The Watch - ‘Justified: City Primeval’ Reminds Us of What TV Used to Be. Plus, Hollywood Strike Updates

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about how negotiations with studios seem to be at a standstill and how the SAG-AFTRA strike will begin to affect the promotion of movies like ‘Challengers’ (1:00). They also discuss the 'Barbie'-'Oppenheimer' phenomenon (15:56) before talking about the first two episodes of ‘Justified: City Primeval’ and the nostalgia the reboot gives them for the original show (25:09). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, the hat is back. It's Andy Greenwald. I feel like you've waited a long time to be able to talk about Justified. I have. Somehow, so Justified was like sort of at its artistic, maybe peak in 2011,

which predates the Hollywood Perspectus podcast. Not many things predate our podcast. I know. I think that's fair to say. But that one did. Yeah. And so we never really... And then I think you were probably...

Was Justified one of those shows where you're like, I'm three seasons behind? Yeah. So in my defense... And this is broadly indefensible. And we were going to be talking about justified city primeval.

And just the reboot? What's it called? Reimagining? A justified story. We're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about the justified itself. I think we're not going to be

very spoiler heavy, although we will talk about the first two episodes of City Prime Evil that came out. Yeah. But yeah, I think in my defense, and I do think it's indefensible, I kind of adopted a kind of pissy policy that I was like, I can't go backwards. Because once I started being the full-time TV critic for Grantland in the fall of, like, September 2011, there was so much. It felt like, in retrospect now, there was relatively little content, but it felt like so much.

And back then I was watching all the network broadcast pilots and recapping four distinct sitcoms every Thursday night. I remember that. That was a great lift. Just no spotters, just deadlifts. So I did adopt this policy that was very self-protective and a little silly that I wouldn't go backwards on shows that were well into their run, like Sons of Anarchy and Justified, particularly FX shows. I hope John Langraff appreciated that. I know Nick's listening and I'm sorry. True blood, for instance, you probably didn't go back.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. So, but I was wrong about that with Justified because I think Elmore Leonard's probably the greatest American writer, maybe. That's a full stop. Yeah. And every episode of that show that I've watched, I really enjoyed. I will.

This is actually a good segue to how I wanted to talk to you about Justified. I didn't know. Did you have any opening remarks you wanted to make before we really get into Justify? Yes. I had a couple things. And thank you for giving me the opportunity. Most people say this stuff for the end. But I think it's the dog days of summer.

So whatever you want to do. Don't you think that's weird, though, if you spend 40 minutes just like passionately debating the ethics of being a passenger on a hijacked plane? And then being like, so in other news, I feel like the beginning is the time for potpouries. Okay. It's not how most people do it on their pods. So give me an example. I think Sean runs a tight ship, gets right into business. Sean scripts his openings, I believe.

He's like, he scripts them the way I script them. He's like Andy Reid, right? Yes, he knows the first 10 plays. And then after that it's just time management. It's just Donovan McNaft throwing the ball into guys' ankles. Yes. Okay. Well, you know, I may perhaps there's a small strike update, which is just to say.

You're still on strike. Still on strike. I got to say, like, it's not. Is this a strike beard we're seeing here? No, this was oversleeping stubble. Okay. This is not like, relax. This is not a beard.

I wanted to know if I'm watching the beginning of something, you know? You always are watching the beginning of something unless it's the end of something. Yeah, I, you know, it's not a good thing. broadly for two major industries to be on strike, and there's a lot of hardship involved, but it has felt great to have the actors out there. Legitimately, it has completely changed the energy of the picket lines and the attention paid. A lot more Getty photographers, I would say, stopping dudes. And then very robustly, like, not asking me my name or how to spell it.

So, which is fine. Yeah. They're like, N-A-T-H-A-N-F-E. It's great. I love it. But it was wonderful. I had a Briar Patry Union yesterday at Paramount. I saw that on Instagram, man.

Wonderful. It seemed beautiful. It was really meaningful. I love those people. And it was great to be together. And thank you to Carol Lombardini and the AMPTP for fucking up so majorly that I got to see my pals again in the middle of the day. It is wild that there are no strike updates other than here's the pictures of people striking. Like there is no like we're going to meet August 10th at this hotel suite.

Like, you know, this person's going to be. rep. I saw, I think it was like Richard Rushfield had like a kind of, here's some ideas, just throw him against the wall. Oh, that's cool. No bad ideas. Well, he was like, should Peter Churnin who helped end the 2000, the last strike, come back and like, you know, be kind of a godfather to this thing or

should, here are like all these ideas like to wrap this up. And it just seems like there are very little, there's very little thawing going on despite the heat out on the streets. It's real hot. Yeah, I mean, there is there's no serious there was there was it's clear now there was no serious conversation

when the negotiations were happening it is not an issue of we say 15 they say 5 and we meet at 10 that's not what this is if you look over and now the actors have released what their demands were versus what the responses were there are certain areas which the AMPTP's policy was

we will not discuss this we will not budge on this we will not consider your requests at all so it is an unsurious conversation and thus there is no conversation. I also think it's just worth noting the degree to which the actor's When you talk, you know, I almost sometimes I do feel compelled to be like what, like, like from the studio's perspective. I love that. Well, you're kind of a both sides guy. You know what I mean?

I mean, it's fine. Well, I just, I really love development, you know? Development is great. Yeah. I'm not mad at the development executives. I love business affairs. That's, that's an odd passion of yours. B.A. You know what you always turn the conversation to? Whenever we're out, like just having a drink, you always want to get into the minutia of deal points. Yeah. That's just where you're at. Yeah.

So, I don't know. I just think that they really fucked up. Okay. Like, I think that an actor's strike is just catastrophic for the industry and particularly for the studios. And the power of their celebrity denying it to, you know, the projects that are in development. I'm starting to feel the ripple effects of that. Not like on a personal level, obviously. but I guess who could possibly give a shit

but like I think I'm starting to see it on Vulture in like the lack of juice that certain premieres have because people either had to cram in every single I think Barbie and Oppenheimer are going to be the last significant pop cultural moments until this ends. So do you think

do you think it's noteworthy or does it feel different that And tell me if I'm wrong even in the proposition, but like, do you think that it is different that the public response to this seems to be largely pro-worker and, like, supportive of the actors and the writers in the strike? That's the vibe I get. And I wonder, you know, obviously I listened to a lot of sports podcasts, some of which are made by the Ringer podcast network.

And I've heard Bill say a couple times about how, you know, just one of the main shifts in his life as a sports fan was that when he was growing up. up in Sports Illustrated would be like, here's the player salaries. And it was a largely like anti-player feeling because who are these guys making this money? Do now when Dame Lillard is like, I want out, everyone's like, he should be treated well and go where he wants. Do you sense that in this? I think I can't tell because I feel like the bubble is so real. Like I have literally no idea.

My mom, for instance, who's a relatively engaged television and movie watcher. Sure is. More than me. I don't really think that she's like getting a lot of strike update. Now, what updates is she getting? We'll leave that for another podcast. But, like, I can't tell how much sort of random Joe public is up on this strike, is checking Instagram and seeing, like, their favorite stars holding up picket signs. And I don't really know if, honestly, like, two stars from a TV show or a movie,

Try Funny Snacks video is, like, the absence of those things is going to bother most people. but I do think that there are a couple of things coming up. So, for instance, I'll use this as an example. One of the movies I'm most excited about for the rest of the year is this movie called Challengers, which is Zendaya playing a tennis coach of Josh O'Connor and Mike Faced, who were professional men's tennis players.

She used to be a player, right? And there's like a love triangle, yeah. This is Luca Guadagino? Yes. It's honestly, like, everything that, if you listen to the watch and the big picture or the rewatchables, the kinds of movies that, like, we pine for that we feel like we grew up with that are like adult dromedy with some

some sex and some laughs and some sports like what could be better i love tennis have you seen this movie or you're just talking about it i've not seen this movie it's supposed to premiere in venice it may not because venice is largely a star driven affair it's like can it's like supposed to be a lot of red carpet photos and if zendaya is not promoting this movie a a sort of no-i-pee kind of romantic, kind of sporty, but blah, blah, blah. Like, tennis is not like, it's not about like the quarterback for the Niners dating somebody. Which quarterback? Exactly, brother.

Brock Purdy has a lot of time on his hands. Can he use his hands? I mean, that was a real Philadelphia laugh. That was this savage. I like it. I recently watched highlights from the Eagles Niners game. Did you really? Yeah, and all the Niners guys are like, yo, Brock.

can't throw him. He can't move his like a snuff film. Where was it? Oh, if Zendaya can't promote this movie, like, I'm sure that went into a lot of the arithmetic behind, like, yeah, we'll make it for this number, and if Zendaya does a lot of, like, Instagram posts about it, people are going to go see it.

Yeah, she is, I think, one of the relatively few stars who could potentially move that needle. Yes. So, imagine no hard feelings if Jennifer Lawrence did not go on hot ones and rewatchables and all, and do the lap around. That's the only two press things I believe she did for that movie. No, she did a lot of podcasts, though.

Because I think that by that point, the WGA strike had happened. And so she did a lot of, she did a lot of, like, internet shows. But now at this point with SAG on strike, you're not going to get any participation in promotion from the people who are primarily charged with selling these movies. Oppenheimer is not an easy sell. What is an easy sell is Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. being as charming as possible. Yes. While Killiam Murphy, like, stares, like, solar flares into the camera lens. Robert Donnie Jr. Matt Damon are selling this shit out of Oppenheimer.

Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie sold the shit out of Barbie. Those movies are going to be successful. Yeah, because of their major movie events, but also because the stars worked really hard to sell them. That's part of the job. If they can't do that, I wonder if challengers moves. I wonder if challengers goes... They just say, yeah, we'll put it out in spring of 24.

Yeah, because they know the best chance of it succeeding rests on the promotion. I agree. I think, as with everything, people tend to respond to larger-scale issues when it affects them and their interests personally. And so what we're seeing, you know, for people out here and for people who are out in the picket lines and directly affected, it's an immediate jarring change with concentric circles of effects on their lives and people that they know and care about. For the broader populace, I think, oh, it's a bummer that the late night shows are gone. They're gone. Yeah.

And perhaps distressingly, people might get used to them being gone. And that might cause their ratings to sink even further. who knows. In two months, Saturday Night Live's not coming back. The fall schedule is just Yellowstone reruns, right? And the British version of ghosts, there is no fall television season.

So people will notice that, to your point, like movies won't necessarily be noticed or felt like movies. At it will not be back in the fall. That's when it's going to start to get a little more pressing. And, you know, if the studios wanted to, they could get in front of it. I mean, the Netflix today announced just a really a robust spike in membership

thanks to kicking people off of their parents' accounts, which was a pretty smart move. But they also were claiming they have... We're not naming names. We're not naming names. Kaii, was there a moment when you weren't sure if it was cake or not?

Like you couldn't actually find out for yourself? Yeah, that's why I had to sign it for my own account. I'm just... We're thrilled for you. Thank you. What's your chosen image? Did you give an avatar? Oh, I think I did the grandpa

from second season of White Lotus. Oh, wow. As your Netflix avatar or is your Max avatar? As my, oh, wait. Oh, I did an otter as my Netflix avatar. Oh, that's good. I did. I only have an avatar for my peacock account.

Oh, what's that? Mariska Haggerty. Oh, yeah. Well, we're going to talk about that in a second. That's also on our docket. I've told the story that my children went into the Netflix account and changed my name to Daddy. Uh-huh.

So I still get emails that say, Daddy, Cave of Bones is available for you. And I'm like, that is a sentence that should never be said out loud. They also changed, they made an avatar for me that I think is like a cool dog from Bojack, which I think is nice. Yeah. Oh, can I tell you something? Yesterday I got like seven emails from the company that makes Among Us, you know, the phone game. No. You don't know that one.

No, is that a game you play? No, I don't play it. And the email. You're quick about that. these emails. So it's a game that's very popular with kids. You're a ghost on a spaceship. Hold on now. Kaya, is this popular? I haven't heard of this, but I'm also not

a gamer. I don't think I'm like a kid. It's an iPhone game that I think lots of kids play. Do they have mice in their pocket? No. It's... Because I feel like this is the new part of the podcast, where you just tell me things? This is the thing. Okay. Is that the emails were like a minor is trying to sign in on your Among Us account.

Oh, like a child? First I thought you meant like a coal miner. Your child is trying. It just kept saying like your child trying to sign in, your child is trying to sign in. I don't know why I brought that up, but go ahead. Did you ever find out what was going on? I just put it in spam. I don't have an among us. Have you been hacked?

I've played once, yeah. Okay. And you still, just to update our listeners, you have not yet adopted a teenage war. No, I haven't. I haven't. But if the strike goes on longer, you're shopping. You're open to it. Anyway, just to say that Netflix has reported,

they have like $500, they have like a billion dollars liquid, basically. because they're not making as much stuff and they have a lot of money. And so good, keep announcing that considering, you know, it would be a tiny fraction to actually make a reasonable deal. But here we are.

Do you think that TV let's say like taking it, like moving away from the current strike? It's Thursday as we're recording this. You and I've seen Oppenheimer. We'll be sharing us some feelings about that next week. I can't wait to talk about this. Because not only did we see Oppenheimer.

We saw it in IMAX. Yeah. And then we went to Margaritaville. Yeah. It was really an epic Monday for Americans like us. Okay, go on. Do you like the Barbie versus Oppenheimer discourse and the binary choice and the idea of like, oh, you can see everybody should go see a double feature of this?

Or like the eventization of two movies that really don't have anything to do with each other except the fact that they're coming out on the same day? Yeah. I mean, I... It seems like it's been super healthy too. Well, I feel pretty good that I've avoided... I pretty much avoid discourse these days. except, I don't know if this happens to you, but I wake up, we should discuss this.

Like, what's the first thing on your phone in the morning when you wake up? And I feel like you could feel free to hold the floor after this. I feel like you get urgent fundraising texts from Kamala Harris every morning. My mornings now are actually, it's like 5.55 a.m. I get a text from the Atlantic being like, everything you know about frogs is wrong. I'm like, you know what? I disagree. but I click because how do they know what I think about frogs?

Anyway, the frogs are Ron DeSantis, by the way, in this analogy. Anything that makes people enthusiastic about movies, I broadly think is a good thing. It appears that maybe, judging from the way you ask the question, things have curdled slightly, but my sense was it was... I think the movies need to come out now. But I thought it was generally inclusive. Like, these movies that have nothing to do to each other

are both going to be of note. and interesting, so why not? Celebrate them both. I mean, we won't say anything about Oppenheimer beyond this, but it was thrilling to see a movie that I just think is so worthy of engagement. Yeah. And I liked it, but I also just thought that alone

felt really exciting. I was trying to remember if there was ever a moment on TV where we had something versus something like this. Well, I'm sure there are many. I mean, as soon as he's... Whether it was the same night and you have to choose, Are you going to watch this or this? Or, you know.

Well, one of the biggest ones from our childhood was in the late 80s, the Simpsons premiered and was a huge sensation. And Fox aggressively, because Fox basically was a troll network at the time. They've since really got, they've really sobered up since then. But Simpson's aggressive, and everyone, you know, it's very hard for people to imagine this now, I bet. But there was a lot of like societal hand-wringing. Like, is Bart a good role model?

Should this family be on television? And so Fox, leaning into this, yanked The Simpsons early on, like in season one or two and put it up against the Cosby show, which was waning. And that was like America's family. And again, I'm not sure what happened to that guy after that show.

Right. But that was like a big who you got, you know? Right. I don't remember that at all. It was a thing, like, which... I was probably playing sports. Smoking heaters behind the batting cage at age 12. We had different childhoods. It's cool. We could be friends now.

But yeah, there used to be when broadcasts, like watching things live was a bigger deal. Yes. You would go at things. Like there are... I remember an elaborate... There were a couple of Sundays during the beginning of our podcasting relationship. There were certain times where it would be like you had to choose between madmen and thrones or Breaking Bad and Thrones. You had to tape one.

Oh, sure. And you would like watch. Thrones, then watch Madman, because you wouldn't want anything to spoil Madman, and then you would watch, like, VEP or whatever, was on after Thrones. And it was very elaborate because it wasn't, it was either DVR'd or, I remember even like, there would be like, well, my DVR can only record two things at once. So I think, I think a lot of the, for me, and I did find this interesting. Again, I was not playing sports at the time, so maybe that's why. But like the, the mindset of the broadcast networks and the schedulers, and like, they would try to.

establish beachheads on certain nights. And then, like, ABC owned Fridays and NBC owned Thursdays and CBS owned everything else. And so, like, but then they would, they would sometimes be aggressive, almost like they were playing, like war games. Like, we see, we send softness in the Tuesday schedules, so we're going to go after it. That's when HBO sent them dragons after Lord of the Rings. Remember? Oh, right.

Oh, right. When they moved up, that's the great example. Is House of the Dragon putting the date right up against the Lord of the Rings show to just be like, We still run Bartertown over here. The tenor that's changed or that's different is the underlying thing with movies is that we are all a little bit Tom Cruise now being like, let's save this beautiful American tradition. It's so funny. We didn't even talk about the video because the beginning of Top Gun when Tom looking amazing was like, thank you all for coming out in this difficult time. And I was like, yes, we are the heroes here, Maverick.

And then before Mission Impossible, they were like, let's do that again. but it seems like they came up with the idea to do it again, like right after... During a junket. Or like right after Tom was like retrieved from the Norway mountaintop where you've been jumping off on a motorcycle. Yeah, his voice was a little bit like that going back. His voice was real rough.

Yeah. He did not seem great at that moment. But anyway, this idea that like movies, we need to celebrate this and there's no teams here. We just need to get out there and support our friends at AMC and Regal and Nicole Kidman. Should we get into Justified? What do you think? Last thing.

Definitely not last thing. What do you think Nicole Kidman's payday was for the Heartbreak Feels Good in a place like this ad? And do you think she gets a piece of every time it airs? Well, it's AMC, right? Yes. Is AMC still a meme stock? Do you think she's getting paid in like AMC stock? No, she's too savvy a businesswoman for that.

Do you think she gets like a residual for every single time heartbreak feels good? into place like this drops. Definitely not. No. Because they show a lot of movies during the day. So no. Do you think... It's a flat rate.

Chris, purely isolated... Isolate the tabs on your spreadsheet. Income, movie theater promotional-related income for Nicole Kidman and Maria Menunos. Who makes more? For Fiscal 23. I think Kidman. You think Kidman got more for that, just pretending to watch Creed once? Because Minunos is the hardest working with.

woman in showbiz. Yeah, but like Nicole Kidman has been the like avatar of the return to theaters. Okay. And that whole thing became like a, she was married to the avatar of the return to theaters. You know? Oh, but you mean that, that whole. Yeah, like everybody's cheering when she says that. Have you been to a theater where that's happened? No, but I saw, I read someone saying that at a recent screening of something, a man stood up and recited it with her to applause. Okay. That man was not you. I can't confirm or deny that because my strike-related activities have to be separate.

Oh, sure, yeah. Last thing, I do want to, before we get into Justified and Elmore Leonard broadly, I do want to do an SVU check-in because I find your commitment to the long-running NBC show, Law & Order SVU, to be adorable. And I want to know how it's going. Boy, we watched a banger last night. So every night, is this still every night? No, I think it's like what usually happens is we,

throw on on and fall asleep 20 minutes in. I don't want to like lead the witness here. I know. It's like, what do you want to know? I want to know if we could talk about something you told me that I have not stopped thinking about. Okay. Which is that you said that you often fall asleep.

Yes. Which I would. Oh, right. And then Phoebe texts me in the middle of the night to be like, it was the guy who was folding the shirts. I think that that is the sweetest thing I've ever heard in my life. So that when I wake up, I know what happened at the end of SVU, yeah. it reminds me of, and again, we're not spoiling Oppenheimer, but there's a code that Oppenheimer

gave his wife, like, if the nuclear test went well, that's what this reminds me of. So in the morning, when you, you know, a little bit bleary, you reach for your phone, there's just a little message saying, there's five texts from you, which is just like, check out this recap of secret invasion. Yeah. And then it's Phoebe being like, it turns out that that woman had multiple stalkers. And do you, do you audibly like gasp, or do you have a reaction? action?

No, it usually takes me a second to piece together what the actual first half of the plot was and then I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have picked that one. But yeah, it's going really well. It's going really well.

We're running out of episodes. That's impossible. There's a thousand episodes. There's only, like, I just think that, like, so we have, like, kinds that we like. There's very specific,

like, I don't really care about SVU episodes that are in all involve global politics, which you'd be surprised there a fair amount that it's like a diplomat's son is, you know, Kikidna.

Oh, like the head of the IMF. Yeah, right. Not the Impossible Mission Force, the manager. Yes. Yeah. So we have like a very specific, you know, brand that we check in on there. Okay. And are you going to see Barbie this weekend?

Yeah, actually, I can see it tonight. Tonight, yeah. Even though there's a new Blur album out? Is that what you're going to do? All night. Quietly listen to Blur? Not quietly. Sit.

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you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time off. Okay, let's talk. Let's talk about justified. Okay. So we've established your relationship to, so in the years since you were, you dismissed justified because it, the crime of being on before you became a TV critic. It's all about me. Have you gone back and kind of familiarized yourself with it? No, but I did read all of the Raylan books. Okay. So you're a strict originalist when it comes to Raylan games.

I am the Antonin Scalia of Justified, yes. Okay. So you've, how many, have you seen Justified? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, I watched most of the first season and some of the second season. I may have dipped in at the very end because I think, I've, to see the finale. There was probably a week when I was like, this seemed like at the very end of, I think it was still, it ended when Grandlin ended around then. But I feel like there was a moment when I was like, that would be a good use of my month. Is to watch the final season of Justified?

All of Justified, but I didn't quite get to it. So I am, I'm ready to have a robust conversation, but I don't have the same points of reference that you do. a prestige TV Hall of Fame episode, Me Mal and Joanna did one about the finale of season two, which many people consider the best season. That's the best episode of the best. And that's Margo Martindale season. She's the villain of the second season.

And it actually dovetails very nicely. I have lots of nice things. I'm deeply entertained by City of Prime Evil. Can we explain the premise here again? Yeah. So basically, this is the origin story of this. I found out from one of the last, celebrity interviews that happened before the Sags strike was I was watching Tim O'Lfan on

Rich Eisen's show. I was just doing a little justified research. And he said that one day on the set of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he was like, you know, trying to think of like, what's the hook to bring Raylan back? And Tarantino's a huge Elmore Leonard fan. And he was saying that because he's been playing Marshalls throughout the galaxy, desperate to get back to this part. And he was like, Tim was like, I have, there's this book,

City Prime Evil that we're thinking about making into, like stripping it for parts and making it into a rail and story. And a parent Tarantino's enthusiasm for that. He was like, man, at one point I wanted to direct to that as a movie. It's very Tarantino. And was very thumbs up about it.

And at one point was on board to maybe do a couple of episodes of City Prime Evil as a director. Wow. Which would have been pretty cool. But what we do get in the, and so that's, how it sort of started. This idea that there are other non-Railin stories in the Elmoreverse that they can insert Raylan into. So I don't know if we can get too broad with this. I'm sure

some people listening know and some people might not, but Elmore Leonard, one of if not the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Sentence for sentence may be my favorite. Just an absolute master of just up there with Grisham. I was going to say like him and Big Jim Salter. Very different subject matter, great sentences. But his career, which was very long and very prolific, he started writing short stories and westerns and then... Yeah, he's famously

wrote 310 to Yuma. And then, yes, and then began to get a different, like a bigger rep with his first run of crime books that were set in his hometown of Detroit. Yes. City, primeval among them, which was published in 1980. And there are a couple characters that

bounce in and out. Some appear like a second characters and others. There's a great two book run called Swag and Stick, which carry the same main character. They're very important novels to me. Very important novels to me as well. I mean, there's no such thing. Swag's the kidnapping one, right? I think so. I mix them up because I read them back to back. I adore them. One rule of thumb is there are no bad Elmore Leonard books. And it's really almost impossible to have a bad experience in one reading one. And there's so many that I've been using them almost like booster rockets, like if I fall into a fallow period of reading

or I'm not enjoying the giant book I'm trying to get through. Let's be honest. We are, we are, would you describe yourself as a Detroit guy or a Florida guy? This is what I'm getting to. I just want to say that if you pick up an Elmore Leonard book, it just kind of like gets the reading muscles going and you feel great pleasure and then you can dip back into the bigger thing.

So all this is, yes, I was set up to say. You can jump back into American Prometheus, the Robert Opsimer's story on page two. Yeah, exactly. Before you get to page five, It's time for another Elmore break. The first books were in Detroit. One of my favorite early books is called Split Images,

where the characters from Detroit go to Florida. Go to Florida, yeah. And the way he writes about Florida, you could tell that he was feeling this. Yeah. Because then a lot of his more famous and celebrated books, including like Get Shorty, out of sight, I believe. Yeah, wasn't that rum punch or was that writing the rap?

Well, no, out of sight. Was out of sight the name of the novel, or was it out of sight? Out of sight. Out of sight is out of sight. Right. Oh, Jackie Brown is based on rum punch. Maximum Bob. These are all LaBrava, one of my favorites.

These are all in Florida. Yeah. And the Raylan... Cat Chaser, little Florida. Cat Chaser's so good. Little DR. Latin America, yeah. The Raylan character was introduced in a book called Writing the Rap.

Yeah. And he's a... He's not more Leonard books. I mean, they're just so, so tight. And like usually four characters... He's like the third or fourth character of writing the rap. And clearly Elmore thought he had something. and Raylan comes back in Pronto, which another great book.

Awesome book. And then I think maybe he had appeared previously in a short story because that's why Justified's based on the fire and the whole short story that preceded those books. All of this is to say, Justified, great show. Fish Outer Water, Kentucky guy, right, in Florida. And this kind of completes the circle, brings a later period Florida character and drops him into the protagonist's slot

that existed in City Primeval with a good character, a detective who never appeared in any other book. So it's almost a blank space. Raymond Cruz appeared in other books, didn't he? It's a great call. This is the problem. I think Raymond Cruz is in a... Raymond Cruz isn't the main character of Glitz.

Is he? That's a different guy, right? See, the challenge here is that when there are 40 books, I can't speak authority. I could have sworn Ray, Cruz shows up. So for people who don't know, like Raymond Cruz is a detective in Detroit in the novel of Sea Prime Evil.

He's the... He is literally just Ray. in Detroit in this book. I mean, not literally, but he's going to be doing, if you read the book, it's basically the Raylan characters instead, this character, Raymond Cruz.

Obviously slightly different from Raylan Givens. He is referenced. Raymond Cruz is referenced and seen briefly, unjustified City Primeval, but they've basically taken the high noon in Detroit, which is the subtitle of City Prime Evil,

and this idea of a lawman and a criminal on a collision course. And kept the Carolyn Wilder uh, Carolyn, Carolyn Wilder part,

uh, who now is played by, or not is now played by, but is played by Angineau Ellis, uh, in the show. And tweaked a couple of other things. And then one of the main thing I was going to talk to you about is the

updating of the Elmore Leonard universe kind of, you know, and the idea of taking something from 1980 in Detroit and making it in 2023. But, and then so they've added this new, instead of having a hardened veteran

Detroit police officer navigating his own hometown and knowing all the back streets and dive bars and everything it's this guy railing from Kentucky via Florida via Florida who had just been on a

setup to the show is that he's busy taking his daughter to a camp somewhere for some disciplinary problems and gets waylaid by two fugitives who try to take his car. It happens. And then so he brings them in on a warrant that they had in Michigan

and thinks it's just going to be a quick stop over to drop these guys off. And instead, he gets pulled into a kind of cat and mouse game with a character named Clement Mansell, aka the Oklahoma Wildman played by Boyd Holbrook, which brings me back to the great thing that justified. The show always did, which is Pitt, this amazing martial character and this amazing heroic performance by Oliphant against a really formidable villain. Charismatic villain. And they did it again. Yeah, they did. They did it again with

Boyd Holbrook. Boyd Holbrook's performance on the show, like you're having a lot of these moments. Like, you know, people have criticized you over the past for your investment strategy. You know, you... It's intuitive. It's intuitive. It is, um, some would say counterintuitive. It is, uh, bearish. At times, you take the long, the long road. Next week, we're going to talk about the sudden spike in value of your Josh Hartnett stock. The Boyd-Holbrook has been a shower, not a grower, until this summer. He's so good in this. He's just great in this.

I think, so two episodes in out of, not sure I have many six, eight, eight. I really, I love it. I love that it's back in our last. lives. I love this type of storytelling, and I also just continue to think it's just a no-brainer for any era of television, because it kind of straddles a moral fashion procedural type framework with prestige touches, especially with the literary imprimatur of Elmore Leonard and that vibe. I think it's fantastic. And this idea also that you could just do the British model in an American way, like they did with Luther or Prime Suspect, like you just, you have the Raylan character, so let's go.

You don't need to do it every year. books that you can probably insert him into in some way or another if you wanted to keep making these things. Characters, I mean, even though the books can be quite different, they're all Elmore Leonard books. Elmore Leonard is the main character of Elmore Leonard books, and so all the characters could show up in each other's world. It's really not hard to believe that they might. Does this show, because I do have some criticisms too. Broadly, I think this is great. To you, first thing, as a justified superfan, does this feel like the show that you loved

and yes or no? So TV does not feel that way anymore. I was talking about this Joe and Mao where I went back and watched the finale of two. And that episode of television has to do so much work and it has such a huge payoff at the end of it. But you started

and then you blink and you're 32 minutes into the episode and it's not because it's like maniacally fast-paced or like constantly cutting. It's just that TV used to have tempo. And TV used to really, really be tight. And this is 2011, where you still have this transition happening from all these people who had worked on network shows and were writing to ad breaks and knew that you needed to have certain things happen at certain times of an episode.

But they were starting to get more and more artistic freedom from the networks to explore season-long storylines and bring in more literary weight references and all these. exciting things that were happening. And in my conversation with Mal and Joe, I kind of want to almost throw this back to you. They don't call that the golden age for nothing, you know, because we thought maybe then that it was the golden age because we were finally free of sitcoms and procedurals or whatever. But what it turns out is it's also the golden age because people knew how to make an entertaining television show while also being stimulating and meaningful. There was a foot in both worlds. Yeah. And so I think that it's not a criticism as much as

even this group of people working on justified City Prime Evil who made justified, who all of them, almost all of them worked on justified. Michael Dinner, who directed the first few episodes of City Prime Evil, worked on countless justified episodes. Dave Andron, who did Snowfall and worked on Snowfall with John Singleton

was one of the main writers of justified and is now one of the main writers of City Primeval. Like almost all of the crew is there. but you can tell TV has changed again and this one's a little slower and this one is a little bit more contemplative does that make sense?

It has more space for those sorts of things. Yeah, I think it's also, this show is very consciously commenting and thinking about the role of the like law gunslinger in 2023 versus 2011. Yeah, because I mean, The Justified famously begins with a scene that was taken from writing the rap, I believe, the climax of the book, right?

Which is that... It's basically Han Solo and Grito. Yeah. He shoots a guy. Yeah. Like... In cold blood, more or less. Basically in cold blood.

And we're like, wow, what a great hero. Yeah. You know, and... And that happens a lot in the first season. It's like, Raylan's the guy who will kick down the convenience store door, ask the guy to surrender. And, like, if he's like, no, then that's it. You know what I mean?

It's not... There's no negotiation and stuff like that. I think he evolves over the course of the show. but there is a real episodic nature to the kind of like, first season is very much like Crime of the Week. Raylan's taken somebody to jail or Raylan's got to go pick up somebody who's skip bail or Raylan's got to do this. And it's very violent, you know?

I think as the show went on, it started to reckon with the violence more and more. Yeah. And then... By the way, Pronto came before writing the rap. I've been saying this wrong the whole time. That was really bothering me that you had said that. I figured. And I was almost going to ask Kai to erase this episode.

I think she should anyway, but for different reasons. Sorry, please continue. Where was I? Oh, they're reckoning with this guy. They're reckoning with the idea of like lethal force on the part of like legal institutions and, you know, like many people are very skeptical of the Justice Department. I would say that is not the show's strong suit, quite frankly. I mean, I think that there are modern elements that they are gamely trying to put into this world. that some work and some simply don't.

You know, there's such a, and so one of the things that I find, I found, that I bumped on a little bit in the premiere was Elmore Leonard's Detroit is such a deeply specific place. It's one of my favorite places to visit in books. And it's not just that in that version of Elmore Leonard's Detroit, there aren't iPhones. It's that the, he is,

he is writing with a very, very keen eye from the ground level of a city that was riven by class and racial divides, as all cities continue to be. I don't mean to say that it's different. But his understanding of that city, like the back of his hand, was one of the things that brings you into the books. And this series, by contrast, is bringing Raylan into Detroit. So he's not that comfortable. And so the way we get to learn about Detroit is Norbert Leo Butts's cop character, like, kicks in a door. It's like, that's how we do that in Detroit. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I find myself missing, wishing there was more baked in, lived in flavor, honestly, that you do get sometimes. So, for example, the great, great actor, veteran actor, Von D. Curtis Hall. Playing Sweetie. Plays a bartender, former musician, and more. Obviously, he's connected to the story named Sweetie. and when you're in his bar. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Vondi Curtis Hall

is one of the few members of this cast who is from Detroit. You're like, this is a place. This guy knows the guy that he's playing and he understands it. And I kind of wish there was more of that. I mean, in my experiences in visiting Detroit, which I think is a pretty great town,

people talk a certain way, they act a certain way, and you know you're there. And I kind of wish, even though they shot there, I kind of wish there was a little more than that. They shot Chicago. Great call. They did not, guys, they did not shoot there. I was hung up on the fact that they, there's the Joe Lewis' fist statue.

They did the montage of actual Detroit, and then they go to Chicago. But all this is to say that, like, I kind of wish the cops talked like they were from Detroit. You know, I just kind of wish there was a little more of that specificity, as opposed to this character is now in a different urban environment. Well, nobody, if it was Raymond Cruz, nobody would have to say this is how he do things in Detroit.

Exactly. Because it's not, like, this guy's from out of town. There's a really interesting tension happening in the storytelling where you're taking a character from the 2010s. at least in our popular imagination, putting them in a show in 2023, but you're using a plot that was written in 1980.

And I will tell you certain things. This is one thing many people may not know about you. Andy can be a little squeamish about TV or films, about violence or things in it. It's true. I think you've actually loosened up a little bit.

But one thing you're not squeamish about is when you are reading, yeah. Yeah, you can take a lot. It's totally. And Elmer Leonard, books are grimy. Yes. Especially the Detroit novels.

And City Prime Evil especially is not for the faint of heart. No, and it's also not for a modern sensibility. Exactly not. I would say. No, I would say not. There is a it plays out in the show where there is a city judge

in the show played by Keith David. Judge Guy. He behaves a certain way and has certain storyline. The book pretty much it just begins with him. Yes. cold and this guy is a real character. He's a piece of shit. Yeah.

That's fair. I think that's fair. And there is not this very, not just modern, it's not just like a broadly modern sensibility. It's a broadly modern TV sensibility too that he's a piece of shit, but on the show he's like, I know things. Yeah. There's something else going on here. So, but when I hear that on the show, I feel like I'm being overly critical. What I'm hearing is people working really hard to find a different.

way in, which I think is the best spirit of adaptation. And there is one element of this, or a specific element of this, that I think is absolutely singing. And that's, Ange Neu Ellis' performance is Carolyn Wilder. She's amazing. She's great. She's incredible. And in the book, she holds the screen. She's a little bit of a cipher in the book. Like, Carolyn is actually, like, very much, like, compromised, and I'm sure that that will come through in the show eventually. But she's very compromised by past relationships. And a, you understand. stand a little bit more psychologically why she's representing

Clement essentially. In this show, it's even more perverse and actually sad that she's representing Clement, but it's because of those same compromises that she has made over the course of her life and the situation that she finds herself in with her ex, so that you're kind of like, oh, God, like she's trapped with this person, that she is also now sworn to defend. And I do think to combat my previous slight criticism, I think one of the things the show does best is suggest that those who work in the legal system and those who work as criminals in the criminal system are much more interconnected than one might imagine and that you can't really, it's like trying to cut out a tumor that's metastasized. Everyone is touched by everything. And Raylan's sensibilities with his cowboy hat and his big gun might not play well there. He's a little bit, he's too broad.

for a place that that's that specific. So I think that that's all smartly set up. And again, like, this is a Western between two guys. And when they finally collide in episode two, that's when it really ignited for me. It sure does. I think we do have to talk about the one thing that is a little curious, at least to my eyes, which is in this series, Raylan has a teenage daughter, which is non-canonical from the previous series. Did she exist in the previous series?

Or we just imagine this When Nona is pregnant at the end of two I can't remember his daughter I mean he's got a yes the kid is a part of it He has a kid yeah Oh right because also in the books he has a wife and kids That we don't meet that are in back in Cruz or Raylan Raylan oh yeah

Like in back in Harlan County I think Cruz has a daughter in city pride So it exists and also who cares it's TV show So now he has a daughter and that's the sort of the engine that fuels the road trip etc., etc. Raylan Givens' daughter,

Willa Givens, is played by Timothy Ollivan's daughter, Vivian O'Affeant, which I imagine would be wonderful and like his dream and working on set.

I think it's a really wonderful story. I don't know if it's adding a lot, let's say. I think that she is a... I don't think it's on the level of Caitlin Dever in Justified Season 2.

I'll put it that way. I think that's the next. She's a very green performer. Yeah. And it's hard not to bump on that, I would say. Some other things I like about this are, I think they're doing a pretty good job taking a plot from 1980,

integrating digital technology, the kinds of things that they wouldn't have had. When you're reading the book, it's very, you might as well be reading a Western. You know what I mean? It's like, well, maybe he'll pop up again or maybe we'll do this or we're going to stake this out. And it's like the level of digital surveillance that would probably be like, you know, it would end a lot of 1980 crime novels. But there's a lot going on in the story. about the extent to which you can do things legally, what you can charge people with, what you can do unless you're going to charge somebody with something,

waiting for that person to lead you to a bigger thing, all these things that are kind of piling up. And then there's the more elemental story of now once Clement has threatened Raylan's kid, as he does, that shit gets really real. Two veterans involved in this that I think are worthy of note. Great crime writer Walter Mosley was on the writing staff for this.

Hell yeah. Which is pretty cool. Yeah. I bumped on the music and then I saw our guy Mark Isham, like 71 year old dude who has done literally everything in music business. I also want to give the show the space to be like, we're going to be having guys talk about P-Funk and not Lil'Dirk and that's okay. That's true.

I guess this is a question to talk about when we get further into it because they're aspects of this, and this is baked into the justified franchise, there are aspects of this that strike me as aggressively old-fashioned, which is the nature also, the show is saying that, the show is saying that Raylan Givens and the characters comments on it. He's wearing a hat. He's wearing a hat, and when

Clement meets him for the first time, he's like, there are only two types of people who are your age and still doing this. Either they got passed over for the promotion or they just really, really like doing this. Yeah. So it's interesting to see a show. That's a great line. It's a great line. It's brilliantly delivered and it crackles.

I think I'm just sort of processing, and I'm realizing I'm sounding much more negative that I mean to because I'm digging this show a lot. But it is an interesting proposition to be like, we are proudly an old-fashioned thing, but we're also interrogating our old-fashionedness, and we're shooting at this a certain way, but also the music sounds like this.

So it's kind of moving in two directions at the same time and hasn't settled. And to my eyes, it didn't settle into what it's going to be until that last 15-minute run of the second episode. Yeah. I think it's also a different story for the justified world to be telling to even in the second season where it's this season long arc

about the Bennett clan versus the Crowder clan and the Givens family kind of caught in the middle, there are still several case of the week episodes in that. And even though those episodes, I think, are a little bit more delicately tied

to the larger story. They're still like, there's a pregnant prisoner who needs to be transferred from one prison to another or Rachel, the other U.S. Marshall's brother is in trouble and Raylan needs to stop Rachel from making a mistake. There's like other little things.

There's a whole thing in season two with when known as new husband who's in debt and orchestrates like a bank robbery. Like there are these great subplots. And I don't know that we're going to get that from City Prime Evil because the novel City Prime Evil is essentially two trains on the same track running at each other. So I don't know that I think part of the reason why if I don't sound like I'm so enjoying myself watching this,

and I think it's really, really good. But I think I'm going to miss what if Raylan had to go to Saganov for the weekend to get somebody and bring them back? Well, also, part of that is also that OlaFand is such a classic TV leading man. Like, you just want to spend time with him and the characters that he creates.

Wasn't there, I think we're also kind of chin-scratchy because I just feel like this represents a pretty interesting transition moment in television because wasn't there... Well, two things. One, because the conceit of the original Justified, I mean, there is a larger industry turn back when there was a functioning industry toward more old-fashioned storytelling. Like, if Justified had never existed and you signed up Timothy Oliphant to play a lawman and you got Taylor Sheridan to write it, it would be an open-ended series, right? Like, it would be what it was again. Today?

Today. I feel like people might want that, or streaming service might want a multi-season show that had, the rhythms might be different. But I do feel like that's still valuable. Well, I mean, you would know better than I would, but it doesn't sound like people are looking for multi-season shows anymore. Wouldn't it be... Actors? Versus Boyd?

No, actors aren't. But I think that networks are returning the fact that, like, people just like their stories. I mean, I think that's one of the old-fashioned, though they may be. I think that's the Taylor-Shared and lesson that everyone's trying to chase. But wasn't there also, or am I misremembering, a different justified reboot planned at some point?

Wasn't there a script going around or is a different, like, imagining it differently. I don't know whether Ollifant was involved. Oh, I don't know. Actually, I feel like I had like a justified Google alert, so I would know that. I don't remember, but what was just sort of like, but they were just going to move him to Florida or whatever? You know what? I don't know if I'm not speaking out of turn. I just may be making this up, but I just feel like that there is a lot of time on group chat, trying to figure out like a way to work together again. So I'm sure that there's been stuff kick right. It's just sort of interesting if the show, especially if it continues to come back in different forms.

Who knows what needle this will move, you know, in terms of... I think it's probably more likely, I mean, you know, I was looking back at the ratings of Justified and, you know, even though it was at once a sort of on the bubble show, it's like, oh, is Justify going to come back? Is Justify going to come back? It still did 3 million people per episode pretty routinely. It's a very, very different time. A very successful show right now. Also, you know what the most telling thing is when you Google shows? Just to remind you of like, when did they come out? Because to my mind, Justified is still relatively, I think of it as kind of recent. And we think of it as whatever era we're in now in television. If you go to the Wikipedia page for like season two or three, the image is the DVD set cover.

Yeah. Which dates it more than anything we could possibly say. And you're right. Like season two, which was fantastic, the season two premiere had three and a half million viewers on linear. Yeah. Not counting anything else.

That is a different era. Yes. So I can't remember how we got off on the readings of it. Oh, I just feel like it's an interesting test case for like what audiences want and if it, you know, it, because we, you started the conversation by saying this is a show that really worked and made sense in its era and now it's coming back slightly different. And we kind of started this conversation being like, cool, this is going to be like Sherlock.

They should just do like three episode to eight episode mini serieses every few years when he feels like putting the hat back on. I would imagine, like he think he's like 55. Like he's probably got one more of these in him. And he's that he has said, that like if this one works out, like we have another one we'd like to do. That's cool. But yeah, like there's also a part of me that would just like justify to still be on.

That's the tension that I think I'm speaking to, which is I think people still want those types of shows. We are not ungrateful for this. But how hard would that be for you? You know, if you miss one episode, you're like, well, I'm not going backwards. I would love that because then I could just take it off my plate based on a completely obscure rule I made up 12 years ago.

I don't see a problem with that. Anything else you want to hit? before we get out of here? I think next week we're going to do some hijack. I think it's hijack week on the watch. Dude, it's the show of the summer. It's so fun. The fourth episode's really good.

So, hijack, people know we've been talking about this. Idris Elba show on Apple TV. On Apple TV plus six episode total. Seven. Seven. Seven hour flight, seven episodes. What was a six hour flight? Seven hour flight.

Did you take a shortcut from Dubai to London? I just fly. I fly real fast. I go on the go fast flights. You don't know about that? What is the... Remember the Chris Licked article? I'm taking a blimp from Dubai and London

so it feels like seven episodes. You like pilots that waver from their flight path. No, I mean, that's what this... The whole thing is hinging on this, like, slight deviation. Isn't this the Chris Lick quote that among many things got him fire where he was just like, we can debate the nature of rain,

but you can't tell me it's raining if it's not? This is what we're talking about. It's six hours. Anyway, five episodes, have, the fifth episode is going up, it went up last night. Yes. And the final episode is going out next week.

So I think we could talk about the show. We could talk about it for when it's done. If you'd like to, we could talk about it next Thursday. So next Thursday is all hijack, all plain nonsense. Sure. You want to watch special ops colonel lioness with me on Sunday night? Can I watch it with you?

Oh, man. That would be special. And you fall asleep. Kai could come to the east side. I text you at the end. We could have some Thai food, just watch special ops. No, Kai and I would. both come to your house if you made one of your special leftover tacos.

Oh, yeah. Like the specialty of the house. Yeah. Can't imagine. Like crunch up some pringles, sprinkling on top. You know, I'm free Sunday. Whatever you got? Okay.

So for next week's homework, we're doing special ops lioness with AMC spokeswoman Nicole Kidman. Uh-huh. And Zoe Saltonna. Excited. I've seen it. I highly recommend it. I wish, sometimes I wish that your face could be communicated to our listeners. You're gleeful.

It's really cool. It's good show. You're gleeful about this. Greenwald, great to see you. Thank you to Kai for producing. Glad she decided to come back, come back to her audio home of the watch. Did you think that was in Jeopardy? Well, Portland's very seductive.

It is, but yet you always seem to come back to you. That's true. I feel like, you know, this is Tinseltown. Bill's got me a lifetime contract. So thanks everybody for listening. We'll be back on Monday. Is it like the Bobby Bonilla contract?