a kind of hidden guidebook of how not to fail at a quickfire, but when you're like... There absolutely is. Yeah, and I don't want to do this one. I just think it's always there. Yeah, right, right. Like, no, whatever.

If I messed up, what does it matter? This way now, there's money on the line and there's no immunity on the line. And that immunity comes in for the actual elimination challenge. You could go home that day. If it's, if it's the tie goes the runner there. And it was fun seeing how visibly annoyed Tom was to have to do extra work. Yes. That, I, as a fan, I enjoyed that.

As a fan, I enjoyed it too. Okay, good. As far as the Last Chance Kitchen part, Andy should chime in too, I just really liked Sue. And so I think there was a part where I was just like, can this dude catch a break? You know what I mean? Because at least in the way you watch it on television, it feels like Sue has been standing up for three days cooking against people. So I was like, can this guy just get like a step stool? It wasn't that in actuality, but that's funny.

But that finally was awesome. Yeah, Sue was incredible. And like I kind of just was like, I wish Sue was. just on the show. It was really cool. It was a really cool twist. And was that always the intention to start a ghost candidate, potentially a ringer in Last Chance's Kitchen? Was that always the plan? Dare we say a ringer? Um, pun intended. He, uh, it was always something we had talked about doing. And we always just want to change things up. I mean, we have done so many versions of the first episode of the show. I don't know if you remember there were scenes when we did like free

first episode episodes where we went and found them and made people test to get on. They did qualify. We did seasons where we brought 40 chefs and then within the first 10 minutes, we took the 15. And last chance kitchen, we just felt was a great opportunity to shake things up. And because we structured that first episode where we gave the three bottom chefs, this extra chance at a last minute lightning round, that felt like last chance kitchen. That final few moments where we said to the bottom of three chefs in episode one, you've got one more chance

and we're going to choose the elimination based on, like we've never done that before. So we kind of gave David his last chance kitchen moment right there. And because we did that, bringing him back in to do another last chance kitchen, quick fire thing was like, we don't need to do that. I think he's proven twice now that he's had his chance. And we had, we always have, we always have,

just from a production standpoint, one or two chefs in the wings. God forbid something happens. Right. We always, you know, we cast 17 chefs and then there's always one or two that have to wait around just to get, I mean, case there's crazier things have happened. So Sue was there. We knew he was great.

It was such a toss-up for him to be in the main. show in the beginning. And it just made sense. And I think it just gave us another way to twist things around for our chefs and keep them on our toes. And I think he, on their toes, and I think he added a lot. He did. I think that one of the frustrations as a viewer who, just not to circle back to things we've already discussed, but who have, like, we've fallen in love with certain arcs, you know, the person who catches fire, the killer that just annihilates throughout, the person who studied it and knows the gamesmanship. Sue and Rosica were, the frontrunners. And I think

we're bringing a level of surprise in their excellence that I think I love on the show. And speaking of surprise, I was pretty stunned by their exits. Departure. Yeah. Certainly. We were too. It was all rolling in Rosica's way. And then I don't know, I can't remember a frontrunner who just vanished that quickly. Oh, I can. I can. I think there have been.

And here's how I always address that. I always say, and you know this is a sports metaphor too, just because you're the best team does not mean you win the World Series every year. Sure, that's true. You can't. It doesn't work that way because there are so many factors to the game. I saw Rescica last night, actually. At a watch party, I went to, I wouldn't usually go to one with other contestants,

but there are some extenuating circumstances this week. and it was a tribute to James Kent, who was Danny's mentor. That's right. I was going to ask about that, yeah. So we can talk with that in a second, but Rosica was there. And we got to chat it out.

And we were all as disappointed at you. With Sue, with Rosica, there was no question. And I say always, I can always pick out in the first three episodes who the best chefs are. That does not mean they will win the game. Yeah. Because those are your human things.

I can tell you who the LeBron is. That doesn't mean he wins every championship. That doesn't mean he makes every single basket. Because that's just the odds of the game. And it's human error and real life. Like, it's just not how it works, right? We are human beings. And so Ratsika had a really complicated departure.

And it wasn't a good dish. legitimately the dish you went out on. It's not indicative of who she is all around as a chef. She's amazing. It's also like there's... Who is the same. Yeah. I mean, there's an element to...

But we can't ignore it, right? Sure. I'm sorry to interrupt you. No, not at all. We can't ignore that dish because we know she's a better chef than that. That's the whole point. But Mani did make chips and quack and Sue went home. It's true, but they were better.

They were just better. It's a funny thing. It's like, I remember, I think it's, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it was Melissa's... championship season. And there was a challenge at like a day camp, like a summer camp. And she made...

It wasn't day camp. It was a sleepover game. It was a summer camp and she made like a Caesar salad. And she was just kind of like, I made a... You put grapes in it or something. Here's a Caesar. Yeah, they made weird. And I think everybody was just like, hey, you didn't lose today, but

watch out. Like, you can never do this again. And so much of people's eliminations, chef's eliminations is so contextual of like, you can screw up, but someone else has to screw up bigger, right? That's it. I say it all the time. It's a bell curve. It's not about if you made the best dish in the world. It's did you make the best dish today only in comparison to the other dishes? Or you just sometimes have to just not be the worst. Which is frustrating, which is why we change

the quickfire or which is why we change the elimination and gave immunity. Like, and that's what we're always trying to tweak and play with because there are ways to skate by. You know, there's lots of chefs. There's always one chef in every season who gets way further than maybe they should. And it's not because we judged unfairly. It's because they just

on that day weren't the worst. And you can only eliminate one person in episode. And that person just got by. But they rarely make it to the end. You know, they rarely become top they've never become top chef. It always comes out in the laundry kind of thing in the

watch. You can only do so much skating by until it becomes just like all eyes on you. And so I just think that that's always in any game, right? How it pans out. And also if you are exceptional, if you are the LeBron, you can still miss the basket. I've said it. And that doesn't mean that you're, you know, I think they're all going to do really well. And I know Rosica has a lot more to show us. Going into this season, a season that as you were just discussing, has had a lot of changes. I think the biggest change that people were looking at with, not concerned, but with some spirit of curiosity, was Kristen coming on as host. And what was remarkable to me was how that was not an issue for a single second.

She was excellent from the beginning and got better and better as the season went on, much as she did when she was a contestant. I just wanted to ask you generally about the change and vibe that she brought. I loved her opportunities to give mentor-like perspective. I always like that on the show and the Emerald season, I think about a lot that was referenced last night. And he was kind of just cooking with people and talking to them. And ultimately, the emotion that you brought, an emotion that was, to me, kind of surprisingly matched by Tom last night. Again, you know, the camera's catching some stuff, showing us some stuff. But when he put his arm around her, you know, when she was saying how honored she was to say, you're a top chef, that was a side of him that we don't often see.

And it was a very small moment, but beautiful one. we were i was just with the head of our wardrobe department all morning and she was the first thing she mentioned that she knows that side of tom very intimately we've all been working together for a decade and she was like we saw pieces of tom we've never seen before and i think it really shan his smile his glow uh i think because he was proud of the chefs and but i also know how proud he was a pristine and there is a piece of him as you know the chef of that kitchen that is just really proud of how far she's come. And she was amazing.

That's not to say Padma wasn't missed, but they're so different. And from the get-go, we're never going to compare them. And Kristen came in and will tell you that she came in with people, you know, saying, oh, you've such big shoes to fill. And she was like, actually,

we don't wear the same shoe size. Like, actually, they're not, I'm not trying to fill them. I would never do that. And we picked her because of that, that she was going to bring something different and that we had a very different relationship with her and that she would then have a very different relationship with the competitors and that is what we needed right we were never

trying to fit a mold podma was one of one and christin is too and so i'm just so glad that it came through to you as a viewer how much fun we had how excited she was like they let her be her and sometimes she is quirky and emotional and not all wrapped up and she is like eating candy and pizza on the side but then she's also super hypervigilant and so attached to the experience because she's been there before and all those things like we needed just to make it feel different and we all just we had a blast. I thought the juxtaposition of her emotional vulnerability like I was watching with my wife and she's like Kristen's already crying. I'm already crying.

And like I was just like yeah, like that is like a really cool element. But man, like I'll reference it again. The Savannah pasta you know, measurements or whatever. The ratio. I was like, she's like the standard is the standard. You know what I mean? And she's won this game. And she's like, you are going to cook to the level that

top chef champs cook at. And that was awesome. I thought that was really awesome. Do you remember in the very first episode, the elimination challenge we chose? Tom made them half, a third of them cooked roast chicken. Kristen made a third of them cook soup. I made a third of them cooked stuffed pasta. For this reason. And Kristen informed me when I chose it as the topic of my elimination.

Kristen informed me, Dale, just so you know. know, I made really good stuffed pasta for you on the show. And she did, and she has since, and she will again, because Kristen is the only one in memory who made us as a contestant a perfect stuffed pasta. But no one else has been able to do it, and we've had so many versions of it that have failed. And so it was especially for me and for Kristen, disappointing, when Savannah gave us a stuffed pasta,

specifically because we had made such a point of it in episode one, and it came back to haunts us in episode 14. Stuffed pasta is the new risotto. Beware. Gail, you mentioned a moment... It's hard. I mean, it's all hard, but that is particularly... One technical thing is going to sink the whole dish.

That's right. You mentioned a moment ago the shocking and sudden passing of James Kent, who is a beloved chef and a very important chef in New York, who passed away suddenly over the weekend. I hadn't realized until yesterday, until watching the show that he was Danny's mentor. And it was a reminder of how small your world is. And people learning from each other, eating each other's food,

working with each other, being in the same room with each other, events, etc. This is a very broad and not even fully form a question. But I think that one of the reasons why people respond to the show after many years is the sense of community. It has itself created inside of this larger community. And as you talk about and continue to explore what it means to be a chef and what means to be a top chef or a success even in this industry, what do moments like the gathering you guys had last night mean to you? How do you consider them in this changing as everything's changing? Yes, as everything's changing.

They mean a lot is the truth. like any community when someone dies long before they ever should. This was a tragic shock and it sent waves through our community and still is. I mean, it's still fresh. And he meant, his real name is Jamal.

James meant a lot to so many of us. He was a personal, very close friend. He was someone I saw often and spent a lot of time with him and his wife. He was in my universe in a lot of ways through so many connections, but more than that, his presence was on our show so much by total coincidence. So talk about timing of all of this for Danny. It's so heavy. It's so complex.

how to celebrate and grieve at the same time and how do you then continue and in this case I know that Danny will continue exactly as he planned to because that's what James wanted they were set to open a restaurant together they are set to open a restaurant together they are three quarters there it's opening in October and I think the outpouring of love from our community

and especially last night, this room of like 150, 200 people, many of whom worked for them, like staff at all their restaurants, and then chefs and food people from all pieces of James's life and Danny's life. I think we all just, it's a check, right? It's a real check of who we are, what matters, and how we can then all go forward, remembering how he moved through life, which was with kindness, with a sense of humor, with incredible dedication to the craft, to his people, and all of a sudden, nothing else

really matters. And I think Danny really embodies that. I keep saying, I said it so many times last night, and I'm going to put this into words, like, in a post somehow or something, because I can't get it out of my head. I said to Danny too, I said, I said, I said, to James's wife last night too, I thought I was special to James. I thought we had like a real closeness. And we did. And I am not taking away from that.

But I realized over the last four days that it wasn't our connection. It was that's, like that's how he made everybody feel. And that is an extraordinary gift to the world that he left us. Thank you for sharing that. I think that what you're,

speaking to is in a larger level for those of us who didn't know James Candidol, that the show Top Chef is a competition. But what we love and what we respond to year after year is the excellence and the mentorship. And honestly, there's a kindness, you know, and it's harkening back to what I was saying about and the way you framed Tom's face, you know, there's a sense of pride of achievement. There is no, ultimately, you know, excellence makes people happy. There's not, there's not envy. It's not competitive at a certain point, right, even though your show fundamentally is a competition. I know. It's a delicate balance.

It's very conflicting at times because it's not personal, but it's so personal. If that makes sense, right? We don't judge on personality. We're not judging on personally how we feel about this person or how we personally feel about this dish. But the overarching structure of what we do is so very personal. And I think that tension is what makes the show so. engaging for us and for our viewers. And we always ask you this, or some version of this every year, and we know you can't ever tell us

anything officially. But I was wondering where your head is at, where the production team's head is at for season 22. What have you learned? What are you excited to do? Last year, you teased us about, actually, the last two years, you've given us a pretty juicy tease. What did I say? Remind me what I said last year. Last year you were like, we're coming back to America, but you will never guess where we're going. Oh, yeah. That was great. That was good. Okay, let me think about how to say this properly and not get in trouble. Where my head is at, right now my head is foggy because of this real dichotomy I'm struggling with about James and Danny and I'm so proud and excited for him, but I'm so, so deeply sad.

So that's where I am right now. But again, we will move on and we will move on with him in our hearts. So we will move on with Danny, and I sent an email to Danny yesterday before I actually saw him last night to reiterate that to him, that we are ready to support you and be there for you with whatever you need and whatever your family and James's family needs. And we will do so with Savannah, with Dan, with Rosicab, with all of them. They are really part of our family now. So that's one thing. But also now we so quickly transition, I spent the morning with my wardrobe, the head of wardrobe,

because we did our first fitting for next season. We are up and running. I had a creative call on Friday with our executive producers about challenge ideas and guest judge ideas. So we are up and running. We are going and it will be completely different again. I think we're going to revisit all these questions, all the feedback about the changes we made,

about more changes that we will make. How can I tease the location? It's really exciting for me. It's very interesting. It's definitely something new. but vaguely familiar. Okay. Interesting.

So it's New York, but Staten Island. I mean, don't joke. Tom is adamantly cheerleading for us to do in all Brooklyn season, which I think is a great idea. That is a good idea. Tom and I live in Brooklyn. And it's a city unto itself. And these days, it's where you want to eat. Yeah.

So we've been pushing for just an all Brooklyn season. So, but it is not that season. This will not be that season. But you're on to something. Okay. Or just an outer borough season That's be great But that's not what we're doing

Think broader We are going a little further Okay Okay And anything I say I think would give it away You're staying domestic again This is not another international season We don't want to affect the stock market here

She shrugged You didn't see she shrugged I saw she cornered my eyes I saw she shrugged Okay we're not doing video Okay this is good You're very The poker face

As Andy Cohen likes to say I plead the best Yeah Gail thank you so much for coming on to watch again. It's always such a pleasure to talk to you about these seasons in retrospect and get your perspective. And you're welcome anytime.

And we're so sorry for your loss too. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. I wish it is not just my loss. It is the loss of our industry, truly. But we will take it the way he wanted us to, which was with a big, you know, like inspiration to move on and to move forward with him at the forefront.

And also, thank you, because you guys give me so much to think about too in ways that I often don't because I'm so deep in it. And I sometimes forget all the nuance of what you see as a viewer. So it's really helpful. I love it. That's really nice. And we're a veil. We're available to taste anything anytime.

I know you. Don't even joke. Are you guys LA-based? We're at you. Okay. I knew that. I think I ask you that every time. We'll get you.

Okay. Thank you so much, Gail. Thank you, Gail. It's great to see you again. See you soon. Bye-bye. As always. Thanks, guys. Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes. Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice.

Hi, Mom. Thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost, exclusively at the UPS Store UPS Store U.S. retail locations. Visit the UPS store.com slash air shipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store and will be. Get your gratitude there on time.