The Watch - On the Other Side of the TCAs and Breaking Down the First Two Episodes of ‘The Outsider’ | The Watch

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

Andy tells us what it was like to present ‘Briarpatch’ at the TCAs (2:11) and gives some hot takes on the Oscar nominations (26:13), before breaking down the first episode of ‘The Outsider’ (34:44). Then, Jason Concepcion joins to talk about ‘The Outsider’ Episode 2 and Patrick Radden Keefe’s book, ‘Say Nothing’ (47:24). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, the new action-adventure game from Respawn Entertainment, taking place between Star Wars Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars A New Hope. Players will wield a lightsaber, hone their force powers, an adventure across the galaxy and hopes of rebuilding the Jedi Order. Become a Jedi in Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. Available now on Xbox 1, PS4 and PC rated T-14. I need sports to have to clear the room.

Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, the proprietor of the uncut-Gem's Justice Fund on Patreon. It's Andy Greenwald! Hashtag justice for Frozen 2.

Oh yeah, that's right. That's the only thing I came up for. You see Fennacy was just ripping shots at Frozen 2 this morning? Did you see my RT? No, I did. With comment? Oh, did you quote tweet? debate me, coward.

Go on the big picture. Did he respond? I don't know. He can't. Oh, because he doesn't want to debate you. He doesn't want it. He does not want this smoke. Greenwald's here.

That is the fifth spirit. It's a Frozen 2 reference. And he's here. We are going to talk, I mean, we can talk a little bit about Oscars if you want. I know that you have seen three movies this year. I would like everyone to know that I am caping up for Frozen 2 because it's excellent. Because as the highest grossing animated film of all time from the juggernaut that is Disney,

it is an underdog. but also because Mano! Listen, Listen, Soundboard, I was thinking this morning. Have you seen that Elsa has gone dark? She's always dark. That's what you people don't understand.

What I'm trying to say here is I was thinking about this morning. It was very disturbing for my four-year-old, Mando. I can wait. No, go ahead, sorry. I got plenty of time. Shout-outs to whoever put together that SoundCloud. I'm so glad that I am now part of SoundCloud rap. Support that person.

There's a SoundCloud file of all my Mando. All my grief. It's really amazing. Go ahead. So you were saying. No, I was just saying that I was thinking about it. And this is obviously a extreme year. It was very busy year for me.

Frozen 2 is the best movie I saw in the theater this year. How many movies did you see in the theater this year? I was going to say, in your offense, it is one of the five movies, all of which I believe are Disney. No, that's not true. You and I saw the right. Rise of Skywalker. You saw Frozen 2. Uh-huh.

What were the other three? You watched Book Smart on a plane? Oh, that's true. I said in theater. Oh, right. I did watch Book Smart screener, and that actually probably was my favorite movie of the year. But you haven't seen all these other movies, so, like, you do know that this year

among others. There was a weekend. It's weird to be like Book Smart is the best American film of 2019. There was a weekend when, in Albuquerque, where I saw Spider-Man far from home. Uh-huh. Regretted that choice. Uh-huh. Saw Endgame.

We saw Captain Marvel together. That's right. We went and saw Captain Marvel at like 8 o'clock and we were both falling asleep. That's about it. Yeah. That's about it for your boy. Cinematically speaking.

You watched episode one of The Irishman? I did. I said, I'm stuck on the first episode, guys. I set my DVR. Okay, so Greenwald's here, obviously. We're going to talk a little bit about... I think we'll probably hit outsider. I think Concepcion's going to come on a little bit later.

He's going to talk outsider. and he's also going to talk. What's incredible here is I came in, and I was like, Kaya, guess what? I saw a TV show and I'm ready to talk about it, and she said, I heard. And I was like, no, no, no, you're getting confirmation. Chris walked into the studio this morning

with a swagger in his step and a bag full of oranges in his hand. It's not even a metaphor. Assuming that I had made good on my promise to watch a new TV show. Did you watch both episodes? See, that was the rub. So I hate when they do that.

I was like, I am primed, I am ready. Right. I watched The Outsider Episode 1, which premiered last night on Home Box Office. Yes. And Home Box Office Go. Yeah. Where I watched it. And then I saw they did that.

They snuck 102 up there. 102 is kind of important, too. And I was going to watch it because that's what I wanted to do after watching 101. But you waited until late to start 101, right? 1027 on a Sunday when the credits roll. old. And I was like, this is... And you had so much Patrick Mahomes tape to break down, too. You just had to get that all 22.

That's right. Here's the thing is we can talk about the outsider. I can talk about outsider with Concepcion. Concepcion and I are also going to talk a little bit about this Patrick Raddenkief. I can't believe the erasure. Say nothing. I'm not erasing you. Here I am. 102 is definitely a companion piece. Well, can we talk about 101.

We can talk about it in broad strokes, yeah, sure. Broadstrokes. We can talk about it in finely detailed Bob Ross brushstrokes. I was a cultural podcaster once. Hey, man. You always have a home here. This is home base. Something more important to happen this weekend, though. More important than the Ravens losing or anything else that happened this weekend.

You went to your first TCA's. Yes, babies first. As a showrunner. I did. And only my second overall. Yes. Much to the chagrin of Briar Petch executive producer Sam Smael. Why?

He thinks you should go to the TCA's every year to face the music. that may be part of part of it we should unpack that psychology no i think he is very keyed in to this strange reality that i was a tv critic and now i've made this tv show and so he thinks that i like moved literally like lived in a settlement with other other critics and then in the night gathered my tp and my belongings and went to another settlement and so what are the people to showrunner village what does everyone else think he mean los felus yeah it's his What does everyone else think that I did? You and Damon Lindelof washing your pots in the river.

But I didn't actually, I wasn't a member. I didn't go very often. And I haven't been like back channeling with people about it. So I don't actually have that much perspective. You haven't been working the refs. No, not at all. So this was not as momentous for the like I was on one side then I was on the other.

It was just momentous because it was super intense and weird for me because, yeah, You know, I think that people who have listened to the show and have put the jigsaw pieces of my psychology together. No, I mean, it's not as much fun as making a soundboard, but it's, you know, it passes the time. I've really been focused on the process of making this show somehow and have really enjoyed that. This holiday, this New Year's really was the last mental block that kept me from realizing that it would be on television. Sure. And so it was, I was in my head a little bit. Well, you've gone from pretty much friends. and fam and people who worked on the show and people who were actually like working on the post-production of the show seeing it, to now being in a room full of people who had access to... We made eight episodes available.

They were very rough. Eight of ten. They were... Are there parts of the screeners where it's like, it cuts away and it's just you being like, we're not done yet? No, but there definitely is some secret ADR where I'm doing an Ellen coming imitation.

We patched almost every hole. like the cast was so great in the last week before the holidays Alan like recording lines, new lines on his iPhone from London

Jank, they all did. They all did like iPhone stuff. We got Rosario in the very last day. Just for the screeners? We got Rosario in the studio.

So those, that ADR will go. But anything that was done on an iPhone has to be replaced in studio. So yeah, so it was just for the screeners. By me.

So we tried to patch all that. Written produced and voiced by Andy Greenwald. I've always thought this television show works best as a radio play. So it was kind of a scramble to get it at least like polished up a little bit. The truth is, I mean, there's stuff in the episodes. It's so temp. It's not going to make or break it.

But everybody who's listening to this podcast for the most part, with the exception of like 30 people, they're not going to see these things. No, and even the people who did see it won't realize that, oh, my God, that part at the top of 104 is not the ideal music cue. I will. Yeah, right. And I did, you know, wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Do you want to do blow by blow?

You want to do step by step here? So for people who know who heard us talk about it last week, this is this very strange but varying brain tradition where twice a year, the critics take over a hotel in L.A. in the winter, it's in Pasadena, have a ballroom. And every day a network or streaming service takes a day, basically, and unveils their stuff. We talked about last week we did the FX one. Right. And so NBC Universal Day was Saturday. that they began with like Amy Poehler being there

to talk about her shows and Golden Globes. Did Amy Poehler ever walk up to you and say, welcome to the peacock? Welcome to the family. She was no longer. She did not make a day of her time in Pasadena, I will say. I arrived midday just in time for the Lincoln rhyme Bone Collector.

Oh yeah. Press conference. That's right. I'm so happy. I have no value judgment on the show up or down. It could be awesome. As someone who has been dining out on Bone Collector, jokes for a long time now.

I'm just happy it's back in the mix. Bone Collector is the one where the guy is paralyzed and he's in a bed. So he's got like a kind of like puppet cop that he helps, right? Yeah, I thought it was a sex thing, 100%. And I was saying this to my friend Eva, who wrote on Briar Patch with the co-EP, and she was saying, it's one of her, you know, it's a good crime thing, right? Like, just like they maybe wasn't done well in movies and was done well on TV. And she was saying she hopes a similar fate befalls the very popular Scandinavian.

Perhaps bone collection was always meant for the small screen. Long-form television, yeah. And she said she hoped the same fate befell. Another favorite of hers, the Scandinavian crime series that begat the Snowman, which stars Harry Hole. I said, I also thought that was a section. And I said, I'd beat her all week. That's the legendarily bad Michael Fastbender movie.

Yes. Yeah. Which one? Which let... Isn't it strange that he's, like, one of our great actors and he just, like, routinely makes... Which was his... Which was his...

Well, Assassin's Creed. That's the one I was thinking of. Yeah. Which is pretty stupid. Yeah. And I guess he makes a, you know, decent stuff. He's also trapped in all those X-Men movies where they were like...

We have to reshoot it. But is there going to be one day... I'm done until Bob Higers, like, CTC. True. At the New Beverly, will there be a double feature of Assassin's Gate and Prince of Persia? Jake Gyllenhaal's bad video game thing. You should ask your co-host Quentin about that.

I won't next time we hang out. You should also mention that there's another good Rosario Dawson role coming out. So did you listen to that one? There was a silence. There were some crickets there. Should we take a detour to say that it is fucking mind-bending to me? That you are podcasting with Quentin Tarantino. It is so exciting and great, and I'm so happy for you guys.

It's terrific. I was really, like, I, in retrospect, was very, like, mad at myself for not being like, look, here's the thing. There's a show coming. Yeah. Called Briar Patch. You should watch it. Rosario plays a, you know, a Senate investigator, et cetera. Yeah.

But I was so nervous that, like, the Bill Quentin relationship was about to crater at that moment. It's fine. It was fine. I did. I really, like, I hope people who listen to the watch realize this. I assume that they do, that you have rewatchable superfan. and Tarantino on for three episodes. Yes.

Of the rewatchables. And this just happened because he wanted to. Yeah. I mean, I imagine everything in his life happens because he wants to. Yeah, I don't think he's like,

oh, man. It's why Chris and I are podcasting barefoot now. It's because one wanted it. So, anyway. So that's a step. TCA's critics take over hotel. Yeah.

Everybody comes and presents their way. And so we had to get there early. We had a panel at the end of the day, the last one of the day. Not sure if that's the sweet spot or not because these critics are exhausted. But we were at 430. But we had to get

early because we had a fuller, a more full day of press of one-on-one interviews and group interviews and photos and stuff like that. And the group is me, Rosario, Jay, and Kim Dickens, the dream team, the squad, like my favorite people. It was wonderful that they were there and they could sort of, that time there were three sets of footsteps in Pasadena. That's because they were carrying me. That's great. Because I got nervous. Yeah. I got to say, I got on my suit and I was like, okay, I feel a little better like I'm wearing. And you went suit sneakers. Yes, that's, that's the brand. Here's the thing.

I don't know if this has occurred to anyone, but the suit's like, hey, this guy does business stuff, and then your eyes go down, you're like, whoa, whoa. This guy, does he play tennis? He's fun. Yeah, right.

This guy's fun. Bet this guy rides horses in Mexico. Right? So it worked. This guy probably saw Frozen 2 in the theater. So twice. So I put on the suit, and I was like, okay, here I go.

And my wife's like, you look good. And my older daughter was like, That's good. And my younger daughter was running by extremely busy. Busy, busy day, putting smaller things into bigger things. And I said, younger daughter, how do you think this looks? Uh-huh. Because she's got a very highly developed aesthetic.

But also, I wanted to squeeze a little more validation out of the gravy train. Right. Right. And she does pause, which I was surprised at. She paused. And she turned and she looked at me and she looked up. She saw the business She looked down

She saw the party on the feet And she said Bad And then she ran off I was like great So were you shattered by that Or were you able to keep it rolling What is it called when

Glass gets punched But it doesn't break It's spiders That's how I am All the time That was the first crack So oh Chris Oh sweet Chris

That was not the first crack Then I got in They sent a car And I'm not gonna blow Blow by Blow this entire day But I like this though But I did text about this and I thought I should share it.

I got in this car and those waiting out front, the guy was like, oh, hello, I wasn't ready for you. I was like, that's fine. You clearly were. You had a car in front of my home. My children saw you out here, so I was like, I'm going to go. What was he? Okay.

I think maybe he wanted to be standing or like open the door for me or something. It was like a fancy town car. I was like, no worse. Play the soundtrack to the natural as you exit your house. So he begins driving. and he says, I said, you know, my children saw you. And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it's funny. My goddaughter just texted me.

I was like, oh, family. I actually, I like chatting. Do you really? Well, because I like chatting about, like, kids or family stuff that takes my mind off of anxiety or whatever about the destination. So he says, I was like, oh, great, great. And he said, yeah, she was in the emergency room last night. I was like, oh, oh, no.

And you're like, this is great. This is going to get me all the way to Pasadena. I'm sorry to hear you. that and he goes, yeah, you know, well, you know, she had a, she had a botched surgery a couple months ago. And, uh, turns out she had some, uh, leakage in her, um, in her anal. Anyway, right to the hotel? So you texted me this. Yeah. And I blew by it. Yeah. In, in, in the new telling of it, I realized this might have been socially awkward. There was a moment midway through the anecdote when I think you realized.

the path that he was on, but like a good driver, he got to the destination. Sure. I mean, there really is only one job, right? And I hope everyone as well. I'm sorry to be mocking what is clearly a medical situation. But that put me in a weird place. But like, I guess I also blew past the fact that he was offering any destination I wanted. Vegas. Oh, yeah, streets of the hotel. Like, do you want to stop at a bar and get like a shot?

gotten a beer first. I'm sure he's seen it all. I imagine that's what Jay Ferguson did. Okay. Because he arrived. Had his hair juzged for 30 seconds and went to the bar. The guy's champion. Had a Bloody Mary.

Okay. So you guys get there. It's the four of you? Five of you? Four of us. Yeah. And you have to do a lot of one-on-one interviews. Were the one-on-one interviews, like pretty quick, five, ten minutes?

No, it was the four. We did two group on-camera interviews that were fun. and then we split off. I saw a lot of photos like photos on your Instagram that looked like they were outtakes from the like entertainment weekly away luggage

like sweet. Like sweet. Yeah. There were sweet. And then we had to do a red carpet. And then we split up and we did individual interviews. So then I did two great interviews

that I was excited to do. People listened to the podcast even. Did you do Meriden? That day? No. But thank you. Okay. I can't even get on the big picture.

Did you do Joe Rogan? I feel like I'm doing it right now. And then it was time for our turn on the bone collecting stage. And... Could you still... Was there still like a whiff of bone collection there? Well, the beauty of it was that Lincoln Rhyme had collected all the bones that had been strewn about the stage.

There were none left. So we were briefly media trained, which was interesting, before going out there. And then we went out there. And it was actually, there was a moment right before we went out and they were playing the soundtrack. Like I got to pick the songs

that played in the room. And this is actually the most exciting thing. We have our own proprietary beer brand on the show, Dungee Beer, named, of course, for the great Ross Thomas protagonist, Chub Dungee of the Mordita Man. And people drank it like water on the show. And they actually made beer.

It was a promotional, and they handed it out to everyone in the room, and they gave them to us to go on stage. Was it juice wolfie or what? No. Do you know what it was? I cannot believe the universe did this. Like a Mexican lager? It was yingling.

What? For whatever reason. As a bit? They did that for you? No, not as a bit. That was the beer that they got access to or whatever. So they basically went around to get like kegs of yingling and then sealed it in bottles. The caps were still yingling.

in caps. They changed, swapped out the labels. I've now opened up NBC Universal to a blistering lawsuit from America's oldest family-run brewery. So it was so exciting. And had I not been physically about to leave Earth due to nerves, I would have downed it. Jay did. Okay. Jay took care of it on stage. And then we went out and it was really nice. It was great. You guys went out afterwards? No, we went out on stage and we did this. And then there was a cocktail party. afterwards. That was very nice. And saw a friend of the pod, Adam Pally, who was there promoting his show. He's going to call in, hopefully, in the next few weeks.

And I will save roasting him for the advice he gave me about the event, which he then immediately broke. And other than that, it was, yeah, it was quite nice. What's it like to talk about the show in, like, that weird third person? Like, this is, I'm describing something that's, like, somebody else's experience, even though it's mine? It's not that that was easy What was hard actually is Every single detail of this show

From conception to Execution to Post to all the You know anecdotes that were both funny and maybe stressful Every single moment of the last two years is bound up in the show And I remember all of it What's weird is then to have a question That's about one fifth of a millisecond of one tiny iota of it of the experience.

Yeah, and I want to answer that question and do right by it, but I also want to, like, share with people all of it, like we put it in context, and I realize now the limitations of that. I mean, I can't do that. Right.

But talking about it is, obviously, as people who are still listening to this podcast, and it was fun. Yeah. Were there any, like, questions that you were not expecting that you were like,

I don't know how to answer this? There was one... Any, like, gotcha questions? Any, like... No, people were... Do you support mayor? Pete. People were very supportive. I've got to laugh at a Kyle.

Kai, do you support Mayor Pete? Kaya thinks there should be more billionaires in the Dem primary. That is the hottest take. No, I mean, there was a question about the animals on the show. Oh, yeah? About, like, whether or not they were treated right? No. I was ready for that.

Were you really? Yeah. But it wasn't about that. You're like, when they leave my set? I can't account it was really more like, it was really more like, why this animal and not this animal, like a very specific thing. And then there was another question that was so good that I actually want to spend some more time thinking about and maybe reach out to the person about. It was like it was one of those questions that I was very honored to get. It was basically about tropes that we are playing with that may be kind of tired.

And why did we choose to do? Was that the dead girl question? Yes. Yeah, yes. I saw that. There was a great question from someone about, you know, and there's a line. I think it's in the trailer so I can talk about it

where Jake Spivey Jay's character says there's always a dead girl to watch TV or watch, you know, go to the movies. Here's the trick. Frozen 2.

Did you see that? She survives. She's not dead. The brilliance of Frozen 2 is there's no villain. Oh, yeah. I think it's too galaxy brain for you guys

with your gems. Yeah. Real talk, could I handle watching that movie? Not at all. No, right? Not at all. So, like, why are we even pretending?

Well, I think it would make you miss New York specifically Manhattan, like the Harold Square area, you know? Sure. A lot of great memories there. I think that you would get a kick out of certain elements of it. Okay. I think ultimately watching Adam Sandler be under a ton of pressure for two hours.

I just like, come on. It's not your bag. So wait, let's do this before we move on to talking about the outsider. Because despite your stalling and your protestations, I will talk about a new television show. I want to know. I just want to hear about what it's like to be on the other side of all this stuff. That's all. All right, all right.

Journalists, ask me, ask me more questions. Who is the MVP of your panel? Like, who was, like, the person who was just, like, all of a sudden became, like, a wonder at handling, at parrying questions and, like, dealing with press and stuff like that? Well, Rosario is amazing. Yeah. And she always, she was, like, the beginning of the day, she's like, I did these things for the show yesterday. And I realized, I'm oversharing. I need to, like, pick my spots.

and then she just wonderfully doesn't. She did need to be reminded that we shot the pilot in 2018. She'd been saying 2017. Other than that, in some ways, Jay is the MVP of life because when we got to our first group interview, we were sitting on a couch, and he, one of the first one, there were four chairs set up. He found a chair not within the eye line of the camera

and sat down with his phone streaming the Niners game. No, he didn't. We had to then encourage him to put the phone down to join the interview. He did. And then the next interview, we were on a couch. He set his phone up on the coffee table. While he was on a panel talk? In his defense, an NBC Universal channel was broadcasting the game.

Sure. So it was all in the family. Yeah, yeah. So he's my personal MVP. I was thinking about him yesterday because you didn't hear about what they did to Jimmy Johnson yesterday. A large man feted him? Yeah, so it's become a new thing where they surprise

TV analysts with their induction into the Football Hall of Fame. Okay. So on Saturday they did it to Bill Cower where they were just doing the usual halftime show. It's a surprise thing? Yeah. They were doing the usual halftime show. That's awful. And then like they were like, well, you know, blah blah. And Bill, we have a surprise for you. And like this enormous 6'4 7 man named Don, I think, walks out of like the back. and is like you are going to Canton.

We are making a bust of your head. You know, and the families come out. And it was really emotional. But then on Sunday they did it to Jimmy Johnson. Right. And Jimmy Johnson, like for a second, you're like, this is going to be, you know, this is going to be so corny. And then all of a sudden, like, he starts crying. And he's just like, oh, my God.

Like, he really has this real emotional moment. And then they cut away back to the Packers game in Wisconsin. To Aikman, right. To Aikman, who's crying. And I was like, we got to cut different. Ferguson now. Ferguson in a sports bar in Studio City crying.

He said something that was just amazing. So he and Kim hadn't seen each other since we wrapped and they greeted each other warmly and then she was like, what are we doing? What are we doing with this game? Because she's a Saints fan. So she wanted to know who he was rooting for. Because the Saints were eliminated. The Saints were eliminated but also

I don't know if you know the Dallas Cowboys were eliminated. They didn't get that far yet. No, they did not win the vision. They were not invited to the dance. unlike the Philadelphia Eagle. So Jay said something that was so rich for a Cowboys fan to say, which is, I guess I like these Vikings because you know I have to root for underdogs.

Okay. Okay. Okay, America's team. Yeah. Reagan versus Mondale. I got to pull for the cowboy here. That's right. So, no, other than that,

I mean, like this is just a very rare and fortunate thing because those three are wonderful people, and they kind of pulled me across the finish line and didn't roast me too badly. Let's do the first episode of the outside. Oh, wait, I want to do one thing before we do that. Oh, yeah, sure. Oscars.

Oh, yeah, sure. Just to say, I want to go through the best picture category, and this is an incredible, incredible flex for a pop culture podcaster. There are nine nominees. Reader. Zero. Zero. Zero for nine.

I just want to go through this list. And I just want to, like, take our temperature about it. Why don't you tell me what you think they're about? Okay. Well, for the most part, I bet you've seen trailers. It starts with Ford v. Ferrari, which I a million percent thought was about Henry Ford racing Enzo Ferrari. And I thought, again... It's an easy mistake to make.

Or, one step further, when I found out that wasn't the case, I thought that Matt Damon was racing a Ford car. And Christian Bale put on another crazy accident. and was a, was an Italian racer. And I thought that was the movie. Uh-huh. That's what I know. I would like to see this. So what I also want you to do is I want you to be the family-friendly script doctor here.

Family-friendly, like we're showing it to the whole family? No, no, no, no. Just tell me. Zero for nine then. Just tell me if I really, am I going to see these movies? Okay, so Four versus Frye, I think you would enjoy. I really wanted to see it. And I wanted to see it in theater because I heard the sound design.

is amazing. It's great. Okay. Irishman, first of all... Also, did you know that there's this one scene in Fort versus Ferrari where they're talking, where Ken Miles and I can't remember the Matt Damon character, Carol Shelby, you're talking about what they're going to do about they're going to build a Ford that can race Ferrari and LeMond? And Christian Bale has like a throwaway line, which has now become like this thing that Craig Kilbourne does on his Instagram videos. What?

Rissolo told me and Sean about this, and it is like, I'm obsessed with it. Craig Kilbourne has Instagram videos. Yeah, he does these Instagram videos, and at the end he just goes like, Old Man Ferrari. I don't know, but you're just like dancing across cultural touchstones, but I don't know. In the movie Christian Bale's like, you're going to build a car to meet Old Man Ferrari. Okay, I'm in. Yeah.

I'm in. You won't even notice the scene. It's so unlike with the way Kilbourne does it. This. But when Rissolo told us about it. this has been like the cultural moment of my year. 1917 might actually have this position locked up, but prior to that,

I think Ford v. Ferrari would appear to be the movie that would be the most dickish to watch on an airplane screen. Why? Just because everyone's like, oh, the rumble of the engines in the theater, it takes you over. Oh, yeah, right, right. That would be stupid to watch it on an airplane screen.

Okay, done. It won't stop you. No. Well, where am I going? The Irishman, again, respect. Ep I, you're done. To everyone else. I don't know how it qualified, since it belongs in the miniseries category.

The tone of voice you hear now is self-loat. You know what that one's about, though. It's about Philadelphia Italian restaurants. I watched the first episode. I will do this one right. I'm so upset I have it. Jojo Rabbit. Didn't see it.

Like Taika. Sure. Seems like a lark. I'm anti-fascist. Sorry, it's true. Hope you can handle the hard. truths. I'll check it out.

Just so you guys know, the watch anti-fascist podcast. And if you don't like it, maybe find another pod. Kick rocks, fascists. Joker,

I will never see this movie. Okay. Did you? I did. You excited for its 10 noms? You should watch it as a double feature with uncut gems.

To feel good. And then jump at the ocean. Yeah, I would love it. I'm sure. Okay. women, I cannot wait to see. Have a screener. Yep.

But I've not watched yet. Justice for Greta. Mm-hmm. Have you seen it? I have not seen Little Women. Wow. Do you want to watch it together? Yeah, let's go see Little Women in the theater. Do you want to be my Little Wing Woman?

This is the best part of the podcast in like months. Marriage story. Saw that. I saw that in the theater. Wow. You know it's on Netflix. I do. Thanks.

Thanks, pop culture concierge. I have already said my piece about this. We have a new strategy. When we found out that this was a film about a couple with a child. A theater director and an actress. Whose life is imperiled due to a career-driven move to Los Angeles. I was like, let's just go smell the flowers. Life is too short.

Yeah. We now have a new strategy in my home where we are going to watch this movie separately and then disgust later. It's been memed a lot. Do you feel like you'd get it now? Do you feel like you already know what happens and stuff? Yeah, it was weird because until I saw the memes, I didn't know there would be scenes of emotional anguish. Of a couple in jeopardy. But then I was like, oh, this kind of marriage. Right. I thought it was an hour and a half of deciding what to watch on streaming television,

which is most marriage stories. So you haven't seen marriage story. No. 1917, you know, not only did I watch Dunker, Chris, I listen to your fantastic rewatchables about it. Do I need to see this? I mean, it's technical achievement. I don't think I'm as high on it as a couple of other people or a lot of other people as a story, but I thought it was quite amazing to watch. This is also a theater watch, I would imagine.

Yeah, I think it's like, it's just a really cool travelogue. I think it's like a really, really good step-by-step journey movie. There's a few things in there where I'm like, yeah, You've kind of seen this trope in more movies before. But, you know, it's good. I would see in the theater. Sidebar. Yeah.

Do not watch this on the back of his seat plane. Sidebar, I really didn't realize until listening to your Dunkirk podcast, the, speaking of what's being done to me on this podcast, the erasure of that film in the sort of critical conversation. Yeah. I love that movie. Yeah, Dunkirk? I love that movie. Sure. I share Sean's.

skepticism, I think, about the Christopher Nolan project. Yes. But... Were you on that Inception podcast? No. No. You weren't. I was not invited.

I was on that. You did Zodiac? I did Zodiac. That's the only rewatchable. No, you did the fugitive too. Oh, that's right. What I should be on otherwise is a podcast called The Watchables, where you tell me if something is watchable.

I think that's what this is now. Dunkirk is great. I loved the way you guys talked about it. Thank you. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Have not seen it Quick update My wife watched it

On the airplane flight Okay There is a moment Near the end of the film I don't think it's a spoiler Where And again this is I was at one row back

Because we were three and one On the flight It appeared Some people were on fire My wife sitting next to my children Watching this Praying that the new episode of Vampirina

Is riveting enough So that no questions are asked Sure success? So far, I mean, the rest will come out in therapy. Will I like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Yes. Okay.

I'm excited. I have a screener. I'm going to watch it. You're not a huge QT fan, though. I am a huge fan. I am a fan, but I have not been a fan of his most recent movies and this sort of project that he is on of like, let's write historical wrongs through the magic of cinema.

Don't like that. No, I like historical wrongs to stay wrong. Hey, sorry, sorry, I'm just against fascism. Unless they ended fascism. Okay. So, um. Parasite you're going to see and be like, this is the best movie I ever saw. I know.

I have a screener. I cannot wait. Do people, fan poll, do people want me to weigh in on these movies in Q1 or Q2? I think if you could chime in before the Oscars, that would probably be best for our content plan. How about that? Kaya, note the tone. That is a new tone on the watch. I really enjoyed it.

Are you going to go through every Oscar nomination? Costume design. I'm done. I'm done. We can talk about TV. I just also, my only other sidebar, cultural sidebar for once upon a time in Hollywood, is what a moment for Brad Pitt, who is probably going to win the Oscar.

Yeah, your favorite movie of 2019 was the Brad Pitt Mark Merritt episode. Yes. And Brad Pitt talking about the show Marin. Enter 2020 with the same energy Brad Pitt has meeting Mark Marin and talking about the television show, Maron. I cannot believe what it's like to be a golden god like Brad Pitt and to love something so purely.

He watched all of Marin three times. And just purely loves it. I don't know whether it's therapy, whether it's being from the Ozarks and surviving. Looking like that, I don't know. but I don't think I've ever loved anything as purely as he loves the television show Marin. It was amazing.

How in terms of, if number 10 is the way Brad Pitt feels about Marin? And number one is how you'd feel watching Uncut Gems. How did you feel about the outsider? Seven or eight? Yeah. So, I'm sorry, this is, this podcast has been my Uncut Gem. So the Outsider, obviously, from your last. Two episodes went up last night.

I've seen a few. How many are there? There are 10. Okay. 10? Yes. It is largely written by Richard Price, who is one of my favorite writers,

one of Andy's favorite writers. Richard Price who wrote on the wire, wrote The Night of, along with Steve Zalian, and then also, you know, an accomplished novelist who wrote Clockers and Freedom Land and Samaritan

and Lush Life, which is my favorite. And he adapted the Stephen King novel, a recent Stephen King novel that was regarded as, probably his best work in a long time. And this is a 10 episode, I believe, limited series, starring Ben Mendelsohn and Jason Bateman. The first two episodes were directed by Bateman.

And it is about a murder in a small town in Georgia where it seems open and shut that it was committed by the character played by Jason Bateman, except it is not shut. And so there is a sort of supernatural element to it, a kind of deep, unseen evil, Stephen King style. in the in the show. So why don't you give me your broad strokes

of what you thought of the first episode? What was, it was really interesting experience. I knew very little about it. And the first 15 or 20 minutes, I was, not aware of it,

but I was, I realized later I was fighting it. Because it definitely was doing some things that I am on the record as not loving. You know, it is very, very, very... Promoting fascism. It is very fascist. All the trains,

there's a lot of train talk. And the train, run on time in this dystopian vision of Georgia but at what cost no you know it's very dark and I'm not saying a show about a child murder should be otherwise

but it is very dark and very grim and a lot of yeah I said I've said like it's hard to recommend yeah well both the subject matter and also the way that it's handled is very much it's very punishing yeah and it's a lot of men with furrowed brows reacting to tough news and all that

and so I felt myself trying to detach. But one thing got me through the first half, and then another thing got me through the rest of it. It made me really excited to watch more. Like, I will watch the second episode tonight. The first thing is the craftsmanship and skill is top-notch. That really matters.

Like, Jason Bateman has turned into, he's a very good actor. I think everybody knows that, and that recognizes he's a very good and rare actor that can do comedy as well as drama. he's turned himself into a really phenomenal director and TV director. And I say that with real praise of my voice because the skill set for movies and TV are so different. And his coverage of every scene, the insert shots that he chose to get to build a story by showing us glimpses of someone's life like they do in the bedroom of Ben Mendelsohn's deceased son. It's really expert.

And the whole picture flowed together so well from performance to lighting. the way it was shot, the cinematography, that it's one of those things. And I'm living in post still, and so what I'm really looking for is where are the seams. And there are a million percent work. You know, I bet if we had Jason Babin on the podcast, he'd say, well, we didn't get that.

And shooting the reaction shot to what happens to the victim's mother in the wide was a stroke of dumb luck, maybe. I had the camera running, but I intended to do it this way. Who knows? But there was no clearly, like, this didn't seem like ADR. It didn't seem like the time jumping in the beginning was something they figured out later. You know what I mean?

it was just so skillful that it was really engaging to watch on a technical level, which is I'm sure how I will watch 1917 on a cross-country flight in row 34. Yes. The second thing is, man, this is a good yarn. And I got really excited by the end of it, not because I really wanted to know what was going on, because this fundamental, like, it's not whodunit because they know who done it, but how is this possible? That's just a great one.

it got me really excited about the possibilities of masters of certain genres like Richard Price, who is, as you said, a master of crime fiction and a screenwriter of crime fiction of great, great, great ability, doing something outside of his genre. So treating a Stephen King supernatural, what looks like it, will be a horror story to some degree, with the kind of calm, measured, procedural rigidity. And I don't mean that in a negative way. of a police drama and just good cop dialogue yeah really good fine like that's one of it one of his great skills is just like sharpening what is a pretty pedestrian exchange between two two police

officers he's able to find a kind of poetry in that dialogue yeah the idea of uh hardboiled crime fiction meeting some kind of supernatural story about evil they are essentially the same thing right you know that it is this sort of pursuit to understand why and how something like this could happen. And, you know, people, people look up to the sky and say, like, they ask God why that happened, but what if you had to deal with that on the ground? What if you had to deal with that in your everyday life? So it's, it's really, really, really atmospheric. And it's really, like you said about Bateman, like, I thought that they did an amazing job right out of the bat of the gate, establishing the world and kind of shaping the town it's set in and

kind of giving it like a weird overcast, autumnal feel, but it's still like down south. and it wasn't substituting Georgia for something else. It was like this interesting... No one there has a southern accent. Nobody does. Ben Mendelssohn fighting the good fight. Yeah, and Mendelsohn's character is actually like a kind of... He's sort of like, obviously a very talented detective,

but doesn't seem like a cop at all, but also doesn't seem like monk. You know what I mean? Like, he's just an interesting guy. There are always these small moments that can kind of hook you onto something or push you off of the boat entirely. And for me, the moment was when... later in the first episode, when Mendelsohn has gone to the gift shop

and secured the art book that has the fingerprints. And he runs into Jeremy Bob. And by the way, this show has Bill Camp and Jeremy Bob who are that guy all-stars when it comes to shows like this on TV. Love them both.

So excited to see them working and squaring off against each other. So Jeremy Bob who plays, you may remember from the Nick, plays the investigator who's hired by Bill Camp's attorney. And he enters the hotel just as Ben Mendelssohn's character is leaving with the bag.

Yeah. And he says, you know, they know, and immediately the intimacy is established just by they know each other's names. Sure. And he says, what's his name, Ralph or something? Ralphie. There wouldn't be a photo book in that bag is there. And that one line, and the way that's delivered,

is classic Richard Price. It also communicates so much experience between the two guys. And history. And the idea of the, I don't want to call it a game, but the game. board that exists in police work and trial work that is laid over the horrific emotional circumstances of everything, which is what the night of kind of was about, the work-a-day life of John Truturo over the one person, Riz Ahmed's character, having an existential truly

nightmare, which is also echoed by what Bateman says. One of the few things he says before he gets his lawyer, which is, you've ruined my life. Yeah, you ruined my life. Our lives. Yeah. And so, I mean, I want more of that. I want more of that kind of, you know, banter again is the wrong word, but that ease, the familiarity in the dialogue and in the characters.

And I'm actually surprised there are 10. I thought this felt like a tight six. Yeah. I think it does share another thing with The Night of, which is that there is a little bit of commentary on crime fiction and crime TV fans in there. Because when Ralph is preparing to sort of arrest Bateman, and even though I think you as the viewer know, Oh, I'm pretty sure that there's something different going on here.

This is a different kind of story. When he is making his sort of speech about, like, I want everyone to see it. I want you to put the cuffs on in front. And if he, you know, I want you to say it out loud so that everybody in the stands can hear what you're arresting him for. And what he's done? It kind of like plays with that idea of like, what's our bloodlust as a society and what do we want to see and when it comes to justice. So, yeah, I can't wait to keep watching it. We'll keep talking about it on the show.

It made me want to consider. other cross-genre mashups. Like Scott Derrickson, who did the Doctor Strange movie and had done horror movies and has now left Dr. Strange, too, which is, I'm sure, something we'll talk about when we do our next IGR counter or whatever. So a guy who does horror doing a detective story. Yeah. You know, like, I love that.

I mean, obviously, my brilliant idea was just reversing the two categories we already had. Yeah. Which is a state of, I think that that as much as the way my voice is sounded during this podcast speaks to the state of the head cold I'm experiencing. But I do think that's exciting, particularly within TV. And that might be something, this is just the tiniest opening for a larger conversation we should have. But, okay, so a dark 10-episode crime procedural, but what's the secret sauce? What's the extra thing on?

Well, let's talk about it next week when you've seen the second and third one. Okay, so I'm watching two episodes. Also, before we wrap up, it's going to be a busy week for your boy watching stuff because Chris, I haven't even said these words on Mike, but the new Pope is back tonight. I mean, words cannot express how much I love the young Pope. And this is Sorrentino. So maybe on Thursday we could do the Pope.

We should. I'm very excited about that. And then Avenue 5, the new Armando. That comes on Sunday, yeah. Show premieres next week. With you, Lori. And Kirby Enthusiasm is back. So, okay.

Lots of stuff. Okay, Greenwald, thank you for coming in. This is my podcast. I come here. I just don't. I feel like you were wavering a little bit on the fascism part today, so I have to consider some things. It's true. It's true.

I will prove my Antifa bona fides just to get back to you, but the truth is I have a double booking because Rogan wants me. All right, Concepcion's coming up next. Talk to you guys soon. Bye. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by

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Thanks for coming on. I wanted to talk to you. Well, we could talk about the second episode of The Outsider. Andy and I talked a little bit about the first one. Yeah. And then I also wanted to talk to you about a book that we both love that I just finished, finally. The Patrick Radden-Keefe books say nothing about the IRA and the troubles. But let's do the second episode of The Outsider first. Sure.

Twist. Yeah, it's not ready for that. Was not prepared for that. I was kind of like it's going to be weird that Jason Bateman's just doing two prestige shows. And I know Ozarks coming back. relatively soon, I think, and they already just put the teaser out, and he does so much on Ozark,

but they shot in Georgia, so I was like, maybe he did double duty, I don't know. And then we found out, oh, okay. Really fascinating twist, gut punch, and I can't wait to see how they rebalance the show. Yes. Considering the way the first episode is just,

obviously, and necessarily so heavily based on his performances. And it seemed like that would now, naturally carry over as we try to figure out what exactly is going on here. Right. But, yeah, wow. I can't wait to see who kind of steps up and fills these voids. Did you have any expectations going into this? Like, did you, had you read the book?

Had you read anything about it? Had not read the book at all. It was kind of versed in what the general gist is. But once I saw that this was coming out, I've kind of very studiously attempted to stay away from any kind of information about it. Which is, like, I think, the best way to do it. I mean, kudos to HBO for putting both of these episodes up last night. Yeah.

I do think that probably asking people to watch about two hours and ten minutes of TV on a Sunday night after a football weekend is probably a bit of a reach. But it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they had put this up next Sunday and then like all of a sudden people are like, so Bateman's not on the show. Right. What's going on? Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about like you were talking right before we were, Andy and I were talking about this too, this idea of this collision of genres between that Stephen King kind of horror. which is always this thing that's just out of touching distance, just out of sight,

which is like, what is this evil that's like lurking in the sewers or lurking in the car or working in this dog? It's evil that's like found with him. And then this traditional Richard Price, cops and robbers, crime fiction. Yeah, I found, it was interesting because like the presentation, aesthetically, this is like a horror film

with these like slow establishing shots and like slow pull-in. to characters sitting in rooms where they feel small against, like the forces arrayed against them. And then the first episode, particularly, it felt like a stew that hadn't quite congealed yet, you know, so you've got the horror element.

It's very distinct. And then you've got the Richard Priceian investigators talking to each other, you know, cops, cop banter kind of feel that's also very distinct. And they hadn't yet gotten together. Episode two, it felt more of

I understood where the tone was going but it was the collision of those things is really interesting and not anything that I've really experienced before I remember thinking like gosh what chance does any of us have

in this world if not only do you have to have a really good lawyer who believes in you yeah but that's the only way to defend against demons or some kind of shape shifting like elemental creature who is like really dedicated to framing you for a crime. Yeah. But it really opens up towards the end of the first episode and the second.

And it's a really fascinating direction. There's also the feel of like, you know, like Cynthia Arevo's character has not been introduced yet. And it really feels like that's going to really propel the show, you know, towards its kind of turn. So it feels like a waiting period until like that happens. Yeah. I think I've watched it a little bit ahead and I would say that there's a couple of shows within this show in terms of... And I think it's actually fascinating, but I think you'll find that different characters kind of take over the role of the lead character in different episodes of the show going forward.

What is it when somebody's just like, why would I like Richard Price? Like, what do you tell them? Oh, man. It's a complete immersion in a particular point of view and a particular point of view and a particular world that is comes complete with its own natural language that feels so lived in and real and even though the kind of lingo that that prices characters use isn't necessarily the kind that you might encounter in real life it feels real and natural and vibrant in a way that that is makes you think about certain things that have happened in your own life that that mirror events

in his books. I just think he's one of the foremost dialogue writers that we have. I'm doing an episode of The Big Picture later where we're talking about 1917, me and Sean and Amanda, and I was watching a lot of Deacons interviews this weekend, Roger Deakin's interviews, and he had this quote where he talks about there's a difference between Pretty Cinematography and Good Cinematography. Like Pretty Cinematography isn't always good and good cinematography isn't always pretty. and I feel that way about Richard Price's dialogue. It's like, good dialogue isn't always realistic dialogue.

Yes. You know, and the way people talk, I think we always sort of, you know, when people praise dialogue, they're like, oh, it's like the way people really talk. Well, nobody really talks like a Sorkin character. Nobody really talks like an Amy Sherman Palladino character. Right. Nobody really talks like a Richard Price character. It's an artful rendering of a kind of language that's spoken between professionals in the same industry. You know what I mean? And it's like these guys who are like these men and women.

And if you read the whites, which was his sort of attempt to do like a hardboiled like mass paperback a couple of years ago that wound up being just another great literary crime fiction novel. One of the weirdest turns is like Richard Price being like, I'm going to release this under a different name. Right. And he was like I'm going to crank one out every like 10 months. Right. And then none of that really happening. And him just being, actually this is just a Richard Price. It's like, yeah, it's like a moby dick of crime fiction.

So I am obviously like already in the bag for price. Yes. We've talked, I think, on and off here and there about Stephen King. But Stephen King is somebody who I think I'm incredibly aware of and weirdly have ingested a lot of his stuff. Yeah. But kind of have like a 10% part of me that's like it is a sort of bullshit. I get that. You know, for me, King is the magic of King is his dedication to really like simple, almost incredible.

stupid ideas like you know like what if this car was haunted yeah kind of thing and i think the combination of price bringing price into kind of ground these ideas in in in something that we can grab on to cops talking to each other you know an investigation uh drama between uh you know small town folk was really smart and it's only just beginning to work i think from what i've seen into the, as we go into the second episode. The cop banter stuff, like the... Between like Tamika and Jack and so... Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Really crackles are like, when they're driving up to go get him at the... Yeah, I was telling him about that. Like, the whole like, cuff him in front so everybody can see. Like, all that kind of stuff is like, oh, yeah, that's Richard Price. Like flashing the tin on the job, all this kind of like Richard Price.

I've done a million ride-along lingo type of thing. The Patty Constantine. character, the strip club manager. That's definitely Richard Price. That feels very like his rendering of like a guy who's barely hanging on by a thread and is still sort of like attached to the underworld. But then you bring that to King and King's idea is essentially trying to explain evil often with metaphor.

Often with like what if evil was rendered in this place or that place or this thing or that person. And this show is trying to get to that. They're trying to find the meeting point between those two things. And while also exploring the idea, some crime fiction ideas like the wrong man. What if you were wrongly accused? To me, the absolute most terrifying moment in these two episodes was when DA Esper is it? Was, you know, talking to Ralph about, and Esper has been, the whole time has been like,

like, I don't give a shit about this other video. I don't care what he says. Like, we've got him. We've got the DNA. We've got the fingerprints. We've got multiple witnesses. Like, what else do you need? This is the guy.

Get on the team. Get on the train with this. And stop bringing up evidence that would exculpate him. And then finally, like, when the break happens, and the DA is like, hey, there's stuff that people don't can't explain. That happens all the time. You know, like a World War II squadron goes entirely missing after flying into a cloud. And, like, that to me is that, like, if I'm in a room. with like the top law enforcement official like in a town who starts talking about like UFOs

and disappearances, I'm like, oh. Yes. Shit. Yeah. But then like the thing with King is like, what if that were the case? So I think that is really fat. You know, every time Bill Camp shows up on the screen, I'm like, yes, great. Like more kind of like investigation procedural stuff.

And when that, I'm just waiting for that to slam into this supernatural element. Yeah. And then you have like the whole element of like I think when we watch older crime stuff, even stuff from like the 90s. You'll be like, oh, well, does this fall apart if you have a cell phone? Does die hard fall apart if there are cell phones? You know, does everything that we kind of thought was like a really cool mystery or really cool thriller essentially fall apart if you have modern technology? And this show is actually taking into account the constant documentation of our lives that is happening and that Terry Maitland would be filmed at all these different places. And actually plays into it with his whole, with his behavior at the train station.

of him like looking up at the camera and stuff like that. So it really is that idea of like, well, if there's this constant unbreakable evidence that you're in this place, what if there was evidence that you were in another place at the same time? Like, what would that do to the criminal justice system? I think that is, that's kind of like the core of, that's pure Stephen King to me, which is, okay, what if you had a double that was just out there doing stuff? looked exactly like you.

The actual, like, detective stuff where Anderson starts going, man, this seems, you know, this seems strange. Like, so he commits the crime is seen by numerous witnesses covered in blood and talks to them, walks into a place, makes a phone call, calls a cab. There's already a cab outside. Demands that the cab driver log the call. Yeah. Like, isn't there something? I mean, that's the kind of stuff that is really, you know, like I'm a sucker for a detective story. And I, and the idea of a very rational, reasonable investigation that turns on what if there's this weird demon out here is something that I can't wait to see happen just because I'm not sure if it can work.

Well, I really want to see what Richard Price thinks of that. Yeah. Because the whole idea of Richard Price's books and Richard Price's fiction and his screenplays usually deals with the flaws in humanity. You know, it's not, you can't explain it away by saying it was the devil or it was a demon or it was an other. It was like, it's always like your frailty. It's always there's some weakness in a person that made them do that. And oftentimes there are like institutional factors that make them criminals, you know. And that's what, that's what Lush Life's was.

about, you know? The fascinating thing about this in terms of prices work and how it fits with this is it's exactly right. Lush Life is about a guy who appears to be the prime suspect in a murder, but actually isn't. It was, you know, and then. But is behaving that way. But is behaving that way.

And then you have clockers, which is another story about a, you know, a young drug dealer who may or may not have been involved in the murder of this other person. And then it's a lot of like mistaken identity stuff. Like, okay, well, it looks like this evidence points here, but then what if it doesn't? But then the thing about Price is he always lets you down in a very realistic way. With Clockers, not to spoil it, but you spend a lot of the book thinking that it's not this character and then it turns out to be. With Lush Life, it's kind of the opposite. You spend the whole book basically believing that it can't possibly be this.

character. To the point where that character himself is like, God, what, he's so in his own head about what happened that even he is like, what did I, like, what did I do? Right. And also, like, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? Yeah, right. That it's going to be really interesting to see what happens when, you know, Richard Price all

of a sudden has to grapple with this supernatural turn. Yeah. I don't know how it's going to turn out. And we haven't really talked about Mendelssohn. And Mendelssohn's sort of the perfect actor to do that. He can do the hard edge, like, really believes in what he's pursuing, and he can also do, like, doubt really well. And so he's, like, a perfect protagonist for the show.

I would say the other thing is, like, you know, Stephen King, for the most part, there's a few notable exceptions. Really nails his endings. He's – whereas Richard Price, who I love more than anything, his books kind of just kind of peter out. So how does that – Yeah, when you think about it. about the night of and you think about it just kind of like, oh.

Yeah, it just kind of like. Nine people's lives got ruined and now this guy's smoking drugs under a breach. That's it. It just kind of like dissolves. People just kind of go their separate ways. Whereas King, like, it really, for the most part, I think the stand is a notable example where everything just kind of falls apart at the end. Really, it hits you with a hammer at the end of his books.

So I, I, that's another interesting kind of like tension between these two creators that will be really interesting to see how that turns out. Can we talk a little bit about Say Nothing before you go? Sure. So Say Nothing, I just wanted to chat, brought it briefly with Jason. Was released last year, I believe. Yep. Patrick Radinkeef, who's a New Yorker writer.

And written about the IRA in the magazine, I think. I can't remember what part of this book was in The New Yorker, but I remember reading what I think wound up being an excerpt from it. And writes this basically pocket history of the troubles since the latehap. 60s, early 70s, through 2013, about 2014, covering largely these about half a dozen characters. The book

itself is more or less concerned with the disappearance of a woman named Jim McConville, who was a mother of 10, who one night was abducted from her apartment in like a project in Belfast. Right. She was either a snitch for

the unionist forces against the IRA or it was a tragic case of misunderstanding miscommunication. And it's the theme throughout the book is the amount of, since so many kinds of communication at that time period in that area were like about plausible deniability and about, well, there's another section within the section who only knows what this person is doing. Right. It's essentially they talk a lot about how Radnkeef writes a lot about how over the years the IRA went from being an army to more of a cell structure so that there were three or four people working on one thing, but they didn't know who else was working on anything else in the IRA. And then a lot of it, so it's about the disappearance of Gene McConville and the suspected murder of Gene McConville, her family. And then it's also about Jerry Adams, who a lot of people know is the head of Sinn Féin and for a long time was the sort of face of the troubles, I think, for a lot of people in America.

And these two sisters named Dolores and Marion Price, who were involved in the IRA in the 70s and in different ways moved in and out of Republican politics and the Republican cause throughout the next few decades. And there's a lot of other characters. There's a whole thing about, you know, for anybody wants to read, I don't want to spoil it, because it does have some twists. But it's a fucking remarkable book. It puts its hooks in you immediately within a page and a half.

And then the fact that, you know, I'm broadly aware of the troubles and the issues surrounding Northern Ireland within its political relationship to the UK. But this throws you into the deep end of these issues in a way that just like hits home. minute, and it is extremely visceral and powerful. Yeah. You just can't imagine. It almost boggles the mind that this state of affairs, essentially like open combat between two shadow armies, was a thing that was happening like in the civilized world, not like somewhere far away, but literally in Ireland.

Yeah. In the UK. Jones throw from London. And that conflict washed up in London and washed up, you know, in some ways. they talk about fundraising going on in Boston and New York's and American cities that went on for the Republican Army.

And it's just such a fascinating. It's actually really relentless. Like the book itself moves really fast and it'll kind of do these digressions to kind of explain a little bit, but you realize it's all building towards something. And a lot of it is about how do we essentially deal with memory

when so much of a conflict is based on secrecy? Because this was a conflict that was both on the unionist and on the Republican side being fought with so much skullduggery, with so much spycraft, with so much basically like off the book's killings on both sides. And it's essentially about the disappeared of this country and people basically eventually stepping up to be held accountable for it. And this project that Boston College undergoes to account for it. Which turns into almost a debacle in a certain sense. So as you mentioned, Boston College put together this project where they were collecting oral histories from the people directly involved in this and locking them away in a vault, so to speak. Unfortunately, once it came to light that there was this fault with this material. People started getting interested in what was being said here.

People started getting interested in what was said in there. the legal protections involved in shielding the people who took part in the project and the people who assembled the project were kind of like not really that thought out and all of a sudden this stuff starts coming light. I think the thing that is really stuck with me from reading this book is what does it mean to fight for something? what does it mean to fight and to bleed and to lose people for a cause? How do you translate that into peace? And the actual goals of what you're fighting for, ejecting a much, much stronger power from this very small area is basically impossible without a political set of it.

And when you ask people to give everything for something, what do you do when you're not giving everything back? What do you do when the goals of your, fight, which was essentially a unified Ireland and the ejection of the British forces from Ireland. What do you do when that's not exactly the end point? Yeah, yeah. You have peace. You largely

have peace. You know what I mean? You have a power sharing agreement, but you don't have exactly what people thought they were fighting for. And a lot of people who are just like this is not what I died for. This is not what I died for. This is not what we starved ourselves for. Killed people for. Killed

people for. Killed people that maybe we shouldn't have. Adams is a magnetic figure throughout this, even because of his, it's impossible to pin him down. It's quite obvious that he was directly involved in many of the things that went on, that he was the shot caller, so to speak, for the IRA. And yet, so much of the political piece that has followed the Good Friday Agreement and that led up to it is based on him personally putting forth this premise that he was never involved. involved in the IRA and had nothing to do with it, which flies in the face of, like, testimony

by multiple people, like, were involved, actual evidence at the time, etc. I mean, some documentary evidence of him basically talking about it, right? Like, other interviews where he's just like, I work with, you know, I don't know if he's ever been explicitly like, I'm in the IRA, but like, there's this speech that he gives in the book where he's talking about the kind of relative piece that they're experiencing and somebody says, bring back the IRA. And he's like, they never left, you know. And it's like, yeah, I mean, it is sometimes in 2020,

it's pretty easy to be like no one's ever been as fucked as we are right now. And you will look at what the behavior are some of our leaders. And then when you read some of this stuff, you're like, oh, yeah, this is actually a play. There's a playbook for this. There is, it's a fascinating question. If you could bring peace to the struggle that your, your colleagues, your brothers and sisters in arms are fighting and bleeding for.

but in order to do it, you have to basically trick them into it. And then you yourself have to lie about your involvement and you have to lie about your involvement for the rest of your life. Is that worth peace? And that's one of the questions that arises from this book. And it's, I don't know that I know the answer.

Like if I'm Jerry Adams and I'm thinking, and I'm looking at the toll of deaths and not just from the soldiers, shadow soldiers and actual soldiers in uniform that are involved in this. But like, you know, normal people, people walking down the street who get caught in a bomb. Yeah. You know, people upstairs from a bar that could get bombed. When I look at the cost and I think we can stop this through a political settlement, but I have to basically trick everyone.

And then me, myself, have to live a lie. Is it that worth it? Right. I don't know the answer to that. Right. And I don't think the book has the answer. Yeah. But it's such a fascinating book about language.

It's such a fascinating book about designations. Like if you just say, like, you and I, here we are, you, me and Kaya. And it's like, well, if we commit a crime, then we're just criminals. Right. If we commit a crime under the banner of a political cause, are we political criminals? Are we political soldiers? Right. Should we be treated as soldiers?

under the Geneva Convention. You know what I mean? Like, and all these things that the envelope was really pushed on with this, with this conflict added to which it was taking place in and around these major European and major, you know, Night Kingdom metropolitan areas where you would just be at the supermarket and this stuff would be happening, you know? So it's such a great book. I can't recommend it more highly.

Same. What else you, what are you rocking with right now? The light is at the end of the tunnel with Star Wars. That's right. I'm reading. I just started, Mark Bowden wrote Black Hawk Down, most notably. He's got a history of the Battle of Way during the Tet Offensive that I'm reading. Oh, wow, yeah.

The 1960, way 1968. Way 1968's really good. It was supposed to be a Michael Man miniseries about that. I don't know if they, whatever happened with that. Much in the same way that you could, as you read Black Hawk Down, you could understand how you would want to adapt it. It is the exact same thing with the way he takes characters from both sides and elevates them into the narrative.

and weaves that against the backdrop of like, you know, geopolitical strife in history. And then I'm reading as poor people's protests, like the history of nonviolent struggle and why they fail and why they succeed. Some light reading. Just some light reading. Okay. Good stuff, you know. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks for having you. All right, guys. We'll be back on Thursday. Thanks for listening to The Watch.