The Watch - Reacting to the ‘Ahsoka’ Two-Episode Premiere and the Unique Storytelling in ‘Reservation Dogs’ Season 3

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the response from members of the Writers Guild of America to the most recent proposal from the AMPTP that was made public through the press (5:57). They discuss the perplexing two-episode premiere of ‘Ahsoka’ on Disney+ and series creator Dave Filoni’s significant influence on the current ‘Star Wars’ extended universe (14:35). Later, they talk about Episodes 4 and 5 of ‘Reservation Dogs’ Season 3 and the unorthodox approach the show is taking in its final season (48:48). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kai Grady and Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. 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's been looking for Thrawn himself.

It's Andy Greenwald! This is a big pod for us. Asoka! I like saying that. If I was in the Star Wars Galaxy, that would be my thing. I'd be like, maybe I'd be like a concierge or a bartender. And then Asoka would walk in, and I'd be like, Asoka! And then the vibes would get real low.

Do you think Faloni would be like, that's the energy I need in my Misan Sen? Judging by the first two episodes of his series, no. He does not want energy. We're going to talk about the first two episodes about Osoka. We're going to talk about the most recent two episodes of reservation dogs. We're going to talk about the risks involved in private air travel in Russia. That's really all Chris wants to talk about. I wanted to talk about my guy Yivgeny so bad.

Yeah. If I asked you today. Yes. And this is the Russian Wagner group head, you know, the private military. military arm of whatever's going on over there. I can get into details, but I don't want a bore audience. But he had tried to have a coup against Putin. He tried to have like a military uprising against Putin.

It was coup adjace. There was nothing but love and unity in that field that day. And then he was basically exiled to Belarus, popped up in Africa. Then for some reason was in a plane flying over Russia. And that plane got shot down. And his name is on the manifest, right? Right. I'm not boring people with this.

I don't want to get into geopolitics. Yes, you do. You so do. What is Fandul putting the odds at that he was actually on that plane? Well, you set the line for me. Like, this is, I didn't know this was an option. Because for me, I'm hung up on maybe this is a sign of more of where we are just both geopolitically, but also in terms of the dimensional chess that we individually play.

Yeah. You're already on 6D. You're like, he's alive. Yeah. I didn't say that. I just said that I'm aware of those ideas. I'm still just lovingly curating my Google Doc of things I would not do ever again if I had staged a failed coup in Russia. Which is fly over Russia.

Which is anything involving the word Russia, which is also private air travel of any kind. Yeah. Air travel of any kind. Honestly, the thoughts I have about a lot of this stuff should really go on the watch after dark. Okay. I don't really feel like talking about it on like what is really going to be a show about, you know, a cat in space. It's like a frog cat. I just want you to know that I expect you to treat me when I go down for whatever reason.

When your plane goes down? The way that the headquarters of Wagner Group did, their boy of Guinea, where they lit the office windows up in a cross. That's incredible. Yeah. Do you want me to do that at Spotify HQ? No, at your house. At your house. Or not at Bad Brother in Philadelphia?

Like all of your favorite places? I just like, I don't have war-lawful. mentality. No, you do not. The thing about Yvgeny. Except you do when you get on the warpath about a show. Yeah, but you know, I'm an armchair warlord at best. Yeah, that's true. Like, I'll say it here in the

climate controlled confines of Spotify, USA. Is it cool enough for you now? Not yet. I just want to keep you, I want to keep you aware that you did not have the studio with the way I like it. Kaya's still not here. It's all falling apart. Because the Yavgeny thing, from what I understand, is that he was a Progoshin, by the way. This is the last name. He was a businessman.

Yeah. Well, that's what Putin called him. Today, Putin made a statement. He was like, he was a talented businessman. But a failed warlord. But, like, he did the thing that so many capitalist leaders of America want to do, which is he just fully became El Commandante, right? Like, he was just like, I will step down from the board of these oil concerns and lead a mercenary war force. And put on, like, a war jacket and started making speeches. A war jacket? I don't know what they're called. Flackjackjackjackjack. This is why you need to watch Lioness. Chris, I'm just saying, not only do I not have warlord mentality, maybe the reason I don't is because I can think of 10 to 40 things that I could spend the rest of my life doing, even if I was

in Belarus. There are a lot of books I haven't read yet. There's probably a seaside or a riverside I could stroll along. You know what's sad is that I just don't think, I think we've probably passed the point in our lives where if given the time, we would do X. Oh, for sure. You know what I mean? For sure. Like, I think that I'd like to think that I'd like to think that I would read the works of Tolstoy or write the Great American novel or, you know. I think the former is more likely than the latter, but yeah. You think it's more likely that I would read Tolstoy than write the great American novel. In the time we have left before you take your private plane?

Yeah, I do. I do. Is that wrong? I just, I think we do have time to do. It doesn't have to be great. It could just be an American novel. How about that? Do you think it's more likely that I would write a novel or read Tolstoy? I think you could write the great Belarusian novel in exile. I just mean you could choose to those things. You could read all the Tolstoy books and write a novel instead of being like, you know what, Moscow needs me. You could just focus on, because here's the thing, maybe this is what separates us as people. For me, the action is not the juice. Yeah, it's for me, the juice is like a watermelon fresca. The wine is the juice. You know, that is, mm, delicious. A little,

acidic and I'm good. Moscow's not the only place that needs us. Hollywood needs us. Oh, I thought you were going to talk GOP debate. Okay, no, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's talk Hollywood. I've obviously had my attention going elsewhere this week, you know? Clearly. So tell me why when I woke up the other day, I guess it was... You couldn't feel your arm. Tuesday? Yeah.

I woke up and it just seemed like everyone that I know who I follow on social media in SAG and the WGA, which is quite a few people. It's Tim Simons. We're big mad. It's just Tim. About something that the studios had done. Explain it to me like I'm a baby. Oh, like... No, not like a real baby, but like...

I could do that. Remember how mad you got when you saw the... Louis was the number two most streamed show. I didn't get mad. I was just like, you let out a set, you scoffed. Um, okay, so talks between the WGA and the AMPTP had resumed. The sign, I think I've referred to this over one of the last two pods, like there was not a lot of leaking going on. There was not a lot of litigating in the press. There was not a lot of insight into what was going on, which to me was a positive sign. It all seemed rather sober, which meant to me that there was some progress being made. Yeah. From what I understand, um,

The meeting the other day was heavyweights were in the room. That... Ted and Donna. Ted, Dave. Zazlav, Iger, Langley, Sarandos were asked to be in the room with Carol Lombardini and the WGA negotiating committee. And this jibes with what I've been hearing behind the scenes was that Ted and Bob in particular had been tapping their watch being like, let's let's.

let's go, let's get this done. And read into that what you will. That could be their play to be to become the wise satems of Hollywood, or it could also be related to the fact that Disney seems to be in public relations and economic freefall and Netflix, by all accounts, need Stranger Things 5 the way you've got any needed to get back to Moscow, hopefully with better results. And so they were in the room. And then what happened, apparently, again, this is all now through, you know, this is all through second hand or third hand. The attitude in the room from the bigwigs and the heavyweights was, okay, this is our proposal, and this has gone on long enough, and you need to take this proposal.

And the Guild said, well, we'll certainly consider it. And then they left the room. And then 20 minutes later, the AMPTP threw their new press arm, or they'd gotten new publicists for themselves. The previous ones were doing a bang-up job, released their proposal. in full. To the trades. Yeah, to the media, saying here's what we offer.

This is unprecedented. This is, et cetera. This is, this was not received well. Yeah, I got that impression. Now, to take one step back again, this is just my opinion and my experience with it, to look at the proposal, which broadly does address

almost all of the issue points. The concerns, yeah. Doesn't say it addresses them to the liking of the guild, but it does at least engage with them more fully than anything we had previously known about. The fact that all points were engaged on and there was movement in some of them, to me, in a vacuum, that's good.

That's good. That means the window of negotiation has moved in the guild's favor. That suggested to me that a deal was possible. If they were moving, then there could be movement on all sides. That's good. Doing this publicly through the press is not good.

In fact, it sucks. And it not only sucks, it may run afoul of, from what I understand to be pretty widely recognized labor laws, which is union disputes are protected. They're still protected in this country, Chris, for now. For now. And I'm sure all those gentlemen and lady last night were very... It was at the top of Nikki Haley's mind.

I think so. And one of the things that are guaranteed about union disputes is that management must negotiate with the designated negotiators. They do not negotiate in the press because negotiating in the press is often seen as an attempt to do an end around the negotiating committee and negotiate directly with the rank and file members of the union who, you know, as with any large group, may have disparate interests or may be in different places financially or where or in terms of their own security or stability, how they feel about things. And as always, the goal is to split the union and to have some people see the

raises or the increases in the areas that are concerned, of concern. to them and say, let's take this. I got to get back to that. I think that that's a shitty strategy. I also think it is, once again, a fundamental misread of the cultural moment because people are pretty fired up and people still have their trustee X accounts or whatever to get... Let people know how they feel. Very strongly. And to, you know, police their own borders, let's say, in terms of keeping everyone in line. On the, you know, the, you know, the, the non-public-facing chats and WhatsApp things that I'm on, this was really received poorly, I would say, by everyone.

And it may have set things back. It may have. I don't fully know. I mean, you could get into the nitty-gritty of it. It's one of the reasons, and again, I think this is also shitty, why the AMPTP was very clear about, like, this revolutionary deal raises the floor a staff writer can make from however many tens of thousands to this many tens, if not 100,000, circling those numbers was also an attempt to reframe the debate being like,

look how much the lowest ranking writers get paid anyway? Yeah. How could they be quibbling over this in this economy? I don't know what the next steps are. I choose to be still optimistic because the fundamentals remain slightly optimistic because the fundamentals remain the same. If Ted and Bob need this deal, that means there will at some point be a deal. Sure. And we just don't yet know whether this very public faux pa will set things back by weeks, another month or two, or if it will somehow force the AMPTP's hand to try again, and we have a deal by Labor Day.

I don't know. And I also am not fully, I'm not well-versed enough to know. There were things in the deal that stood out in the proposal. Sorry to break it all down. But there are things that matter to me. Like, it enshrined the idea of writers, lower-level writers being paid to go to set during production, which is vital. It's vital. It would have been vital to my experience.

It's vital to, I think, the management of all shows, but it's also vital to the future of the industry to train the showrunners of tomorrow. Then people came on and was just like, but look at the framing. Look at the loopholes. If production doesn't overlap with prep and then you have to give up a right, there's just all these loopholes that people, perhaps, in paranoia, or perhaps because they're reality-minded are already noticing that it could be taken advantage of. There's a similar thing with AI too. The robots?

Yes, they're coming. And they're not as cool as the droids in Asoka, who seem to just be fine all the time and even do little robot fist pumps when they do a good job in space. Yeah, like there's stuff that I, ultimately I think this stuff will be litigated by the courts, not an MBA between the studios and the writers,

but there's stuff being like, oh, they're dealing with it And they're saying that, you know, a writer must be a human and blah, blah, blah. And if AI is used, it is only in collaboration with a human writer. But someone pointed out that under recent court precedent, if a human is involved, then it can be copyrighted. So everyone's like, oh, this is an end around. They're going to have a writer develop something handed to a robot because a writer gets a story by credit. It's copyrightable.

I just fucking love the idea of being handed to a robot. Handed directly. Just directly to a robot. Anyway, that was a very serious and long monologue about the state of things. I'm glad you were able to level us out. I feel we had a little bit of a daffy comedy in the beginning at the expense of Russian warlord and now we're talking labor law. Like if you guys, and don't do this, but if anyone ever fed in like the fundamentals

of this podcast and to chat GPT... You can do that. You can be like, tell me about this in the voice of like the watch podcast of the Indian Chris. But you know what it can't do? It can't start with Yvgeny. What's his last name? Progosion.

Progosion. Yeah. And then just like do a hard turn into the WGA NGCOM and like the fundamentals of sending writers to set. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant.

18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines.

Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. Andy, let's talk about the Star Wars universe. We love to do it. So the first two episodes of Asoka were released last night, Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Tuesday night, which I thought was nice.

It's no longer like I think there's been sometimes when Star Wars shows have gone up on Friday evenings or Fridays. Wednesdays, too? They're kind of all over the place with what they do with the Marvel and Star Wars stuff. I want to approach this from a place of humility. Okay. For my part. So I will say that I have no familiarity with Asoka,

other than her appearances in the Mandalorian. I have never finished an episode of Rebels. I think I've watched YouTube clips. before. And I don't really, I was just going into this kind of blind, you know, like for all the anticipation that I

sense from, say, like, Mal and Joe, and from quarters where there's just like, I can't believe it. This, like these characters that I have, like this preexisting relationship to, we're going to get to see them. Rosario's perfect casting.

Can't wait to see Mary Elizabeth Winstead, et cetera, et cetera. This is largely a Dave Faluny project. He is the person who ran rebels for the, I don't know like he made 200 episodes of Clone Wars and Rebels He's that guy

So he's and he also has worked heavily on the Mandalorian And Book of Boba Fett And it has a movie and development With Lucasfilm for Star Wars He has the ear of Kathy Kennedy Yeah he's it's So I think one thing that's really Interesting is to think about

His ascendance or Consolidation of Kind of storytelling power Over the Star Wars universe And ask the question of like who does Star Wars belong to, right? And that's obviously been a very fraught question to ask over the years

because we had the whole Last Jedi fallout of a lot of people seeing that movie and being like, that was among the best Star Wars movies I've ever seen. And then the sort of toxic fan response afterwards where it was like, this is desecrated, you know, the idea of Luke Skywalker and completely fucked it

and we need JJ to come back. And I think ever since then, there's been this sort of roiling conversation slash screaming argument about like what is Star Wars and who does it belong to? And you and I are a little bit outside looking in because we're like Tony Gilroy caught so many bodies on Andor. Like there's no, it will be, if something is better than Andor, then we're talking about like you should get the best drama show on television or the best. Which Andor is nominated for. Yeah, or it should get best picture if it's a movie. You know what I mean?

Like, we're really in that zone with how passionate and deeply invested we are in what he did with Andor. That being said, I'm open to the idea that, like, there's lots of different versions of this universe. It's becoming increasingly apparent that, like, the philony vision of this universe is the one that they're opting for. I think there's a lot of versions, reasons for that we can get into. I'm trying to basically be like, I don't want to just be like, I don't like it. Yeah. I'm trying to say that there were parts of this that I thought were cool. There were also the cool things I had to read about 8,000 words on the internet about to explain to myself.

And there's been some talk. I heard Midnight Boys talking a little bit about this yesterday, and they did a great episode about this. And House of R is going to do amazing stuff and have been doing amazing stuff on this. I will just say that, like, I did not know what the fuck they were talking about in the show. Like as it starts, and they're talking about Ezra, Bridger, and Admiral Thrawn, and what happened to them. And there's obviously, like, these preexisting relationships between Hara and Asoka and Sabine and all this stuff. I was basically like, I don't know who any of these people are and they don't seem to be slowing down one mile per hour to explain it. Now, that could change over the course of the next couple of episodes.

But on a basic, like, comprehension level, I was like, I don't know what's happening here. And I have read enough about it where I was like, oh, actually, like, these two messias who are like lost in space and there's there's going to be this race to see who can get to their person first. And there also is other galaxies and Star Wars. And that kind of opens up some new stuff. I could get into that. What you just said was more interesting to me than the two hours of TV I just watched. Right. I didn't know that.

that would be cool if this series had any interest in welcoming me in, which it doesn't. I do want to start with pretty standard caveats. Sure. That's what I tried to just do. No, I thought you did spoke very well about it, and I think I'm broadly, I'm in agreement with you. I think the single most important thing to say, and if this is all you need to hear from me on the show, you can fast forward. I'm very pro people taking pleasure from their entertainment. This means a lot to a lot of people, including dear friends of ours. You mentioned Mallory.

And so the chance to see these characters who matter to people, that's wonderful. And it makes people really happy. And I don't want to take anything away from people who this is made for, because this is specifically made for someone or someone's many people, presumably. The second thing is people know I have to say this, but like Rosario Dawson is one of the greatest people I've ever known in my life. I think she's a good friend. She's a brilliant artist and collaborator.

This means so much to her. If there wasn't a strike, I think we would have covered the show by just having her come on to talk about it. I cannot, like, I know that she was fan cast as this role many years before she got the role. Right. But she has also wanted to be a Jedi her whole life. And I don't think I'm speaking out of turn. I feel like the NDAs have probably expired. But the very last day, we were shooting on Briar Patch, which is now almost four years ago, we were talking in Video Village before the last scene. And we were talking about stuff we might, how it went, what we might do in the future. and she told me a secret. And the secret was that she had gotten this part.

Right. And she was happier than I've ever seen her. And I think this is so cool. She was like, you have any precautions. She's very wise. Also, she is very wise. I also just think that she, you know, I felt this way with the show,

and I'm glad more people get to see that she is a star. She has a rare, she has a rare charisma. And for someone who is so bubbly and exuberant, she has such a wild stillness. Yeah. hammer and control everything around her in a way that really works for when she's playing a character like a Jedi who like all Jedi to me is essentially kind of boring. Right. She is not boring. So that alone makes it more interesting. And I want the show to be successful for her.

The next thing, as preface, this isn't even preface anymore. This is getting into it. Because of all of this, I wanted to approach the show differently. I did not want to fire it up as me, person who I think is broadly done with Star Wars and bring the usual hobby horses out. So what I decided to do was watch it with my children because I was like, this seems like that's who it's for. Now, not to diminish it. I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Bluey, I think is the best thing on TV. I think that I wondered if I was misreading this content and basically being like, this is all ages. Sure. Yeah. And maybe the same thing, sight of a of you know women with crazy things on their heads solving shit and wrecking shop

might be inspiring in some way to my daughters it might be a way in for them um because i don't know if i've ever said this on the podcast before but if if there was a time that i was potentially maybe was working on a star wars thing and i tried to tell my i told my daughters that um hoping to get some just get a little something some respect yeah Maybe just for a second. They were so profoundly uninterested. Right. And my older daughter said, just witheringly, why would I care about a story about a magic boy?

And I was like, you're wearing a Harry Potter shirt right now. And you were also like, so you do know about. Yeah, exactly. So you know everything. Anyway, but I thought this would be a way in. And I watched the first episode with them, and they didn't understand a single thing that was going on. And I think that that is a really interesting data point, but based on, the 8,000 words, shout it to Ben Lindberg

who did a great job explaining not only these two episodes but wrote a wonderful piece on The Ringer about this being a huge inflection point for what Star Wars is doing. If you read all of this, I don't know how a child would understand it. That's what I'm saying.

I just fundamentally reject the idea that you need to do an enormous amount of homework to engage with a mass market entertainment show. That's just anathema to me. I think that's just an awful precedent and an awful idea. And that everyone, you know, again, like people like Ben are doing yeoman's work. I mean, that's very helpful.

But it's also like, as an industry, like the variety is like, here are the 15 hours of television you have to watch to watch this one hour of a new thing. No, that's just wrong. That's fundamentally wrong. And it doesn't have to be that way. Right. But that's, part of that is like you being tricked by the media to be like this is how you you know like there are tricks of like like putting someone's name on a passenger manifest

if they're not really on the plane it's just an it's like an almost an algorithmic way to like I mean when you're listening to music on Spotify like the part of the benefit is to be like oh what else should I listen to if I like ceremony or if I like drug church you know it's like they'll tell you that if you like drug church it recommends the watch podcast

now if you are just like the way we grew up it would just be like you ask people. Yeah. I like the fall. Like, what else should I listen to? But we've taken a lot of that on. And I think that that kind of like, here's 10 things to do before you do this. It's like kind of, you know.

But that can be helpful when it's optional, when it's expansive, you know. There shouldn't be a barrier of entry for art. And there shouldn't be a barrier of entry for the most. I keep saying mass market. I mean that as a good thing. Like, this stuff's supposed to be. for everybody. It's not just supposed to be for the people who have done their homework and are now being serviced as a reward with this series. And what's really striking to me is in this moment,

sitting down with you, what you just said in one sentence makes the show universal to me. Oh, there's a good Messiah and a bad Messiah and they're floating in space. Right. There's a race to get them. That's a cool premise. But this isn't that in any way, and it doesn't even try to be that. And so I think that it might be, that might mean that for someone who's fully dialed in, like Mallory, like this is then the real raw uncut. I also think that maybe we got to like be honest about like, I'm sure like lots of people would have said the same thing about Andor and in different ways. But I don't, I don't, I disagree.

Okay. Because I do think, and obviously, look, everybody knows which side of the Star Wars fence that we are on in terms of what we like. But I do have at least one or two people. that I've spoken to who are not Star Wars people who loved Andor. Sure. I do think Andor can be seen and viewed

by a larger swath of people who recognize the humanity or the interest of them. Honestly, I mean, I don't mean, I don't really care what you did. I mean, I don't really care how many people watched it or liked it. It's like going to be my favorite thing that Star Wars has ever done, and that's fine. Ben had a really good line in his piece. I think this is from his sort of preview piece,

but it might have been the recap. but Ben was just like, Soka is more likely to send you scurrying into Wikipedia in search of Star Wars Arcana including literally a planet named Arcana and or is more likely to make you commit stirring monologues to memory. And I don't think that, like, look,

I'm going to choose the latter, like seven days out of seven. But I understand what Ben was kind of saying where it's like they're doing different things. I think that that gets to the sort of heart of what my issue is with, like if Tony Gilroy had written all of the dialogue for the exact same show that we just watched,

the two episodes that we just watched, I probably would have liked it. Yeah, I mean, there's a flat... I probably would have been happy to go be like, who the fuck is Ezra? Yes, well, there's a flatness here that is just really dispiriting. It takes a swashbuckling premise

about, you know, a intergalactic alien space night and makes... it just drapes everything with this absolutely somber stentorian, anti-fun, anti-adventure, gloom that is the hallmark for a lot of these sort of live-action sci-fi stories, it's absolutely confounding. And every, you know, I haven't seen the cartoons, but every still image I've seen from them, these characters are like swashbuckling and they're

angular and they're smiling. That's not present here. Yeah. It's almost as if when you get real people, you have to somehow sell it more, which is not true. And then you take the flatness of the volume. You take the flatness of the direction. And you also take away one of the core things of Andor, which fixed one of my biggest problems of the last few years of not just Star Wars storytelling, but of CGI storytelling, which is that Tony Gilroy was invested in every single location, even if they weren't really locations, as a place. Meaning when you went to the planet where they spent three episodes doing a heist,

there were native cultures and traditions and grievances and history and songs and music, and you understood it. It mattered. This is a, whatever the opposite of stirring is return to the Star Wars storytelling of Rise of Skywalker

where a CGI artist was like, what if trees? Cool. The universe is now just a collection of save points in a video game

where on this planet there's green trees and also a stone relic that points to somewhere else and you just fly from A to B to C to D. Travel doesn't matter. Distance doesn't matter.

Injuries don't matter. You can get stabbed with a lightsaber and be better the next episode, nothing matter. This is also the second or third Star Wars story in the last 10 years or 15 years. That's just about a map. Yes, well, that's also a weird JJ Abrams thing.

This actually felt JJ to me and that it starts with a magical McGuffin that's going to point to something else that we've never heard of. That we then need a key for. Yes, always. Always got to get a key to the map. That part is exhausting.

But I think it's probably more productive rather than to dwell in the specifics of it because there are a lot of winning people here. If you have the honor of having Mary Elizabeth Winstead in your television show, you can choose to use her as you will. Would I personally choose to paint her green and have her look confused as a hologram?

See, I actually thought she was good. I did not think that the makeup job was awesome. I just don't know why. Why? I guess because she's green in the cartoon? Okay. Yeah. Cool. Cool reason. But like, so what? And then half the scene she's in, she's a holograph.

which is something that you can do in space. But, you know, again, it goes into that same kind of just the Star Wars language of like how things happen now. The technology, the cool thing about Star Wars in the movies was the roughness of the technology, right? It's like when Leia's getting projected, it's not like they can talk back to her. Now it's always exactly what you need, but still weirdly low tech. Like we can read the memory of a droid with essentially an Atari handheld machine.

machine from 1982. Yeah. But they can't like upload that map to the cloud. No, because there is, that doesn't exist.

Or how in the opening scenes of this show, it's suddenly Star Trek where it's just a bunch of people in suits being like, I'll take the comms as long as we need it to be Star Trek.

There's no consistency. It's always whatever is needed under the rubric of droids. Except now with witches. That's what was missing. But look, what I mean is we could go and clearly I kind of want

to get into the minutia of it, But I do think that the larger argument is still kind of more compelling to me. Because this is so, despite this being the culmination of Dave Faloni's work for many years with Clone Wars and Rebels, it's so 2023 to me. Because the main vibe I get is that Faloni is like the hero of one of these multiversal movies that we've been complaining about for two years. His, I guess, messianic mission is to hammer out previous stories until they all agree. Because this show is essentially, I think, building towards, in some ways, is the andor of the sequels.

Like, it's building up to the sequels, and we'll explain why the New Republic and the First Order are at odds, which I mean, because they don't like each other. But, you know, like, what transpired so that another empire could rise? Yes. And so it, but the goal is both, it's to take his, is to take his, is to take his shows to take the, with the Timothy,

B, was Snyder, the guy who wrote the Thrawn books, they were then sort of cast out of canon, to bring those back into the fold, to make everything agree. And that just kind of bothers me too. Like, that's just kind of,

that's not storytelling. That's just like OCD behavior to me. This idea that every story we make, every timeline, every reboot needs to agree, needs to talk to each other, needs to fix everything, speaks to me of like a very,

very serious national anxiety as opposed to a desire to make interesting stories. Like, we're not actually okay with any uncertainty or just leaving things unfinished or just moving on and trying something new. We have to square it. We have to make it work or else the future will fail or else the whatever the way Dr. Strange explains it is going to happen. Right. That's weird to me. The other thing that I just still, maybe this is Star Wars. But like within the trust tree here, just you and me, right? Sure. That's the only people who are listening. Jedi and Mandalorians are boring, Chris.

Like, they're boring. Yeah, but like, do you think that we come at these conversations sometimes where it's like, what do you guys mad about? Like, like, what, how much evidence of like cool, awesome Star Wars do you have? No, none anymore, except when we were children. Yeah, and And Andor. So it's like, what are we, I mean, it's just, it's not that. Can we come at and just be like, you know what?

Like, when you guys do something like Andor, let me know, and I'll, you know. But my thing that I just remain befuddled by. Okay, two last things. I'll throw them out and then please respond. Here are my two things that I just don't get. One is there's a reason Spider-Man is more popular than Superman. Spider-Man is fallible, is human, is funny, and Superman, I mean, I'm going to say this again. I think James Gunn's going to make a good movie.

I think there's a good Superman story to be told. Your predictions about upcoming projects are always 100% right. He cast a guy from Philly, so I think it's going to be good. He cast Bryce Harper. Did you know that? I didn't. And yet, the stories in this universe that Dave Filoni seems committed to telling are about bending, about hammering out not just multiversal, you know, different

canonical texts, but making everyone a member of a boring humorless order. Right. Like, let's put Rosario in this outfit and then have her not smile. let's take in the first episode character Sabine Wren who seems promising my daughter's liked her hair At the end of the second episode?

No, the first episode And she's listening to a brand new Illuminati hotties song Rockin and Roland In her speeder because she's a rebel Rock music has been in the Star Wars galaxy Well, I mean Moss Isley can swing But that's like more of a

sort of Moroccan jazz Like I'm saying When did Paramore Get to a galaxy far away? I mean, I'm not mad at it. But you create that character who's as close to punk as this universe may allow. And then by the end of the second episode, she's chopping off her hair and becoming a fucking Mandalorian and a Jedi and someone's apprentice again.

Because the one thing that heroes in Star Wars can't have is personality. It is so weird that that is a choice. It doesn't have to be like that. And yet, they keep coming back to that. The second thing that I do not understand, and I'm going to ask Kai to mute me, and you could just explain this to me, like I'm a child. Okay. Like a child who once likes Star Wars movies.

How long has Disney owned Star Wars? I don't know. You know, at least 10 years. Yeah, I stopped celebrating it after about five or six. May the fourth be with you? How many new fans do you think they've created in a decade? That's a great question. And when did they give up on that?

I actually texted Charles Holmes this last night, where I was like, say what you will about the quality of either thing. I actually think Marvel's probably trying to be like, We have to create a new generation of fans because it's not necessarily going to be drawn from comic book fans anymore. Yep. So we actually may have to like... Or Robert Taney Jr. Fas. For a while.

Regardless of like the quality of the shows or whatever, they're like, you guys may not know who these people are or you guys may not care about the Eternals or whatever. But we have to like try some new stuff because it's not going to be cost effective if we have to pay $700 million to get the Avengers back together. Also, those guys were old when we cast them. they're all in their 50s yes not all but you know but so you're downy ruffalo

I really don't know I think that the sequels for as erratic as they were and for as emblematic as they have become for the way that we just can't really like kind of have like thoughtful critical conversations

about anything anymore without it being like you fucking think this or that about the entire world I do think that the sequels and the gray character minted some new fans Yeah.

And I think actually, like, one thing that we should be conscientious of is that I know tons of people younger than I am who prefer the prequels to a new vote. And people who actually prefer, think rebels is the true Star Wars. And in some ways, have been waiting as patiently and passionately as I have for someone like Tony Gilroy to play in the sandbox. They've been waiting for the stories of rebels and these characters to come up on screen. I just think that they are missing a beat where it's like George Lucas knew what he did well and knew what he didn't do well. I think. Maybe he didn't. But he was eventually like, I don't need to be on set.

I don't want to direct these things anymore. And Richard Markhan and Irving Kirshner directed the last two movies. He also brought him Larry Kasden to write them with him. Yes. And I think that there was like, whether it was like he's like, I don't need to be on set because I can do everything and writing and storyboarding and then post or whether it was because I don't

I know what I'm good at I know what I'm not good at and it's nothing to do with what Dave Filoni is good or not good at but there needs to be they needed like a little bit more Fabro in this or something you know or something where it's like

hey man like this is a very long scene this is a very long scene of this person talking to this cat or you know even the kind of cool Indiana Jones scene I should say sure but even the cool Indiana Jones see of Asoka twisting all of the cylinders

to get the... It's basically the throne room in Raiders. That's actually like a six-minute scene. Like I honestly did look down and look back up and I'm like, she's still turning these things? Like, this is all just to get to a map that I don't know about. For something I don't know is...

To find characters we've never heard of. This can go faster. This can have tempo. This can have maybe some comedy. She's literally like turns those things and you're just like, okay, so on the third one, is it going to drop through the floor or whatever? And then the payoff is that she fights these Ray-Haryhausenish robots when she gets up to the top of the,

out of this room. But, like, this thing does need, his tempo, Philoni's tempo is just not my tempo. And I mean that in the most literal sense of, like, I need more going on in the frame and I need more going on, like, pacing-wise. Yes. And also, I think it's possibly worth saying that clearly this show isn't made for us. we're not arguing that it that it that it ought to be but it might be made for a very very very very different era of cultural consumption where to think of this as a television show is short-sighted because this is so much more than that it is a weekly television show it is also a you know a

I think much desired expensive piece of of cultural spackle to fill in the holes of things that have been, I guess, needing that spackle to be filled. It's also more raw content to be filed along your Wikipedia entries and your Timothy What's His Name Zon? Timothy Zon novels and your whole Star Wars experience. Do you know what Thron novels? Do you know what Thron did? I don't know what Thron is.

He's a bat. Timothy Zon. I do know that because people talk about him a lot. There's almost as much they talk about Thron, but because Timothy Zahn is a human being, I just feel like I get him a little bit more. Is Thron blue? Yeah.

That's cool. We need more blue people just across all genre storytelling. You know, maybe Thron will be good. Villains are often our way into some of these stories. You're pawing at a piece of citrus. Do you need some vitamin C? Do you need some refreshment? No, I brought an orange to eat after the podcast.

and then I'm getting agitated, so I'm just calming myself with fruit. Here's some things I have some just random questions for you. I asked you about Alt Rock and its emergence in the Star Wars universe. I like that. I thought Ray Stevenson was good, rest in peace. That he was cool, Baylon. Oh, that was Ray Stevenson? Yeah.

Oh, man, yeah. What's up with getting impaled with a lightsaber and then being okay? I just mentioned that. Yeah, I didn't know that was part of me is like, okay, well, it cauterizes itself. Does it? So you're not bleeding out. Well, it's hot, I think. I also think, though, if you're, like, if I was a, does she get killed by, is it a robot with a

lightsaber? No, no, it's what's her name? He's beefing, she's beefing with like the, the third dude who's rolling with Ray Stephen. Haley. What? Haley from Paramore. Right? I'm just like, broadly speaking. She's, Sabine is fighting, yes, a guy dressed in black, who I think is a guy, right? Or I think it's just like, the one that, that Osoka fights later, who has the dark malish double blade. Yes, which is pretty chill. And, a robot. Okay, right. And it's the young woman,

the young blonde woman. And that robot is actually writing the next season. Yes, that robot actually had its copyright upheld in the APTP proposal. It's writing the next season of the morning show. It is, again, I'm not. Interior. You actually, despite what I said last week. John Hamm walks into the room.

Popular handsome actor. And he sees Jennifer Anderson. What is he do next? He says, I have something to tell you. The news used to be about people, not corporations. I think Vivek has interesting things to say. That guy's who's pretty chill. Yeah.

You watch more, despite what I said last week or on Monday, you watch more episodes of House MD than I did. So you have a better sense of what's inside our body carriages. If you were poking someone with a light sword, how many times out of 10 would you miss anything important? Well, do they mention to her, like, oh, he missed all the, vital organs. No, they just help her. Right. They just are like, oh, good.

To be fair, it seems like when you go in the Bacta, is that what that is? Oh, listen, oh, and I'm an asshole for knowing the name of Timothy Zon. I'm actually pretty into surgical, medical like pods. Because one of my one of the all-time craziest things I've ever seen is that that scene in Prometheus when she

has that surgery. She does. What was I saying? You're saying like, the thing we didn't know about light sabers is that you could just get run through with one and then be fine. Yeah, I always thought that was a fatality. Yeah. Yeah. And I liked living in a world where that happened. Yeah.

It was at least you could count on it. Right. That was surprising to me. Well, you remember the all-time nervous breakdown I ever had on this podcast was when they fake killed Chewbacca. Yes. Remember? And I was just like, he should be dead.

Why are we doing this? See, this is the thing that I'm trying to, we're idiots. We've been screaming at each other about this since before COVID. Since longer than that. Yeah. Long, I mean... No, but before that, I think we were like, it's pretty cool. They were like, Star Wars.

You were like, Solo's not so bad. Yeah. That was your take, I believe. It looks fucking pretty good now. It really does. Okay, so your daughters didn't like it. Is this the kind of thing where you're like, let me know when Thron shows up?

Do you want to know, like, if you just want to know one moment why I didn't like it, it was when Clancy Brown is giving his speech in front of the cartoon mural of the characters to remind everyone that this was a cartoon? and he goes, because it was on this day several years ago. It's like fucking pick a year. Yeah.

You coward, pick a year. Yeah. You just have what? I don't know why they, I don't know why he was vague about it. On my next birthday, I'm going to try that. I'd be like, thank you friends for gathering. I turned 40 several years ago. Several years ago I was born.

Yeah. Let's not get into the details. Pick one. It's the same thing where it's like after Andor, you can't have a moment. moment in a show. Yes, you can't. No, wait. Wait, not that.

Here's the moment you can't have. You can't have a moment in a show where a character you're supposed to trust and like and have faith in their intelligence. Like, what's the green lady's name? Hera. You can't have her be like, you still have people loyal to the empire here? Why would they be loyal to the empire? You can't do that.

And the entire show is about loyalties and the working class. But Rosario says at the end of the episode, He's like, it's about green. Okay. Oh, so you feel like the class struggle was accurately represented in the second, in the end of, in the end of Asoka, too? I mean, I just, I feel in all likelihood that they were just pointing at, like, a screen, you know, where they were just like, I thought that that actually,

that's the bigger thing. That was actually a pretty, I thought it was like that that was another one where it's the same way I was like, Thron and Bridger stranded on the other side of the galaxy and two forces racing to find them. is an interesting idea. I actually thought, like, within the kind of scope of the show, there being a kind of shadow military industrial complex growing out of the New Republic being like,

yeah, we're going to throw like these hyperdrives in the Star Destroyer, but you don't need to know about like why we're doing that. And them getting like randomly inspected by Asoka and Hara and be like, why are you guys building this shit? Yeah. Was, I, there's parts of this where I was like, I would watch this, but I just need to be. somebody to punch up the dialogue. I agree. The moment at the end of two, when Sabine's in her

not really that sick bed, where she's totally fine. Let's just reiterate that. And she's talking to hologram Hera. Yeah. And there is, the tenor of that conversation is one we've never seen before because we have seen master apprentice relationships in Star Wars for as long as there has been Star Wars, but we've not seen a master apprentice relationship between two women. And that was felt, it didn't feel significant in a like click-baity you go-girl moment. I was like, that's an interesting relationship. That's a different dynamic. And I'm glad that the show is aware of that and pursuing it.

But to your point, it's just flat. It's just flat. She's like, you did good. And she's like, you're the one that needs to hear that. Okay. Let me, can I get some regenerative AI during a pass on that? Because I think it could be punched up a little bit. walks in and says.

How much more would you like the show? John Hamm walked in that moment. All right. So did we fix anything? Is it a keeper? You want me to see Thron? I don't, I think that my... I'm not going to make you watch this.

I think I'll check out. There was a really spirited debate on the Midnight Boys about when they need to bring the two homies in, Thron and Bridger. Oh, I think I meant Charles and Van. No, because they're like... To just fix this. They are like, is this going to take the...

entire season for them to find these guys because, you know, theoretically, if they are stranded on the other side of the galaxy and you need this very special map with a key and a witch to find them, you wouldn't be like, we got there. That was quick. On the other hand, do you really want

to watch however many episodes of like diversions and like, we thought we found them, but we didn't? And now we're on a different planet, but there's a case to be solved. You know, like, I know that I would like personally for them to be like, we got out there. I'll worry about the suspension of disbelief while I'm watching a Star Wars show on my own end.

I really, really like watching Rosario do lightsaber fights. That is a good reason to watch a show for me. But broadly, you guys have heard us, we do this every four to six months. I think I'm out. I mean, this isn't for me. I'm happy it's for someone. And our season two will come out eventually, I hope. That's kind of our.

and our season two is a league of our own RIP to that show. I hope it doesn't have a similar fate. All right. Let's take a quick break and then we're going to come back and talk reservation dogs. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game or grabbing a coffee,

it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. Be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Okay, Andy, we're back. I wanted to talk to you about these last couple of reservation dogs. I thought you wanted to talk about Samantha's return on it just like that.

I haven't seen it yet. Don't spoil it. Oh, sorry. You've not watched An Just Like That at all. No. Is it is... I just think SJP is dealing. Is Samantha kind of your throne?

No, I always liked Miranda. I always liked Miranda. She was my favorite non-carry of the bunch. Interesting. Yeah. Who's the other one? Charlotte. I like her.

Did you never watch this show? Barely. Sex in the city? Not really. Not really? Anyway, reservation dogs. Let's do it. I see the vision.

I think I see the vision. Mm-hmm. Okay, so... So we're talking through episode five? We're talking through episode five, which is called Housemade of Bongs. Great name. That's why I see the vision, is this guy just knows how to name things. Sterlin

Harjo and this third season I think if you're just going episode by episode what it is missing is the quest right like it's missing the like are they going to get out of Oklahoma what's going to happen when they get to California what you know we've come back now there are some ramifications

but in the fourth episode for the most part on Friday I think that which is a very like lovely slice of life these guys sort of working off detention for running away at the IHS building

yeah there are some like little like seeds of stuff like Laura's father and like what if you know is there a Willie Jack becoming a medicine woman yeah and is there a budding romance there with bear but like there's still no like will this

or won't this happen do you know what I mean which I think for and not unlike our conversation with Star Wars like you could have this sort of like, does every show need this like reason for being? Obviously reservation dogs has like reason for being. But now after House Made of Bongs, and if you watch House Made of Bongs

in conjunction with obviously the second episode because it's about the origins of the Maximus character that Bear meets out there. And also in conjunction with the Dear Lady episode, it's a strange season of TV. It's an unorthodox season of TV. television. And I think it goes towards what I was saying a few weeks ago about it being more like a

book of short stories that interconnect rather than a novel or a sequel to a novel about these group of kids trying to do a specific thing. But holy shit. Like, he's trying to tell like an alternative social history of this group of people in Oklahoma. It is actually like pretty daring. I agree. I think that I like these cities.

the vision because I think that this has always been clear in the subtext, but it's being brought to the four in this final season, that the show is not about these four kids leaving this place. It's about these four kids realizing where they are from. And in a way, the operating statement for the series was voiced by super, super, super high teenagers in the 70s in the backseat of a car in last night's episode, the idea when Bucky's like, like the link is broken. Yeah. We've seen this before in the, in the, in the between generation,

Regis generation. Yeah. They've been attention paid to them over the past three seasons as well. And there was also some echoes there that I almost got confused about in time, not confused in the way I was, it was like, is this before the prequel series or after? Right. More like there is a, you know, Laura's mother dies in a car crash that we don't see, but then when everyone was piling into a car, still tripping on window paint,

I was like, wait, wait, there's a car car car. Oh, no. It's the different generation, but there are cycles that repeat themselves. So that idea of, just that fundamental human idea of everyone is fucked up, they just get older and maybe learn a little bit of perspective and can share it is a really powerful one. It makes for great art and great storytelling. And I really liked the turn the season took into that. That said, the best episode of the season to my mind through five is still four, which

is the most traditional old school Red Dog's episode. With this cast in this moment, I still like that more than the other episodes. I thought that there were real highs in the first three, but I was just, I guess fundamentally less interested in Bear's Spirit Quest out on his own. You want to see them together. I like them interacting together. I think that they are a remarkable ensemble, both for the performances, but also the different notes that those characters can play when they're played together. And then there's also does seem to be a little bit of

not uninteresting, but slightly less compelling to my taste notebook clearing, which is to say, like, the Dear Lady Origin story was a really remarkable attempt to talk about a part of American history

and certainly native history that you and I probably aren't that familiar with, don't not spend a lot of time thinking about because we've never been forced too and never sought it out. That was remarkable to see on the screen in the service of a multi-pronged larger story. That said, there is,

just, again, like the ratio of the season of digressions versus main ingressions has been a little bit off to me. And it was in Bongs too in that it was really cool. It was dazed and confused. Some of these characters, I feel connected to and interested in, like Brownie.

Others, I was like, oh, that's, oh, that's Buck. took me to the end to realize who that was. And does that matter? Did it take away from my enjoyment? No, unlike Asoka, someone could watch episode five of season three of reservation dogs and be like, cool. Yeah. I get it. That alone is interesting. But watching this season, the way you and I are watching it certainly week to week to week,

I've struggled to pull it all together with the ease that I did the first two seasons. I'm completely fascinated to see what he does at the back half of the season. I mean, I'm with you. I thought that the, I thought House Made a Box was charming. It was also about Maximus, the character we met two episodes ago.

Yeah, but it was also like quite moving to imagine like this guy essentially his life of probably it's alluded to in the second episode at least that he's been institutionalized that he's had a shock therapy that he is essentially like, I don't know if that's rooted entirely

in a bad acid trip. And it's also like asking you to sort of believe the unbelievable and be like, what if this guy did have this experience and it is real to him. And this is part... I love that he's like sort of taking caricature

and making them characters, and I love that he's taking mythology and making it history, you know? And like, where does this stuff come from? These stories we tell ourselves. And what does it mean to subsequent generations of people as it goes on and on, you know? Yeah, and I got to say,

I wish that it was still up, but when I was in New York recently, I went to the Whitney, and I saw this exhibit by an artist. Holy shit, I saw that too. Well, you saw it? Yeah. And I don't know how to say her name correctly.

I don't know if it's John Quick to See Smith or Johnny Quick to See Smith. But I'll say it's low. It's J-A-U-N-E is her first name. Quick-to-C is her middle name. And Smith is her last name. I didn't know you saw it. It's fucking incredible, man.

It's this remarkable. It was an overview of her. I think it just ended. It just ended last weekend. Yeah. But her art was totally wild, totally incredible. It was called memory. map. And it's got like the kind of Roshenberg

like collagy aspect to it. And to see it was just a casual Roshenberg name job. Don't worry about it. I was going to applaud you. I was going to give you your flowers. Thanks. Your art flowers. To see it helped it also just helped me and my appreciation of and respect

for reservation dogs because there is a, of course, this is not to be proud of my own ignorance up to this point, but there is just a such a rich vein and tradition of native art that is so funny and so self-aware and so engaging with mainstream popular culture and commenting on it and but yet also

connected to this is not true to the painting but I just mean largely metaphorically dear ladies yeah or star people and it's all to be said in the same breath and to see this art which went back decades and then watch the show and see what Sterlin is doing almost like he's not alone he has a rich community of talented people that he's now raising up with him but the It's not a burden either, but this show to educate me and to bring me more into that tradition. And he's doing it across... It's still entertaining.

Yeah, but he's doing it across genres and styles. I didn't know you saw that. Look at us. Look at us. Seeing art. But, you know, it was really cool to connect a show that we like or that even we can quibble with week to week and connect it to a much larger tradition. It's the best thing about art is when you can start to see it in different places. You know what I mean?

It's when you're like, oh, I'm really into this novel or this television show or this film. And then what you take from that film can find it in a gallery at a museum or you can find it in a piece of literature or whatever. It's just like those cross connections are what I live for, essentially. Because God knows I don't have the Wagner group to believe in anymore. I live for the New Republic. And I hope that it can, the magazine, not these stories. But there's a moment in the Dear Lady episode, which I hadn't seen when I saw the exhibit the other week at the Whitney. but we're basically the little boys like when the little boy and the dear lady in the past are like we can smile because that's what we can do.

It's devastating in the context of that episode. But it is also that that is what animates I think Sterling's art and his work. And that's also what animated Johnny Quick to See Smith, you know, these pieces about how the essential aspects of native life, one of them is humor. Always humor. And like that's something, that is an understanding. That is just so culturally powerful and moving. and also not what decades or centuries of white representation of native life has ever given us. Yeah, it's interesting.

It's also just interesting to go from talking about Star Wars, which often inspires us to go very large in our... Proclamations. And criticisms. Yeah. To switching gears entirely to a show that I revere and taking issue with some of it in the micro, but still loving it in the macro. Good conversation.

Always, a rich and good conversation. I was listening to NPR on the way in. First Rauschenberg, now NPR. There's a thing NPR hosts do when they're kind of like cycling through the guests, where some guy was calling in and he was telling the host about like what the conditions are in the Fulton County Jail that Trump can expect when he gets processed today. And the host just ends up by like, interesting, thanks a lot. And then the interview's over.

Do you want to try that? I was thinking about bringing that vibe, like cutting you off like mid-Mittico and be like, Really interesting stuff, Andy. Thanks so much. Now coming up next, Charles and Vand. I think Bill and everyone at Spotify writ large would prefer it if we made this more like NPR. Isn't that? Don't you think? Like that's the better vibe for us? So in what way? We should slow it down.

Fundraising? That's a great idea. Thanks to Kai for producing us. We'll be back on Monday. I hope everybody has a great weekend.