The Watch - Loving ‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout’ and Awarding ‘Succession’ the TV Championship Belt | The Watch (Ep. 278)

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald react to and review ‘Mission: Impossible — Fallout’ and how Tom Cruise’s role as Ethan Hunt has evolved (3:00). Later, they discuss the penultimate episode of ‘Succession’ and award it the Television Championship Belt (22:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, everyone, thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch. On today's show, we talked about Mission Impossible Fallout. out. There are spoilers in there, especially when it comes to Henry Cavill's physique. We also talked about the penultimate episode of Succession. So obviously spoilers involved there. I think Succession is wearing a new piece of jewelry, right, Zach? That's right. We're also wanted to let you know if you want to talk more about the stuff we talk about on the show, the best place to do it is the watch Facebook group. So that's Facebook.com slash group slash the watchpod. So you should join that and check out all of the conversation happening in there.

Also, if you're trying to wear your love for the watch, we're sold out of T-shirts, but we promise more are coming soon. Thank you so much to everyone who's coppedos. Baransky fits for summer. Without further ado, let's get into the episode. 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 rigor.com, and joining me in the studio. Is there down to foot. It's Andy Greenwald! I don't... Which of our content is that

in reference to? Andy the egg! It's fucking succession, baby! Andy, the watch is here. It's Monday. We're going to talk about mission and... Well, mission, colon, impossible, M-Dash, Fallout. Yeah. We're going to talk about Mission Impossible Fallout. And then we're going to talk about the penultimate

episode of Succession. You can listen to another version of my thoughts on the penultimate episode of Succession on the recapables. prenuptial. We covered that. Katie Baker, myself, and Jason Concepcion is a really fun pod. Do you have two sets of opinions about Succession? Like two suits? No, I actually made sure that like, with Succession, it's easy. Yeah. Because I feel a certain way about it. But you know sometimes when you like peddle your shit out there,

it gets a little bit diverse. Yeah, well, it's not going to dilute on this podcast, my friend. The Watch is officially back on its bullshit, jumping off of buildings, crashing helicopters into other helicopters. Let's talk a little bit about Fallout, man. Let's start there because, you know, you know I'm all about. that arc light of Monday morning vibes. Starting the work week right. What was your fellow moviegoer like? Well, my friend Brian showed up randomly and sat next to me.

So that was very nice. That's cool. Otherwise, it was just four other dudes. You know, we were kind of, let me say, it was as random an assortment of aging dudes as the current incarnation of the IMF. Okay. You know what I mean? That's good.

That was definitely a Luther. There were a couple Luthers. There may have been a Benji. weirdly was lacking in Ilsa. Yeah, I would say, I will say that it could have, that would have improved it. So, big movie, everyone loves this movie, made a ton of money this weekend. I have to tell you, uh-oh. No, no, no, I really enjoyed it.

Don't worry, people. You can scratch this off your bingo cards. I have a lot of macro thoughts about it, and maybe one of the things about these movies is they don't really stand up to much micro thought. I will say for about half of the, I'm just trying to just guess it out of my mind. You're guesstimating out of its six-hour running time. Is that accurate? It ends and then they go to Kashmir.

Yeah, exactly. So for that first half of the film, I was like, well, this was an interesting choice to basically make a three-hour docudrama about men with curated facial hair in suits nodding. Because really, there's been. so many Mission Impossible takes, but I feel like there hasn't been one about the sartorial choices of American men in the world over the last two decades. Facial hair played such a key role in this

film. Because of Cavill? Cavill's choices, Vanessa Kirby's brother, all the dudes in the background, fake Tom Hardy, all the dudes in the background who are constantly opening and closing their radiation-proof to me cases to show off their plutonium balls. Also, the choice to make all those guys completely swole. Yeah. So... In their suits. Yeah.

I mean, they're just like MMA fighters wearing three-piece suits. There's some stuff in the background. But look, let's not go down that rabbit hole first.

Let me just say that all of it was worth it for the last 30 minutes. Oh, interesting. I, you know, there were... You tell me your thoughts and then I'll start to go down

these narrow alleyways in Paris with you. Yeah, I think that this is a movie that's built around its set pieces and the set pieces are basically unparalleled. You know, and so if you're going to build a completely nonsensical plot around these pretty much

he takes Fast and the Furious level scale and shoots it like a 1970s crime movie and that is crack to me like that's just it just gets me it gets the people going you know what I mean and I really enjoyed that so he has Christopher McCrory the director and you can listen to him on Sean's podcast Sean Fennessey's podcast Big Picture McCuary was on Friday and they talked a lot about the staging of these movies

but the thing that really jumps out at me is that this is like what would happen if somebody who was, you know, a Friedkin, John Borman making point blank was trying to make something where a dude flew a helicopter into another helicopter and then crashed the helicopters into a mountain and then had like a little helicopter fight while the helicopters were falling. I think, and that's just like it's really, really good. It's palpable. It's visceral. It feels real even if it, even if it isn't, you know.

Yeah. there's a lot of looking at phones. I was bummed out by that. But let me say this. Obviously, if you're listening to this podcast, you know I'm generally allergic to that tagline. Like, it's worth it for the set pieces. You know, there is definitely a little...

There's an element of this that's like reading Playboy for the articles, you know, or like fast forwarding... Fast forwarding porn. I go to Mission Impossible for the plot. No, fast forwarding porn to like see if the pizza gets delivered because the interstitial stuff is just wild dumb. Uh-huh. But there were moments in this movie where, yeah, even Mr. Grumpy over here, the set pieces are at times ecstatic.

And the jump out of the airplane is deliriously entertaining and fun. And I think that's the key word that they, for the most part, they remain fun. I mean, I think motorcycle and car chases are hard to make fun because the bar has been raised so high and they are so relentlessly, like, jarring and physical at this point. And apparently, people are indestructible when they come flying off of it. motorcycles. But at the end of this movie, and I'm sorry if this is a spoiler. Dude's getting hit in the face with laptops so hard. So hard. How about

Ilsa takes a fire log to the cranium. Okay? And she gets back up like a running back in the 1970s. She's just like put me back in the game. I have a couple of... But my last thought was the helicopter shit, God bless you.

That was so ludicrous and it made me laugh with joy and delight. I was so happy that a helicopter crashed into another helicopter and then fell on a helicopter. And homies were still like, let's go. I want to talk a little bit. See, I'm the reverse of you. I thought everything that was in Paris was just outrageously good. So everything from the motorcycle chase, the Ilsa stuff, the first Vanessa Kirby meeting, the convoy

ambush that they do, all that stuff was outrageous. I love the nightclub. It's beautiful. weird like, it's just like this is a very special nightclub that apparently 10,000 people can come to. Yes. And you have to have like this little like wristband to get into it. But no, you get. So basically, I mean, I actually did want to spend a lot of maybe two to three podcasts breaking down the fact that it is Twiloh in the 90s in the front room.

Yes. And though everyone is clearly tripping balls, no one goes to the bathroom ever. In their back, it's Joel Gray Cabaret. Exactly. Yeah. And you can just have both experiences. That's terrific. I mean, what, that is such great hosting.

And I know that when rich people are like, here's my charity event, so indulge me a little bit. But Vanessa Kirby, who plays Vanessa Redgrave from the first movie's daughter, I guess. Oh. Max, she refers to Max, her mother. Wow, it's a deep cut. Yeah, you didn't get that? You know what? Friends, I did not.

Yeah. So the connective tissue is strong. Wow. She is. Vanessa Redgrave, famous for trying to download an email attachment on a fucking bull. bullet train. That was the set piece of the first movie.

So things have changed. Yeah. Vanessa Kirby from the Crown is in this movie and she, inexplicably, is giving this speech about the charity event

that she's hosting as if she's singing to a group of GIs about to depart for Normandy in 1940. It's really wild. It's just like no explanation given.

She's just like, I'm just going to stand here and hold this microphone like I'm singing Memphis Bell or something. There's a lot of questions I have. It's interesting how the guys choose seemingly on like a group email. Maybe they have Slack.

Like today we're only going to fight with knives. Yeah. Or today we're only going to fight with choppers or like Sean Harris is like, I'm just going to use a bunch of ropes now. Like it seems like they have lots of toys in this movie. You'd want to use them whenever you had the opportunity. I also, I want to interrogate Sean Harris's decision to end his life with the explosion of two nuclear devices in Kashmir,

and in the last 15 minutes that he has on planet Earth, just stare. Not stare. First knit some nooses. I believe the plural is niece. I'm not sure. So yes, he ends his life by fashioning nooses. Just a case.

Maybe that's his hobby, like whittling for some. Just have a lot of raw rope to work with in Kashmir at a health organization, mash tent. Let's run it back to Vanessa Kirby for a moment because, you know, now that I know, that her life was defined by a frustrating download on an acela. I get it. I get her motivation. But I do wonder, like, we live in Los Angeles, the city

where there are a lot of, like, over-the-top charity functions and even, like, preschools have big gala's, you know, and, like, Beyonce plays them for the school her daughters go to. What is the level of celebrity required to end your charitable event by stabbing men in the heart? And people will still cut you the check. Like, who, Beyonce could get away with that. There's no question.

Uh, yeah, I just, there was no, like, it just seemed like that was like, that would have been on social media really fast. Also, because then she's like, I'm safe in my apartment. It would have just been on DJ Academics or World Stars vlog. Like, sick, sick stabbing to the heart at charity event and Paris shit is lit as A.F. Also, I don't want to pile on, you know, I think my feelings about the current American administration are clear on the mic and off of it. But I don't think it helps the CNN is real news. just sort of narrative. If your boy Wolf Blitzer is like, please, please let me be on set.

Well, I don't necessarily know if he was a willing participant. All they need to do is get close enough to scan his face. That's really, that's true, with one of them tough books. Yeah. With a 3D printer in the bottom. What do you think of Cavill? There's a lot of fun to be had here. I have, I guess I'm left with a lot of questions about Cavill.

Uh-huh. I appreciate, this is really my first sustained exposure to Cavill because Real Talk, I've not made it through a Superman movie since he's been in that role. And people, old heads from plane movies, know that I did not finish Man from Uncle on that plane either. Great movie. He, I appreciated that he was used as a special effect.

He's physically huge. And he looks like, he looks like Errol Flynn. No, he does not. No, in that, like. He looks like a dude who's been curling guys the size of Earl Flynn. I just mean there's an element of that old. He has an old swashbuckling.

With his forelock flying in the wind. I would say that stretching his neck was probably the most believable acting choice he made in the film. I thought it was a really bold choice by Chris McCorry to just basically tattoo across his mustache that this is a bad guy. I'm kind of into the fact that they weren't hiding it.

That was just very, very clear from the beginning. And then they even added the scene where he's just talking to Angela Bassett being like the hero of this film. film is a villain. So, okay. I didn't think he was much of a spy. A lot of punches to the throat.

I didn't think he was much of a spy because I would never, he would never not be the first person. I was like, that guy was the dangerous person in this room. The fucking seven foot tall guy with a $900 bag. He looks like colossus from the X-Men. I think he's like a little bit, you don't really blend in George Smiley style. No. It's like he sits down on a bench to make a chalk mark and the bench just flips over.

Over his head. We're having a lot of fun at this movie's expense, but part of it is like you should see, Andy and I both have smiles on her faces because this is a delightful, I found it to be a delightful movie experience. It was. I think that there were some things that I,

I think Rebecca Ferguson is just great. I thought she was the best thing in the last one, and I think that Rogue Nation remains superior to me because of her role in it. I think this movie was complicated by the fact that it does look like someone took that 3D printing tough book to Michelle Monaghan and made a person with a British accent. They look mad similar. She's Swedish. You could make the case that maybe Ethan Hunt has a type.

Yeah, maybe. But otherwise, that was kind of confusing at times. Yeah, and Kristen Scott Thomas, and the first one seems to be, he seems to have affection for her. And yeah, I mean, he's one of our great romantic leads. Let's not, let's not dance around it. I guess the thing is, I had a good time, and I'm impressed by the scale and the spectacle of it. And I am, and I'm grateful that for the most part they are in on the bit, that these old dodoes are the one saving the world again and again and again, and they've just contracted the group down to these three, plus Rebecca Ferguson, I guess now.

I think that McCory is incredibly talented and deserves all of the praise coming his way. I do think that his talent, and so to remember that he, before he started writing and directing these movies, he was one of the most sought-after writers and rewriters, often without credit, in all of Hollywood. And what this movie and the one before it strikes me as is an absolute triumph of talent in the current Hollywood system. And what I mean is he fixes things.

He fixes problems. And when you look at a Mission Impossible movie or a $300 million co-financed by the Chinese global blockbuster like this, it's nothing but potential problems. One of which is satisfying Tom Cruise, one of which is satisfying fans all over the world, one of which is amping up the stakes for the set pieces. That's why they have to go to Kashmir. It's because the movie that you and I would probably be really satisfied with is one that just takes place in Europe and is a shinier version of Bourne and is basically like really cool shit happening in London and Paris. But they need to add that extra layer of superherodom to pretty much match the expectations of the box office.

And blow past whatever we thought the bar was said last time. But there's a level of problem solving here that I admire so much thinking about, okay, so JJ Abrams introduced Michelle Monahan's character as Ethan Hunt's wife. Three movies ago, she was sort of shepherded off to the sidelines because we didn't want Ethan Hunt to be married.

This is actually TV writers' room style. Instead of thinking of that as a loose thread, think of it as an opportunity. Similarly, expanding the pal of expanding the universe, bringing in new characters, connecting them to old characters, not killing off a villain, because if you have a potential arch enemy...

Especially a guy is fun-loving, a show Harris. He's such a great hang. But it is the kind of problem solving that feels satisfying in the moment, much like eating a Dorito feels very filling when you're eating one. Maybe you should have another one. And then 10 minutes later, I'm like, well, it left me a little cold. I don't mean to be critical of that to take away from the achievement. I just do think it's worth considering from that macro level. I know why that is. He is fixing stuff. I know why you feel a little empty. It's Cruz. And it's Cruz is now at the

point, almost like a, it's like a hologram of Cruz. Yeah. And that hologram is very, very durable. Not only in the popular imagination of that, we're just, if you see him and you see his name, you're like, I'm all in. But there's something fundamentally missing from what was his original appeal for me. And you can see it anything from, I don't know when the last time it really showed up, I guess, Edge of Tomorrow, I think.

but you can see it in the first mission impossible where he's still running scenes. He's still playing off of people. He's still got Ethan Hunt has a weird pugnacious, almost self-harming personality of like just insane self-confidence that sometimes leads him into these incredibly dangerous situations and endangers the people around him.

And they've kind of stripped that away. It pops up once or twice. I think there's a little bit of it in the club scene and there's a little bit of it in the early part of the movie where he actually is having fun with Simon Pegg throughout a sustained moment. That opening scene in Bel- when they're buying the plutonium. Even after that, I think it's something like,

I know what I'm doing, Benji, okay? Like he's had something where he's like actually has a reaction. And it just reminds you how little of it you get in these movies. I would imagine because so much of his mental and physical time is spent negotiating flying a helicopter, jumping off a roof, learning how to drive this car super fast, doing motorcycle stunts, everything that goes into making these movies to say nothing of producing them and probably solving tons of problems off camera that we don't even see.

It's not a secret. Tom Cruise runs a Tom Cruise movie. He has final cut. He has saying everything. So I think that point is well made. It is a performance, this last sustained run post-couch jumping is a type of performance, I think, unparalleled in human history. And I don't even mean that in terms of his acting. I just don't think we've ever seen anything like this. He is less an actor now as he is a human cannonball. He's ignited at the beginning of these movies,

and he never ever, ever stopped. When we were talking about this when we were talking about Mission Impossible, he's become Jackie Chan in some ways. Yeah, I think that's right. And he's still able to do it. It's terrific. But I agree with you. I miss, I miss some, I miss charm.

I miss Jare McGuire. I miss banter. Yeah. And miss Daniel Caffey. You miss like some of the, I am in a room playing off of other people. I have a personality that is basically one and a million. All right.

Were you, last two things. The opening of this movie, again, it's just economical. It's just very impressive. Which feels like a back-handed compliment, but I don't mean it to be. But there's that opening dream, you know, to his wedding. Nuclear explosion, yeah. Is it weird that I was like, I thought Thanos had just snapped his fingers that I thought that we were really doing it.

world building on a major level here. To what do you think it says about American masculinity in 2018 all this facial hair? Dr. West Bentley. Just because of West Bentley? It's just there was a time in American cinema when the major characters, let alone the secondary characters, did not have beards, artfully curated beards. The 70s they did. And then like 80s, 90s and most of the 2000s, they did not.

And then look at Sean Harris. I mean, fair. Yeah, and like in the fugitive, Dr. Root, he's like, I have to. to get rid of my beard so I can seriously be a fugitive now. Exactly. I would be a much better served as a fugitive without my beard.

I want to get to succession. I have one more question for you. Who do you think got more bang for the buck? Alec Baldwin or Angela Bassett? Screen time or on an expense paid trip to cashier? Essentially, like, who do you think enjoyed their time more? Because Angela Bassett essentially has to walk across a landmark of Paris, walk across a tarmac, and then show up on FaceTime.

Yeah, no. Whereas Alec Baldwin actually. actually gets to play around a little bit, but essentially does, like, the same Alec Baldwin thing that he always does. Yes, but he got to just have a little bit of, like, one last hunt for Red October glory run. Yeah, that's right.

I couldn't believe he actually did some, like, physical combat. He looked, he looked pretty good. Pretty spry. He had, he definitely had more fun. But that said, Angela Bassett definitely enjoyed the paycheck and the trip to Paris. You know, like, I would, why wouldn't you take this job? And then I guess she'll be in the next nine.

Last, last thing. how many years do you think it is before we get mission mission colon impossible hyphen long slow death from radiation poison I think it's got to be in the next two years but technically I don't know if he can make another one after like he's 59 now no he's 56 I think he can keep making these into his 60s so they've probably got one more in them do you think the next movie will just be like John Cusack and Fat Man and Little Boy

just like slowly dying because they were all basically juggling. Standing around plutonium for two and a thousand. They were all those juggling plutonium balls. Yes. Yes. All right.

We'll be right back to talk about succession after this break. All right, Andy, you know, we're back here. We're talking about succession. And there's one major thing I want to talk to you about with this episode,

which I thought was brilliant. I thought was brilliant in a way that was similar to Prague and brilliant in a way that was completely different. I thought it was in a lot of ways like a complete gut punch of an episode.

you got to see some of the frailty that I think is on display when everybody, all the characters in this show are just doing a lot of like swinging dick actions but like in this episode

I felt like they were kind of really exposed. A lot of them were exposed and vulnerable and also possibly at their worst. But the thing that I thought was so impressive and we should say up front,

we haven't done this in a while but we're giving Succession to Bell. Succession is the best show on television. I think it's probably the best show of the year. I don't remember the last time I've loved to show this much. And every week, it shows a different side of itself. And, you know, it's a very small sample size. But with few exceptions, most of the people that I know talk about this show in the way that

we often really value when we're talking about giving a show the belt, where it's become a conversation topic that people talk about the day after. The thing I want to talk to you about is the way in which Jesse Armstrong and the writers and the directors of this show are able to situate multiple characters in a space and how complicated that must be to do something like the nightclub in the Prague episode, which was actually just in New York, or this wedding reception, this night before wedding reception, and actually physically understand where everybody is and how they're relating to one another in just a, okay, well, the mother-in-law is over here, and she's going to have these five interactions,

and those five interactions are going to cause these five reactions. I find it, aside from the brilliance of the dialogue and the stuff, you know, the wrangling that's happening for this kingdom, the actual just like architecture of scenes is so impressive to me. I'm glad to use the word architecture. That is what I remain totally dazzled by. And it's what I started to pick up on in number five, episode five, Thanksgiving, and the one that blew me away in Austerlitz, which remains, I think, the high point of the season,

although this in moments in individual scenes gave it a run for its money. there was a deep understanding of how to make a show like this work. And I think it was every episode needs to bring these characters together. Now, how do we do that when they all are in far-flung places or running different inside or outside of the company? It was intentionally structured this season to have beat after beat after beat of an excuse for these people to be together. And that is an architecture that is clearly designed,

clearly well-intentioned and brilliantly executed. I don't know if there has been a show that featured this many parties since the OC, which also seemed to understand early on that the best way to get people moving was there would be some sort of event and then high society and low society and everything would and someone would get punched on the beach. This episode was so elegantly done because as your point, and it reminds, it's almost theatrical because if you're making, if you're writing a play, obviously the moments you choose to present have to be the absolutely.

tune your dial to 10, one more to 11 spinal tap version of emotional, in terms of being fraught with emotion and stakes for each character. That has tracked. But then to your point about following characters through physical space in how long was this episode, 55 minutes, whatever, the time is we are introduced to the mother of Caroline, of Kendall, of Roman, and of Shiv, played by Harriet Walter, brilliantly played by Harriet Walter. such an impact from her very first appearance and such thought going into what is her role?

What is she weaponized with inside this fishbowl? And being weaponized with walking around your daughter's, the night before your daughter's wedding, asking people to give odds on how long the wedding is going to last, is so exquisite because it is, Veep, it is that sort of cringe comedy that Jesse Armstrong came from. Of course, that would be the person who's like,

I'm going to go work for Bernie Sanders and push him to the center. Right. But it's also Tennessee Williams. It's epic. And it is devastating. And it allows us to laugh and on some level weep at the tragedy of these people who were made this way. When we see Chavon's behavior throughout the episode, it's immediately clear who this woman is, why she behaves the way she does, who her parents were, and what she values. You know, when they actually hug each other on the boat. Yeah. physical contact is very strange for them. Yes. It is a strange performance. That's not how they reward each other, you know?

And to see it all play out, it was dazzling. I don't know how sustainable this is. I don't know, because, you know, they do a good job of suggesting that time has elapsed in between episodes. Yes, I appreciate that very much. Obviously, I thought the best scene or the best moment of last night's episode of Sunday night's episode was the Rava and Kendall interaction, where he comes out of the bathroom after doing cocaine and she's sort of asking why haven't his lawyers gotten back to him, her,

and she's brushing, as he's trying to tell her that he's, the reason he's jacked up is because he just did 120 pushups. 150, I think. She's brushing cocaine off his lapel. Yeah. And they have that, you know, he has this moment of,

he wants to tell her off, but he also knows that she's seeing through him, but because she's seen through him, she wants to say, He wants to say, you don't know me. It's just this, and really well-done moment. And, you know, how they can sustain things like Kendall's sobriety or just everybody getting together every few weeks.

Like, I don't know. Maybe next season it will be broken off into pairs and people will be off doing their own thing. And who knows how much they can sustain this tension. But you just got to enjoy it while it lasts. And with one more episode, there's still things that they're unpacking, like Marcia, like, you know, like what's. going to happen with this cruise ship thing that Greg keeps witnessing shit. We don't really know.

Yeah, I'm glad you talked about that, the Rava scene with Kendall, because none of this works if the writers aren't interested in the emotional landscape of the characters. None of it works. And they did something in this season that I was skeptical of before I watched the show, and I remain fiercely skeptical of for the first third of the season, which was, I don't know if I care. Why would I care? Well, it snuck up on me. I care.

Now, do I care because I want to hang out with these people? Of course not. But I care because their humanity is tattooed on their foreheads and is deeply compelling and deeply thought out. And that entire interaction that you point to, and I think they're equals. I mean, I think the Tom and Chavon scene is similar. I think the psychology behind the Tom,

sorry, the Chavon and Jerry scene where they're drinking from the heavy crystal tumblers and rat fucking each other, and they respect that, and her marriage advice is don't let him die. It's present in every single one of these interactions, but the Kendall and Rava scene is excruciating because each character has a fully considered,

fully realized agenda in that scene towards each other, and you can watch as their gravitational fields overlap and then repel. And both characters remain true to the characters we've seen throughout the season, and the effect is palpable. Yeah, I think that's the only relationship I would say that that is a little bit underserved by the time lapses because you don't really see the trajectory of it, but I thought that that was a really effective way of summing up what had happened there.

I think there are other, I mean, like with everything, one could pick nits. And I think that old Senator Gill, all Senator Bernie there, being at the wedding, again, it's like, that's a play. Sure. That he has to be there. Yeah, it's like 20th century. So if you have to accept that, that he would accept that invitation and show up there and that they would cross on the stairs, is it worth it for those two colliding like that? It's probably worth it.

But it does not reward the show to spend too much time thinking about how they got there and their behavior, how the senator got there and his behavior once he's there. I think those are the moments where it goes a little wobbly on the margins. But the one other thing about this episode that I want to call attention to, other than the fact that I was very nice of Mr. as whamsgams to pay for such expensive wine, is that this was the one where they let the leash off Brian Cox, where he got the note that he's healthy now. Yes, he got to do the walk. And he got to do the reservoir dogs walk into the building.

And then once he was there, it's like on Game of Thrones. You remember our man Ramsey? Of course I do. When Ramsey had some canine friends. He's an animal lover. Remember what he would do before the war where he would just like not feed them? Yeah. I felt like Brian Cox had been just on.

some soylent for weeks on the sidelines. And then they told him that there was a steak dinner inside this house, and he went for it. One of the hardest things you probably have to do if you've got lines and bars the way Jesse Armstrong and his writers do. And you're saying things like, I'm on the verge of setting up a podcast on Napoleonic history is actually making your characters speechless at times. And while he does get a couple of shots off, Kendall is essentially destroyed by Logan in that meeting where he's just like, you know,

when are you going to get out of the trenches and get back in the soccer game? And like I could give you a reference for your resume. Yeah. And, you know, you bought some corn for the winter. I want to go have a catch dad. Yeah, right. It's brutal.

The last thing I'll say, a week ago or so, you were talking about how HBO really excels at the ensemble cast. And this is no exception. I mean, one thing that I've learned in my short time in TV is that it's, you know, it's a financial decision, how many people you can put on your main cast.

I know. How many people, how you keep people under lock and key for a large ensemble, HBO has never really counted nickels and dimes on that score. And to see the length and breadth of this cast is stunning, especially when you realize breakout characters like Ariane Moyette, who plays Stewie, not even in the main cast, acting like he belongs there, and I'm sure we'll be soon enough.

Jay Smith Cameron, who plays Jerry and is crushing it. David Rache, who we all remember as Sledgehammer, and also on V, just absolutely perfect in his limited. screen time. This is the week I realize that the woman who helped Tom close the circuit that he wanted to remain open is Caitlin Fitzgerald. Yeah, Tabitha. Who is the star of Masters of Sex. This cast goes deep. And I... Close the circuit. I think it's pretty impressive and also speaks very promisingly of the seasons to come. I've never been a rewatch kind of guy. But considering the way this season has turned and what it's built to...

I think it would definitely merit a reinvestigation of the first three on my part. Because I wonder now if everything that I loved was there or if it really was just some tweaking on the fly that led to it. It had the same mechanics in terms of having everybody gathered. I think the thing you're putting your finger on with like the show has gotten healthier as Brian Cox's character got healthier. And that allowed other characters go off and do other things. All right, we're going to wrap it up there,

shorter episode today. We'll be back on Thursday because there's a bunch of stuff from TCA's that we wanted to address. And we'll probably also talk about movie pass. Maybe we'll talk about guardians, all this stuff. So that'll be on Thursday show. And we have some great stuff for you next Monday with the succession finale. So stay tuned.

Until then. Great job, Bernskis.