The Watch - Lessons Learned After One Year of Disney+. Plus, ‘The Outsider’ Cancellation and All in on HBO’s ‘Industry.’

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

Chris and Andy check in with how well Disney+ is doing one year after its launch date (2:32). Then, they discuss the surprising news that ‘The Outsider’ won’t be returning for a second season (19:59) and the exciting new HBO show ‘Industry’ (27:34). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. 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 on the other line from pre-08, no boo. It's Andy B. Wald. That's a nice throwback. I like that.

Today on the show, a bit of news at the top cover and the cancellation of The Outsider at HBO Max, the one-year anniversary of Disney Plus and some other Disney news. And then Andy and I will... Happy birthday, Disney, please. You guys did it. And then Andy and I will break down the new HBO drama industry. It's all coming up on today's episode

of The Watch. Stay tuned. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. What's up? We're back. Andy, it's so great to see you. It's Thursday. Things are going awesome over here. We're just making Ron Clayne memes in our free time. We're no longer part of the resistance, right? We've been leading with politics a lot. Should we start leading with like baseball hot stove league or something? Yeah, I was trying to, Chris is joking, but I'm very serious. Now that we've done our duty, we can hang up our spurs. The resistance is over. We won. Everything's great now. We need to pivot, right? And, Some people, like non-Galxy brain-level thinkers, were like, you guys should now start watching television shows on a weekly basis and talking about them. And I was like, yawn. Who said that? That is 08 Nobu news. You know what I mean? Like I want to, like the heroes of the new HBO drama industry, which we'll speak about later, I want to take all of the capital we've accrued over the last few weeks and months and even years and invest it completely in the possibility of a,

war in the South China Sea sometime in the next five to 15 years. So what's next for us? And Chris helpfully suggested we should become meme lords. Yeah. And Chris was getting the ball rolling. I feel like our listeners will appreciate this by sending me very stayed photos of soon-to-be chief of staff. Chief of staff elect.

Yeah. Paired with particularly gully verses from push-a-tie of the clips. Yeah. And I was like, no notes. Publish. publish. I feel like that is what Daniel Lack and Spotify wanted when they bought

the watch podcast and then agreed to take the ringer on along with it. It's Max B's Cochrane Wave. That's what we're doing right now. That's it. You did it. Yeah. Look, you workshoped it live on air. Andy, I want to talk to you a little bit about the pluse because it's been a... It's a roller coaster year for us for Bob Chappek, for the Iger counter. Yeah. But we're here. We got

We got through the first year of Disney Plus, and we're in the midst of the second season of the Mandalorian. Soul comes out Christmas Day, is that right? It picks our movie that was removed from theaters, and we'll be going up straight to the pluse, correct? And then it was announced today that January 15th, we will see the first MCU Disney Plus show,

which is Wanda Vision dropping in mid-January. So Disney has carved itself out a spot where for the next couple of months, they will have something on the air that people want to check out. Now, I'm personally probably not going to see Soul, but I will definitely see Wanda Vision. I'll definitely watch the rest of the Mandalorian

as we talk about it every week. But the thing that I was most struck by, and we can talk a little bit about some of the numbers that came along with some of this news because they did their earnings. And they're staggering, honestly, man. I mean, considering the fact that they had a lot of layoffs at ESPN that Disney has had to make cuts,

they have added nearly 74 million subscribers to Disney Plus. And I think the thing that stuns me is everything we know about streaming services, or at least we thought we knew, was that you needed to give people this constant churn of new stuff, you know, that they had to like check in on Friday that they had an ever-growing queue of stuff to check out. And Disney came through, dropped the family entertainment back, that we knew they would when they rolled this service out. They've essentially given us

Mandalorian Season 1, Hamilton, Mulan, and Mandalorian season 2. And that's it. 25% of that, I would say, no thank you, and hand back. But yes, that's it. Then that was not the plan. Obviously, they had hoped to have the Marvel original series going by now.

I believe at least two of them were initially intended to premiere this fall. it's amazing. I do think it's kind of an outlier. As we say whenever we talk about Disney, it is a and has managed to stay and credit to all the Bob's, frankly, whichever Bob's are relevant to this conversation. Iger, Chepec, Balaban, whatever.

Former baseball manager Bob Melvin probably involved in the world. Absolutely. Bob Gibson, RIP, that they have managed to maintain their place as a essential American brand, meaning you engage with it. You know, you expect to. Especially, you know, and I'll shouts from the plush suite that I've booked for the holidays

with my family on the beach side here of Dattington Island, it's just something that you kind of have to engage with. And what I wonder, though, about the streaming service, and, you know, I'm sure that they'll spend the numbers any which way and we'll never actually know we won't have any like counterfactuals to prove or disprove it. Did subscriptions to the service go up due to, you know? a need for entertainment during the pandemic when, as if it was over, sorry. But during the early stages and through the summer of the pandemic,

as people wanted some entertainment or just needed to have a moment away from their children, we won't ever totally know that. Or is there some, that's what I, by the way, that's what I refer to this podcast as. It's daddy's private time. But I also don't really know because I am not an analyst at Pierpoint,

whatever the name of the fictional bank is in industry, how sustainable this is. Because clearly, you're not going to, no one's betting against Disney making it through this. They're one of the major companies in the world. The future looks better than the present because they have pivoted into this streaming model at the appropriate time.

And now they have this bench, right? This benchmark of like where they have these subscribers, they have direct access to them, and now they can only get better. once in theory the world gets better and they can put more things into production, whatever. But I don't really understand the collision between, okay, we're bullish on the long-term prospects, but we're very bearish on the short-term prospects of a company that is totally devastated by the lack of in-person entertainment.

The swing from their parks earnings is staggering. It's something like plus 1.4 billion to minus 1.1 billion. I mean, it, this is, there should be no crying for Bob JPEC, but it is

interesting, pretending that everything is value neutral, which is not. I say that those numbers, knowing full well that while many people were giving money

to Senate candidates of their choice, I was donating money directly to the log flume fund at Magic Kingdom just to make sure everything just, just, we were cycling

the water in and out, we were keeping the rides moving, just to keep everybody in practice. What I, the way I chose to maximize my dollar value was to give only to the performers who play Disney characters who don't have the benefit of masks or like giant furry costumes. Like the dude who plays Captain Hook, he is exposed. You know what I'm saying? He is, he is truly, truly exposed in the way the guy who plays Jiminy Cricket isn't. $1,000 to act blue, but only to the animatronic Abe Lincoln in the Hall of Presidents. Yeah, $1,000 to the Chepec support fund,

but only if you bring back the, is that right? racist caricatures of people from around the world that used to walk around scaring children at Epcot Center. Okay, but what I wanted to say was, Chepec is now in this position that isn't great, although I guess it's the right one for his shareholders, where he is out there castigating California Governor Gavin Newsom, basically being like, how dare you deny people the right to enjoy themselves at our theme parks

during a massive viral pandemic that is spiraling out of control? It's a different category, but in a way, this is the argument that is completely paralyzing the country and the economy, you know, and it's more, it's more valuable to pay attention to it. It's more valuable to pay attention to it in the context of small businesses, right, where we want the restaurants that we love to exist, even though everybody knows that these places should be just getting money not to open until it's safe to do so again, but none of that's going to happen. When I'm not saying bail out Disney, but I'm saying

that it puts them in a very strange PR position trying to save their business, well, giving us good entertainment content, but actively arguing a point of view that could get people sick and killed. I just, the thing that I keep going back to is how I feel like Disney, for the most part, is exactly what it said it was on the first day it started as it is a year in, not through no fault of their own, because they probably would have had at least Wanda Vision and Captain and Winter Soldier up if, sorry, Falcon and the Winter Soldier up if they had gone through with the production on the schedule that they had laid out. But if they could put up, 70 some million subscribers with what they have. It's sort of daunting to imagine what happens if they get

an Obi-Wan show and three Marvel shows up next year. I think that's a great point. And I think it speaks to how quickly... Because a Mandalorian, for as good as it is, is hardly the red meat of the Star Wars universe that they could be surfing up. It's one show also. I mean, if you had told them that they were going to spend however many millions, if not billion dollars they spent on the launch of this thing, and a year in have one original show, essentially. I don't know how they'd feel about that. But it is pointing to an interesting, let me just say it this way. I wonder how instructive it is internally at Disney, because one of the great successes of Bob Iger's tenure and a lot of credit for this goes to Alan Horn, who's headed their movie department for a long time as well, which is they made Disney,

Disney has always been synonymous with just consistent backlog of children's entertainment but what they did was they made Disney synonymous with blockbusters and events. Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar they own what the box office has become, right? And what this year has proven is that

Plan A was okay. Plan A is not bad. They essentially completely had to lose plan B that has carried them and redefined them. But Plan A seems to be doing okay at least for this year, fiscally, right? If not long term. I also wonder if it has entreated. This is the other question I have going forward. We haven't heard, like, unlike with Apple, which has spent the pandemic, just buying a lot of projects and flirting with buying bigger ones, like, you know, whether it's a star-studded TV show,

like Shrink Next Door with Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd, or flirting or kicking the tires on a Bond movie. No, I saw that they have like a Chris Miller movie called After Party that just, basically has like every funny person in it. They're just buying stuff up left and right. Disney has not announced like a new, Disney, for the pluce anyway, like a new franchise show or a new investment. They are not using this year to do what some people wondered if they would, which is are they going to do anything to shake the assumption that this is at most a PG-13 platform, right?

or just at most a place to continue to strip mine successful franchises for parts. The answer seems to be no, and that seems to be working. I'm also interested to see how the other channels on Disney Plus grow, and how Disney in general interacts with Hulu going forward. I think that we've seen obviously the high fidelity, which was supposed to be a Disney Plus show that wound up going to Hulu, and sadly it's not coming back. that was an example of, hey, let's take something that feels like it belongs somewhere else and

move it over here. But something like the right stuff, which we talked about a little bit that's on Nat Geo on the service. I'm curious to see whether or not like those other verticals, for lack of a better term, wind up like putting out more stuff once production is flowing a little bit more freely. I don't see it. And the reason why, you know, let me do this Thomas Friedman column. No, I like this. A very, very, very, very, very small sample. size, i.e. my own home. They're not watching the right stuff. Well, not so much that they're not watching it, because they're pretty big Philip Kaufman

fans. They're just absolutely scandalized by the treatment of John Glenn. Well, no, they watched Unbearable Lightness of Being, and they thought that was an excellent movie. And so then they went back to the right stuff, and they're like, this guy's a pretty top to your filmmaker. Why isn't he mentioned in the same breath as others from his generation? But when they turned on the pluse this morning to catch up or to finish watching the Great Mouse detective, classic cartoon from 1983. It's about a mouse who's a, you get it. As they were scrolling through the menu, the big top bar was like, the right stuff,

new episode now. I was like, this is discordant. And it would be okay if they clicked that. I'm not saying that their sensibilities would have been offended, although my younger daughter thinks the speed of sound record was a big deal. She's a big eager guy. Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

That's just seeing how they interacted with the service. And, you know, I think the point of Disney, in the way they marketed it successfully, was open this app, here's a bunch of stuff. How wonderful. You know, look at all of the stuff we have. There's real value in all of that stuff essentially being pitched at the same level. You know, if one of those things was, you know, a new season of Ryan Murphy's Ratchet or whatever, like, that's just not. Not only isn't working visually. You don't have to worry about Netflix popping up and it being like the Griselda murders, right? Truly. And I think that, you know, my daughters are equally like Chuck Yeager was nimble at, you know, breaking the sound barrier. They're very good at seeing that, you know, mom and dad were watching Call My Agent again last night. Let's get out of this as quickly as possible to the kids menu. Disney Plus doesn't work if you have to toggle between content like that. And I think they were smart about that. And so it is what it is and it seems to be working. Another is what it is situation. Can we stand Datington Island for one second? This is something you don't want to talk about. But I have. have to bring it up. Okay. Are you going to talk about Johnny Depp? Yeah, just briefly.

Okay. Briefly. I couldn't tell if this was a bit. No, this isn't a bit. A couple years ago, we, Chris and I were doing the Game of Thrones after show, or one iteration of it. And before we went live, and I don't remember if this was, it was live, so it must have been when we were doing it on Twitter, not HBO.

We were back in the, in the green room, which may or may not have been Jason Gallagher's office at that moment. And there was a TV on where we were. We were, I guess we were going to watch the show before we went out and did the whatever. And so before the new episode was on, we were watching the last 15 minutes of a Harry Potter film. Now, at that time, and up until like last month, I was completely Harry Potter ignorant. And now I'm reading the books with my kids and I have thoughts. But we'll save this.

If you have thought, if you say it that way, yeah, if you say it that way, I wonder whether or not that doesn't bode well for Harry Potter. No, no, it's great. This is great fun. I'm glad I waited because I get to enjoy these with my kids. It's fine. But my point is there was some movie. It's like this fantastic beast thing. I guess it's like a prequel film series.

And you and I were watching this along with Jason and Mallory, who of course knew everything about it. And we were happy to see that our number one draft pick, Colin Farrell, was in the film. Yes. Anything with Colin Farrell in it is immediately more interesting. And I am very happy whenever he's getting paid a good sum, you know? Yeah, it's really important that he protects his bank account. So at the end of the film, he's revealed to be a villain.

And they, like, do a Scooby-Doo, and they pull his mask off or magic it off or whatever. Again, I don't have all the details about how it works. And the big reveal is that he's actually Johnny Depp. Yeah. Does he get older? Like, is that what happens? He looks like, yeah, he looks like he went to St. Lucia for the Keith Richards Street. which is you get foliated.

You are not ex-folated, you were just foliated. And this was really bizarre, right? Because I'm like, you have a really good, interesting actor. And then you unmask him as being whatever Johnny Depp was turning into, even before we found out that in real life he seems to be a total monster. And this seems like a weird downgrade. And we gave Jason and Mallory a lot of guff for it, as if they personally had made the film.

Yeah, like as if like they somehow had sully true detective season three by doing this. Yeah, season two. So fast forward to now. I guess they're going to, they're finally ready to fire up the third movie in the Crimes of Grindlewold franchise. Which, by the way, I will only ever hear as my own name thanks to Sam S.M. Who was referring to Briar Patch Season 2 as the crimes of Greenwald. And of course they can't have Johnny Depp in this movie. I can't, what were they thinking?

This is really where I'm at. What are you thinking where you think that this is going to be a real game changer to put Johnny Depp in your franchise? And then everything happens and comes out. And now they're replacing him with Mads Mikkelson. When you had Colin Farrell right there. That's my point. Obviously, you know as well as anybody that Colin Farrell probably has other things going on. I mean, that guy's going to play the Ridler, isn't he?

No, he's the penguin. Right, he's the penguin. He's Oswald Copperpot or whatever. Are you saying that Colin Farrell, the most underrated character actor of our time, can't bear up under the weight of two franchises, Batman and Grindlewald? I don't understand why anybody is sweating this. It's pretty easy to, like, digitally go back and reshoot that one scene. Like, Zach Snyder has been reshooting Batman versus Superman or Justice League for, like, two years now.

Like, go back and just put Colin Farrell in the one scene. Do you see he keeps unveiling new characters? Yes. This is weird. Like when vultures like, see your first glimpse of Martian Mind Hunter in a movie that came out six years ago. Dude, so did you see that Green, I think Bob Greenblatt, who used to be very high up at HBO Max in this since moved on, but was him who was just like, I made a terrible mistake with the Snyder's head. He was, I think he was basically like, I thought it was going to be like we're going to just trim some stuff up. We're going to punch some things in. And it's like this, we're like 30 million in the whole. now and like we have to like, we have to swim to the other side of the channel now. It did not sound like it was going well. Speaking of HBO Max.

Come on the watch. Look, you, I just wish everyone could see how quickly you are doing one of those Fast and the Furious pull the handbrake to put the car into the spin turns to get out of, to defending Mads-Mickleson. If they just want, do you want Mads-Mickleson or do you want Johnny Depp when you have Colin Farrell? That's my point. I think it's a good argument to be made.

I'm happy for Mads-Mickleson. That's true. There must be a reason why Colin Farrell could not do this. You know? Let's not look under the hood too closely. Okay. The car runs. This was the real crime of Grindlewalt.

That's all I wanted to say. I wanted to briefly talk about the cancellation of outsider at HBO Max because it came as a huge surprise to me. Not HBO Max. HBO. But aren't we, is it? So I guess that's my first question. Are we not all in the same gang?

Are we not talking? still doesn't make any sense, but no, it is an HBO original series. I think, I mean, maybe now it would be less challenging now that Casey Blois is in charge of all of it. But we haven't seen any evidence yet of a show being an HBO show moving to HBO Max. I don't know what practical difference would make maybe in the accounting department, but it is done at Warner Media. Okay. So, yes, Outsider was on linear television, you could watch it on HBO on cable, the same way that you can watch, I think industry is on

Lydia, correct? Yes, it's an HBO BBC copro. Right, but Love Life was only on HBO Max. That was an HBO max original, and the people at HBO would be like, don't forget that. And I'm not. I apologize to all my good friends at HBO at the home box office. Outsiders been

canceled, nonetheless. And this came as a huge shock because it was one of the rating successes of premium cable in the early part of the year. And obviously was something that captivated a lot of people. We talked about it quite a bit. I think that our interest waned in it as it went on, but at least initially, we were super into this show. And they had kind of built an effective runway to do a, you know, a Cynthia Arrivo second season of this show. And I was really excited to see where Richard Price went

with it after getting off of the Stephen King text, essentially, and coming up with a, you know, sort of a more original mythology for the characters involved. I'm stunned by this. I'm not really sure, you know, whether we'll ever really get an explanation from it. One of the things that's interesting is MRC, the company who produces the show, I suppose, right, are open to, apparently open to shopping it around to other services.

As you pointed out to me, though, there's a big problem with this, though. Yes. Yeah, MRC, independent studio made the show for HBO. MRC increasingly unique among studios, even smaller studios, in that it is unaffiliated and independent. So it does not directly feed to anyone, so it sells everywhere. Its biggest success is probably either you could say the Ozark, probably at Netflix, or the Great at Hulu. They're very serious about wanting to sell it elsewhere.

From everything I understand, Richard Price has delivered at least one script. Cynthia Arrivo is under contract. I mean, this is, Stephen King was, I think, the one who accidentally. leaked the news that there was going to be a season to because he was psyched about it. He thought this was a great adaptation and gave Richard Price's blessing to take the Holly character into new pastures and a different story. But the way television shows are monetized these days, I don't see the value. And I say this sadly, because I would love to see the second season.

I don't fully understand the value of, say, a Netflix buying the second season of a show to which the first season that they don't have the rights to the first season of. Now, it doesn't mean HBO has them in perpetuity either because HBO doesn't own the show. It is an independent thing. But unless Netflix could come up with something that I don't understand,

I'm not sure why HBO would, but if they could come up with something that would allow them to take the first season, license the first season as well, then you could see that happening. But it's a tricky situation, even for something as pedigreed as this. And as to why they're not going forward with it,

I don't know because it does seem like this, the undoing, you know, they were both key parts of what has been a quietly consistent and successful year for HBO. You know, these were not, obviously these are expensive shows with major talents involved with them in front of the camera and behind them. But the fact that they just sort of low-key slipped into that Sunday night slot and delivered, that's what you're looking for. And that is much harder to do than it sounds. We'll talk about industry in a bit, but while, you know, a lot of, we've talked a lot this year about, oh, when is the tap going to run dry? Does Netflix have shows to last throughout the rest of the year and into next year, you know, all these streaming services that launched probably on the promise of a lot of original content that they weren't able to deliver because of the pandemic. HBO is just actually reliably put up two shows per little mini season. And, you know, since the beginning of the year. And you, you know, I understand where we're talking. about Netflix canceling stuff and feeling like kind of attracting people with the flashy headline of a show starting is more important for them maybe than season four or five of something.

I take that at face value, but HBO has a great reputation for building up loyalty and fandom in shows over the course of several seasons. They hit that sweet spot. That's not quite the showtime, we'll put it on in perpetuity. They have like, this is a really good, the leftovers gets really good in season two. This is going to get really good in season three. So I'm really surprised that this is happening. The other thing that I think is worth noting here is part of the appeal of HBO, not just for people like us who have been fans of their shows for a long time, but also I think internally within the industry has been their slow and steady investment in their people and their types of shows. and as everyone runs to chase the new thing,

HBO just kind of delivers. And part of the reason they deliver is because of these longstanding relationships, almost all of which predate Casey Blois or even his predecessor in the job. And I wonder if that's starting to change. Now, obviously, times change, and they invest in new talent,

and as well they should. But Richard Price is being at HBO for a while. This is what I was going to say. I think that David Susses, Simon, you know, from the Wire and most recently The Deuce and plot against America, I think that he just re-uped. I think he just tweeted something about he's now undering his 20th year in business with HBO. There will always be room for a David Simon show on HBO, which is great. We support it. I love that. And I love that about them. But I do wonder if it signals the beginning

of a turning of a page. Obviously, the corporate structure and everything has moved on from the like, we're in New York. We're not Hollywood. We're not TV. We're HBO. We're based in New York. And this is what we do. And everyone moves to us, not the other way around. They're making more shows now. They're making shows that might not fit their brand and saying their HBO Max originals, but it's all mixed up in there. But are they kind of turning the page

from the Richard Price, David Simon era? And there's, you know, I'm not, I realize I don't want to be the guy here being like, look, humans are great, but dinosaurs have been with us for a long time. Sure. Time should change. But I particularly thought the outsider

was worthy of continuation, not just because it was a Richard Price written show, and we love him as a novelist and as a screenwriter. But what was cool about it was that it was Richard Price doing a modern genre show. And it felt like the right kind of sweet spot between the old HBO and the new. And it doesn't need a second season. But as you said, Cynthia Revo, leading a paranormal crime show. Written by Richard Price?

Yeah. I would be pretty into that. We're going to talk more about HBO because we're going to talk about the new drama industry and we'll just take a quick break and when we come back we'll talk about that. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch.

Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and main not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. 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. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. Andy, let's get five beeps on this, huh? How about that? I'm really excited to talk about this.

I did not expect to like industry as much as I did. And I thought it was a fucking blast. Uncomplicatedly, a fucking blast. I don't know if people have gotten a chance to check it out, so maybe they won't be listening to this segment. But if you have, we're going to talk about the first episode pretty in depth. There's some spoilers in there. I cannot think of a better description of this show than the one that Lena Dunham, who directed the first episode and executive produced the show offered up,

which is Melrose Place meets Wolf of Wall Street. There are elements of both of that in this. I also found it to be very much of a piece with some of the other shows on HBO this year, like I May Destroy You, Like We Are Who We Are, a kind of deeply romantic, yet deeply self-aware and young-feeling series about people kind of making their way in a very contemporary time.

And, you know, I've, oh, a couple of things I wanted to bounce off of you, but one of the things that I've been excited about with TV this year is the amount of shows that I think speak to at least a contemporary moment rather than looking backwards and trying to define metaphorical or allegorical truth

from what it was like in the 60s or what it was like in the 50s. Like I have really loved shows that are a little bit more contemporary and a little bit more of the moment. And I felt like I felt like that way with industry. I felt like way with the characters, the way that they were behaving in good and bad ways. What did you think? I'm completely on the same page as you.

I was not expecting to like it half as much as I did. And I love watching it. And I can't wait to watch more. And for on a very base, level, I think your elevator pitch for it is right. And I think that that alone should get people watching it. I am a sucker. You are a sucker. A lot of people like entertainment are suckers for

shows, movies, but in this case certainly shows, about hot, interesting young people who are willing to, all caps, push it too far. Right? And they're in a high stakes environment and they're bumping up against each other in all kinds of ways, all day and all night, and that makes for very entertaining television. The next step, though, I think that really made me not just, because there's a version of this where you could like it in kind of a trashy way, and I think it's more interesting than that. And your point about, like, contemporary society, there was something about watching incredibly young people as they are in the show, because the show

follows a group of, they're not interns, but they're basically like first years who enter this incredibly rigorous training program at a at a massive global banking firm and the idea being that they have to they have mentors and they have impossible hours and that at the end of the term i think three months or something half of them are going to be gone and they're constantly being evaluated so it's a six episode show i think that that term takes place over the course of six months i'm not sure if that's it's entirely their sort of induction period or whatever but the yeah the it's like a six six-month sort of weeding out process of who will and who won't stay at this place. And what I thought was interesting about it as someone who has no interest in global finance,

no understanding of it at all. I don't know what the word tranche means. I don't, I know you like, you like shows with terminology. I know, I don't. I'm a jargon guy. Like I, and I would say that the guys who wrote this show and created it, so their names are, their names are Mickey Down and Conrad Clay. They, They push this car into the absolute red. Like, the RPMs are going so high on the terminology and the vocabulary. And that's also a really interesting test of great writing and great performing. Because if you don't understand 98% of what is being said in a literal way,

but intuitively understand what's happening on a narrative and emotional way, like, isn't that kind of the best feeling where, you know what I mean? That is sort of what Sorkin does. Sorkin, I think, is a little bit more of a populist, and he can go really deep into the terminology people who use to cut a highlight package on a sports news show on a nightly basis. But ultimately, you know, well, I care about Danny, the anchor, and I care about Natalie, the producer.

Well, also, Sorkin, I think, finds great poetry and nobility in detail and absorption and compulsion and obsession with detail. And I think what makes this show very modern and contemporary and younger than Sorkin is that there's no romance in it. It's just numbers and it's just money. And what I was going to say is because I don't know about any of this world. I don't care about it, particularly this precarious moment in global history. It can feel incredibly gross. It can feel cynical.

But what I think the show does very well and actually very subtly in the beginning is present this idea that if you are a young person in the world and your prospects, and this is pre-pendent. your prospects are bleak. You are going to be worked to the bone regardless of what you do, whether you are busing tables to support your career, your dream career as a painter or a musician, or you are working in global finance. You're going to be worked to the bone anyway. You are essentially, you know, flotsam in the floating plastic sea of global capitalism. So why not choose to sacrifice yourself in the purest way possible, which is just in the pursuit of money? You're going to be working anyway, so why not maximize your value? And that feels empty and cynical, but also in the eyes and representation that the show gives us,

it suddenly seems not reasonable, but compelling. That sucks on a humanity level. It's good TV. It's good TV. And I would take it one step further, which is, and this might be boilerplate, this might be something that, and it is something that I've said before in writing and on this podcast, and we've discussed in various contexts in regards to different shows. diverse casting fucking matters.

And it matters not just to make the world a better place, but because instantly the show is more interesting because of it. Yeah, and specifically My Holly Harold, who plays Harper. She is a revelation. I loved her as the leader of the show. I love watching her. I can't wait to see more from her. But you put her in the middle of this place,

and it's not just how she looks as, an actor, it's also the character that's built around her, which is that she's clearly hiding something in her background. She comes from Binghamton, or she went to SUNY Binghamton and everyone else here went to Eaton. That's a high school, right? But whatever. You get my point. And suddenly there's something else going on here. Suddenly it's about something else. Many other factors are at play. And I think that goes all the way up and down the board because there's a, there's a black British character who is the poshest of the posh. And he can, Gus, and he can pass in certain ways. there's a moment of inappropriate

touching and groping in the show that happens between two women. These are choices that the creators of the show probably along with Lena Dunham made that make the story better and it make the storytelling better and it's very, very, very compelling because of it.

Let's talk about Lena for a second. You mentioned that the show is not romantic. I think you said that some of the pursuits that the people are doing are not romantic. And, you know, it's always hard to chop up who gets credit for what or whose idea was what or what are we seeing on screen. You know, I think Lena Dunham was initially reported to be the director for this entire series. And now it turns out it was only directing the first episode. I don't know if it was directing, but she, but the early press releases and probably because she was the most famous person involved led with her.

It does seem like maybe it was more like a more standard thing that even happened on Briar Patch where a filmmaker comes in, executive produces and directs the first episode. See, I thought I saw that she was supposed to direct multiple episodes on that, I guess. that's not true. I may have, it seemed like, it's unclear. We can go back to the deadline stuff. So I'm unsure, I'm unclear if something changed, but regardless, I think what we both wanted to say was that she delivered. In any case, a lot of the material in this episode is pretty dry.

You know, it's pretty technically dense with a lot of financial services lingo. But the way it's shot, which is really voyeuristic, very verite, very kind of in the Uber, in the dorm room, in the restaurant, in the nightclub. These all feel like very real places. They don't feel like sets. And then the cutting and the music that they employ is this deeply romantic like drive soundtrack, kind of emotional synth pop

that I think adds this layer of feeling that might not actually be there if you just showed people the footage. And that's the beauty of like filmmaking, is you can play with the palette of emotions that a viewer is going to feel. or experience using all these different levers. You know this as much as anybody.

It's like you can you can change how I feel about an interaction by putting a music drop over it or by adding a bit of sound effect or changing the way that the director of photography approaches that scene. And I just thought that this was a great combination. Now this has moments. This show definitely has moments where you're just like when Ken Lung, who we all know and love from Lost and countless other appearances, who plays Harper's mentor, turns to her and I think he says like they're paying for your idea, make them fucking pay. Like, you know that

that's like the Tony Gilroy bat signal. You know, like, you know that the boys are going to be waving the banner for that one. And there's lots of moments like that in this show, but there's also lots of moments where you're just like, I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. Like, I don't, I don't know if this person is succeeding or failing. But the way in which like they imbue the episode, whether it's Lena or Mickey and Conrad or all, everybody together, with that kind of extra textual emotional feeling is really cool. Yeah, I agree. I want to shout out particularly Nathan McKay, who did the music. It struck me as well as being indebted to Cliff Martinez, the great film composer who worked on Drive and pump up the volume we discovered when we did rewatchables recently. It's these very gauzy, oddly warm washes of synths that just hit so well over these incredibly sterile sets or backdrops and elevate the show. And similarly, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm a big fan in general of when directors or filmmakers or artists who are often thought of as

autors focus on one thing. So, you know, Dunham basically directs her own stuff and directs it very well. And her abilities as a director, I think, were subsumed into the larger narrative about girls, increasingly about her. And it's really cool to see the talent. And remember, she's a really good filmmaker and she's a very observant filmmaker, you know, and I think that there are camera choices that feel, you know, like they come from her again, as Chris is saying, authorship, especially in TV shows, it's murky and mixed.

But the camera lingers on people's reactions to things often like a few beats extra. When Harper makes that sale, like, and it's the shot from across the sales floor, or across the sort of open floor plan, it's just like a different eye. And it's like, it's not like a zoom in or anything sweeping. It's just like, here this person just had a life-changing moment and we're watching it from across the room. And you see people seeing things and into it from that. And I, and I kind of love that. It brought something that could be opaque, certainly with a jargon. It could be almost totally impenetrable. And it brought it to life in vibrancy in a way that I really appreciated. I think it's, I think it's also just going to be kind of a fun show to watch, even when it's...

Depressing. It's not... It's not cringy, but it is stressful to watch dudes party on K all night and then go... This episode features a character death, a very tragic, sad character death, and also a guy taking K, special K, and then having a one-night stand and barfing on the street outside of the tube stop as he, like, drags his scrambled eggs of brains into the office. So... For a 7 a.m. all hands.

For a 7 a.m. all hands. I want to ask you, you know, I have to digress for one second. Don't forget your question. I have to ask you this. We have all been there at different phases of our life when people have said these fraudulent words. I mean, I definitely felt seen by that character.

Well, wait, here's, here are these fraudulent words that are said in various circumstances, but in everyone's life. It's better just to stay up. Now, I'm not saying that only happens when you're in a K-hole. I'm saying there's always the person, who's like, you're going to get on, you have, oh, your flights at seven, better just to stay up. Can I tell you something?

Yeah. It's not. That's what I wanted to tell our listeners, too. It is never, ever better just to stay up. If you're younger and you're listening to this podcast, we welcome you. I'm glad you found us on our vibrant TikTok audience. Let me tell you something. If you're ever in the position where it's 3.30, whatever, and you're just like, you know what,

I'm just going to push through to the next workday. Just don't. Don't do that. Many have walked that path before you. And it's just like you just got to know when to say when. And as you, again, young, young listener, come sit by your two grandpas here by the fire and we'll give you some words of advice here. At a certain point, hopefully, and I say that would love, those words will not be said to

you in that way. They will not come up at a bar or standing in front of a bar or, within 100 yards of a bar. That won't be when those words are said. Those words will sound different when they are said in a professional context. And the way those words will sound will be this.

Why not just take the red eye? And let me tell you something, listener. That's also a trap. Yeah. You will not sleep and you will not be okay. You will not push through. It will not be better.

If you're too loving grandpas have any advice for you? Dude, last time I took a red eye, I honestly felt like I was in Requiem for a dream. Do you know the last time I took a red eye was? I feel like I've never told the first half of the story. I told people about the other part. The last time I took a red eye

was to go have lunch with Tony Gilroy in New York City. Oh, yeah. I think people remember the time when he told me he was, and I'll quote again, not going to direct my fucking pilot. That's true. I wasn't there to ask him that, though.

that just came up when he was offering me the second glass of just impossibly expensive vodka with the muddled mandarin orange in it. No, it was to have lunch with them to talk about another project. And they say it's going to be fine. They tell you it'll be fine. In this case, I was even flown in the fancy part of the plane. But what they don't remind you is that the flight to New York is really like four hours and 15 minutes. Yeah. And the next thing you know, it is a rainy Wednesday on the Upper West Side. And you're 64% ambient. walking off. And, and you're just going into some, like, the kind of restaurant that is the first restaurant that should be shut down anytime anybody coughs for the next 20 years. Yeah. And everyone there

knows Tony and they're like offering them off-menu specials. And you have to sort of sing and dance for your supper. So don't do it. Whether it's ketamine or it's a claim screenwriter Tony Gilroy, go to bed. Okay. You had another question about the show. I was curious how much of it you understood. Like when that character, when Harper says half a yard done, what does that mean? Four cents. Like, so she is selling the idea that the treasury yield, the United States treasury bond yields over five years or whatever are going to go up or down if we go into a war in the South China Sea. And that woman who gropes her is like, bet, $250. but you have to pay, but there's like,

there seems to be an argument over the interest rates, right? Okay. I feel like you're really out in front of your skis here. I'm going to get savaged by like the three finance bros who listen to this. Here's the thing. I actually asked a finance bro about some of this stuff. I checked in with what we did. An anonymous finance bro, friend of the pod,

who wanted to just let me know. I asked a couple questions. There are some, I don't know whether this is the case in England, but there are some concerns about the realities. of whether or not traders and bankers would be on the same floor because there's got to be a separation there between because bankers

are essentially dealing with information that traders could then act on. My anonymous finance source did say that that's pretty much what going out is like. Okay. I was like, all right? And that people really do mercilessly

make fun of what the new people wear. So it had no comments about the potential for war in the South China Sea. didn't mention it. Here's my follow-up comment. As someone who's been to London several times over the last couple of years to see family. Right. I see these guys out. I see the finance pros out. Now, I, when I go to England, like right now, I'm a little self-conscious because if and when I get the chance to go back to the East Coast. I feel like I've adopted a kind of like rustic West Coast look. Many people, you would agree with that, right? Oh, 100%. And I don't know if that really translate to the streets

of New York again. Like, I don't know what I used to look like in New York, but it wasn't this. You know what I mean? When I go to London, I feel like I am from, like, I'm literally like the frog lady trying to make my point while I'm holding my, my vase of eggs, you know? But when I see these finance pros... In this case, just to keep the metaphor going, is your vase of eggs like a work shirt that's also a shacket that is in a neutral olive color? Yes. Okay, got it. But when you go to England and you see these guys standing outside in like 42 degrees and it's raining. And they are wearing the world's tightest button up. Like I cannot possibly explain how form fitting these guys wear their oxfords. And they're just destroying Marlboro lights outside talking about five

beeps or whatever. It's pretty accurate in that regard. Well, I mean, we lived in New York and that that is the finance bro world in New York. There's a different level to it in England, though. They just get, the shirts get so much tighter in England. Well, it's also, it's everyone who, in like, everyone who is beating up the main characters in Withnell and I, but on a hundred times more cocaine, right? Like, it's, that, that's the culture, which, all right, respect, I guess. A couple, couple yards on that. No, I bet I, to your point about understanding it, this is a credit to the screenwriters who, from what I understand, had a history, they worked in this field and they met.

Hopefully they'll come on the show and we can chat a little bit with that with them about. Oh, I'd love it. And I hope they could talk only in jargon in very thick accents. That would be great. But that is the sign of a successful script that you know what this moment is for Harper. 360 degrees you understand it, even though you have no fucking idea what she's talking about. And it's cool. It's also cool just to put a, this show, I have really good feeling.

this is going to be fun to talk about for the next six weeks or so. But if these characters live through the amount of ketamine that they're doing, yes. That's fine. I have notes about their lives if you'd like to get into that. Just that in keeping with some of the conversation we've had all summer, this is a TV show, meaning this has legs. This has really attractive, interesting, compelling young cast, and it could go. You know, it doesn't need to be a miniseries.

and I think that you and I both are particularly receptive to that kind of energy right now. I also want to say shout out to Harper for her present to herself after making her first huge sale, which I think is basically a quarter billion dollar bet on the United States going to war with China with interest, is to go and book herself a suite and a hotel and destroy a cheeseburger, which is on a lower level, your boys, one of like my secret favorite things is to travel. is to travel for work, you get in, 7.38 o'clock whenever, drop your bag off,

immediately go down to the bar, and have a cheeseburger, fries, and three beers. Yeah. Oh, there's a certain class of food, which is really, this is after you have not taken the red eye. I just want to circle back to that. This is the 11 a.m. and you get in, whatever, yeah. You've arrived at a reasonable time,

but there is a type of food that only really tastes good in, or tastes best, let's say. in hotels, club sandwiches, cheeseburgers, French fries of all kinds. I learned this from David Jacoby. Yes. A cold mini bar Heineken.

I'm not, that's not just shilling because they've advertised on us. Like, that is a classic, classic work expense, let's say. Anything else you wanted to hit today?

I think I'm going to hit this Tuesday night club. I've heard it's a very chill scene. And they have a very lax. By the way, a lot of, you know, one last thing to say about the show. my one concern, I only have one concern now that the resistance is over. And as I said earlier, we won.

We all need to be taking this virus very seriously. And I hope all of our listeners continue to. But I don't, I hope that at the end of it, when we emerge healthy again and, you know, wiser about things, that we are not fully back in, we are not all suddenly Julian Morrin's safe in terms of like double scrubbing and pouring bleach on ourselves and everything. everything. And I hope that people in that moment, as we emerge blinking out into the new reality, maybe we'll rewatch industry episode one, because its vision of what bathrooms can be for is expansive, liberal, and profoundly optimistic. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? You don't have to worry about me, man. Pfizer can pump that right into my jugular. Like, I'm just like, let's go. I'm ready to take 86 Ubers in one night. There was, uh, I know you have a, you have a, you a push alert for when the Russian baths open again in Manhattan. You're like, it's schfitts season, baby.

And Vigo. David Jacoby. That sounds like a good, that sounds like a good little Tuesday. All right, man. So Monday, we're going to have a stacked show. We have a special guest coming on on Monday. Make sure that that happens tomorrow before we get too excited about it. But special guest on Monday. And I'm also going to begin my three episode run of conversations with Amanda Dobbins about The Crown. So we'll be doing episodes one through three. Guys, the Crown season is incredible. I cannot wait for people to watch it. So are you saying that Monday will feature both the Mandalorian and a Mandalorian? I don't think Amanda loves that nickname.

No? Have you said that before? I thought I just came up with that live on air. I did. And whatever her reaction was, I got the impression that that should be the last time I try it. Fair. She's not a big franchise person. You know what I mean? Like, that's not really her bag. So yeah, so Amanda will come on. Andy and I will be talking about, I'm sure Mandelorian,

I'm sure undoing and some other stuff, maybe even industry episode two. So we have plenty of stuff to talk about Monday and Thursday show. Stick with us and we'll talk to you soon. Drop the claim memes.