The Watch - ‘Manhunt’ and Apple TV+’s Historical Fiction Niche. Plus, ‘The Bear’ News.

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about the news that ‘The Bear’ is shooting its third and fourth seasons simultaneously and the breakneck production pace that the show has (1:00). Then they talk about the new show ‘Manhunt’ that depicts the hunt for Abraham Lincoln’s killer (23:29) and Apple TV+’s play for straight historical fiction television (32:53). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, 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, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there.

Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, he just got done his shift at the QB factory.

It's Andy Greenwald! Do you think that the diehard Baranskis and the lovely civilians that listen to us are going to get that reference? Well, for the people that it hits for, it hits deep. You know what I mean? That's what I always try to do

is just throw a little bit of crumbs to the real rabid Kenny Pickett people who also watched Manhunt on Apple TV. Throwing crumbs is I believe how Ben Solac referred to Kenny Pickett's QV style. Well, crumbs are about all he can pick up because his hands are so small.

Oh, he has Joey B. hands? What do you mean Joey B hands? Joe Burrow famously has small hands. No, he doesn't. Yes, he has big other things that make up for his small hands, but that was the knock on him coming out of hearts. He has two hearts.

But the knock on him, I believe, was that he had tiny little. I'd ever read that draft eval that suggested that. Really? You didn't see that on newsmax? Where you get all your Joe Burrow information? It didn't start in early for you. Look, I think that generally,

and obviously we're going to talk about television and other things, but I think that's an interesting idea that, you know, our show might not be for everyone. Uh-huh. But it's for five or six ones. For five or six people, it's just like, I can't believe I'm away my whole life for these two guys to make Kenny Pickett jokes before they get into Tobias Menzies programming.

But... Better than Tobias Harris program. We are going to talk about a little bit of TV news this week, and we're going to talk a little bit, actually quite a bit, I think, about Manhunt, which is the new show on Apple TV about the hunt for a man who killed Abraham Lincoln. Yeah.

And Andy's got a lot of takes about... Just kidding. And no, we're going to talk about that show. I really enjoyed what I've seen so far. I got it, before we get into it, can I ask you, and we might need special royal correspondent, Kaya, to jump in here. But like, you guys just...

Be careful. tread lightly here. Yeah, no, I'm not... British libel laws are intense. I'm just saying, I just drove... Between when I left and arrived here at the studio this morning, there's been a ton of news. I sure it was last night.

It's been going on since last night. Oh, yeah. Okay. Since I left Earth last night and stopped looking at the feed, there's something going on in, like, the royals? There's just, there's rumors coming out of Buckingham Palace. Let's put it that way. Can we put it that way, Kaya, do you think? Yeah, I think that's fair.

I think like the most concrete evidence people have, and also admittedly I've not been like, I'm not fully up to date as much as Chris seems to be. Is that like BBC turned like all of their like social icons like black or something and like there's just like rumors of a forthcoming announcement? So there's a rumor that this is actually how three body problem starts by the way. So that it might be a royal, the king might be deceased. We don't know. So this may be. This might be old news. Here's the real question I'm going to ask you. And, Kaya, prior to the events of the last few weeks, how much of a royal watcher were you? Is this something that has been interesting to you?

I would say, like, loosely at best. Yeah. Okay. But Chris, how about for you? I mean, you know, it concerns my family. So. Is it like a King Ralph situation? Half of me is somewhat governed by this, you know?

Half of me is somewhat ruled by this. But not in the sense of the John Goodman film. No, I'm not in line for succession. No. Okay. Yeah. I just have no idea. I'm constantly shocked how interested people are, and I wonder if the crown obviously

boosted some interest in this. Do you think people are constantly shocked by how interested we are in X-Men? That's fair. That's a hunt. See, no, that's helpful. If you think of it as a fandom with characters. Such long conversations about Marvel. This is really helpful to me, because I think I don't understand it on just like an

interest in foreign governance or quirks. I'm interested in all sorts of foreign governments. Okay, want to name a couple? I mean, Macron. I'm interested in him. I'm interested in Putin. I thought, you know, he put up quite an approval rating this weekend. That was a robust showing.

I mean, you certainly have to hand it to them. I'm interested in, who's another government that I'm interested in? Oh, that guy in Argentina who's just like, we're going to do some things to the economy. That guy's a fucking madman. You're interested in this. I love it. Okay. All right.

So I'm the, look, I'm the one that is not sufficiently paying attention. Your entire worldview, it's just whatever Nithia governs here in Lysk. That's where the real work happens. How are you? How's your weekend? Do you watch a lot of content? You know, I wish I could sit here and lie to you, but no. Okay.

I didn't. I mean, I watched Manhunt on Apple TV Plus. I can't wait to talk to you about it. But what you, I feel like our, I feel like our, listeners should know that you are, you're, remember, remember those kids who would read ahead? Yeah. Do a little extra reading. You're one of those kids now.

I don't want to get too far into three body problem because we're going to discuss it on Thursday show the series goes up in its entirety on Thursday. Sometimes when we get screeners for something, I'll try to pace myself because I don't want to be having fake conversations about the second episode of a series when I'm like, I know what happens in the fifth, you know? I like to kind of keep that sense of week-to-week conversation. Not a problem with Netflix series since they go up all at once. So it's really there for the taking.

And, you know, I won't be spoiling anything. But I will say that I have found it very binge-worthy. That's cool. And unexpectedly, my wife got really into it. So we had a really good time watching it. And we're almost done. Wow. And I can't wait to see what people think of it.

I'm excited about it. I also just want to really reaffirm. And this is David Beniof and Dan Weiss's return to sort of long-form television stories. telling after a couple years away. I just wanted to affirm to our audiences that if you feel like disenfranchised by Chris's, you know, just voracious television appetite,

I promise you. I promise you. I will never watch ahead. But you're always good at having takes on the news. Yeah. As long as it's domestic. As long as it happens from the, from the Whole Foods on Rowena.

Yeah. To the Whole Foods in Pasadena. Yeah. That's about accurate. Yeah. I did want to ask you a little bit about them. By the way, in this economy, it's the Trader Joe's on Hyperion, the Trader Joe's on Colorado. But please.

The biggest sort of TV news that came out since we've last recorded is the deadline story about the bear shooting season four concurrently with season three. So they're currently in production on season three. They could already be out of four for all I know. They work really fast. And that they were going to shoot these two things. Now, I think that the most obvious reason for this. would be because Jeremy Allen White and Iota Byrie and Evan

all have probably very busy shooting schedules. Suddenly they definitely all do. And that this is probably the best way to get for the bear to stay on its honestly prodigists sort of shoot towards the end of the beginning of a year. They like their creatures of habit. They really like having this.

So they've basically had two back-to-back summer releases of what is it? Like 10 episodes per season? Yeah, but they've done this in... We've talked about it before. We've talked about it with Chris Storer. But they write really fast, and then they go into production in February, and the show is on our Hulu machines by June.

If I had to guess, without having talked to Christor at all about this, and having no inside information, and really nothing to add to the conversation, but just speculating, I would like to think that they're doing three and four, and that there will probably be a long-ish gap between four and if there is a five. Yeah, because I believe Chris, has said to us and to other outlets that initially he had, they had conceived three, that they had enough story

they felt for three seasons. He said that to us. He said that to us. He was like, I have the three seasons planned. Yeah. I think that's right. I think that, um, I mean, I again, like for people, I imagine other people in hashtag this town are looking at Chris and his team being like, you're making us look bad here. Like you are so, so, so, so efficient and so productive, that, you know, I can't imagine that this was anything other than something that they were clearly very comfortable with and eager to do. What we don't know, well, we don't know a couple things. Like, this broke in a way that feels a little bit sideways to the narrative that

I think it had been starting to get reported around Chicago, that they were still shooting. Right. And I think the residents of Chicago, like me, believe that local news stays local. and this idea of stories getting aggregated and picked up needs to go away. But to be clear, deadline and variety, they sort of reported this, but got no official confirmation from Chris,

from FX, from anybody. Nothing more to read into it other than the fact that I, I don't know if anyone was doing this, but I would not assume anything. FX wasn't like, this isn't like when NBC was like, please supersize all episodes because we're flailing. Yeah.

I do not. think this is them saying, can you just give us more content? We're desperate for it. I think they were probably like, if we miss a certain window with fantastic four shooting schedules and things like that, like, we're just not going to be able to get everybody back together in any kind of timely fashion to do for. And I think that's actually the most interesting way to look at this, because we have been, I don't know, complaining isn't the word, certainly noting and feeling the effects of contemporary television's inability to stay on a more traditional yearly release schedule. Now, there have been many good reasons for that in terms of people make the story when

they're ready to tell the story. Even, you know, 10, 15 years ago with the Pantheon shows of that era, sometimes there wouldn't be a sopranos for a while or madman. It didn't stick to a exact same month every year's scenario that gave people time to do other projects or to, like, recharge their batteries. But increasingly, the way TV works, it's very haphazard. And I think that the bear's consistency plays a significant part in its continuing, in continuing to, to mushroom in success.

And by mushroom, I was thinking of when Olivia Coleman was peeling the mushrooms, of course. And not just in terms of the show's success, but in the star making properties of the show that are the reason why they need to get this done now. Because those three in particular have very full dance cards. I'll be really interesting to see how the creative team of the bear manages one of the bear's great assets, which is its emotional intensity, which is difficult to sustain over the course of multiple and multiple seasons. Like, so you have to imagine with a three-season plan in mind, and, you know, you watch the second

season and it has incredible highs and incredible, like, warm moments, our episode of the year, forks, for instance. But it also has these just, like, you know, anxious, emotionally draining episodes like fishes, like the last episode of the season, Karmie and in the walk-in. And it's, you know, you kind of are like, is there a sustainable model emotionally for that show past like four seasons? Like I think that there is, but it may not be the one that we've kind of like grown accustomed to, right? I would not be surprised. Yeah, I don't, I can't.

I don't know what the future would hold. But I do feel like. It's hard to imagine a bear episode that's like, that was a pretty good Wednesday. See you guys later. That's baked in. Like they're here for, they're here for an amazing time, not a long time. is baked into almost every episode of the show, I think. But I would say it would stand to reason that because they are very keenly attuned to how the,

you know, let me put in a metaphor that you would understand. So the way that you can sort of modulate the amount of nicotine in each Zin pouch, right? Like there's some are three, some are six or, they're super big gulps, right? Like with a lot of nicotine that you haven't dabbled with yet. No. I feel like Chris and Joanna and their whole team, like they're aware. of how long people can be eating this rich food. So I think it's probably possible to imagine a world

where splitting this season or doing extra episodes is in almost a natural response to the intensity of what they have planned. That they could that way put in a few pallet cleanser episodes or break up the coursing, if you will. But honestly, just even having this conversation, totally off of like a two-paragraph variety story just made me excited that it's a relevant conversation. I felt like, and obviously the pandemic delayed it,

but even Succession, which was one of the last shows that we were so excited about to cover religiously and regularly, took a long time. We were speculating about what the next season would be for so long, and we're going to find out relatively soon. Yeah. What else is coming in June? Because there's a bunch of stuff that's coming both before the Emmy deadline.

Right. And then there's stuff that, I mean, like, we really do have a flood of, material like between House of the Dragon, I think, is in June as well, right? House the Dragon is the summer. They're missing the deadline, I believe. Right. And then there's also Acolyte, the Star Wars show, right?

Acolyte, which is Leslie Headland's Star Wars show, was finally given a premiere date. I think it's June 4th. That has been in development for a really long time. And so long, in fact, that it's almost come full circle. Because I remember sitting here with you, actually not here with you, because I don't know if Spotify was involved in our professional life back. then. But basically, Lucasfilm's decision to hire Leslie Headland to write and direct...

That was definitely back at Sunset Gower. I think it was. But I think that we were very excited about that as a sign that. And we didn't even know what the show was going to be about. But it felt like a sign of seriousness of purpose that Lucasfilm had for the TV expansion of Star Wars that they were going to do, you know, that thing that we're always hoping people do, which is empower creators that you like and trust to tell the story that they want to tell. years have passed. And again, years passed

because everything takes a long time to develop. I would imagine that they needed a while to sort of hone and choose their voice and what the show is going to look like and then there's special effects

and all this. Now we know more about it, right? That I think it's high Republic era Star Wars. One of my favorite republic eras is the high one. I feel like historically, we have advocated

for low republic stuff, like boots on the ground. You know what I mean? like that grimy spice market version of the Republic. But, okay, so anyway, we've now come full circle where our feelings about the direction of the larger Star Wars universe has been pretty skeptical. Yeah.

And so now we're getting the show that once was the exemplar of their good decision-making. I'm interested. Yeah. All right, is there anything else TV news-wise? I don't think so. We can kind of get into TV. I know that you're pretty hype on this Cat and the Hat movie.

It's the first thing you said to me this morning. I don't think it's fair that when you take off-the-record comments by me. That was an off-the-record comment? It's like, I'm not Joe Biden. Sometimes you and I can just, like, chat. I'm Evan Osnos. I'm reporting that you have a lot of vigor. I mean, has your speech slowed a little bit?

Sure. You just hit me with this. Revamped Warner Brothers animation sets Cat in the Hat with Bill Hader, Quinta Brunson, Bowen Yang, and more. What more do you need? Oh, wait. That was the other thing I was going to talk to you about was that there was a Vulture blog post

about Quinta Brunson wants to adapt. Oh, no, this was from a New Yorker profile, but Quinta Brunson wants to adapt the guest. That's sick. I love it. That's all you got for me? What do you want me to say? Kai and I love that book.

Do you want to star in it? Like, just show me something. Give me your dreams. I think that we should, I mean, I think that the reason why this becomes a secondary story is because the guest, the very good second novel by Emma Klein, which is about a sort of willowy blonde woman from the Midwest

who sort of washes up on the Hamptons and then through a haze of drugs and deception doesn't leave and tries to stay there for a number of reasons. There's crime breathing down her neck. That this story, it's become a new story because a black creator like Quinter Brunson is like, let me get a piece of that. I want to do that story.

And my answer to that is, yes, in my high republicans, public voice. Let's go. Books are great. And then when you choose to adapt them, you should choose to adapt them with the same sort of spirit of creativity and surprise that the books were written in the first place. I can only hope that Dr. Seuss somewhere

is like, I agree. And I trust Bill Hader to steer the cat in the hat and to, you know. No, no. You're getting this. Bill Hater isn't writing and directing it. Uh-huh. You know what I mean? Okay. So he's just a hired gun. Ari Aster is making it. He's just a hired cat.

He's voicing the cat in a cartoon. Oh, yeah. So do you, you tried to distract me and I respect it? Do you feel like this is a betrayal of the cultural capital accrued by the surprising success of Barry? I hope that Bill Hader has something else up his sleeve. I would love for there to be another Bill Hader feature coming out, aside from cat and the hat. Do you know how little time voicing the cat in the hat in a movie slated for? Do you know how little time we have on this planet?

Do we need more Dr. Seuss movies? Yeah. Okay. Aren't there like canonical adaptations of these things? No, they're awful. Like the Mike Myers movies? I don't know. Burn those in a fire. Okay. Look at you just walking in talking about this stuff. We're walking in the hallway. You're like, I was like, you ever see the Lion King? The disdain dripping from your voice. No. What were you doing?

Was I doing? Don't say it. Turn two. I was fucking making sure. You know what I mean? I thought you meant you were a child. No, you mean you were turning a dog. Double play. Yeah. When did that come out?

192? Four? When's the original Lion King? If it was 92, I was still playing in travel baseball. If it was 94, I was editing the school paper. I was working on the school paper. I was getting to the bottom of things. Buddy.

I was the student council president. Okay. I was seen guided by voices shows to the Trocadero with you without realizing it. And I still had time to be like, ah, Siskel and Ebert say this is a worthwhile movie. I'll check it out. I will see this movie in the theater that will be nominated in win an Oscar because I was grinding the culture then.

And now? Not so much. But I feel like I don't think, I don't know if it's a badge of honor. For me not to have seen Lion King. I'm aware of what happens in Lion King. I know about Scar and Mustafa, Mufasa.

Don't be careful. Mufasa and Scar, right? Uh-huh. And who's the main guy? The main lion? Simba? Yeah. Simba?

What about who sings Hakuna Matata? Does the monkey sing that? No. No. This is embarrassing. What should we do about this? I think that you and I have the broad strokes of an agreement in place. Yeah.

Which is between the years of like 1999 and 2010, we were doing other things. Yes. We were not watching. You don't like the implication that in the earlier 90s I was still too cool for this. I hate this. Of course I do. Of course I hate that. Of course I hate that. It's terrible. I also really followed college basketball pretty closely back then. Oh, I did not. So if Lion King came out during an NCAA tournament, I was really offline. Offline. I was really into the Fab Five at that time. Okay. All right. No, I'll allow it. I'll allow it.

I think that it's nice that Bill Hader's getting a big check to make a movie where you just does voice work for six weeks. I agree, man. I just think, who can't. Let's just all throw it up the wall. Who cares? I don't believe you. Do you feel like there's tension in the room today because the Andy Greenwald, John Blackthorn, has become the runaway hit of the Watches Year?

Yeah. And now you're like, God, now people are coming up to you in the street, tears in their eyes. Be like, sir, sir, can you just do John Blackthorn for my wife? She doesn't believe me. They're like, sir, sir, sir. They come up to me, they say, sir, sir, how would you spend a day in London with me

in the year's 1600? I'm still playing. Yeah, you did it. You did it. It's not even show gun day. Just warming up the voice. I don't know how you, I actually don't know why I'm lashing out

because what I feel now is a deeper sense of kinship with you because heavy is the head that propels the imitation from the voice box. Because you've been having, you've been living with this for a while. You recently went on a tour of some of our nation's finest cities where rooms full of people were, you know, they were chanting

for Wayne Jenkins. They weren't chanting. It was like, bring us Barabbas. Right? But it was Wayne Jenkins. Yeah. I just, I listened back to it. My wife listened to it. See, this is how I knew it's gone. She was like, what was so funny on the watch today?

And I was like, you have to hear this. She has not watched Shogun. She has not listened to the watch in a while. I had a great time. You set me up beautifully. CVS thing was funny. But I, here's where I exist. Here's the continuum that I exist on. Okay. When I found out that Phoebe listened to a segment of the watch, it blew my mind, that was like, I, that made me nervous.

She sometimes does, I think. That, I, not to my knowledge, that was shocking. But, you know, that, so that was during the day. And in the evenings, if I ever, and I didn't, but if I ever was like, hey, girls, your dad's having a pretty good day. because an imitation of an actor playing a character on a drama about Japan in the 17th century was well received by people on Facebook, I would rightly be laughed away from the dinner table.

I wouldn't even be laughed. I would just be cold stared away. Nobody would pay attention to it, yeah. So I'm keeping my head about it. I'm a little, you know, we have how many, we have six episodes left. That's true. Once we get to the finale,

I want you to really summon like a full episode Blackthorn. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about Manhunt on Apple. 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,

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Andy, I'd like to direct your attention to something that's not in front of you. So there's not a pop quiz. I found something in my research about Manhunt, which is a September 16th, 2008 blog post on vulture.com by our buddy Amos

Bashard, who we used to work with at Grantland. Yeah, Amos. And this is back in, gosh, this was now as nearly 20 years ago. It's like 15 years ago. 16. Where he was writing about TV at the time and he just blogged.

David Simon is making a Lincoln assassination miniseries, exclamation point. You know, Simon's already signed on for an HBO adaptation of James L. Swanson's book, Manhunt, about the 12th day chase for John Wilkes Booth. Simon's partner on the project will be Oz's Tom Fontana, who also adapted Simon's 1991 book Homicide

into the NBC show. And then Tom Fontana gave a quote about September 11th and some other stuff. So it's interesting to look at this Fontana quote because he said, if you use September 11th as the touchstone, I don't want to see the story September 11th told through Rudy Giuliani's eyes. That was a very prescient quote from him. Yeah. I want to see it told through the fireman and the teacher and the guy working at the bakery on the corner

and the wife in Connecticut wondering how her husband is. So this idea of like typical David Simon, Tom Fontana like kind of, ground level up storytelling and expansive and sociologically sort of in-depth. It's fascinating to me to now be talking to you in 2024 about this very good show on a network that did not exist in 2008, largely on technology that didn't really exist in 2008. This series is show run and created by Monica Boletsky, who worked on leftovers, worked on Fargo, worked on Friday Night Lights. The first two episodes of the series are directed by Carl Franklin, one of the goats,

who Andy and I love from One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress, some feature work he did. He also directed on Mine Hunter, Season 2. And the series stars Tobias Menzies as the Secretary of War, this set in the days after the Civil War has kind of come to a not quite total conclusion. Tobias Menzzi plays the Secretary of War in the North, Edwin Stanton. Hamish Linklater plays Richard. Richard, he plays Abraham Lincoln.

And you've got this guy, Anthony Boyle, who's actually a Northern Irish actor and was most recently seen in another Apple series on Masters of Air where he plays essentially like the series narrator and unexpected kind of

standout star next to Calvin Turner and Austin Butler. This guy Crosby, who's a navigator. So he stars as John Wolks Booth. and I don't know how helpful it is to wonder about the different ways this story could be told, but I really like the way it is told, which is so far in the first two episodes that they've released like a detective show. So I was curious just from the starting point, what are your sort of initial impressions, and what do you think about the sort of lens through which the story is being told?

Well, I think first and foremost, it's extremely well made, and it's extremely grabby. and engaging. And I have to say, though, one question, I'm glad you want to have a conversation about the how it's being told, not just the why or the what it, what, because one thing that I kept thinking as I was watching the first two episodes was, I mean, I'm wrapped, I'm totally invested in this. I know very little about our nation.

I do too. I mean, I think I feel like I know an above average, I guess, amount about the Civil War, but very little about Lincoln's Zubon. assassination outside of Booth. Yes. And so I did wonder if part of my deep enjoyment and probable series long commitment to the show is just like, wow, it's educational.

Like I usually do not watch. This is obviously a scripted series, but I usually don't, my taste don't tend towards history or nonfiction, and I have huge gaps. And so the fact that this is a story that almost seems optimized for our era in that, like, it is a telling of massive major, well-documented historical events. but a story from what I understand about the book as well that captures it in the language of a more contemporary police procedural is fantastic. Even from the beginning of the series that I had no idea that there was a larger plot, that there was a conspiracy to kill Lincoln, Seward, right?

The Secretary of State and Johnson, the vice president, all in the same night. It's basically a topple the cabinet, topple the country. And I had no idea about that. So instantly I'm just in, I'm in a way that sort of inoculated me from some of the other stuff that may have come up, such as I was a little bit, I don't want to say I'm surprised, but I was struck by how straight down the middle and adaptation it is in terms of its storytelling. You know, straight down the middle is a baseball term because I know that's what you were doing in the 90s, so I wanted to make it clear. No movement on the fastball. You know, even to the point where characters, like when Stant's, like when Stanton, you know, like when Stantz's, Jason's wife, who's played by Anne Dudek,

why I don't think I've seen since House, is kneeling at the grave of their young child who had passed away, and they, I guess, they have a tradition to go to the grave. She kneels by the grave, and the camera lingers, and she says, he would be here, but he's very busy.

You know, people talk to inanimate objects to move the story along. The introduction of, you know, we meet a character who is, I mean, there are no more slaves in the nation after the Emancipation Proclamation, but the character of Mary, who works for the doctor,

or then she gets a little backstory. Everything is, nothing is surprising, I would say, about the construction of the show and the way we are given a lot of guardrails to understand the sociopolitical moment that we are being asked to enter into. I don't say that as criticism. I say it because watching it,

I was like, I wonder if there was another way to do this. Not necessarily a better way. And I think this is really interesting that initially there was a, that the other version was not only, in the pipeline, but maybe close to being made, which I guess would have been against the Great Man of History version, right?

Where it would be more boots on the ground how this trickled through society? Right. Is that the way? I mean, that's how I read your description. Yeah, I mean, I think that the David Simon version of this, you know what? I don't know.

I felt at least the first episode to be pretty dense of the first episode of Manon to throw you in, you know, pretty much in the deep end. it's got a lot of flitting back and forth between moments leading up to the assassination, the assassination itself, the days and weeks leading up to the day of the assassination where they get the peace-tigned at Appmatics, they've begun plans on reconstruction, they're getting the 13th Amendment passed, et cetera. So like, I think there's a pretty, like, you have to be pretty attuned to the show.

and I thought that for the most part the performances were incredibly mannered and like not mannered in a bad way but just like lived in and like as of a piece of like a styleized a setting you know what I mean like I agree I want to be clear I didn't mean to start with criticism I mean I think this is an incredibly successful

execution is the wrong choice of word but but it's incredibly successful adaptation and there's thought given to all of it and I think you know broadly speaking there is nothing wrong with celebrating what I've read is the spirit of the book, right? Which is like, this is a genre story in a way that is also not going to shy away from the history. I think that, I think that's great. I guess what I'm imagining, and again, this takes a work of imagination because that version that Tom Fontana and David Simon were doing will not see the light of day,

when I heard what you were saying, it made me think that they were going to do a story without Lincoln in it. That it was all the ripple effects. Lincoln's assassination is the stone you throw into the water and then the show is about the ripples, which presumably means, and also maybe just from that same bottom-up perspective, that a character like Patton Oswald's character, who's a cop in New York City, you know, we're going more from that person's perspective. What is that person's life leading up to this moment? How does his life change as he becomes embroiled in federal politics at this very fraught moment? This show is being very careful to, again, in ways that only people who have

made television before. There's like a very experienced hand here, I think, in terms of how this stuff is deployed. But so Lincoln is killed, spoiler, sorry. And then, you know, the show takes a time to do a flashback for a very sorkeny moment of Seward and Lincoln just tossing the baseball. Yeah. No wonder you were interested in, you know, in

the offices being like, we won the war. Let's go see a theater play. Yeah. That's humanizing things. That's making us understand the emotional stakes for Stanton. I kind of do think that when it comes to this kind of historical television,

which I'm kind of making a distinction between, I guess what I would describe as narrative, it's basically nonfiction fiction. So it's taking historical nonfiction and giving it some sort of dramatization and giving it some sort of serialized storytelling style. I think that if I'm being honest, I actually do kind of prefer watching

the Stanton and Lincoln version of this. I think I do want, like, hey, I'm probably only going to watch one version of this story. Totally. I kind of want to watch it the one where the Secretary of War hunts down booth, right? Like, not what's a baker doing? Totally. Because you know what else, though? As you're saying this, as you're saying this, I'm realizing, too, this reclassifies it differently in my brain.

This is not, maybe this is just purely my experience with it, but I am going to take in and enjoy this. And I'll tell you this right now. I don't think this show is going to be on my. top 10 list of the year. Because I almost feel like it's like a hundred foot wave in that I'm like, here's something else to experience and learn from and enjoy.

But its aims and ambitions, and I respect it for this, are different from a show that either as an original idea or an original take on something, the work and labor of that show is like, I'm going to create the perfect Virginia cobbler who is a fictional character but feels real and is an avatar

of the hopes and dreams. of a nation at this fraught moment. That's different storytelling muscles, you know, and I love shoe work. You know what I mean? I feel like I would already be in on that show. But that's different. And I think that I do weight these things differently, which isn't to say there's not a lot of character creation and creativity being poured into this, but it just feels like a different

vessel. And I like it when they know what they're making. Yeah. So, like, I think that, you know, you have like period pieces that would be, would be a good example. I mean, Bridgeton, Downton Abbey. it's not even that they appeal to like one demographic of viewers or another. I just mean there is like a very obvious emergent genre that has come out over the last. You know, you could pinpoint it to the crown, which is basically coming up on 10 years old right now.

Or you could pinpoint it to Chernobyl, which I think obviously started. That was only two years old as far as this podcast. That's only two years ago. You could maybe even say Peaky Blinders. although I would say Peaky Blinders is more of a period piece than a narrative nonfiction series. But this idea that you basically take, be it the Masters of the Air book by Donald Miller

or Shogun, for instance, which is a novel, but obviously incredibly historically dense, or Manhunt, and you say, okay, so what we're going to do here is put a bunch of great actors against this stuff. And, you know, the upcoming Franklin miniseries on Apple reminds me a lot of them.

And this is something that I think Apple is increasingly making their bread and butter is this is this kind of historical fiction television. There's a great GQ article about whether or not GQ or whether or not Apple has become kind of prestige dad TV. Yes. And I kind of agree. You know, I mean, I think that if anything, you see this comfort level that a lot of people have with just being like, I'm just going to read about it. An interesting historical time that I find cool. Like, and there's there's great, great writing on that. I read over the last year at the end of last year

I was reading Hellhound on his tail which was about the hunt for Martin Luther King's assassin James Royal Ray and it was like pretty gripping you know I mean like even knowing kind of the end point like it was a pretty amazing that would make a really good manhunt you know yeah but I also think it's I think it's important to sort of get our arms around the idea that these are different this is a genre unto itself and it's a and it's very enjoyable

You know, and in a way, yes, Apple has cornered the market on this kind of dad TV, but I don't know what you would call the market that they are also interested in cornering, which is lessons in chemistry. Right. You know, the Hello Sunshine market, which I think there is quite, and will be quite robust for them. These are genre plays, and it makes sense. I think to contrast it instead of struggling to define it on one end, we mentioned a moment ago that Carl Franklin had worked on Mind Hunter. Mind Hunter, to me, is an exception in that it is based on. I think there was a book at the heart of it, right, written by the Jonathan Groff. It was about the sort of development of the tools and teachings that they used to eventually start identifying serial killers.

And famously, you know, used real history and real people. They were actors playing actual infamous serial killers. And the second season was also focused on the Atlanta child murders, real horrific moments in history. But what elevated the show to me into a different league was that it was, as well, much as it was interested in the versimilitude of those people and those moments in that history, it was primarily driven by, as a psychological study of the people who were compelled to devote their lives to that. Yeah. So it is a, it is a human story first set against a historical backdrop, whereas this is expertly done so far through two episodes historical drama. Now, is this show

giving me a sense of the humanity of Edwin's stand that, you know, that inspired him to behave this way. It is. It's also a quick Google search will reveal that the real Edwin Stan did not look like Tobias Menzies. Well, and had quite a robust beard and was very old, you know, which I'm not saying it needed to do otherwise.

I'm just saying that it's actually okay with that. Me too. Yeah. No, I'm not. You got a guy who looks like Menzies, and you and me are Menzies men. We have been famously. When you need a man, it's why not Menzies? Yeah, Menzies hunt, you know, would be the better name for the show.

No, he's fantastic at this because he has... But I'm glad that they're just like, well, just give him some sideburns, but like, come on. Yeah, you got an angular face like that. You can't cover it up with a beard. The face is the moneymaker for Menzies. I completely agree. It's a weird argument to be like, I don't want anyone to be listening and think that, oh, if only current era David Letterman was playing this part.

I would finally believe it. You know what I mean? Like that is 100% not what I'm saying. Let's make this a hero narrative. Like that's really interesting. And furthermore, this is also to the show's great credit. The history, at least as much as we're trusting this adaptation of a book that neither of us have read, based on history that we were too busy playing sports apparently to learn.

We're going to see Lion King. Multiple times in the theater. Instead of going on dates and stuff. that it's fascinating and it's history and it's fascinating and bizarre and you watch this and you're like a frustrated alcoholic actor did this

and that's wild and the other thing that I really like about the show is that it baked in from the first episode the essential the deeper tragedy of this event which is something that we live with to this day which is not that the, you know, I don't know what the latest lists are, but like the greatest president of all time or a great leader of this country was gunned down.

I appreciated the... You can have your own opinion about who the Mount Rushmore of... Okay, we should argue about that next slow day. Yeah, but I think we should redo it. Okay. But I really appreciated the line that they give Stan and it's very pointed in the first... I forget which episode it was. They're blurring to me, but he's basically like, we don't replace...

He says to the journalist. We don't replace presidents with coups. We replace them with elections. But that the show is underscored from the beginning, not with the tragedy of one man's death, but that because of what happened, reconstruction went the way it did. And that these are things that we are living with to this day.

And I think, honestly, like, there will be, I've read some interviews with Monica Boleski, and she's talked very eloquently about, like, you learn about the president by studying the past. And there's some obvious echoes to our current moment from this story and from the last election that we had and the upcoming one that we've got in November.

But honestly, to me, when I'm watching a story about essentially a manhunt, I'm curious about the mechanics of the investigation and the mechanics of everybody's machinations and escapes and plans. My favorite part about the opening episode is when Stanton is first starting to sort of try to trace booth steps.

It gives you this quick snapshot. No Matthew Brady, but just like an actual intellectual snapshot of how big Washington was at the time because they can narrow down the escape routes. They're like, if he was going that way, there's only one bridge and it goes to Maryland. Yes. You know, and it was like, that's so awesome. Like, think about how hard it must have been to basically do this kind of thing with no cameras and no phones and no...

As a small counter, when you're leaving D.C., you can pretty much narrow it down to Maryland or Virginia. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's probably more than one bridge. Like, there's only like however many roads, you know, like it is 1865. Like they're not like, yeah, you know. I'm here for a talk about the Delmarva region's particular. Have you spent a lot of time in the DMV? Sure.

Yeah. Yeah, come on. You know a Rohobah with Beach Gang for life. It's a nice spot. Also, by the way, we should say, speaking of East Coast geography, the other reason like the show is Monica Boleski's from Philly. Philly is could you tell? Really eating right now.

How do you feel about that? About our people finally getting their fair share of the pie? Come on. That's great. She went to Masterman. Good for her. That's awesome. Maybe she'll talk to us about it.

Yes. The specifics of an investigation, but also the, it's wild how small everything was. Because, yes, the country was smaller. There were fewer states. There were fewer people, et cetera, et cetera. But there's still enormous amount of land here. And the stakes are still enormous. and the fact that there were just essentially a couple people

and the president's going to see a play is wild. It speaks to the lack of entertainment options because Booth doesn't even have his picture up in the theater. He's basically known for smaller parts. Stunt work. Stunt work. Yet like at bars and stuff, if he's like, I'm John Wilkes Booth, people are like, God damn, you're John Wilkes Booth?

People are, so what do you think is the contemporary analog for him? It would be like a dude on CSI or something. It would be like the third. tech on like and it would just be like man I've seen this guy on TV I don't know it felt more like we got Alfie Singer over that's what it's like it felt more like YouTube fame to me in the sense that they're like I know you wow wow but nobody respects him yeah because they all know it said that he's into like when they were like he's into stunts I'm like oh like Mr. Beast that's a name I learned 10 days ago I was going to throw it out wow you're going to get all the youth cred now

in this podcast yeah that's cool um there's tons of youth cred two guys in their 40s talking about Lincoln. They love it. Wait, do you feel... Were you title this, Kim, does Lincoln deserve to be on Mount Rushmore? Or is Manhunt a Mount Rushmore Lincoln show?

Kai, are we finally are true as selves now that we're just talking about this? Gotta lean into the dad core. Well, I feel like... It's very dad core. Welcome, brother. It's very dadcore.

Do you find yourself more drawn to historically upset period pieces to television? so it's historical television shows that are dramatizing something that you're very familiar with or that you feel like

is something you're very interested in. So I think for our purposes, maybe it would be the Cold War or World War II stuff that I think we probably are pretty well versed in. Or would you rather watch something that is that slice of life or that untold story of something

from the perspective of the kind of people who are usually ignored by history, be it because of cultural reasons, social demographic reasons, racial regions. Yes. That like, would you rather kind of just if you're going to sit down and you're going to watch Masters of the Air, do you want to watch it from the perspective of the pilots or the mechanics?

It's a very good question. I would even... I think I want to be somebody who says I want to see it from the perspective of the mechanic, but ultimately if I'm going to watch 10 hours of Masters of the Air, it's like I want to see some pilots. You want that Howard Zinn packet. Howard Zinn pouch. That is a good... That's the David Simon Show.

Yes. That is it. What about the guy who is working at the tavern during Masters of the Year? But that's why I keep trying to articulate. It's weird to say hierarchy, but that's the distinction for me. And I'll just keep saying it because I feel bad. I don't mean this in a critical way. I think that Monica Belletsky and her creative team embraced what may end up being the best version of this show.

But I was watching this and I was like, I am really riveted. I'm really interested in this and I'm learning a lot. I also spent some time thinking about the good Lord Bird. the Ethan Hawk led show that was on Showtime a couple of years ago, or even Barry Jenkins Underground Railroad, these three shows could not be more different in their intent, in their artistry, in their scope, in their, frankly, in their creative purpose.

Best case scenario, they're speaking to each other and helping create a fuller picture of an era in American history, of which I think clearly continue to be woefully ignorant. But there were moments in this show where I was finding myself thinking fondly of the good Lord Bird, just in terms of its ability to spend a little time with quirk, with the sort of things that can only come from fiction, honestly. But I don't want this show to be different.

I don't want this show to not exist. I think it's impressive. And I think I should also be honest. Like, as a prestige dad myself, I seem to have been born without the gene of just like, ah, the clock has struck 42 on my life. Time to start reading Taylor Branch books. Like, I am not reading Master of the Senate.

I have somehow, maybe that era is still forthcoming from me. But it might not. I think that you're like, what I want is I want an Italian man to smoke cigarettes for 57 pages and then have an affair. I mean, wow, when you're known, you're known. Yes. And so if I am not going to have that, time of my life where I'm like, oh, fantastic.

Another book about the House of Representatives in the 1920s, thank God I have these shows, frankly. Yeah. Because, you know, like a lot of things. I think, I think I feel like I've lived my life being like, I'll get smarter soon. Or like, I'll figure this stuff out later. That is the hard part, right?

It's like, one day when I learn Portuguese, it's over. Don't, you're not going to bait me into this. Canonically, we have been speaking Portuguese this entire podcast. That's true. You're just sorry it's your fault you're hearing in English I think that's it for me today You're tapped out Well I just have no other content on manhunt

That's the show we watched this week We have a very very very busy Thursday though There's a lot of stuff coming up Top Chef is back Shogun Top Chef three body problem All drop it Wednesday or Tuesday Wednesday Thursday So we know where you're at with three body problem

You're already I'm pro committed and you're in We have not watched this week's Shogun yet, but I look forward to more tremors of the earth. And how are you feeling about Top Chef? New host? New energy? Midwest. I'm very excited. This has been a very tough Survivor season for me. So I need a reality show, reality competition that I'm invested in. How has it been tough? They've now fully expanded Survivor episodes to 90 minutes.

I was reading this. By the way, we didn't cover this, but Joe Dalyan in New York Magazine had a very long interview with George Cheeks, who is the head of... Mr. Sheeks? the famous rapper, yes, from the Lost Boys, I believe. I thought you would laugh way more at that. It took me a second. I was like, are we really, you want me to do a freaky ta voice? It's like 52 minutes into this pod.

We could make a Mr. Cheeks joke. I feel like it would be incredible if that's who Joe Daly got on the phone with. I wanted to bring it full circle. I wanted to start the pod with Kenny Pickett and end it with Mr. Cheeks. If you want to talk about 90s hip-hop, we could talk about that I had the song the next level by the group the alcoholics playing in my car this morning when the my daughters got into it

they were appalled like moral majority that's when you should have taken the chance to tell them about your viral fame because of John Blackboard yeah I agree with you anyway New York Magazine thing being like the future of CBS and one of the pieces of it is that like it just works for them to have two 90 minute

reality shows and that's a night of television I don't it's not that Survivor has to be shorter I mean, so now once you get to, it's on for two hours of the evening, but it is 90 minutes in the actual broadcast time. And maybe it's just because it's early on in the season, so there's still just like a lot of loose, like, narrative threads for the show. But yeah, it's just they spend like 25 minutes sticking around at camp and then the challenges are super long. So it's like, it just haven't been to join this. It's made it worse by giving us more. Exactly.

There is an art to having like a 42 minute episode of Survivor. what it's worth. Top Chef is long now, too. I'm aware of that. That's why I was just saying. I'm not judging... There might be too much of a good thing. Well, I just like there to be like a rhythm to an episode. You know, I like banter, challenge, over. How much of it, though, is dependent... Bander Challenge Tribal is my survivor, and I like... It's also our podcast. I like Quickfire. I like banter, quickfire, and then the immunity challenge to be the last part of the Top Chef episodes. Immunity Challenge sounds like 2020. It's interesting phrasing. I think that what I'm

interested in, we'll talk about this when we watch the season, it is cast dependent. Maybe all these shows are, meaning that the incredible World All-Star season, you could have given me 90-minute episodes of, I think, because you would have gotten more detail about the cooking, more time with these people who were all pretty exceptional and interesting. But if this, you know, we're back to a more traditional season, all new chef testins. And if they can't, they can't carry the water, let alone boil it, I don't know. Can I... Can I...

Imagine if you couldn't boil water, but you were on top chef? That would be an elite confidence play. Just serving crunchy pots. Just sitting there listening to Mr. Cheeks. Yeah, but I imagine you, like, with great fanfare, being like, behind, behind, and you take out the completely cold chicken from the unheeded pot. You're like, can I get hands? Can I get hands on this?

They're like, it's not clean. It's not safe. We cannot touch this. Can I preview this week's stick the landing? Because this is what people wait for. We do the finale's pod. Talk at the end of. Yeah.

I just don't know why you don't tease it in the beginning of the episode. Maybe my friend doesn't tee it up for me. I've tried teeing you up two out of the last three weeks and you're like, we just have to talk about it now. Oh. Why is my father doing a podcast with you? I It's the finale

It's the season finale. Yeah. So there will not be a Stick the Landing podcast episode about the Stick the Landing podcast. This is a season one finale. We'll be taken a couple week months off from looking at Kayo.

But we'll be back at some point. We have a cast member from Manhunt. Matt Walsh. Which I didn't know. I meant to tee that up. I thought that was exciting. This is one of the ones I most wanted to do. This is the 80s weirdness

episode. Yeah. Where we're going to get into what finalies were when you and I were growing up. Like Newhart and stuff like that. Which are weird. St. Elsewhere. Newhart. Alf, Dallas. You do not have to watch any of these to prepare, although all of them are available on YouTube. A very fun talk with our pals,

Tim Simons and Matt Walsh, who were, of course, on the television show Veep, which had an excellent finale itself. And then they have a podcast in themselves. They have a podcast called Second in Command. Matt is now a racist Confederate a doctor on television as well. So, you know, the great work goes on.

But this is a really fun one. I'm excited for this. That drops one saying. Congratulations on all the work on Sticklanding. And congratulations to Kaya and Kaya. Everybody worked on the show. I think that's just a, it was actually, it was just a delightful pot to listen to. Thank you. I'm going to re-record some of the episodes as John Blackthorne.

Don't tease people. I am, I'm just, I'm excited for the You know what I mean? All right. It was great to see you this Monday. It's always great. It is an honor, and I'm going to go watch a lot of television. Bye, guys.