The Watch - ‘Game of Thrones’ Goes Back to the Basics (for Better or for Worse), Plus ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ | The Watch

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

We recap the first episode of Season 8 of ‘Game of Thrones,' breaking down what we liked and didn’t like from the season premiere (02:01). Then we look ahead to ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ (39:10). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Bud Light. Bud Light is all about bringing friends together, and we are wondering which unlikely pairs will team up this season on Game of Thrones, seeing so many old friends and new ones come together. For example, in the past episode, we saw John and Aria get back together. That was pretty cool. They would definitely be having a Bud Light together, assuming Aria is of responsible drinking age.

That's 21. Bud Light, enjoy responsibly, 21 and up. I ain't sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio,

he was told there would be elephants. It's Andy Greenwald. Wow, this is so good to be back. Here we are, Studio 1. The Hepburn to my Tracy. The verdundier Fossi? Let's keep it going, man. Let's keep moving.

Andy, it's so good to see you. We have the two major tent polls of popular culture to talk about today, the Game of Thrones and Star Wars. Star Wars had its trailer release full of Friday news dump last week. It's great that we have Thrones back, that we have Star Wars back. I did want to spend at least 20 minutes of the podcast talking about something I saw on the YouTube fans Reddit. Because, you know, I like to take a moment. Did you really?

Oh, no. Let's talk about the biggest things in the world. That would just be such a flex If we were just like My favorite thing about minute 17 Of last night's Barry was You know Chris I've been reading Larry McMurtry novels And I really

Dude if you want to do a McMurtry pod We'll do a McMurtry pod But I'm on page 280 Of an 800 page Larry McMurtry book And let me tell you something Didn't need to be that long Okay But I'm enjoying it

I'm enjoying moving on Anyway Chris is doing a McMurtry pod All right We're not going to do a McMurtry pod We're not going to do a Barry pod We're not going to do a Fosy Verdon pot. We're going to talk about Game of Thrones, and we're going to talk about Star Wars.

So let's start with Game of Thrones. I think we have to. Okay. Game of Thrones is, back, as is, by the way, talk the Thrones. Great shirt choice by you. Thank you. Great table.

Thanks. The table's incredible. Shout out to everybody works on that show. It looks really good. They make me look 34. You know? Well, that's our wonderful Ada, who is our makeup specialist.

It does a great job. Ricky, CJ. Everybody behind the scenes, Steph. It's just been Sean Yu, Jason Gallagher, everybody working on the show is just killing it. Though my watch has ended, and I'm no longer with you on the wall.

I know, but there's like an empty space right there where somebody's supposed to weigh in about peak TV. It's actually the pelt is mine, but you draped over the table, which I appreciate. It was great to see you guys back at it. I think everyone should go check it out. You can find it on the web on Twitter. On Twitter, the Twitter feed, Chris's...

You got Twitter? Not anymore, no. I fired it along with my agents last weekend. Game of Thrones is back. Yeah. We've been covering this show since the beginning. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I would say, not to cut you off here,

but I felt like, and Allison sort of wrote about this on the site, it wasn't just back. It was back to, for better and force, very Game of Thrones episode last night in a couple of different ways. You know, it had a lot of parallels to the first, first episode of the show ever. But just in general, I felt like it had some of its sort of core qualities back.

Name them. Name the course. Four qualities. Group sex. Definitely. Burning children. Yep. And intrigue, palace intrigue.

Sure. A little bit of when you think you have one alliance, the alliance is crumbling behind your back, you know? So a lot of that kind of stuff, a lot of familial identity issues, which I think, I mean, this isn't new stuff I'm talking about, but I felt like it was getting back, whereas the last few episodes of season seven were very quest-based, you know? Well, I think there's a pretty big quest slash war still to come. I'm anticipating that. I think this was real, like, we got one more of these. Then we're going to build up to a battle and then we got another battle. This was wild to me because this was the first season that I've watched without coverage,

plans for coverage, whether watching it with you or with you guys last year. Did you recap it for your wife? I did. I told you that. I was a little late watching Talk the Thrones afterwards because I was literally explaining like the fucking Flower Festival or Ragar Targaryen like made eyes at Leanna Stark. And somehow I still had the facility to do that. Yeah.

Despite everything else. So I was pretty proud of myself. Did not remember the name of the dragon that John rode. Yeah. But did surprise myself because I was... Riggle. Seconds away. I don't flex on me.

I was second. I'm not sure. Seconds away from texting our group text with you, Jason and Mallory, and just being like, the guy I love that I've spoken about on HBO. who was in the Night's Watch with John. His name was, but it's Dolores Ed. Yes. I remember, so I still have it.

Anyway, I have some of it. A couple pieces of it. You're like the O-A. It's just little memory fragments. No, I am, I am Veris and Davos just being old, looking at the children up above. I, because I didn't, this is the first time without covering it for a while,

I did sort of notice how, it's interesting, You said the things that are classic Game of Thrones that were riddled throughout the episode. I don't disagree with you, but I couldn't help but notice just how deeply the show had changed. Because the characters have changed or because of the way they do the show is changed?

The characters have changed. The way they do the show has changed. The expectations have changed. The expectations of memes has changed. I think late period shows, all of them, whether it's parks and recreation or whether it's Game of Thrones, fall in love with themselves to a degree.

Yeah, we were talking about that with killing E-floss. Yeah, they know what people want out of it. Well, there's two conversations. There is the memeification of TV, which I find deeply concerning, just in terms of storytelling. But there's also just, though, we know people want this. We love it, too. Only a couple more chances. Let's do it.

And so there was a bunch of that, for sure, in the show last night. But I was also just thinking about how, on a structural level, we've talked for years about how difficult the show is in terms of its ambition, in terms of its budget, keeping track of all these characters. The challenges now are such a... it's such a high degree of difficulty, but it's kind of a different degree of difficulty. There's just so much to get done and so many things to service now in a very tight and cramped space.

So it was overwhelming to see 95% of the characters all in one place, to the point where all they could do for 30 minutes of the episode, for the most part, was give each other eyes and reunite. And then each get like, you know, 90 seconds of a reunion scene. And writing. each one of those reunion scenes and thinking, well, this is the best version of it, because it's the only one we're going to get. So whether it's Ari and the Hound, whether it's Ari and Gendry, Ari and John, I mean,

everybody is reuniting all over the place. Yeah. That is really, really, really difficult. And then take one more step back and think about the story pieces that David Beniof and D.B. We feel are essential in order to set up the dominoes for the big domino battle. In particular, the example I'll give you is, What had to be done in the relatively brisk running time of this episode? 57 minutes.

To tell John about his true parentage. What did they feel was important to happen? Thing number one was one last sweet, sweet taste of incest. One last just... Deep kids. You got your aunt. She's in her Shirling coat. You're by the frozen cave. I just really don't think that Aunt Nephew is going to be a hurdle for them.

I mean, it's a hurdle, but I don't think it's a barricade. Listen, the dragons, who, by the way, let the boy watch. That was the greatest low-key eastbound and down, Ashley Schaefer, BMW. This came to me in a dream. Rangel and other dragon. Like Ashley Schaefer's son, Gabriel, in our beloved Eastbound and Down season one outtakes, just watching them go to the market for plums. Incredible.

So they had to have that sex scene. John had to ride a dragon And apparently no one there has access to Jason and Mallory's podcast To learn that only Targaryens can ride dragons That was kind of a tough Yeah, I mean, Benioff apparently said last night In the after the episode interview that he does That only Targaryens can ride dragons

I'd, I, it's entirely possible that I have not registered this But I don't ever remember a moment where Danny seemed like shocked That John got along with him Was just like, I'm on this dragon now? She seemed like, oh, go ahead and try and ride a dragon. Well, I think no one knows for sure anything about dragons. But remember one of the big moments from, I don't remember if it was last year or the year before, but when Tyrion met the, it was two years ago, I guess, when Tyrion met the dragons.

And it set off. And that set off this whole speculation among, certainly the binge mode community of hardcore. Secret Targs, yeah. Yeah, secret Targs. So, okay, so they had to do the dragon riding scene. They had to do all that. But then they also decided that in order to sew John Danny Discord, Mm-hmm.

Sam needed to be slightly anti-Denaris. As you would be. Well, you would be, but also, again, just the economy. I mean, the way that they laid that out where it was just like, well, at least it was very Monty Python almost. It was like, to be fair, I had some issues with my dad. At least I can go home now. My great brother, it'll unlock the gate for me. Oh.

It'll leave a light on. My beloved nanny was for me. Oh, no. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, right. All right. She had an arthritic knee, so she couldn't knee.

He didn't know that. All right. It's all right. Thank you. Oh, thank you for telling me. Did Sam live it down in the abbey? What the fuck are you talking about? You can't reverse have Nelson an accent thing.

I heard you do Belfast Bono for Colin Farrell. Yeah, that was a tough beat for me. Anyway, we've all done things we're not proud of on this podcast. So it's one of those things where it's just like, at this point in the season. What about the Dowager Countess? She's still with us. She's like, no, no.

Is she ashes as well? Oh, she is? Oh, I see. All right. Did she burn quickly? A bit brittle to dry, papery skin. It's hard to moisturize you. I get it.

Like, in the economy, is dazzling. They had to sort of do that scene and get him anti-Denaris and then turn him on. Like, all those pieces, it's just I marvel at how they do it. And then what you're seeing is. You marvel. Do you love it? I'm not sure. I marveled because just thinking of the storytelling economy and thinking about how the hours of conversation, if not days or weeks, that went into each one of these scenes and pairing it to the bone and what may not seem like the bone to us, but is the bone to what they wanted for the skeleton of their season. It's just kind of amazing. Do I love it? I'm not sure. This is an example of a show that has given us so much that when it changes and takes some things away, you find yourself missing things that I'm sure I am on record is complaining about. So for example, are there downsides to Aria being in Bravo's learning how to be an actor for essentially,

like with a theater company and also a faceless man for multiples of seasons? There are, and we complained about them. The benefit of doing storytelling like that, as I now see, you know, is that you can develop secondary characters. You can focus on one character's particular journey. It also expands the world. And it expands the world. And that was always the thing about this show is that because of how they told the story

and because no one was a safe character, quote unquote, and they didn't have to live for this to happen or something. I mean, because so much of it was about subversion, I think it really trained us as viewers to just expect it to go anywhere. It could go to Dorn. It could go to the Bravos. It could go to different parts of Esos. It could go to all over Westrose and different customs and different people.

And, you know, I think that there is a real advantage for them, I think, to tell the specific. specific stories of these main characters like Danny, like Searcy, like John, like to really get into their psychology and their family histories. But there was this huge cast of characters that I think populated the background, which has somewhat been limited, I think, because they've either died or because they've left the places where those people were. And you also, there's a crunch. So the hound who remains a fascinating character, great performance, and has been so useful in telling different kinds of stories. as you're saying, is making dragonglass axes. Well, I mean, now he's there to do one thing, which is kill his brother.

Or fight his brother. Presumably, yes. No, I mean, like, all of the eventualities are kind of shortening. I mean, that's sort of what happened in seven is when they accelerated seven and they were like, we're going to do a lot of stuff here to get to eight. It really showed the show pivoting towards the ending rather than the expansion. I've talked with Jason and Mal a little bit about this. You can feel a difference in the writing as they are like,

we're coming back down to Earth here. Yeah, and we're speeding towards something now. And one of the other casualties of that, particularly aligning up everyone for what I presume will be the first battle against the dead. There's more battles to come. There's some sort of surrey confrontation. Now, by way of explaining the experience I'm having watching this,

let me offer a confession. I have recently backslid into a troubling habit that I thought was out of my life. Reading like my original? I started playing Candy Crush again. What? Like a fucking millennial.

Why? I just... So are you playing on your phone while game with friends is on? No. No, no, no. Oh, my God. I mean, you're allowed to.

No, no, no, no. I'm texting with friends like a... No, I'm watching the show. I keep thinking about Sharon Hogan's line in the catastrophe season four premiere. Watching Game of Thrones solo like a pervert. I actually, in order to get my wife

who does not care about the show to watch it with me, I tried that line out on her. Did you credit Sherrodorgan? Well, she had watched the show. Okay. No evidence that she remembered either line or appreciated it, but she didn't end up watching it with me.

You know what her comment was? Oh, really? He's still around. He's still around, huh? About who, everybody? Yeah, basically. Anyway, there's a thing that happens. Did she swoon at all she saw Jamie at the end? Hard no.

Really? No, she's not, she doesn't care about any of these people. I mean, but like, that's an attractive guy with a new beard? Yeah, but, you know, he was wearing kind of a hood, he'd been traveling, like, you know. This smelled like the road? This wasn't his best, you know, he's got, still got places to go. You know, hard disagree from Mal on that one. Really? She said, I don't know if anyone's ever been hotter.

Wow. Okay, well, they can, they can discuss. So, there's a thing that happens on Candy Crush that my other Candy Crush that my other candy heads will recognize is like you're playing the game and then all of a sudden it'll pause and say no more match no more matches possible shuffling and it reshuffles and then you have another chance and then eventually though if it's a thing if it's a board where like chocolates grown and block enough your game it'll say no more matches possible shuffling and then you'll look at this sad collection of like six candies and then it'll say oops the game ends that's kings landing right now that is kings landing

Once the center of action Once the busiest place in the seven kingdom Yeah If you weren't anyone there you were no one Or you're probably dead Now it's Circe Tyburn Yeah Harry Strickland

Who's Harry Strickland? The guy runs the Golden Company Oh that was cool Yeah that was good that he was there Glad to see Harry Is that his character's name or the actor's name? Is the character's name? Harry Strickland

I had a lot of fun with this last night That is They're really they're really on, aren't they? No, I just think that ever, I said this last night, like every 19th character, they're like, your name is Bob Thomas. Yeah. Well, our famous example that was Kevin Lannister.

Yeah. Only of his name. What about Kevin? And a mute resurrected Frankenstein. You're on. And Grey Joyce. Yeah. And want to talk about Greyjoys?

And what I'm saying is the show has grossly overestimated our interest in the Greyjoys. Yeah. I think even the Icelandic actors. who really enjoys playing Velvet Gold Mine era, You're on Greyjoy. I think part of his performance is definitely fueled by the kind of fuck you canned or possible when you realize no one cares about your character

and that you probably will make it to the midpoint of the season. It was all a bit... I mean, it's biting time. And it felt a little... But that's the arrangement of characters they have, and they have to service them. Oh, see, I didn't think it was biting time at all. I didn't think there was any time wasting.

think you could not like Yara and Theon's, you know, oh, the Yara thing was on, but I just mean, like, even the Circe, who remains one of if not the most compelling characters on the show, doesn't have anything to do other than be like, oh, the dead are coming, bet. Yeah. So we're like, okay, we'll get Braun back into this in a different role because we need another character down there. And also, we're going to have a foursome because, well, look, if the announcement...

I just like to see HBO going back to its roots. This is the thing. It's a while, and it's like, it's not, it doesn't. It doesn't even do anything for me. I'm just like, Bravo. I was surprised. Since Game of Thrones has aired, HBO has changed ownership. So do you think our man, Rich Stanky, was just like, bring me that dream on aesthetic? No, you guys got to go back to True Blood. That's when you were really killing it. First of all, I love, I love what you're doing with Stanky.

Second, second, I was going to say I was surprised that they had a scene like that in 2019 in season 8 of the show. but then I remembered if the confederate debacle taught us anything, it's that our friends Dave and Dan do not look at Twitter. So they, DGAF. They did not get the memo. They did not get the memo that were past exposition in 2019 and barely, I would say they gave it the same effort in that scene that Braun did. Across the board.

Even Braun was like, please, please, strange old man, come hand me a crossbow because this is ridiculous. I know. So all of this, though, is to say. What was one of the things that you saw last night that you were like,

that ruled. That was awesome. I was just going to say that all of this, to even talk about this episode to put your arms around it, it's almost not worth picking because it is just throat clearing

for all the stuff they have to do, right? So what did I really like in the episode? I liked... I see, I don't think it was throat clearing. I thought, I think that one of the things you start to see once you, sometimes once you see it through Jason and Mal's eyes,

I think to some extent, but when you realize, okay, so much more time to go. Like, without getting too into predictions, they don't bring up the idea of Yara being like, go help your friends. And if they lose, tell them to come to the Iron Islands

where they can, like, wait out because White Walkers can't swim. Of course, she does know they have a dragon. That the White Walkers have a dragon? Yeah. No, I know. Dragon can fly over and just give them a little bit of that morning breath. You know what I mean? I like Sansa a lot.

Yeah. I liked her as the smartest person in the room. I thought that was a, that was the kind of thing that showed not only does best with performance and dialogue and everything, but also, um, taking advantage of this.

So, where they're just like, essentially both of them are like standing and looking out at like their kingdom essentially, but like also you, this, you feel like they're almost looking at each other. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And also, in each scene like that, you feel the eight years of growth and development and storytelling that the show has given us and put into these characters. So you appreciate them as the whole, the composite whole of everything that they've been through. I, you know, I like, of course, this is very unbrand for me, any time we do have a Davos veris scene. Those are the most entertaining for me throughout. I think I'm surprised by, and I'm curious. curious what you think about this.

So Jim Ponawazek, who's the great TV critic from the New York Times and also a book reader, tweeted about this, basically curious about the show's sudden seeming interest in good kings and bad kings. And, you know, if this is really going to be a thing where John is suddenly like, oh, no, you should be the king. John is like, oh, no, who should be the king? Well, so we're going to this John DeNaris clash of kings, I guess, that it seems, I mean, I don't know. He has been pretty resolute in that like none of this, none of the shit matters, which historically has been the strongest argument to play. But that suddenly they're going to make it that it does matter, that the North are, you know, little little gift starter Leanna Mormont. I don't know.

I mean, it's been a secret for so long. Maybe he'll keep the secret too. Maybe I don't know. Well, look, you can't drop the Iron Islands and have you be like, oh, that's going to happen, and then drop he's the king and have that's a secret. But maybe they decide between the two of them. Right. You know, they need a queen. I mean, I don't know.

I mean, maybe they decide to do a little co-leadership. Yeah. And that's what they were suggesting with them getting married was that it would be great if they could serve a good queen and a good king, right? Yeah, that could be good. Yeah. I'm into it. Do you know what I mean, though, in terms of, this is the last criticism that we can pivot to the other stuff. that there was a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of reaction shots.

It was like, there was a lot of, like, Jim Halperting. Yeah, but that's the first time, like, a lot of them saw dragons. Well, the dragon stuff, I got, dragons or people of color, apparently, which had a long, long reaction on the long march to Winterfell. But not just that. There was just a lot of side eye throughout, like the Sansa-Denara stuff. Like when Yaron was talking and we cut to Kyber and being like, you know, there was just a lot of that

that sort of storytelling. You didn't bump on that. That didn't occur to me. The reaction shots didn't really occur to me. I think that because they had to do so many reunions and because to not have certain people see one another would have felt like we were robbed of something. So we had to see them all see each other.

I think everything got 15 seconds. Yeah. Rather than like a really meaty scene between two people or something of real consequence exchanged in the dialogue. Not that there wasn't stuff of consequence, because I feel like almost every scene was in a different place when it started. So with the exception of maybe,

are you in the hound? You know what I mean? Every other scene was like... Although even that had a certain grudging respect. Yeah, but like Sonsa and John, like I think have a very fascinating relationship because it's a private and a public one. Yeah.

And in some ways, she's more respectful of him in private than she is in public. And I think that they have like a very nuanced relationship as two people who didn't really like each other in their childhood. Not at all. And now we're pretending like family over everything. Even though it's kind of not exactly family?

Well, we're going to find that out. That's the thing. Is this revelation going to allow people to really, like, say how they feel? Can I say my favorite, favorite thing, low-key favorite thing? Yeah. Are you familiar with John Mullaney's jokes about law and order? I don't think so. About how his favorite thing about law and order.

This is something my wife and I used to laugh about, too, but without the comic perception. decision of John Mulaney that any time like Jerry Orbach and whomever like go to interview someone and they are homicide police whoever they're interviewing whether it's a dock worker like South Street Seaport or whether it's a guy restocking bottles at a bodega is too busy to stop doing the restocking. Yeah, like the guy's folding shirts at the gap and he's like, I got a lot of shirts to fold. What do you need?

Or they go to the bartender and the bartender's like, I see literally 10,000 people a day. but yeah, brown hair girl. She was nice. Always tipped. What happened to her? She okay? And then that guy murdered her? But no, he's just, that's his only scene.

And it's just that the Winterfell extras, like the Winterfell irregular company of just like scavenging, mean-faced people, grabbing coal or brushing stuff was just on one. The background work, this is, now I've learned you credit this to the assistant directors on a production, like they're the ones in charge of the extras. They crushed it. So when Gendry's just... like watch out for this dragon glass and they're like, all right, going up. It's all right in it.

I hear the debt are coming. That should be a bit of a... Dick Van Dyke from Barry Poppins. Yes. I do think that. What are we doing today? I haven't had coffee. You've had too much.

I think my favorite thing is actually, my favorite moment was when the little kid lit on fire. Well, you're nothing if not consistent. Because that was like the thing, basically, the John Carpenter film. I know if you've seen that.

I'm aware that it exists. Yeah. And I love it when Thrones does other genres briefly. Yes. And I love it when they do like, here's like a horror story or here's like a heist or here's, you know, here's background politicking or whatever. But I really... Here's the Great British Bake Off. That had, like, there's been an undercurrent of horror throughout the show, especially as it relates to beyond the wall.

And I thought that was, that ruled. What is the significance of the sigil now? People are very focused on this. And some people are saying it looks like the Targary. The spiral? Yeah. It's been a message that they have broadcast several times throughout the series when it comes to the Night King. So he left, the White Walkers left a bunch of horses in that design in the first season.

And I think they did that also. They did it with Knights Watch people that they had left behind. They put him in a spiral like that. And then they did it also with horses at Fist of the First Men. So it's essentially something he is trying to communicate or say. I have a theory about it that I'm sure is also much better articulated elsewhere on the internet, but it's essentially there's something about the spiral circularity of it that is going to be about everything that has happened, has happened before and will happen again in the cyclical nature of it.

And that goes toward Brian being the Night King. That's the new thought. Do you think that? That's my, that's just like, I think it's weird how much the Knight King's face looks like Brand's face. That cannot be an accident. what about when they what about that guy they turned into a guy

I thought that was the Night King remember there was the flashback Yeah that was misdirect I thought misdirection I just think that there's something about it that suggests like maybe they have a psychic connection or something Does the Night King have an installation guy Like remember when Kanye was really needed like James Terrell The artist somebody who comes oh you mean an installation guy like an art installation Yeah so like a guy who comes over and sets up his flat screen

No although if you have a guy like that I could use it I just mean like you know he slaughters untold thousands and then it's just like and then his installation guy comes in and like Jeff Coons comes over organizes. Well no Jeff Coons would be the Night King

because Jeff Coons has an army of undead interns who does the art for him I'm saying who comes in and like lifts the horses into the spiral and then the Night King has to get up on the dragon. Probably the same guys who pulled the dragon out of the ice. Yeah those guys seem really like ready for whatever.

Yeah. You think they're union? They move with the efficiency and relentlessness of Teamsters. I will say that. So the, okay, so that brings us to Brand. This is a union shop. Brand. Excuse me, Mr. Night King, sir. That's lunch.

You said 5 p.m. Okay, time and a half. What are we doing today? Why are we doing so much like community theater today? I don't know. Because we did watch Barry. I don't know. Are you interested in Brand at all?

Mm-hmm. Because of the Nike thing? I hate that brand is like always like, I'm not brand. I just like think that his whole. like I'm the three-eyed raven. Like clearly that's, that messaging is not making an impact. No,

they're not listening to him. They keep hugging him and kissing him and he's like, not your brother. Yeah. And they're like, Bran! And he's like, not.

No, I loved the last scene with him and Jamie. Because he's just like, I'm not Brand anymore, but I know that you threw Bran out of a fucking three-story window. But he also probably knows

everything that's happened since then and the things that he has done that have like trended on the good side. I was just surprised that considering all the things Jamie has done, all the kings he's slay. all the ill stuff that he got up to over the last eight seasons. He didn't even hesitate to know that that was the kid he threw out a window.

I feel like he'd be like, I'm sorry, remind me of your name. I've thrown so many children out of so many buildings. You know? He actually hasn't. Well, you have to assume. He killed a king, and then he tossed brain out the window at a moment, a peek. I forget how, you will defend him no matter what he does. He was seeing red.

He did it to impress. He thought he interrupted. Well, look, Braun was similarly interrupted. You didn't see him throwing Khyburn out of anything. No, but he does it all for money. Jamie does it for love. Wow. Yeah.

And now we're back. And now we're back. I love that moment. I thought that was great. I loved the umber stuff at the end. I thought that was completely thrilling. I think next episode will be largely like gathering chess pieces and then they'll have the fight in episode three. I was, I guess I was, this surprises me.

And it won't surprise anyone who thinks I'm just being. sort of difficult. But when we did get to Tormand and Barrick in their little side quest for survival and they run into Ed and leading up to that

the scary scene. Great line. He's got blue eyes. He's like, I'm always that blue eyes. I love those guys. Yeah. And I just, I really enjoy them on the show. I, you know, even though I hated the whole like, let's capture a dead person boondoggle of last year,

that crew, the dirty dozen crew they got together were some of the best character actors and most fun people on the show. So I was happy to see them. But I guess what I was really happy was, it was, I know why they are barricading themselves in Winterfell, and obviously they're going to move around more before this show is over. But I did miss a little bit of the ranging. I was surprised by that. I think that there will be some. I think something will come out of three that means they have to go on the run. What is, what were, after watching that episode, were there any unexplored story points or characters that you feel are just dangling that are still unaccounted for in a way.

I mean, obviously, you know, I think Salador San is still unaccounted for, but I'm never going to get closure on that. I just mean, like, significant, significant storylines. No, I think what it is is that I, spending so much time with Jason and Mal not only since the episode, the season seven ended, but just, you know, listening to binge and also talking with them as we've been getting ready for Talk to Thrones is the amount of stuff that gets a nod from the show that's in the books or is part of canon that is suggested that it could be in the show.

Right. But it's like, do you guys have enough time to do this if one episode is a battle? So essentially, we have four more episodes because one of these episodes at least is reported to be an episode long fight. Potentially more than one, right? Because there are... Oh, and I'm sure there will be another huge setpiece dragon fight or something. But the big one.

Yeah. The Battle of Winterfell, you have to imagine there's not a ton of plot development going on there. And that's going to be in two weeks, almost definitely. Almost definitely is the third week. Okay. So, but my point is, is that they're running out a runway to land everything that I think all the fans would want them to land, to answer questions about every single thing. To say nothing of the fact that they've been pretty close to the vest, a lot of what we saw last night,

I thought a lot of the promotional materials that we've seen so far, for the most part, have taken from last night's episode. Yeah, because it was about the characters. It was about the... Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of stuff that's going to happen in the Crips.

There's obviously a lot of stuff that happens in Winterfell. We haven't seen any dragons yet, or Ice Dragons at least, or Night King, really, in the promo materials. But, yeah, I think that there's just a lot of stuff out there about the history and the mysteries of the world that they've, like, suggested that they... they understand and know about but have not completed.

I guess the last thing I would say coming in, you know, as we prepared to watch the rest of the season, is a, uh, speaks to something you said about the potential of brand being the Night King, which is so much of a fandom of the show that I would say is, I'm certainly not a casual fan of the show, but I am also not a scholar or a maister,

um, has been about these specific characters and where they may end up. and on a very base level, like whether they'll be alive or not. And then ultimately, who's king, who's queen, whatever. What I have not given a lot of thought about is what this show plans to say about the world, about the human condition, about fate, about free will. That's been a critique of the show in some of the post-mortems that I've seen. And seven and for the first episode of eight.

Is that this is about Game of Thrones now. It's not about what Game of Thrones tells us about. the world. Interesting, right. And so, and yet, an idea of a final lesson, you know, if you think back to some of the more iconic lines about DeNaris wants to break the wheel and everything has happened has happened before and it's caught, and it's literally incestuous. And the only way out of this is to break free of all this old behavior. It suggests something interesting potentially if Brand is a cyclical figure. If it is all happened before and it'll happen again and what is the radical act that can break us free of that. I realize as I say this, it's almost hard to allow oneself to, to think in those macro macro terms, because I maybe others have become slightly cynical, because generally in the two years since we last talked about Game of Thrones, we've been talking about it as a chit in AT&T's Warner Media's strategy for content domination and how, I'm going to misquote the Greyjoy's.

Nothing is ever really dead. Yes. You know, we have great confidence that there's going to be some, when this season series finale airs, there will probably be some tiny, tiny teaser of the long night spinoff. I imagine so, yeah. There were likely to be multiple spinoffs.

And, you know, we're about to spin this conversation into a Star Wars conversation. And Star Wars is never ending either. You know, there's just, that it is just going to be a lane in our lives for the rest of our lives. And there's no question that within corporate headquarters over at AT&T now,

they're thinking of Game of Thrones as that for them. Yeah. So it'll be an interesting test of this show, but also of where we are with our fandom, that if the Night King is destroyed at the end of the series and it's in some way meant to feel definitive that the spinoffs will be prequels and this is the end of it, part of me is going to be like,

well, we'll just hear the Night King with his trademark laugh. I don't think it matters because I think people were as into this show when it was two families fight against each other as they were when it was ultimate good versus ultimate evil. But what I'm saying is our relationship to these things, like, is this, it is now, these companies are now disincentivized to make any version of a story the primary version. You know, in the same way that Star Wars is struggling with it's like, it's the Skywalker story. And then we're going to be done with the Skywalker story. But the way we're going to finish the Skywalker story is just literally tell the same story again.

Yeah. Well, let's just go into that. So let me take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and then we'll start talking about Star Wars. the rise of Skywalker. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Game of Thrones and Oreos. The most epic cookies of all time are here. Cookies are coming. Brace yourselves.

Oreo Game of Thrones limited edition packs are in stores now while supplies last. Where does your fealty lie? To whom are you bending the knee? For me, I'm going to go Circey Lannister and I'll tell you why. I just think that she would make sure Oreos are always stocked. in Kings Landing supermarkets, if there are any. I mean, maybe not in Flea Bottom, but I think that if you are like of a certain kind of economic class in Kings Landing,

your access to Oreos is just unlimited. And while I appreciate the social change, Danny is trying to bring to the world, Oreos come first. Go on to Oreo.com and pledge your fealty to the house or Night King of your choice and tune in to Game of Thrones on Sundays on HBO. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by ADT. What does ADT real protection mean? It means you can get all of the latest innovation

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You can get a system custom designed to fit your home. Get safety on the go in the car or when the kids are at school with the ADT go app with an SOS button. Learn more at ADT.com slash podcasts. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Philo. Say goodbye to expensive TV bills and horrible customer service. Philo. Philo is a new way to watch all the TV you love. Philo is the cheapest way to watch over 50 of your favorite channels like Discovery, Science Channel, HGTV, AMC, VH1, Nickelodeon Lifetime in History. Never miss a minute of The Daily Show, catch SpongeBob and Paw Patrol for the kids, plus tons of classic shows and movies.

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So one of the things you're talking about the de-incentivization for corporations to really end anything. Or they can do gestures of endings to make you feel like every generation has its story and this one is coming to a close. Or you look at what Warner Brothers was doing with DC and at first it looks sloppy and now it looks brilliant that they can just have six jokers and be like shrug emoji. It doesn't matter.

There's no one joker as opposed to Marvel, which is a little bit hamstrung now, where it's just like, will anyone ever accept a different Ironman than Robert Downey Jr.? And that will be a great post-Avangers question and conversation. I think one thing that I would say about Game of Thrones is because it's operating off of a central and publicly available text. Except the last book. Well, sure. But even the stuff that they could, for as long as George Aramarton is sort of like, here's the world.

Like I've got like these different, I can even meet with you and just tell you. about it or I can give you these notes or whatever. Like he said on 60 minutes that Game of Thrones the show will end, his ending will pretty closely match Dan and Davids. Oh, he said that.

Yeah. Was there a dragonglass dagger in his back when he said it? Well, despite the fact that people had problems with the way the storytelling happened in seven, season seven of Game of Thrones, I have found that this show has been

pretty precisely plotted. And that the things that matter wind up mattering. The things you think matter wind up matter. There's very little wasted space. And there's not a lot of wasted space. Which is why I was so struck watching that Star Wars trailer on Friday. Now, I will say that I usually find Star Wars trailers to be mind-blowing. Like, I'm usually like, I will watch that a hundred times.

And then almost weirdly have a little bit of a come down after watching the actual movies. That's at least been the case with Force Awakens, Rogue One. to some extent solo. I would say, Last Jedi eclipsed my expectations. And we've talked about that a million times.

We don't have to go into it again. I didn't think this is a particularly a trailer. I thought that's a cool move that she pulls. It's beautiful in the opening. I mean, it looks beautiful. It's always exciting to see

a Jedi in the desert. It's cool. But like you're saying, their move in Star Wars. You know, Avengers and MCU is about going out, going out, going out, and then coming back in, bringing the characters back together.

Star Wars is really about repetition. I mean, and I think that that has been something that people have grappled with over the years about how much they want to be serviced versus how much they want to be challenged. And obviously, last Jedi was really challenging and people, some people rejected that. What I don't understand is why they felt the need for nine

to at least apparently, like a race Last Jedi. That's the really curious thing about it. The Last Jedi did a lot of radical things, and you could be pro or con, and people on the internet are loudly both. But for me, the most amazing things about it were the way it just effortlessly got rid of the cipher of a big villain, Snoke. No, that didn't matter. It got rid of the idea that Ray was somehow a Skywalker, no, you're from no one. It completely challenged and went right at this idea that only Skywalker's matter,

that everything, that basically things you cling to because you're told them from your childhood, aka fandom are the only things that matter. And it cleared the decks in a way that felt, for me anyway, bold and pretty exciting. And then you couple that with, and this is just a side note, in the trailer, certainly, there were some like the red speeders over the right.

It was beautiful and surprising. It made you feel like something different is going to be done here. Yeah, it looked different than all the other Star Wars movies. And then you get to this trailer, which is, you know, with good reason. It's why they brought JJ back, I think, was just like, let's plug that right now. Let's bring it back to the things people want. But the worrisome thing is the name of the movie and the placement of Ray back on Tatouine or wherever.

And it's like, yeah. It's like, nope, she's going to. to be a Skywalker after all. Well, it's, so there's tons of, you could make it, you could read the rise of Skywalker as that could be, uh, Kylo, that can have something to do with Leah, who's, there, there's still Carrie Fisher in this movie that they're using footage from Force Awakens in. You could say that it actually is like Kylo was messing with Ray somehow and that she is, she is a Skywalker.

Right. But so much, if, if you have to spend 50% of the last movie of this soccer, you're, the saga. Rec conning. Rec conning what happens in Last Jedi, that just feels like a crisis of management. You know what I mean?

Like, that just seems like why, like these second and third movies are not supposed to have to do all the heavy lifting that the first one is. They're supposed to be stories. Right, the fact that you waited 20 years to make a trilogy that is just about, basically about grappling with the existence

of these movies at all, is worrisome. The first movie being a basically a note for no remake of a new hope. Yeah, with Han Solo as Obi-One. And then the second one being a kind of ballsy rejection of that. And the third one being like, no, no, no, no, we're fine. I mean, this is something that I feel that I know that people who have really invested more in these movies disagree with.

But as a casual fan and a skeptic, I feel comfortable saying this. What's this movie about? Who are the bad guys? What are they fighting for? What's the point? The fact that the end of it is the emperor's laugh again. It's like, we're doing this shit again? Speaking of failure, the failure is the imagination when they rebooted it to begin with to say, well, what's interesting and what's left?

It cannot just be the same shit. Because what you're left with is something that can only be a carbon copy. Endings are really hard, especially in trilogies, right? And so this idea that it's like, what are they called the order, but it's just the empire again? The first order, yeah. And the rebellion or the resistance, it's all the same thing. playing the same beats. But why and for who?

That's the central problem of this that I just don't understand. And I think, I don't think Star Wars is in crisis. I don't think it's a problem. I think this movie's going to make a billion dollars. But long term, if they can't communicate what they're doing other than tickling our nostalgia, I don't know how many billions of nostalgia dollars are left out there at infinitum.

I think that they're going to probably, I think that Mandalorian is going to happen later in the year as well. So when the Disney pluse service launches in November, I think, uh, Mandalorian will be available. There's already been footage floating around of it. I have to say it looks incredible. Yeah, so, so you, you sent me this and, and so at this Disney festival,

it's basically like pirated footage of this of it from the Disney festival, from the Star Wars festival. And I think I was, so, two reactions to it. Well, first of all, we didn't even talk about the Disney pluse launch, which, by the way, it was fucking devastating. Like $6.99 a month for this. It is so smart. It is such a smart. And they're going to probably wind up bundling it with ESPN Plus and Hulu.

Consumer play. I thought Joe Adelian's piece on how this is just the first volley and what is going to be this larger tiered structure of like your Disney Park Pass for all the stuff they own was really insightful. And Netflix should be worried. They are going right at them in a very smart way. But anyway, it does on the surface look like everything I have ever been worried. I think Netflix is going to be Netflix or whatever. I mean, Netflix is going to survive the wars to come. Yeah.

I think Apple should definitely be, because what, what, yeah, exactly, what are they? We all want, we all have their phones, but they don't know how to do this. And I think that the Joe Adelian piece

was so smart about saying, Disney knows how to sell you many things that you already know, that you already want. Yes. And to package them and be consumer facing and blah, blah, blah. Because a reboot of amazing stories

is not a thousand dollar phone. Yeah. Anyway, Mandalorian TV series, John Favreau, not our friend from Pods Pod Save America, but our friend from... Swingers. Swingers.

We have a lot of friends. Starring Pedro Pascal as a character of the same race, tribe. Same. Occupation. Occupation is Boba Fett. Yeah, Bounty Hunter. Set after Jedi, you say? Right after Jedi. And it's Pascal, Vim Vendors, John Carly Esposito. Those are the two...

Sorry, Vim Benders. Oh, really? How many German directors were... Verre Herzog. And John Carlos Spizito are the heavies. They work for the sort of remnants of the empire. And then Gina Carrano and is like Patriot Pascal's homie in this movie. She may remember from Haywire.

Yeah, I remember. But possibly because of the nature of the footage that we saw, which is pirated, it looks grimy and beat up. It looks like the best versions of Rogue One. Yeah, you were right when you wrote to me. about it. And it's just like, theoretically,

this looks like everything we've ever wanted, which is in this world, which is... Tell a small genre story. Tell a small genre story. Use the things that people, you know,

not people. The things that we still have a fondness for, you know, because one of these central problems of a major Skywalker Star Wars movie is that they're mark, they're forequadranting it,

right? They want six-year-olds and 60-year-olds. Yeah, because they have to have, like, the weird animal race in Last Jedi and also Laura Dern's, you know, death. Yeah, exactly. But this is targeted towards a different audience, and that could be great.

And it seems like they have just a lot of pros in there. And also, like, that Werner Herzog scene that is in the pirated footage, that's the stuff that you don't have time for in a major movie. Like, if you think of Werner Herzog as playing the Paul Bettney role. Do you think Bob Lager was like, can we get Rainer Verner Fastbender in this? He hasn't been... What about Vin Vendors? I do think he went for...

What about Fritz Lang? Is Fritz Lang working? I just love German cinema. Like, if he's playing the Paul Bettany, and solo role, which was a disaster piece. But, like, you don't have time to have an interesting exposition spewing maybe villain in a two-hour, $300 million movie. But on a TV show, that's where those characters can live. So seeing the opportunities of a TV character...

Gus Fring working for the Empire, I'm available to watch that. But, Chris, because... I came in here on a Monday morning to crush dreams. And then play... And then crush candy. because that's how I spend my days now. Boy, you really need an agent. I'm spiraling.

The way I watched this footage was problematic for me. Not that it was pirated, but because we're watching it in a room full of the biggest Star Wars stands in the universe, who literally any time a boxy droid appears, they're like, no! Oh! And I'm like, who is this for?

Them. I know. And I don't want what they. want. And I'm happy they get what they want. But you do. You just don't want to be in a room full of people being like, no, they did it. No, I don't give a shit what the droid is. I don't care. You don't have to give a shit. They're all freaking out over a frugal. They were roasting in that trailer. And I'm like, I don't remember that. I literally thought that was a frugal. That's your man from Jedi who's the, the friggin' doorman when they're trying to get into Jabba's

palace. That's your boy. Damn, you got God. Yeah. Nope, sorry, don't care. I don't care. I care about it whether it's a good show or not. Okay, me too. So this all goes back towards, I think that's the way forward for this whole story. I think they know that.

I think that the Skywalker saga ending with these three movies will be looked at as an enormous financial boon and something that launched this new universe for Disney. Right. And an incredible success. but as a story, I don't know if it ever quite clicked. Now, no, no, no.

There are parts of it that people love, and there are parts of it that meant a lot to a lot of people. Yeah, and I loved Last Jedi. Like, legitimately was just like, this is a great movie. But I think taken as a three-movie story about a woman from Jaku who may or may not be a Messiah figure,

it just doesn't make a lot of sense and she's not fighting against anything because, like, they just kept zigging and zagging around about who was what, and what meant what? And I also think this may be the oldest, um,

strain of takes that we offer because we are come from a different generation, um, or at least we grew up with different, different relationship to this kind of content. We only got a couple's swings at this stuff, right? Like there were no star,

there were the three Star Wars movies and that was Star Wars. Yes. And then we graduated from college and they brought out more of them and they were trash. Yeah. So we're like, well, that's it. And then later people realized,

oh, this content we own is the most valuable thing in the universe and we'll just keep making more of it. Weird how long it took people to realize that. Anyway, we make a big deal out of each entry into these series as if they matter because they're released in movies, because they're important because Billy D. Williams is in it or whatever. But let's remember this is Disney now. This is Disney, and Disney is showing us what they do with content

for good or ill and how they approach content now. And it used to just be like maybe a theme park ride or a happy meal, but no, no, now it is, if you don't feel that Finn and Poe, and their subtextual romance that people on the internet are all fired up about didn't get enough burn in these movies, don't worry. There is an eight-part Disney Plus series probably coming at some point when Oscar Isaac's schedule opens up. With triple frontier two wraps?

Quadruple Frontier. You know, I'm just using that as an example. I know what you mean. All of these things will continue to live forever. Like Jeremy Renner is going to be on a streaming service. That's what I'm saying. So anything that you feel wasn't appropriately done in this trilogy, You don't need to wait a generation to get another bite at that apple.

Like, it's all just going to keep happening. Does that change the significance of, does that take away from the event movie nature of these movies? Ultimately, yes, it does. However, these event movies exist as inflection points on corporate data sheets. Yeah, and I'm also increasingly, like, convinced that they don't really know how to tell these stories anymore. They don't, but. Like, people, like, not any one person at Star Wars is, like, guilty of this. think that there's just too much money at play and there's too many people saying like you have

to have this happen. Yeah. And it just winds up. It's just not a coherent story. But I think that it's also a question of what do you value more? And so for us, Last Jedi had silly animal races, but it also had enough visual dynamism and really interesting ideas to make me think that on this ledger, the good one out. Like, this was worth it.

Sure. I really enjoyed it. my guess is completely unseen, but from a trailer, that the ratio of interesting thought-provoking things for 40-year-old podcasters is going to be less than fan service. Yeah. Because they wanted JJ just get the house back in order.

Yeah. It's been great podcasting with you today. I'd like to apologize to all the little, all the fan boys and girls out there. I think you're going to say all the little fingers. All the, do you miss him at all? I do. Yeah.

We should pour a little out for all our friends. It felt weird for Braun to be getting serviced by sex workers and not have Little Finger lurking in the shadows over there. Yeah, what's up with the workers there now? Like, are they... Is that a union shop? Is that a union shop now?

Because Little Finger, definitely anti-union. He would be pro-agents. Yes. That's right. He would definitely... He'd be like, I still have an agent. I'm represented by the CAA. Is that Bonnet?

I don't know. I got to stop. We got to stop before we kill again. Great show. Great job. Great job, Braciskees. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Philo. Philo has over 50 of your favorite channels like Discovery, Hallmark, HGTV, food, network, AMC, VH1, Nickelodeon, Lifetime, and on and on, enjoy live and on-demand TV, plus unlimited recording for only $20 a month with no contract needed. Philo is available on Roku, iOS, Fire TV, Android TV, and Apple TV. Start your free trial instantly with just a phone number. To start your free trial, visit philo.tv slash the watch. That's PHILO.com.

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the big home. He's at ADT. With ADT, Real Protection, can get you all of the latest innovation in smart home security from ADT combined with 24-7 monitoring from the most trusted name in home security. Get the nation's number one smart home security provider and a system custom designed to fit your home and get the ADT Go app with an SOS button for safety on the go. Learn more at ADT.com slash podcasts.