The Watch - Just How Strong Is the Netflix Bump? Plus, ‘Loki’ Episode 3 and More ‘Lessons in Chemistry.’

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Chris and Andy discuss whether or not Netflix is still the place where people go to find something new to watch and how that affects the shows that get put on there (1:00). Then they talk about the third episodes of ‘Loki’ (25:43) and ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ (35:41). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, much like Lessons and Chemistry. He's got that dog in him. It's Andy Greenwald. Bark, bark, buddy. What's up, man? How are you? It's good to see you. It's Monday. We are going to talk a little bit about the third episode of Lessons and Chemistry.

We're going to talk about Loki, but we've got a wide-ranging disc. This could be a 25-minute podcast, honestly. Or two hours 55 minutes. To quote, the brother of Taylor Swift's, boyfriend, hungry dogs run faster. Yes. Which is relevant to our sports fandom as well as our favorite television show. Hungry dogs? Yeah. Do they run faster?

I mean, Jason, Kelsey, stress tested that theory? I have a couple thoughts here. None of them are interesting. Grew up with cats. So not a lot of like hand to paw. I did have a greyhound, though. You did briefly. Yeah.

That was a memorable time seeing you walk that fine stallion throughout park slope. I did, however, in middle school, read the Jack London book Call of the Wild. Yeah, yeah. And my memory of that is that hungry dogs, if you will, die quick. Isn't that a wolf, though? Yeah, but, you know, my younger daughter has a book that we all love called From Wolf to Woof, the evolution of dogs. And it's about the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl. Anyway, I don't know.

How do you feel? Do you think when you're hungrier? Do I run faster? towards the protein pack at Starbucks. I mean, I really am having a pretty weird relationship with food in Los Angeles right now. I don't know if you want to talk about it. But I'm like in a real depressive state when it comes to what I want to put in my body from this city. One of our most cherished takes at the moment is that most restaurants are bad, actually.

We've been working that one out in private. But are you saying even more than like dining out you're having trouble with your? I can't decide what to eat. I just can't decide what to eat. Okay. You know, like I just like, do I just get Jersey mics every day? Like, should I just do that? No, I'm going to answer that one.

No. Do you want to, why don't you just drug these questions to me? We have a chat window open 24-7. Because I find that if I'm not talking about the emotional stability of Jalen Hertz, you're only 50-50 interested. Andy, today I wanted to ask you a quick question before we got into our show breakdowns. And it comes from the what I'm hearing newsletter from Matt Bellany. I'm definitely just rating Matt here for content, although this was just a throwaway line in what is a great newsletter.

And you can listen to Matt, obviously, on the town podcast, on the Rear Podcast Network. He's a must-read for me and Andy. And Matt had this bit at the top of his newsletter. He was talking about Netflix getting separation from the rest of those streamers, that Netflix was essentially kind of like leaving everybody in the rear your mirror. Kind of like Tyreek Hill.

Well, that there was this great, there was the great correction, right? Like that Netflix was like suffering and kind of the bill was due and they, sure, because they, they didn't meet their target one quarter and their stock.

Earlier in the year, I feel like this. And, you know, like the strikes, I think were, whether the strikes were negatively impacting Netflix, I mean, they still are in terms of like,

I think stranger things will miss its, its window and stuff like that. But Matt just had this random line in this piece that I wanted to throw at you. He said, What is Becken or Loupin if they dropped on Peacock or Apple TV Plus? And he goes, niche. On Netflix, they get seen, they get currency. People go, they're looking for something new to watch.

Why do you think that is? Is it just the ubiquity? Yeah, but also look at suits. Suits, I believe, was on Peacock, right? I mean, it's a USA show. It then ended its run on Peacock and went to Netflix and is the most popular show of 2023. Yeah.

Yes, I think that it is, there's a reason why smart plugged in people like Matt pay attention and Lucas Shaw and other people who are more schooled in the ways of business than we are pay attention to things like stock prices and shareholder expectations and et cetera, et cetera. That actually is speaking to the overall health of a business. But I do think it matters, perhaps in a less tangible way, that Netflix for the majority of people of a certain generation, a generation that is now learning to pay their own membership fees to Netflix. Netflix is a word like Kleenex. It is the brand has become the thing. And I think it does matter. I think that if you polled people what their hierarchy of, when they sit down in front of their television set, do the interminable relationship straining

scroll through your various streaming services. Could you hear the pain in my voice? No, maybe I promise the good stuff on Paramount Place. We're trying. I know. Baggish, man. Come on. CTC.

The ubiquity of Netflix means that I think it is still the first place people look for something new. I just, I simply think that's the case. And I think that he's really right to single out those two shows. And maybe the flip side of it is our own experience recently where we feel, and I've talked to a few people just obviously small sample size about the gold. And I think the people I speak to who can be divided into two categories. One, I've never heard of it. Right. And thus, how dare you?

I thought you were my friend and listened to my podcast. Or two, what a great show. that absolutely doesn't matter in the conversation and put the gold on Netflix. Is that different? Maybe. Yeah, I think... To a degree.

There's a third person, and that person says, did you know there are two Englands? Yes. That may be our new listener, Neil Forsy. That's right. Who took Umbrage in a tweet with our accent work.

I think he was, he was, first of all, it was with me, because I'm the one who's... We both did some accents. I shade Australian when I do accent work. I don't know why.

I thought you shaded Irish. Anyway, we appreciated Neil listening and gently roasting us. You mentioned the small sample size. We have the smallest of sample sizes here. Because when you were outside of the studio for a minute, I asked Kai what she did this weekend, and she mentioned watching No Hard Feelings, the raunchy Jennifer Lawrence comedy from earlier this year,

which did a run in theaters, did fine, okay, underperformed, I guess, then was on Peacock for a period of time. I think it was VOD. Then it was on Peacock. And now it's on Netflix. I believe that was the trajectory of it. I'm not looking to kind of verify this. But what I am looking to Kai for is to ask her,

why is it after what, six, seven months of no hard feelings being in existence was Netflix the reason you pulled the trigger on watching this? First of all, I did not know who's on Peacock. As I've stated here previously, I'm number one peacock subscriber. And if I had known that it was on there, then I probably would have watched it on there. But I just saw, like, I don't know, tweets, saying that it was going to be on Netflix this weekend.

And I was like, you know what? Why not? I have Netflix. I do have Netflix. I have my own account now. She sure does. So I have to make use of it. Can I also say for people who are not watching this podcast on video,

which is all of you? Remember last night in the Eagles Dolphins game, which I'm determined to make us talk about one way or another when they snapped the ball to Tua on the losing team, the dolphins? And he just dropped it, but then almost like a machine just immediately. picked it up and through it and completed the pass. That's what Kaya just did, because you were setting her up to join in to the podcast for

quite some time. Yeah. And she was doing her work. She's taking notes. She did not flinch until the last possible second to lean over and turn on her mic. Well, that's because I surprised her with the peacock thing. Oh, yeah. That's true.

I was like a blindside blitz coming at her. You were Hassan Reddick in this? No, I was a peacock. Great. Great stuff. I'm fascinated by this conversation topic. Because, as you know, I'm a UX guy. I've always wanted to talk about the user experience

of these different platforms. I don't know that Netflix is that much more user-friendly than, well, I do know that it's more user-friendly than a lot of these. It's more user-friendly. But, I mean, is it anywhere near what Amazon Prime is dealing? I don't know. You know? You mean, in terms of the U.S.?

Yes? I think I speak for everyone. But I am very... It's like the two... The suggestion that Matt makes, which is like Beck and Leupin are somewhat buoyed by just being on Netflix and what would they be? I could totally see Beckham being on Apple TV Plus,

just like the Messi doc is. Yes. And the messy doc has largely been dismissed, you know, as kind of dull. And now part of that might be that Messi doesn't have as sensational an off-field story as Beckham. Right.

He's not a beekeeper. He's also still playing and is like actively still trying to sort of manage his career. He's not a beekeeper. He's not grilling a single mushroom to get the perfect flavor. And Lupin is a great. great example of something that Netflix has kind of corner the market on, which is the international genre show phenomenon, you know, like these, whether it's Squid Game, whether it's dark,

whether it's a panela, like distributing TV from all over the world and kind of shooting it through that Netflix lens so that people kind of give things a chance that they ordinarily wouldn't. Look, it's, you can see it across the board. Our friends at the Home Box Office Corporation have been licensing content to Netflix again. and seeing... As soon as that happens, I feel like I anecdotally start seeing

like tweets about insecure or tweets about Band of Brothers. Now, part of it is like... I do think part of it is like the McRibb phenomenon, which is like, oh, it's back. Sure. In the sense that like it feels... Being in a different place

where you're not looking for it is surprising. But friends... I would venture to guess to say that Friends and the Office did better on Netflix than they did on Pee-C-C-com. and Max. There is no doubt that they did.

And part of that might be because people watched them like three times during the pandemic and then finally they went to another service and they were like, yeah, I just watched friends twice. Partly. I also think you could if you worked at

Peacock or Max you would say, well, they matter more to us because we don't have other things to use your word to buoy our larger content offering. But yeah, Netflix is still the one. I mean, it's still number one. And people interact with it differently.

They binge it differently. They consider it to be part of the conversation differently because it is still, I think, the one that everybody has. You know, and we talk about the conversation coming out of the summer is like, well, how are these other services going to get their version of suits? Well, some of them have suits. Some of them had suits, yeah. Or versions of suits already.

Was it suits on Hulu or on Peacock? I am sure it was on Peacock at some point and may well be again when it reverts. But like... It might still be. It might still be is the greatest point. It's not just suits. It suits with Netflix's reach is the thing that makes the difference. And I think the Beckham point is really well made too because Beckham, I don't even need to say this is anecdotally.

I think it's pretty clear that it is a cultural and popular program, not just a well-made and interesting soccer dock. And you are correct to say that there is the tabloid angle to it and just the decades of fame that maybe allow it to have more market penetration or whatever. whatever. But my, my, I learned about the Beckham documentary when we were sitting outside of the studio here and we saw our friend Amanda Dobbins and she was asking you about the treble. Yep. And as we've said before, we were talking about last week, I don't think she's by nature a Premier League fan. No, I mean, they've definitely crossed over. I also think that that phenomenon of word of mouth, which can happen for the gold and it can happen for, um, telemarketers, and it can happen for so many shows. But somebody says to

somebody will you watch anything good these days and somebody's like, yeah, you know what you got to see is the gold. And then like, oh, and then I don't have Paramount Plus. And I'm not going to sign up for Paramount Plus because times are tight. I'm like, whatever. I'm not going to go get another. Yep. Starts out at $4 a month and now all of a sudden it's $15 a month somehow.

Especially because Yellowstone Season 2 is hitting CBS. That's right. And if it's a Netflix show, if I say to you, hey, like a bunch of people are talking about bodies, which is a show I've checked out over the weekend. I was heard I got to check that one out. Yeah, it's cool. It's very cool. That has our guy in it. Stephen Graham, right?

It does have Stephen Graham in it. And I find that I watch, I'm currently, like in the last couple weeks, Bodies, Beckham. I watched Love is Blind with my wife on an obscenely fast speed, actually, because you know, you can turn the dial up. Let's just say I'm not watching Love is Blind for the dialogue. You can watch it at like the way some people listen to podcasts? Wow. Yeah. That's depressing. Well, we just get to, Kai, do you watch Love is Blind?

I've watched past seasons, but I haven't watched this most recent season. This is the first season I watched. I've heard this season's not there. Very good. I don't think a lot of people made it to the altar compared to other seasons. I actually don't even know what it's about. Do you want me to tell you? I think I can... I get it.

That's cool. That's not the naked one, though. No, that's naked attraction. Cool. Yeah. There's one where it's like, there's an English one that's like... I don't think you can put that on TV. It's called bits and knobs or something?

It basically is, and it's like from the, it's like waist down, you know? Cool. Okay. Anyway, my point being is that the word of mouth thing works very well for Netflix, because if it has that ubiquity, you can just be like, oh, you know what you might like is like this Nordic crime show. So let me ask, let me turn this around and ask you a question then. If you were, and you may one day be programming Max and Peacock and Paramount Plus.

I would be in charge of all. Let's say you had one of those esteemed jobs. Yeah. What is the proper play? Because what I mean is, let's look at the Peacock thing, for example. Peacock has a fairly robust library due to just the NBC Universal stuff that's already in its catalog. Office, I think 30 Rock is on there. It was on Netflix.

The point is they have a lot of shows that we have loved and liked in the past. As Kai will attest, they have the Bravo library, which does drive viewership. And then how do they stand out? Now, let's take away for a second, just the financial disparity between them and, say, Apple or even Netflix. But is the correct play investing as much money as they are able to in flashy shows in the same way? Like, basically taking the AMC 15 years ago playbook and being like, we will say yes to the shows, these other places won't. And we may strike gold or at least we will draw attention. and that would be the case for Mrs. Davis or Pokerface,

which they outbid a lot of other places for. Is the move to do that, or is the move to just sort of settle back in the other direction and say, we will continue to steadily provide your suits, your Tina Fey comedies, or whatever else, and try to like stay at a simmer. You know what I mean? Because my point is, if Netflix is getting the flashiest things

and getting the eyeballs for it anyway, and it's able to elevate its catalog more than anyone, what is the correct way to defend against it or to go on the offensive if you're an underdog? Well, part of it is playing the IP wars, right? So you probably have whatever company you are, you have like, you know, it's, for instance, Paramount going back through its sort of archives

and saying, what can we do with fatal traction and what can we do with this and what can we do with that? Greece, Rise of the Pink Ladies. Exactly. That didn't work. I think that generally speaking, for the most part, like people are getting pretty fatigued with here is here is like this new coat of paint on an old house we thought you love this old house and it turns out people are like

I actually want to get new stuff and I still live in that house and actually I'm just looking at like my Netflix front page here I don't really see re varnished IP here you know like it's it's either like they do a really good job buying and then featuring old movies and you'll often see that where it's like all of a sudden the number two movie on Netflix is some, you know, some action film from 2005 or like pitch black or something like that. That's the modern day equivalent of channel flipping and finding something that you haven't seen

in a while halfway through. But that's indicative of media to people using Netflix as TV, like you said before, the Kleenex thing. As far as the other ones go, I don't know what those streamers do because one of the other things that Netflix does is it just seems like you never get to the bottom of Netflix. And you never finish. I have so many things saved on my list on Netflix. If I, if TV's stop tomorrow, I would have stuff to watch probably deep into next year just going through shows that I always meant to watch on Netflix. And I'm sure that the other streamers have a bunch of stuff I want to see. But there's something about like, it just seems like an unending amount. Because doesn't it sometimes feel like respectfully? Like when you look at Peacock, you're like,

there's like two things I want to see on here. And if I was a different kind of person, maybe I'd be like, every night I'm going to fall asleep to Colombo. But like I don't, you know? Right. Or are there people who rewatched? Top Chef or whatever. I mean, I love having it for Top Chef, but I don't really go backwards. I think there was an interesting point in what you just said, which is over the last few years as Disney entered into the streaming marketplace, but also as when Paramount and these other places were starting up, and we were getting all the headlines about all this great IP that was being pillaged, there was an argument that Netflix was potentially in trouble.

Because the one thing that it didn't have was any original. Yeah, they're going to have to make seven stranger things spinoffs. Exactly. What you're describing makes it sound like this has been turned into an advantage because they have to stay hungry. I mean, they can make 12 squid games if they want.

But like I'm just looking at like the shows that they have right now. Number one is bodies, which is like I said, pretty cool. Number two, fall the house to usher the last Mike Flanagan show that they're going to be making. Because he moved,

he's moving his deal somewhere else. Big mouth. I woke up a vampire. I guess that doesn't sound great. Neon, great British baking show. Is it a neon from our buddy show? Yeah. Great British Breaking Show, Beckham Pact of Silence. I don't know what that is.

Surviving Paradise. I don't know what that is. A creature which looks like there's a creature in it. So I've never heard of it like half of this stuff. I don't, I'm not seeing any like you know, they have made Witcher and a couple of other things into

IP, but I'm not seeing anything where it's just like, you guys loved Kramer versus Kramer, right? What about a show about the lawyer? You know? No, or Kramer versus Kramer versus Kramer where here's the pitch, okay, Dustin and Merrill are getting old, they're living separately and their

health is failing, and the kid has to be drawn back home and has to care for the ailing parents, but yes, there's some legal stuff involved. That's awesome. I definitely think caring for ailing parents is the thing I needed on top of the divorce trial. I think you and I would love to watch

show that an only child caring for aging parents. I just feel like that would really hit different. I love it. it is really, okay, there's a couple, we can move on in a second, but it is kind of interesting to me that at a time when the, when we were, we quoted her about this before, Nicole Clemens from Paramount, you know, gives a speech being like we need to make more populist entertainment.

We need to stop programming for the post. Give me a second here. Sure. You can call it up because I can just say my piece. There's something that it seems to be at a little bit cross purposes here. Because the issue isn't about coasts. I mean, we're talking to you, we're broadcasting live. from a city that is so outrageously expensive

that most people just simply can't afford to live and work here anymore. Okay, and so I think the issue of how much money people have to spend on this stuff is not necessarily a inland versus coastal argument. But you can program for the masses as much as you want, but the masses don't want to spend $1799 a month

on nine different things. That's still fundamentally the issue here. And, you know, did you know that Disney is like $20 a month now? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Remember when Disney, because this is a return to the old days when it would be like, good news, everyone. The Aristocats is on VHS for six weeks only for $11999.

We mentioned that our buddy, Che Serrano, has a show Neon that's on Netflix. Primo, his show for FreeVee, which is excellent. You put that on Netflix. That's a top 10 show. Just easy. It's a great show that has a very high ceiling for the potential audience for it. Right. FreeVee does not have the great highest show.

ceiling. Yeah, I mean, but free V is also where jury duty is. I wonder what jury duty would have been if it had been on Netflix. Now we end up back in that sort of cordoned off part of the argument where we're like, well, what is the value of each of these things to the place that has them, which is so divorced from the argument of what is the value of these things or how popular are these things or what the ceiling is for any of these things. But I think maybe the greatest example of what I'm trying to articulate is the current predicament of Max. And there's an article in IndyWire about this recently, and I think there may be more stories about this going forward, which is to say the early numbers, as much as we have numbers on the outside of these things,

suggests that maybe ending HBO Max and rebranding it as Max and welcoming in our friends from the Magnolia Network and et cetera, wasn't the gigantic cash boom that Warner Brothers discovery was hoping it would be. And I think the reason for that might be you have to drill down and be like, what is driving value for these services? Who is more likely at this point to spend, however? ever much money now that it's getting into real dollars at a time when people don't have as many of them,

what is driving the subscriptions to these services? Is it people who are like, fantastic, True Detective Season 4 can't miss it? Or people who are like, oh, the property brothers are going to do something else? Right, are those the same person? And are those the same person? And who's a more reliable way to, I mean,

wherever, I'm not trying to segregate the value of the customer, but the max- I'm somebody who watches both, but I, you know, or, you know, or can, does watch both on occasion? Have I been thinking about getting back into chopped? Yes, I have. But I think the max... Max has also suffered greatly from the strikes, right?

Like, I think the inability to promote the fact that they moved True Detective out of this... Yes. True Detective should have been on next week, I think. I think it was October, November. It was this zone. And so that's tough. That they didn't have a show, basically, after winning time is not the way that they planned it. And they didn't really...

I mean, winning time didn't really win. So they've kind of fumbled their showcase night for or just giving up on it. A really, really good litmus test for this would be if they immediately sold the two seasons of winning time to Netflix and to see what happened to winning time on Netflix. Yeah. And if that show became bigger or was like top 10 show or somehow had a second life or there was a new revival of interest in like continuing winning time on Netflix or something like that, I know that there's a bunch of studios and there's all sorts of reasons why they can't. can't happen. But that would be a really good, like, everything was lined up for that to be a big deal on HBO. Why was it not and why did it's, why could it hypothetically succeed on Netflix? This creates, you just suggested something that I think would be a really interesting podcast

exercise for us, which would be streaming service redraft. Winning time is a hit on Netflix. You don't change it creatively. It's an amazing idea. It is 100% a hit on Netflix and greenlit for two more seasons. And I'm not even saying it would be better. I'm not saying, change anything about the quality. That show does not work week to week as HBO's prestige show of the week. Here's the problem with streaming show redraft. Is there anything that goes the other way? Is there anything where it's like this thing that was on Netflix or this thing that was,

like, is there anything that goes like, oh, that would have been great on Peacock? And isn't that the problem? Yes, I think, yes, I think you could do it. Like, for example, if you have this in your, if anyone pauses right now, Pause the podcast. Count to 10. You will think of the show I'm about to mention, and then you can press play again. Glow would have finished its run and done better on a different network. Okay. Glow does not fit the prerogatives of Netflix at all. But if you put it on Peacock, honestly, if you put it on AMC Plus, if you put it on anything, I'm sure due to the size of the cast, it wasn't a cheap show, but it also was not nearly as expensive as some of the other shows that a lot of these networks are making. And I think it's a more complete series, and it finds a different, it finds, it finds not a different audience, but its current audience is a sustaining one on a different service.

Okay. Let's break there. And when we come back, we're going to talk about Loki and Lessons and Chemistry. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike. or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines.

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Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. All right, buddy. I love doing dealer's choice. Which one do you want to do first? I mean, I... I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to sequence this mixtape because I think we have more to say

about lessons and chemistry. I think we should do Loki first. Okay. Because I don't have a ton to say. I don't have a ton to say either and I don't know that the show does and I don't necessarily mean that as an insult. I just don't know that there's like a big idea

in Loki this season. I think that the first season has so much to recommend about it, so much to like about it. It was dazzling to look at. I think it had like a playfulness that of sophisticated playfulness that I don't think I had seen

really in Marvel films entertainment up until that point I thought that it was powered by like these really really really charming performances and went to some truly heady places that I was like this is actually like very exciting and weird and

who the hell is this he who remains guy and what how is it that he is in love with the variant of himself and like all these ideas that you just normally wouldn't get on your day to day like Hawkeyes chasing a guy through Times Square and there's not a huge

deviation this season and there are things to like about this season and so I'm by no means like am I like throwing this out the window but I just don't know whether I really care about like the origin story of Kang and going back

to find out how his like innocence was corrupted by I don't know various players and there's something off about this season. I don't know what it is. Yeah. A couple things. Michael Waldron tell us how you really feel challenge. Our lines are open. We will respect your anonymity. We will not report. But I just fascinated to know because, Chris, this season is a catastrophe.

You think so. This show has entered the Obi-1 zone. Are you fucking serious? This show, if you could hold it, in your hands, you'd have to wring it out to get all of the flops wet and you could fill buckets. I am stunned. I was wondering why you were giving me that look while. I was like, there's a lot to recommend

about this show. I am stunned by the profound emptiness at the heart of this thing. And I actually would defy any member of the cast to sincerely

get in front of a microphone and respect SAG rules, so don't get in front of a microphone. Respect the strike. And say, will you, what's your, will you be dressing as a Renslayer for Halloween?

I thought it was Ravona. Well, her last name was Rensselaer. But she says, Miss Ravon, look, nothing makes sense. What is any character's motivation

for what they are doing? The show is a hastily strung together sequence of nonsense chases, the purpose of which is only to generate the next nonsense. chase. People come crashing in with green swords and green exploding magic to say, no, actually it's this. Having a cartoon clock in the first season was a charming bit of whimsy. Embueing the charming cartoon clock with a potentially homicidal love for its evil creator

is madness. It is so desperate to find a reason for this top to keep spinning. I mean, you know, we love to do this when shows reveal what they are within themselves. And this show is a charlatan with a lot of whirring lights and machinery that signifies nothing. I will say that there, do you remember that? You don't remember because you didn't watch the show. There was a, on how I met your mother, there was this very funny episode about the glass shattering moment when you're in a relationship. When you find out like your significant other chews too loud and you can never unhear it and it's kind of like shattered the like illusion that you have. And that happens with shows. There is a moment on shows sometimes where you realize, oh, only two minutes of this episode really matter.

And I'm not being nasty just towards MCU. Like that happened for me on Ozark, late in the run of Ozark. I was like, oh, no. Like, this is just him driving back and forth across the lake to have conversations he could have on text. And then at the end of the episode, some cliffhanger happens. So I feel compelled to start the next one. And even though there are good performances in both shows or whatever, you just run out of narrative thread maybe or you keep pushing things off so that they can be executed at later dates.

And you just realize, oh, like this 45, 52 minute thing I'm watching, unless I'm really into the atmosphere, I'm really into the dialogue, I'm really into the performances. There's really not a reason why you can't watch this thing like with your eye on your phone. And I kind of sometimes feel like they hope you are doing that with Loki because there is so much just like we got to go over here to do this because otherwise this will happen. And Kiwi Kuan is doing a great job selling. But what a bunch of shit he has to say. You know, like every time they cut back to him, he's just like, the blinds won't close. And we need this guy who's stuck in time and being chased by this person. We need his temporal aura to fix

our star loom. Yeah. Wow, guys. Really? I was glad that Wooned Moussako didn't say millions of People will die. And since she said, we've got a real problem here. Yeah, we do have a real problem. I hope she has a bottle episode coming up. This is just like absolute. It's a tragedy.

Let's also say. But now you got me fired up. I mean, but what is? So Sophie is Loki from a different timeline who killed Kang and then chose a life of happiness in 1970s McDonald's. But now her life is ruined. So she's just popping through doors

trying to stab people. But then at the end, suddenly goes all a wound. me and is like, I cannot kill this innocence. Right. Everyone's just soft. Just do it. But also, let me say another thing here, which is, I no longer think they were cutting around Kang because this was an entire episode with Jonathan Majors.

Where he plays a character named Victor Timely, who is in the comics? No idea. Yeah, I think all these names are variant names from various people and whatever. But it's not like this. I think they were cutting around Jonathan Majors because he decided to do. Marlon Brando from Dr. Moreau up there. I think that separate and apart from his legal troubles, whoever he is as a person and his future in the MCU,

I feel two things definitively. One, shoot or shoot. Great players do wild things sometimes in the heat of the moment. Actors, when they are told, what is happening around them. Oh, it's the World's Fair. Uh-huh. and you're talking to a cartoon clock that loves you. What is he supposed to do?

Yeah. Get method? No. He's supposed to just do whatever the hell he wants, and which is what he did. But the second point is you could point to a number of things as being the flaw in the next phase of the MCU. And there are many authors of disaster.

But one of the most crucial mistakes was not making Kang theville, of the whole thing, not even necessarily casting Jonathan Majors, we don't know how that's going to shake out. It was introducing him on a TV show because it seems small and it seems unimportant and it seems uninteresting. If everything is flat, the way the backgrounds are flat, the way the CGI is flat, the way the emotions are flat, and your great big villain who's going to be the charismatic son with which all this rotates around, and he's just fumbling around taking a ferry to Wisconsin on a TV show that drops at midnight on Wednesdays, you're cooked, man.

Yeah, but... You've made a mistake. Counter argument is that they didn't even know Thanos was going to be that guy, and they were just like, what if we at the end, we just had, like, a big purple dude sitting in a chair? That was Josh Whedon. And it would just be a little Thanos joke for the heads. You know, and then it was like, oh, well, Casper one is that.

But, like, is it really that much different than doing post-credit stingers? It's the opposite. The Thanos one is like, we'll just... We're having fun. We're throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. Hey, this one sticks. This was, we have scientifically designed the thing that will stick. And we will do research to launch it at the wall at the precise scientific angle that will matter for maximum, maximum adhesion.

Yeah, it doesn't work like that. Because they missed. They fucking missed the wall. Yeah. Wasn't even a noodle. I've lost the metaphor. This is just, it's just. there's Sir Anthony out there

just missing the zone but throwing heat the reason I say the Obi-Wan zone is just when something fumbles so badly it is different than you know pick your poison from the MCU TV shows

and they're pretty poisonous this one stings more because I loved the first season and all of the actors are back and it shouldn't be this bad except that it is revealing a rot that we have been tracking across multiple franchises for a while now. Do you enjoy tracking it?

Not anymore. Yeah. It does not feel good. Yeah. It doesn't feel good. And, you know, we've been saying this for a while, too. Like, I'm dreading the Marvels because I don't think it's fair that their second female-fronted movie is going to be the exemplar of why it's all going wrong.

Well, maybe we should turn in our badges as sheriffs of Marvel, Marvel Town. Who's going to work at the TVA if not us? Right? Yeah, man. I don't know. All right. Well, let's move to Lessons in Chemistry, which I don't think is, like, it's hardly our favorite show, but we felt a sort of responsibility to see this one through the third episode because we were so stunned, by the way the second episode ended.

And if you're still listening and if you're listening to this Lessons of Chemistry part, this is obviously spoilers for the entire three episodes that have aired. far. Judging by the response, the number of people listening and not watching and still listening is robust. It's high, yeah. As you know, this show based on a novel by Bonnie Garmus is about Elizabeth Zott, a fictional chemist turned TV chef.

We have yet to see how the TV chef then comes to light, although... Can't wait. Given her experiences in the chemistry lab, I can't blame her for career change. But the second episode ends with the one person who truly understood the complicated Elizabeth saw it, a guy named... Calvin. Adams. He goes and walks their dog 630.

The dog's name is 630 at the end of the second episode. 630 is like, oh, I'm playing with the leash and we're just yanking on each other. And then... Back up. Back up a little bit. You can't go too far.

He's De Niro and Goodfellas. Keep going. Keep going. What are you doing, Calvin? There's a nice fur over there for you. One more step. And Calvin gets hit by a bus. Sure does. RIP. There was no emergency. Dave Annabelle from Linus was not able to operate on him.

And then the third episode opens, and we knew this going in. We're in constant communication with our listeners. We see what they're saying to us. And they were like, guys, guys, wait until you see the third episode. Because we knew that in the book, the dog, 630 is a narrator. It's a POV character. Guys, books are broken. And can I just say this morning, I came upon Andy.

He was like, I'm at the coffee shop if you want to come get me. Because he doesn't have a badge to get it. Not because he's like a do font or something. I'm on probation. Yeah. And I said, look at this guy. He's having a cortado. I was.

Half a bagel eaten. You don't need more. And he's reading a book about Rome in the summer. The 70s. Yeah. I mean, so you say books are broken, but they obviously... That book was written in 1973. Okay.

When the last good book was written. We should have stopped then. Okay. And so, episode three starts. Is it called I got that dog in me? It's not, right? Episode three starts, and the first thing you hear, after getting a long look at...

What is it? A poodle? Is it a Labradoodle? It's apparently an army dog. Well, don't skip ahead of me here. The sonorous tones of B.J. Novak as the voice of 630 the dog. Sounding like a guy with a great night at the Postal Service death cab show. I saw him there.

I swear to God, I did. Uh-huh. And we get to know this dog and it's origin story. And we find out that for some reason, the United States. States government was trading poodles to go to Vietnam? Like, what was going on? The dog is watching the mutilated bus hit corpse. And Vijay Novak's voice is like, oh no.

He's kind of like record scratch. He's like, you're probably wondering how I got myself in this. The thing is, here's what I want you people to understand who are listening to us and not watching the show. the dog's first line of dialogue is I believe the first thing in life I remember is fear yeah guys that's Bain's first line of dialogue the dark night rises I'm not saying that there are

I'm not trying to be prescriptive I'm not saying there are better ways to do a show that deals with traumatic loss of a romantic partner vicular homicide through the point of view of a dog I'm just saying if you are going to do it from the point of view of the dog well A, don't

but if you are going to do it from the point of view of the dog I think the dog should be like oh shit you know that's what the dog should say because people don't

You should be like Sam Jackson Brewery like what should the dog be like My point is this What's the note? Here's the note If there was a human If Calvin had been going jogging

with a colleague from the lab. And the colleague was like, oh, can you fix the tag on my sweatshirt? And Calvin's like, sure, let me just hop in the street to do it and got hit by a bus. The colleague wouldn't slowly turn around to be like, the first thing I remember in my life is fear. Here's, I think they should have gone.

They didn't push enough chips in the middle. Okay. Because one thing that's not made clear is how they, like, was there an eyewitness who was like, I saw that dog and it was yanking on the leash, and that's why your man got hit by the bus? Because he's like, she just won't forgive me. And I wanted there to be like a whole like, bring dog detectives in, you know,

and dog detectives trying to find out whether the dog has liability. A hundred percent. Like, just let's get like a whole world of talking dogs. But what I'm not understanding is it does appear at times during the series that the main character, Elizabeth Zat, is in, fully in on a universe where dogs are talking. Yeah. Because she's like, dog, I will be home later tonight. The food will arrive at 3 p.m.

I will turn on cartoons for you, and the dog is like, sick. I love cartoons. The dog is like, I'm so relieved you're leaving, so I don't have to be confronted with my own guilt. Yes. This dog. This dog has been to therapy. This dog has been traumatized.

Let's rewind. The dog's origin story is that it was serving our nation. Yeah. In, I guess, being sent to Korea. I think a military base, well, I thought it was early 60s, so I thought it was Vietnam. Wow. Is it the late 50s? So are you saying that 630 is a conscientious objector?

630 is like, I will not fight for this corrupt war. They go down, like I just, of all the things that I'd like to call bullshit on the show about, that dog being in the military is number one. Everything else checks out. Yeah. They're showing the other dogs, and all those other dogs have that dog in them. They're like German Shepherd. This one has B.J. Novak in him.

And by the way, Reader Challenge. Please someone, or just usual Photoshop Ace, Damon Lindeloff, please give us that meme of the chest x-ray with dogs in him. With BJ Novak. Just BJ Novak. Yeah. So outside of the dog, I don't really know. Who else auditioned?

Do you know? Like, what do you think? JGL wasn't available. Right. You know, Gordon Levitt was like, I'm in this other Apple show. Why is it got to be that kind of guy? Why couldn't it be J.B. Smooth? Why not?

It's a dog. You know what I mean? Why couldn't be Larry David? Well, I mean, I feel like he'd like the hours. The thing that I can't get out of my head is, you know how, actually, I'm going to stop here. You don't know this. But when you are as deep into Dattington Life as I am, you know that when you watch a, say, a Disney animated classic, like Frozen, you watch it and you watch it 70 more times, but it doesn't end there. You will also watch all of the shorts that are on the Disney Plus service.

You will also watch like behind the scenes, whatever footage. Yeah. And so there's Boku footage of like Kristen Bell just in the booth, you know, just dropping on a truth, you know, just like getting it done. Okay. So what I'm asking you is, did some brave engineer just flick on the GoPro? Do we have, do we have BJ in the booth? Because he's delivering lines.

Like he is in a George Michael video from 1988, like candles are lit. like candles are lit. Lights are low. You know what I mean? Well, there's this whole thing about protection. Like he's like all, I couldn't protect him. And it was like, you weren't, your job wasn't to protect him. Your job was just to like not put him to horseplay next to a bus route.

And the timeline here is a little unsacred to use Marvel terminology. Because I can't, you said this last week. I guess the Calvin Elizabeth romance was like, what are we saying? Six months, nine months? I was under the impression it was four days. And she's had the dog for half of the time that she knew him. They were cohabitating for one to 12 days or weeks, unclear. What is their relationship, him and the dog?

Like, do dog relationships advance on dog time? So for every... It takes seven years to get to know a dog. That's my point. No, no. But is it like for every one? week they lived together, that was seven weeks for the dog. Oh, I see what you're saying. Because the dog is like, how could I have done this? I love all of his

body smells. When they ask Elizabeth Zott, what she thought of him, she's like, well, I didn't know him for long enough. The dog did? Yeah. The dog did. No, go ahead. Lessons and Chemistry Challenge. Do you think that this show in episode three is more accurate towards the lived experience of dogs or newspaper reporters. At least that newspaper reporter was shooting from the hip. He was just like, I need controversy to sell, you know, like to get clicks. Yeah. That he literally was like...

He was like, I'm trying to manufacture clickbait in my like page 22-o-bit of a little-known chemist. It's 1961. I am on the relatively sleepy chemistry beat for the Los Angeles Times. No, he has a wide remit because he does. an obit and then he's like, I'm up here in this city planning meeting. It's true. I do, well, that's because what's your name? The Harriet was like, I got a real story for you.

I do respect the hustle. He's like city planning? No shit. Let's go. It is lit. I do like, I do respect it because he's like, oh, seems like a guy was hit by a bus. That's a tragedy. Oh.

Oh, he was a chemist? Oh, shit. I'm going to blow up this whole guy's life. I'm going to write a hit piece on a dead nerd. But isn't the problem that he goes to? to the funeral and asks questions and people like, yeah, he was all right. Well, yeah, people are like, I didn't know him very well. And then he goes to, he asks, but also my favorite thing, my favorite detail in the whole thing,

is that while he's talking to the only person in the friends and family section, which is an obviously bereaved Elizabeth Zod, he's not only is sort of pushing her on like whether she knew Calvin or not. He's also like, dogs aren't allowed here. To be fair, this is way before emotional. support animals and she takes that dog everywhere. Yes, but I don't mean to be insensitive. Cemetery are just big fields with stones in them. You know what I mean? Like, I especially...

What? They are! I'm, like, what, there's no fence? There's no security guy? Where is the signage being like, don't bring your dogs? I think it's just inappropriate in a moment of morning to have some... He said there was a sign. Oh, I don't know.

No, he wasn't, he wasn't gatekeeping from like a, you know, a moral sensibility. He was literally gatekeeping because he claims that. there was a gate with a sign on it. I don't really have a lot of other observations about this show. You know, it has a talking dog, so that kind of, like, distracted me from a lot of the other proceedings. I did note that Harriet and Elizabeth bonded over jazz and dancing. I love that.

Love that for them. That's kind of, like, a real throwback to how you and I met, where we just throw in the onlyest monk and shake it all out, you know? And the guy who plays Donati, who is also in House of Cards as the, like... Derek Cecil, or Cessel, yeah. Man, he plays a good shit. He does. Yeah, he's a real good shit heel.

I bet he's a lovely guy in real life, and he's very, very good at that. You know, there's a word for a show like this. Two words. Phony baloney. It is. It's just everything about it is phony. I'm sorry.

I feel so bad that we're doing Statler and Waldorf today. We're having a good time. Look, I, these two shows. That's a real contemporary reference. for our listeners. Sattler and Waldorf or phony baloney. We are doing this show from 1960.

We were about to ship off. When books were good. Books were good and dogs fought wars. And stayed out of cemeteries where they weren't fucking welcome. We have fallen so far. Can you imagine if you were a young man,

a young American, drafted to go to Vietnam. And you're there. You're with your, you're like, I can't believe this is my life. Like, war is hell. And 6.30 comes gallivanting off of a Huey to help you. It immediately pushes you into a landmine.

And it's like, well, that's my life. I said it last week, I'll say it again. Like, the work that went into this show is really high level. It's well directed. It looks really nice. But it is in the service of what appears to be nonsense at this way. When she finally gets upset about everything that happened to her. That's why I keep asking if she's a real person.

It's because I'm like, why would you make this otherwise? What is interesting about this? You saw her react to grief by sledgehammering her kitchen? Yeah. And well, you do watch Property Brothers, he said. So did that? Yeah, but that's only to get more of an open floor plan. Get more light going through the room.

Get more flow. Yeah, I thought that that was, she felt like that once she determined it was, a load-bearing counter that she thought that that would really... We didn't even talk about her pregnancy and how she first goes about, like, impregnating frogs first? No, I think that what she was doing was essentially a home pregnancy test, which didn't exist, but involved frogs. Yeah. I was shocked when I found out she was pregnant. I did not see that coming. I'm not laughing.

It's like a one, man. What? What? Look, these two shows, Loki and Lessons and Chemistry, it is... They both start with L. They both start with L. They both were better in the 1960s. It is not, it is fun. It's fun to laugh.

We love to laugh. I love to laugh. I love to live, laugh, and love. I do think that they are emblematic of some problematic trends in television at the moment. And it is unfair to pile double down, triple down on these two in particular. But they're what we have right now. and I think that if you would take these two episodes,

these are both episode threes, and if you were to take them, put them into, take them to the TVA, walk through a time door to us or anyone else 10, 12 years ago, being like, well, Breaking Bad is so good, and now Netflix is going to make shows, and then showed them these programs, I feel like we'd be like,

maybe let's just pause. Let's just pause everything. and think about what we're doing. So Thursday, I think we're going to talk about Killers of the Flower Moon. Yeah. I'd like to at least. I'd like to.

Yeah. You've seen it. I've not seen it. Yeah. I'm going to try and see it. We can talk about it. I want to commit. No matter what we do on Thursday,

I'm going to find us something to celebrate. Yeah. Dogs. The Philadelphia Phillies. That's really all I'm watching. It's just those things where like a lot of meetings were held. like, so what are we going to do about the dog?

And then some people are like, you got to do it. It's everyone's favorite part of the book. You got to do the dog. Maybe you don't. I don't know. Maybe you don't. I don't think that the dog ruined the show for me. I'll put it that way.

Yeah, because this is typical, this is typical Beltway, Chris. Last week, you're like, and do you often talk about wanting to set yourself on fire? And I don't. You may hear the sound of gasoline dripping off of me as I poured on myself. I said this show wanted him to set me on fire. I know. Last week. I don't think the dog is what did it.

Oh, right. But this week you're like, well, well, let's calm down. No, I said, I want to die watching the show, but I didn't think it was because of the dog. It was pre-dog. Yeah. It was pre-dog. In fact, the dog, honestly, like, it lit me up in a way that I haven't been in a while. You know, watching TV.

In terms of, like, is this actually. I could not believe this was happening. Yeah. I could not believe this was happening. And I, and you see the work that Asia Naomi King is doing. and all the mourners and the choir and the church, like giving their all, and then being told as they, like,

went to hair and makeup to get back into their civilian clothes that'd be like, by the way, this episode is from the perspective of a dog. Not entirely, though. Yeah, so is that your other criticism? There's not enough from the POVU to dog. Commit to the dog. All right. Thursday, we'll podcast again. Yeah.

I mean, unless PETA stops us. I don't think we were meeting. about dogs. No. Kai, do you think, Kaya, what's your interest level in the show right now? And by the show, I mean this podcast.

I'm having a lot of fun listening to you guys talk about a show that I have no intention of watching. Are you a dog person or a cat person? Hmm. I wouldn't say about 50-50.

Okay, so do you think, are we okay? We're not being mean to dogs. See, if it'd have been a cat, I would have just been like, of course he killed it. Of course this guy killed him. Cat would have left.

I love cats, but they will push you in front of a bus. They do not care. Yeah. That's true. Great seeing you. What a great time. And I'll see you on Netflix, brother. Yeah, let's want to share top tens, buddy?

Or is it the same top ten for everyone? It's the same for everybody. Really? Yeah. Like, you can't make playlists. I mean, I don't think so. I'm going to make you a sick Netflix day. We were produced by Kai McMullen.

Thanks for listening.