The Watch - Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Kanye’s Attempts at Culture As Events | The Watch (Ep. 267)

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald unpack the cultural significance of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s surprise album drop, as well as the continuous run of Kanye-related projects each week (9:00). Later, they discuss HBO’s 'Succession' (27:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch. A lot of different things on today's episode. Andy and I talked about the release of the new Beyonce and Jay-Z record and a bunch of the Kanye-produced stuff that's come out. We call them the Wyoming Records over the last few weeks. And the idea of culture as events. So basically, whether it's sports or music or movies or TV, how are people trying to eventize moments in culture?

And we talked about that because of the World Cup, but also because of the political climate of the world. world right now and how that kind of balances itself out. We also talked about what is my favorite show on TV right now, succession in the second half of the podcast. And Andy had some notes on that. But if you are on the fence about this show, I would highly recommend sticking around for the third and next week's fourth episode because I think it's some of the strongest stuff I've seen on TV this year. A lot of great stuff on The Ringer this week. Obviously, we responded in full to the Carter's record, great pieces from Rob Harvilla and Lindsay Zolads. There's also a lot of great

stuff on the World Cup, the NBA draft. Everything you need is on the ringer.com. Please check out the Westworld, the recapables with Shoemaker, Hyfitz, and Sean Fennessee this week if you want to catch up on all the Westworld stuff. And stick around this week. We will be going live on Thursday night as a sort of watch along with the NBA draft. And I'll be hosting that along with a bunch of the people from the ringer. So without further ado, let's get into the watch. to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. I'm Editor at the Ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, The Watch's own Chuckie Lozano. It's Andy Greenwald. You just turned it on for the cameras. I love it. Well, I see.

You know what this is about? It's about conservation. Don't tell Scott Pruitt that. But it's all about conservation. He wouldn't be interested. And so when I'm with you personally, I'm going to give you like 18%. Maybe 36%.

And then when I get in front of the cameras, and the mics. It's go time. You are a red light player. You are amazing. Andy, it's Monday. It's the end of a long weekend of sport for me. But we're going to talk a little bit about succession later.

We're also going to talk about, we're going to talk a little bit about this Carter's record. Event albums in general. Yeah, but I want to talk a little bit about the last few weeks of Wyoming records, as you've described them, versus some of our past experiences with hot summers of rap and pop music. We were going to maybe talk about Westworld, but I think we might punt that to Thursday because...

We could keep punting. Like, we could just punt that right out of the stadium. Are you keeping up with, like, what... Do you read Twitter about it? Yes. You know, I was very intrigued by the episode that was supposed to be really good. The last week's one.

The ghost nation's one. So intrigued. Yeah. I almost watched it. And then I was, you know, then I was going to watch last night. And then I basically texted you and I said, do I have to do this? I think I said, are you going to do this or not? And you said, would rather not.

And here we are. Just a nice night on the couch watching. But that's okay, because I think that the people, I want to, rather than say like reasons why maybe we don't like something, I think the people come to us for why we do like stuff. Sure. So are we going to talk about Mexico's one-nil victory? Let's do it. So succession a little bit later.

But first, you know, this is, this has been. a fun weekend for me because I don't know if you've ever read any books by this guy named Dan Jenkins. I don't think so. Very crotchety old sports writer now, but wrote North Dallas 40 and was sort of one of the great Sports Illustrated sports magazine columnists and was really, he has a book that came out, I think in the late 80s, but it might have been in the early 90s called You Gotta Play Hurd. And it's about a guy who is basically his his is not Davel Gang. And what is it when you have like your stand-in, your author-author stand-in? Your avatar?

There you go. And it's basically about a year in the life of this sports columnist, but he's living high off the land. Even though in the book there's a lot of like budget cuts at the magazine, it doesn't stop him from basically living at the four seasons all over the globe, doing a year in sports. So he'll go to, he went, he goes to like Game 7 in the NBA finals, and then he goes to like the Olympics.

This book sounds great. And he goes like the Rose Bowl, then he goes to the World. World Series. It's a great, great book. It probably is a little bit retrograde and its attitudes towards women. And towards expense accounts, apparently. I haven't read it in a very long time, but it's always stuck with me. And the reason why I bring it up is because this weekend is actually was a real you got to play Hurt weekend. Because it was like the World Cup and the U.S. Open were very, we're all gathering. I mean, obviously I'm a huge soccer fan, but it just was like everybody was sort of gathering around the tube to check out these not one-off events, but these special

in sports. So it was kind of very enjoyable this weekend with, especially Mexico. The Mexico match was amazing. But also even some of the stuff that happened Saturday at the U.S. Open because, I don't know if you know, but Phil Nicholson made it full of himself. I heard that. Yeah. Which is, I don't think I've, I mean, I do it all the time where I stop my ball, but then I'm like, you know, that's a 10. So, so what happened was he took, this is one of the most established golfers in the world. Probably a top 15 all-time golf. And he, he took, He took a shot and then just gave it a little extra. So the greens were very dry, baked greens.

This is, that sounds like marijuana talk. What does that mean? Basically, you couldn't stop the ball. Like if you hit it and it got on a down slope, it just like rolled all the way. Because the greens were essentially like pavement. Okay. There was no grip to the greens. Wow.

And Phil was out there. He was playing very poorly. He was playing with a man named Beef. His name, the other guy's name is Beef Johnson. That's for real. Yeah, it's his nickname, but everybody calls him beef. And Phil was just completely, like, crashing and burning. Yeah.

And he putted the ball, and it went past the hole, and you could see that it was going to roll down the hill all the way back, and he was going to have to chip it back up, and then that might go the too far. So instead of going through all that, he just ran over to the ball and hit it back up the hill. Oh. And was assessed a two-stroke penalty,

and for a while, everybody was like, we're going to disqualify him from the tournament, but he didn't. And he was not exactly, he was a little bit like, if you didn't like that, I'm sorry, but also toughen up. Can I say something? Yeah, sure. That's kind of like me on Twitter these days.

How so? I've definitely sometimes, like, loaded up the tweet canon with some real thoughts about our country's situation and behavior at the border. Uh-huh. And I stop it before it rolls downhill. You know what I mean? Like, actually, I know nothing about golf and nor do I care about it. But I kind of respect a dude who's just seize the future and sees what's coming.

And it's like, nope. He was like, I'm going to be out here for another 11 minutes chipping up and down on the screen. that's basically about as hard as like a blacktop. Meanwhile, beef is just rolling on. Laughing, laughing. Beef was just like, I can't believe this is happening. I can relate to this on an emotional level. I have to say, I'm surprised by that.

That's the thing I like about golf is that it is the human condition on display times a thousand. It's like everything that you are comes out. If you're competitive, if you're just there for like the giggles, like if you're just, if you're trying to be better, if you don't like pressure situations, if you do like pressure situations, And the guy who won is this dude named Brooks Kepka, who's essentially like golf is corny. Oh.

Like golf is for losers. So he's my avatar. No, he's like, he's like six foot five. He has veneers and he looks like he could bench press both of us with one arm. And like the only reason why he hasn't won like multiple majors is because he like tore the tendon off his wrist, probably from curling. Is this, this is not beef? No, this is Brooks. Okay.

And he won, but his whole vibe is kind of like, this is for suckers. like I'd much rather be playing baseball. Wow. Yeah. I'm into sport envy. Like if you think you're playing the wrong sport. Yes, me too. I love that.

That's fascinating. It's interesting to talk about this stuff for me also because we have long history in this podcast of having a very complicated relationship or just a committed relationship to shared spectacle. We want to watch things with people. We want to share these things with people. And we want, you know, we miss constantly. like the two old cranks that we've become the time when we were all watching the same shows together.

I definitely want to be watching England instead of making this podcast right now. Well, we have an alert system. I believe members... Snowden is going to do a series of English-friendly signals if England scores. Members of the social staff just in the same room as us will wear their beef heater caps.

They're not caps they're large. Anyway, but if we could pivot just for a moment to the music stuff because I think that's where it's most relevant because it seems like we have been doing this podcast for as long as there have been these event albums and surprise albums. That's a good point, have we? More, I mean, we have been podcasting through the advent of this era. Yeah.

And it's been interesting to watch it unfold this year, particularly with Kanye's Wyoming Records and now this total surprise release of the Carter's this weekend. Because I am now completely split. I get it. I understand why it is important from a marketing and disruption, which I hate even saying perspective, to unveil your records like this. You have, I mean, music is not central to the cultural conversation in the way that it once was. Certainly, the album release is not central the way it once was. You have to grab hold of the zeitgeist with whatever you possibly can and try to basically wrestle Twitter and everything else into submission to pay attention to you. Yes. I get that. And they face a similar problem that we talked about with

Glover, with Donald Glover last week or two weeks ago, where they are not only competing with the other new releases, but they were competing with every piece of music ever released because of the way we can listen to music now. We can change our minds midstream and listen to the song that we'd rather be listening to or the song that inspired the song that we're listening to. So I get all that, but I think that so far, and obviously some of these records are very new, but they are asking to be judged entire. I mean, they are being almost constructed for the cycle of instant think piece, instant chartical that we live in. And I really do think the spectacle has wildly outstrip the content. And I don't even know if that matters this time around this year. We can go through these records

because we've skipped talking about a bunch of them. And I think that's kind of telling in and of itself. But the Carter's record, to me, more than anything else, and I've only listened to it briefly because, listen, shouts to Doug, I'm not going through this title drama again. Yeah. I am not.

So that means, everybody knows what that means. That means I've had some... By all accounts, Doug pushed the right button. He did. But this, everybody understands

that what I'm saying here is based on a couple YouTube spins over the weekend and some just deep, deep Spotify diving in the two and a half hours that I've been awake before having to do everything

I had to do today. It really just seems like a, it is a marketing statement. It is a fascinating cultural document. And honestly, I felt this way kind of about lemonade too. Like, I think that these are, I think that what they are expressing here about their marriage is, you know, of, I guess, of artistic value considering that they've made this trilogy about the state of their union. I think they're mining what they have. I think they're doing some forward-thinking stuff with the choreography, with the imagery, by taking over the Louvre. But I don't

really care about their bank statements. I'm happy, they're happy. Sure. There is something, I'm finding this. Maybe this is a similar argument that one could make about a TV show, which is that, you know, you put the conflict in, and that makes a good show. But the show about how everyone's doing fine, I mean, it's Jim and Pam in the last three seasons of the office. It's like, we're glad they're fine, but you don't need to make a TV show about them anymore. I think I've resisted, like, commenting on some of these records because I've probably arrived at the point in my life where I understand fully that my opinion about these records has no bearing on them. Fair. And I think I, whether that was hubris or not, like 10 years ago,

just felt like much more like, I have a certain set of criteria that these records need to meet and you are deviating from this and hence you've failed or you've satisfied this and hence you succeeded. So I think that now I'm a little bit more like, this is what happens to people as they get older. It's like pop music, with rare exception, you just realize that pop music is targeted towards a completely younger demographic than you are.

Well, Jay Stylist is doing good work here. I thought Lindsay Zolad's piece that came on the ringer today was great, just reframing the relationship as Beyonce as the alpha in the relationship and what it says about her musically on the record, how she's doing basically, she's behaving on the record like a rapper

and Jay Z's behaving like an R&B singer because he's doing the emotional lifting on it while she's just stunting. that's all fine. That's good. But musically, I'm, if you divorce it from the spectacle, if you don't watch the video, I don't know what's really, I don't know what's there. I mean, but now they have new songs to play on their concerts that they're doing.

That's the purpose of it. The Wyoming stuff, we got to run through for a minute, aka the Kanye Records. One of the reasons we've avoided this, I'll say one of the reasons I've avoided this, is because the Kanye record is ass. Right. It's terrible.

it's embarrassing, I think, and it's very, it's almost nice that people have propped it up and tried to pretend that one could actually like bleed if you put your hand on a stove, but yo, you can't. It would be pretty tricky to do it. And it's, the whole run has been

mostly frustrating because it was, again, like he set this deadline for himself and then threw stuff out there. Well, by all accounts also had a record done that he then scrapped and redid in two weeks, right? which is unfortunate. The Daytona, I think, is the album or co-album of the year.

I think it's incredible. The other one being Father John? You're so cruel about that. No, our homies rolling Blackouts, man. That Father John record is the shit. Really, though? Yeah. Come on now.

Come on. The Pusher record is the best one because it's the most considered, right? It's unfair almost that it came first because it feels like it was actually worked on and considered as a statement. Kidsy Ghost record, I like a lot. I like a lot because the title track, Kanye and Cuddy,

are basically doing the massive attack flow. Yeah. Like Carmacoma style. Sure. Which, you know, that is a very small, small group of people who have been waiting for to hear that. What did you think of the Nass record? Sorry, I just fell asleep.

What? The Nause record, the Nause record is a missed opportunity, I feel like. I think the Slick sample track is good. But what did you think of it? I mean, I just feel like, again, if you told me it's the spectacle versus the substance here. And I'm not mad at spectacle. We live in a spectacle world right now.

And having a Nas listening party for a seven-track record produced by Kanye under the Brooklyn Bridge like they did last week. And everyone's, you know, tweeting, putting their phones up being like, this is classic Nas. This is back to that illmatic shit. Like we're finally getting him. We're finally getting the bars over the beats that we've been promised. And then, like sometimes Saturday afternoon, it sort of drew. ribbles onto Spotify. Right.

And you're like, ugh, what is it? What is it? Well, this goes back to the event. This goes back to this idea of us all gathered around some sort of like bright and shining object and freaking out about it. One of the probably defining cultural moments in,

and there's been a few, but in our friendship, the one that we always go back to and talk about and reference. And it was probably... Was it the time we drove to Camden to buy a copy of Wu-Tang Forever? That was pretty good. That was a good day. That was pretty good.

And you want to talk about people. standing out of the Brooklyn Bridge with their phones out. That was definitely the late 90s version of that for us. That was a real, like, early odds version of that. Yeah. But it was Good Fridays, which was this, what was that, the summer of 2007? No, no, no. Good Fridays was leading up to fantasy, which came out in 10.

Okay, so it's the summer of 10. And it was, you know, a series of releases that were singles that would drop on Fridays on the Internet. and when I say the internet, I do mean like there would be an initial drop and then you would find like a Z share link that had CDQ with CD quality. There was a little like quick time box on Kanye West.com

on Friday afternoisse. Yeah. And so it was, it felt like it was building up to something. It actually felt like there was being groundwork laid to get somewhere. And what that somewhere was was Twisted Fantasy, which remains my favorite Kanye record. But that felt like,

an actual plan and an actual experience rather than this is one of 67 things that I'm doing and I'm just going to kind of give you the sensation of a Kanye West record and even some of the quote unquote best parts on Ye and the best parts on ghosts and the best parts on Nas are these coming attractions for things that never happen. but there'll be like a five-second thing

where you're like, oh my God, here, this is what's about to happen. And then it doesn't. You know what I mean? And then whether it's lyrically kind of facile or it's just sort of empty in terms of its ideas or it feels like it's a sketch

rather than a finished painting. And I'm all for like a punkish DIY rendering of a person's creative process. But this just feels way more about the wristbands you have to get to get to the the listening session rather than what they're playing

at the listening session. Now, another question that I have to ask is this also, we're talking specifically about records that people listen to the show could take or leave, probably. Maybe some people are into it, some people aren't. But we could plug TV shows

into the same conversation. Yes. And I think a bigger question that I know neither of us really wants to talk about, but it's also sort of, it's influencing all of our cultural appreciation at the moment

is the state of the world. And do these things just feel, is it that someone like Kanye who a few years ago mastered the narrative and storytelling of all of it? Because the thing about Good Fridays leading into fantasy, as you said, it was that we were hearing for months that who's getting invited to Hawaii? Pete Rock is there and Riza is there. So what would Mob Deep do? What would Mob Deep do written over the console? And then we started to get drips and drabs of it. And we just hear, oh, these people really were in the same room. and that's incredible to imagine

what that could possibly be like and we were along for the ride. Did he lose the plot? Because clearly he did in some ways in his own personal life and maybe even with his mental health. But is he too, he's our age.

So has he lost the ability to marshal that kind of, that kind of compelling long form, literally long form storytelling because he's too old to understand how the delivery

systems work these days, or is all of this just basically backburner where it's like, I mean, Lindsay Zolads expressed this really well in her piece about the Carter's, which is saying the thing that she found most hopeful about the Everything is Love album is that the whole album is about how they are wealthy enough to make a dynasty that their children are safe now. They have made a better world. And she's saying something I agree with, if you can think that there's a better world around the corner, then this is music I want to listen to right now. Sure.

It doesn't feel like it. but a lot of these things feel deeply divorced from the larger concerns. And so, you know, as someone who's been a fan of Kanye West for as long as he's been making music, I do actually still care about him and his mental health and his creative process as a person. I'm engaged with him in his music making. But the level of projected narcissism that's coming at us and a record about how, like, I just need to hurt myself to feel things, people are getting hurt right now, you know, in the world. And I'm having trouble engaging with it.

And frankly, you know, that's another reason why I just, I actually thought going into the season of Westworld that I would be able to dip in and out. Because you wanted the escape. Yeah, or I was like, I'm curious about the storytelling they're doing or maybe, but the idea of frittering away time in a maze doesn't feel productive to me. You know, it doesn't feel distracting. It feels indulgent and kind of aggravating. Now, the aggravation part of all this, that feels like responding to the frequency that the world is very important. vibrating on right now. And I don't remember being so annoyed. It's not Kanye's job to be George Bush doesn't care about black people guy forever. Sure. And it's not the Carter's job to

not do the things that they want to do artistically and aesthetically because they happen to come out on a weekend where it felt like the world was falling apart. Because frankly, if you look at Twitter long enough, it always feels like the world is falling apart. And it's important. I feel like it's tough to be selective about the things that are out of step with that. I agree with this. Because like I just opened up this podcast talking about golf. You know what I mean? Like so it's, we all, we all need our escapes. And I, but I take that to heart, you know what I mean? Where it's like, if you want to be real about some of the things that are happening in this world, we should probably all stop what we're doing and dedicate our lives to making a more just existence

for everybody instead of building up this stuff where it's like, hey, this is an okay distraction. but this is like a garish distraction. And it's like, I'm going to go see Day of the Soldado. That's probably like counterproductive for the world that we live in right now. It's a really complicated conversation. I thought about that a lot this weekend because I think what happens is that

if you open yourself up to the stream of information, it's very difficult to modulate your emotional state. You know? And I think that was the, you know, Kanye's last couple of months have been a real like, this is the darkest timeline of that. You know what I mean? This is a guy who has thrown himself into the 24-hour, seven days a week.

Everything is on you celebrity moment. And really, like, gotten tripped up in there a lot. And I, you know, whether or not that's because his concept of self is so shattered by living in this celebrity microscope or not, I can't really speculate. But I do find it to be, these records and specifically, yay, is kind of in a weird way emblematic of right now.

It's distracted. It's not particularly well thought out. It's self-indulgent. It's pain, but it's also like the pain doesn't have a direction, you know? It kind of feels like, here's, I think this is pain, so I'm just going to say it like this.

Like, I don't know, it's almost difficult to listen to, frankly. I don't think I'll be revisiting it anytime soon, nor will I really ever, if times are ever better, going to go back to it as an escape from anything else. I think, I think that's very well said, and I think you actually turn my head around, because I think that one of the things that I'm responding to is the fact that the Wyoming records, and particularly the Carter's, are successfully pitched at the frequency of the times in that the Carter record, the Carter's record is not designed to just be a record you listen to. It is designed to have been dropped it, to be

gifted from on high to us. It's an experience. It's a celebration. It's a complete and total almost like assassin like execution of image and sound. You know what I mean? Like I think that they knew exactly what they were doing. And I think that there is also a degree to which they don't really give a shit if you like it or not. Because if they did, they wouldn't have put it up Saturday afternoon on a music service that not that many people use. Yeah, it's true. It's true. And you mentioned a moment ago what Donald Glover said to us about competing with all media. at the same time. The other thing about it,

the other thing that he reinforced when we spoke to him that I really appreciated was how important it was to him that no one knew what Teddy Perkins was before it aired and no one knew

what it was after it aired. They still don't really get into it, yeah. And I think it's a really cany understanding of people's sensibilities and people's brains at this moment to actually give them something that people no longer

think that they want, which is some element of privacy and mystery. Sure. And let it be. There's code. And I think that I'm... And you can try to decode it, but it's a lot of the imagery and a lot of the things

they're doing, they're saying like, here, this was all precise and this was all thought and pre-planned, but you have to do the work to figure it out. Yes. And I think that one of the things that I have trouble articulating about my difficulty with West's world is that it seems to be designed by people who are very much in, on the larger machine, which is not to say that Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy are actually posting stuff on Reddit

or that they're pitching it to Reddit. They're making the show that motivates them to make the show. They're following their own muse. But it does feel pitched at a frequency that is designed to excite the, you know, five minutes later, here's what I think it is. Sure. I solved it.

And I think that I'm bumping up against that at this particular moment. And I think, I know we'll take a break, but this larger conversation, is definitely an interesting way to look at Succession, which is a show that we're both interested in, that we are both watching on Sunday night, and feels, to me anyway,

feels sort of like cordoned off from so much of this. And I can't tell if that's, in the case of Succession, I can't tell if it's a plus or a minus, and I'm eager to have you talk me through it. All right, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor and get into Succession. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Hotel Tonight. If you love scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels,

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to see where I should go. I let Hotel Tonight decide. Get the Hotel Tonight app now to start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels. That's Hotel Tonight, the only booking app you need. All right, Andy, we are back. I think Succession is the best thing on television right now, but that's sort of an intercontinental belt right now. It's not a real, you know, world championship belt. It's we're kind of in an in-between time. I keep saying that, you know, I keep saying that we're in an in-between time.

I don't know if we're ever going to be back. What's on the other side of? Quote-unquote high season? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we're waiting for, I don't know what we're waiting for. I'm waiting for Glow Season 2 next week. I don't know if that's going to shift the paradigms. That comes back next week.

week. Yeah, man. Wow. Yeah, they keep it moving. Okay. Well, we'll definitely be getting to that. But I think that succession is in a lot of ways my Daytona on television. Okay.

The reason why I like Daytona and music is because it just feels incredibly precise. It's got its walls and it's got its boundaries and it works within those walls and boundaries and creates the best possible space it can given the self-imposed. formal limitations it puts on it. Succession is just a TV show. I think a lot of people want TV shows to be a lot of different things right now, but everything from the cutaways

to a foggy New York skyline, to the recurring motifs in the music, to the caliber and the pitch of all the performances, which I think in the pilot episode are all over the map, but then have increasingly gotten more and more on point. And the formal innovation that I think Succession makes, aside from the fact that

it's unclear as to whether or not it thinks it's a comedy or a drama which I find kind of fascinating. I respect that. It has completely sidestepped a conversation that I think has dominated television for a few too many years now, which is, are these people likable or not?

It's besides the point. It is beside the point. It is beside the point as to whether or not you would want to get a beer with Kendall or Roman or Logan or whoever, these people, or whether or not. and the characters in the show itself, whereas I feel like it's been a trope of so many, especially the trailers for shows, because they must have some market research that says

people need to have this addressed is, are we bad people that did a bad thing? I'm not a bad man. I'm a bad man and you shouldn't be with me. I'm a good man. It's none of that shit. These people are all barnacles. They are all awful, awful people. but they are somehow interesting.

And I think interesting is still a valuable thing. And I don't think that if you find them interesting, it is somehow a referendum on what you value in the world. Sure. So if you find Roman masturbating into the New York skyline from a 44th floor window or something... If you find that relatable. I don't mean, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't have to be relatable. I know. I think it's just like watching these people who are supposed to be the princes and princesses of a city are, and this is the same as it ever was. It's the same as, I'm not comparing to Shakespeare, but it's, these are Henry the fourth part twos of like these fucking rich assholes who have always had this money and are now confronted with the limitations of their own intelligence or the limitations of their own position in the world and are scratching to make sure that they can continue their lifeline to the kind of power and

money they wanted. And it's actually really funny. And I think the performances are excellent. I think I really, like, I'm like really keyed in on Jeremy Strong. I haven't really seen a character like Kendall before who was at once like one person when he walks into a meeting room and another person when he's like in private and is obviously like they're not laying it on too thick with the demons thing in the third episode. He is confronted with that a little bit. But it doesn't, it doesn't have a moment of crisis. I'm sure it is. But I don't know. I find a lot to like about this show. And I think that the third episode, and honestly, not to spoil anything, but the next week's episode are the strongest bits of television that I've seen in a while.

I love your enthusiasm for the show. And I find myself agreeing with almost everything you're saying, except there's one place I just can't quite get to, which is I still don't think I care. And caring is a very difficult thing to parse with television. And again and again, I come back to this idea of how we're choosing to invest our time, to spend our time, the intimacy of our relationship to these shows, and then particularly the intimacy that we choose to invest in shows when episodes are 56 minutes, and there are many other things we could be doing with our time. I'm interested in the show, and I admire the show. I think it is doing, I think it's operating on a very high level, very early, which is extremely impressive. I think a lot of that has to do

with casting and the performance. I think you're totally right. I think that it has a correct point of view, as you said, which is that it can't quite tell if it's satire or if it's tragedy or drama, but on a deep level it understands that they're all the same thing. It does a effortless job of communicating something essential, which is what you said, which is that these people who are the princes or princesses of the city are just rich assholes with daddy issues and aren't necessarily better at, frankly, anything than your average person or television protagonist, they just have the access or the connections. And the Kendall character in particular is the heart and soul of the show, and Jeremy

Strong's performance is fascinating. And if people were to ask me if I'm recommending the show, I would recommend the show maybe solely for this performance that he's giving, because we rarely see an actor like him in a lead role like this. An actor in a lead role that is essentially doing a character part, but the camera follows only him. both the character and the actor seem completely, well, not the character,

but the way the character is pitched, so the writers who are writing him understand this, and the actor embraces it. Ego-free, because he's a doof half the time, you know, and the ballet that he's dancing on the tightrope of Donald Trump Jr. is so intentional, but artfully done. The show is rightfully compared to arrested development, and it's set up.

but what's interesting is he should be Michael Bluth but he's playing him as Job in the streets and George Michael in the sheets he's playing and he's like this like complete buffoon whenever he walks into a conference room and he's making like lifeboats and all this stuff about Volter

but also his weird hip-hop slang that he drops sometimes. But then when he's in private he's this sort of ineffectual kind of sensitive guy. Yeah and he's a guy who you have what's dooming him is that he actually does seem to have some self-awareness

unlike all the other people around him. There are also some great supporting performances. I mean, I'm here for Kieran Culkin and just about anything. It's a wonder that it took this long for him to get a regular series role. Maybe it's because he was waiting for a part like this.

Is it Sarah Snook as the Australian actress who plays Shiv, who's terrific? Sure. Matthew McFadden is just... Talk about like a Dionne Waiters Award, like a guy off the bench. Talk about this guy because I'm watching the show and there's a supporting character, Tom, who's just, again, you watch the pilot and you consider what this part could be,

where introduced to this character as basically a brown noser. The performance is so good that he's now the character I'm most interested in. Yeah, and he is coming off of a lovely, lovely performance in Howard's End as Mr. He's British, right? Yes, and he was in, I think he's in Mr. Darcy in the past in Pride and Prejudice. I know that Amanda thinks really highly of him and that. And I was sort of surprised to see him in this. I thought he was kind of like,

I thought he was a little bit bigger than that. Yeah, like elite. But he does such a good job of, again, it's like Kendall. It's not easily describable as to whether he's a sycophant and he's trying to marry into this money or whether he is actually like a really good soldier and is just dedicated and in love with Shiv and wants to be it. and then we'll be bizarrely cruel to other characters

to kind of make himself known as like, you may think I eat shit when it comes from these people, but you're going to eat my shit. Yeah, it's all punching down. Yes. But I, you know, I... And yet I'm fascinated by him, even though he's a bully, I guess. I'm going to keep watching,

but there is this thing that I imagine I'm not the only person who feels this way, that it just... Because, again, maybe it's where I... The baggage I'm bringing into my experience watching the show is making unfair requests of it. The show is responding creatively quite well to the moment, and it has chosen its aperture, it's choosing the story it wants to tell, it's doing so without tipping its hand one way or another, which is everything that I admire in art or in television. I think I'm bringing some baggage every time I sit down being like, I just, at this moment in time,

I don't fucking care about rich assholes. And I'm almost angry that I have to spend time with them and watch them dicker around over their stock price when I want them all to have their heads on Pikes, basically, just on an emotional level. What's interesting about it to me is that this show is arriving at a moment when I do think a lot of the people who watch these types of shows are more in the headspace for a Mr. Robot. And, you know, in terms of like a bottom-up show

as opposed to a top-down show, it's kind of interesting to me to consider, this is a thought exercise. You mean bottom-up in terms of, economic... Yeah. Mr. Robot is a show that is a... I mean, he's doing a lot of things.

And obviously, I'm biased and we're biased about Sam in general. But the thing about the hook of the first season is that they're going to tear down the 1%. Right. And then it has unforeseen circumstances, certainly. But the people, the 1% that they're going after,

at least through three seasons of it, are actually are masters of the universe. They actually are pulling off this show on a crazy Machiavellian level. Right. You know? what if the Roy family was in charge of ecore is what I'm saying.

I'm not trying to do a mash-up just because that's a show that's on my mind. I know what you mean. But I'd be very curious if it would ever even be possible to have a show that had its arms around both halves of the equation, meaning a show that gave time and space to the 99% and the concerns and the potential foibles of that. And then also allowed the masters of the universe they were railing against to be this deeply psychologically scarred and fucked up.

But it's actually kind of more, maybe that's just asking for everything. The fact that we have both shows, you put them together, it paints a picture of a world where everybody is screwing up in the box that they've ended up in. Yeah.

You know, and so it's almost like I kind of need the ballast of the other in my mind to approach this. That said, I just to tie it into the previous conversation, Succession Island feels far away, right now from the culture, doesn't it? I mean, is it because... Oh, like, do you mean, like, are people really into it? Are people watching the show?

I think people are going to catch up a little bit. This feels like something that people will get into over the first season, and then maybe the second season will be a little bit. So this is for people who are on the fence, like, there is going to be more of this. Yeah, it got renewed. And I think that, I think there's a lot of confidence about it by what I hear. But, you know, it's often compared to billions. Billions was another show that needed a season to figure out what it was.

and needed to know how long it was going to go before it could start using up its different plot points and pushing people forward. And Billions is now like this huge ensemble that has the confidence to allow different characters to shine brighter than its leads. And so I'd be curious to see how Succession adds people on as the seasons go by.

Just to wrap up, you like the show a lot, you're engaged with it, you're excited about it. Are you at a point right now? Are you considering shows on two different levels? Do you consider shows that you love because they are entertaining and they're engaging and you're having fun with them and they're fun to sit down and watch? And do you also have shows that you feel like are grabbing you and all? Is there a difference between a head and heart show for you in 2018? Or is this, are they one and the same?

Oh, I mean, are there any head and heart? Like shows that are both head and heart? Yeah. And is this an example of it? I guess that's what I'm asking because I, from what I gather, a lot of people love billions. And I definitely am going to go back and revisit it because it sounds fun because it seems like billions has embraced. being a heart show. Not that that diminishes it. I don't mean that pejoratively, but it's a show that entertains the fuck out of people. I think that by all accounts, the third season is a little bit more

of a head and a heart show. I think the second season is definitely a, a, aesthetic kind of, you know, jacuzzi, because you're just like, oh, they're drinking mictors and they're eating sushi, and this is, they're cursing and making this reference. And do I have a head and a heart show right now? I think the good fight was the closest thing to it. Um, but, for the most part now, I think it's a little bit more like shows are either an intellectual exercise or a comfort food. And so right now, succession is comfort? Or is it? I think it's the closest thing to both. I think it's the closest thing to both because I find that the characters, even though they are on the surface, very recognizable, are not like, are unlike people I've seen

before. It's interesting because even anecdotally, when I've talked to people and TV comes up, what are you watching? What are you talking about in the podcast? I've been, shrugging. I've been saying succession with a question mark at the end of it. And then, you know what people say, tend to say then? What about Barry? Did you watch Barry? I'm like, yeah, we did. And we loved it and we talked about it. And it seems like there's been

like an ellipses after Barry. You know, like that's the last show that grabbed people in a certain way. And killing Eve, of course, as well. And then we shouldn't like, there's been good stuff this year. There's been good stuff. There has not been as good stuff as last year. But it, I do wonder, and we're going to end on this, and clearly our heads are all over the place this week. And I think

It's interesting even to comment on that. Many people are watching and loving Handmaid's Tale, we tapped out. And anecdotally, I don't think we're alone in that. And I'll be curious to see in the weeks ahead as more and more stuff comes at us, what grabs that third rail and engages people head and heart going forward? Because I think Handmaid's Tale did last year. I'd be curious to know about it in the Facebook group, what people would say are there head shows, heart shows and head and hard shows.

Let's leave it at that and continue the conversation. All right. Talk to you Thursday. Great job, Bergensky.