The Watch - ‘Loki’ Season 2, the Problems with ‘The Exorcist: Believer,’ and ‘The Gold’

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the poor performance of ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ at the box office this weekend and how Universal bought the rights to a franchise no one really cares about (1:00). Then they talk about the first episode of ‘Loki’ Season 2 and what worked and didn’t work for it (27:25), before talking about the penultimate episode of ‘The Gold’ (45:19). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us,

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My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, if you can avoid time slipping. It's Andy Greenwald! Sometimes I feel in my body like time slipping looked. Yeah, it doesn't look pleasant from Loki, who was back in season two of his titular series, or he is the titular star of the series. Say it three times and the spirit titular shows up. You don't want to see that.

Yeah. it's great to see you. It's great to see Kaya. It's kind of Marvel week on the watch, because we're going to talk a little bit about the first episode of the second season of Loki today. And then on Thursday show, we are joined by Joanna Robinson from the House of R.

This is great. He's got a new book about Marvel coming out, and we're going to talk to it. We're all about kind of like a more broad state of the MCU. Do you know what this is called? When a podcast pivots to covering the most popular thing in pop culture, it's called a Zig. Oh, yeah, that's a good one.

So, like, we'll move off of 1980s English gold heists and into Marvel. We're zgging. We're going full mainstream core this week. Joanna's book is called MCU, The Rain of Marvel Studios. It's out October 10th, which, if my math is correct, is tomorrow. Your math is correct, sir. Andy, how are you doing? I had a lovely weekend in Portland, Oregon.

Shout out to the Pacific Northwest. Want to hear some anecdotes? Or do you want to do it? I 100% want to hear anecdotes. Obviously, we'll talk about the gold. We'll talk about Loki. We'll talk about Chris's overuse of the word titular, but let's talk about putting birds on stuff. Let's do it.

So I have two things I want to talk to you about. Okay. One is Portland-oriented and the other is pop culture oriented. Uh-huh. On Friday, it was my wife, Phoebe's birthday, and I say happy birthday or publicly now. I did as well. I sent her a text. Did you? Of course I did.

I didn't mention it. It seemed like I met a lot to her at the time. Amazing. On Friday, we went to go to dinner. That was lovely. Do you get the, did you have them, like, bring out a cake and sing to you? They brought out a fruit crisp. I guess they don't all sing anymore.

They brought out a fruit crisp, and they brought out a candle that was in a rooster, like, candle mold, which I thought was pretty cool. I don't know why, but there was, we didn't even have any chicken, but it was still. It wasn't like a small bird you could crunch, like an ordolon. It wasn't like that. Okay. And then we went to go do carry. This I was interested in. This is one of those karaoke places where they got everything.

This wasn't just the two of you, right? You went out with some local pals. We went out with some other friends up there, so there was eight of us. Did they ask about me? Broadly speaking, yeah. Like in terms of my professional happiness. How's the podcast that you do with the other guy? Yeah, and they were like, I was like...

It's fine. And I got to tell you something. They're going to write songs about the songs that I sang. at karaoke. Really? Are you a karaoke guy? No. Do you like participating in it?

No. Do you like watching it, like being in the room while other people are singing? I'm out on fun. No. Have you ever done it with me? No.

So this is why I'm interested. And I have a, I'll confess my own karaoke thing in a moment. This is your time to grab the mic. Oh, okay. I was just going to say that I am a benevolent god when it comes to karaoke because I don't think about

you know, am I going to blow people away with my pitch, with my undiscovered singing talent? It's not about that. It's about finding the song, finding the moment, and bringing people together. That's beautiful. So it's kind of bringing that DIY aesthetic to karaoke through song selection and performance style. And then I just went on this run, dude. And community uplift, which is the third pillar of the hardcore aesthetic that you, right? Yes, yes.

It is true. So I had an amazing run of dancing with myself, Robin. Slash the Phillies. And dancing on my own Billy Idol. Whoa. And I also did a little Boys of Summer, Don Henley, which feels very maudlin. Yeah. But among a group of middle-aged people is quite fun.

It's a little slow now. Is that all right? And then, you know, because you start to get self-conscious when you're singing, you're doing karaoke because you're like, oh, I take, I hold. these truths to be self-evident that this song is awesome and that everybody loves it. But what if everybody's like, uh, what is this one? Oh, you know? Right. And for some reason, I got a little shaky about this must be the place by, uh, talking heads. It's in the zeitgeist again. And it is in the zeitgeist again, but sometimes I feel like you and I are a little too zited out, you know, we're geisted up. Yeah. And I was like, you know, these people, they've got two, three kids,

they've got, you know, like their own, the David Byrne vocal, that's a different range. No, it's okay. because there's a lot of gang vocals on that. So you can just do kind of like everybody sings along on the chorus. It's a lot of fun. Do you swing your mic like Adam Lazare of taking back Sunday and then get the crowd involved? No, but I did dance with a lamp.

Wow. Is there footage of this? No. Did everyone have to put their phones in those little bags when they entered because of what I'm impressed by in this and I'd love to hear Kay's thoughts on this as well. I think genuinely that I could have a good time

doing karaoke. The problem is, because I spend 0% of my life thinking about it or preparing for it, I don't have something in my pocket when I walk into that booth. I think I need to have a song that I know I can do. Like, the last time there was large-scale karaoke in my life was the Briar Patch rap party for season one. But you're in a position of sort of like, like, people look at you, they're like, oh, the principal. Well, that's why I couldn't do it. I was like, they have to respect me for Checks Watch seven more days.

Yeah. But TV's beloved J.R. Ferguson, for example, Jay, like, he's just having some fun. He's drinking beers all night. And then when they turn to him, he does the awshucks and then just walks to the stage with Johnny Cash in his back pocket and does walk the line. Everyone's like, what a hero. He's prepared in the moment. I am not prepared. I should be.

Kyah, do you have a song? Are you always ready? Yeah. So I've done karaoke, actually. quite a lot this year. Kai's had an incredible year.

We should probably just reference it by saying. Kai possibly has had no bad days in 2023. I had a

karaoke birthday party. You did? I did. Oh, sick invite. She got my RSCB. She got my regrets.

That is awesome. And I also... And if I... Not fucking invited. Now she's hearing that you're a value ad. Next time. Next time.

I have a point to make of it. I want to hear. And then And I also, when I went to Stockholm with some of the ringer. Yeah, there was a huge karaoke. I did not do it there. And you know what hits at karaoke is shallow?

Whoa. By Lady Gaga. See, this is my thing. I never would have even thought of it. Lady Gaga with Bradley Cooper. Because to me, that's a ballad. To me, that requires a lot of good singing. You find out very quickly when you're doing karaoke where your pitch is.

Right. And my pitch is not the late Brian Johnson from ACD. DC anymore, which I used to be able to do. See, mine is more beleaguered Eagles offensive coordinator, Brian Johnson. He's not beleaguered anymore. It was just a bit. But this is a great example, because if I were to go to say hang out, like, let's say, let's say

hypothetically, Kaya invited me to do something. It's possible. And like, Kaya was like, hey, all my cool friends. All my best and coolest friends. This is this guy, Chris. Who is our peer? And Chris shows up like Steve Busemi and 30 Rock with a skateboard over his shoulder. And I was like, do you guys want to rock out to Don Henley's Boys of Summer or the Talking Heads? This Must be the place. I bet we would find common ground on, say, Robin dancing on my own.

The reason I'm pushing back is because I feel like this would be your entree to the group, even if it wasn't a karaoke party. Yes. If you're like, what's up, guys? You want to talk about Don Henley? Or lioness, which one? There's only two options. But here's my thing. You know, you make assumptions about your taste.

You make assumptions about what you like mattering to other people. And Andy. Yeah, that was our 20s. Do you know what happened? I think Universal Studios made those same assumptions about The Exorcist. Whoa. This whole thing was an intro? Do you see this, Kaya?

You should invite him. Look how great he is a conversation. So last week I went on the big picture with Sean Fennacy. Is that a podcast? And we talked about the Exorcist, Colin Believer. And we also talked about the horror movies of 2020. and if you're interested in such scares and thrills, I recommend you check that out.

But something really interesting happened this weekend, which is that Exorcist, for the most part, flopped. I mean, it did, I think it did about, like, you know, maybe 31 million, and, but it felt like it was, like, DOA. It was like they were going to, it was not going to be something that, like, had legs because the reviews have been, well, I'll say what, I'll just recount a Scott Tobias tweet. about the Exorcist reviews, which was when those Exorcist reviews drop and it was a body falling out of a coffin.

Jesus Christ. So that's kind of where we're at with that. And Sean and I were like there were some cool stuff about it, but we had like a lot of negative things to say about it. My point is that so Universal spent $400 million on the sort of franchise rights to the Exorcist. To get the Exorcist bag. Yeah. Now, I think Deadline did a really good box office write up where they sort of broke this down. But essentially, like, you would think, oh, $400 million, does that mean each one of these movies cost $133 million?

It's not exactly like that. In fact, this first Exorcist film was $30 million, I think, to make, you know, in budget. But it was actually a lot of the $400 million is talent buyouts and it's like franchise rights for theme park stuff. And there's all these different things involved. Because the money that you're talking about was not to make this movie, right? It was to secure the rights. Yeah. So here I'll just, this is the sort of most relevant pair of.

from the deadline article, which is, as we previously mentioned, this $400 million purchase by Universal for The Exorcist wasn't a scenario where the three movies would be produced for 133 million apiece. Some rival executives are under the impression that that's what the deal called for. The Exorcist deal was a broader franchise driver for Universal, which included production budgets, a buyout of talent, and rights backends producer fees, rights to leverage IP across the portfolio, and also to drive viewership on Peacock. Exorcist Believer has a 45-day theatrical window before landing on Peacock

and David Gordon Green who directed the Exorcist directed the Halloween movies. The last two Halloween movies were day and date on Peacock. So I think that they were in the theater, but you could also watch them on Peacock. We also love him forever because of East Bend and Down and... Gemstones. Yes. I thought that this was really fascinating,

because they wrote a $400 million check for something that maybe nobody's interested in. And I have been kind of fascinated by the way in which we've arrived at this point with franchises and with long-form storytelling and the idea of everything having a base or a foundation from which to build massive amounts of IP out of it. You see with the purchase of the Lord of the Rings TV rights by Amazon, the movie rights by Warner Brothers, going back into the Harry Potter well by Warner Brothers.

There's all this stuff going on. We've talked so much about Star Wars. We're going to talk about Marvel a lot this week. but it sounds like they basically paid half a billion dollars to do something where they didn't have a story. To say nothing of the fact that they didn't necessarily have a story that really needed multiple movies. And, you know, when you see the amount of cuts

and cancellations and layoffs that are happening in this business, do you think that there's a correlation between like the sort of reckless spending on this stuff because you have to get the name Exorcist or the name this to start? building something out of it. And then you find yourself so far in the red just as the production is started, just as this like project has started. I think there's two issues at the root of what you're asking. One is, is investing in old stuff relevant? And that's the conversation we had

about the Indiana Jones movie. It's the conversation that we had with the people at Spotify when we requested additional years for our contracts and doing this podcast. Like, is there still, the old, the old guys to have anything to say. I think that that is a serious, I think it's a serious question and one worth exploring. I think people know from our multiple conversations around this topic, how I feel about it, that just because it exists doesn't necessarily mean that we need more of it. It doesn't mean it's good. And increasingly, it doesn't even mean that it's a safe economic play. I think the other, to me, the story you're telling is connected to the story that's been coming out in the trade since the end of the writer's strike, which is suddenly deals being slashed, shows that are either shot

or mostly shot just being trashed. This speaks to me to a culture of fear and that people don't really know, A, what they're doing or B, what people want, which seems to be fundamentally the job of studios and development executives. And the bill is coming due for extremely expensive mistakes and misfires. And I think that, again, like when you buy the Exorcist IP in a climate of, we need to fill these hours, we need to build our streaming brands, we need to flood the zone with identifiable stuff, you get DOA projects like the Exorcist, like, and like the Frazier reboot, which is getting ripped in its reviews. They haven't seen it yet. Did you like Frasier the first time around? Yeah. Okay. I love witty farses. That's on brand for me.

me, don't you think? But if, look, for me, no Niles, no life. Like, I don't, I don't see what the show, frankly, I don't see what the show is. Yeah. Without him. But then you also see these things, and there's going to be more in the weeks to come, probably, you know, potentially shocking ones about, like, no, no, we've changed our mind or the new economic climate or the, or the concessions we made in this deal with the writers and presumably in the deal that we'll come soon with the actors makes this no longer economically viable. And frankly, that's, that's bullshit. These were mistakes before and they're mistakes now, and there are scapegoats every time. But the deeper issue is nobody knows what to do.

Nobody knows what people want. And for a brief time, franchises seemed like the safest hedge against that uncertainty. And I don't know if that continues to be the case. Whether it's a relatively august but aging, graying franchise like The Exorcist, or it's the MCU. We don't know. Yeah. I mean, there's not a ton of evidence. Exorcist has a lot of

name recognition. You know, I mean, have you seen the original Exorcist? I have. You have. It's a rare horror movie that I have seen. And what did you think of it?

I thought it was real scary. As a father of daughter. Here's my thought. Yeah. But it's not really like something where you're like, oh, man, there's no holes in that lineup. I mean, there are several bad

Exorcist films, many of which have been production disasters and now they're like we've committed ourselves I mean maybe they haven't maybe they're just like it's worth it to us to have

believer going on Peacock and then be able to do universal Halloween horror nights with Reagan from Exorcist jumping out of people but like it seems like a pretty high price tag for that isn't it? Like what do you

I mean you see horror movies and think about them so you're the person I don't have I can't contractually have an opinion about this but it does seem odd to me that the Exorcist... Your contract with God? The contract I made with Spotify recently

where they're like, you can't talk about this. That The Exorcist is a classic 1970s film. It is also a genre film. And the fact that it is a genre film somehow puts it in a different category where there isn't enough respect

on its name as a film that was one thing. Do you know what I mean? And I know sequels came pretty quickly, right? When did The Exorcist II come out? but we don't see Exorcist 2

The Heretic came out in 1977 How'd that do? I did not see that because I did not feel like I had to Our guy Billy Friedkin was not involved in that. No, John Borman directed that one and I believe he had a tough time with it. Emphasis on Bore, right?

No? My guy John Borman, he had some jams. I'm just saying for that movie. Yeah, sure. This is what you're going to get from me when you've led our conversation. New York post headline writer Andy Grimps. It's all I can do when we talk about horror movies.

Emphasis on Bore, am I right? I got nothing. Yeah. Nothing on this topic whatsoever. But, no, I want to, I'm trying to get you to talk about. Pulgergeist. That was one I liked. No, no, it's not even about horror.

It's about the idea of, like, for the majority almost now, especially of the watch, but almost of the watch in Hollywood Perspectus, we have been both engaged with and, like, entertained by, what if we had a cool new take on this franchise idea? Right. There was a part of this movie that if you just do the sliding doors thing, we can, we can make a whole other movie about this, or a whole other franchise about this. And it has been a minute now

since I feel like anybody has felt particularly satisfied by any of this stuff. And now I think people are starting to vote with their wallets more significantly. I totally agree. Exorcist, there's a world in which the reviews for Exorcist believer were dynamite. There are some things to like about it.

Leslie Odom is quite good in it. But let's say it was just like finally recaptures the spirit of Freakin's original masterpiece. If you're going to see one horror movie make it this, everybody goes out and sees it this weekend because it's almost Halloween. But I mean, from the second this thing moved off of the Friday the 13th date that it had because it was scared of Taylor Swift,

like it just kind of felt like there was something wrong with it, and it turns out that there was. Well, a couple things. One, I'd like to apologize to John Borman, who's 90 years young, still with us. He directed Taylor Panama. That was good. And the Excalibur, which is one of my personal favorites.

Is it really? Yeah. Zardaz. Is that one of your favorites? No. Okay. Just checking. I also think that like the Exorcist, again, it conjures up.

That's a pun, right? Feelings of like fear and there's positive connections with the movie. But the Exorcist isn't Halloween. There isn't, the villain of the Exorcist is the devil, right? It's a demon named Pizzu, actually. I just didn't want to say it and bring him. It's not Beetlejuice. You can say his name a couple of times.

It's not how he arrives. Let's not push it. Just don't accept any gifts from people who have recently visited archaeological sites. I never do. I never do. Hey, I was digging around in Sumaria, and I found this cool necklace for you. I only, when people travel, I'm just like, no, no, please don't bring me anything back, but unless you go to a wet market, like, I'm passionate about local cuisines.

So anything from there would be great. Just don't go to any archaeological digs. I'm just saying it does not seem particularly repeatable, yet they keep going back to it. It is not a natural. And also, you said something like, do you have a cool new take on this? I'm not sure if that's what's happening. The other larger point here that I think is relevant as studios try to obfuscate what's going on right now and over the next few months is remembering that even separate and apart from the strike, we're always on a bit of a tape delay in terms of the content that's hitting our screens when it was conceived, when it was developed, when it was greenlit. And this is one of those interesting periods, I think, where we are getting content beamed into our theaters or day-and-dated or whatever onto our streaming services that is from another world.

Like from an era that has so definitively ended and everyone's just sort of going to be shrugging and doing the best they can with it. I know I've already been harping on a movie we haven't seen, perhaps unfairly, but I think the Marvels is going to be an interesting moment when it is finally unveiled for critics and unveiled for audiences. I think your point about people voting with their wallets is really true. I hope that this is not the same conversation we often called conversational cul-de-sac we often get into the with the who is this for I think it's really more no no I know I'm saying the opposite which is it's for me does anyone but who wants this well that was that that was my grand gesture about karaoke was the disparity between or the divide between people deciding what movies are getting made and the people who are actually like your your possible target audience and that may be the exorcist for as special and important as it is to horror fans, to cinema history, it just may not be like that, like, it may not have a very high Q score anymore. Do you know what I mean? Like, it might not be something that people walk around being like, it's time for, I can't wait to really find out what Pizzou has been doing for last couple

decades. That's twice. You're done. John Borman made point blank. That's a great movie. I do not think it is a viable entertainment industry model to make people feel nostalgia. I just don't think that that's a viable model. I think you can get a certain ways down the road with that. I think that you can sometimes hit it once or twice. You can deliver it perfectly like Top Gun Maverick, which I also think the success of that movie, you can't really separate out from when they finally chose to release it.

That was brilliant timing and marketing, as it turns out. It was a moment when everyone wanted that, wanted to go to the theater, wanted to feel a certain way. And the lag time between something feeling fresh and something feeling nostalgic is remarkably reduced now. So Marvel projects, like even we're going to talk about Loki, which I'm not going to excoriate. I mean, I enjoy it for what it is. There are moments within Loki where the forward momentum screeches to a halt so Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson can do Iron Manish banter. And they're like, look, remember this? Remember this? This felt good. This is what we're

doing. I still think in the world of, in a world that is fueled by people going to the movie theater en masse to see the same six movies a year that make a billion dollars, what are you buying with that ticket? I think that for a lot of people, they would say they want to see something exciting. They want to see something new. If you're not showing them that, what's the, what are we doing? Yeah. How is that model successful anymore? That is the question. But I think part of the reason why where we are with that is because we are on Fast and Furious Ten. We are on Indiana Jones 5 with a very old man at the center of it. We are all at the ends of a lot of runs.

I saw him at dinner the other night. Harrison Ford? Yeah. Did he fly? His jet was, no, he did not. Was it on the west side? It was on the west side. Because you got to watch out when you're on the west side with Harrison Ford.

Like with his erratic driving and flying? That's where he like crashed his plane into a golf course. was walking to the restroom and seemed in good spirits. Do were people bugging him? No. It's the LA way. You mean people other than me? No, were people like, oh my God, fucking, I love frantic.

Can you take a picture with me? So were you there? No. No, I just mean, the other thing about Harrison Ford is that he is a small old man. Yeah, you don't really think that. You know what I mean? He looks great. He looks handsome.

He looks well. He was ambulatory. He was fine. He doesn't look any older. than he looked in many of the recent movies. But he's not a huge guy. It freaks you out when you sometimes see stuff like that, though. Like, I remember when I interviewed Robert Downey Jr.

Obviously a huge fan of his acting. And I sat down next to him and I was like, my God, this is like the biggest star in the world right now. I'm freaking out. And then I looked down and he was basically wearing like Marty McFly shoes, like moon boots. And I was like, oh, all right. You're just like a weird guy from Santa Monica.

Did you neg his fashion? No, I didn't. but I really like it brought me, it brought the temperature down. I was like, okay. You can talk, you can wrap with this guy. Yeah. Just mono and I are basically the same. That's what you're saying.

Didn't you interview him in a, like an airplane hanger that was rented for the event? It was in the basement of a hotel in Santa Monica, but it was, we talked about how he had his 50th birthday party in an airplane hanger and Steely Dan played. He got Steely Dan to play his birthday. Were you like, that's exactly what I would do with my 50th birthday party, too, if I had enough money to do it. And that was a hint he didn't take when I was like, if you wanted to underwrite my 50th

birthday party. Or we could do a co. Yeah, like you, yeah, exactly. Birthday party. Exactly. But now that I've made fun of his shoes, I doubt that'll come to pass. Yeah, that's a shame. I'm sorry. I am... We can talk about Loki. We should talk about Loki. But I think this, this

bigger question, like, maybe this is a crosspot, or maybe we just feed this topic to Sean and Amanda. But like, I, what is the block Buster movie slate for the next two or three years? Like what's already been dated and are they all blank six? Yeah. Blank nine. What is this going to do for anybody? And we're so far down the road of committing to it. I think that I think that coming, I think that this summer changed a lot of people's field of vision because it's like, you come out and you're like, we had two billion

dollars movies of original material by visionary directors making movies the way that they wanted to make them and they didn't have to worry about whether or not

it would set up Ken World or you know the 14 Barbie spin-offs or you know I mean I do think that the wrong lessons

will be taken of course as they always are I think that this has empowered Mattel to like double down on the polypocket expanded universe which I don't think

is the takeaway for Barbie success I am curious honestly I don't know what anyone's thinking, I mean, other people than us have said this repeatedly, like, Oppenheimer is the most insane movie or entertainment story of the year. It's close to a billion dollars. It's a three-hour biopic.

That's crazy. Is there any takeaway from that or is just no one talking about it? I just think that sometimes you get somebody where you're like, it's Nolan. Yeah. 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,

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All right, let's talk about Loki. Guess who's got two thumbs and like this show? this guy. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great. Did you think you were coming in and we were going to go off the top rope on this show?

No. Together? No. Big fans of Benson and Moorhead, the director. So I have enjoyed their independent science fiction and horror films over the years. They had one called Endless. They had one called the Spring or Spring that's really good. And they did a little bit on Moon Night and have obviously been brought into the fold.

and it's like fool me once, full me a million times, like when Marvel hires filmmakers that I like. But I got to say, I really thought that they brought a verve to the direction of this, not that Kate Herons was lacking in that in any way. That made me,

it charmed me so much that I didn't really worry about the fact that I have no idea what they were talking about in the show. Now, to be clear, because I'm not familiar with their short films. Have they worked on anything before? They're features.

I'm sorry. But I've not seen their films. Have they worked? on, did they work on season one of Loki? They did not. Kate Heron directed, I think, all of, I remember that. Yeah.

Of season one of Loki. But they did do a couple episodes of Moon Night and are in the mix. You know, they're now Marvel guys, I think. Or at least they go to Marvel and they can play in the sandbox. I thought they did a great job with this opening episode. And I thought this was an example of something where the McGuffin is basically the plot now.

Like, the things that you thought in the first season of Loki were, like, a little bit sort of fun flights of fancy that were the storytelling device to watch this guy deal with his, like, questions about his own identity and, like, what his true self was are now essentially all of the show in this first episode. So it's all about, like, the rules of time travel, the history of the TVA, who runs it, what pruning means, like, what's a, what's a, what's a, sort of humanitarian way to prune timelines, like all this

stuff that came up, but it was a lot of puzzles, tests, challenges for our protagonist to accomplish so that he can get to his final goal, which is, I guess, finding um,

finding Sophie, right? Like, I, that seems to be one of the goals. Yeah. So what did you, what did you think of the first episode? Well, I mean, I, it's interesting and this is probably be part of our conversation to this week.

like Sylvie, sorry, not Sophie. Sophia D. Mortino is the actress who plays Sylvie. I think this show has style. I think the show has real verve. I think it has, I think it takes chances and has fun and has a really developed sense of itself. And I could say precisely none of those things about the last few years of Marvel.

And that's not a small thing. to have the show return and have it look good. And to have it look not just good, but to have it look idiosyncratic and itself. To have these sort of smaller decisions that don't matter in the larger story about what we're going to do about Kang, but casting people, like as that three panel of judges,

cast the Scottish actress Katie Dickey, you cast the English actress and disability rights activist, Liz Carr, and then you have the other guy just being asleep. that's fun. Yeah. These are the seemingly small board decisions that, in my mind, separate art from nonsense, frankly.

Yeah. So I was thrilled to see that. I was thrilled to see that there is a beating heart still in this. And I think that you're right. I don't know these directors, but I think that there's a visual, just panache. Yeah, I thought that there was like elements of it, the whole Marvel thing being like,

you can Trojan Horse in, all these different influences. And I thought like this kind of looked like the Hudson Hutsucker proxy, you know? I mean, it was just because if not, Nothing matters, and I don't mean that in a nihilistic sense, but I mean that, like, one character being like, my ability is to do purple lines this way, and I can do purple balls, like, who gives a shit? Yeah, right. So why not have real, real tape players and Walkmen and flashing blue buttons?

Because it all doesn't matter. So at least have some fun with it. I really appreciated that. Even the Owen Wilson Spacewalk in the weird face distorting suit with rainbow clouds coming off of him, yeah, let's do it. Sure. Why not? That is different than what we've seen before.

The butt that's coming for me is that it was inevitable that, because this is an MCU project, that the transition from, this is a project about a character in a circumstance and a story in season one or in the first movie. When it then becomes a vehicle for a larger story that connects to other things, there is just a slackening and a softening. and the amount of verbal nonsense said in the beginning of this episode was jaw-dropping. And the amount of just getting everyone really worked up about something that five minutes ago didn't seem to matter and I didn't understand it. And frankly, I still don't understand it at the end of it was tiring. You know, one of the nice things about the first season was the ability to just live inside of it and to live in this world where there's this, you know, this very stylized headquarters for people who are doing. a very specific thing that seems to matter to them.

Loki shows up like the audience and it's just like, what's this about? Yes. Great. All of a sudden, we're now in uncharted territory where they're all saying what's this about. And what it's about is the Kang dynasty coming in 2026. But let's see what we can do on the way to get there. And it becomes just once again a delivery system for mixed results. It's a really good point.

It's the difference between Dorothy first arriving in Oz and making like the continuing adventures of Dorothy and us. And it's added on top of it is the constant almost manic, like, are you in the future or are you in the past stuff? Now, there is a screwball element of that, which I think works really well, especially when they did the Kwee Kwan OB scene. And it was like, do you remember me? And it's like, oh, yeah, this is, and he's like, it's OB. And he's like, that's what I call him. OB, that's my nickname for him. Like, there was really funny stuff in the kind of, like you said, the old school Avengers bantering thing.

It does bring the story to a halt. But when the story is so confusing for me, and honestly, like, it's been two years since Loki. Time travel is not the easiest thing to sort of wrap your head around because they're just fucking making it up anyway as they go along.

And on top of that, you know, the first season of Loki ends with this Kang revelation that this is going to sort of probably be the new big bad of Marvel that this multiversal kind of experience is the defining sort of storyline

of the next phase of this of these movies and of these TV shows, it actually felt like they were dancing around something in this episode, and I don't know whether that's the Jonathan Major's part. You know, I don't know whether or not there's a version of this where he's in the first episode. Well, but he is. I mean, they can't do anything but run towards it.

I mean, his giant stone face is the central image of this episode. and what Loki's running around looking for and running from, this is unprecedented, you know, in terms of the entire... The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the Tampa Bay Rays and not to minimize any of the accusations involved by making a sort of a facile comparison. But when a player on the raise was credibly accused of things or got involved with the law,

he was removed from the team. They scrubbed his locker. Jonathan Major's situation is not the same. I want to be very careful with what I'm saying here. But Marvel is you can feel the machine inching forward as slowly as it can, and they don't know what to do. They have not made a decision. They do not about recasting him, about keeping him. They have all the stuff in the can that is central to him.

I mean, I keep thinking about that last image from the Ant Man movie, which is just a stadium full of a thousand Jonathan Majors. this is where we're at and that does inform our viewing of it and so yeah you do wonder if they did try to rejigger what the season was and what it felt like and whether he was he is now did they push him to the end of this

six episode season? Did they minimize him? Will they recast him within this show? We honestly don't know. Aside from professional obligation would you keep watching this? It's tough because I do love the style. I like

we should shout out the production designer Kasra Farahani who designed the first season and is directing an episode this season Justin Benson and Aramore how are directing

four of the six episodes yeah they do one and then four, five and six I love Tom Hiddleston Wilson would watch them do anything Raphael Casol's cool

the casting Eugene Cordero I mean they have a lot of fun with that too I love Sophia Di Martino in the first season the bump for me

is things like Wunmi Mosaku, who's a great actor as well, all of a sudden she has to do the kind of house cleaning labor of the MCU, which has turned to the camera and say things like thousands of innocent lives will be lost if we prune the variance from that timeline. Yeah, I don't understand why that's become like...

Okay. I don't... You know what for me the biggest example of that was? Like there's this fun set piece in the beginning where the time slipping Loki jumps off of a balcony and lands on a space car just like he had watched the Fifth Element once. and then crashes the car into the room where Eugene Cordero is listening to his Walkman,

and then the car falls. And you hear people screaming. And you hear a crash, and you hear Tom Hiddleston say, he'll be fine. And then you feel the internal note and the late period CG where then in the background out the window, someone drew in that car belching smoke flying again. Because clearly the intention was that person just died. And then they were like, no, we'll fix that in post. that kind of like we have to be good

we have to be aligned with the larger values of whatever our corporate project is you can sort of feel that look it is what it is these are people trying to do good work I mean everyone's trying to do good work but these are people who have made a established a beachhead of something interesting

inside of something that we no longer find to be all that interesting I don't actually know and I swear to God like I paid attention I'm not really sure what the hell is going on. No idea. Okay.

Absolutely. Like, so Kate Dickey and Raphael Casal's characters are like, we have to have like a militaristic reaction to Kang. Even though Kang was in charge of us. Yeah, but they didn't know that, right? Because there's some mystery. There's like, oh, like, there were this three robot. There was the three time lords.

But then they knocked down the wall and Kang is the wall behind the wall, right? Yes. Do you think that's smart to like build a mural to yourself but then put a second mural in front of it. Like, if you want to trick people, just don't build the mural to yourself. Like, how strong is your ego? You know what I mean? Like, everyone here is operating under the big lie. I'm more of an ad me to the mural guy. Right. You know? Right. You know, and it's like Elliot Smith, and then it's just like me. Being like, do you want to come to my 50th birthday party? Nice shoes? Yeah. Yeah, I get that. The other thing I have to throw in here that I found a little, look, we're

going to keep watching the show. But it's a little... That's what I was asking. We stopped watching Asoka. So I was just like, I mean, we could make decisions independent of one another. I'm going to keep watching... Well, apparently, we're making more and more. Happy birthday to Phoebe, by the way.

Yes. But one of the reasons why I'm interested in this is that point of, like, is there a ghost in the machine? Because as part of the press for this season, now, like, the actors are still not... They're not back. So they're not doing interviews. Michael Waldron was credited as the creator. He still is in the credits.

He created this Loki for television. He wrote a lot of the first season during his time as like Marvel's guy. He did a big rewrite of Dr. Strange. He's involved with the upcoming Avengers movies. He is not involved in this season, at least as far as we know. We don't actually know who's involved in Mudd, but he is no longer the credited writer. Eric Martin, who worked on the first season, I think, is getting a lot of the credit and sort of presumably as the head writer. The reason I keep saying headwriter and I keep saying presumably is because the mighty Marvel method of making TV is very odd and is not in keeping with what a lot of people expected to be.

From the beginning, people have understood that Marvel never wanted to call anyone showrunners. I think that they've bent on that a little bit. But from what I have heard, even the shows that have showrunners, the showrunners or the headwriters do not have final cut. They are not in the edit. Maybe they are in post, but they are certainly not the last people to touch the show. Right. Like all these things are crafted internally by Marvel. And it was a little, I don't know, gave me a little bit of hebie-jeebies when I saw some interviews.

And again, the writer's guilt strike was ongoing, which may have affected this or may have affected Eric Martin's ability to do press for the show that he worked on. But there's interviews like on Collider and other places like that where Kevin Wright, who is the Marvel development executive. And Marvel famously has executives in the room. Okay. Yes. Right. But this is the guy who's... Like the committee or whatever.

Yeah, and we've heard people... In fact, this is... I think this gets detailed in Joe's book. And I'm curious to talk to her about this. Maybe we can table this broadly for until later in the week. We've talked to people. We had Malcolm Spellman come on. He was the showrunner of the Winter Soldier show.

He was saying that he liked having people from Marvel there because you could bounce ideas off of them. They had a deep well of information. Blah, blah, blah. But in these articles, Kevin Wright is basically being like, what a journey we've had. We've had total freedom from Kevin Feigy making the show.

You know, Tom Hiddleston and I have really been show running this from the beginning and blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, so that's how it is in their family. What do you mean by that? Basically, the implication is that the Marvel staffer, the Marvel executive,

is running this show. I see. He referred to in an interview that he and Tom Hidleston have been running it. Gotcha. That the final decision making and the vision comes from

the executive. Right. obviously as a still slightly rabid member of the WGA, that rubs me the wrong way, but I also think that is their process. And I think it's interesting to see that as we go from a show

that we are giving all this credit to for being quite... You think Tom Hiddleston is like, here's how time travel works? No, I think that Tom Hiddleson is like signing off on the decisions that Kevin Wright brings to him because he's the star and he is also an executive producer.

I do not... He's involved. He wouldn't do it if he didn't want to do it. They don't make the show without him. But all I'm saying is, I have an eye on this. not just for professional industry stuff, but also because we have singled out

Loki as one of the Marvel projects that has an idiosyncratic point of view. That it has a look, it has a style, it has a voice, and it's possible. We don't know Michael Waldron. We don't know it went on. I'd like to talk to Joanna about this.

Did Michael Waldron build them that template and then leave? And then now the executives are like steering it back towards the mothership. I don't, because if you ask me, I'd be like, this shit is like Hotel California, man. Michael Waldron can't go anywhere because he needs Loki to connect to the next thing, to connect to the next thing, to connect to the next thing. Well, that's how you end up back with the quote that was much maligned from Gwyneth Paltrow being like, I didn't even know I was in that movie. Yeah, right.

But that's actually a feature, not a bug, I feel like for the way Marvel makes things, where they're like, everyone's writing on everything. Everyone's touching everything else. Everyone's shooting stuff that could be for this or that because the project you're making is the MCU. It's not Loki season two. at a certain, on a certain level. These are not new ideas or observations. I'll just put down my marker. I think that's a very, I cannot wait to talk to Joanna about this with you.

This is very, because this is new stuff. This is a brand new material for me. I just, I liked Loki Season 1 as a TV show. It feels already that the ceiling for my engagement with this is I will like it as a cog in the MCU. Right. Those are different. I would see that. So we're talking ceilings.

There is no ceiling. on Asoka, the ceiling was removed. But not because it's high, but because it's so low, right? For my opinions about Assoca? You were like living in like a little coffin. That's how you're the ceiling for how good to Osoka could be. Oh, I was like, what's his name's Rob Ryden's little man in a tiny box? Yes.

When it came to Asoka? Well, I mean, I'm not going to be litigated. I didn't watch the finale. I love force pushes. Okay. Seems good. But you are interested in Loki, but only really more as part of, like, what's the larger sort of storyline as telling. No, I am not interested.

Let me stop you there. I am not interested in the Kang Dynasty. Okay. I have no interest in a larger storyline. I'm saying that it just seems like the pleasures of the show have been curtailed. Gotcha. As it has as it is steered more towards servicing the larger, what's it called? the sacred timeline of the MCU.

That's right. Right? Like, I just thought the first season was good. It was on my top 10 list. Yeah. Fun actors doing fun things. It was great. All right.

Let's talk about fucking Tenerife and timeshires. Yeah. Let's go. Another episode of the gold, the penultimate episode of the gold, I would say perhaps a bit of a award reel for my guy, Hugh Bonneville. For real. For fucking Brian Boyce.

For folks who, I mean, I assume that if you're listening to this part, you're like up on the goal, but we'll spoil episode five from here on now. It's essentially a real like the walls are closing in on our criminals. Although when walls close in on Mickey McAvoy, he just hires a helicopter to take him out of prison. A couple of things I really loved in this episode. Obviously Bonneville really, really enjoyed Detective Stallings dueling with Mickey McAvoy's girlfriend. Yeah. Really, really had fun with that.

Mickey McAvoy's girlfriend is on one. She's a real one. Firecracker, naming her dogs after the Brinksmat crime, and also just like her scene with Donnie the cabby, and just every, every moment with her, you know? She's, is she in the pantheon for you? No, the pantheon of, just like, is she like, of British women who will break you out of prison? That you throw away your life for?

Like, is she just like, no? Yeah, she's up there with like a Meldastonan, you know? That's an actress. Is she on your pantheon? Is she drawn into the mural? We're talking about Sophia Loporta who plays Kathleen Meecock. Okay. That's the name of the character.

We sure are. We're talking about her. Yeah. I just didn't know if she's drawn into the mural too next to you and Elliot Smith. Oh, me, Elliot Smith, right. And Mickey McEvoy's hold it down, ride or die. Okay. What did you think of the episode?

I completely agreed with the first thing you said was that this was the BAFTA real. there's a there's a thing that can happen like a couple episodes in where you're like look we know the ride we bought the ticket for and so the entire scene the whole the whole construct

of like Hugh Bonneville's character is like I will go to Switzerland and get the Swiss to do something that they are just like literally what's the one thing we all know about Swiss people? Honestly it's like chocolate watches and keeping fucking secrets yeah and you will not know who's money this is

that's basically what they do there and they're very good at it. Well, if you sit in this room, we might accidentally mention the two main characters. But also, I just love the, it can go one of two ways. If you haven't, if you disagree with this on principle,

you're going to find that some of the aspects of this episode were a little bit showboaty and a little bit like, you know, but I think that we've now reached a, but we're into it. And so him showing up and just having a scene where they like choke down

cold glasses of chilled, fucking red and talk about what war means to them in order to extract a feeling of empathy and commonality to get them to betray their national point of pride. Look, I love it. I thought it was a sick scene. Do you think that too many people in this show have reached total and complete self-awareness?

Like, where every single character is like, here is the here's exactly how I see myself within these rungs of society yes here's how I understand what English society does to people like me here's why I did what I did because I'm English and because I'm trying to do this yes they are characters and they are cogs yeah they there's not a single person the show who isn't like I am I am I am a person but what I really am is an exemplar of what it means to be English yeah and I am brisked for the mill right where Cooper goes home to his wife. And she's like, I never understood what you meant about the boy, like the man who you used to be.

And now I see you. And the boy you were. And now I see it in you. And it was like, that is very perceptive. But also, how about when there's like, where are you from? And he's like, fear. Yes. I'm from fear.

It's like, actually, you're from a council state in South London. You go there in the episode. And unless it's called like, unless that's the name of that place. The relationship this show has to metaphor is very interesting, but it is about something, about something more than its plot. And the one thing that I think is an absolute undeniable plus that was illustrated by this episode is, again, we don't know the historical record. I plan to read a great deal about it on Wikipedia pages beginning next week. But I don't want to be spoiled. I want to know.

It seems as if the historical shape of this case is not that thrilling after a certain point. I was going to say the exact same thing. And the show also seems to, again, we don't know. It does seem to have an interest in at least giving us, keeping within the realm of recorded fact and possibility, not straying too far outside the lines. Again, could be wrong, but that's what it seems like. And so, what do you do to kind of jejeje, out the meal. You have people write essays about being English. And you put sauce and mustard on

everything. And you make a meal out of it. And I am not mad about that. I think it is made for some riveting, entertaining television. It's given some great, it allows you to have great acting performances. It's made really compelling characters out of Jennings and Brightwell, the cops who've been following from the flying squad the whole time. But this was the episode, and maybe this leads into something you want to talk about, where for the first time I was like, oh, it's not really, it's not going to be that shocking. It's not that, it's interesting, but it's not going to be that surprising anymore. And is this...

Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know how it ends. And, you know, you think about, say, the way cases on the wire sort of resolved themselves in ways of not resolving themselves, but in the lack of resolution, said something much more profound about society. Yes. And the wire also dabbled with people having a lot of self-form. awareness and a lot of...

The wires about the American city. Understanding of their way that they fit in with the tapestry of the city, like what thread they were. I think you're right. I don't know that this case is actually like a shoot-em-up, you know, so it's probably a lot of people looking for A-24 notes. And so to fill it out, you get some scenes that are... By the way, so are all the indie filmmakers in America.

That's right. They're just looking for those A-24 notes. You know, was the... Is this the invention of timeshares? I don't even know what we're watching with in Tenerie. Also, are we ever going back there? I don't think so. I don't think so.

I mean... But the wire point... The wire comparison becomes more and more interesting to me because... And let's say this again. We are not comparing the six-episode British miniseries to one of the undisputed all-time greatest television series. But what is interesting to me is the ability that this show has demonstrated in such a short amount of time to create a depth of character and a depth of society that has insight into

a larger cultural, national concern. Like this, we're saying, like, this show is just unabashedly about England and being England and the project of being English. At a very crucial point. And they'll just be like, look at Margaret Thatcher talking to Ronald Reagan about missile defense systems. And yet, it is limited its scope to six episodes about one crime that does reach from high to low and it's a well-chosen crime.

and it's well adapted. It does make me think that Neil Forsyth with this cast, and even literally some of these characters, could have made a legendary six-season show about policing or society in Thatcher's England. We would be raving about it in the same way that the Wire built this tapestry of characters

and brought its point of view and boots on the ground in Baltimore for all those years about made-up cases so that it could be about a city. Now, the Wire was based. on things that had actually happened, you know, especially during David Simon's time covering the police force there. But it was fictional and ongoing. This is historical and limited. And, you know, you get different results from that. I just really want to say that when she's like, Mickey's having a really hard time and the cab drivers, like that's the point of prison, isn't it?

That's kind of the point. All right. Well, I mean, we're obviously going to be talking about the last, the last episode. I don't really have like a... Jennings, your other writer die, Nikki Jennings, played by Charlotte Spencer, which she's just like, what's the guy's name, the art dealer, who just made a, had one bad day in Wittgenstein? What's the guy's name, Keith or something? She's like, you've ruined your life, Keith.

That's tough talk. Yeah. That is tough talk from people on this episode. She doesn't, she does not speak in metaphor. Yeah. Do you think... I mean, on some level, I understand why, you know, you just can't stay away. A lot of the characters are like you and that you just can't stay away from England. Despite rising viral loads and everything, like you just kept going back.

Is there another version of the show where they just don't go back? Well, who doesn't go back? Well, I mean, everyone goes back in this episode. Because the one detective in Tenerife. He was on it. Hunted down Palmer pretty easily at his time share. Well, he was on Front Street. What's up with Palmer is like you get 500 quid for every time share you sell but no salary?

Did you see that part? I mean, it was part of the show. That's the podcast model. Is it? You're doing a lot of contract talk today. You try to say something? I'm just, look, I'm always negotiating. I think you have a pretty cushy gig.

You know, you come in with your boy. I got nothing but anecdotes for you. It's true. And prep. You also have a lot of prep. Did you think I prepared well today? Yeah, listen, you were at the karaoke bar. still, God knows how long this weekend.

I was out until 1 a.m. 1 a.m. Yeah. What? That's when, that's when Kyos sitting down to dinner. A lot of beers. Yeah. How'd that treat you?

They actually, when you stretch them out over that period of time and you're rocking out, it's fine. Do you think this is a sign of my Anglo, my love of England? Or like just low-key alcoholism, that when there's the police. You're low-ke alcoholism? I'm alive. I'm like an alcoholic, but for Loki. That when they have the police sting in the pub. In the gold.

In this episode last night. Yeah. I was just like, I wish I was there this afternoon. Just pulling a pint. No, I think you and I both crave. Big mugs. The sense of warmth that comes with a local. And we all have that right now.

How do you? At least shared between the two of us. How do you feel about the Freemason Cup? I don't understand Freemasonry, and I think that the show has kind of fumbled the bag with that. Because it was implied in the beginning that that was like important. I think the Masons are the exorcist of this show, where it's like you're assuming people like know way too much about Masons.

Or are Freemasons the Jonathan Majors of the show and American Freemasons edited that whole storyline out? Do you think that's possible? Do you know anything about Freemasons? There's a handshake? Yeah, but like... The rest of my knowledge of them is informed entirely by

the 30-year-old episode of The Simpsons where Homer joins the Stone Cutters and they sing songs and there's an alien. I always forget that you have like a pretty comprehensive Simpsons. You know, I don't. I thank you for asking about that.

It wasn't really a question. But how much time do you have left, Gaya? Contractually. No, I think everyone knows that my preparation for the show involves watching the one to one and a half things you've asked me to watch, plus anything that my children are interested in.

Are they into The Simpsons? They're super into Simpsons. So we've been re-watching. Has your older daughter started saying don't have a cowman? No, that's first season shit. Okay. We went right into the good ones, the classic era. But she skipped all the, like, the catchphrases.

Yeah, well, I think that even the shit, like the, I mean like the ubiquity of like, eat my shorts and like, do you think that they have like Calvin pissing on stuff, stickers on their lunch boxes? Are you like, this is like, you're asking, this sounds, you know, you're talking like a real exorcist fan here. You know, like, are your children me? Do your kids like red and stimpy t-shirts? I never liked renn and stimpy. You didn't?

Well, I just never had ren in stumpy clothes. Oh, because you had travel baseball. You were playing sports. Dejecting a little bit of hostility. No, that's often, that's often your answer. I'm like, I know. I also just feel like red and stimpy. Like, I was just like too old.

for it. Weren't you too old for Red and Stimby? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Goes home Sprits. Scrumbs. Footerbooks. Crying. Crying the whole time. I just throw it all in my backyard smelter.

Hopefully the cops never find this. All right. I think we can wrap up. I think we probably should. Thanks to Kai for producing us today. She seems pretty happy about it. Kai is always happy. And we'll be back on Thursday with Joanna Robinson to have a broader conversation about the

MCU. Maybe we'll have a little other stuff in that episode, you know, just to spice it up. There might be other shows we're going to watch, right? I mean, now that I've got you hooked on the morning show, don't you have to see how January 6 works out? For everyone. In a way, we're all living that cliffhanger. Thanks for listening to The Watch podcast. We'll talk to you on Thursday.