The Watch - 'Lucky Hank' and the Appeals of Soft Television. Plus, 'Mandalorian' S3E4.

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the news that the spy thriller 'The Day of the Jackal' is going to be remade into a TV show and whether remakes are the only projects that get green-lit now (1:00). Then they talk about the first episode of the new Bob Odenkirk show 'Lucky Hank' (28:32) and the latest episode of 'The Mandalorian' (42:29). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan, and I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me on the other line, screaming, Mando! The dragon took my boy! He took my son! They were just playing darts, Mando.

Oh! How will I explain this to his Mandalorian mother, Mando? This is the way, isn't it? It's Andy Greenwald. How can I look this boy's mother in the eye? because we always have helmets on. I know. Oh, God, wait, put a pin in that.

I want to talk about Mandalorian weddings. I have a lot. Domestic life. Gosh, we're going to talk about the Mandalorian. We're going to talk about Lucky Hank, a new show on AMC featuring, starring Bob Odenkirk, who obviously we worship the ground he walks on

after Better Call Saw and we're very excited. Well, I mean, you know, what if I zagged? You were like, fuck that guy. Don't speak for both of us. I'm switching back to David Cross. I'm putting all my money back in him. That's right. That's right.

You're shorting Odenkirk. We're very interested to see what Bob Odenkirk did after Better Call Saul, and it is called Lucky Hank. It's a show on AMC. We'll get into that. Greenwald, great to see you. It's Thursday. Finally, I'm in the East Coast, by the way.

I'm in Philadelphia, and it's raining here. So all of your stress about the weather, you can pass it off onto me. Any bomb cyclones? in Narberth or something, because that's the vibe out here. Where people were in Montebello just living their lives in California. And roof flies off, as George Carlin said, in the old comedy bits about the airplanes. Yeah.

Hey, Andy, I had a thing I wanted to ask you about before. So we have two things I wanted to do up top. Okay. I have an IP question for you. Yeah. So I believe yesterday, recording this on Thursday, I think Wednesday or Tuesday, it was announced that there was going to be a show on the horizon coming out, a copro between Sky,

which is one of my three or four favorite British production houses, and Peacock. British studio power rankings, go. Channel four, number one. Oh, okay. Or film four, I guess it is, the arm of their,

of the film arm of that thing. I just think that's a good name. What channel is it on? It's on channel four. And you appreciate the practicality. Dude, it was just easier. Do you remember the first time the channels changed? Oh, my God.

When it was like ABC is 6, NBC is 3, CBS is 10. And that's the way it was for the first 10, 12 years of our life. And then cable comes in and they're like, no, ABC is 7. Yeah, but also, not just that. Do you remember that, like, at some point in our childhood, the local NBC affiliate, which had been... Three. Three, K-YW.

and the CBS affiliate, which I think was 10, swapped. They swapped the same way that like the owners of the Eagles and the Steelers just swapped franchises in the 50s and 60s, like stuff that happened in the dead of night. Like this was profound. I was like, Larry Kane, a CBS man, I don't believe it anymore. God, our lives are really boring. Really, really boring childhoods. You could just feel people hitting unfollow on Spotify right now. I don't think so.

I don't think so because you know why? I think we should get more niche because last week or, Monday, we were like, dear fans of the Tottenham Hotspur Club, this is for you. Yeah. And look, people are coming up to me on the street, tears in their eyes saying thank you for that podcast. So I think that the more specific we get, it's a test, actually, because it reflects our opinions about television, too, right?

Like, the more specific they are, the better. So thank you for sticking with us for Hotspur fans. So like I was saying, Sky in England and Peacock here in the United States of America. all under the umbrella of the benevolent Comcast Corporation are doing a co-pro on a remake, a TV series remake of Day of the Jackal. What is Day of the Jackal? It's a Frederick Forsyth novel.

It's been made into a movie twice, once in the 70s, once in the 90s. The 70s one is awesome. It is so good. And the 90s one is almost hilariously bad. It exists, yeah. It's called The Jackal. Day of the Jackal is about an assassin named the Jackal.

who is working on a plan to kill Charles de Gaulle. And it's basically a two-hander. One side of it is the jackal and his pursuit of de Gaul. And the other side is this detective who's chasing him across Europe and doing all this kind of real shoe leather kind of detective work in the days before you were able to just have CCTV and iPhones and tracking and all that stuff. So it's a really awesome story. I can't imagine anyone doing a better job of it than Fred Zinemann did with Day of the Jackal.

It's so good. If you haven't seen it, check it out. they're doing another version of this with Eddie Redmayne, I assume as the jackal. And by at least the variety story, it sounds like they're going to do it as the jackal going after de Gaulle rather than any kind of modernized retelling of this story. Here's my question. It's not because he's mad about the changing of the pension plans in France and he's going up from Macron, because I feel like that would be very topical.

Well, you point out something interesting is like if they were like we have this modern spin, a kind of a yellow vests jackal, you know, who's going after like the political elite or something like that, you'd have my attention. I just, it's totally cool that they're doing this. I'll probably check it out. David Jackal was a movie that my parents loved. It's a story that my parents loved. Charles de Gaulle was somebody that they were familiar with. And because of that, it was sort of passed down like an heirloom to me. And I've seen it like a bunch times over the course of my life on cable or watching it or whatever. It's a really cool movie. I cannot imagine any subsequent generation of person who's like, damn, day of the jackal is just like, when are they going to reinvestigate that?

When are they going to get back into that piece of storytelling and tell me, tell it from another side? And I'm kind of curious what your take is on this because I was looking through some of the stuff that's coming out in the next couple of months or in development and you see words like Tetris, Tomb Raider, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And I'm like, did these things resonate with people as like stories that they have been dying to have told? Or is this an example of you can't get it made unless it has like an in-the-black curating. Like, people already know this story from X, even if it's from 1973's brilliant crime thriller that literally only people 50 and older care about. Well, let me be before I even, before I fully respond, let me do the standard,

uh, servicey boilerplate caveat, which is to say, succession is coming back Sunday, Barry's coming back. There is a lot of amazing, innovative, excited. thrilling, medium resetting television still in the pipeline still to come. But it is bleak as fuck out here. It is real bad. It is real gnarly. It's not just me saying this on a podcast. If you get anyone in the C-sweets, you get them off the record, it's as bad as it has ever been. It is fear-driven and it is really, really, really uncertain what's to come, whether the strike happens or not and what's on the other side of it. And I think everyone's waiting for someone to decide what's on the other side of it and what's to come. And I think, so not only our

original idea is not selling. They're not even being brought to market because of the uncertainty over the next few months in the industry. And I think though, what, but remember that all this is working on multiple timelines, right? So when I use that caveat about what's still coming, that's obviously stuff that's been in the works and been in production for upwards of two years. When I say things are bleak and nothing selling right now, that's really going to affect 24, 25. What you're seeing announced now are deals that have been negotiated or slow walked for months, if not years. And honestly, what they strike me is as like the last gasp of the previous iteration of what the TV business might be, which was in the rush to consolidation and the rush to launch

streamers, every media corporation was a island looking in their own vaults for anything. Yeah. And then seeing who they all see, also people that they already had under contract or They were already pot committed to financially saying, can you make something work here? And that's why you get, I mean, look, individually, like, do I know the motivations of the people who want to make Jack, who want to remake the Jackal, you know, with a verisimilitude of the 1970s? I don't know. But broadly, I think you can take out a brush and paint a lot of this stuff at the same time, including, we mentioned it recently, Phoebe Wallerbridge and Donald Glover being under overalls at Amazon. and working on Tomb Raider and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, respectively. Yeah.

Another announcement this week was that Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, who famously made Homeland together, are doing Gattaca. That could be really cool. Those guys know how to make really entertaining television. Gattaca is a movie that is probably its reputation has improved since it came out. I think there are people who really ride for that movie and are inspired by it. So there might be some more story there, considering it itself wasn't this incredible definitional feature.

But still, that's just some stuff in the vaults and it has a name attached to it. I don't know what it means in the marketplace. But no one knows. And so, I don't know. So is that largely down to it's cost effective to reimagine things that are already in your intellectual property library?

Or is it because they think that audience, need some sort of like totem to kind of hang on to when they're going to... Even though we have dozens of examples of things like even the shows that we're talking about recent... Like in the last couple of weeks, like you mentioned Succession Barry, even Swarm, even like all these shows that are on

that are like newer kind of ideas or original ideas. But none of those shows are as successful as The Last of Us are House of the Dragon. So I think you could make the argument, like they're more successful creatively. We think they're more successful. We enjoy talking about them more. But they're not as broadly like numbers people watching the show successful as those established brands or established IP. My increasing feeling, though, is that the actual shakeout of like, does this have, does this move the needle for audiences?

Like, I don't know. I don't know if there's any definitive answer about that. What I think it does is it just protects the asses of executives. and development people who are afraid. I think everybody's afraid. And I don't say that to be pejorative or judgmental because it's tough. And people like to have jobs and be employed and protect the projects that they are exposed on and are committed to.

But there is just a pervasive feeling that people are afraid of taking chances on anything. And so if you can point to something having existed before and worked in some form or some potential audience that if you could only activate, they might show up and save you some of the marketing outreach. Like, yeah. But more than anything, I just think it gets it through the development process faster. It just greases the wheels a little bit. And I want to keep saying this, because you know, you guys know I'm very comfortable being negative when appropriate. Like, this Jackal show could be amazing. Oh, yeah. And we'll check it out. And we will give it a fair read, you know, a fair watch. But like, when we do these segments in these conversations, I am, I think

it's important to put our arms around the whole system, which is not doing great. You know, and I think also it's probably pretty easy to just be cynical about mining IP to come up with this stuff. And there may be economic reasons or creative reasons why people do that. But speaking of the creative reasons, I would just find it as a writer and as a storyteller, a lot more liberating to work from an original idea where there were no lane lines, where you could say, like, I don't have to like, this doesn't have to be de Gaulle. It doesn't have to be France. This guy doesn't have to be motivated by this, that, or the other thing.

Like, we don't have to, like, explain Algeria to a 2023 or 24 audience. And you look at something like what Taylor Sheridan has done with Yellowstone and all the properties that he's kind of developed out of that. And you can mock it if you want or you can roll your eyes when it becomes too soap opera or too melodramatic or whatever. But he doesn't have to adhere to any previous ideas about what Yellowstone is supposed to be. And he's more than welcome to take Dallas the show, Larry McMurtry, and special forces bro action, and throw it all together in a blender and come out with this show that he is in control of. And if he wants to take Kevin Costner off of it, he can.

And if he wants to start five spinoffs about this Dutton family, he can. And it can echo some other past works and draw from it. That's called influences. And so I think it's almost interesting to consider it as a creative choice by this industry to only make stuff that it's like, well, you're going to have a core group of fans who are going to want to see this guy go after de Gaul or going to want to see the Tomb Raider raid some tombs or going to want to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith do this. Instead of what if we did like a husband and wife super spy show but tweaked it this way and tweaked it that way and tweaked it this way. I will give you, I agree with that. I will give you the other perspective from the writer's side. which is to say original stuff is so much harder. I'm sure.

And that can be good. But when I say harder, I don't just mean that it's just like, oh, I don't want to do the work. It's like, this is going to take a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of planning. And it's going to take a lot of drafting. And it's going to take a lot of back and forth and world building, let alone story construction. And the truth about that is there are very few places that are going to pay a writer equitably for that amount of work in time. you know, to invest in the writer to either, you know, do all the research and then write all the scripts or to have a mini room or to work with other people or to just basically keep the whole thing in motion.

Everything is incentivized to like, let's get a pilot, let's sell it, let's get a room and let's get it on the air because then we can get a return on investment or see what we have and we're not just pouring money down the drain. And I'm not saying it was ever different than that. And in fact, you know, not to not to digress too much, but like my understanding, based on not listening to the big picture enough, sorry Sean and Amanda, was that, like, was that Tar, my favorite movie of the last 10 years,

potentially, that the reason Todd Field hadn't made a movie in 16 years is because he was just tirelessly drafting Tar. Like, this was what he was doing. When, in fact, he was starting and stopping in, you know, a dozen to two dozen projects

that just lost financing. Yeah. And the reason he wrote Tar is because, and this is the insane part, the studio called him and said, you like classical music, Todd? And he was like, okay. He didn't even say yes.

He was just like, sure, I have a character. I will folder into this world, and the whole thing happened in like 14 months. Yeah. Now, that benefited maybe from the small. But he wrote like 2,000 pages of screenplay with Jonathan Franzen on a show that never came out. Among a hundred other cool things. And a screenplay with Joan Didion and all that stuff. Yes. I mean, it's so cool.

So I, all of this is conspiring. Somewhere Todd Field was like, wasn't that cool? Unbelievable. But yeah, so, you know, I also think it's interesting that, like, our favorite show of 21 was our buddy Patrick Somerville's Station 11. And in a way, I consider that, and, you know, I don't know if the bean counters at Paramount the studio or HBO Max the network feel the same way. But I think of that as just like an absolute triumph in success because it was a preexisting thing that was popular. It was good in its own right. I'm talking about the novel by Emily St. John Mandel.

and but Patrick made an original piece of art out of it. He adapted it quite loosely and took his own chances and made his own thing. And so it was a, you know, again, he can come on. I'm sure he's raising his arm right now while driving his kids to school. He's probably a darkness retreat watching a Jordan love tape, actually. That's probably right. But like, he would volunteer how absolutely mind-breakingly hard it was. But I just mean that it got moving quickly because it was a popular thing.

And it allowed, and that safety and protection gave him the space to be creative within it. And so it worked. When it works, it works. But I guess it's, I'm glad to just be able to bring up this half of it too because it's not entirely in this industry is boring problem. It's just the nature of all of it. And also, what do we look, you could get, this is, it's almost strike season. Things are getting weird. Like, I could go on about this for a while, but...

I could talk to you about this stuff all day. I mean, there's... Every day, I feel like I come across another example of this where, you know, for instance, like there's a fatal attraction adaptation coming on Paramount Plus soon, Josh Jackson and Lizzie Kaplan. And to me, and I haven't watched it, but like fatal attraction, one of the sort of key draws of that story is the experience of it in the present tense for the first time. And I'm sure you can go back and you can check out the nuances and you can sort of read what it's saying about society and about relationships and all this other stuff.

But like it's a thriller and you watch it through. And now I'm sure that the folks doing the fatal attraction reboot are like, well, what if we did this and what if we did that? But I almost just wish it was like a from hell thriller with Josh Jackson and Lizzie Kaplan set in a workplace that, could go in any direction that they wanted it to go because the beats of fatal attraction are pretty memorable and dull with the retelling, actually. Look, this is how I feel also about Wikipedia TV shows and podcasts turned into TV shows, you know, like give us a chance to surprise you because that's the point of being a creative, right?

Like, just because it, I don't want all things to be ripped from the headlines. Like, you know, all respect to Dick Wolf and his aircraft character. or made of money that's currently parked by Catalina Island, but like there's other ways to do it. So I agree, but I also really do think that this era of fatal traction and Jackal and Gattaca, like there's always going to be stuff based on other things, but I do feel like this is the end of an era,

not necessarily just the beginning of a new one, even though things are just reaching our screens now. What's worrisome and scary is we don't know what's coming next. And I feel like I'm also, I'm referring lively to a writer's strike, we're recording this on Thursday. Nobody has any idea what's going to happen. The agreement between the sides expires May 1st. There's negotiating going on.

My guess is it will ramp up, as will the rhetoric, and there might be extensions. So it doesn't mean that it's pencils down on May 1st, and the entire industry is going to come crashing down. But it might. It might. It's a cool feeling. Then we turn into a video game pod. And we start with Perfect Dark. and tomorrow.

Stop making me want this. I know. You want to do a quick bit on Succession before we get into the shows we were going to talk about today. We're about four days out from Succession coming back. You can hear me and Andy's recap

of episode one. That'll go up on Sunday night. So episode one, season four. We'll go up on Sunday night immediately after the show airs. But I guess I was going to ask you this. I can't do this segment that we're about to do

because I've gone into a LeBron James Media blackout with Succession. Because I want to experience it. I just want to have my stories every week. I will engage in the discourse, probably after this episode, when it comes to reading and listening and all that stuff.

But this first wave of reviews, I basically see the headline. And I, you know, I think I'm, it's not like I'm like, I don't want to find out how Twin Peaks are lost ends here. Like,

I have like a feeling of where this is all going and and I also know what kind of show and story this is. But there's something about this moment that I want to savor in a kind of not personal way, but like it's just like right now, this, this pregnant moment before the show comes back where I don't want to get into like, as you will see in future episodes, blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah, you know. Yeah, I agree with that. I also just want to say, and I feel like we make a, I don't want to be a broken record, although we can do it since the show's not, we're not going to be doing another preview segment

about succession since this is the last season. I think there's just two planks that really guide my fandom and my preparation, so to speak, for the season. One is that it's just simply incomparable. There is nothing else as engaging or as well written or as well cast or acted as this show. And it is just such a joy to have it come back. And every time it comes back,

it is like if you've, you know, I know this is relevant to a lot of people over the last three years. If you've lost your sense of taste and then suddenly it comes back, you're just like, I can't fucking believe how good this fruit is or this sandwich or what, like, oh my God. It's like seeing in color again, honestly. It's that thrilling. The second piece is not everyone watches the show the same way and there's not one way to watch it, but I definitely do not engage with a show through the eyes of a reddeter. Like, I don't actually have an opinion about who's going to get it.

Who's going to win? I don't have a theory. I don't think the show was designed like a mystery box show. You know, I think that Jesse Armstrong and his crew write towards the characters. They write towards the momentum and what interests them. And they find their way through it. And I think that's fantastic, you know. I think there's fun ways to watch the show and to guess and hubbub or whatever.

But, like, that's just never been my vibe. I was, like, I know that when you were on with Rusillo and he was like, who do you think's going to win? And I didn't know if you came into that with an opinion. Like, did you have an answer or were you just like clubhouse favorite or whatever? Because I just think that what's kind of profound about the show is that it's the wrong question. Because doesn't everybody lose no matter what? Yeah, I think that there's probably a gamification of most shows that have any kind of lingering questions or mystery to them that happens. now possibly it's like the cart leading the horse kind of thing with media where to talk about

something in a sustained way in a way that has kind of like a box around it you do you know whether it's game of thrones and you say who will sit on the throne or whether it's mayor of east town and you're like who did it and whether it's succession it's like who will run this company yeah that's not necessarily the question that i'm asking or want answered going into it i was i was i can't remember even what I said to Rosillo, because my mind changes all the time about that question if I'm answering it. I was going to ask you, what you will miss most about this show? I was thinking about that, too, and it does feel premature to say that because there's, you know, 10 episodes to go. I didn't plan for this to be the hyperbole hour, but maybe this is where we're headed. It feels like we're dropping

off a cliff after this show, quite frankly. It doesn't mean there's not good stuff coming, and things won't surprise us. At this time last year, we had never even heard of the bear. You know, I can't wait to be surprised and dazzled by something this year. But everything that we're saying now and everything we're going to say on Sunday night and for the next nine or ten Sundays is really suffused with the sense that we've put in the time with these people, that we've grown with this show, that our excitement and our anticipation has built and that the performances have aged and matured, And that, like, there's a foundation here, you know, and that's so thrilling. And after this, there is no other show like this currently on the air.

TV has moved in the Fatal Attraction Gattaca era. TV has moved so far away from this core constituency of a compelling, brilliantly executed drama that comes back that I don't even think people are paying attention to how bare the cupboard is. it's not to say that there aren't things under the radar, but if we're just looking top down on television, I went back and I looked at like the last three, the last three Emmys, and who, what shows were nominated for best drama series.

So 2020, we had succession, which won? Killing Eve is gone. The Crown has one more season, right? Handmaid's Tale, I believe has one more season. Stranger Things, is that coming back? It is. One more season. At some point, they take a little time.

I know you're saving them all to have like the complete experience. I can't wait. I can't wait to have 57 hours to watch the last two seasons. Better Call Saul is over. Mandalorian. Okay, guys. And Ozark, which is gone. 2021, which was the year that succession was not eligible because it didn't have a season on it in the window.

Bridgerton, Handmaid's Tale, Lovecraft Country, gone, pose, gone, crown, ending. This is us. Gone, Mandelorian. Come on, guys. The boys love it. But okay. And then we have this past year, 2022, Succession won again, I think rightfully so. And the other nominees were Squid Game, which is coming back, Stranger Things, which, as he said, is coming back. Ozark is done. Better Call Saul is done. And then you have the trio of shows that might expect future nominations, Yellow Jackets, which a lot of people love. And it's returning on Sunday. Yeah, and it's returning on Sunday. And I don't have anything bad to say about that show at all.

euphoria, which I don't watch, but I know is a legitimate contender in this category for this year and other years to come. And then severance, which I think in the best case scenario, fills at least some of this succession energy as a really high concept, highly executed, compelling adult drama. But a lot is riding on its second season to be that. And it just feels so profoundly changed, like what we expect from TV, what we want for TV. I know it's hard to mount an original adult drama that gathers momentum and attention, but I still feel like we should, as an industry, be shooting for it. Yeah.

Because there's nothing better. There is nothing better than having a show that you and a lot of other people. I mean, we're not, this is not another plea for the monoculture, but a lot of other people really love and respond to. And you could say Last of Us, but it's different. Everybody, even the show's partisans would admit that it's a different thing. and it is, you know, comes with an end date. Yes, all shows come with some kind of end date,

but, you know, I think they've announced it. It'll be three seasons. So more than anything else, I just really want to enjoy it. It feels, it got late quick, I feel like, for this age of TV, you know, where you think about the better call Saul kind of feeling like something that was keeping some connective tissue to the previous generation and previous era. And when that blinked off and all of a sudden,

the Mad Men Sopranos, all those types of shows, and the many, many B-plus shows that we're not even mentioning in this segment of the podcast, it just suddenly feels like a long time ago. Well, I wonder whether or not how much of that is dictated by audience expectation for return on investment. So when your time is tight, when there's so many things to do with your leisure time, right? And maybe your leisure time is less than ever, you know, and your TV shows are competing with all TV shows of all time. Yes. in various streaming services. And a lot of what we talk about,

whether it's Blockbuster, superhero franchise TV, or it's that in name only, like Last of Us, which is kind of created, it has elements of Blockbuster, it has elements of mystery box, it has elements of some of the sort of,

it's almost like finality TV. It's TV that you go into being expected to have a payoff at some point, you know? With all that happening, I think a show like Lucky Hank is swimming against the current, right? I was glad you made the segue because I kind of wanted to as well. Yeah. So Lucky Hank is a show that to basically go off of what Andy's saying is kind of the

lifeblood of television, like in its sort of conception. It is a adult-minded dramedy about a middle-aged college professor who's having a midlife crisis and this cast of characters that revolves around him. Only one episode has gone up so far on AMC. You can check that out. It's the pilot. It's written and developed by Paul Lieberstein, who people may remember as Toby from the office, but is obviously an accomplished screenwriter. And Aaron Zellman, who's a TV veteran who made his bones on law and order, created or worked on damages with his brother and some other folks. And damages in that first season is still fucking outstanding. A ride for that no matter what. And the pilot episode

was directed by Peter Farrelly of the Farley brothers. So obviously some, really good pedigree. You've got Bob Odenkirk playing this professor, Hank Devereaux. His wife is played by Muriel Enos, who's a vice principal at a school. There's a great collection of actors who are largely known for comic roles, I think, populating the supporting cast. And they're doing some comic stuff, but they're also doing some dramatic stuff. And I think anybody who is a fan of the office will recognize some faces. But like, one of the things that I responded to the most out of this show, Andy, I think maybe you did too, is it's warm or it's soft or it's not, it's not about anything that's going to kind of like, I guess, traumatize you.

Can I stop you there? It's not about anything, but go on. Well, then that's the point. It's not about anything. It's about a guy who's having a tough time and there's lots of jokes about fiction. You know, yeah, okay, but isn't that funny that we're applying that metric to a fiction? character? But here, I think this is one of the weirdest shows to consider in a long time. I feel like I don't need to go back in the vaults of my like CV or pedigree in my opinions,

past even what we said in this episode. Like, please give me more relative, like non-genre stakes shows about real people living real lives. Please inject them into my veins. Flood the screens with them. Make me feel other things other than horrified, appalled or on the edge of my seat. Like, do that. That is very smart counter-programming. What's totally mind-blowing to me about this show, and I think you can sort of, it's worth doing, like trying to piece together how this happens. Because when I watched the show, I was mostly, though, I was like, I cannot believe this is on the air right now. I cannot believe that AMC, in its last throws before we take over, are investing whatever capital they have.

in this. To me, and I know you love a sports analogy, this show and Bob Odenkirk leading the show for AMC, is like the Washington Wizards giving half a billion dollars to Bradley Beale. An absolutely phenomenal player who's been very important to the franchise. This is Odenkirk Supermax, yeah. Which guarantees you mediocre returns for the next however many months or years. I want to be very careful because I think everybody involved in this show is doing a nice job

and it's very nice. I want good more than I want nice. And what I found so bizarre about the show is that it is almost defiantly zero stakes. The version of the show that you just described isn't the show through one episode. I don't think he's having a midlife crisis. He's grumpy a little bit.

The plot, let me do this for you guys, okay? And to be clear, I think Chris likes the show more than I do. I wish everyone involved the best, but I have to be honest. The plot of the first episode is Hank. This is all based on the Richard Russo novel Straight Man, by the way. Yeah, and Russo wrote Nobody's Fool, which is a movie I love. It's a novel, but the movie adaptation by Robert Benton starring Paul Newman is quite good.

In the pilot, Bob Odenkirk's character is the chair of the English Department of a small college in Pennsylvania, says some unpolitic things saying that he teaches and all the students are going to a mediocre college. And then there's a minor kerfuffle, including an article in the student newspaper. The silence there is intentional because that's the plot of the pilot. Oh, I think his wife also kind of wants to move to New York, maybe. What was so striking about the episode is I kept waiting for it to get going. And then all of a sudden it was like this season on Lucky Hank. And it's like, there are geese on campus.

And his wife still kind of maybe wants to go to New York. It's wild to me. Because there is gentle stakes. There are different stakes. there are stakes that feel low to an audience weaned on mushroom zombies but for the people living their lives

are enormous and I think that's where some of the best drama can be mined. You don't need to be a billionaire family to be compelling. But I think you need a little more conflict than this. Yeah, but... This had me yearning for like this seat of the pants

drama of the chair. No, I feel the opposite. I feel the opposite. I don't want to see network or cable television adjudicate campus like politics. Okay, well, yeah, I agree with that. And I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think they move fast enough. I don't speak, I don't think they speak in the vernacular of young people with any accuracy

or, or honesty. I don't think that they, honestly, most shows that I've seen don't really, honestly grapple with whatever quote unquote sides there are in the, in terms of, I'm not talking about free speech. I'm just talking about like cultural. clashes that happen intergenerational in the classroom, right? And I liked the chair fine, but I did not like that part of it. I did not like, you know, like the whole grappling over like the cannon and white men and stuff like that, not because I don't think that that's important,

but because I just don't think TV shows do a really good job doing, like rendering that. So to have a guy who is like, yeah, you're right, it's not a midlife crisis. He's just being an asshole. And, you know, the people around him are tolerating him. But he always, he also seems to have some friends. And the stakes of the episode are essentially a vote to de-chair him as the English department chair or not. And whether or not they'll move to New York or not. Or not.

And whether or not he'll make it to his racquetball appointment or not. And look, 1980s publishing was built on the backs of white dudes having nervous breakdowns in their 40s. Like Thomas McGuane, Raymond. Like we could go through all the. the numbers here. Like, other people, look, guys, for some people, fantasy is the Barathians versus the Lannisters. For me, fantasies are baby boomers from Montana being like, should I go fishing or try to talk to my ex-wife? Like, that is wild to me. I am the audience for this show.

Let's be clear. I just couldn't believe how deeply, gently mid it was. Maybe that's the goal. And let me ask you a question. It really struck me. So one of the things that's so good about nobody fool, aside from Paul Newman being fucking Paul Newman, is how much it is invested in and feels lived in in this upstate New York town. And it feels like it is fucking winter that will never end in a small

town in upstate New York. And all of the nooks and crannies of that town, the garage, the bar, the people's houses, all feels very real. With all due respect and like all understanding of like you can't just, you know, go shoot in upstate New York or in, rural Pennsylvania for a year maybe. This does look like very soundstagey and it has a very kind of TV veneer to it to the extent which I almost feel like it's it comes out of like more of like a sitcomy visual language in terms of watching it so far. And that's that's not to knock it.

I'm just saying that it doesn't like imbue it with a lot of authenticity, which I wonder whether that's one of the things you're reacting to. I think you're exactly right. It is deep Vancouver. Again, all of my respect to Vancouver, a beautiful city with great food and lovely biking trails. But this is a thing, and we've brought this up with our potential angel investors and with the existing structure at AMC before our proposed hostile takeover. If you want to show that is low-key and also kind of amazing, remember AMC made Lodge 49. And for me, the real barrier for continued entry into Lodge 49 was that it was filmed in Georgia but was supposed to be a beach show in California. And it just, I'm so glad they made the swing, but they couldn't land it

for me visually. And production matters. So yes, so when I see if the stakes of the show, that Hank is frustrated and unhappy where he is, and his wife, you said it's played by Moreno, so you might know from The Killing, is a seemingly quite, competent or more public school educator. And they live in a house that I'm like, are they in Altadena? Did that cost $3 million? It's incredible. I want to move to Central Pennsylvania slash Vancouver. And they're like, we might not be happy here. I'm like, tell me why. Your books are stacked so perfectly. Everything is immaculate. And if you, and that's also part, that is part of a show. If the whole thing is going to hinge on the lived in details, because you and I, look, we,

beginning from when we talked about the po-boy shack in True Detective Season 1, potentially the only thing I liked about True Detective Season 1, it's like there's an entire world inside this one location, and you feel it, and that draws you in, and you believe it. And so when you're making a show that is as relatively low stakes as this, I want to understand the rooms he's in. I want to understand the relationships between these people on a granular level, not through banter and zingers and, you know, just the setting that is told,

to me, I really want to get it. And look, it's pilotitis. It's not fair to have this big of a reaction off of one episode. I was shocked also, though, to see, and maybe this is leaching into my commentary a little bit, too. When I saw that Odenkirk was ready to jump right back into TV and jump right back into TV with AMC with a Richard Russo adaptation, I was like, cool, it's his Mildred Pierce. Like, he's going to do a prestige limited that's going to win him an Emmy and whatever. But no, this is this is an ongoing series, which is what we were calling for at the top of the show.

So it's interesting to have it. But I don't think this is be careful what you wish for. This is me saying that there's a, the apportion of resources, the apportioning of resources seems wildly off to me. Like Bob Odenkirk leading a campus dromedy, great. But let's build this out better. Like let's get a different GM. And this is, again, this is us auditioning for the job. Like, let's put this team together in a different way so that it can succeed for years to come.

It just, I was, I couldn't, I kind of can't believe the show. I kind of can't believe the show. The second episode, do you see what the title of it is? Tell me. George Saunders? Yes, Brian Husky, the veteran comic actor, plays George Saunders on this show. That's cool. Yeah.

They're trying, they're sending a sonar, a whale sonar, using Merrill Streep's voice, shout out extrapolations, to us. Yeah. And so far, I am more resistant than you. But your feeling is like... I think sometimes context matters, and I'm on the East Coast. The nights are a little longer here, you know? Like, I just was sitting around and I enjoyed Lucky Hank.

I don't have to tell you. I liked the fact that the interaction with the daughter wasn't like, dad, my fentanyl dealer, boyfriend and I are going on the run. It was just like, can I borrow 40 bucks or whatever? And I really enjoyed the classroom stuff. I thought that kid Bartow, who is like, I could be the next chaucer. Jackson Kelly is good. That girl plays the kid. Odin Kirk is great. Yeah. There is a lot to recommend it. And I feel unkind about it. I just, I don't know my standards too Hi, buddy. Here's your two assignments.

One is that I need you to make our listeners a playlist of 80s midlife crisis novels. Dude. And then two, I need you to zag and tell everybody why you love the Mandalorian. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant.

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items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Reader, I cannot do that, But we did, you know, so I was advocating that we leave Dind Jaran and Little Grogu for a while. You know, maybe in the same way that Book of Boba Fett left them behind to tell its own story for a while. That's what we were going to do on this podcast. Because I don't, contrary to what I just did and what other people may think of me, I don't like to yuck people's yum. You know, in a classical fashion. You're only doing it for me. I don't think a ton of people are lined up around the block for Lucky Hague. terms of it's just like a very limited appeal show in some ways.

No, but I mean, just generally, I don't, I don't want to be just a contrarian, but it was heartening. I'll say this before we, just about this week's episode of the Mandalorian. Play to your core strengths. You know, at the beginning of this episode, Grogu, his, his little peach fuzz just blowing, in the ocean breeze, is just playing with rocks that have crabs in them. And it was like, watching. Show Hey Otani pitch.

Yeah. Like, what do you think? I'm like made of metal. Like, yeah. That's, give me that. That is joy. And when the little, little homie was getting hit with those paint darts.

And he's like, oh. It's so funny. And, you know, we've made fun of like, ping pong artistry and actors for a while. Like Andy Circus says that a very, a varied and worthwhile career. But I think that we,

we got a little run out of his, like, nominate Andy Circus for an Oscar. for Planet of the Apes. Yes. So then you could show behind the scenes footage of him doing the like, I'm sorry hand gesture as the ape. Yeah.

That said, the, I know there's not someone in the Grogu suit, but the animation and the puppeteering and all the things that go into that are so brilliant. And it's just has a universal cue rating. And like they could just do that. Have I told you, I've told you, I think I've before, about how my wife Phoebe sometimes doesn't seem to understand

that baby Yoda is not a physical object that is like hanging out in Burbank and she has multiple times said that if Baby Yoda is ever on Bill's show you have to let me know. It's that and Timothy Shalame or her two primary interests. What would happen? Like what would she do if you alerted her? Like if you finally broke glass. I think she would just be like can I come, can I come see him? You know, like can I be like outside kind of like like he doesn't seem like a podcaster yet. You know what I mean?

How do you think Bill would handle Grogu? Does Bill know about the Mandalorian? I didn't prepare you for this, but I did some research, and here's the 25 greatest bad ones. And what are we doing with the Empire piece? Yeah. You know, like that. Grogu's body language is fantastic, though.

I agree with you. Here's what I'm saying. I have no idea what the fuck they're doing with this show. This is the midway point of this season. There's been a separate story, story about Dr. Pershing, I assume that's going towards setting up the Abrams movies

and Ryan's movie at some point in terms of how the first order came out. There are some overarching storylines. A lot of it seems to be rooted in the Falloniverse animated rebels and Clone Wars stuff. That's fine. I'm more than happy for Adventure of the Week

when those guys were training and a fucking dragon came out of nowhere. I got to tell you guys, I know that the Mandalorian are a, they've had a tough beat as a people. But I think that even they could find a better site for training than where they have. Because isn't there also a beast in the water that comes out for them? In fact, I didn't know they were training.

I thought this episode was beginning with them just all shooting the water, which felt like a very inefficient use of their limited arms. But at the same time, maybe wise, because they've set up shop essentially in a creature, sizzler, all you can eat buffet bar. they have spaceships that can go anywhere. Like they know that, right? Well, the funniest thing about this episode, maybe of all television full time,

is when the fucking Mandalorians run out of gas when they're chasing the dragon. And they're just like, oh, oh, I didn't know there wasn't a recharging station near this dragon's lair. They're so... The show is best when it's the opposite of Andor. But when they puttered out, it reminded me of your car.

When my car just decided to stop working on Sunset Boulevard, it was like, I don't think, no, no thank you, sir. I don't think I'll be continuing. It's like, thank you, Bartle be the sedan. What the fuck? You'd prefer not to, really? That's not an option. Yeah, like, I just mean the details of like running out of gas or when them being like, oh, no, we all eat food. We just do it in the shadows when no one could see her disgusting.

mouths. Fucking shame. Yeah. Or, I mean, we've all eaten like that. It's like, don't need to make it a religion. In succession where it's like, put a fucking napkin over your head, Boe Caton. Or it's like me in New York between the years of 1999 and 2008 coming home from the bars. You know what I mean?

It's just like, some, you know, the next morning, like wasn't there some like a ramen packet in here? Like, nope. It's in my pants. Don't worry about it. Or, or other details like, quickly, You must follow the dinosaur that ate my son, my boy, Gabriel. He's been eaten.

And then, like, 36 hours pass, and the dinosaur barfs up the fully uneaten boy. And he's like, I'm good, dad. I'm good. It's like, we should unpack your trauma, son. Or the dragon needs to work on his stomach acid because he doesn't have any. Also, I was like, I did think the morality was going to switch where they were like, oh, this dragon has children too. We are all orphans in a way.

And they're like, no, we're still going to kill the shit out of your mom. And then we're going to train you to be faceless assassins. Do you think the armorer is just like, I appreciate the bit, but I cannot make helmets for tiny baby yodas and giant dragon chickens? Like, I just can't do it. It's not going to look cool. It hit me real hard when I was watching this episode. And I, and this is really relevant to your interests.

next time the armorer is on screen, close your eyes, and tell me she does not sound exactly like fucking Lydia Tar. Wow. Wow. When she's like, if you want to dance the mask, you must service the composer. That's basically a line from the armorer. She sounds so much like Lydia.

I'm reeling. You cannot start without me. I'm excited. I'm a little bit aroused, weirdly. Like, this is definitely, gosh, yeah. Like, do you think, so she thinks Bocatan, like, needs to engage with Bach? I guess so. Yeah.

Look, this was, you know what else, though? I also, we should also shout out, like, there is a spirit for, you know, I can be crabby about this show, I can be negative. I'm about to be again, so fast forward if you'd like to hear it. But there is also a spirit of generosity and inclusion that is in this show that I really appreciate. And we've mentioned, like, the different and diverse directors that have been brought in to work on the show. And I don't mean just diverse in, like, a racial or class sense.

I mean diverse in, like, people who haven't worked in this type of filmmaking, giving them a chance to learn to get their chops. Lee Isaac Chung, the director of Minari, did last week, for example. But also, like, little things, I think, because if anything, and you could say positive about Faloni, like, he really cares about this franchise and this fandom. And so the Jedi that saves Grogu back in the day is played by Ahmed Behbe. who is famously Jar Jar Binks. And I thought that that was really cool. I actually really, I mean, we joke a lot about Star Wars lore. I thought that that rendition of Order 66 and shooting it all mostly from, well, at least

initially from Grover's POV was actually kind of cool. Like, you know, and, and honestly, like, I don't know what to say. I find myself emotionally involved in this character. Yeah, that was cool. And like, giving that opportunity to be a badass to an actor who's been, you know, defined by his contributions to this franchise for good or ill, mostly ill, I thought was really generous. That was really nice. I also think, and I'm going to try to frame this with the same spirit of generosity, that it's

just, it's really interesting to discover week to week how unaligned ones interests are with someone making something. And the reason I say that is the show called The Mandalorian that in its first season is about a lone gunman, like a very Western-type thing, about last of his kind, one-of-one, on town to town paired with a kid. Definitely played by Pedro Pascal. 100% of the time. In all moments you see him on screen, for sure.

Is now basically a show called the Mandalorians, which is about anywhere from two to three dozen masked helmeted people going super deep in their culture of wearing shit on their heads. The scenes in this episode where there was like 12 Mandalorians all with their helmets on, all saying this is the way to one another? I was like, where did I go in my life where this is where I arrived? This is what I'm saying. And look, again, I don't want to just, you know what, I do. I was going to say, I don't want to act like the pharmacist prescribing what ails this franchise, but you know what? I do. Star Wars can contain so many different things, but you know what it's

good with? Like, it just kind of sort of has on lock is a opaque, creedo-driven cult of non-fun sexless weirdos. They're called Jedi. Like, we already have that. So if you're going to make a new show, and it's just about, like, people who won't even take their helmets off to eat food around each other,

and their whole credo is we must wear metal and fight each other, why are we doing this again? Why are we playing into that? Where it's always this, like, we must not use contractions or ever tell jokes. Like, we had that. We're good.

You know what I mean? And so that's, I don't, I just fundamentally will not understand that. But it got Grogu playing paintball. I mean, it is, maybe we should just end there. That is so weird. That is just bizarre. My favorite.

Go ahead, two foot tall animatronic friend. Fight this boy with paintball. My favorite thing was the ornamental jewelry of this episode. When Grogu gets the chest plate, he looks like slick Rick for a second. and then at the end when Bo is like can I get like a half night owl half mythosaur

like it's like the scenes in the Netflix doc genius when Kanye goes to if I was the armor I'd be like I'm not a fucking barista like I don't just like make little like designs in these things you know Bescar is not

in like an abundance of this also Lydia Tar can get ruffled like I don't want to spoil the movie, you know what I mean? But she gets knocked off her square a little bit. Yeah, the armor is very, yeah. Armour's like, oh, you found a cartoon dinosaur? Yeah, well, that happens. Does it? Does that happen? Then it makes it less interesting if it happens. You know what I mean? I feel like you should... Well, then it calls into question her real estate

now, like what are we doing here then? Exactly. Exactly. And you know what would help in a scene like that is if I could fucking see her face. Is you know what actors can do with their faces? They could say one thing, but they can feel something else. Yeah, they can express it. These are just notes. These are just helpful notes. Hey, I like this episode. I like TV. I don't know. You're the one running from the medium. This is a sourpuss here. But like, look, broad strokes here, 30 minutes of just Brogu just

reacting to shit. Like, yeah, watch that show. That's a good show. Is it Emmy nominated best drama? Not for me to decide, but good show. Yeah, we'll leave that to Mr. Emmy. Greenwald, great to see you. I will be talking with you Sunday evening immediately following the airing of succession on the Home Box Office Network. Yeah, and lots of TV coming up. So we'll have our hands full. Everybody have a great, safe weekend, and we'll talk to you soon. I can't believe I'm the grumpy guy now, huh? That's my thing now. Now?