The Watch - ‘Industry’ Creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay on the Made-for-TV GameStop Story. Plus: ‘Game of Thrones’ News and ‘Mr. Mayor.’

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

Chris is joined by ‘Industry’ creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay to talk about the GameStop story that seems plucked out of a finance TV show (14:37). Then, Chris and Andy talk about ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘WandaVision’ and why franchises feel compelled to go backward (27:39), and share some shows they're liking right now including ‘The Sister’ and ‘Mr. Mayor’ (51:17). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Mickey Down and Konrad Kay Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the wringer.com and joining me on the other line. Our entire relationship has been a short squeeze. It's Andy Greenwald! I love it.

I love it when you talk hedgy to me. Andy, we have very special guests on today. We got Conrad Kay and Mickey Down, the creators of industry to come on and talk to me a little bit about this whole Robin Hood GameStop, Wall Street Betts debacle. They were very, very, very generous with their time. I really appreciate them coming on to talk a little bit about how this might intersect

with industry or might not. And we're also going to cover a bunch of other stuff. Thrones, Wanda Vision, Lupin, a new show on Hulu called The Sister, a couple other things. So let's just get into the watch. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

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brother? You know, not nearly as robust as I realize it ought to be. You know, if I had just listened to Thick Boy 69, I could be a, you know, a 20,000 error right now. So you're not a day trader. You don't do any day trading. No, I don't understand any of it, like profoundly. And I think that, you know, I know that Mickey and Conrad are going to come on. One of the reasons why I like industry is because it washes over me. I don't know what they're talking about. Right.

This has been an amazing week of what I feel like is like very like underground culture rising up into the mainstream. You know, like I know that we usually don't talk about matters like this on the watch. We make passing references to it. but this kind of reminds me of like when a band would break into pop music charts back when we used to cover music more frequently like right the seeing this story and obviously it's affecting people in very real ways and it's a stage in which we're seeing a lot of levers of power being exercised to the benefit of the extremely wealthy and that is now on front street as much as it ever has been and I think you're seeing a lot of people getting very very very fucking angry about that

which is really interesting to watch but yeah I I was just curious whether or not you had been following the story, because I asked you a couple of days ago, like, how's your bed bath in beyond position? And you just were like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I completely didn't understand what this was. I mean, I tried to be, I tried not to be extremely online,

but especially over the last year. You were definitely extremely online. You're just not in like Wall Street Betts Reddit. Well, no, I try. Meaning, like literally, I actually enjoy the feeling of being pulled away, whether it can do a meeting or I'm writing something or whatever, and I'm not looking for a sustained period of time.

And then when you go back and you see things that are trending and there's like a feeling of relief. And when it was GameStop, I was like, great. I bet my friend Chris might know something about that since he has a lot of leisure time, you know, to play video games. I don't have a lot of leisure time. But I was thrilled not to know what it was. And then I kind of heard that, you know, those Redditors were at it again.

But what I didn't understand, understand was that this was like the first virtual Molotov cocktail tossed in the great proletariat revolution of the Biden administration. You know what I mean? So I didn't, I, there's so many layers to this. I need to ask you something. What's going to happen when your imitation of your dad becomes your actual personality? What do we do that? Oh, it's a great question. Well, it's happening. The way you said Reditors is exactly how your dad would say Redditors. Well, he doesn't. He's never said any of those syllables.

But you're inheriting that. Like you will be the next, the heir to the throne of, well, these Reditors. Yeah. And they're Robin Hooding. Looking down my nose at things that I don't understand is what I was born to do. You know what I mean? So I just don't have the age or the gravitas. And unfortunately, I've still clinging to some misguided.

desire to actually know about stuff, but I think that will go in time. And then I can finally, yeah, then I can, I can become my father. I think that's great. This is, this whole story, you talk about trying to get offline. This is why I can't get offline. This is perhaps why I will never log off. Because in like the 20 minutes that I looked at Twitter this morning, I saw Dave Portnoy arguing with the new Mets owner. I saw Ted Cruz try to dab up AOC and that AOC being like, you tried to have me murdered, so go fuck yourself. Yeah. And then like a bunch of dudes being like, I will never sell my bed bath and beyond stock.

You can pry it out of my cold dead hands. And it's like I just keep thinking about these, the actual places that are being invested in. And it's like, I am, I have to say this. I support small businesses. I support any brick and mortar business. I believe, I love the fact that people are out there buying stuff. You will never see me at a bed bath and beyond again. for the rest of my life.

Like, not because of this, but because I am not going to, like, go up and be like, well, this gentleman just sniffed a towel and put it up against his face. I think I'll try that towel. Yeah. I thought you were admitting something that I was excited to talk to you about, which is I've learned that there is actually, this is a sidebar on a sidebar, sorry. But I think there are two types of people in the world, and they can be divided, subdivided by their reaction to a simple question, which is, do you want to go to the

container store? Oh, right. Okay. and I learned this. You don't. There is no place on earth I dislike more than the container store. So did you know that my wife loves the container store more than anything in the work? So it's mine.

Yeah. No, this is how it works or doesn't work. Your wife and my wife are like rented and sick boy, but instead of heroin, it's getting fucking Norwegian sliding shelves to then put boxes in. side of. And to me, the container store is itself a container of nothing but recriminations, expectation, and stress. Because all I see is receptacles for things I haven't put away yet. Yeah. Oh, it's awful. Okay. But so I was, I thought that's why you were, you were sort grouping bed, bath and beyond in there because bed, great, comfortable, bath, sounds lovely. Beyond,

you're losing me. You know what I mean? Like, where's this going? You and I, we've spent a lot of time in the real world. You know, we've known each other for almost a quarter century. Life experience. No, we've done a lot of time in South Jersey and Philadelphia and the Providence for Island area, Boston, now all the boroughs of Brooklyn with the exception of Staten Island.

And now we were out here together in Los Angeles. And so we've seen a lot of things. We've seen a lot of stores. We've seen a lot of retail operations. Yeah, seen them come and go. I don't want to move the market here. That's not what we do on the watch. What we do is move the marketplace of ideas.

We don't move the market. But if there was a place that you could protect from getting shorted out of existence, what would it be? What little, like what shitty chain would you? Does it have to be a chain? No, but don't, don't be like this like artisanal charcutory place that like only I know about.

Do you know a good one? I got to say, there are not many good cheese stores in Los Angeles. Is that what we're talking about? No, I mean, I don't know where to go with you down this road because, like, I would protect small restaurants and like skylight books. No, no, no, no. But if I was younger. I want, I'm talking about like what things in and around the Liberty Place food court

are you trying to protect? My parents' apartment? Sam Goody? Is that still a thing? That's the kind of thing I'm asking about. Like, should we get it? Should we go long on Pacific Sun video? Oh, yeah.

Oh, because we could do this. I see what you're saying. Right. I mean, first of all, great idea. Second of all, it is kind of a moment. I mean, all things that become fixations on the internet are essentially referendums on how everything is meaningless and we are all circling the drain of our own existence.

This particularly so, because more than like Neil deGrasse Tyson being like, nope, look there. Like, this is really showing us that everything is phony to a very profound degree. Yeah, for sure. And we can see the ripples everywhere, such as, you know,

our buddy Sean Fantasy just tweeted this. Like, five days ago, AMC, not the channel, is like, yeah, we don't think we're going to make it. Like, we're pretty much, it's a wrap on us because no one's going to ever

go to a movie theater again. Now they're like, I think we're in a strong position going forward. Why? No good reason. Right. But it's hard not to go down.

Because dudes who usually You spread, like, share screenshots of their war zone kills are like, I'm buying AMC at $2 a share. Yes. And not necessarily because they want to go to movie theaters, but because they want to screw over the cast of the big short, which is fine with me. Right. Two, you then begin to see. I mean, sorry, now I'm sounding like the guy who handed you the socialist newspaper on campus freshman year of college. But, like, you begin to see the ripples in everything that you're reading, not just stories that are like, oh, you know,

you know, Mr. Day Trade 69 or whatever, like, feels that it's not just that. You see it in, there's a story on deadline today about NBC Universal, which, you know, I am under contract there. They have, they had an earnings call saying like X number of people are watching the office, more engagement with the office now that it's on Peacock and Peacock has 33 million subscribers. And then like, almost as an aside, it's like, Peacock is scheduled to lose $2 billion this year and next year each.

It's not funny. I don't know what about. No, but it's like, oh, okay. Like, it's just bizarre. And I'm not even taking shots at that company or that business strategy or anything. I don't understand it. 33% more people are watching the office on Peacock than we're watching it when. I don't understand the numbers.

Basically, I think it has to do more with the percentage of users engaging with it, which is also probably to do with the fact that there are. 200 million people on Netflix who were not all of whom were watching. So I don't even want to get into the weeds. Like, I'm sure people are watching the office. Good show. It's just that we do live in a world where there, it can be in the eighth paragraph that there was a projected $4 billion loss and that's not the subject of the story.

Right? So all of this is to say, Chris, Goody got it. Right? Like, if Goody can get it, so you were, you were a goody guy, not a strawberries guy. Yeah, there weren't any strawberries near me. Kai, have you heard of any of these establishments? No, I have no clue what you guys were doing about. Well, Kai is from the West Coast. They probably had their own.

But Kai, did you ever physically buy a compact disc? Yes, I physically bought compact disc. But did you buy it at like a novelty store as a gag? Or did you buy it because you were looking forward to the music? No. No, I went into an electronics store. I bought compact disc. you know, like the old school

like electronic stores. Like Radio Shack? Was it a mistake? What do you mean? Yeah, like a radio shack. So you bought a blank CD-ROM? Was there any music on the CDs or were you buying like CD-ROM? Are you talking about blank CD?

No, I'm talking about did you ever buy like an Aerosmith CD or something? I don't know if I, maybe I didn't buy them, but we had them around the house when I was a kid. We had. Oh, look, father is getting into his old. melodies again. And you're like, the plaintiff sound of Janie's got a gun.

I got an iPod when I was like 10. Jesus Christ. Okay. This was a very long way of me doing a joke about how I want to go long on the store Lids. Talk to me about it.

Tell me your, okay, I'm Shark Tank, a show I've never seen. No, no. I feel like Lids is not only a good hat store. You can just get any hat from any of the professional sports teams fitted or snapback. But as a young man, Lids was a staple of the community. I used to go to the Liberty Place Mall.

We would get Chick-fil-A. And then we would go to Lids because the two guys at Lids who worked there, for some reason they needed two guys working at Lids. Well, you need one guy to put on the lid and the other one to secure the base of the human. They had one guy working in the register and another guy would be like, I'll get that Oakland A's hat that happens to be on the 10th shelf if you need me to my little 5 foot one middle schooler who has $18 to spend. But we used to go in there and that was my first encounter with malt liquor.

Was at Lids. Excuse me? Because these guys used to pour 40s into giant Chick-fil-A cups and drink all day. And I don't know. It was a very formative experience. Were you involved in this grift? Like, did you bring them the Chick-fil-A cups? because you're really being specific about the businesses.

No, I think they, they too enjoyed Chick-fil-A. And then once they were done drinking Sprite or whatever out of their Chick-fil-A cups, they would then pour 40s in. Did you ever point out that Chick-fil-A's problematic political stances? This was like 1991. Oh, I mean, no to surprise anyone that your boy was like, please don't order Domino's because...

You were? Yes, because their founder is rapidly anti-choice. I mean, yeah, I was really... I mean, I don't think this is surprising anyone. So I have one, I have another thing to bring up that is possibly a digression. Should we play the Mickey and Conrad talk, since this is the Stocks portion? We can do it. Let's see that.

Because it's only 15 minutes. So we've done. I'm so jealous. I hope you told them I said hi. Of course I did. You know, and we jerked each other around here for a while. So let's do, we'll have some people actually know what they're talking about. Mickey and Conrad were very, very kind to give me 15 minutes on a random Thursday to talk about

this fucking insane story. Industry is one of my first. favorite shows. These guys are some of our favorite guests. So let's just get into my interview with Mickey and Conrad about this ridiculous GameStop story. So right now I'm joined by the Watch's financial sector correspondence. It's Mickey Down and Conrad Kay, the creators of industry. Guys, thank you so much for taking time out to join me today to talk about this story that I don't think any of us truly understand the GameStop Robin Hood, Wall Street Betts, hedge fund meltdown. First of all, Conrad, Mickey, how are you guys doing? Well, good, man.

Look, if you want to understand the story, you've come to the wrong people. That's 100% true. I'm feeling good about it. I've been stuck in it the whole week. I've been texting Conrad really furiously about it from the very start of it because I've been burned by this already and also had some sort of quite good moments as well. But I sort of didn't realize the stock market went up and down, which is a bit of... If you want to get a real sense of this being like a proper bubble, the fact that Mickey is

texting me about what, what equities he's buying is like, it's like, I mean, and I've had my friends, friends from home, like guys I went to school with who like work in totally irrelevant industry is going, mate, should I get in on this? Like, what am I missing? It's absolutely wild. I'm texting Conrad saying things like, mate, I'm long Nokia. What are we going to do with the fundamental to strong? I feel like Nokia still has vibes in England though. Like when I'm over there, I feel like I still see the odd Nokia around. That's right, actually. And, you know, actually, I think they re-released the 30310, which is the first phone ever got. And it was just sort of a lot of people,

my generation's first phone. But I'm not sure that's going to affect the stock price. That was really funny when I was at Morgan Stanley. That was a stock. So that was back in what, 20, 20, 12, 12th thing? That was a stock that everybody hated. Absolutely massive short base. And because obviously they didn't have an iPhone competitor.

So they were like, it was one of those structurally broken equity stories. And now everyone's piling into it seven years later. it's so, so funny. You guys are acting like you don't know what's happening, but you know what's happening. Listen to you, 2013 Nokia shorts. No, no, we really don't. We really don't. We really actively don't.

Okay, I'll start with Mickey here. So let me, I wanted to have you guys on just for, just because this is just such an amazing story. But I also was really curious, when something like this emerges and it pierces into like the mainstream like this, do you guys have like a, Slack channel or a WhatsApp with like the guys from Succession and the guys from billions and Oliver Stone and you're all just trying to decide who gets to take what angle on this. That man, that's exactly right. I actually spoke to Oliver this morning about it and he was like,

you know, I've done two films and said in that world already. I will give you this one. Right. I think it was it was sort of breaking on Reddit and stuff before it became sort of mainstream news. And my friend, he's a journalist, actually told me about. about it first and we started, you know, we started trading on it and we thought, okay, this is going to be quite fun. And it was only like, and I actually said to Conrad, well, this is actually making a really good story. And he was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then literally like, I guess it was two days later or something. Then it suddenly exploded.

And we were getting all these, you know, Twitter DMs and mentions saying, guys, you've got to do this. I mean, I say all these. I think Brian Copplin said he had about 700. And I think we probably had about seven between us. Conrad, were you, like, aware of the culture of, of Wall Street bets and like Reddit trading and Robin Hood and stuff. Like, I'm sure you are, but like, were you aware it was such a huge thing? Not market moving. I mean, I had no idea that it had the power to like to move stock prices the way it was

doing. I mean, it's funny. Me and Mickey did actually book up when we were planning season two. We were talking about new clients and stuff. And market manipulation was definitely an angle that we were sort of thinking about. But to be honest, I had no idea. Like, obviously the retail sector is a huge, you know, big part of the equity market. but for it to take cohesive action like this

and actually makes stuff move in a way that gets governments and the whole hedge fund community talking, I genuinely thought it was like pie in the sky. I thought it was like the sort of thing that happens obviously in film and not in real life. And like anything, like you could do the best dramatization of this. It'll never ever be as compelling

as the real life version of it, which is kind of the bind of it. I can't imagine somebody. I mean, you could do a big short about this like five years from now, but I was curious whether you guys feel like this is sort of like where the limitations of serious

TV's television kind of come in because it's like you can't just like up in and shoot something right now. You can't necessarily reflect a moment. So you almost have to wait for a while for everything to shake out. Is that is that right, Mickey? I think you're right, actually. I mean, we're in a sort of quite good position in that we're sort of right in the weeds of writing at the moment. We need stories based in this world. So it was actually quite an attractive proposition when this came up. But yeah, you know, it feels like a such of the moment thing. And who knows that when the show finally airs, I don't know where that's going to be,

but when it airs and we've got a story set in this world and we've done a story about a Reddit stock that people might just not want to see it. But I'm agreeing with Conrad that we also want stories that, you know, they marry Main Street and Wall Street, and this is just the perfect version of that, and it's dramatic, and it's full of like quite colorful for characters,

whether you see them or not. It feels like it's such a 2021 version, of, you know, Wall Street trading that I feel like it would be remissed and not even consider maybe putting it in the third. Well, Conrad, I was thinking about how much this is an online story. Like, and, you know, so much of the juice from your show is about people being around other people. But this is like a perfect quarantine story because I do think that there is, to some extent,

there's just like people with a lot more time on their hands, spending a lot of that time on their phones and fucking around on Robin Hood. Like, it's weird to have this be an almost virtual. thing rather than people screaming at people on trading floors. So true. It's so true. The thing about, and also the thing, I mean, hopefully we do it quite well in some aspects of the first season of the show, but like, it's always so hard. I always think, I often think it's about hacker dramas as well, because I always think hacker dramas are so, the idea of them is always so fantastic.

And then you realize that what you're actually shooting is people staring at lines of code on a screen. And it's really hard to dramatize and do well. And I kind of like, I felt a little bit about that, like that when we were writing. Harper's Trade in 104. I was like, oh my God, is this going to play well? Like she's obviously, but then obviously it was like who are the greens and reds and people could understand the stakes. But I think, yeah, I mean, there's so much,

there's so much screen stuff in the first season. And it feels like we could do a really good version of it. What would excite me about that story is what Mickey said is the kind of Main Street Wall Street thing, which is like the idea of linking people in their ivory towers or their, you know, their glass box offices to people in their, you know, their mother's basements, punting this stuff around. I think it's just really, really interesting to show it. Basically,

to see how interconnected all that stuff is, it's kind of terrifying, actually. Oh, yeah. How interconnected it all is. I mean, I think also the thing that makes this such a fascinating story is the fact that it seems like in some ways it started off as a lark for some people or a little bit of a troll. And now it's become this like, literally like a Robin Hood story. It's become like, you know, robbing the rich to give to the poor. It's about like taking down these hedge funds. But I think that there's the sort of dangerous and also like fascinating part about it is that you know that there's going to be another shoe to drop. And you know that they're like as as we've going, as we're recording now, they've just sort of, they suspended trading on GameStop

on Robin Hood and people are freaking out. And now like if you look at Twitter, it's almost incomprehensible where this story stands right now. Do you think, Mickey, do you think that there's like a darker left turn that this story takes? Well, yeah. I mean, there's the potential of people to lose a lot of money. I'm not just, you know, I'm not talking about hedge funds that have short positions. I'm talking about actual, you know, retail investors, should we say?

Like, people, there are people that, you know, I've seen people already saying, should I just, you know, should I take out loads of money and take out a huge loan and put it on GameStop? And like, that feels actually mad to me. And like, obviously people want to be in the bottom of a bubble and they want, they want to, you guess, buy the dip. And Chris,

I've had it open my whole day. So I'm slightly obsessed by it. It dipped massively earlier, and people were still saying, this is the dip, this is the dip, buy it now, pile in. Who knows? It could absolutely crash tomorrow. And people could lose a lot of money. The thing that strikes me is a little bit bogus

is the term the story is taken in the last 24 hours, which is the idea that these accounts, these sort of retail accounts are being stopped out of actually trading their position by the platforms that got them in in the first place, which is like obviously coming from some sort of topped-down pressure from people who obviously believe in free markets, but only believe in free markets when they're the ones benefiting from them, which strikes me as... I mean, it's like that is pointing to really quite dangerous sort of coalition power at all.

And so transparent, so transparent abuse of power that as well. And there's, I mean, I think there's going to be a huge investigation to what's happened in the time that... Oh my God. I mean, there are guys, there are hedge fund guys on CNBC today who were just like, yeah, this isn't how it's supposed to work. You know, like, I mean, I think. I'm changing the rules at the last second. Conrad, I wanted to ask you, so for me, there is another layer to this story, which is that the guy who's backing the original head fund

who was short on GameStop is this dude, Steve Cohen, who also owns the New York Mets. And as a Philadelphia Phillies fan, watching this guy bleed out a little bit is like incredibly important to me. This would be the equivalent for you as a Liverpool fan of watching the glazers lose billions in this trade. So can you speak?

Like, there is like a weird thing where you start to have like your favorite characters involved in these stories, right? Yeah, that's absolutely wild. I think the glazers have taken out an incredible amount of debt to fund their many, many years of Man United, which had turned increasingly fallow, obviously, which is really great, amused it to everybody's ears. Yeah, I don't know. I find the real life personality aspect of this is always just totally fascinating. Steve Cohen, obviously, was like quite big influence, I think, on billions. Yeah.

But yeah, no, no, it's, there's, there is a kind of, I guess there is an element of a shard and prodig. But then the problem with it is, is sometimes you feel like, you feel like it's, it's very unclear to me who the winners and losers are out of this situation. So it's kind of like one minute, it's, it's almost a moment to moment thing where, where you feel like Main Street's winning over Wall Street and then the hedge funds are getting screwed out of it. But I'm not, you know, I think there are very many powerful hedge fund players, right? I guarantee you, you, you know, get out of the right side of this and making a lot of money.

on the win is just the individuals that make a little bit of money at the end of it. Yeah. They made like 200 dollars. I mean like if you look around and granted, some of it could be like bullshit and like and these fig stories, but there are people who are like, I was able to pay for like my dog surgery from my game stop earnings or I was able to like pay off a student debt with my game stop earnings. So it's, it's a pretty, it's interesting to see how it's like sucking in all of these

stresses and anxieties that people have in this country, especially right now. The last thing I wanted to ask you is that there is this part about this that is so fascinating to me is the specific stocks that people are investing in like a game stock, which I haven't really thought about in like 10 years or 15 years since like the last time I bought like Max Payne at a store or something or like Grand Theft Auto. What is the what is like the game stop in England that you guys would like to pump up? Like what is the, what is like the brick and more? Dixons. Dixen.

Wow. You didn't have to think about that at all. What's Dixon's? It's like a, it's like a high street retailer itself. I never exist anymore, man. I know. I think it's a huge world now. I'm really sorry to say that.

But I think it doesn't exist. I was literally, I was literally thinking of there were all these, there were all these. I mean, these are structurally short, broken companies that like, obviously everything's moved online. And they've kind of died these really slow deaths.

I think, Dixon was another one of my Morgan Stanley kind of overhangs where I just remember that being an absolutely hated stock when I was like. I wouldn't want to manipulate the market, Chris. That would be illegal. I know. We don't want to do that. But if you're listening, everyone, just pile into Nokia.

I'm really long as, as the watch is financial correspondence, obviously, this is like a market-moving interview, so we've got to be very careful about what we said. No, we're actually live streaming now onto CNBC. I forgot to mention that before I called you guys. I think we know what Darya's second season plot arc is going to be now. She is going to be like a basement Reddit troll lord who's buying into Dixons. So I want to thank Mickey and Conrad from Industry for calling. And this was a real pleasure.

I thank you guys. Thanks for having it again. Anytime. Honestly, any time. We love this show. Take care, guys. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure. Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Okay, we're back. Thank you again to Mickey and Conrad. Chris, yes, thank you to Mickey and Conrad.

I can't wait for some viral story to break during the hours. I'm available to do an interview. What are those hours? I'll let you know once I find some. Chris, speaking of hours, this is what I did want to bring this up in a public forum because last night, it was a Wednesday, and it's a very typical Wednesday for us in Los Angeles in pandemic times, really any times. When I, Chris texts me, as he's one to do.

Like, are you watching the Sixers? No, I love, this is not necessarily, you don't need to be a sports guy or gal to relate to the story, but that's our hometown team. Love them. Love watching sports. But one of the hardest things, people, a lot of people who are sports fans moved to the West Coast and they're like, great, NFL football starts so early. Like, you know, we don't have to wait all day. You can get it out of the way. And then you can actually, you know, have an afternoon.

They don't think about the timing of East Coast teams for the parents. because now all basketball and baseball games that I would like to watch all start at around 4 p.m. 4 p.m. It's not just prime like getting dinner or picking up kids from school back when kids were allowed to go to school

but specifically when Chris checked in with me that was the moment when my daughter's episode of Nailed it. She's not on it that she was watching. She's very into the show. How come you weren't watching, Chris? Why weren't you supporting her baking fails? she did ask me very seriously the other day. My daughter's episode of Big Little Lies was on.

She said, she asked me, would you go on nailed it with me? Tell people what nailed it is. And when I say people, I mean me. Oh, great,

yes. Well, it's one of those things I didn't know about either. So it's, it's one of Netflix's most popular shows. It might be more popular than Bridgeton. I don't know. Do you think so?

No, I just feel like this stuff really moves needles. And so I'm always a little dubious when Netflix's like, guess what? A blockbuster show. It is. I don't mean to throw shade on it too much. I just mean that whenever we get these kind of opaque,

now this is our biggest thing. Yes. It's a little bit of salt. So Nailed It is basically a good-spirited all-ages show about baking fails hosted by a very funny improv comedian and performer Nicole Byer. And basically there are three amateur bakers, home bakers, people who like to bake, come on and are immediately asked to do something impossible. Like they're given a very short amount of time to recreate like a six-layer cake that's a tribute to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise or whatever.

There is no way they can succeed. And that's kind of the joke. And they get, you know, they're all good sports about it and they do their best. And then they get a prize for being the best of the worst. And this combines, it's very good nature. And our friend Jason Manzukas is a frequent guest. Is he really? And is now, I mean, we're always indebted to him because he's a lovely person and we adore him.

But when I had, I casually dropped to my children that I know that guy, they looked at me with a level of respect that I didn't think I was ever going to get again. Like, it's the kind of look that you used to get when they didn't know how to walk and you like help them not fall. And then it's just gone. But they were very impressed by this. So it's a very popular show. People love it. I don't love, love, love it because it combines two of my least favorite things in competition shows, which is desserts, no interest, and amateurism.

Wait, you don't like dessert? No. Okay. That's weird. You know this about me. I think I did know this about you. I have a couple of friends who are like, I'm a salty guy. Yeah, salty guy.

So dessert time. But beyond that, I don't really love baking on competition shows or like top chef because it's more of a science, it's exact. You know, you can't really like freestyle. So anyway, all of this was to say, so we've covered that show now on our podcast. If you've got kids, you should watch it with them. That's the headline.

The headline is Chris Ryan is long on lids. Andy Greenwald is hedging on nailed it. It's a really smart, I mean, it's a really smart show in franchise, and it was one of the reasons why, I mean, let's pretend this is a real segment on our podcast to watch. It's one of the reasons why Bella Bajaria, who is in charge of unscripted on Netflix,

is now in charge of Netflix original programming. Okay. Because this was just kind of like threading a needle in such a smart way and inventing a franchise and eating food networks, lunch or dessert, I guess, in this case. And not only was it a big hit here and the type of thing they can just churn out episodes for cheap and make a ton of them, they have them in every country. You know, so it was a big success for them and a big success in my household. Anyway, the answer to Chris's text was, no, I can't watch my beloved 76ers play the Lakers.

I just can't do it at this time. Like as soon as the show's over, it's bath time. But then, and then so Chris was like, that's fine, as long as I am your one source. Yeah, I was like, I want to be your newsmax, but for sports. Like, I only want you to come to me and I want to be a little pedal like crazy narratives.

You're going to be my Mike Lindell, basically. I'm your my pillow guy. You're my my pillow guy. So then a totally freak occurrence happened, like when like those two planets were near each other and everyone looked up and pretended they could see something special the other week, but they were all lying.

Like built visors out of milk cartons and stuff? Yeah, that's all. It was all nonsense. Anyway, the show ended. My children were eating dessert, and my wife was on the phone. And I was like, everything is coming up, Andy.

I can do this? So I sat down, I was like, girls, do you want to watch a basketball game with me? And they were like, yes, hooray. They didn't care. The TV was going back on. And I was like, my team is playing a Los Angeles team. And both my children were like,

yay, Dodgers. and I was like, no, it's basketball. And they were like, yay, Dodgers. So this is on me. We turn the game on, and I kid you not, five seconds elapse. The five seconds that it takes for me to say, my team is the one in the red,

for my older daughter to say, go blue, blue is the good team, your team is terrible. This is what happened. Like, they are now, bigger Lakers fans than Jack Nicholson. Yeah. Like, just because I turned it on.

They're holding like gold chains at Staplesetzer courtside being like Lakers, baby. Lakers. And it was amazing. And I think that it's worth noting. I know this has been a long detour in Dattington Island, but it's worth saying... I have no idea what we're talking about.

This is great. It's worth saying two things. One, for people who weren't following the game, like a second I turned it on, the Lakers immediately went on a 14-0 run and took the lead. with 11 seconds left. And I had to sit there being like,

while my children danced and sang happiness. And I was like, even my older daughter, I was like, that guy, Joel Embed, we saw him once in person on the streets of Philadelphia. And my daughter's response was, he's lucky he can score the baskets. I was like, why are you trashed all? He's a nice guy.

Anyway, then the Sixers won. Okay. You know, with a last second, beautiful basket from a player who we've never doubted, Tobias Harris. Really a really solid contract. You and I are long on Tobias. Very much so.

He is the lids of the NBA, if you will. The game, quite literally, stopped with him. Thank you. Anyway, so my team, our team won. And what is generations of unhealthy sports fandom teach us? What do we do in that moment? What we are meant to do is leap, celebrate, you know, yow- But one can't do that as a parent.

You have to model better behavior. So I smiled and I said, well, that was a good game. Not according to them. So I just put this into context because I generally believe that having children makes things better. Sure. But in this case, in 16 minutes elapsed time, they took something that means a great deal to me, wadded it into a ball of garbage and lit full. fire to it in the bottom of my soul.

What would have been your comeback? Like, what would, could you have been like, just so you know, like, no Pixar movie is real? Like, could you, like, what would you, could you have done to sort of take the air out of the situation? Oh, I could have been like, yeah, I, I think the Harry Potter movies are bad. I just could have done that and just ruined my home, you know, but I can't do that. I just sincerely can't remember why we got off on this, Jag, but I did want to talk to you about a couple of other relatively relevant TV things.

Okay. Okay. Are you sure? Because I feel like me telling you about last night. There's more, more, no, I felt like I had a reason why we got off in this

and I was going to say something else to you. Oh, the reason why I was asking about this in the first place is I thought you were arriving at, and then after the game, I was looking for something to watch. That is true also. That is true.

Yeah. But that was after they went to bed. Okay. So I do want to talk about a couple of other things. One is the apparent scaling up of the Game of Thrones universe. So there's been announcements this week. One was more of a rumor that they were going to adapt the Dunk and Egg novellas into a

series and the Dunk and Egg stories are beloved by Game of Thrones officinados. And that takes place about 90 years before the show, so the Song of Ice and Fire that we know. And to be clear, I did learn much later after we did all of our Game of Thrones coverage that people thought that we were referring. to a guy named Benny Offen Weiss, when we would say Benny Off and Weiss, who are the showrunners. So I want to be clear,

it's not Dunkin Egg like a sandwich you can get in Boston. It's Dunk. Dunk. And... Yeah. Yes. And then they are also in... They're developing, apparently,

HBO is developing a Game of Thrones animated series, which I think brings some forefront, some interesting questions about, like, how grimy does Game of Thrones need to be to be Game of Thrones. But in any case, that would presumably be a side story, right? And then I noticed also that Wanda Vision, unlike the first few weeks, where they had had some pretty brief, somewhat high concept,

but ultimately not particularly informative trailers for the first batch of episodes that came out before the show aired, that this week they have put out a trailer that is very much like, you've hung with us. Now shit is about to get real. Like, thank you for indulging in all these sort of high concept homages to various decades of sitcoms, which I think that they will continue to do.

But here's Tiana Paris outside of the black and white world, clearly dealing with some sort of government agency. Here's like a couple of people flying around. Here's Catherine Hahn seeming sincerely emotional about a situation, almost as a signal or a hat tip to the idea that, hey, this was a little bit of a gamble on our part for the first three, but if you've stuck

with us, the payoff is about to come. I want to talk about, we can talk about either of those things individually. And then I actually have something to say about both of these things that I noticed, yeah, which is, have you, has it occurred to you that Star Wars, which is currently doing Mandalorian, it's got Mandalorian, and then I'll have Book of Boba Pham. Mandelorian takes place in the years after a return of the Jedi. Right. A lot of the shows that they have pitched or that are coming soon, say Cassie and Andor or Obi-Wan, all in the past.

Wanda Vision, while it remains to be seen when it takes place, what I'm going to have to imagine after Endgame has yet to suggest what the world is like after Endgame, after the death of Tony Stark. It's basically still like kind of this weird parallel world. Game of Thrones, they're talking about doing, they've got House of the Dragon, filming, which is a prequel, and they're talking about doing Dunkin Egg, which is also a prequel. Have you noticed that all of our major franchises, Lord of the Rings, also going to be in the second age way before Fellowship the Ring, are all in the past, are all looking backwards,

are all traveling backwards rather than taking that great leap into the unknown where they say, what happens after Soron, what happens after Thanos, what happens after the fall of the first order? Well, there's a bunch of reasons for that. One, you just was just baked into to your question, which is into the unknown, shouts to Elsa. That is not what these major corporations want from their only sure things or the closest things to short things that they have. They want to have something on their docket, on their production calendar, on their release timeline that they can rely on to generate the massive profits or subs or whatever the

metric is that they need just to continue to exist and to prove to shareholders they should exist. So that's what these things are, you know, and first and foremost. Maybe from a creative standpoint, I think you could make the argument that the goal is not to rob the original thing of its importance within the larger expanded universe as it is built around it. Meaning if a story like Lord of the Rings, for example, that is basically, I mean, it was written, of course, first, but then the movies suggested that the stakes couldn't be higher for the world. It was an existential, you know, once in a whatever event, that it all was leading up to this, all the ages of men and hobbits and elves.

I don't really remember the story, but I think I'm right. You got it. As soon as you say, but then something else happened that was worse, are you stepping on the power of the story that came before? So on some level, you could suggest that it's sort of creative respect to kind of just mine other things in the past around it. But the Game of Thrones thing, I mean, let's go through these piece by piece, right? Game of Thrones thing, we said even when we were covering it before we started doing the after shows, just in the very first year or two, I mean, we knew from the conversation around the books and from talking to Jason and Mallory that there was a lot more, a lot more there. Yeah.

And not just a lot more there, a lot of beloved, established ideas, stories, themes, eras that would lend themselves potentially to other types of storytelling too, right? Like the dunk and egg stories from what I understand are sort of fun, right? They're like pleasant, which is not a word I would use to describe a lot of the main series of Game of Thrones. So it was inevitable that they were going to do that sort of thing. The other thing that I would say that is inevitable and worth noting as more projects begin to be announced or leak out to bring it back to something I mentioned earlier, but also in the HBO Max universe,

the other news this week was that, though they denied it, that the Harry Potter universe is being mined for television IP. And the answer to that is, of course, of course it is. I mean, you have to understand that like not many of these, these companies don't get that many swings at stuff, or they don't get that many golden geese. And if they have them, there are people, well-paid people whose jobs it is is to just take the meetings, hear the pitches, just constantly keep the pots on a low simmer in the hopes that something is going to catch. So both stories were true. Like there definitely are many, many Harry Potter projects in various levels of conversation.

They weren't lying when they said there's no showrunner, there's no take. Yeah, sure. But there are many people who have had the meetings. And that's just going to continue in all of these shared universes, because that's the world we live in and the business that we are now in. The last point, we should get into a little bit, is the Wanda Vision one, kind of interesting to me. Yeah.

One of the things that's different and is worth noting about these projects as they exist on streaming services as opposed to as comic books or broadcast TV shows, which they, you know, which only a few of them were, or movies, is that they know absolutely everything about who's watching them, how they're watching them, and why instantly. Yes. And knowing what we know about, both Disney and Disney Plus, which is to say that Disney is the richest, the most dominant entertainment company of our time, and Disney Blues is wildly successful with subscriber base much higher

than anyone ever imagined. To me, that means they have a lot of rope. You know what I mean? They can take some mini-Ls or let things develop. This suggests that they're worried about this show to me. I know that this is like concern trolling, but to your point about them probably having a lot of data about who's watching this. They probably also know how people are watching it. And they know whether or not people are finishing episodes or I dare say they would know whether or not I skip 10 seconds ahead sometimes. You know, like,

I do know that. Yeah. And I would imagine that while, okay, you can't necessarily change horses midstream and do a different marketing plan for a show. I am sure that they planned on reinforcing WandaVisions. importance to the MCU at a certain point in this season. I just find it interesting that you and I, who are both, to varying degrees, fans of Wanda Vision have also voiced, this is nothing to do with us, but have voiced the fact that we're like, not a lot is happening. You know what I mean? Like,

this is a cool idea. It's very well done. The performances are pretty great. But the idea of waiting seven days for 29 more minutes of this is a little bit funky. And I noticed this past week, not only did this trailer come out, but Jack Schaefer did an interview and she's the showrunner. And emphasized the importance of post-credit stingers and that we should keep an eye on those in the weeks to come. Yeah. Post like immediate credits or the post six minutes of like dudes in Atlanta? I thought that there was going to be one every week because every week when they start the credits with like seven minutes left in the video. I'm like, did they fit a short film in at the end here?

Like how many? And I think it's because they do the credits in every language for some reason. but still, it was notable to me that they were like, the tone of that trailer that they put out this week was very much like, Wanda Vision's importance to the MCU is only just being discovered. This is the danger. And, you know, maybe we are perpetually Charlie Brown

with the football here with this, because we have spent multiple weeks talking about the importance of the Mandalorian, or at least as we saw the importance of the Mandalorian as finally breaking free from the yoke of Skywalker, and suggesting that there are different types of stories to tell here, which is something that you and I believe is necessary for the long-term survival of the franchise, or definitely our long-term interest in it.

And then Luke Skywalker shows up. Similarly here, I'll put it this way. There's no world where Wanda Vision is going to be considered anything less than a modest success and probably quite higher than that. I really like it. I enjoy it. I think it's going to get better or could get better. but I think it's probably safe to say that the ground shifted very, very radically under this project's feet in a way that probably is worth highlighting.

And what I mean by that is in the world where the show was conceived of in greenlit, Kevin Feigey and everyone else said Marvel are operating from such a deep bench and such a position of strength that they can do some odd things on the margins, like a show that spends three episodes lovingly recreating class. classic sitcoms that were on TV before Kai's parents were watching TV, I imagine. That is a little bit different than the world that the show actually premiered into. Not just that it is not on purpose, the first Marvel TV show. It was supposed to come after what I believe will be the much more movie conventional Falcon and Winter Soldier. It was released into a world in which there had been no Marvel movies at all this year. and a question mark as to when we'll see them again, right?

And so I think the idea was always going to be this complete dominant strategy where there's the A team in the movie theaters and then the B-plus team on the TV and then like the B team of the stuff that maybe probably you and I might like even more than the other stuff ultimately. Or maybe it's the stuff that Kevin Feige is really most excited about or who knows.

But that was also a world where we were supposed to have seen Black Widow by now and probably had Phase 4 or 5 or whatever it is announced by now. Yeah, we would have Black Widow. I don't know if Eternals was supposed to come out

before Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I can't remember what the original release slate was, but yes, we would have had other stuff. I guess all of that is to say, I don't,

it's odd to me unless there really is, either they're overreacting, maybe they're stir crazy or just crazy like all of us are post-pandemic, but it was a rare moment, and maybe we're reading too much

into like a special trailer, but it does, it was, it read like a strange moment of, public panic about what is the only guaranteed bankable

brand. You think about what happened in the first episode of Mandalorian. Is that even though I think if you took a step back and we're like if you thought about the first three or four episodes in the first season, you'd be like, oh okay, they're going back to the sort of

wagon train raw hide style adventure of the week Western and applying it to Star Wars. But they still had Baby Yoda. Like, they still dropped that huge bomb on us where they were like, this fucking thing is in this show. So there is definitely something important. Wanda Vision's Baby Yoda is just these couple of like weird fugue states that Wanda slips into. And even those don't have the resonance with people that's some character like that. To do that,

they would have to have that voice on the radio be Tony Stark's. Yes. It's not giving us any new piece. Not just any sense of connection, which is a, which is a different thing. It's not giving us any new piece. I think you could get a little bit high-minded and be like, oh, the piece it's giving us is that there is actually flexibility and room in this gigantic fictional universe for, you know, formalist play. Like, great. I like that. But that's in no way the same as being like, here is something that you are going to fall in love with in the way that you fell in love with the very first stirrings of this story in the case of Star Wars 40 years ago in this case, I guess, 10, 12 years ago.

Right. So it's different and it's a different bet. And I'm not really worried about those crazy kids over at Marvel. I think they're going to be okay. Yeah, nobody's shortened them. But that is, I thought that was noteworthy too. Should we do quickly? Should we talk about Lupin and Ed the sister?

Yes. And I have one of the, and I also do want to tell you. something I know you've been waiting you've been waiting almost 24 hours to hear which is what I watched last night. Oh. You're on the edge of your seat. But we should, we should, we should, we should do a little, uh, I just wanted to tell

you a little bit about this show with the sister, which I don't think you're going to watch. It's a four episode limited series on Hulu. stars Russell Tovey who, uh, if anybody saw, yeah, looking and years and years. It is a really fun actor. I really enjoy watching him. And it's, uh, written by Neil Cross. who does, did Luther and is obviously a very successful showrunner. It is about a guy who marries the sister of a woman

who he may have had a hand in her death, like this woman's death. So he minds, you learn over the first couple of episodes, or there's only four, but... Did he marry her on purpose because he did that or he finds out that? He had a role in this woman's death, then gets really into her. her sister, they wind up getting married. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes Central. And then a secret from this guy's past arrives at his doorstep to unravel at all.

He killed his wife's sister? Yeah, it's basically... Did I just figure out the show? So the thing that arrives from his past is a guy named Bob. This guy Bob comes to his door. Maybe I got high on the mind. I thought the thing that came to the house from the past was an Erasmiths CD in a long box. No.

But... And the guy was like, what's this? I just wanted to shout this show out because even though it's deeply flawed, I'm finding it very entertaining. I also want to say, this show does something that is a pet peeve of mine and does it so much that it has kind of transcended itself into performance art. And that is direct address. I'm fairly certain this show was shot during the pandemic because often there's only two people in a scene and they are inexplicably like nine feet apart. And Russell Tovey calls this character Bob by his first name in every other sentence. He's like, Bob, what are you talking about, Bob?

You're mad Bob. We can't do that Bob. And I'm like, I fucking know that the only other guy in this room is named Bob. I've got closed captioning turned on. You don't have to fucking say it. I want to be able to go back into, I think there should be a setting in Hulu to take direct address out of the close captioning. I shouldn't have to see Bob every scene. That being said, it's a very entertaining show. It's completely wacky. And if anybody is looking for something that's like a little bit like

the killing and a little bit like X-Files, dig in. It's four episodes. They're only about 45 minutes each. And it's like you'll finish it in two days. Wow. Okay. That's good. I feel like we're being very servicing. So here's what I want to do. There's two things that I want to touch on. And I think that there's a a workable framework for our conversation about them. And what I'd like to suggest, and this is reusing something that I said just moments before, but this time doing it intentionally as opposed to the way I usually do it on this podcast when I get six words stuck in my head over the course of 45 minutes. The other moment I said, maybe we are Charlie Brown with the football, right,

in that we keep making the same mistake. Keep thinking Lucy's going to hold the football and she doesn't. you know, I've been, I started writing recaps for Vulture in like 2009. So I guess that was my first TV writing and then it's a TV critic and whatever this is now that we do, that I do. You'd think I would have learned some stuff. And I don't know if I have. And I'm here to say Miakulpa. A positive example and a negative example.

The positive example is the new NBC. comedy Mr. Mayor, which is what I watched last night. And a couple weeks ago, we talked about the first two episodes. This is the new show from Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, the team that made 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt, and made one of the most fundamental and basic errors in TV criticism, which is talking about a comedy after two episodes. Yep. Throw away the first couple episodes.

Which you said in our first discussion, Mr. Mayor, you were like all comedies, they should throw out the first five episodes and start from there. Well, that's because Mike sure said it to me. so I was just quoting someone who's much smarter about it. But even so, I was like, it infected me. And I was like, maybe this supporting cast isn't up to snuff. Maybe it just feels like Ted Danton is still doing good place. Is Holly Hunter really committed to doing this with this much of her time and her life?

And the answer to all of that is maybe none of that matters if Tina Fey is writing your show. Because the fourth episode of Mr. Mayor, which aired last week, And the new ones to date. It involves a road trip, many things, it involves a road trip that Bobby Moynihan and Holly Hunter take to Sacramento, which includes visiting the Lady Bird gift shop. Written by the first episode solely written by Tina Faye, or credited to Tina Faye.

Obviously, it's a room-written thing, and they touch every script. This is the episode where a show figures out what it is, and it is so funny. Guys, I never, we don't, we don't, we don't talk. talk a lot of comedies on here. You're just a guy who loves to laugh and nobody knows this about you. I L-O-L

multiple, multiple times. It is an exceptional, I mean, it's great, 21 minutes with that same land speed record for jokes that they had in 30 Rock. And suddenly I'm like, oh, everyone in this cast is good, actually. Oh, they figured out how to make fun of Los Angeles, even from the Upper West Side, actually.

it's pretty great and it made me really, really, really happy and if it's on NBC, you can watch it on Peacock or Hulu, as I found out. So one Miaculpa. Second Miaculpa, Chris, that we should know better is it's always risky

to weigh in with very strong opinions of a show based only on less than half of it. Thank God we don't ever do that. So a couple weeks ago, we covered the Netflix's international phenomenon, LuPin. And I can paraphrase this here. We were just thrilled by it, mainly because, especially the first episode,

it suggested a show that was going to be just dazzling and charming and relatively light featuring a star-making charismatic performance by Omar Sy. and, you know, just it had a lot of prestige weight tact to it, but it essentially felt like a lighthearted heist show. And I think I probably said, like, the only thing that I hope is that it's more of the heist and less of the kind of leaden backstory that Mars a lot of so-called prestige TV. Guys, je regret. In fact,

it's not really a high show after the first two episodes. It is mostly a ponderous exercise in backstory, flashback, and revenge. And it bums me out. It really bum me out, you know? I know there's five more episodes coming in the summer. Yep. It's still built around a great star. It still has Paris in the background.

But that thing where it's just like, you know, I don't actually care how he met his ex-wife. I don't need to know how they met in school. That's, it's fine. It's fine. They seem to get along well now. You know what I mean? Not everything in the present, and maybe this ties into our Lord of the Rings show conversation. Like, not everything in the present has to be profoundly defined by and then explicated by events in the past. And so these episodes were now the guy who a moment ago, you know, two episodes ago was swaggering out of the Louvre with this massive jewel heist. And now he's just like, tell me the truth about Montpel. you know?

Like, let it go, dude. Go steal something cool. Go be Thomas Krohn. Maybe that's season two. You know what I mean? Maybe the next batch, they get a little bit more light on their feet. They're like, you know,

we have to move on from the personal revenge stuff. It's just interesting to watch. This is the darker flip side to the conversation we had about I haven't had a chance to catch up with it because I watched the first two, but I haven't got a chance to finish the season yet. This guy, Bob, is.

killing me. I told you, Arrette. Chris. That's what I said. Yeah. Save yourself. But that like we, you know, some of us, maybe those of us who like, you know, are still thinking about like the international, like maybe like the independent cinema or international cinema, like this idea that, oh, well, like a French movie. Some of us who are still thinking of international cinema? No, no. I meant like us. Like we, okay. I know, but like I'm still like, I'm still like, reeling from the fact that you were like me and Agnes Varda and we are fucking protecting

I have a club called the Gleaders and I that is just about Agnes Varda films I haven't seen but I remember the titles of that I can make jokes about no no I just meant that like there might be a little bit of a knee jerk thing for some among us I'll say me who it's just like oh a French film is going to be a little bit smarter and more you know a little more challenging or demanding and that's also because the French movies that came here

would go to like the Ritz, you know, in Philadelphia and be the art house cinema. We didn't see the Drek. And now that we've internationalized television, we've also very much internationalized some of our worst storytelling traits as well. And like, I, you know, I know I've told everyone to watch Call My Agent. Call My Agent is delightful. It's super delightful for two seasons. Uh-huh.

And then it like crams in 19 of the worst unforced American TV errors imaginable into the last season. Like, seasons. Like what, like when TR Knight gets hit by a bus on Grey's Anatomy or something? Whoa, spoiler alert. Thank God. Thank God. That settled it, though, and he'd never be back on the show, right?

Yes. No, I just mean, like, this is a challenging, fascinating character. Let's give her a baby. You know what I mean? Like, now we have to service that storyline. This guy is kind of interesting because his personal life is a mess, but his work life is fulfilling. Let's have a girlfriend become his one true pairing, thus freezing him in place, and

can never have any other relationships. It's just about getting back to that one. You know, that kind of stuff where a show sort of circles back in on itself and becomes only about itself. I like that you're blaming America for this. This is good. America first. That's what that means, right? Blame America. America is like, we make you do season six Grey's Anatomy stuff in your French TV shows. We should wrap it up there. We'll be back on Monday. We'll do Wanda Vision. We'll find out if we were right about Wanda Vision on Monday. I'm sure we'll have other stuff to get to. We should do the final season of Call My Agent once we've watched it because I think that we've I'm still watching. I know. And I can only assume it's because of the yeoman like work of this podcast

that it is now like the spotlight on Netflix for its new season. Yeah. It's the power, the power of our mics. Great talking to you, man. Keep your financial portfolio safe and diversified. And just watch out for those short sellers, brother. Do you have any tips for me? Do you want to take them off air? We should do it offline. I think I'm going to go long on CDs coming back. Okay. Talk to you later.