The Watch - ‘Hit Man,’ ‘Fantasmas,’ and ‘Top Chef’ Episode 12

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about the success of the new Richard Linklater movie, ‘Hit Man,’ on Netflix over the weekend and how its streaming success compares to that of ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ at the box office (1:00). Then they talk about the strange new HBO comedy ‘Fantasmas,’ from comedian Julio Torres (38:05), before discussing the latest episode of ‘Top Chef’ (54:19). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

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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 only guy who loves London more than him is Bryce Harper. It's true. It's Andy Green Walls.

Did you watch any of the London series? I watched some highlights, but yeah. Highlights. Didn't get up to watch it or didn't make time to watch it. But you know what you know me. I get it. The game started at 10 a.m. July 4, that's when baseball starts in the CR household.

It's the NBA finals. You know, there's a lot of stuff happening. The cup is on by beloved Oilers. Oh, your cup, yeah. How are they doing? They're down. They're down bad? Not down bad.

They went down 1-0. They lost 3-0. But there's a lot of positive talk coming out of the Edmonton camp. Do you think, is the Edmonton, they're called coaches, right? Not managers in hockey? Do you think he's going to be like, is he going to pull some Jason? and kid stuff and to start identifying the second and third best players on the team and saying

that guy's unstoppable. Should we start playing mind games with each other like that? Start. Yeah. First of all, it's another sunny Monday. Should I start being like Sean's the best podcaster in the rear? Again, what do you mean to start? Last week you're like, I save all my prime bits for the

big picture. This is just where I workshop stuff. I have over the weekend made a, I wanted to let you know I recommitted myself to hosting this pod. Not contractually, but like emotionally, like, where I'm like, my job is to set you up. My job is to make you succeed. Wow.

I'm looking forward to that because I think a lot of our listeners really noticed when you treated this podcast like a 10 p.m. set at the Giggle Factory in Madison, Wisconsin with your acolyte bit. You're like, I'm going to try this. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what they liked it? And then when we talked about the show, where was it?

Well, it's like I'm not a dancing monkey. You know what I mean? Like when I'm on stage, if the moment hits me, I'll let it rock. But I'm not just like, oh, is it time to talk? Is it time to go, like, were you inspired by my very Japanese reticence to use the engine voice? Where I did it once so well that I basically never did it again. And then we don't talk about the show anymore. Yeah.

Well, that's why we're a successful pod. Is it? Yeah. Andy, I have a couple of things to talk to you today on the watch. First, some admin. Just wanted to make a quick announcement. On June 18th at the Elray Theater in Los Angeles. June 18th is next week.

It is. What? The Ringer MBA show is doing a live show. Group chat will be appearing. On stage, we're doing a live show at the LRA. And I will be on stage with Justin and Woz and Rob. I will come out and I will be dressed as Sam Presti. And I will do a two-hour press conference about Fortune Cookie wisdom of the Thunder front office.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but like... Wait, that's an established... I mean, it's called group chat. Those guys have a great three-man... Group dynamic, I know. So what are you going to do? You're the... You're going to spice it up.

You're going to be there the whole time? I think we're talking about the off-season. We're going to be talking about the trade market. It will be the off-season by then, won't it? I don't know. Probably. I mean, like, honestly, let's just, let's rip the Band-Aid off. Let him have 18.

So just, you can go to the L-Rae website. You can go to the Ringer.com slash events. But June 18th, A.P.m. at the L. Ray, if you're listening to my voice, you're part of the resistance. Come to the... I'm pretty interesting. Come to the show. I was just listening to our friends and colleagues, Bill Simmons and Ryan Rusillo and Brian Curtis,

talk about the need to always add more bodies to successful booths. Oh, that's actually a funny bit. Maybe we should make that the setup for the live show is like an overstuffed studio show. This is, by the way, these ideas, they're not free. So, holler back. I wanted to ask you a question to start the show. And today, what did I talk about Fantasmas? We're going to talk about Hitman, the new Richard Linklater movie that was in theaters briefly, where you saw it.

I saw it in theaters. But then it was released to all Netflix subscribers over the weekend. And maybe some Top Chef. I'd love to dangle a Top Chef combo. You didn't respond. I sent you a screen grab of a tweet. By the way, guys, we have a pretty cool relationship. but it was the

Did I send you the one of Trump talking about batteries and sharks? I said that to you. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I assumed I just beat you to it.

Yeah. No, I sent you the one that said Film Bros. Be like, I saw it in the theater. That was the whole tweet. How's me? You are a film bro. That's me.

It's too bad for our TV pod. Too bad. So we have those shows that we're going to talk about. Yeah. We have quite a week of TV. Convenient that you're going to Arizona this week.

Well, you know, the electoral commission needs me. Presumed innocence on the 12th. Nice. The boys returns on the 13th. Did you know that show was a satire of fascism? That was wild to me. Eric Criskey dropping bombs in the Hollywood reporter. And on Sunday the 16th House of the Dragon,

I will be appearing on the House of R as the host, as the point guard for Mallory and Joanna for the Talk the Thrones episodes. But obviously, we're going to have our usual, candid, critical conversation about... Wow. I didn't even realize... H-O-T-D. When we come back, when I come back on Monday.

Yes. We'll have the boys to talk about. Yep. We'll have presumed innocent to talk about. Yep. And that's it. That's assuming I don't find the world's biggest presumed innocent fan to come on on the Thursday show that you're missing.

That's you Dick Cheney and yourself. It's just you looking in the mirror being like there is no one more qualified for this. You're the biggest fan. I'm going to have Kaya asked me 100 questions about presumed innocent. And just about Scott Tray-O in general. I have a question, though, for you to start off. Okay. I assume that the big picture will begin today's podcast talking about bad boys.

And bad boys is enormous box office success. Right. And they've over the last couple of weeks had a lot of really amazing conversations about Furiosa's boxoff performance, the fall guy's box office performance. I guess Challenger's relative box office performance was a little bit earlier. It feels like every week, and I understand this is like not just a, this is like a industry-wide phenomenon where there is a metric in which that, that determines the health and safety and future of the movie is business.

And I was curious whether or not you ever have box office number envy for TV. Like, do you ever wish there was like this much more clear metric for television success? Because it would be easier to determine whether or not something had wings, whether or not something was a slow grower, whether or not something was underperforming. And do you think that, I mean, I obviously love the movies. Sean and Amanda adore the movies and are very invested in the long-term health. Both of the movies as a medium, but also Hollywood as like an industrial arm of... You're like Heath Ledger's Joker.

You don't care. I just want to see it all burn. Well, do you feel away about TV, though? Well, what you're speaking to, I mean, the idea of having more clarity would be great because there's a, element of what we do here when we're, obviously we talk about our subjective feelings about certain TV shows. Sure. And we root for things to succeed or we wish some things had more eyeballs, but we also try to bring in a relatively clear-eyed point of view on the overall business and why things get made and why things are promoted a certain way. And also, you know, genuinely, like when we

talk about Fantasmas later, I do not think that show has the world's highest ceiling in terms of blockbuster potential. Sure. I'm excited it exists and I can't wait to talk to you about it. But, But at the root of it, what you're speaking to is movies still, I mean, when you pull back a little bit further and realize they're all owned by the same companies that run the TV networks, you might end up in the same thicket of what are the metrics that really matter. Yeah. But with movies, it does still seem to have an almost quaint, last century, old-fashioned piece to it, which is we kind of can guess how much this movie costs. and then we can see how much we can see how much money this movie has made. And then that informs the conversation.

Right. With TV, every one of these companies, not everyone, but a large number of them are in completely different businesses than the other. And so we, I was going to say we talk about, we actually don't talk about. But if we were to talk about Paramount's investment in the Star Trek franchise,

that is a siloed conversation where they have internally decided that the value of this brand, the value of the repeat business customers who will watch anything within this brand, almost all of the content is now siloed behind the Paramount Plus paywall. That is of a certain value to them. Is that value comparable to the value that House of the Dragon has to HBO? Or Reacher has to Amazon, a company that doesn't even need the television business to be profitable.

As I've said before, I think this is not just apples to oranges. This is apples to paper towels. These are completely different products. doing different things for each company. So, yes, I think that one of the things that we sometimes lack, and I don't really know how to find it, is a guardrail around the conversation about what's successful, because we're kind of just, kind of all just making it up at a certain point.

In some ways, I think movies and the metrics for movie success is actually closer to television than we really give it credit for. Right. Because I think that the fall guys move to VOD. I'm sure at the bottom line level makes Fall Guy look like a much more solvent endeavor than it did when it just underperformed at the box office.

I also am thankful that we don't have the specter of tracking going on that movies do. So tracking is essentially not unlike polling for political races, a mysterious science that I don't even know as a science and they'll say like, oh, well, it fell way short of tracking. And I'm like, who did you guys

maybe it didn't. Maybe this is exactly what it was tracking to do. Its relationship to its budget is kind of obviously like that's a black and white thing, although budgets are often like, well, this is what it costs, but then it also costs this much to market and, you know, but they're expecting to get this back when it goes internationally. So it's not as easy as like Bad Boys made a hundred-something million dollars this weekend movies are back. Worldwide. Right. Worldwide. But I am curious because, you know,

the way in which TV shows, can pick up audience over the course of a season or the way in which TV shows can at least reportedly be blockbusters like say Fallout. Right. But I don't even know what the number is that fallout eclipsed. And when we're given things like eyeballs grabbed within 27 hours of original release, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, I don't really, this doesn't really mean anything to me. So I was, but I was wondering whether it would change my relationship to how I feel about some of these shows if I knew about their, this is their success. this is very broad because this is, as you said, this is not the movie podcast, but there is something similar. There's something comparable to me with movies where tracking, tracking is like something you're passionate about political polling. And then there's election day. Yeah. Most people understand that the former is not precise, is fluid, is giving you the larger picture as opposed to the actual end result.

Really? Because the guys you do polling are pretty confident about what they're doing. No, they seem pretty chill and pretty open to being wrong. But then when you, but then the voters decide, right, theoretically, with movies. With TV, I don't know what any of this stuff means, but you're right to point out the fact that movies, at least in the old version of them, were pretty immediate, not the old version, the old version movies would open in Omaha and then over the next 10 months go over the country and make a lot of money. The post-blockbuster era of movies where it was first weekend or bust, right? TV shows, at least theoretically, can grow over time and attract more eyeballs, attract more audiences.

but it's such a, it's, it's not just opaque in the sense that they don't give us the numbers, it's opaque in the sense of we don't know what the value is to the companies themselves because at least in the old days, you know, I keep saying the old days. I'm talking about 2015 at this point, but like, you know, John Landgraf would say that critical response matters, response from certain types of audiences, meaning whether young people or influence or trend online people, whatever, that went into the larger. The Casey Bloy's Holy Trinity of viewers, awards, or buzz. If it has all three, great.

It needs to have some combination of those. I would say for people who are nodding their head at your premise here, I think that what we're starting to see this year in terms of what's on our screens, what's coming back to our screens, and for people who pay closer attention, what's getting picked up, what's getting announced in the trades, this is as close as we've been for a long time in getting hard data of what actually has value.

Because, you know, with a shift in interest rates and with the post-strike realities, et cetera, et cetera, things that are getting greenlit and getting made, I think, are more evidently profitable than things that were, the things that we were seeing in the last 10 years, things that people were taking a flyer on or were passion projects.

That window, I hope it opens again, feels very, very close. Yeah, I guess, you know, the other reason why I was asking you this question was because Tokyo Vice got canceled over the, like I think on Friday. And obviously, a show I loved the second season.

It'll probably be in my top 10 of the year. The way in which it was reported slash not spun, but I think a lot of the conversation that came out of it was, we're so thankful that they gave us the extra season to finish the story we always wanted to tell.

I think at that end of that second season and at least in the structure of Tokyo Vice in general, like this sort of dual newspaper investigative unit plus the cops, plus the absolutely intoxicating Japanese underworld that they had set up. And it being a period piece,

you could keep telling those stories. You know what I mean? Like there was season three, season four potential within for Tokyo Vice, but they were kind of like, hey, we frame this as we nailed it because we got to tell the whole story that we wanted to tell.

I would love to know what Tokyo Vice did in relation to like, I have no idea how much less successful Tokyo Vice is to fall out, say, because even though they are both TV, they're on separate streaming services with separate bottom lines and separate metrics for success. And I'm sure that there's an hours viewed or a amount of people, you know, there's maybe even a Nielsen number for it that exists,

but none of it really translates for me. So I guess I was just kind of curious because it's hard for me to know, oh, hey, you know, Tokyo Vice, it was a good show. they took a shot. It's a different world, and not enough people were watching it. I think that Tokyo Vice is an example of something. Maybe we should make a category for this,

and we can look over the year in TV and consider this. But, like, Tokyo Vice was a Mrs. Blankenship, and that's a Mad Men reference. You remember Don's elderly secretary who passes away and then is eulogized by Bert Cooper saying that she was an astronaut? Yeah, right. Because she was born in a barn or something,

and then she died on the top floor of a New York City skyscraper. And Tokyo Vice was born in one era and died in another. And I think that if you were going to successfully pitch a show, because, again, I will check out this show, I promise. It has a lot of things that I feel very interested in. Journalism. Journalism, first and foremost. Journalism, Ansel Elgort, cancel. These are just things that I love.

If you were to pitch it now, and I think it would be a very, very tricky thing to pitch. But if you were to pitch it now, you would not, there would be certain. things about it that would not, you would not do. For example, you wouldn't, I mean, Antel Elgort, when he was cast in this was, I mean, he's still a name, but I think he was maybe a hotter name. He was attached to the property. Also in West Side Story. And West Side Story was coming and there was a sense that Baby Driver, that he was an ascendant star. You have Michael Mann directing the pilot and also Michael Mann, I assume, collecting a hefty EP or co-creator fee for every episode. I don't know, was this a co-production or was it purely a Max thing? I think it was a Max thing.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you were going to pitch a show in 2024 that was in a similar space, I think certain things would fall away. Like you wouldn't have a star director attached. You wouldn't have you try to get away from the period piece aspect of it. And you would 100% get a co-producer, whether it was a European production company. It was with Wow, Wow, Japanese production company. Okay. So that you would still do then.

You would definitely have a local partner on the. ground. But you would also maybe from the beginning say, we are aiming this to be a, we are creating this to be an ongoing, which it was, but a more like profoundly ongoing procedural show that we are going to budget so that it has the runway to run five or six seasons, which is what our goal is. You know, it's the thing, it's an analogy I was scrambling with last week about like whether you form something perfectly like a top and you drop it from the sky and see how long it spins, or you give something the runway to rev up and see if it can keep going under its own power. I say that without knowing what the financials of it were, but it just...

Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't cheap to make. You know, it's a peer-eeped set in Tokyo. Yeah, but also, I don't mean to suggest that, like, as recently as two to five years ago, companies were like, well, who cares how much it costs? That's not true. Yeah. But it was not designed to exist in this current moment. I honestly do wonder whether or not Tokyo Vice without Ansel Elgort wouldn't make sense

as a Netflix show. Sure. Because they would just be like, we need international programming. You know, they've done so well with a lot of their stuff from Korea, especially. like, you know, international TV, would they, if you went into Netflix's office tomorrow and we're like, I don't know if you need the, the Ansel Elgar character, I mean, it's based on

that character's actual book. So that's the story. But even if you were going to do it, I mean, I wonder if that makes sense for Netflix. It takes a lot of boxes for them. A genre procedural with an international flavor and an international appeal. Yeah, and I think another comp might be,

drops of God, which I didn't even mention one of my favorite shows of last year. It was renewed. Must be nice for you. Your show is just getting renewed left and right. Well, this is at second season. You've got two seasons of your Ansel show. Come on. I don't know what's going beyond that. But Drops of God, again... Ansel.

That's your thing. Apple has limitless pockets and unlimited budgets if they want to be. But this show is a very, very, very complex web of international co-production money. And it is mostly in English. But it is, decidedly not through an American lens. It's the sort of thing that Apple's like, yeah, we'd like a piece of this,

but it's coming from a lot of different places. That feels like what could happen for a show like Tokyo Vice. It's also how you build it from, how you construct its base. You know, who's paying for what and what its perspective is. You know, because we can talk about Hitman now.

Hitman was the number one movie on Netflix over the weekend. He had done like a short, like really just kind of gestural, theatrical run, like for a week. So how would you describe my job? gesture to go see it. Ceremonial?

As throwing your body on on the pyre of cinema. Yes. And I think that one thing I would say about Hitman is that those guys that Glenn Plow and Adria Arjona and Richard Linklader

sold this movie as hard as you can sell a movie in 2024. They did every video. They held puppies. They tried snacks. They went on pods. They went on.

they talked to David Marchese, like they did every single thing that you are supposed to do to sell a movie and it worked. But what is the, if you were, is it, does it matter that Netflix is number one movie

of the weekend and bad boys ride or die? Like, I think clearly the latter was probably a bigger movie, but was it? I don't know. Bad boys?

Yeah. Well, I think it's, I mean, there's a lot of different ways to talk about this. I think that we should talk about Hitman just as a movie. But I think that the bad boys thing, I have a hard time with, not because I don't revere the first movie.

And I probably, second one, good, too. Yeah. I have to say, I missed the third. But it reminds me a little bit of the upcoming Beverly Hills Cop 4. XLF. XLF, which I'm also, sure. But it's like, there's a moment in the last 10 years when all the old rules fell away. And do you remember how quaint it was when we were kids?

when you'd find out that like, Brad Pitt does commercials in Japan. Like, what? Yeah. These guys are artists. They don't do commercials, but they would do them because you never saw them. And then over the last 20 years, like, everyone does everything because everyone needs to make money in this. Ryan Reynolds does more commercials than he does, like, things. Right.

And all the old rules sort of fell away. Similarly, like, people are just willing to do sequels forever because that's what they're being offered and they're being offered to do money. And it all feels like a TV show. because you can just get anyone, you can shoot it quickly, special effects are relatively cheap or whatever. And so the feeling of like, is this a movie event or is this just like a reunion TV show,

but this one's in theaters and this one isn't? Yeah. It doesn't feel particularly special or momentous. So understanding what any of this means is, well, that's one thing. The second thing is, if you told me, I don't know, 10 years ago that there's a weekend in summer

where there's going to be a bad boys movie and a new Richard Linklater movie that's really cool, I'd be like, yeah, that sounds like a movie weekend. Those sound like counter-programming, or they're both going to... I'd like to see both Saturday night and Sunday morning or whatever. Pre-kids. Well, okay, so 11 years ago.

But anyway, that would make sense. Four in the morning before your children wake up, and you're firing up, Pittman. I mean, it's a gentle watch for the most part. But now, I don't... Yeah, what is this? What is it released into, and what does any of it mean? Do they even have a...

Are you asking if they have a... any relationship to each other? Because I don't know if they do. I really was more trying to say, like, I'm super happy for the people who made this movie because I really liked it a lot. No. But, I mean, honestly, whatever.

Like, yeah, anybody being successful, the people who made bad boys were also the people who made the back girl that got shelved. So it's cool to see them get some light. But it was more just like, it's awesome that Hitman was the number one movie on Netflix. I have no idea whether that means that hitman translated to a box office situation. would be a $40 million opening weekend for a Glenn Powell movie? That's like a rom-com black comedy?

I don't know. Well, we've talked about this last week. This is a constant conversation on the big picture and other movie podcasts and things. Like, I feel like people who make movies will often say, we would just like to be seen. We just want our work to be seen. And by that metric, Hitman is a success.

If it's on Netflix, it's going to be seen. The engagement level with those viewings, we cannot say, but it's going to be seen. One of the things that we struggle with, even in the way to the degree we talk about this stuff, is the success of movies used to mean more than just ticked boxes about being seen. It was part of a larger ongoing cultural conversation about what people are responding to, what people are interested in, who's going to be the face of movies for the next few years, movie stars, what other movies get to be made. Like, they all felt like they were in a larger conversation with each other. When this stuff gets dumped on streaming, we don't know. I mean, maybe Netflix now knows that if you put Glenn Powell in the little tile, it's good for them,

which will influence his future career or whatever. Sure. But that feels like we've been robbed of that a little bit. And I also feel like the larger conversation that we're lacking that has not been lacking on other podcasts like Sean and Amanda and you, or we can have one here, is link later. Like, when I saw this, did I mention I saw it in the theater? I'm not sure. I don't know if Kaii was listening to that part. I wanted her to know, too.

Do you think she got it? Yeah. Okay, good. She nodded. I was really, really struck by what an entertaining but also odd movie this is because it just hit me. I know this is a little slow, but after how many years have been watching, 30 years almost of watching Richard Linklater movies? 1990. It was slacker.

Okay. So, yes, over 30 years of watching Richard Linklater movies. What you immediately take in as like, this is kind of low-key. This is kind of like a hang. Yeah. That's his style, right? And so what was cool about watching this movie was thinking, taking a moment to think about how wildly divergent

10 other directors' version of the story would be and how interesting it is that we got his version of it, what he prioritizes, what he finds interesting, the point of view that he brought to it. Because the whole like Glenn Powell wearing costumes and being goofy, that would have been someone else's movie. Yes. And that was just a passing little like,

Curly Q. It almost cut away aggressively from those scenes, right? Because that wasn't the movie that these guys were interested in making. I guess I want to ask you about this objective, just like those artistic choices. I guess we're spoiling parts of Hitman if you haven't, yeah, seen it already. But the other question is like, does that stuff just all get flattened if people are watching it on TV without any context? I don't think so. I mean, I think that, okay, so that's an experiential question about

whether or not, like, if you're watching suits and somehow it gets recommended to you that you watch Hitman and then you watch Hitman and does it feel the same? Right. I think there's a lot of different things that go into that. It's like, how are you watching it on your laptop, on your nice flat screen television? Are you paying attention or are you second screening it? You know, all sorts of things. Are you watching in 10-minute chunks as you do household chores and you're hitting pause and coming back?

Did you watch half of it and then watch the second half the next night? Like there's all sorts of things that like impact the thing I like about movies. is even if you want to just look at it athletically, you walk into the dark, it's as long as it is, and you pay attention. Like, you're supposed to at least. You know, your mind can wander. You can think about different things,

but you're not supposed to look at your phone. You're not really supposed to like spend a ton of time outside of the movie theater. It doesn't stop for any one individual viewer. And it's like, that's the fair playing field of how we start to think and evaluate how a movie made you feel. A TV show can make you feel a thousand different ways,

based on how you're watching it because we have so much control over that product. I agree. I don't necessarily think that people would be like that's the same thing as the last thing I watched on Netflix. I thought that this movie to me, after thinking about it for a while, was like, what if director bullshit was real and good?

Oh, I love that take. So you know how people will be like, it's a hitman movie, but it's really about identity. You know, or it's a hitman movie, but what I wanted to do is to bring in some of my French New Wave influences or whatever. You know, it's like, it's actually five easy pieces, but it's a fit. It's like, no, that's actually what this is.

Yeah. It is actually, what if they made like a hitman comedy that also had deeply probing conversations about the nature of human identity and also was pretty hot? Yeah. And also had like daffy screwball romantic, like comic moments like Glenn Powell pretending to be 14 different prominent actors. I think that that's what this movie did, you know? And that is like, when people are like, oh, yeah, the gray man is like the parallax view. It's like, no, actually hitman is like breathless.

That's what it looks like when you actually fulfill director bullshit. Yeah, well, also you fulfill director bullshit, or if I may, you become or you are a really, really good director full stop. Yeah, and then that's what happens. Completely literate in the medium that you adore. But you also have a deep sense of self. And I think filmmakers, maybe this is true for all mediums, but like, I think become artists when you synthesize a healthy balance between those two things. Your influences and your true emotional self. And that can happen at any point in people's careers, but it does, I think there's a kind of beauty to it when it happens, not later, but deeper into a career.

I'm not saying this is Linklater's best movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it is that synthesis of those two things, right? Like, he's seen all of the movies that have dealt with these ideas, but he also knows himself, and he knows what he's interested in. He knows what he's capable of achieving with the budget he was given and the parameters that he was working under. And for that reason alone, I just found it to be, not for that reason alone, but that is chief among the reasons why I thought this is such a successful and enjoyable experience. You know, I didn't leave it being like, oh, I think it would have been better if. Yeah. I was like, oh, cool. There's only no, there's no, I do that all the time with movies and it's,

really annoying where I'm like, why didn't they just do it this way? Yeah. I don't do that with Richard Linklater movies because I feel like the only person who could have made that movie the exact same way as him. It is true. So it's not like I'm like, oh, why didn't he spend more time with the ex-girlfriend? Do they have such interesting conversations with? No, that was the slot that that conversation could go in and it winds up almost explaining the rest of the film. Isn't it interesting the way, like for me, this premise, and again, it's a, when I say premise, like, well, let me take a step back. This movie, it's a fun exercise to think about the 10 other filmmakers who could have taken this premise and made excellent movies. Not this movie,

but like everyone from like Wes Anderson to Greta Gerwig would have done a version of this movie. Sure. And you can also like go back over the years. I mean, Hollywood is obsessed with the hitman as a as a main character. As the movie itself tells us. Sure. It shows us. Yeah. And like this, I think that this movie is not so far from gross point blanks for instance. Oh yeah, great one. Which is like a John Cusack movie from the 90s about a guy who's a hitman going back to his high school reunion and reuniting with his long lost high school girlfriend who he abandoned at prom. And it has some of the same kind of like, who am I, what am I doing comic moments? But yeah. I did also want to say that like this is an example of it doesn't, your point is that it, you know, this is something that is

relatively timeless in Hollywood, that's true. The existence of this movie is also extremely contemporary because this, like most other viable projects in Hollywood at the moment, whether they have been greenlit, filmed or not, is based on a Texas Monthly article. And shout out to our old Grantland colleague, Megan Crate, who has a producer on this, she works with Texas Monthly and bringing these stories to Hollywood.

But like, I'm not kidding that 20% of the things that I hear about are open writing assignments or things that... They're all Texas Monthly articles. And when I say Texas Monthly articles, I mean literally from the magazine Texas Monthly, or maybe I mean more generally. It's a genre into itself. People are like, here's a podcast, a true crime thing, or here's an article, like, what can we do with this? And it goes around town and people are like, here's my take on it.

And generally the takes are, what if we did an eight-part Hulu miniseries if we're finding the real killer? This is such an exciting example of like, well, what if old Rick Linklater took a swing at it? This isn't the article. As the movie lovingly says at the end, like this part did not happen. This part about the actual story of this guy and this woman and what they did to find love, that's not true. That was not really Gary Johnson. But this is such an, for me, it's exciting that something, that the framework of what's going on in Hollywood that I think can be held up as, you know, well, it's all execution dependent. No pun intended.

But like it feels like this was an open writing assignment that turned into something meaningful to the creator, which is cool. also we don't need to be the 1,000th podcast to say it, but I guess Glenn Powell really is a great big movie star. I'm not looking for him to give us a shout out. He's already talked about the rigor. Were you resistant to that idea? I'm not resistant to the idea at all because I really liked him in all the movies I'd seen him in.

I guess I was resistant to the discourse of like, this guy's a big, get ready. Yeah. But he's an interesting star. Like he reminds me a lot. Maybe people have already said this. But have people been comparing him to Robert Redford? I mean, not in front of my face when I was listening to them.

Because he's so, so, so, like, predator naturally cool. Like, I don't mean cool, like, leather jacket cool. I just mean, like, he seems like, he doesn't seem to have any change when the camera's on and when it's off. He's just alive. But when pushed or nudged, he can get real anxious. Sure. As he does in this movie. Yeah.

Which reminds me a little bit about Redford, who always looked cool, but then could also play that pitched up version of himself. It's really good. He's great. I think that the romance in the movie is incredibly charismatic. Like, it's kind of been a while since I've seen two people who clearly want to get after it like this in a movie. And that's really fun. Do you want to talk about that quote that I like? Yeah, let's hear it, man.

Well, this is Linklater, but this has been going around, but he was talking about we had to, this is a quote. Where's this from? this is the film stage.com. Okay, I think. Nick Newman. We had to show it. It felt like an old-fashioned in a genre-sense movie

as in 80s. There's an adult movie. They're fucking. It's real. These are real things. It's just not a part of cinema by and large right now. The infantilization is complete.

The culture that wants us to, you know, when I was a kid, I love an interview that says, you know, he's a podcaster, basically. You know, when I was a kid, when I was 13, I was watching a lot of adult movies, very intrigued with that world. I looked forward to it, but it was a little scary

because it had all these things I hadn't experienced yet. But I couldn't wait to be an adult. They seemed smart. They seemed passionate. There was all kinds of fun things awaiting me. And it was through adult movies. Now I think the message society's sending is, just stay a 13-year-old forever.

Right. And he goes on and on about like... Acco light. Look, every generation is going to look at subsequent generations and be like, that's so messed up. Yeah, I know. I don't necessarily want to play that game, but I think that there are, it's undeniable that that is the messaging of our mainstream culture. Yeah.

And it's going to have some effects. I don't mean it's going to have all negative effects. I was having this conversation with my 11-year-old daughter actually the other day. Okay. Did not use the word, guess what's happening in Hitman? They're fucking. That didn't come up. But, but I was saying, because I've been, it's been a.

struggle for me. Because you keep having to buy all these different versions of torture poets department, right? It's so expensive. No, I've been trying to, I was trying to explain to that because I've been struggling getting them to watch movies outside of movies they've already seen or genres they've already seen. And I was trying to explain that like this is, was our experience. Like, we were seeing things that we either were ahead of us or maybe completely inappropriate at similar ages. Okay. Right. Like, we didn't have a ton of children. What were you trying to get them to watch that they were resistant to? I mean, by and large, almost anything.

Exactly. No, but just the first 30 minutes. You know, not all that talky shit afterwards. I did get them to watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure finally. Okay. But that's not the best example. I just mean any, like when we were, this becomes old guy's cinema. I'm not talking, I don't think it's a good thing that,

You and I saw like Commando and Predator and Total Recall before. Worked out for us. Did it? I guess it did. Look at us right now. Couldn't pay to have this conversation on a Monday. But there was just not as much stuff that was made for children, nor was there stuff made for children that was legitimately good.

Yeah. I think also, I mean, I think at a certain point, you were just like, I don't want to watch this shit anywhere. Yeah. And I still feel like that's coming because I did describe the Omaha beach scene to them. Yeah. And they were like, that sounds like real valor? I was like, no, no, no.

The guy is screaming because his insides are on the. outsides. And they're like, oh, now I want to watch it. This is a big digression. But I appreciate that point that like we just need other movies out there. We need this sort of thing. Yeah. We need yeah, yeah, I don't need to get up on a soapbox about it. I'll let Sean do it. But I thought that was an interesting point. And I think it's very true. I don't think my kids should see hitman, but I think that they should see other things. Yeah. I think that I don't know I'm without children. it's hard for me to say how I would feel about my children. Your children are going to be teenagers.

Your words. I'm adopting Clint Powell, actually. It worked out financially. That's great. That's great. Did you enter into some sort of like financial relationships as well? The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses.

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on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Should we talk about some TV though that we were watching? Yeah, I think we should. You're done with Hitman. That's it. I have nothing critical to say about Hitman. I'm so happy that it did well. I do like you wish that it had,

it seemed like a movie. It seemed like a movie people should be seen in the theaters. But that being said, I'm almost glad it's like the number one movie on Netflix and it seems like something a lot of people watched over. the weekend rather than it got sand kicked in its face by bad boys ride or die it's also true that for as much as i wish that kind of goes back to our original conversation of what do you consider success and i said this uh last week like i would love a world where this was released in the theater slowly and there

was just a steady drum beat and it was available to people to see and it was an option and people were seeing it and then but what i'm talking about there is not necessarily i think hitman would work that way because even with the way the tension ratchets up and the tone slightly changes at the end i think that's a hook that would get people into theaters to see it with word of mouth. But I'm wishing something for the industry. I'm not wishing something necessarily for this movie. I don't want, I didn't want a movie this good and charming to be the canary in the coal mine where its storyline becomes, wow, they really tried something with Hitman, but the voters rejected it at the ballot box. And then it becomes the story of that is that it was a noble failure. That's not, I don't wish that

on a movie this charming and good. It just feels like a missed opportunity. But I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't do tracking. I don't know. I feel like Horizon's going to be a great big hit, right? Right, Chris? Well, I'll see it five times, yeah. Do you think that when Horizon bombs, are you going to be like the tracking, the tracking is skewed, fake tracking?

Yeah, I'm going to be like an election denier, but for box office receipts. Is that, are you going to storm the multiplex? Stay online. That's what I think is going to happen. Let's talk about phantasmas. Okay. We have not, to my memory, ever spoken about Julio Torres on this show. He was a comedian.

He was a writer on SNL. I think most famously did the avatar font sketch. That was his. Is that true? Yes, it is true. I know that for a fact. And I had a HBO show called Los Espookies, which I did not see, has directed. a, was it Problemista?

What was the name of the? Yeah, he made a movie this year with 824 with Problemista starring Tilda Swinton and Greta Lee and Riz. No, but now I'm like,

I want to see that. And now he's back with a new series on HBO called Fantasmas, which I would describe, how would I describe this show? It's like a fairy tale told with dream logic.

I guess I would describe that. But at the same time, kind of reminds me of the Martin Scorsese movie After Hours and feels very sincerely New York to me. It is a right on the edge between

like a sketch comedy show and a narrative show. I think that there's elements of it that are like serialized storytelling and there's elements of it where it's going to be like a six minute bit with Paul Dano in Alf, you know? Yep. But what if he wanted to fuck Alf?

What did you think of the first episode? Because it came out on Friday and I mean, I just think It's a pretty dazzling creative act, even if I wasn't like, it's not belly laughs, but you're like, holy shit. Like, watch, look at all, everything this guy is doing right now. This is great for us. This is real. Let's put it through our lens because what we were, last week, we were like, what do we wish we had on TV?

And we do spend a lot of time, even at the top of the show, bemoaning the state of the industry and the economics and what's being Greenland and what isn't. And then you get this. And this is out there with the weight of HBO behind it. And it's produced by Emma Stone and her, uh, her husband and producer. partner who I guess knows Julio from their time on Saturday Night Live and they've worked together before in movies. I feel foolish for not really checking this guy before, not just being aware. People know we're not, I don't think either of us are like religious SNL watchers, but that papyrus sketch and its follow up are all-timers. And I think it's really exciting that there are

opportunities for people who have such distinct points of view who do work and do good work for S&L to have hopefully long and rich second, third, fourth, fifth lives more catered to what they do. And Tim Robinson is another example of this. Someone who worked on S&L, but like, with I think you should leave has really expressed himself more fully. I want to watch Loso Spookies Now, which I did you ever check that out? I did not at all. Totally missed it. Fantasmas is completely unlike anything that I have seen in a very long time on TV. Among the reasons I say I want to see Loso Spookies is because maybe I would pick up on the connective DNA.

But I came in cold and was totally knocked flat. If you are not familiar with his work, like I wasn't, the first five, six minutes might be a little bit bumpy because this is not, there's no handholding. There is no, hey, this is the type of show this is going to be. It takes a while to figure out what you said. There's no device that takes you from a normal. world and puts you in, it starts inside of his creative mind, basically. And is aware of it.

So that I think that my first, there's this part in the beginning where Julio playing character named Julio is at the Crayola Factory telling them that they should make a color called Clear and there are people in the background taking calls about what colors they should use in their crayons. And the whole thing is very theatrical. It's like on a black box stage set. And so it's aware that it's being performed. And there was a moment where I was like, oh, so everybody just gets to dictate their

notes app now and get a show, huh? I had this very conservative. So you reacted strongly within the first few minutes of a TV show. I've never done that before. Never done that before. But it's aware of that. And then it starts to get weirder and deeper and funnier. And as you said, Chris, you start to realize that this is a completely fantastical journey of a character who's basically the creator.

And it's not going to follow a straight line. but the branching the branching off of this main story tree such as it is are going to be so surprising that you're not going to be able to turn away. Yeah, there's a storytelling device within the first episode where Julio is being driven around New York by a guy named Chester

who is starting a competing app to Uber. It's a very funny bit. And it's a fantastic piece of writing because at any given point, because of the dream logic of the show, whoever he wants to be in the car with him is in the car with him. So his agent or manager, Vanessa. Venistia.

Well, the Jay is silent. Yes. And a school teacher named Amina, who we then follow out of the car and down a sort of bizarre comic mystery about penis graffiti in a school bathroom that she's trying to get to the bottom of. There's, like I mentioned, this Paul Dano sequence where he's on a show that's basically basically alf, but also falling for the alien figure and breaks up his family over it. There's just so much stuff going on that once you give yourself over to the kind of collagey, dreamy feel of it, it actually is quite funny and quite entertaining. It's just it takes a second

to get your balance. There's something that is just going back to S&L, there's something that is always kind of charismatic and compelling and funny and exciting. when you see a group of people who are down with a creative point of view. It's cool. It's like Bouchemis in it. Buccemi as a punk rock letter cue. Even like people who you might recognize like Djibuki Young White shows up just dancing to give one line. Like a lot of, you never know who's going to show up.

And I think that's kind of exciting. In a way, though, it reminds me that energy and my happiness from that collective energy reminded me of my other favorite TV experience of this year, which is the Malaney show. Couldn't be more different in terms of delivery, what they're. they're going for, whatever. But Malaney and Julio Torres are both, like, S&L people who are very, very, very specific, idiosyncratic points of view, deep rolodexes, and then got an opportunity to be like, hey, come hang out. Yeah.

And I like that feeling. I also like how both of those shows, and in a sense, like Ripley is another example. A classic funny hang. I don't know what you could note there. I don't know where you could be like, hey, could we have this guy be funnier for five minutes? I don't know what you could say, and this is why I'm so glad it's on HBO and reports of HBO's demise

of maybe being a little premature and there's still stuff out there where it's like they this show is not only very good, but it's clearly been made with the artist's vision at the forefront. That's the number one priority. And so it's really cool to see it

and be like, you couldn't fucking tell this guy, like, oh, well, we need a voiceover or we need something that like brings in the mainstream audience and makes them understand what's going on. In some ways, also, I kind of like it the way it is because it sort of reminds me of crazy nights in New York City where all of a sudden you're in a car with another person and they're talking about their life. You know, and that is kind of this, there is a little bit of like everything is nocturnal in this in this show and everything is kind of in this in between dream and going out state. I love it.

After Hours is a really good, really good comp. I'd love to know, I mean, maybe our good pal, Casey Blois will come back on sometime and we can talk through this. but like the HBO model, we did talk about this a little bit. I actually have him coming in next Monday to watch you talk about House of the Dragon, but he's not speaking. He's coming in Thursday to be the second chair to talk about how great it is. And then, no, I think we did talk to him about this a little bit, but I wonder, you know, as the industry continues to contract or convulse, like what the balance is, because the HBO compact used to be, right? It was just like they'll make these big, big, successful shows, but then they also have like, like MacArthur, genius. grants for certain people who it's important for them to be in business with each other.

They'll make John from Cincinnati. That was for you though, weirdly, not for David Milch. That was your gift. But, you know, in a moment when everything is in flux and when they're making these big, splashy deals with their corporate studio partner Warner Brothers to make the Steve Carell Bill Lawrence show, which again might be really good. But like, does that buy more cover for the Julio Torres shows? Does he have a carp launch to make shows in the margins?

Well, they... You would know better than me if there's a one for us, one for them. Deal's still going on anywhere. My sense is nothing's for us in America. But I don't know. This was a breath of fresh air. Or rather a... We need this blockbuster to pay for these five art class experiments.

I don't know if that's still happening anywhere. I think sometimes stuff like Ripley and Fantasmas is like, oh, weird, out of a sort of wrinkle in scheduling and budgeting and blah, blah, blah, like this happened. How cool is that? But, you know, with the real, maybe we're looking at the wrong place. Like, because as noted, we are not financial journalists, but like maybe the one for us, one for them engine, is really Emma Stone. Because she is personally, basically, with the grace of her talent and celebrity, if not her actual income, is, like, responsible for Yorgos at the moment. Well, honestly, I-

Torres for Nathan Fielder. You say that, and you're right. And I have, what she and Margarabi are doing specifically. Sure, yeah. Is what I kind of, in the back of my head, have long been sort of annoyed at the Avengers generation for never really getting into. By that, you mean the stars of Avengers? When I kind of take shots at some of those people, and it's really, it's not a deeply

held belief, but this is actually how you're supposed to use stardom. is to get Julio Torres on a screen or be in the curse. It's not supposed to be, is there any more fucking money I can possibly make out of any of these brand deals out there that I have? And you can do both, you know what I mean? Like it wouldn't, it's not going to offend me if Emma Stone is like pumping some company sometime soon,

but she is really getting some cool stuff made because she's putting herself with it and also attached herself to Yorgos and doing all that stuff. Even though that's not even my vibe. that's not even my like like top of tea well like I think it'll be interesting to see as a giant fan I'm full stop interested in what she does with her career going forward will she do something big again like a big blockbuster or package thing that trades on you know the her perceives like what people like from her quote or you know a big comedy or something or will she do that because when you

talk about the Avengers generation I think about like what Downey did which was like, aha, I told you motherfuckers, I was great, and I'm going to spend 10 years eating, right? I'm going to be the biggest star in the world. I'm going to make all these giant movies where I'm the star because he has a lot of, I mean, he has deserved ego and resentment built up from the years when he was the greatest actor but couldn't get out of his own way.

That ends, that era, that imperial era ends, and then he does do, and he produces Perry Mason, but he makes the sympathizer, which we had mixed feelings about his... He was an Oscar for Oppenheimer. What was that? Oppenheimer? Yes, he's in that other phase of his career. I'm not trying to be snide.

He was awesome in Oppenheimer. I loved that. But to your point, could he have done things differently during the Tony Stark era since he knew he would be in that metal suit for four months out of every year for a decade? That's what drives me crazy about the whole idea that they have like these nine picture deals and they may have to go to Atlanta for six weeks to film some movie they don't know what they're in.

I wonder if that precludes them from taking more chances. You know, I wonder. And I don't even know who I'm really referring to or getting mad at, like who it is that should have used their star power to make sure Jeremy Sonier had more movies in theaters. Like, I'm not even sure who I'm talking about. Yeah. It's just that watching how efficiently, like, Margot Robbie got Greta Gerwig in the door with Barbie and is now, like, producing some really interesting stuff and is at the center of a lot of, like,

of the most, like, kind of hot, hotly bidded for projects in Hollywood. And then Emma is going around doing. like working with A24, but also like producing a lot of really interesting material. It's just, I wish more big celebrities would use their power for good rather than being like, oh, I made one movie that wasn't as big as Fast and Furious 10. So I got to go off and make more of those. It's interesting. Like there's, this might be a, we might just want to like hand this off to the big picture or maybe I'm desperate for a crossover pot again.

Because not everyone is good at everything and not everyone is interested in everything. And there are plenty of actors who find acting, rewarding, challenging, consuming enough. But it is interesting to see certain actors step into the possibilities and opportunities of becoming producers in a different way. On the TV side, whether you like the material or not, like what Reese Witherspoon has done with Hello Sunshine and, like, promoting a certain type of story, getting stuff made, becoming an industry unto herself. Like, that's remarkable. That's a whole different skill set than being good in Sweet Home Alabama or whatever the case may be. Emma Stone and Margo Robbie are also good examples. They're clearly excited about this.

Margo Robbie with her husband, they're behind a ton of stuff. Of which none of, not none of which, but a large percentage of which, you don't get the sense that she's just waiting for someone to be like, oh, you should star in this.

And she'd be like, oh, really? Didn't occur to me? It's not that vibe. It's a different usage of celebrity now, though, when the stakes have been reoriented so that it's not like the stuff's going to get made if these people don't do it. Right.

That's interesting. We got way off topic, but I am... Fantasmus is good, though. People should check it out. I am a fan. This is very cool, and I'm glad we checked it out. Let's talk about Top Chef.

Yeah. I won't let it go, because I am not going to see you. And now the two-part finale starts, you know, this coming Wednesday and then next Wednesday. Yeah, and then we might even be talking to someone from Top Chef about it.

So this is the last episode in Wisconsin that we just saw, and it got us down to the final four out of five chefs. And even for as much, like, as we've found, sort of griped about things this season. I was thinking, man, I'm going to miss Top Chef. I'm happy you started there.

Because ultimately, I thought, for whatever critiques I had of it, and for whatever obvious flaws some of the cooking had, I was still just kind of like, like even subpar top chef is still very enjoyable to me. Yes. Like, I'm never like, oh, God, I can't believe I have to watch this tonight, you know? No, I'm always, this is the season that's tested that the most for me in a decade, but yes. And my wife and I were watching.

on Saturday and talking, chatting throughout it, but chatting about Top Chef. That's nice. And chatting about like how we felt like the quick fire, the new weighted quick fire challenge was going to affect the final judgment.

And whether or not raw fish is just the, it's just the all-time gay breaker. That's the all-time deal breaker. And they can pretend like some other things may have been bad too, but Manny serving raw fish in this... I would say raw poultry is worse

on this show and for your health, but yes. Yes, but I think raw proteins in general are looked down upon because it's just like this is a basic... You just need to be prepared and you need to cook your meat through so that... You know what I mean? Like, I know that raw fish can be sashimi or whatever,

but it's not like, that's not what he was going for. Let me start with two more generous, positive assessments of the season. One, nice segue from what we were just saying. Not everyone is good at everything, and that's okay. Being good on Top Chef does not mean you are... Being bad on Top Chef does not mean you are a bad cook. No.

Being good on Top Chef does not mean that I want to eat at your restaurant. These are different skill sets, and we talk about this every season of Top Chef when it comes to Restaurant Wars like Front of the House stuff, that's very, very different. Some people are good actors. Some people are good producers. Some people have the rare ability to be both.

That said, I have been struck by how many of the final... I mean, I don't want to say finalists, because now we're finalists, but how many of the upper tier of contestants on this season have been completely lacking in some of the skill sets that are essential to being on top chef, one of which is seat of the pants creativity or conceptual thinking. What happened with the table stuff last week? Like, everyone can have a bad week,

but, like, Michelle's just watching someone who is so good on this show shut down completely when faced with something that was outside of our comfort zone was, A, relatable, but be disheartening. Yeah. Like you just, it's tough to see that. Similarly,

this week, when they are asked, it's kind of a softball to be like, just tell us a story. I thought it was quite hard. Well, as it,

in practice, it was hard. Because it, I think it actually was one of the first times where I've seen them being evaluated

on so many extra culinary things outside of restaurant wars. Right. So like you could say restaurant wars holistically is a judgment of your ability to run a kitchen

or a restaurant. or front of the house being as important as like cooking on the line. Your ability to communicate a narrative about a dish that you've just made with a kind of vague prompt as tell us something that illustrates your journey on Top Chef.

You know, I mean, like there's a hundred different ways that could have gone. I think some people took it a little bit more seriously than others, but Savannah, who made a lovely looking dish, nailed it because she did a great deck. She walked in and she was like, pressure and heat is what I've learned to cope with on this show over the course of this

episode. No, it was brilliant. And they were like, holy shit. But it was a potato dish and it looked awesome. That's also, I mean, there's, I would. But if her fucking pave hadn't said, that wouldn't have worked, right? I would love to ask this question of Tom and Kristen and Gail and see how different their answers are.

But I think that, you know, as someone who goes to restaurants, telling a good story is sometimes more important than the food. Now, bad food disqualifying, like it is if something is raw. Do you really think that? I don't mean, let us explain our menu to you, but I mean having a sense of place, of good service, of why we're doing what we're doing in this room in this city on this night. Yeah. So you feel that there's a reason to be dropping. God knows how many hundreds of dollars to eat. Sure. I think is very, very important. And I think gun to your head, like kind of more important sometimes than.

A plus cooking or across the board. I do because I think that you don't always remember the dishes, you remember the experience. So I was surprised that some of these guys weren't better prepared to do that. I also think it's always worth noting when covering the show that an episode like this happens weeks into this absolute motherfucker of a grind. And sometimes people are just fried or, you know, they peaked. The other positive thing I definitely want to say is we've spent weeks being like

the front runners are not behaving like front runners. We've been spoiled over these last few years watching people be excellent and then excel week to week. That ignores the fact that there is another tradition

in shows like this and in sports, which is the late bloomer. Savannah floundering, quite honestly, for a number of weeks and surviving and then having things click late.

She's won the most of the season, though, right? Suddenly, yes. I shouldn't just start throwing numbers around. It did not feel like she was a front runner for the first five, six weeks. I think because she was so candid about like, I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. I'm the underdog because everybody here has got a Michelin Star or James Beard Award or something. And I'm not that yet in my career.

Yes. And so I thought that she kind of like the way we're perceiving things on TV might be different than the way things are going actually in the kitchen. But she has, I think has done a great job not only cooking. but being a character on this show. Savannah's first win came in episode nine. Are you at the like stab-use for Top Chef? Yeah. So that was relatively late.

But again, seeing someone start to elevate by combining the good cooking with the other extracurricular Top Chef skills has been compelling. And now what's your take on this? Do you feel like she's the favorite? She is who I'm rooting for. I am rooting for Savannah.

I would like to know if I could taste a dish from last week, it was Danny's because I was curious whether or not that was a really good dish with a bad story. That was very interesting to me. And I think that in a way is what I'm trying to say. I also really hope in the finale he's not like, I think I can still nail this tea thing. Because he's tried twice now and both times

they've been like, get this shit out of here. And also they don't want it. Yeah. But that's kind of what I'm saying at a restaurant. if a restaurant says it is a classic steakhouse atmosphere and it's not, you're going to be annoyed. Or if it says it's doing this kind of food or you serve something that says it's dumplings, but it's not. Even if it's good, part of your brain is going to be like, what the fuck? They got it wrong.

And that was what Danny did. So I think that's a great point. Like maybe it's good if he's like, my goal was to blow your pallets out because I have learned over this competition that I can't be quiet about my, you know, or whatever. They would have been like, oh, wow. Yeah. He's coming alive. Yeah. That would have been interesting.

I thought really good TV to show Danny was clearly pretty cocky in the kitchen. It was just like, yeah, got to have fun while making food. Making tea. And was not, that was not what he cooked. And to some extent, maybe it's like if you weren't freaked out and if you aren't cooking up until the last second and if you aren't like this might not work, there's an element of like, well, are you doing it right? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and so I really wanted to be able to have tasted Danny's food because I was like, that looks beautiful. So did he just fuck up when they asked him a question? And he was like, it's about nuance. And they're like, this isn't nuanced? Or was it a kind of like over-seasoned weird tea mushroom? And people were like, this isn't it? And Savannah told a great story for a really great dish where you took an unconventional main of potatoes. that's usually a side, and you kind of blew everybody's minds of that.

That was kind of my big take with him. To win on the show, I think, and to be inspiring to people who can't actually eat food, you have to be a pretty unique blend of, like, curation, control, and chaos. And I think that what we've seen from Danny, who is the most, in some ways, like, pedigreed chef, certainly that's remaining. You know, like, I think he was at 11 Madison Park, and he's clearly a product of a very specific type of big city. Tweezer cuisine and he can execute that and he has a lot of confidence doing that. But as we learn from his like, it's kind of like OCD stuff, like he does not like to be knocked

out of that comfort zone. That's going to be a detriment in a show like this. For as much as Buddha and his dominance could cook in those ways, he also has, is kind of bad shit, right? And like... Yeah, but he was able to overwhelm every challenge. Like, I think that he would... He also had an element of, I know.

I've studied Top Chef and I'm bringing my molds. You know, like, I know when I'm going to break this thing out in like when it's down to the top six, I'm going to drop this on them and they're not going to believe it. You know, like, he had an actual like battle plan for the entirety of the season that I think was almost unprecedented. Or at least I can't remember who else has done that. It's also so weird to consider this show in relation to what you look for in restaurants

or in professional cooking because the other C word that I didn't just say was consistency. And at a restaurant or with someone you're paying to prepare food, you want consistency. If you're investing in a restaurant, you want someone who's going to deliver the same quality plate night after night. Sure. On top chef, especially this season, you had people like Rosica or Sue who flew so close to the sun and seemed unbeatable and then screwed up so profoundly, which is very human but not very cook. And similarly, Laura, who made the single worst-looking plate of food, I think we've seen all seasons. seems to almost have like slingshot out of Last Chance Kitchen with like a clarity of purpose that's

really quite impressive. Another C-word clarity. Yeah. Yes, which has happened before. It happened to Kristen in her season. Yeah. Which I think is interesting to observe. Last thing on the show before we move on, the two dudes, other two dudes that are remaining. Dan and Danny. Dan and Danny. From last night. So, uh, from last week. So Dan and Mani. We have a mention. I don't know. Yes, I have seen every episode of the show, but I do not have an encyclopedic memory. I don't know of anyone who has hung on despite massive screw-ups to the degree man he has. I don't come here to bury him. He reminds me of a survivor player who's like, somehow every week someone else did something worse than me. Yeah. And skated. And skated. But I think also probably is like a really good guy and

probably a great shot. He referred to himself as an elder emo. Yeah. Love it. But it's incredible to me that after this run that he had. He served guacamole and store-bought chips the other week. This week, he just didn't cook the food all the way the same. It was crazy. Yeah. Finally caught up to him. I've been made aware that there has been like, I don't think that it's an edit.

I feel like Dan is not a fan favorite. Do you have that sense? And do you have a sense as to why? I think that Dan has, reminds me a little bit of, like, I think I've said this before, it reminds me a little bit of Sarah's run on Louisville. Sarah Bradley's run on Louisville. Another example of somebody who is like, I'm just absolutely delighted by

in my post-top chef relationship with that person's Instagram. You've been to her restaurant too, didn't you? I... Oh, you did? No, I don't think so. But like, I think when you're a hometown and especially if it's your hometown is like slightly smaller than like a Los Angeles

or whatever, there's a little like cockiness or like I know, I'm going to master the local angle here and also a defensiveness, if anybody seems to be eclipsing you? What's the rap on Dan, like the not a fan favorite stuff? Yeah, I don't know. I think that he, I think what's interesting about him and is maybe emblematic of the season is that his highs have been,

again, from an audience not eating the food perspective, among the highest. Like the times that he has really been like in the flow, I thought his dishes were among the very best, especially when he was able to use his familiarity with the local landscape to his strength. Like the first time he did a smoked walleye dish. Yeah.

The decision to do it again, but worse, wild. Yeah. Decision making is fascinating in this. It's so crucial. And then to watch people who are clearly burn out just, I mean, they have to commit and go with it at a certain point, which I really admire. They have to let go and just have something on the plate.

But it's like, it's really funny. It's like they walk out and I'm like, I wonder if they have five different interpretations of the assignment. And Savannah seemed to understand. completely and Lauer seemed to understand it completely, but it seemed like Dan was like, make your best dish. And I feel like Tom kind of suggested that when they were like, what would you do, Tom? He's like, I'd make the best thing I had. Well, Tom isn't telling a story. He just said, I'd make the best thing I had. Yeah. That's also usually the finale assignment.

Tom is also among the judges, at least he presents himself this way, the most, I'm going to use my college English sugar here, the most new critic in that he's just like, what's on the plate. Yeah. This tasted better. And he tries to, that's how he tries to live. his life in Last Chance's Kitchen as well. That's not really the show. That perspective is very important and again, consistent over many seasons, but I don't think that's really the show. And I think it was interesting over the last five seasons to watch Padma and Gail and now presumably Kristen kind of nudge him, not nudge him, but nudge the show to a larger aperture than that. We can table the larger conversation about the changes they've made and whether we think they should

continue with those changes. How do you feel, I'm sorry, I know that we're going along today, but I just have to ask you. Yeah. How do you feel about the finale being on a cruise? I think that Tom Chef had a good run of setting itself in places that I wanted to rush to travel to. It's very bold. It's very bold to be like, you know what? COVID is in the rear view, brother.

Let's get on a cruise ship. I mean, you couldn't get me on a cruise ship regardless of respiratory viruses. Like, that sounds awful to me. I was happy to see that, like, at least in the footage they showed of next week, that it's like, we're going to be in Kursao and we'll be on the ground. Sure. And we're going to get on and off of the boat. But I think the final cook is happening on a cruise ship, right?

That's gross. I mean, they probably have, like, a really good kitchen on it. They've probably got like 10 of them? Yes. No question. Have you ever been on a cruise? No. Kaya?

No, definitely not a cruise person. Any interest? No. All expenses paid. I would go on like an lot. All inclusive. I would go on like an Alaska cruise because I've heard those are very cool. My wife had did that once.

Yeah. A long time ago. Did you say no? I don't think I was invited. It was her and her like parents. Oh, yeah. That seems like a thing parents could do. Parents like to take a boat to Alaska.

Yeah. See a caribou. Or like a cruise, maybe of like the Mediterranean. Right. But like something that's like those like carnival or like Disney cruises sound like my nightmare. I'd like to do one of those like cutting through the ice shelf like the terror. Yeah. Do you, I mean, I think it also

Just being some guys. Just getting close to them? Just getting Northwater with it. Do you go on vacation to meet lots of new people? No. I don't think that's like... I don't mind it. No.

But I don't know if you've ever seen the horror film Speak No Evil. You do know if I've seen it. I will not be engaging with any Europeans next time I go there when it comes to... Hey, do you guys want to have dinner again tonight? There was a... Oh, you told me about this movie. Okay, so I think... So I get the...

The ref. And no. There was some, I saw there was some chatter this week about, why you're being so vague about where the chatter is? Because I don't remember yesterday. The sourcing? Okay. Yeah. Well, I don't remember how this came across my personal transom.

I don't know if it was like, yeah. I just have so many screens up all the time. Just Joe Dumas, but with smartphones with different social networks up. So as you scream at your children about why they're not watching the Philadelphia story. You should watch Total Recall. Looking at Peach. this was still the best one. No, that someone did like a FOIA request

about how much Wisconsin paid magical elves or Bravo to have the season there and how many times they had to say Door County Cherries or whatever. And my respect to this latter day like Woodward and Bernstein, like I don't think anyone has ever thought the top chef as an entity was without the heavy thumbprint of corporate America.

No, I just, I love eating with minions. Yeah, exactly. That's never been. in the mystery, nor do I think it's necessarily like corrupt or bad that like tourism boards would say, hey, come celebrate our local foodways. We have some money to kick your way as long as you go to Madison for two days. Like that, that's just the nature of this. And I, I think that's understood. The cruise ship part of it is sometimes when, like with the minions thing, where sometimes it can get a little heavy in the other direction. Right. And, but that said, like, I don't, I think that having a season in an unexpected place like Wisconsin

was probably what they had hoped to do and then the money worked out, frankly. Yeah. And I'm curious what role that sort of thing will play going forward and whether it will keep it from another New York season, for example, or L.A. season, if that's a good thing or not. I don't know. All questions that we'll answer next time you're on the watch. Which will not be Thursday.

It won't be Thursday. I don't know who's going to be on Thursday. I was going to ask you. I remember last time you missed a show, you waited until like minute 79 to be like, who you got? No, I don't. No, because you thought I was going to solo pod the whole time. I'm not going to solo pod. I can tell you that much. We know that.

Thanks to Kai McMahon for producing us today. Thanks to you for bringing your best self to this pod. Always. I bring myself. And I hope you have a great time, like the Grand Canyon. Is it okay that I'm telling people that you're going to the Grand Canyon? It's a big canyon. I'm not saying where.

I don't think you're going to get stalked there. Yeah. No, I'll be the guy with a Carrie Lake hat on. I'm trying to fit in. I'm trying to make vacation for. friends.