The Watch - 'Industry' S3E3, Favorite Shows of the Year So Far, and Songs of the Summer

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Chris and Andy break down the latest episode of 'Industry' and the increased momentum that comes from having the whole cast together in Switzerland (1;00). Then they open up the mailbag and answer questions about their favorite shows of the year so far (30:26), the best books they've read recently, and their songs of the summer (37:11). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going.

Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports 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 Ringer.com and joining me in the studio.

Look at me. It's Andy Greenwald. Feels good. AG, what's up, my brother? Just took a flight, a PJ to Switzerland. We are going to talk about the new episode of Industry that aired on Sunday night on the Home Box Office Network and now streams on the Max platform. Great.

We're also going to do a mailbag today. If any late breaking news occurs over the next few. days we're recording this a little bit early. I will just add a little topper. Will you? Maybe. I think of myself as that Edward R. Murrow of repeating things I read in Hollywood Reporter.

What I would love is to tune into this podcast a week from now and there's just a 20-minute solo pod about Miyazaki and how much you've fallen in love with the fine line of an animation master. Yeah. Greenwald, let's get into this episode

of industry because we'll cover a cornucopia of topics in our Okay, so we're going hard on industry season three, episode three. If you're not watching, that's a big mistake. But if you're not, you can fast forward to a different time in this podcast where we'll be talking more generally and answer questions. Yeah, like a lot of end of summer type questions there. So we got ourselves, not a bottle episode, a travel episode. Yes.

You know, these are, I think we're seeing industry and HBO's belief in this show. You know, in full flight here because we got ourselves... Literally, because they flew to a different place. I agree. I mean, they've done this before. They went to Germany that one season. Oh, yeah. But, you know, this is sort of a hallmark of succession is just like, where will the PJ land next?

And what amazing Croatian coastline are we going to be spending time on? I feel like industry's been getting some different locations, you know? A little set budget maybe expanding. Let me say this. We've talked, we've been talking all season long about the, massive leaps that the show is taking season to season that Mickey and Conrad are clearly elevating their own game and studying the masters and employing it within the realm of their own show and their own point of view. Succession is the right comp for this episode, particularly, but also

just another textbook that they clearly studied and took some of the best bits from. Because one thing that Succession did better than any other show in history was, let's take all of the pieces on our game board and shake it up by putting them in a different place. Let's have a party. Let's have a conference. Let's have an offsite and then see what happens. And it is storytelling 101, but still, I feel like we don't see a lot of it, not just because a lot of shows don't have HBO's budget, but mainly because I think most shows that we're covering are much more keenly serialized as either they are limited series or their anthology series or each season is a sprint to get to the finish line. Yeah.

The opportunity to be like Harper and Eric haven't been in the same room together, but some of these characters have never even met as far as we know, like even new characters, Otto and Petra, we're going to put them all in the same resort. It's thrilling. It is a reminder of the type of week-to-week TV that for a while we could expect, and recently we have not been able to take pleasure in. That's a really good point. I don't like to belabor the succession comparisons, but I'll do it as a contrast, okay,

here, which is that one thing that Succession was reliable about, maybe to a fault, was that characters had a relatively fixed, they were fixed on a map, both within relation to each other. And I think we criticized Succession for this sometimes

where it would be like, I thought that Kendall and Shiv were much closer at the end of this episode, and then the next episode it picks up, and it seems like they're just back to where they were in the beginning of cursing each other out. I don't feel like industry does that. And that might actually be challenging,

for viewers, because I don't feel like characters remain the same episode to episode. They change, they morph, and nobody more clearly does that than Harper's turn, who is nominally, I think, just because it's the

first person we're introduced to in the series and we've mostly been following her adventures into high finance, you would say that she's the hero of this show. What this episode presupposes is what if she's the villain? What if she's a terrorist? What if this is Day of the Jackal, but she's the Jackal? Absolutely. But wait, I want to just piggyback on that to say that it's the other succession thing. I thought you were going this direction, so I'm sorry to walk it back one. But like, Jesse Armstrong was the best at this, where he's just like, I've, my writers and I have created a dozen memorable lead characters, and every year we sprinkle in a few more. And wouldn't it be fun, whether it's on screen or has an exercise for the writer.

to pair them off differently and see what happens. And that's how you end up with on that show, things that are indelible, like a Roman and Jerry's relationship, which was clearly just almost like a side adventure, a side quest. It was just a random pairing that sparked. Going into this, I'm thinking about, like, again, a writer's room whiteboard of like, let's get everyone out of their normal business and let's put them in the same room in Switzerland or in the same hotel in Switzerland. That alone is like, great.

You're making TV. You're making TV the way we want to. And business is booming. The secondary conversation, though, is, I mean, two seasons ago, have Robert and Eric ever spoken to each other? This season, they are sharing a suite and eating... And an identity? And apparently an identity by the end of the episode.

It's seeing opportunity around every corner. And so, to bring it back to your point, like Harper being the chaos agent, and then seeing how Harper plays with the person that she'd been paired with the most in the first season, in Eric, seeing how Harper now plays with someone who she spent the entire second season at odds with in Yaz, and then seeing how she plays with Otto,

who's like, why are these characters in the same room, let alone the same universe? You mentioned rolling out, introducing these characters who were sort of in the background and bringing them to the foreground, making them part of the main cast. I really hope they do this with Roger Barclay, who's playing Otto.

It's amazing. I know where they found him, because his IMDB is essentially every British show of the last 25 years. He is so fucking good. and embodies something that I think is at the core of what this season is sort of talking about, which is that the nomenclature

and the ideologies go in and out of fashion, but there is a core drive to these characters, the people in this world that never changes. And the recognition of, you know, your soul's true opposite in another. That's the thing. When Otto is sitting there with Harper and is just like,

Ah, you're a troublemaker. I was a troublemaker. And you're like, but Harper, who lied about getting a degree, faked her way through her first, you know, job by making these huge calls to get Nicole to invest, to do all this stuff, has brought on harassment charges against coworkers with Darya or whatever it was, then basically, like, goes up against Eric and loses or gets cut by Eric, because Eric sees what a shark she is.

And now is on the other side and is, in two episodes destroyed future Dawn. Destroyed future Dawn and potentially destroyed Eric. Yeah. And yet in this hotel room

with this Tony Rich fucker, he's like, ah, a bandit. You are a bandit as well. Yeah. Predators recognize predators.

And what's shocking about this and what's also important not to begin at the end, but you said it in the intro, like, when Harper's saying, look at me,

he can't look at her because they are not peers. Yes. And by the way, they were never meant to be peers. He is supposed to be her mentor. He is supposed to be above her in the hierarchy and structure and experience. We were talked last week about ethics and morality, all of that.

No, she's a different species than he is and always has been. And that recognition is so crucial because we have seen, like last week, for example, in the big ball pit collision between Rob and Henry that what class divisions can do between people who are furious at each other and do not recognize something in each other. You could not pick, to your point, two people from more divergent backgrounds or with more divergent status in the world than Otto and Harper, but Otto's delighted by her and takes her more seriously than Petra instantly, even though, I mean, think about the dynamics in that scene. He sends his second into the other room to look at the data with Petra, who is nominally

the first in that relationship. Yes. That's very intentional. Yes. I thought all the stuff about the rebel fund that Petra and Harper are trying to start. The stresses it puts on their relationship and the scenes it cooks up where basically like, you know, Yasmin and Harper have an interaction. Eric and Harper have this obviously like incredible scene at the end of the episode. But I think that my favorite part is just at the end when they've named it Leviathan, which is, this beast that is coming out of the water rather than future dawn, you know?

Exactly. It's a monster that they've awakened. Do you think it's also her favorite Paul Oster novel? Or is that? Maybe it's a favorite Bible book. Is that a book or are you thinking of Leviticus? I'm thinking of Leviticus. Just to start the pot over. What if we had a new thing where it was like...

Yeah, it started over. We were like one take, one take champions. Yeah. If everything was a oneer. One single factual error. We'd start over no matter where it's like a oneer. Yeah. We're doing Wunters here.

I'm going to get you one of those Trump-branded Bibles, and you can study it. That's my favorite book, Leviathan. It's also a Peter Wello movie. Good. Keep going. Keep digging. So let's... Okay, so they start the fun, yes.

But we could start more at the beginning, if you like. I could do it on the beginning. I thought that this episode, if I was going to ever... It's not a critique. I will say that I thought that the characters had to do some expository work. for the speed with which we moved through episode two. You mean so like the catch-up at the beginning on the call? Opening act of this episode, I thought, was a fairly straightforward and time-stiff, but fine,

you know, like rendering of the stakes of what was happening. Like Bill Adler has been removed slash maybe ducked out of this Davos-like conference in Switzerland where companies are coming together to talk about environmental policy and investing. Bill Adler, who we noted, joined them on the floor and had not the best night at the plate, is spending time with family in Europe. So he will not be joining. Eric takes his place. Eric brings Yaz and Rob with him.

And just to pause there, the implication is that Loomi is a dog, essentially, and that they have fucked this up. And so they saved it basically for one day at the end of episode two, but that like the next day they wake up and they're like, all right, streets wise to this. All the other investment houses and banks, their experts, their policy analysts, are issuing cell. Right? And so the implication, I think, is that Eric is being hung out to dry. As lowest on the totem pole, he seems, and again, this is the subtlety of the show that I appreciate. I didn't necessarily know going into the season that Eric's purview is IPO launches in the ESG space. Who cares? It is now. And that seems to be hanging around his neck like an albatross.

The thing I'm trying to take from this is that PurePoint seems to be a little reckless. I feel like whenever they are pretty reckless because I feel like whenever Peerpoint comes out in other conversations in the show, people are kind of like those cowboys. And I wonder whether or not it's because they're both the buying and the selling side. I think they're all that. Yeah. And the implication I had is, and I think it was reinforced by the meeting where Eric is one of the partners, you know, in Mortimer and Randolph. The Nightgolf meeting? No, I want to talk about that. I mean in the season premiere. Although it is reiterated in the night golf meeting, which I have a lot of.

questions for you about. I hope you're ready to answer them. Is that PurePoint, like a lot of these places, is so structurally, foundationally wealthy, that is just money, built on money, that they also dabble, that there are the more reckless sides of these businesses, the potentially more exposed sides of the business, the ones that are like, okay, people are talking about ethics now. We're going to open a division devoted to green tech. We're going to play with IPOs in a way that we are able to do now. But that, if that metastas, It would be cut instantly. It would never affect like the real, real shit that we don't actually get to see a part to see it anymore. So I felt like that became more clear to me in the first 10, 15 minutes of this episode, which were still delightful.

It was just like I, you know. Oh, delightful, but I wrote in my notes, literally no idea what they're talking about. I'm very upfront with this. Like there was, and we've been joking about this. Like the screener sites does not provide, that we're watching the show on, they don't provide subtitles. So Rob says something on that conference call, and I didn't catch a word of it. Yeah, that was actually the scene that I'm talking about where I did understand what he was saying, but I was like, oh, it's like very convenient to have Rob and Yas standing here and being like, this is what they're talking about. This is what they're talking about.

Totally. So, yeah, essentially what's happening is Eric has got to go to this conference. He's got to perform well at a panel talk with Anna and Henry on stage. And the in-house analyst at Peerpoint is publishing a report. his recommendation, whether he'll say buy, sell or hold on Lumi as a stock. And this is so, I would imagine this is real, this sort of thing, but it is also so profoundly corrupt that the bank that is in charge of the IPO supposedly has a siloed independent analyst issuing their own advice for the bank's customers or clients who are not a part

of the IPO that they themselves are managing. Yes. But that felt real and intentionally. Let me put your mind at ease. Yeah. These people never interact, right? Certainly they don't stroke themselves in front of each other in Swiss saunas. We got the full Joel Kim booster in this episode.

He is playing the analyst. Is it Danny or Kevin? I can't remember. Not Kevin. It's not Kevin. It's Frank. It's Frank. You know, I was distracted.

Sorry, Kai. We got to start from the top. In a very intimate scene, I think the implication being that Rob perhaps engages in sexual Congress with him or perhaps just drops the towel and briefly? Rob seems, and also there's a second implication later, right, when Rob finds somewhere else to sleep. Yeah.

But it is not... Rob's in a sauna with the analyst. Yeah. And the analyst is like, don't, like, basically, like, don't worry about it. I won't publish during the conference. And Rob's a sexual being. I mean, we're all looking for love, you know? It turns out that this report gets published while Eric is on stage.

It is a hold recommendation, which for the bank that is offering the IPO is basically a headshot for the whole thing. Yes. And what do you know? Harper and Petra have also gone to Switzerland. Harper goes rogue when she sees that this report has been published. And of all the gin joints, gets to ask a question of Eric. By the way, there's only time for three questions.

So that was remarkable hand-raising. Complaining flameses him because she's like, your own bank has just published this report. It sounds like the stock sucks. and what's the conflict of interest here? And what's the conflict of interest? And you can see other investors, other, you know, flocking away. The next IPO that Eric was supposed to manage, the guy walks away in that moment. And to take it one step back, the idea of launching the rival fund is not going well.

Like Petra has having second thoughts because she's meeting with like junior people's interns who are just taking notes as a courtesy. They're meeting with representatives of the Bank of England who do not really enjoy the, uh, slight sacrilegious tone of Harper and Petra's comments. So it's not going well. She's basically like, I made a mistake. So Harper presses the nuclear button. Yes. So she forces the hand.

She announces in front of a room, including Anna. That they're starting a rival fund. Eric handles this much the same way he handled the night before his, that they were offering Lumie as an IPO. He tells a woman of the night that his name is Robert Spearing. and they proceed to have $20,000 worth of wild sex. That does sound like a porn name when you think about it that way. Rob Spearing.

That is probably the funniest moment in the show's history is when she's leaving the hotel lobby as they're getting their continental breakfast. And it's just like, thanks a lot, Robert Spearing. Rob's just like, what the fuck? I would actually say the funniest point is when they were in bed together. And Eric has on his eyebag pads. And he says, we need to spend as little time in here as possible. But that's all set up for that.

Again, like the weaving here, because we saw a return appearance by Yasmin's lawyer, who I do think she could maybe, maybe it's time for a different lawyer. I don't know. People deserve their private lives, but I think there's also lawyers. I couldn't tell if that's her lawyer

or just like a friend who's helping her. Well, she seems to know a lot about the case and the machinations of things. Yeah. But then again, as she claims, she has no money other than her income, so maybe this is the best she can afford. regardless, that relationship with Eric has continued.

And she kind of devastates him by saying that he's an old guy, which then fuels his... I mean, Eric getting, like, just humiliated and cucked for three episodes now is pretty wild stuff. We've never talked to Ken Lung, who I still think is one of the most interesting and magnetic and kind of idiosyncratic actors alive. And, like, I really, you know, usually when shows are returning, the actors have a call. or in this case, Zoom, if he's in a different country, or if not a lunch. Like, okay, so what's on tap for this year? And I kind of wonder how that conversation went. I bet he was excited.

Because Harry Lottie said that Conrad Mickey laid out generally the ambition that they had for the character, I think, is the quote before the season. But Eric has to operate in a world where his life changes every episode, seemingly. Well, he's also come. I mean, there's a world, again, I don't know him, but there's a world where, where he was chafing at being siloed the degree that he was in the first two seasons, where he's the heavy, he's menacing,

he operates in a way that is mysterious. Now he's a kid. But now he's one of the kids. He was kind of opaque to Harper. We learned piece by piece, the family stuff, the New York episode last year started to open him up. But yeah, like he was, we were Harper's POV

and now he's just in it. Yeah. So that's a really good way of looking at the final scene of the episode. he's peering through the, yeah. Which is stunning, because Eric is brought by Yasmin. Now I'll preface this by saying,

I thought Harper used Yasmin quite a bit this episode. Sure did. And there's still, like, Yasmin is clearly like looking for a friend. Harper is like, sure, but you can work for me. Yeah, well, also do something illegal for me. Yeah.

And, yeah, I mean, she's working for me. And she's like, I was, oh my God, I was, I'm so glad you're here. This is so important. She's like, cool, introduce me to Otto. Yeah. And then, I mean, the thing about Harper, she does leave Otto to comfort, yes.

Like she does see the egregiousness of that, like, you know, Instagram billionaire Nepo Baby Dickhead, like that that was quite extreme. So she does respond in a human way there. But then the beauty of the construction of the character and the show is that you could go back and be like, she was already thinking about this. She was already thinking about the value in that moment is keeping Yasmin close so that the next dominole. Yeah, well, the next time when she's like, do all this stuff for me, take these screenshots of Petra's trading history,

which is illegal for us to have, basically. Yaz is like, well, I need to get commission. Like, when you guys come back to Peerpoint to do business, I want the commission. So the next morning, she's set up a meeting with a very spent Eric. Can I just also say it's very cute. Like the education of Yasme in the season

where she's in the trenches, she's essentially a working, in the world of industry, she is now a working class character. She's cut off from family money. She is on the floor. She has no favors being done for her. The Kenny stuff has been sidelined. She is Harper season one in a lot of ways.

I think that that's sort of what I was alluding to in the beginning when we were talking about succession characters being fixed and these characters being so fluid. Can change. Yaz can be Harper. Harper can be Eric. Eric can be Rob. But that's my point is that with Yasmin,

when she learns a lesson, like her being like, yeah, I'll do this illegal thing. Wait, can I get commission on that? be part of it and Harper's like, good job, where Harper was born in the darkness. Yes. You know what I mean? Like, there's a certain appetite and a certain type of character. It's just like, she is so far ahead of Yasmin's development and probably coming to it from a place that Yasmin can never get to.

And in a season so far that has been, I think, heavy on these sort of power dynamics that, whether they're explicit of Yaz having Henry listened to her piss and using the voice from Dune with him to, Harper making Eric bend the knee. But Harper's Benny Jesuit, though. Yasmin is not. And Harper being like, you literally cannot afford to turn our business down. And the second you do, everybody's going to find out that you guys

walked away from a company that has like 300 million in startup capital to start investing shorting essentially the planet. She destroyed him and now is like, here's a lifeline. Yes. But also, you will provide me with white glove first class service and you will make eye contact with me. And answer the phone every time and then look at me.

And then he has glitter all over his face. He has glitter all over his face and he can't do it. He can't look at her. And then when he looks at her, he's fucking, he can't help but laugh, right? Yeah. What a scene. It's why, I'll just keep saying it. I know this is the third episode, but like this is why we need ongoing series in our lives.

This is what we enjoy. This is what you play the game for. You know what it is, Chris? It's the 162 game season. That's right. You know, I know you're a big fan of it. The ups and downs. I don't think anybody's heart, like respiratory systems

could handle 162 games of industry, but yeah, I know what you mean. It's really fun to see these things pay off. And just the little, the dynamics writ large, your point about, like, characters being in very different places and their potential for movement across strata over the course of episodes or season. but then just small movements within a small private jet where the door is closed and the rich

people quiet everyone the rich people are fucking yes yeah um the pool scene though is also worth noting I thought the pool scene was very good um do you think because I I've found more often than not that like at hotels uh the pools are often closed like whenever I don't do indoor pools Okay, I'm not saying indoor pools, but like, how often do you have you in your life as an adult who sometimes travels for work or pleasure? Like, I booked this hotel because it has a pool and they're like, sorry, no pool this month. That was the case when I was staying by myself in Burbank two years ago for COVID. Glad you didn't go in the pool. But I guess my question is, do you think it's only because...

They were working on the pool for a long time? But do you think it's because rich guys are like pools closed? Oh, maybe, but I don't... Probably not at the COVID Burbank. But also it's like, that's Davos. So like, is Henry really like muscling up that hotel? Right. Oh, so you think the pool really was closed?

They just met in it. It seemed well. No, I thought it was open, but it was like one in the morning. There was a sign on the door. And what did it say? No pool. I mean, it didn't say no pool. Yeah.

Okay. Maybe Henry was like, I'll buy this pool. You know, I'll buy this hotel. That's all I want from you. Okay. So did you think, um, It's interesting. We were talking, last week you were making a very good point about how this show doesn't dwell on the history of some of the characters, even history that it has spent screen time giving us, that we have built trauma equity in Rob and Harper, and so we don't always need to revisit it.

Sometimes we'll get a little like juzh of a flashback like we did with Yasmin this week as well. But largely speaking, it plays into our understanding as a background note. So I wondered with that question, when Henry is like, guess what, I'm not just a posh C word. I also have this like suicidal. Oh. Hey, all right. You're so unempathetic to the king of the upper class. No, like his history with his father and suicidal ideation and his own history with mental health and stuff.

I wondered how you thought about the deployment of that in this episode. I don't know because I think that that's something that you- because you stopped watching when she walked into the pool. You're like, well, that pool's closed. Episode over. As a former lifeguard, this is abhorrent. I think that I was wondering about that more when he sold all his stock, when he unwound his position.

And he said most businesses fail. Yeah. I was wondering whether or not, I don't know I'm not watching ahead. And I don't like predicting industry. But I don't know what's going on with Henry. What is Henry without Loomi? What is Henry did this show without this thing? Well, also, what is, you know, I said this last week, but like the game, the games element of the relationship with Yasmin is an echo of the relationship with Rob.

And it's interesting to watch Yasmin through three episodes kind of code switch in the different worlds that she's in, like coming into her power being like, I can use the paparazzi's attention to benefit my new life at my job. the conflict for her and the confusion and maybe titillation of the relationship with Henry is that she can't tell which one it is. Is she working for him or is she flirting with him and is she running him? Like it's almost like sort of a kinky spy relate. Like who's running who here in this? And I loved the deployment of personal stuff in that scene because he delivers this like trauma bomb and she's suddenly looking at him differently.

And he's like, well, I don't want you to assume things about me. And she responds with some honesty herself that she hasn't had sex with anyone in five months. And he says, what does he say? But you survive. But you're still alive. Yeah. And then he leaves and flashes everyone. Goes beyond the wall.

He does. I also noted, speaking of like the trauma spices that Rob continues to be basically a, if not explicit, like he is essentially a sexual play thing for this, the financial services world. and in the sauna scene, although he seemed to enjoy enjoy Joel Kim Booster's company after the fact. Yeah, buy him a drink. And I also liked the tossed-out narrative breadcrumb trail

of Jesse Bloom from the second season. That's what I wanted to mention, yes. Who is now in prison, or a minimum security prison where he's working on a short game. Yes. So that probably means no Duplas brother this season. You know, those minimum security places probably have like video conferencing.

Oh, that's true. I think he's going to zoom in from the yard. This was also... He's like all tatted with tear drops on his face. Looks like jelly roll. This was also the episode where I'm proud to say that I finally did Google what ESG stood for because I did think that all the characters were referring to the post-disco New York

group. YesG. Moody. Which, I didn't know that... That's their iconic single. I didn't know that stood for Emerald, Sapphire, and Gold. That's not what this stance. for. It stands for environmental, social, and governance, a framework that's used to measure and understand how sustainable an organization is. Are you heavily invested in green technology? I'm heavily over-invested in the recordings of bands from the late 70s and early 80s. That's where

all my money is. They're just as financially viable. Last thing about this episode, the panel at this conference, you know, we get some, like Eric seems to be doing well. He's speaking in very like pithy sound bites, he's been briefed well, Henry is nodding. The moderator then opens it up for questions. There's only room time for, I believe, two absolutely devastating hydrogen bomb questions, then they call it as a veteran of many panels, especially recently, like live podcasts and things, do you have any notes for how this went? And would you have moderated it differently? I think you could have vetted the questions beforehand. Right.

That's how we handled things at the Talk the Thrones show. Oh, yeah. And all shows, I believe, where it's just write down your question on a card, give it to the user that they'll bring it back to us. And then we were like, okay, we have a question from Nick, you know? Oh, so you didn't have the person being like, really more a comment than a question. No, I don't ever want to be stuck in a Barnes & Noble reading again where, like, some guys like, I must now do battle with James Elroy.

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2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash. apply. You know, we're going to get into our mailbag, and the first mailback question is about industry. Oh, okay. So there could be some overlap here. We have three episodes under our belt now. This is the third season of industry, but we have three episodes under our belt. We do. I think that they did a very good job. And when I say they, I mean the HBO PR department and also like everybody just sort of kind of agreeing on, it's a leap season. We've decided to be like your show's back. And not only is it back, but it's better than ever. Adrian asked,

Can you guys gush about industry some more? My take is season one was great. Season two was a slight step down, but season three is out of the gates just kind of perfect. What is the show doing now that works so well? Does it just understand what it is now and what we want it to be, like Yasmin looking into Henry Muck's soul

at dinner before heading into the bathroom? I adored season two, so I disagree with Adrian's sort of construction there. I think season two, I love the rawness of season one and the almost punk rock sensibilities of it. I have not gone back, but that's my feeling as well. Season two is excellent. Season three so far, I mean, are you ready to say something like that?

Are you ready to say like it's stepped up at that level? Well, I think two things. And I know I constantly say versions of this, but why we love this stuff is to see leveling up across seasons. We don't want to watch television shows. I mean, we do want to watch television shows that are fixed things. one and done. There are hundreds of examples of them and we celebrate them. We talk about them on the podcast. But the unique pleasure of TV for me is exactly this, the improvement over time, the

development, the deepening of our understanding of the characters while we watch the creators get a better understanding of their own abilities to use them and deploy them into perpetually exciting ways. It's just, it's incredible. And we've rarely seen a growth, a graph like this. The first season, we absolutely adored. It was, as you said, it's like a hundred percent vibes. And from those vibes come some beautiful scene works and beautiful moments, some beautiful character development. The Rob's mentor thing. I can't, I was just thinking about that when I was watching the third episode and feeling like that same melancholy that it created. It was an incredible illustration.

Well, it's almost like the ghost of that character is present in Otto a little bit. Like there's some. And in Rob. Yeah. Exactly. It carries over. The second season was like, oh, wow, wait, they were given a sports car when they got their driver's license, but now they're starting to learn to drive it. Yeah. The development to this season is blowing my mind. And one of the examples of it is, so last week we were talking about how David Johnson was on this show.

He played Gus for the first two seasons and now as an Alien Romulus. He was a fantastic actor. It would be great to have him back on the show. He's mentioned in this episode, right? Is he? I believe he's been mentioned on this season as like somebody who's working in California, like a different... Oh, that's right.

I think that's true. So the one of the like again, vibes, good ideas is that he's cut in the first season. He doesn't make it in the whatever it was called program. And then he goes to work for someone in government. And he goes to work for someone in government, the woman who's in this season as well. I don't,

I feel like even Mickey and Conrad would agree that Gus's kind of free floating as a free agent in season two was a problem they didn't fully solve. He became important as he was drawn into the Jesse Bloom story with Jesse's son and then flew off. at the end, you know, and just anytime David Johnson and my hollow were together, they had a great energy, great vibe, great connection between these characters and actors. But he was tangential to the show. The major leap to me in this season is no one and nothing is tangential. They have streamlined both

the story that they want to tell, but also deeply understand how to fold every piece into it. And some of it is the stuff that we were praising when the show came back, which is like, oh, I never really understood fully what Rob and Yasmin do in relation to Eric and Harper, but now they are Harper. Like they are so embedded in Eric's business. Yasmine has become Harper. Rob is embedded with a new character. So he is drawn in instantly. There is no wiggle room. Like the hardest thing to do, like Rob and Yasmin both getting on this PJ flight is a in script on show problem, not a feat of engineering done in the writer's room. You know what I mean? Yeah. So Yaz could be like which one of us matters here. And Eric's like, we'll find out. That's in the text. It's not us being like,

oh, they cleverly painted themselves out of that corner because they knew they wanted Rob to be in a hot tub later. I'm sorry, in a sauna later. So I think there are many reasons why the show is incrementally better, and part of it is the cumulative growth of a show as we care more and more. But I think just you can see it in the margins of like nothing is, they're not trying, there's no effort anymore.

There's no efforting in bringing things into the center furnace. Yes. Michael asks, did we get a best TV shows of the year so far episode? We didn't specifically, because I believe we started this conversation and realized it was somewhat easy to put together this list between the two of us. Yes.

I still think that there's kind of like a tier above everything. It's Ripley and Shogun and industry. And I think that that's kind of for me floating above the second tier, which is like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for me, Shorzie goes into that category. What else did we have on that? Mr. and Mrs. Smith is in my tier one. But everybody's in L.A. The Malaney Show is in my potentially in my tier one, just in terms of pure joy.

Yeah, I don't. I think we have, I mean, those are our first ballot. Yeah. I think we're still wrestling with Bear Season 3. Oh, no, Bear's up there for me. I guess I would be wrestling in terms of... I don't know if it goes... I think it would probably be top four or five, but I don't know if...

It's definitely my top 10, but I don't know where it is. I mean, this tier thing is new. You're just hitting me with it. So I'm trying to do this in real time. What other shows did we watch on television this year? Well, you know, I mean, we've started stuff that we... delicately extricated ourselves from. We watched Top Chef.

You know what people want us to watch? Interview with a vampire. Yes. They really do. I see you and I hear you. Perhaps. You know? It's an interesting... The boys is in my top ten.

It is not in mine. I know. Okay. So see, there's some light disagreements for us. I wonder if this year, once we get to the end of it, will be a divergence for us. I... There's some...

Some years where we're like eight out of ten together. I hope there is because honestly, divergent at the end of the year would suggest a lot of... Stuff to watch. Fun surprises or things that are particularly tailored to one or if not, literally not both of us. That would be more variety.

That would be more... That would be good. Oh, yeah. It would be good for the business. Yeah. All right. So let's deviate from television a little bit. Okay.

Okay. Adam asks, what have you guys been listening to recently? New or old. Oh, okay. How are you doing? I'll give you some new stuff that I've been checking out. Okay. I made a joke on the big picture that I was listening to a band called Fentanyl.

I am. So the purpose of the two podcasts is it's a joke on big picture, but here's where you confirm. Chaule Rhone and Brat Summer, and I was like I am also having a brat summer with fentanyl. I am also listening to a lot of the music from a Philly band called They Are Gudding a Body of Water, which is really fucking good. We put some of that on our barbecue playlist. Yeah. A couple of other... To weird barbecue.

The new drug church stuff and the new Tushé-a-Moré stuff is awesome. I've really enjoyed their first singles and I can't wait for their albums. What about the new M.J. Lenderman? That's coming. Well, you also have your...

I thought that was... We were sharing that. Oh, no. We are doing... Because I'm talking about the band Jell. It's kind of like a hardcore band. I'm also talking about the band Antenna, which is the dude from Royal Headaches. Oh, of course.

were banned. Kaya and I were nodding. What about you? Do you fuck with Chapel Rhone? Is that nod on your... I actually was in a car with my wife and two, a teen and a 10-year-old. And I listened to Femnonmonmonmonon for the first time. Yeah.

And I thought it was quite good. You listen to Good Luck, Babe? Yes. We listen to the... That's a bob. Kaya, how do you feel about this? Are you pro chapel? Oh, I love me, some Chapo.

She seems like she has a really good stage presence as well. Yeah. They seem to be liking her in... large crowds. Yeah. I like that. What about you? Will you introduce me

to what I think is the best song of the year by High Viz? There's a song called Minds a Lie. Which sometimes, old guys like us, it's like every single thing that we've liked, it's like someone took the stems

of those things and then made one song of them. Yeah. Fuckin, that song. It's like burial meets the clash meets Echo and the Boneyman or something. That song is so, so, so, so good.

I've just been, I've been cataloging this like, I've just been putting all the songs that I like to a playlist this year, which I don't usually do. I do it at the end of the year usually. So instead I have a large playlist that has like the new Oso Oso, but also the new Camila Cabo and Zach Bryan and JPEG Mafia and Two Shell and Caribou and Jamie XX and I'm just why are you sounding like shamed? Well, I'm not shamed. Like if you heard this band Font in Texas,

I kind of like that record. Yeah. The shame part is good. It's really good. But my shame part is that I feel like usually at this time of year, I would be like here are three, full-length records. I just know I sound like a super old guy, but I'm like, this, I love this album. And I have so completely

diverge from that where I have more songs that I like at this moment, but I am 100% not not listening to their whole records. Like, remember when I sent you the new song by Blue Bendy? I was like,

God damn, yeah, we love shit like this. And then there's a whole album and I have not listened to it. Most Campesinos, one of our favorite bands have a new record. Yeah. And I have listened to...

You don't have to dedicate. You have... wide and passionate tastes. I do. You're listening to all this stuff. You don't have to be like, I'm doing a bad job listening to music. I just feel a little touristy.

Just because you don't listen to fentanyl. Doesn't mean you're a bad guy. In fact, I'm better at barbecues, some might say. No, I just feel like I feel a little bit touristy, like skitching above some of this stuff and not like really like doing the world. We're all fucking tourists.

It's not like I'm in the pit. No. Come on. I just like the music. I like aggressive music. Matt wants to know, he says, we need a book update. And he wants to know what is your favorite read of year so far?

These don't have to be hot off the press's brand new, Sally Rooney, Emma Klein joints. I'll start us off just to kind of get the ball rolling. I want to first shout out our buddy Jason Concepcion, who remains my fiction guru. Every like six weeks is just like, have you seen this? It's an automatic cop for me. So I'm reading Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper, which he recommended to me. It's kind of like a contemporary L.A., like James Elroy's story set in the crisis PR world.

I love this. And also, so it's like a crisis PR publicist and then a former L.A. Sheriff's Department cop. You can imagine he's got a complicated backstory. And it's an excellent novel, very dark. The best thing I read this year was probably Demon Copperhead. The Barbara Kingslow... You really did the work on that. See, this is not the opposite of tourism.

You know what I mean? You dug in to a new 900-whatever-page novel. It's recent. It's 22, I think. But I just mean that I think anyone who listens to our book segments. Our buddy, Zach Barron, highly recommended demon copyright. My wife read it, she highly recommended demon copyright. I was like, it's time to jump in.

And I thought it was incredible. I feel like, and I don't know, Kaya, please jump in on this. I feel like I have just increasingly become more jaded about new fiction and new restaurants. And, but it takes one to be vetted. I'm not saying... Do you know what you talk about a lot? Books and restaurants. I know, but I'm disappointed constantly.

I'm not saying I would be disappointed by Barbara Kingsolvers, universally celebrated masterpiece. I'm just saying I'm impressed that you went, you did the work. And have you read that, Kaya? You know, I actually, I started it, and then it was due at the library before I could finish it.

So I think I got like a third of the way through. Chris could lend you his copy. Did he get to being a teen yet? Like, was he playing football? He was playing, yeah, I got to like the football playing. The football stuff is where it just really jumps off. So I've been meaning to go back and revisit. I can lend you my copy if you want to carry around

a giant font for blind people. Do you have the large font copy? Yeah, it's like a thousand pages. Is that hardcover? Soft. Okay. No. Large font.

It's great. Really, my eyes are going. No, I get it. You're right. It's Barbara Kingsolver, not Slover. What do I say? You said it right. You said King Solver.

Let's start the pot again. Kingslayer. Does it say some books? Okay. Well. You act like you're not reading. You're reading all the time. You're like, did you guys check out this?

I'm a little, yeah, but I feel a little touristy. What's the one you just texted me and Sean about? I do want to say in the purpose of like just huffing a little bit of the I'm reading Ozark, I'm watching Ozark fumes, is that I am reading The Tork Man, which I know you loved. Do you love it? I love it, but I keep cheating on it. Yeah, it's Peter Mann's novel about spies and lovers in World War II, Germany. It's really inventive.

It's really, it's very good. But you know, I've said this to you before. Maybe it's worth repeating because I do. think it's good advice. Like if for listeners, if you ever find yourself like kind of stalled out, like starting books, not finishing them, not feeling like you're in a book rhythm, just read an Elmore Leonard novel to just juice things. So I'm reading Glitz. Like, luckily, he wrote so many books. There's always one I haven't read. Yeah. So I'm loving Glitz. And I read a magazine article recently about how Glitz, the 1983, four novel,

started, the origin of this book is Elmore Leonard was flown to Hollywood to meet with Sidney Poitiers about writing in the heat of the night too. And he went off on this rabbit hole of like imagining that character in Atlantic City. Then he got really into Puerto Rico. And then eventually he flew back to Sidney Poitier. And Sidney Poitier was like, Dutch, I think you're writing a book. And they walked away. They've remained friends?

Close. No, I have no fucking idea. So that, but I did recommend and I feel like our listeners might be into this. I've been reading a lot of like New York Review of book reissues. you know, just like it's a very reliable thing to grab a book from that publisher because it is... I do that with their world crime and espionage collection that they have. Oh, yeah, exactly. So I read a book from 1977 called A Way of Life Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien.

One of the best books I've read in a bunch of years, but also one of the best Hollywood books I've ever read. It's a fictionalized... It's fiction, but the author Darcy O'Brien was actually the son of a two famous silent film movie stars. So it's about a boy growing up in enormous wealth in the 40s and 50s, and then his parents' fortunes fade, and it's sort of a funny but slightly dark, picarous. It's not very long. I love that book. Another book author that I discover from that same series is Barbara Comyns, who wrote a book called Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, which seems very light and breezy, but is incredibly harrowing and awesome British fiction. What's that one about? It's about a woman who embarks on life and gets married and has a kid, and there's extremely. poverty. But it's from like it's nuts. It's fucking I, well, you were just

saying when we talked about alien how much you like harrowing childbirth scenes. Well, this book is for you. But it's not a downer read. It's a really interesting, unique, authorial voice. Yeah, demon copperhead has some harrowing childbirth as well. I wish that like Granta would be like, the year's

best harrowing childbirth scenes and you could just get it all in one volume. Isabel Emerson said crying. Okay. Let's go to another one. This is a phone one, just as we loosen up here. I love fun. Chris asked, so he says he's asked this before. So this is why I picked it because he's tried this question out of this couple times.

That's nice. Combining two of the pod's favorite shows, how would Carmi and or Sid do on Top Chef? Oh my God, what a great question. Why didn't you answer this the first time? I didn't see it before. That's convenient. I also, when I asked our Facebook group for these questions, mistakenly made it a poll. So there's a ton of, like, poll.

I did notice that. I thought you would unlock. some like new Zuckerberg. No, I just don't know how to use meta. Did you post it in the in the meta space? Like can you VR? No, Facebook's they've changed their name to meta. Yeah, no, you're right. Is it still called Facebook though? Wow, Chris. Let's ask our youth correspondent. You're the one who uses it as your primary news source. Constantly. I'm learning

a lot about Tim Walls and what he really did or didn't do in the National Guard. No, no, but I feel like he renamed the company meta to both differentiate the larger company from Facebook, but also to be like, I'm all in on on the metaverse, yeah, on AI shit. And that's so cool. Yeah, it's fucking sick. I love it. Okay, how would Karmie and Sid do? I think Sid is, is a finalist, if not a winner. A hundred percent.

Although I do, you know, I think Karmie is, goes down at the first quick fire. There's, there's three, here's the three outcomes here for Karmie. The most likely one is he has asked year after year and is insulted. It's a way. waste of time, it's a circus, and he's too good for it. But if they ask him to be a judge, he would run to the airport to do it. That's the most likely scenario. I think the other two scenarios are he exits as noisily as David with the dopey guy who makes trash pizza

in the first episode of this most recent season. Like he melts down in the first episode, as you were saying, to such a degree that he's out. The other option that I think is likely would be that he would be dominating for three or four weeks, like on a Buddha-like trajectory, just like breaking things down mentally and crushing everyone until he short circuits

on the dumbest shit imaginable in episode five and is just gone. And it doesn't even show up for last chance to get you. You're like, this guy's clearly the finalist, but he can't cut it.

Sid, on the other hand, who is an elite hang, as we've learned in the last episode of season three. She doesn't have a pan. attack, but yeah. Well, okay, later, though, I'm just saying when she's surrounded by peers or mentors...

And it's having dialogue with them, yeah. She's super chill. I feel like she's... I feel like she can roll with it, right? Because she's been working under a lunatic who's changing the menu every night. Right. Which I feel like is good training.

Do you see any holes in her game? Is it... Well, I mean, I think that obviously she panicked in a social situation more than in a kitchen situation at the end of the season. I think that she is very... I wonder how she would work as a team meet, you know? I think very well, look at her with Tina.

And I also think... Yeah, that's the thing is, like, I think... That's why I'm saying. I was like, she's charming. She's a great chef. She works well with others. She's got a good story, you know? And remember the omelette she makes for sugar in season two?

And, like, that's the kind of cooking that actually wins you, top chef? because you're telling a story, you're feeding people, you're thinking about the customer and the person on the other end of it, and you're doing something deceptively, something simple, is deceptively complex. Carmi being a judge on Top Chef for Sid. And saying, not good enough.

And then, Chef. And then Carla Hall is like, what? That was my imitation of Carla Hall. In the fictional 30th season of Top Chef. I thought it was pretty good. Oh, I thought it was the fictional 30th season of the bear. Somewhere, Christor just had a heart attack. Kyle asked what Kyah's been reading.

Oh, there was a way to get cut. Oh, that's why you were... Okay. Well, I think as I mentioned... But Kyya's never moved to the microphone faster. I love talking books. As I mentioned this weekend, I started the Emma Klein short story. Should we use this time to talk about it?

Yeah. It's not in the first five minutes of the pot, so feel free. Kaya could drop it in there. So I started reading that this weekend. Do you agree with my... I feel like she is this generation's Brett Easton Ellis. That's my take. Yeah, she does paint a very kind of like almost not, I guess Joan Didion-esque view of California.

That's a polite version. Yeah. A very morally bankrupt place. And cold. And I can't tell what the there there is, but I cannot stop reading. Yeah. I'm not really a big short story person, but once I get- Have you been Dobbins-pilled on that?

Or is it just like you never really had an affection for the format? I just feel like with every short story, I'm supposed to imbue so much meaning in so little pages. and then I start kind of like overthinking it. And I'm like, okay, I get to the end of the story. And I'm like, what was I supposed to take away from that? I feel the same way about short stories that I do about college sports. I'm like, let's, I don't have, I only have that much time left on this planet. Like, let me see it at the highest level.

But here's the thing that's funny about you is that you will be like, I don't have that much time. I don't have that much time. But at 7.15 in the morning, you start texting me about the Eagles backup slot guy. So you think I should use that time to pick up the collective stories of William Trevor? Yeah. I think you should take that time and you get into Texas football and also William Trevor's short stories. You have to understand that I'm writing you like in between making breakfasts and lunches and like making sure people brush their teeth. And that's, I'm just talking about when I volunteer at the senior center.

Then I go take care of my own children because that's how busy I am. You know, I just feel like you misunderstand what free time is for me. It does not. Let's get really into the SEC. Okay. I don't have. Maybe someday. Empty Nest.

I'm going to get really into it. What else are you reading, Kaya? What is the best post? My favorite, favorite thing that I've read so far this year is Euphoria by Lily King, which came out of, I think, a few years ago at this point. It's about three anthropologists in, I think it's supposed to be set sort of like during the 1920s or something. And they're in like kind of like the Amazon or like, I think it's, but maybe it's like. New Guinea, it says?

New Guinea, yeah. Meeting with tribes there and trying to, like, understand the way these tribes work. And it's just, like, very compelling story. I think I read it in, like, two days. Oh, my God. By the way, it says there's a passionate love triangle. Yeah. So there's kissing in it.

So I mean. There's a love triangle between the three scientists. Oh, my God. When anthropologists love each other. They both love each other and understand why. That sounds really interesting. That's awesome. That sounds like kind of Lost City of Z in my lane.

Any other last shout out? I also really enjoyed All Night Pharmacy by Rye Ruth Medivieski, I think I'm pronouncing it right, which is about two sisters living in Los Angeles and getting into trouble. Okay. Kay, can we do this segment every week? I just Googled it and it says Rachel Kushner meets David Lynch. Yes. Come on.

This is great. A fever dream of an L.A. novel? Yeah, of course. Anytime. Kaya, she should be hosting this podcast. Kevin asks. Homicide is streaming now. Are you in? I am in, Kevin. And any episodes you were eager to revisit. I had this thought, we're recording this a bit early, Kevin, so I haven't had a chance to start watching the shows. So I have the box set. I think I watched a bunch of episodes eight years ago, something like that, just out of deference. Andre Brower, I just wanted to check it out. I wanted to see. But it's been a while. It's been a very long time. So I'm very curious to see how they aged and how it feels. like watching it on Peacock among all the other streaming TV options.

Kevin asked, you know, if there were any episodes that I'm eager to revisit. I'm very eager to revisit Three Men and Adina, which is the sort of classic of modern television. It's like this bottle episode set in an interrogation room. It's with Kyle Seekore, Andre Brower, and I think Mo's Gunn. And that is a classic. I really want to watch that. But that episode, which is directed by Martin Campbell, who did like James Bond movies, and written by Tom Fontana, is part of this sort of multi-episode arc of the Adina Watson investigation that that dominates the first season.

And I kind of want to see, maybe I should just start from the beginning. You know, like there's also an episode from the, I think, the third or fourth season called Every Mother's Son that I'm really excited to see because I remember that as being like a real holy story. shit moment as a teenager, but I haven't rewatched it since then. I don't know. What about you? I know we just talked about your free time, but are you ready to start? Well, I want to pitch a different way into it because I think that... What if we don't watch it?

What if we just stop watching TV for a while until we figure out what's going on? Okay? How would that be? Kaya could just make book recommendations, we could chat. We don't even have to come into the studio, you know? Just text these couple things. No, I think what's interesting to me about homicide being

back on as someone who really only remember the highs, like Bob Gun, like the certain episodes that we talk about are the one where, what's his name, stuck in the subway. I'm very interested in revisiting homicide from the beginning as a quote unquote normal TV show. Okay. What was that like? Does it feel exceptional still, or does it feel old-fashioned? And then also, like, what can we take from it, like, in a, not just in a talking about it sense, but just in like what we want from TV sense. Because I was really, I thought it was really interesting when we talked about it a few weeks ago. How it? was coming back, it was coming to streaming for the first time. And we were basically realizing as we,

in real time as we spoke, that it would potentially be a best case scenario for where these streamers are going with their normie content. Like when we, you know, when everyone wants to recreate ER, but like they still want to make cop shows, why do we assume they're bad? Why can't they be homicide? What would that look like? So I kind of want to watch it as a show and see how it developed and does it feel. Because those first few episodes did feel, I don't think, as a, 14-year-old, I used words like, revolutionary. But they did. They did feel distinct.

I was also like, I hadn't seen French New Wave movies, so I didn't really know about handheld camera, verite. You know, like, that was like a very big gateway drug for me. You hadn't seen blue collar yet, so Yefet Koto was new to you. Well, I'd seen alien. What was that?

I kind of want to do a bit where week to week I've either seen or not seen classic movies, so I keep you guessing. You've seen alien. Yes, we just talked about it last week. I know, but I forgot Yaffe Koto. was in his most famous movie. Nick asks. Okay.

Oh, and I hope we do as a podcast project. You know, a lot of people, very lovely, they ask about the Lonesome Pod, you know, and doing a big deep dive at the bureau run that we did. I don't know if we could do a Streets of Baltimore pod where we do a couple hours on homicide, but I'm open to it. Do you know anyone who's in charge at the ringer that could maybe make that happen for us? What does that mean? Like, you want to start another show?

I thought that's what you were saying. No, I want to do it on the wall. Breachs of Baltimore as a pod. But we did LeBiro as a pod. We did loan some pot as a pod. That's because Bill didn't want us to do a French language podcast. That's true. They hated that.

But now that we have... That's what to sell you on the Sixers? We are fluent now. Okay. What 90s hit shows do for a reboot? Now, I'm tagging this with the homicide thing. I do not want homicide life in the street rebooted necessarily. But I don't, you know,

I don't necessarily think that we have come out of the IP era in television. covered in glory. You know, like, I'm trying to think right now if there's been a reboot of a 90s show that has worked, you know, everything, it tends to be more sitcoms, I think. Well, you and I have been championing Nightcourt

for years now. Remember that episode of this podcast? This shows good. We're going to stick with it. Fuck. Hey, we're sharks, always moving forward. I think I've answered this answer for variation.

on this question before, but I couldn't think of anything original. So I'm just going to say that I really love the Chris Carter show Millennium. Hey, we're just talking about Lance Henrickson. Which was paired with X-Files, which is sort of an X-File spinoff.

It was more about pre-millenium tension to quote my guy tricky, which is more about like an end-of-the-world fear that was going in around in the late 90s as Y-2K approached. But I'll tell you what, feels a lot worse now. So maybe bring Millennium back.

I think it's a good idea. I want to piggyback the previous answer, which is to say every single network or streamer in this town is trying to bring TV back, bring 90s TV back in a way. And every pitch that I hear or every sale that gets announced seems to be missing one of the essential components of it, which is like it doesn't,

I feel like they're getting the ingredient ratio wrong. You know, like we were just saying, homicide could come back and what would it mean? Be like, okay, we're going to do a show for grown-ups week to week with great actors who maybe haven't done TV before, certainly haven't done, don't get those starring roles. In that case, it was Ned Beatty and John Polito and Yeffat Koto, like being like, let's give them something to do it, discovering, not discovering, but showcasing Andre

Brower, right, that opportunity. Like, NYPD Blue, like, first of all, I hear cops are back. All of a sudden, like, people super into cops, right? Like, prosecutors, that's cool. So, like, this is a good moment to celebrate that. But seriously, like, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, like, these shows were benchmarks of the TV experience. And I don't see what is so hard. I mean, getting things, making things good is hard.

But carving out a little space and being like, okay, it's a precinct in New York now. Yeah. Let's fill it. I'm going to push back on this a little bit. What's the problem? Nobody watches terrestrial television. I'm not saying... So structurally, I think that these episodes change.

I was thinking about this a lot with Bad Monkey. You know, Bad Monkey should be a fleet of foot episodic show. Yes. That's like a mystery that goes on and on or whatever. I appreciate it's being adapted from a novel. It's a limited series, presumably. You know, it's got its job that it's doing. But tonally, right?

Like, Bad Monkey is the kind of thing that should work for lots of different networks. And it should be like a... I don't even know if this is the best example. But my point is more like the mechanics of the way the stories are told now is now fully integrated with the way we watch television, which is on these streaming services. I'd be very interested to look at homicide and be like, do I want to watch a second episode of homicide right now after watching one? Whereas that is actually the goal of most television now is to be like, keep cranking these out. But I think that we're not too far removed from successful experiences like Justified, which had like a big bad or a big case of the season. but was a little bit chiller in its week-to-week demands, right?

Like, you understood the premise of it. So when I say bring back NYPD Blue or even a show that I've championed before, I have no idea how it's age, but I remember really loving it. The show Once and Again, which was like a classic, like Edswick. Like, it's just a family and stuff's going on. And, hey, Eric Stoltz, like, that kind of vibe. Yeah. I'd be very curious what it would mean in this current climate to, like, put our best minds on it

and say like, okay, so it's not 24 episodes a year, potentially forever, but we're going to work within a framework of 12 episodes, and we want it to be, you know, the way we were talking about industry at the beginning of the show, which is just like this season is about one thing, but as much as anything else, it's about where are these people now after the sum total of their experiences? So it feels, I guess all this is leading to a point, which is I think we're kind of at a weirdly unsustainable moment in TV development,

where half of the people are saying, bring back the 90s, give me a hospital show. But at the same time, these same executives are saying, you better sell me with something fucking wild on page one or else I'm not even going to read the script, let alone develop it, let alone make it. So how can you have NYPD Blue and Jaws at the same time? The two hospital shows that are coming to streaming networks in the near midterm future. So there's the pit on Max or on HBO, which is the Noah Wiley, John Wells, hospital show. Let's bring back ER.

And then there is a Netflix hospital show, I think, called Trauma Center or something like Miami, something. It's something basically where it's a Netflix like ER show, right? And both of those shows, I think, are going to carry some. It's called Pulse. Fingerprints of the platform that they're on. Like, I would imagine Pulse has a, you have to click next episode vibe to it. Yes. I don't know if we're going to find out if the paper.

lives or dies in that episode. Do you know what I mean? House had to do that. ER usually did that. Pulse might be like, oh my God, I have to click to next to find out if this guy makes it out of surgery. I mean, I think Pulse is one of the most interesting things to be checking for in the next six months or whatever, because it is the answer to the question that we keep referring to, which is all these services saying, what is ER, but also more specifically, what is ER for us? So Pulse was designed and greenlit and made to be Netflix's version of it, which is to your point. Yeah, something that is more demanding and relentless and grabs you in the way that Netflix programming needs to be for Netflix's underlying premise to succeed. Right.

But Pitt, I think, could have some ER bones, but might be more oriented around like a prestige storytelling engine rather than an episodic storytelling. telling engine or a streaming storytelling engine rather than an episodic one. I completely agree with you. I think that we broke the wheel. I don't know that we built a better one. But I think that the way in which these stories are now delivered technically, technologically, impacts the narrative structure of them. Don't you think, though, that like, because what I'm arguing for in many ways what

this entire podcast project has been arguing for in different ways over years is bring back a hang. Like, give me a show to hang with, not just a comp. But increasingly that became half hours, if not just outright comedies. But, like, law and order or SVU, which you engage with quite regularly, isn't that. Like, yes, over time, you know, you... It's the opposite of that. You like Benson or whatever. They've made it more of a soap as it has gone on, but the first 12 seasons of SVU are like,

here's this case. Every once in a while, Stabler or Benson's family gets brought into it. But for the most part, it's like, there's a dead body, and at the end we figured out who did it. Yeah, so it's weird that as we've, maybe we need more time to figure this out and articulate it more directly. Yeah, I don't even know if I did a good job of bringing a bad monkey in this, but yeah. No, but I think you are in the sense that what we're trying to wrap our arms around is the push-pull of what we miss in television and what we have, which is overlapping networks being like, we want to bring a certain kind of engagement back, but we have to work within the parameters of the way the business has changed and what our streaming priorities are. And those two questions, or if it is ultimately just one question, that is very much in flux still. Yeah, I think a good example would be a comparing contrast between West Wing and House of Cards,

which is actually like that now both of those things feel very dated in some ways. But the way West Wing had these standout, standalone episodes while having undercurrents of narrative that went across the season, like, is Bartlett going to be healthy? Is Bartlett going to run again? Yada, yada. Then they would have also, like, there's been a terrorist incident. There's been an attack on Zoh's Always Life. if there's been this. Like, they had these sort of,

they balanced that really well in terms of episodic and serialized. Then you get to house of cards, which is the melodrama stretched out across an addictive 10-hour shape, you know? And that, I think, was a very formative and influential show in a lot of ways

because it really ushered Netflix into the consciousness in a lot of ways. Yeah, and the understanding rhythmically of what a Netflix show and what a streaming show needs to be to get you to keep mashing the next button. But all this is to say, Bad Monkey is the right example for this

because we haven't watched ahead. We're recording this. The third episode is probably up, but we haven't seen it yet. So we will cover more of that show. I'll be very curious how it develops because after watching two episodes, and we talked about it last week,

the serialized, this season is one case aspect of it was the least interesting part to me. You like the hanging out. I like the hanging out. And I wonder if Bill Lawrence's background making shows that are elite hangouts, whether they are the sitcoms he made or even to a degree Ted Lasso, if that can win out over time.

And that if the show is renewed, if it can settle into being that and what that might mean. Or if Vince Vaughn wants to spend six months of his year making one thing. I don't know. A lot of questions for us. Most of them revolving around Vince Vaughn. I think this is a great place to stop. What a great podcast. You think so?

We only restarted it 14 times. But I like Kaya's parts. I feel like it was a win. You were okay. You were good. No, you're fine. You're fine. I hope everybody's having a great summer. We will be back on Thursday. Probably remote. But... Well, we'll see. I will be in Philadelphia, but I will be communicating with you via computer. Or Kaya and I could just go.

I feel like you are now really weird about in person, and you don't ever want to zoom with me. I like zooming with you. I'm a little scarred from the Paris Zoom. Yeah, I don't know what he's scarred. I wasn't able to ever share how I felt about the succession finale. Imagine how we felt. We were looking at your smiling face. It's okay, Chris. You're good. And I had created this technical marvel where I was calling in from the streets of Paris. What's more succession than that? It's a great point.

And nobody knows what I think. Still. I know. You should never go on the record about it. All right. We'll talk to you guys soon. Keep them guessing.