The Watch - Remembering Cormac McCarthy. Plus, ‘Primo’ and Some Mailbag Questions.

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Chris and Andy remember the prolific novelist Cormac McCarthy, who passed away this week at 89 (1:00). They also talk about the untraditional rollout for ‘The Flash’ (10:43), how delightful ‘Primo’ is (21:47), and ‘Spy/Master’ (29:18) before answering a few mailbag questions (35:11). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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First of all, thank God we speak for fluent Spanish. It's Andy Greenwald! It's true. It's a good thing. I mean, look. You know what that's from, right? I had no idea what you're talking about. In kicking and screaming. Oh, yeah. When Eric Stoltz, they're going to have the book club meeting with all the pretty horses. And Eric Stolt sits down and the first thing he says is thank God we speak fluent Spanish. And then he says, Otis, you did read the book, right? And he says, no. You threw it. me because, okay, guys, let's

pull back the curtain a little bit. There was a moment of calm, sometimes before we hit record, when Chris is gathering his thoughts, he's preparing his quon, he's applying three to four nicotine patches to his body, and also he's preparing the intro.

And you said you were going to do a Quarman McCarthy one because the great man fell. Passed away, 89 due to natural causes. I didn't know you were going to reach back to kicking and screaming. Because you and I did rewatchables kicking and screaming with William J. Simmons.

We did. Yeah. We did. Was that the highest rated episode of rewatchables? It's up there. I figured. It's up there with proof of life. Is it the most relistened to episode of the rewishables?

At least by the Mirren Hackford family. Yeah. Did we do, we did one together, just us? We did train spotting. We did ten of bombs, train spotting and kicking and screaming together. I think Bill's on kicking and screaming. Oh, and then we did ten bombs and we did. And the fugitive.

Oh, yeah. We did the fugitive. Yeah. I feel like we need, the fugitive should be redone. I don't think it was done with all the categories. Without me. Yeah, you know, I mean, your day rate's really expensive, you know? Andy, what's going on, man?

It's Thursday. Today on the pod, we're going to talk a little bit about Cory McArthur, who did pass away this week. We're also going to talk about our buddy Shea Serrano's show, Primo, which is on Freevy, the Amazon Fast Channel, which keeps putting out banger comedies of which Primo is one. And also, you know what I don't mind? commercials.

What do you do during them? Just stare into the middle distance, like, a Carmine McCarthy protagonist. I usually sit there on freebie with a pen and a pad writing down all of the side effects of the pharmaceuticals that they are advertising to me. That's good. Because that's what I want is just the side effects.

So maybe there's other ways to get there. That would be a good Black Mirror episode is if it was just a pill called side effects and it didn't actually do anything but make you nauseous. I think there are lots of things in the world that can do that. You don't need a doctor's prescription. I would love to say that we watched all of Black Mirror this morning and are ready to give a disquisition

on the mostly hour-plus episodes of the show, but I have not seen it yet. It did not, was not made available in advance. Whoa, shots fired by Chris. No, it's not a big deal. Shots. It gives me something to do this weekend. Just trying to be dramatic.

And so I can't wait to watch it, but haven't watched it yet. We're going to talk about Primo. We're going to talk about Spymaster show on Max, and then we're also going to answer some of your listener questions. I can see Kyah be like, this is going to be a long one. What is the, see, where we sit in the studio, you can see Kai's face. I just assume she's smiling and chuckling all the time.

Yes. When you got the information, visual cues from her that this was going to be a long one, did she crack her knuckles, did she sigh? I think her eyebrows almost like infinitismally raised as I kept adding things to our docket. Okay, got it.

Okay, should we do Coram McCarthy first? I mean, shouldn't we? Should we fucking knock this guy out? How about that? It's only the greatest living rate or, well, you know, should I redo that because he's not living? He's only the greatest living American writer until Wednesday. Yes.

Honestly, one of my two or three favorite novelists, the writer of my favorite novel, Blood Meridian, I am who I am. I'm not a particularly original person. Blood Meridian is my favorite novel. That's fairly original. It's not like you said Infinite Jest or something. No, but I think that it's not uncommon for guys in their 40s

who did some college. To be like, have you read Blood Meridian? that's my favorite novel. Okay. That's funny. What do you think? I did some college. You got my age correctly.

Yeah. And Blood Meridian may be the only Cormick McCarthy novel that I read. So I would not count on you as a partner in this remembrance necessarily, but you can go along for the ride with me. I can walk down the road. Saddle up. Right? I would say that just my thoughts on Corbock McCarthy are pretty simple. What an amazing life.

What an incredibly unique character and figure and what a towering literary job. yada yada. Everybody knows those things. I felt like when I read Blood Meridian, that not only opened up a world of language and pro style that I think I understood existed in people like Faulkner or existed in people like Hemingway, but it was pretty revelatory to think that these books were being written during my lifetime. Because for most of my life up until that point, literature was. something that was studied as almost an artifact, you know, because I was like, say, I was like 18, maybe 19 when I read Blamrenian. No, it's true. Like the totems were like, here's

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and all of it was in the past. It was kind of like also being told, well, the Beatles and the Stones already happened. Yes. Things, and that, and that is what rock and roll slash novels are. Yeah. And to have these works being coming out with, like, it made me feel like great literature was still like a going concern and a meaningful like meaningful industry at the time. And it's so hard to kind of articulate what someone like him meant to me. I mean, his move into the sort of popular imagination of American life was like kind of amazing. You know, when you look back on it that this guy had the border trilogy and there was like a botched movie adaptation. of all the pretty horses,

but those works continue to, like, I think Levant, I've read those. By botching me, the Billy Bob Thornton movie that was made? Well, the Billy Bob Thornton movie, I think, was in its conception, and a lot of its execution was quite wonderful. I think that there was a lot of Harvey Weinstein shenanigans

that went on with cutting it, and then Daniel Laila W wouldn't let his score be used because of what they did to the edit and stuff like that. And then for him to have, like, this sort of late period flowering, not only creatively, but also as like this sort of Hollywood, this Hollywood producer, not literally a producer,

but somebody who produced works for Hollywood, where he writes the road, it becomes this sensation, this Oprah Book Club rocket ship. Bizarre. He writes, No Country for Old Men, which almost immediately gets optioned and produced and made by the Coens,

and then that film goes on to win multiple Oscars. And then has the screenplay, the counselor that he writes that Ridley Scott makes, which is kind of, to me, at least, a cult classic. And, you know, a couple of people have hit me up being like, oh, what would you recommend? I start with. And I think you could go with, like, you know, a number of different periods of his career. There's the earlier sutry child of God days that are in times quite comic, incredibly dark, but, you know, Southern Gothic.

And then he moves west and he kind of does the border trilogy. And I don't think you can go wrong with all the pretty horses as a place to, start. But in a lot of ways, some of his later works, like the counselor's screenplay, and he published two novels last year, the passenger and Stella Morris, I think it was last year, maybe it was this year. And the passenger is absolutely astonishing. And it's largely concerned with this brother and sister in and around Louisiana, I think in the 80s is when it's set, but one of their parents worked on the Manhattan Project. And a lot of it has to do with this sort of apocalyptic vision of mathematics and science.

And it's a very, very mystical book. And I adored it. So he'll be missed, but what a life, 89, and what a legacy and what a gift to, like, world literature. It's also funny because when you think about the length and breath of someone's life, it's different than the one or two books you hold in your head, right? So my understanding of him was from really reading Blood Meridian and being like, that was a passageway to a chilling corner of the American psyche,

and I don't know if I can go back into it. But he lived a very long and varied life, right? And I remember being sort of surprised. Do you know the New Yorker writer and Texan Lawrence Wright? He's written plays and TV shows, Looming Tower and journalism. During the pandemic or even just before, I was, I'm not a big audiobook guy, but I was listening to his book about Texas. and a lot of it is about why he left the career that he thought he was going to have in New York City to move to Austin

and just like really center himself in a place. And he's talking about like literary parties in Texas in the 70s and Cormac McCarthy's just sitting there with a beer. Just live, like these people were really people, right? And had very different experiences. And he was a pretty eccentric guy. I mean, like he lived at McCarthy worked out of this place called the Santa Fe Institute. Right. Which is, I'm still not entirely clear on how it works, but it seems like,

a summer camp for geniuses? Yeah, it's about like adaptive systems. Yeah. And that the idea is the unconscious is the machine for operating an animal. And a lot of the stuff that came out of the, like wound up going into the passenger, I think came out of his experiences at the Santa Fe Institute.

Do you think they'd ever have us there? At the Santa Fe Institute? Yeah. I think I was invited to the Albuquerque Institute, which is an offshoot. It does not require an IQ quite as high. Is that like at an Arby's or something? It's, well, no, I mean, look,

the food is good. Yeah. But the adaptive thinking is not as good. I want to get to Primo. Yeah. Can I ask you a quick question about the Flash? RIP to Cornwall McCarthy.

Just one of the formative figures of my life. I agree. By the way, I'm making a joke about him drinking beers in the 70s. He quit drinking in the 70s. Maybe after that Lawrence Wright Party. Yeah. So I don't want to like to smirch the guy's name.

Literally his last beer. That was probably it. The Flash comes out this weekend. Yeah. And doesn't it feel like the Flash? has been out for a month. Yes, because of this very non-traditional rollout. That's what I wanted to ask you about.

And whether or not that has been a positive or not. So when the Flash was first sort of, I mean, obviously, this has been a tortured and exhaustive development and production story for a number of reasons, not the least of which relating to Ezra Miller and their controversies off-camera. And then the film is,

finally more or less done. Andy Machete who did the Itch, the It movies is directing. And the early buzz via James Gunn, via insiders, a lot of people who had like skin in the game, but was this is the best superhero movie since Dark Night.

To come from Warner Brothers? That was the thing that was being said. And I think it was the worst possible thing that could have happened to this movie. Was the sudden turn towards this is great? I think that it's just, I think the whisper campaign about this movie and the attempt to make it not organically like an important movie instead of that wound up not being as bad as I thought it was going to be.

It was a mistake. Maybe. I haven't seen it. I'm not in a rush, I would say. Are you a rush to see it? Like a flash-like rush? Like, no, because I don't care about the DCU. But, you know, I think it's interesting.

I think we generally either misunderstand or potentially underrate the importance of marketing and marketing campaigns. For as much as I would love to say that it's not important, like quality wins out. In this incredibly noisy moment that we are barely living through, it probably matters more than ever. I mean, there was a Ben Affleck movie that didn't have promotion because of some studio, whatever, and it just, it's like it did it even happen? Remember that Adam? There was the Adam Driver Dinosaur movie. I mean, like, I'm not saying that those would have set the table for a box office success, but they would

have permeated the culture, maybe people would have at least been aware of it. So I think that these things do matter. And so if you're playing this zero-sum game where the studio's most important job is setting the best possible table for whatever is coming out, and maybe that is their job because

the setting table, the reservation of the table is made now five years in advance. So they do everything they can, almost irrespective of what the quality of the film is, if you look at it that way, kudos to Warner Brothers, I guess. Yeah. Because people understand that this movie is coming out. People understand generally that it's not disastrous, I think, you know, whatever. Actually, I mean, I think that it is getting some pretty bad reviews now, though. Well, no, I mean, up until this point when the embargo was lifted. Yeah. All of that is to say, I guess they should be feeling good about the job they

did to salvage what, you know, as recently as a year ago, people are like, are they just going to scrap this? Are they going to back girl this movie? But at the end of all this, that's a lot of effort for, it seems like, the latest chapter in their ongoing series, loud nonsense. It does seem like the latest example of a, this has to exist. So we're going to do the best possible version that we maybe can, given these constraints. And it's hinging on a lot of really weird things. Separate apart from your feelings about Ezra Miller on or off camera or the performance or the character,

the movie does seem based around the idea that there is an enormous thirst to see Michael Keaton be Batman again. Yeah. Maybe we see the movie and he's not actually the co-lead. And maybe that is all marketing, you know, to steer it away from Ezra Miller, who did not do until appearing at the red carpet, did not do any press for the movie.

But I don't know, I don't have many DC stands in my direct life but like I can't imagine any of them or like what I most want from a flash movie is a 60 year old Batman and a Supergirl I've never heard of before. Well I honestly wish that they just made the movie about

Flash and Supergirl. You know I think that we're on life support when it comes to how many times can we revive characters from our past and have them go through kind of gestural karaoke versions of the things that

they did 20, 30 years ago. Sometimes it's very affecting, but I do think that it would have been cooler for me in just in a pitch just to do, like, there are new people with new characters, and it's a fresh take, and it's like we're going to make our own, we're going to make our own hay here.

Also, this is now, we were joking about it last week, or not last week, Monday, when we were talking about Spider-Verse. Like, this is the same movie for the third time. This is, I can go back in time, or go to a different universe, and I can fix something. And it has disastrous results. So that's not the Flash's fault necessarily,

at its third of these movies to come out. Fourth, I guess, Dr. Strange was doing it too. No, well, Spider-Man, right? No Way Home. Right. Spider-verse 2. Uh-huh. And Dr. Strange 2.

Yeah. Right? Multiverse of Madness. Yeah. Great. And then this. Yeah, that's four movies. and your other version of the fugitive on the rewatchables

where I've been excise from it that makes it better. Here's the funny thing about this. The biggest winner of this movie, whatever it does, remains James Gunn because he was like, this is great. This is an incredible movie and he's out there, he's pressed in the flesh, but no matter what, he looks better if it tanks, honestly.

Not that if it tanks, but like every single thing that he has done in the last three or four months alone in terms of setting up what he's going to be doing now that he's in charge seems like the antithesis of what the Flash is. Which is to say, he's doing a Superman movie where the character of Clark Kent slash Superman is the star of the movie.

He's like Quinn Snyder coming in after the All-Star break for the Hawks. And it's like Trey Young and John Collins and Clint Capella, you have like these couple of months to impress me. Yeah. And if Trey Young goes on a heater and gets them out of the first round. It's like I always believed in Trey Young.

Trey Young's the best superhero since Batman. He's not on the hook. Yeah. for Trey Young's future sequel necessarily. All of this goes back to the original sin of the DC thing creation, which was the Flash was a means to an end. It was never like,

hey, let's have a reason to do this character from the jump. So, you know, it's funny that I remain impressed by Big Jim Gunn because he read the room, he saw the tea leaves, and I mean, I think Marvel is an absolute free fall, frankly, and why not make a nice Superman movie? If we're going to be making these things, that does seem like a good remedy.

So what is your... Is there anything about the Flash that interests you? Because I just... I think I should see it for cultural commentary purposes, but I have to say there's nothing in it that strikes me as that interesting. You know, I would see it just to see it.

I would see it just to see what Machete did because I did like the first hit movie a lot. And I think he's a talented director. And I think Sasha Kai seems like a really interesting performer. I could not really give less of a shit about old Batman's coming back though. Batman.

Batman. Yeah. And I, you know, nothing, no, like, surprise cameo that I've even heard about versus, like, even one I could imagine

is that enticing to me. And just the fact that the movie itself is being sold on that means, like, I think the movie itself is in the trailer. I think, like, what he does, like, it's like,

this guy is real upset about, you know, his parents and is going to go back in time to fix it. Did you see his dad is Ron Livingston? Oh yeah, I did. Love Ron Livingston. Band of brothers. A classic TV show that I spent a lot of time with

in the appropriate era. Before we move off of The Flash, where in the pantheon of, hey man, my kids go to private school, do Michael Shannon's quotes about being involved in this movie rank? I do feel like... Being like Zod was not much of a character study.

This is like a new clubhouse leader, I think. No, it's not just that. He was just like, I don't know, that's not really acting as far as I'm concerned. And yet he's there. What do you think is the correct? I mean, everybody knows this about you. When it comes to sports fandom, you're a big unwritten rules guy. You know what I mean?

Like you don't showboat when you're up in the fourth quarter. You know, you don't try to bunt for a base hit when the guy is a no hitter going. What's the last time you have heard someone who is new to this world, who was already established. So not somebody who's like, I've gotten my big break, so now by being in a DC or Marvel movie, but someone who is like,

I'm a veteran established actor who has then turned around and been like, what an amazing sandbox to play in. That was such a great experience. Because it's been a minute. Elizabeth Olson is literally trying to talk her way out of being in this.

Harrison Ford is like, being in Captain America, Brave New World is high key, fucking tough. They were working the shit out of me. I'm an old man. And he's just been Indiana Jones again. Yeah, Michael Shannon is like, that's not acting.

Here's my favorite thing is he says, these multiverse movies are somebody playing with action figures. It's like, here's this person, here's that person, and they're fighting. That's correct. It's not quite the in-depth character study situation that I felt Man of Steel was. That's the best, though. But you know what? I went back and I saw that quote, so I went back and watched the Man of Steel trailer. Yeah.

I was pretty hype for Man of Steel. The trailer was good. Yeah. No, they're all in hell. All of these people are in hell now being trapped in these movies. They are not. Whatever good vibes and LOL text chains were coming out of Atlanta. Like, I think it's very, very, very cool.

When Julia Louis Dreyfus is like, I can do how many days in Atlanta and then make a Nicole Hoffs in her movie? That sounds great. Yeah. Like, but when it's like Harrison Ford is like, I have been on set for an 89. straight days and no one ever knows what scene comes after another. That's tough, man.

That guy's an American institution. Yeah, it's a weird one. It does make you think of, you saw this, right, that like the advice that DiCaprio gave to Timothy Shalame. Yeah, no hard drugs, no superhero movies. Seems pretty good. Seems like good advice. That's also how we should pivot the podcast.

To doing. Oh, you want us to be all superhero movies and hard drugs? No, the opposite. You need to stop reading side effects. Yeah. And chasing weird anti-hyes. And we don't have to see the flash. This episode is brought to you

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Get savings with yellow sales signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Should we move to Primo? Yeah. Okay. Our buddy, Shea Serrano, created a TV show on FreeV called Primo. It is executive produced by Mike Scher.

And it stars Ignacio Diaz Silviero as Rafa, who's this kid who's being raised and molded by his mother and his five uncles. And Andy, listeners, I'm happy to report that this show is delightful, man. It's really good, but more than anything, it is Shea. And you can really, especially in the first episode, I've watched the first three, you can really feel Shea coming through in the like the characters and in what like the dialogue and in the scenarios and stuff

like I edited Shea for a while at Grantlin and at various points over time in the ringer I've known Shay for a really long time obviously this is how he emails like this is how Shay talks and this is how Shay texts and stuff so it's just kind of like sometimes I have to pinch myself where I'm like that's not Shea that's an actor you know our buddy Jason Concepci also wrote on this show.

We're a little late getting to it, but I'm going to be relishing the rest of the season. This is a wonderful show, and I'm so happy for Shay. I'm so happy for Jason. I'm happy for Mike Scher, who has made many successful shows and is doing very well,

even though he's on strike, but he deserves the happiness. Two things. I do want to talk about, like, this show and the void that it fills and shows like it in the overall TV landscape, but specifically about this show. Chris, I know that you did the same thing,

but I really enjoyed listening to now former Sixers coach, Doc Rivers, on the Bill Simmons podcast on Sunday. They were great together. And Bill asked Doc, like, who should Joelle Embed play with? Who would be the perfect person from to play with? And I thought of that when I was watching Primo. I watched, I guess, three or four of the episodes that are up out of, I think, eight. And I feel like Mike and Shea are perfect teammates.

Because it's so purely Shea, and it's drawn from his own experiences and his own life. a lot of Tony Parker stuff strewn throughout the San Antonio bedroom but Mike's particular gift which isn't which he's not precious about like he can do it on his own stuff and clearly he can do it

with others is that he just understands what makes satisfying half hour comedic television and it is so deeply character based the jokes are really good and it's a credit to the writing staff that they put together but the degree of difficulty I noted from a, I don't know, 28-minute pilot

that has to introduce a world, a main character, make the main character, likable, empathetic, et cetera, but also his friends, his single mom. There's like 12 characters. And his five distinctly differentiated uncles, each of whom has a completely different comedic voice and point of view.

I don't know how you do that in 28 pages of script. And more importantly, I could imagine as a first time TV writer and showrunner getting lost in the sauce of that. And so whatever alchemy that they worked up together was just so clear from the beginning. It's absolutely

a pleasure. The best situational comedies, the situation in them is, this is a situation I want to be in more. I want to spend more time here. And I get it. And it doesn't go too broad. It doesn't go too cute. It doesn't go too sweet. It just

kind of nails it. And by the second episode, they're already playing each individual instrument like an orchestra. You know who you can cut to for the joke that'll cut the sweetness here, et cetera, et cetera. Also really remarkable for finding actors that some of whom, you know, don't have giant credits who are carrying this show. All the brothers are good, right? Like, I think some of them are maybe more known than others or a little bit more famous than others, or at least have longer IMDB pages than others, like Carlos Santos, who plays the bank, tell her uncle. him watching Wolf of Wall Street, but just the cocaine parts.

Which turns out to be just Wolf of Wall Street. It's amazing, but like Effron V. As Mando is really funny. Jonathan Medina is Jay carries a lot of the show in the early going, and just has a great effect. He's making really good choices. They're all really good. What a delight. But I did want to say, like, watching a really high-quality, kind-hearted sitcom on Freevy felt good.

that felt good. Which is, is that like a subliminal shot at jury duty? No, not at all. Although I certainly sounded like one and I appreciate that. What I mean is, okay, I'll put it this way. Like, I got a text this week from a friend who's a, works in the TV industry and had surgery. Uh-huh. Hope she's feeling better soon.

And was like, in my like post-surgery haze, I decided to watch the boys for the first time. Okay. Have you seen it? I was like, yes, we podcast about it frequently. please listen to our podcast. But second, I was like, we were talking about something that has come up when we have talked about the boys, which is, yeah, they explode a whale. But also, it has the rhythms of a WB show from 2008. And I mean that as a good thing. It's a TV show. And it feels good to have a TV show, you know, that it's just like all the characters are going to get serviced. The plot's going to get advanced. We're going to resolve certain things and create other things. That's not so complicated. And, you know, I, I don't like covering this industry, like in a totally stratified binary, we get the idol or we get Primo. We actually have a couple of questions about stuff like that, yeah. I just thought that this was nailing it, and it's a really good use of the free-fee platform, and to go all the way back to the thing we were saying at the beginning.

Legitimately, I didn't mind the ads. The ad start. The show is rhythmically built. Big Daddy Bezos comes through again. No, but it's built. Serving us, beautiful, big, beautiful advertisements. A show like this is rhythmically, it's okay. I know. It's okay to have an ad break. It's okay to have an act break. It says 70 seconds of ads.

And I'm like, that doesn't seem like that much. So do you sit there and you're just like, O-Semphic? What was funny, well, I have a lot of O-Sem-Pic, but just in my home. But I, it had been so long that it took me into like, I guess, the third episode of Primo to remember that I could mute the commercials, that I didn't actually have to just engage with them as if this was more content. So I did that. I hope that doesn't cost Shea a second season. But that worked. It worked.

It's the right vibe. It's the right rhythm. It's a really, really strong show. And we should have more shows like this. Yes. And there's only one Shea, which is 100% true. And we love him. And I'm really excited for him.

Another new show that I think I referenced a couple of days ago on the pod, maybe last Thursday, maybe this Monday was Spymaster. And you checked out the first episode, as did I. It's a Mac show. which is a classic kind of last five to seven years, you know, basically like multinational production that brings together usually like performers

and sensibilities from Europe and the States. And this is the kind of show where it really works because it is a espionage thriller set during Chochescu's reign in Romania in the 80s during the Cold War. Would you make of it? I dug it. Yeah.

My Romanian is rusty. So the joke that I made was that I think that Max defaulted me to dubbed English. It does. And I... If you fire up the show, you get dubbed. Watch like 25 minutes being like, oh, they're going to speak English in Romania. That's interesting. Chachescu is just...

And I was like, I'm surprised they didn't do a polish on this dialogue. And then I was like, oh, this is dubbed. It's interesting. I mean, I want to say two things about the show. this is in our wheelhouse and I really like it and it has an incredible lead performance by Alex Sacherianu. It's my best Romanian

attempt. I apologize if I butchered his name as Victor Gordiannu who is the main character who is a spy master for the Romanian dictator Nikolait Chochescu who at least as we meet him in the beginning of the pilot is attempting to defect. But

it may be more complicated than that because this is a multi-episode spy series. It seems like he's in the pocket of the Soviets and now attempting to play a double game and escape Chichescu by going to the West. He's phenomenal. He just has an incredibly charismatic intensity and you want to follow him. Also, I was reading about the creators of the show. I mean, the great Romanian filmmaker Christian Mungi is an executive producer of it.

It's pretty sick. The direction is awesome. Yeah. And also the sense of place is pretty amazing. It's really exciting. And when you read the interviews with the creator, I mean, they say all the right things for us, where they just talk about La Care and they talk about what the Americans did. And in terms of being, you know, having the storytelling language that we're familiar with,

it reminds me a little bit of a show we were also referencing the other day, with Deutschland 83. It's set in the Carter administration, so the period details are cool. And also just a constant reminder that spy stories were a little bit better before we just had tracking devices in our pockets that we carried around willing. Yeah, like there basically was a moment that I think born is the last time where it's like, it's kind of cool watching Chris Cooper ask for them do anything. enhance on a CCTV camera, but after that, it just becomes like, hey, is this guy

have a phone? Let's go find him. Yeah. Oh, did he ever go anywhere at any time? Okay, we have on video. Yeah. So, I was watching that movie reality, the Cindy Sweeney. Oh, yeah. I heard is pretty good. Fantastic. But it is pretty amazing. It's essentially just dialogue. The dialogue is all from the interview between the FBI agents and reality winner. And the FBI, uh, the FBI agents are like, we know everything. We're just kind of here to know why. And that's the only thing they don't know. But it's like their level of tracking of her movements and things that she did is so

comprehensive that they don't need to like catch her. They're just like, you're caught. But this is your opportunity to maybe get into some of the motivations. Yeah. So from a character perspective, that could be rewarding. Yeah. But like, now we've arrived at this place where like it's hard to do espionage when they're like, we got you.

Yeah, so it's nice to go back in time for that purpose alone. I think that this is another example of something that I think shows the promise of this globalized streaming world, but also a little bit of the limitations, which is to say how great that a show like this fully formed can just appear on our streaming service, and we can have a window into a different part of the world and see the filmmaking talent and acting talent and just a different perspective on, again, a type of story that we love. Saying something as La Carre-a-esque can mean very different things to very different people. people, depending what side of the iron curtain you grew up on. I think the downside to it is because this is a, I think it's a German-Romanian co-production, but also features American characters.

There is a portion of the show that is in English, characters speak in English, and sometimes we saw this, remember in Squid Game when it's just like the rich people who they're playing the game for were the five American people they found near the studio in South Korea that day. Yeah. So, you know, maybe not like a Michael Shannon level of character study from those guys. No offense. There's a little bit of that here because they had to make do with what they could get.

And so, because they're not really hiring. I mean, I think the guys named Parker Bowles is pretty good as the American CIA guy, who's his, who Gojo's meeting in the early episodes. I'm excited to see more of him. But like when they cut to Camp David, the guy's like, President Jimmy Carter can take no more of this today. Okay. It might bump some people. So that's my only hesitation is being like, is this, on its own merits, one of the 10 best shows of the year so far?

Not sure yet. I haven't watched enough. Is this really recommended us a interesting, thought-provoking, fun watch in the genre we like? Yes. That's a great... I couldn't say it better than myself. But it is the subtext to this story, and maybe in a weird way to Primo, too, these shows have nothing in common otherwise, is how much labor there is in... working with what you have, you know, because, again, like, Amazon is richer than

almost any other company in the world. They aren't budgeting their freebie shows the way they're budgeting Lord of the Rings. And shout out to Shay for shooting in Albuquerque, great town. I know I kind of talked back about it early, but shooting there is, has challenges and has opportunities. And this is a largely unknown cast that he's working with, and they're mining gold. And one thing that I was looking at, because knowing they filmed in Albuquerque, was like, you know, comedy shows like this, you need guest stars, you need cutaways, you need people to be able to sell the business in the background,

and they do it. Yeah. And I think one thing that undoes shows, not saying Spymaster is undone. But sometimes it's like maybe the money runs out at a certain point. Yeah, or your ambition is bigger than the reality of what you have to work with. Yeah. You know, that certainly happened to me in my experience at times.

And I feel like that is an, it's undercovered or under articulated. You know, you have to be able to execute to the highest possible level within the sandbox that you've been invited to play in. Would you like to answer some questions from our listeners? I would. How's Kaya doing? Just like her body language. She's listing a little. No, she's sitting up straight. Her posture is never in question.

That's true. That's true. All right. Kenny Chapman asked. I threw this out to your favorite platform meta. Oh, did you do it in the multiverse? Did you put on the goggles and be like, hello, traveler? I just asked if anybody had any questions. I thought it would be fun to just take a grab bag today. Thursday. It's gloom me out. We haven't watched Black Mirror. Oh, is it gloom me out? I hadn't noticed. Do you want to get some feelings about the weather off your chest? No, because I do think that as an adult of a certain age, I can't actually be the way that I am, but we live in cloud jail.

But I don't know, like, when do you keep this from people? Like, you're always, you definitely make your feelings about the weather known. Yeah, I'm having a giant tantrum. Okay. But I feel like I shouldn't be. I'm stoic about this. No, I just shouldn't be encouraged. Like, Kai, when was the last time you saw the sun. You live on the west side. It's even worse there. I think it came out for a couple hours on Tuesday. It comes out at the end of the day. It didn't yesterday. Or the day before. Like, it's been 12 days. No, yeah, 12 days since the sun was out in Los Angeles. Now, I'm not saying this being like, wow, we deserve our beautiful blue skies. It's more like, why would we be here if it wasn't nice out? Don't they, they call it June gloom for a reason, right?

And then May gray, and then it's been fucking Seattle since November. It'll just make you appreciate some more It's just Vancouver without the charm I'm not I want people to be clear I'm not saying this because I'm an entitled baby who lives here and demands and deserves good weather

although I am an entitled baby who lives here Yeah It's more that like I'm actually saying We didn't move here for the vibrant theater scene No I know that's true So other cities Have like infrastructure to support hell Right

It's like you can just go to bars all the time Yeah or something Yeah okay sorry Yeah it sucks Kenny Chapman, recency bias aside, where does across the Spider-Verse rank in the superhero movie Pantheon? When you close your eyes and you see four movie posters

from the superhero movie era, so at 08 to today, and you're like, somebody says, Andy, I need four superhero movies that you think are the best from this era. What are the ones you think of? What's the Rushmore? Wow. Can I help you? This is a classic wish I could have prepared for it more.

Okay. But I can wing it. I think you and I can do it together. Okay. When it comes to superhero movies, more or less, we have similar sensibilities. So I'm going to say Dark Knight. Maybe. I'm going to say Winter Soldier.

Okay. I'm going to say Logan. Huh. All right. Oh, so we do not have similar sensibilities. So far none, but go on. And Black Panther. Yeah, I think Black Panther would be on there.

I think Look, you know I have a lot of controversial Unpopular Takes I like Batman Begins more than the Dark Night Okay That may be wrong But I would put I would put Batman Begins

Black Panther Endgame And Spiderverse And the middle three episodes of Shehulk Oh if I could Yeah I would put I would put Yeah I would put

The third episode of Moon Night The Werewolf by Night special. Yeah, I actually liked that. Yeah, that was really good. No, okay, so mine would be, yeah, I feel like I'm missing. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of stuff. We haven't said any Avengers movies. No, I did.

No, I did. End game said. Okay. And where does Spiderverse go in that list? Well, wait. So historically, is Rushmore ranked best to worst? No, but you mean. Is Teddy Roosevelt your number one?

I think the whole idea of the Rushmore is that there's four. You don't have to pick up fast. I'm just asking, so Spider-Vers is on the Pantheon of those movies. Yeah, in terms of like what I think... So what do you mean by Pantheon? Like, what represents... That's Kenny's question. I'm just...

No, but in your conception of it, are you picking the four movies that you feel objectively are the best? Or are you picking the four that, to your mind, best represent the era of filmmaking? Oh, no. I think they're the best. I don't think it... I'm not going to say... I mean, like, in some ways, Venom is a really representative movie of the era because that was the point where it was like you literally can make a side character from Spider-Man have these confused studio systems.

And like, because it's sort of how somehow related, it's going to make a billion dollars. Yeah, that's true. And I think that if, I mean, I think I'm having it both ways because there's no question. If you're doing it like Pantheon, like what matters, what's relevant, what will last, what. is talked about and remembered, there's no question that it's Dark Night. Batman Begins is sort of a trolley kind of... I mean, in the pause between talking about it,

I was thinking about Katie Holmes' performance, no disrespect. But for me, I put Batman Begins because I really loved it, but also because that felt like, oh, we're going to do it this way. Yeah. Which then continued in Dark Night, and I think there were things in that movie that were absolutely incredible and things that I just kind of can't... Like the whole, you know, the surveillance boat thing

and the Two-Face part, He didn't like Two-Face? No. Oh, okay. But Heath Ledger, I like that. That's not a controversial take. He was amazing. But that belongs on the list.

I mean, that was critically lauded and Oscar nominated, et cetera. Are we forgetting? The answer is probably yes. Are there any movies in this genre that aren't Marvel and DC movies that deserve to be on here? Or Sony, affiliated Sony ones? I mean, like... Like, some people might put the Incredibles on there. I would not.

but in terms of capturing the spirit of a superhero type movie. Like Chronicle? Right, okay. Yeah, exactly. Again... I wouldn't necessarily say that it was like in the Pantheon, but are you talking about movies like that? Yeah, that are... Speak the language of superheroes.

No, so anyway, so my list would be one of the Batman movies. I'm hedging Black Panther Endgame and Spider-Verse. Tyler Bolton Furman asks, what does an eventual streaming consolidation look like from both a business and user perspective? Will there be one app similar to Macs that has the libraries of previous apps? How will companies want to structure said consolidation?

As far as merging, what media companies are most likely to buy others? We talked about this a little bit when we talked about Apple Vision Pro, and we were kind of joking around about that. But the reason I selected this question was whether or not, like, do you think there will be essentially

a technological merger where everybody decides this is the best way to do it to be on Apple TV or to be on whatever

or do you think it will be a content production studio merger where it's like Max buys Peacock or vice something like that

why not both I don't have the answers and I also don't even pretend to have the the stock market savvy or at least the business

a fair savvy of our colleague in the Ringer podcast, Matt Bellany, talks about this on the town. But it is a broadly shared belief that this current setup where every studio has its own siloed streaming service that that is not sustainable. And as we've said many times,

these companies are very, very, very different in terms of what they can afford and how long they can continue to go. I don't mean continue to go without new content because of the writer's strike. I just mean like the arms race. Apple is safe. Netflix is safe.

Amazon is safe, obviously. Beyond that, it's not entirely clear. There's a lot of... The longstanding rumor has been that David Zazlev combined Warner Brothers and Discovery to sell it again.

And the most likely places that could go would be Comcast Universal. But then there were rumors that Comcast Universal was sniffing around Paramount. So those smaller ones could consolidate.

I think the main thing that people ought to be prepared for is that we are going back to a bundle of some sort. And I think that that bundle will exist on Apple or Amazon or both. And I think you will choose one or the other as your, like, player. And the fact of the matter is that we're kind of getting there now because you can subscribe to a lot of those services through Apple Prime or you can subscribe to them through Apple TV, I think.

Yeah. And that is one of the main drivers for Amazon's entry into making original content. And frankly, like the older I get. it through them. The older I get, the easier it is to do stuff like that rather than be like, I'm going to Shudders specific website to enter my specific username and password. I thought you meant you were going to shutters the pricey beach hotel in Santa Monica in order to watch. That's where I stayed on my wedding night. That's so nice. Did you watch any streaming television? Maybe we, no need to get into that now. So yes. The answer is yes, but I don't know what it's going to

look like. And it's a little scare. I mean, we're being glib about it because we don't know, but it is a little freaky to be like there are going to be fewer companies and we're going to only be paying two of them to consolidate everything. That doesn't feel good creatively or, what's the other word? Democratically? Yeah. A little weird.

Sort of sort of, this is not entirely like a companion question, but it is a question about like how studios and how streamers decide to do things. Dan Clipper asks, Hulu is dropping the entirety of the bear into our laps on June 22nd.

Yeah. Agree or disagree? And he shows you can think of that would have worked better with a full season drop or vice versa. I'm going to say something to you now. Okay. I cannot remember the last time that I was like, I'm so glad this entire season is here at my fingertips. Yep. I honestly can't. I don't think I ever have.

No, I definitely did like when I was getting into House of Cards. Like, I was like, this is pretty cool. I can watch the whole thing in the weekend. I'm getting addicted to it. Yeah, I don't. think I had kids then. And I'm sure it's happened at various points over the years since then. I think a show like Dark, for instance, is fun to watch in a binge because it's so complex and dense that it almost lends itself to back to back to back viewings of an episode. But you're

welcome to do that after the show it aired. I would push back and say, I was so happy to watch dark with all of it or all of the season at my fingertips. But I wasn't like, is it 1159 p.m. yet, or 1201 a.m. So that I can binge it all today or tomorrow. No, but you were, I'm sure you were glad that it wasn't, like, I watched episode of two of dark, had a week in between, and now have to remember how episode two of dark ended. That's true. I do not think that this serves the bear well.

I understand that the bear is a half hour show, and there's a huge appetite for it, and not to put a point on it. But I just think, man, like, they could have the summer if the bear, was coming out 3-3. You do it for the first season because they didn't know what they had. Right. It is bizarre to me.

I mean, they must know their metrics. They must understand the way people watched it and they must feel that that's the win. That's the way to do it. But I totally agree with you. Or at least do the Amazon model of like put out the first three and then make people wait for it.

Like this is, I don't think this is one of our like niche egg-hedy, like this is the show we're most excited about. I think genuinely a lot of people who like television or excited about the bear season too. I think what we'll probably do is break the bear into sections for our own purposes. I think the prestige TV pod will probably do every episode.

I don't know when it's going to go up. I mean, like, I'm so thrilled to watch it. But I'm not really bothered by having to finish it all in a weekend and then come back and report on Monday. I think we can do it in like that. No, I think we'll do it our way where we take our time and enjoy it because I don't want it to go away that quickly. Yeah. I'm also kind of just, I feel like a companion story to this is, that FX has also announced that Reservation Dogs,

one of its very best shows and one of the best shows on television, is going to air on linear broadcast cable, which it never has. It's only ever been on Hulu. And so they're getting the reverse window, which I think is something that may start happening more. Which is what? Which is it's going to be on TV.

Oh. It's never been on traditional linear television. It's only ever been streaming. Okay. But they're putting it actually on TV now to potentially expand its viewership. It's like, I understand the dynamics within the Walt Disney Corporation are fraught and eyeballs and what they mean and ratings and what's on streaming.

That's more complicated and way above our pay grade. But I do feel like if you guys are making good TV shows, get them on TV sometimes. Yeah. Or do fun stuff like they did with Andor. Remember? Remember when they put like Andor on ABC? Didn't they? That was fun for us.

Yeah. My understanding of that behind the scenes is that was not fun for Disney because it didn't change anything. Right. It didn't. And again, I think. if they had done that differently, like maybe not been like, hey, guys, guess what?

The most acclaimed show of the year is on television on the day after Thanksgiving once. I think that that would have been slightly different. But, yeah, I, you know, this is, this is the thesis from this episode of television.

Sorry, this is the thesis from, that was telling, this is the thesis from this episode of the Watch podcast. Television. It's okay, pretty good. This question comes in light, so this is from Eric Luce.

This question comes in light of the upcoming, coming righteous gemstones return. Yes, this weekend, right? Yeah. First two go up on Sunday. We know that half-hour comedies don't get a lot of airtime on the pod because they often just dissolve to evolve into remember when this thing happened.

That was funny. But if you'll allow yourself to indulge, are there any comedy shows moments either recent or past that you two wanted to highlight as favorites? I think we mentioned Primo. I've sung the praises of jury duty. The thing that I would always take an opportunity to highlight and honestly, I've kind of gotten into the habit of anybody's like, oh, we're kind of in between shows. do you have anything to recommend?

I just tell them watch Southside. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Three seasons of it are available on Max. Honestly, watch it now. I don't know how long shows are going to stay warehouse on services for that much longer.

So I would get after it, and Southside is, I don't know. I mean, it's basically my favorite American comedy. I love these in American. I know. I don't know why I said that, but it's like my favorite comedy show that's been on the last five years.

You sound like me singing the praises of low alcohol chardonnays from the Sonoma Coast. Like, listen, guys, if you like Shabli, you will be able to stomach. What's like a low alcohol, ABV for a shard? Well, like, I don't like, I don't like wines that are above like 13.5. Okay.

I feel like that is a very, I just generally, I mean, if it's made correctly to the spirit of the grape and the winemaker, okay, but like broadly, like, I don't want to drink some giant alcohol juice bomb. Yeah. Come on. You save that for IPAs?

I certainly do not. Sir? Sir, I do not. Every time I see Zach Barry. If I go to his house, I give him an IPA. Yeah, but you got like a weird one, right? Like, you buy it off the can. It's like there's like a penguin with a skeleton head

and he's smoking a duby or whatever. That's so wild to me. Then he'll like drink it. That's so crazy. I'm like, how close can you get to being Modelo but still charging me twice as much and pretending that some guy made it in his apartment outside of San Diego?

Do you know what I mean? Like that, like let's, is this 3.8 alcohol? Why don't you just drink Medello? Well, I will. I would choose Modelo over the penguin's smoking the dube. Yeah. I like a little bit of artisanal work with the light logger. Any comedies you want to shout out?

Oh, just, I think you should leave. Yeah. The singing crooner. I mean, the driving crooner. Have you guys... I haven't watched it. Dude. I haven't watched the third season yet.

The driving crooner. What the fuck? It's so crazy. It's so funny. Favorite music of the year so far. This comes from Tyler. Love the shout out to your military gun sweatshirt on a recent big picture draft I was wearing

a military gun sweatshirt. Does your wardrobe get more attention on that podcast? No, I don't think so. Are you asking me to... I think I was wearing a sweatshirt and Sean was like, you're wearing a military gun sweatshirt. And I was like... Yes, sir.

Yes, I am. Military gun is definitely put out some of the best music of the year and their new record comes out. I think in about like 10 days. Their album comes out. I also like the MS Paint record and I love the Drain album.

Wow. I love the... Those are all hardcore and hardcore Jason. I love the beautiful blue French painter's workman's jacket that you've been wearing this week during these cold gloomy days. I think that that suits you. I think it's a nice color.

Did you get that in France? I got it in Sweden. Of course, because you this attracts for you. You wouldn't buy French clothes in France like a fucking basic. Did you have a lot of like smoked fish when you were, once you got to France? No, I didn't. God.

Just internationally perverse. What do I like? You like the gorillas. I love the new guerrillas record. I feel like it's really underrated. I really like, I think it just came out this week or it comes out tomorrow, a band called feeble little horse.

You're like, I don't listen to new music, and then you're like, let me fucking pull feeble little horse out of the sky. Brother, I took a break. I took a break, okay? It's Bill makes a lot of pods. I've been listening to mostly podcasts. Do you know Tushel?

No. UK pranksters, like electronic music pranksters. They have a track called Mum is Calling. How are you like, I didn't listen to music, and then you're like Too Shell. Have you heard the new Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem song? No. You still like rap music, though, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you'd like this song. That's really good. I mean, I'm, you know, I like, I think you should leave in 100 gecks, you know what I mean? Like, I just like to laugh. That's who I am in my heart. The last question for today. Oh, but I think we'll make another playlist.

We sort of... Oh, yeah, we'll make a July 4th. We'll make a July 4th playlist. The last question for today comes from Brian Rice. Okay. It's really important. Kaya, you can weigh in on this if you'd like to. Although I guess you haven't really been watching this show, so you can't.

I mean, you're welcome to. I just saw her face like he got so excited and you crushed her. What would your itinerary be for your ideal night out with Tedros? Wow, this is, what a question. Yeah. Here in beautiful, sunny. Do you think he travels a lot? Los Angeles California.

I doubt he has a passport. Yeah. Well, no, he's been to Hawaii. That's not a passport. but my ideal night with him. Can I ask a, just a quick follow-up? This ideal night ends the way Jocelyn's night with him ends, right? Yes.

Like with just some loving banter. Some, like, deeply connected conversation. I mean, it's hard to just want to go anywhere, honestly, knowing that what's waiting for me. What's yours? You know, I think I'd take him to skylight, you know, We look at books for a while, check out the indoor tree. The cat's not there anymore.

RIP, Branny. Just Peru's staff recommendations. Maybe hit the American Cinematic Tech. Check out a rep theater. And then, you know, a lovely dinner at all time. Just kind of staring at each other. So it would be like our night, the other night. This is what Chris and I had most of this night this week.

Yeah. Were you just closing your eyes and picturing you the rat-tile? the entire night. I'll have to give that some more thought, but that would be... Then there's another version of it that's like, I go to BJ's on Alvarado

and smoke Virginia Slims and like bet on whether a chicken can kill a pit bull, you know? I can't wait until we talk about the Idol on Monday because the absolute bullshit heel turn this week that you, by the way,

you were the fucking frontman for. You were running... Like, this was like... What was her name? It was Hope Hicks. You were the Hope Hicks of this show. You come on here on Mondays and you're like, I bet you didn't realize it's actually a comedy.

He said it in the New York Times. I was just aggregating what he said to Manola Darkis. Yeah, but now all week, suddenly everyone's like, oh, it's definitely intentionally bad. Ha, ha, ha. Why would we make this good, you fools? Why would we labor over this? Episode 3 is supposed to be the one.

It's supposed to be good. Do you know this is only a six-episode show? Thank God. Is this the one with Nick Offerman? It's just like a beautiful standalone episode. of a couple. Murray Bartlett does amazing work in this one. That also lives in the hills near Jocelyn,

and that at the end, Tedros comes in and finds their fucking bodies. And it's like, sick. Life is weird. And he's like, but jokes on you. I was kidding. Life's not weird. Yeah. Okay.

I can see the flop sweat, guys. Thanks to Kai McMullen for producing the watch today. Next to Andy Greenwald for participating in it. Here's the thing. You know how when I talk about the other podcast I listen to, Marin, and like there's some jokes about how you can kind of skip the first nine minutes sometimes. We're good because we defeat the algorithm.

You don't know when the bangers are going to come. It comes at the end. Because when we finally are warmed up and ready to start, we're done. We'll talk to you on Monday, where we'll talk about the idol. We'll talk about gemstones. And we may have a special guest. I think we're going to have a special guest.