The Watch - Remembering Stan Lee, Plus Homecoming's Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz | The Watch (Ep. 306)

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

Marvel creator Stan Lee died this week at the age of 95 (2:26), and his legacy will live on through the universe he created (11:16). Plus: 'Homecoming' creators Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz talk about turning their podcast into prestige television (25:53). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Micah Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Up and Vanished in a one-night special TV event. Oxygen brings to life. Payne Lindsay's hit True Crime podcast Up and Vanished. In 2016, Payne took a deep dive into the disappearance of Tara Grinstead, a young teacher who vanished 13 years ago. His podcast has reached over 240 million people, and pain is still at work determined to bring closure to Tara's small town. Don't miss Up and Vanished, a one-night special TV event Sunday, November 18th, at 7 on Oxygen. oxygen. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Microsoft Surface. Let's talk about something super exciting, like the newest member of the Microsoft Surface

Family, the Surface Pro 6, now faster and more powerful than ever before. So you can get even more done, whether it's from your office at the airport or on your couch. You can take the keyboard off and draw on it easily, or you can snap it back on and type on it like a laptop. With up to 13 and a half hours of battery life and the new 8th gen Intel Core processor, you can work how you want to for as long as you want to, wherever work takes you. Today's episode of The Watch comes from Amazon's new show Homecoming, directed by the creator of Mr. Robot, Sam S. Mail, starring Julia Roberts.

Homecoming follows Heidi Bergman, a caseworker that helps soldiers transition back to civilian life at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center. Four years later, Heidi has started a new life, but questions about why she left the homecoming facility forced her to re-examine her motives and her past. Based on the critically acclaimed podcast by Eli Horowitz and Michael Bloomberg, don't miss the mind-bending psychological thriller Homecoming. Available November 2nd, only on Amazon Prime Video. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I'm editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, it's Andy Gruel. I feel like I'm making you nervous by being in here. No, it just, my wires got crossed up because you're usually not in the physical. Aw, I'm always in the physical. You're just an idea to me now. I devote a lot of time to this. Grimwald, it is Monday when.

we are recording this. Today's episode will feature my interview with Eli Horowitz and Michael Bloomberg, who worked on obviously the homecoming TV show and created the podcast the TV show is based on, so we're really excited to talk to them about homecoming and where homecoming may be going in the future. But Andy, a sad note we wanted to start on is we just learned as we were recording another interview for the podcast of the passing of Stan Lee. I kind of can't believe this. I truly can't because it is this is someone who is just so

foundational not just to my experience in the world, not just so foundational to pop culture as we certainly as we

all know it and understand it today, but someone who is just omnipresent. And yes, he was 95 years

old and clearly in declining health and in the news recently as much for shenanigans surrounding

the protection, his physical well-being, his legal status, who he was giving power of attorney to. He was in the news as much for that as he was for his cameos in upcoming Marvel films.

But it is truly shocking to think of a world where he is not in it. But I guess almost the way to begin the conversation is to say, there is no way that he will not be in this world through what he did and what he gave us and the way that he gave it to us for many, many decades to come.

For people who only have like a sort of cursory or superficial knowledge of who he is is being like, ah, it's the old guy who invented Marvel. Can you give listeners a sense of what he did at Marvel? Yeah, so it's a complicated legacy, to be sure. Jonathan Leitham, great novelist and great comic book fan, one said that the Stanley Jack Kirby, who was the artist who he co-created many of the great superheroes with,

their relationship was kind of like a Lenin-McCartney relationship in a lot of ways, where Kirby in this case was more like Lenin, like the sort of prickly genius, and Stanley was more like McCartney, in that he was a little bit sweeter, and the public face of things. That's not exactly accurate, but maybe it's a starting point if you don't know.

So one of the most amazing things is that when Stanley created the Fantastic Four, thus launching Marvel Comics and the Marvel Comics era in 1961, he was, and I should have done the math before we started, but he was already close to 40 years old, and had had a successful but varied career writing for comic books, whatever they were at the time, be they war comics, romance comics, whatever. He was not

young and hungry and on the upswing. He was kind of a company man who was ready to try anything. He was deeply inspired and kind of ahead of the curve in terms of what was happening in downtown New York and Manhattan, beatnik culture turning into hippie culture. He wasn't really part of it, but he was

inspired by it and thought that this is on a very fundamental level, something that completely changed not just comic books, but now how we think about the culture we engage with, thought that superheroes which existed. DC certainly had Superman and Batman,

all those golden age heroes existed, that they could be fallible, that they could have problems that we could relate to. The Fantastic Four, it's not just that they got superpowers by flying in a private rocket into space and being bombarded with whatever,

it's that they were a family, and that the family part was as interesting as the fact that one of them could light himself on fire or another one could stretch his body. Going forward, that same sensibility

created everything that is the template for our culture today, right? Spider-Man, he's a superhero, but he's also in high school, and which one is more difficult. The X-Men have special powers, but they are hated and feared for what they are. Marvel revolutionized the 60s before they revolutionized the 21st century by actively engaging with and, in some ways, echoing the rest of nature of the culture, right, in terms of the civil rights struggle, the anti-war movement. All of those things found voices in these comic books, either responding to them or taking inspiration from it. vice versa. Yeah, I think that's something that, you know, is one of the major sort of driving

forces behind Minge mode is this idea that you can use these works of far-out imagination as a lens through which to understand your reality and that they can reflect reality in some ways better than maybe quote-unquote realism can. And that was something that I think was a huge contribution on the part of Lee that you could have a story like this that has basically a fantasy mythology but can also take place in the world that's changing around you. The other aspect of Stanley's genius and also what led to the controversy over him is that he was, as I said at the beginning, a company man.

And he was also as much a salesman as he was, writer and creator. And that was often to the benefit of the books. I mean, he himself was a character, Smil and Stan Lee, who would write from the bullpen and created this legend of Marvel as a fun place to be behind the scenes. Yeah, and he would respond the, wouldn't he have like a letter to the editor? Oh, yeah, Excelsior from Stan Lee. He made quasi-celebrities out of the... other people who worked in the office, there would be an asterisk on a, you know, Silver Surfer

says something to Mr. Fantastic, and there would be a little star, and in the bottom it would say, you know, remember when this happened in episode, in issue 15, smile and stand, you know, and he narrated the records that Marvel put out, and his voice became, I mean, I remember listening to his voice growing up before I even really knew what comic books were, because I had this collection of like superhero 45s that someone in my family gave me. But part of being the company man led to this very uncomfortable and, at times acrimonious erasure of his co-creators. Jack Kirby co-created Fantastic Four and so many of these other characters. He was a freelancer when Stanley was an employee of Marvel. I think Stanley at one point

when he ceased being editor-in-chief signed a like a lifetime contract for a million dollars a year to always be there. And Kirby was very bitter about that. There's also some discussion that's pretty much proved that Stanley was so busy. I mean, he was co-creating and writing all of these books that the Marvel method of writing was really he would sort of let Jack Kirby draw an issue of the Fantastic Four about whatever he wanted and then he would just come and put words on it.

Similarly, Steve Ditko, co-creator Spider-Man, there's a legacy of acrimony behind a lot of this that Marvel, to its credit, has done a lot of work to try to repair since, adding these artists' name to it. Marvel's corporate history is, you need a 500-page book and Sean Howe wrote a 500-page book

called Marvel Comics the Untold Story that really gets into this. But, you know, he is timeless, not just because these characters in some ways reach their full blossom and their full flower in global culture 40, 50 years after he created them. But his style of salesmanship, frankly, of putting himself front and center of carnival barking these characters into global relevance, that actually is pretty much in vogue now too as well. And I think he doesn't necessarily, I think he deserves credit for that. How much would you say? I mean, because obviously the other thing, is that in a lot of ways, comic book storytelling

has become one of the primary modes of storytelling and popular culture. All the IP stuff we talk about, all the shared universe stuff we talk about, all the soft reboots and hard reboots and rediscovering this content from the past or the future or whatever comes from comic books in a lot of ways, right?

Yes, and the idea of brand management and the battle between brand management and creative storytelling. What is a Spider-Man story? This can go right back to what Stanley did and in understanding that you have a very fine line to walk, right? That you want new stories, new adventures, you want to see things you've never seen before,

but you also always want to see the exact same thing. Yeah. And I'm reminded of that because when I heard this news, I went looking, I got to interview Stanley once for Spin in 2002 right before the first Spider-Man movie came out. For the Interpol record, yeah? It was about the Interpol record. Smiling Stan says, turn on the bright lights.

He thought, he was so happy Rock back. Yeah, right. It was a total dream come true, obviously. And what was amazing about him is that he was, he was 79 years old when I spoke to him. And I don't know what he had been doing right before he got on the phone with me. And I don't know what he was doing right afterwards. I don't know what he was told. I assume much of his time was spent that month having phones handed to him and being asked to talk about Spider-Man, something he was more than happy to do. But my God was he himself. Yeah. He was completely, talking about turning on the bright lights. I mean, he gets on the phone and he says, says, is that Andy Greenwald?

And this voice, and I'm like eight years old again. It was unbelievable. Yeah, show business. That's like knowing the person you're going to talk to. Yeah. It was wonderful. And so I talked to him for this list that ran in the 2002. What issue was this?

Well, Moby was on the cover, so you guys do the math. June 2000. There was more than one Moby cover. June 2002. And I asked him the top ten things about Spider-Man that should never change. That's early listical work for you. We were big in the chartical game back then already. visionaries. And I love his answer to the first thing he said was the costume. He said it's one of the

most recognizable icons on planet Earth. They changed it once to black, but thank goodness they changed it back. And he's right. And one of the things that comic books was doing during that era, and it kind of is always at war with is how far away from the original template can you run? There was this whole thing about how the comic book was ruined when Peter Parker got older than high school, when he married Mary Jane, and they're always kind of retcon the stuff back. And he was just right. He said that the costume should never change. His existential torment, his love for Mary Jane, he's concerned for his Aunt May. And it's kind of conservative to say those things. But these are also, it's mythology. And they are central to our understanding and our appreciation of the character. And it's kind of, I think,

the best stories in these icons that he created exist within the gate, basically, or the fences that he laid down. Yeah. And I think that the sort of testament to his legacy, and despite all the corporate wrangling that happened behind the scenes at Marvel and obviously the conversations people are going to have about authorship in probably the next few weeks when it comes to Stanley, I think that we can look at just the fact that we're about to head into the end of a certain mega phase of Marvel movies with Avengers next summer and whatever comes after that as a sort of as a testament to his legacy as a thinker. Yeah, and this vision that he always had, and this is detailed really well in Sean's book,

it's not just that he created these icons and told some of their most amazing stories it's that he always insisted that these were global stories that comic books were not just for kids that these should be the biggest stories in the world and people thought he was crazy and Sean's book has littered with these Hollywood deals

that fell apart and mismanagement and mistakes and he never wavered and part of that was his business He was the face of the business in Hollywood. He was out there at the polo lounge shaking hands and glad-handed and saying, look at these fabulous characters we've got for you. But honestly, at some point in the 60s, I really feel this.

If you had said to him, Walt Disney Company will one day buy these characters and make them the most famous brands in the world, he would have said, yep. Yeah, right. That's right. Yeah. You respect that.

I mean, that is an incredible American story. Okay, anything else you want to hit before we get to our interview with Eli and Micah? How you doing? I'm good. I'm great. I'm terrific. Post is a roller coaster. But I just have one other thing before we get into it. Is this about Beto? This is about the Cowboys? I have strong opinions about Beto. I have strong opinions about Philadelphia sports on this Monday. And I feel okay asking this question right now on the microphone for two reasons.

One, because I know you don't care, which is going to make great radio. But two, I kind of like trial ballooned this question. to our friend Mallory Rubin the other night at dinner. And it's this. Now, I am a, it's not that I'm a Harry Potter atheist, I am a complete agnostic. I have not engaged with Harry Potter

on any level of culture. I've not read the books. I've not seen the movies. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Sort of has been proven otherwise. Has it, though? To me, it doesn't.

I mean, it has not permeated this bubble. But that was mostly because I was looking forward to discovering these books and these movies with my kids at some point, and that point is coming up soon. Yeah. So that's great. I'm thrilled.

I'm thrilled that J.K. Rowling, speaking of Stan Lee and his vision, I'm thrilled that she is certainly the air of that tradition of having these characters that she created and sitting on this gold mine and spinning these stories that have entranced the world. That's all terrific. I'm happy about it. Here's where I begin to bump up against it, though. There's a new movie that's coming out like in a week or two. I'm not going to see it.

But there are posters everywhere. And it's called the Crimes of Grundlewold. Grindenwald. Grindinwold. I think so. Obviously, that name's a little too close for comfort. I've talked myself into thinking it's more like national lampoons. It's like the Griswolds and like Clark's crimes at Wallyworld.

Just the idea of you driving down sunset and like every six blocks being like, what did I do? That's actually some pretty good insight into my psychology. But my problem with that is what the fuck is that? Right? What is that? Who is Grendonwald? Why did he commit crimes? why can't you just call it Magic School Part 9?

What is wrong with that idea? Because there's been no Magic School Part 1 through 8. I mean, they all have like... Yo, some free advice. She's worth a billion. She could be worth $2 billion if that should have been called Harry Potter and Magic School.

It's so much more interesting to me than a sorcerer's stone. I don't know what that is. Am I wrong? Like, you know I'm not wrong. I know it worked out, but you know I'm not wrong. So, wait, if you could go back in time and J.K. Rowling is like

this idea I have about a magic school, but I'm calling it Harry Potter and the et cetera, et cetera. You would have been like Jay, J.K. J.K. I'm not K. Just call it magic school. Now, Mallory's response to this was...

To spit in your face and kick you in the shin? No, she spit in my food. She's a lady. Mallory's response to this was to tell me that back in the Go-Go-90s, when she was 10 years old? I don't know. How old was Mallory? He's much younger than us, isn't she?

She says that the American publisher did change the name one step because apparently in England it's called the Philosopher's Stone, which law de fucking die, England, all right? That was her first thing. But she said that the American publisher wanted to call it Harry Potter

in the School of Magic. And I'm like, give these guys raises. Those guys saw the future. Those guys all work at Halliburton. Now. Those guys are smart. A. F. Yeah.

Okay. And I just feel I know that geek culture in general is the lingua franco of our times. I don't know that you really have this leverage. You just like started crying about Stan Lee for 10 minutes and now you're like, but Harry Potter fans are dorks.

I'm the problem. I'm not blaming the fans. This is the crime of Greenwald. This is apparently good content. Uh-huh. And you know this. Kaya knows this. All listeners know,

nothing makes me happier than good content. That's just who I am. That's what I'm about. I love content. Is this the capstone on your take or is there to the part going? Here comes the last part. Okay. Then we can come back to my feelings about content.

Yeah. Which is really where this crazy ride got started anyway. It's that geek culture wins, but it's already won. And so now you don't need this movie to be called Fantastic Beast's Colen the Crimes of Grindinwald, right? You can just call it grownups with magic wands, whatever. And I just feel like, like, you remember the film Avatar, the, quote unquote highest grossing film of all time. I still don't quite buy that.

Show me the tapes. Show me the tapes. Oh yeah. Yeah, you want to see the balance? I've just stopped the recount. Box office mojo. So finally they're making these movies. Wait, I want to just tell people, Andy is looking at his computer as if he's got like a nine point sort of point here. Yeah.

I've got a tough book open. I got a PowerPoint on display. No, I've got hard data to back me up here. So finally, years later, nine years later, to the delight of no one, they are making four more fucking Avatar movies? Right? Back to back to, like, they're all like shooting now, yeah.

Great. Wonderful. These movies should be called Avatar 2, 3, and 4. Wait, do you know what they're called? Yeah, that's what I have opened here. Right. Tag yourself, which one of these are you? I know what I am.

What does that mean? Like one tummy patience, one tummy pain? Read them off. Avatar, the way of water. Avatar, the seed bearer, which, come on now, come on. It's Jimmy Butler's nickname. Avatar, the Tolkien Rider. And finally, the Avatar cycle is complete with Avatar, colon, the quest for Iowa.

Do you think that like in 2023, when President Ivanka is ruling over their, District 13. Mm-hmm. And we're just like, have you seen the seed bear yet? Yeah. Have you checked that one out? Yeah. Like, is this just, they're going to come out over the next like eight years?

What's the plan here? First of all, I'd like to go on the record saying this shit's never coming out. I don't think Avatar is coming out. They built a theme park already. Why? Why did they do? Can we just do it? Can we just have a moment as a culture?

I know we can. These are very fractured times. But maybe we could all come together and be like, let's get a mulberry. on this one. Like, we just, it's a movie about blue people. It's crazy is that this lost to Hurt Locker. It feels like Hurt Locker came out in 1956. And that's when Avatar came out.

Jeremy Renner was such an innocent boy. He had flipped Nariah house. Can we talk, okay, what do you remember, for real? Like, what do you remember about the film Avatar? Okay. Do you remember Ribisi turning his space office into a putting green? Because that's my, in fucking 3D.

Well, I also remember there's like a lot of stuff with like, I have a tail now. Yeah. Like they all like, they get plugged in and then they're like, wow, I have a tail. I'm tall and blue. Yeah. I remember Sam Worthington. America's leading movie star. And that's about it.

It's Pandora, right? That's where it's set. Uh, I guess so. Yeah. We're really offering a ton. I just mean, I just feel like you just can't call it the, do you think, okay, here's the question. Will the Avatar The Tolkien Rider?

I'm going with this. Will Avatar the Seed Bearer really set up the expectation for Avatar the Tolkien Rider? Like will we, will the credits roll? I'll still be trying to figure out what the way of water is.

Will the seed bearer, will the credit's role and the seed bearer being like, I can't believe Jimmy Butler was the seed bearer all along. Jimmy Butler was the Seedbearer. But like this whole time, Troy Sivon, or whatever you say his name,

I can't believe he's going to ride a Tolkien. Like I can't believe. believe it. I'm so excited. How will these 18 months go by or six months or whatever before I see him fully ride a Tolkien in 9D from the bottom of the fucking ocean? Both due to global warming and because that is James Cameron's preferred way to see a film. Dear leader of Vanco will allow us that 90 experience. Magic school. It's right there. Go back to Stan Lee. He called it Spider-Man. He didn't call it the wayward curse of the arachnid. calm down.

That's my take. We'll be back after a word from our sponsor with my interview with Eli Horowitz and Michael Bloomberg. Today's episode of the watch is sponsored by ADT. ADT can design and install a smart home just for you backed by 24-7 protection. Explore the vast number of things you can do with your secure smart home like doormand service,

which is an ADT automation that unlocks the door for packages, friends, or your kids, or turn-down service, an ADT automation that arms your system, locks your door, and turns down your lights and thermostat or even worry-free getaway service, which is my favorite, that lets you arm your system, lock up, and set lighting schedules before you go on vacation. All controlled from the ADT app or the sound of your voice and backed by 24-7 protection and don't worry about installing and configuring your system.

ADT will DIY do it for you. Just go to ADT.com slash smart to learn more about how ADT can design and install a secure smart home just for you. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Hotel Tonight. Here's a little insider travel secret from our friends at Hotel Tonight. There are tons of empty hotel rooms out there just waiting to be booked. And Hotel Tonight is partnered with these awesome hotels to help them sell those unsold rooms, which means you get incredible deals. Seriously, if you love scoring amazing deals at amazing hotels,

you've got to try Hotel Tonight. Forget scrolling through never-ending lists. Hotel Tonight shows you a select list of incredible deals at cool hotels that they think you'll love. And they even give short profiles of each hotel, complete with all the info you need and pictures of what the rooms really look like. Plus, even though their name is Hotel Tonight,

they're not just for last minute bookings. You can also book in advance. So it's perfect for spontaneous weekend getaways, three-day weekends, staycations, road trips, business trips, booking a place with a pool, and more. I've been using Hotel Tonight for about two years, and sometimes I even let Hotel Tonight tell me where to go.

I'll look at deals on the beach, deals in the desert, deals in the mountains. I'll see what they've got going, and if it looks really awesome, I'll just pick up and go. So start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels. Go to Hotel Tonight.com or download the app now. I am joined by two of the minds behind one of my favorite shows of the year. Easley, Andy and I've been talking about it for the last couple of weeks. Michael Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz, thanks for coming.

Welcome to the Watch. It's good to be here. You guys have such interesting backgrounds and such a cue to sort of route to being showrunners, essentially, that I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little bit about where you came from to start with? I went to NYU Film School, and then after that, I got into production sound mixing. So when you go to shoot anything like a documentary

or a feature or a commercial, you bring like a camera person and a director and some talents, and then you also need like a sound mixer, like someone to lave up the actors and run the boom mic and stuff like that. So that was my career for like 10 years. And you did like Martha Marcy and Marlene.

I did, yeah. I did Martha Marcy and Malmaine. I did Lena Dunham's, second movie called Tiny Furniture. And then I did All Is Lost with Robert Redford and I accidentally got nominated for a BAFTA for that because there's no talking in that movie. I'm surprised you didn't get pneumonia on that set. It was, well, it was in Mexico. In the tank where they shot Titanic. So it was pretty warm. And then, yeah, so I did that for a really long time. And then nights and weekends, I was writing

scripts and screenplays and stuff like that. And I just sort of refused to realize it was ridiculous. And then eventually a couple of the features that I worked on got made and got into festivals and stuff like that. And then one of the plays that I wrote, a one-act play kind of found its way to the Gimlet people. And that's how I got hired to work on Homecoming, the podcast. Amazing. Eli? So, yeah, for about 10 years, I worked at McSweeney's, this independent publisher in San Francisco editing and designing the books and the quarterlies. And there we always thought a lot about the shape of the book, the form of the book, and how that could help how the story was done.

Story is told, how the story was read. And so then when I left that, I wanted to keep doing that sort of thing or asking those sort of questions. So I was doing these weird digital books, novels, that came out as apps. So I did that for a few years. And then somehow that grew into this job at Gimlet

where it was totally different, but the same kind of thing, of taking a medium and trying to figure out how it can tell a story, hopefully in a new way, but also that kind of respected its tradition. So would you guys say that on a scale of like one to five, how familiar were you with the processes of television production when you were getting into, when you meet Sam,

because you go from doing these different jobs and working McSweeney's and doing sound design, you probably had like some idea of how this stuff all worked, but I'm curious how it feels to go from outside of it to showrunner and what that feels like and what that looks like. Yeah, I was going to say my level was zero, but I'll upgrade it to maybe 0.6. I did have experience with conference calls

that don't go anywhere. Putting pins and things, circling back on things. Right, there was a lot of that. I was pretty experienced at that, but everything beyond that has been a real mystery. Yeah, and I mean, I was very familiar with just basic production and TV and movie production

and how sets work and how movies are scheduled and stuff like that on a day-to-day basis. I knew nothing about basically Hollywood and how that works, and then also how development and overall, like, executive production works. And I think when I started, the way it felt to me was, like,

doing a crossword puzzle with no black squares. There was just, like, no... Because we were being told, like, whatever you guys want. So you just do, you know, just figure it out, do it. Let the creative sort of guide you. Like, and we all love the podcast. And then you would go to this office and literally be sitting there and, like, I don't know.

And then, like, the next... The days sort of just started to, fall into place and we were working on these scripts and stuff like that. And then they would just schedule meetings with like, you know, line producers and production designers. And as he said, like, luckily Sam was there to sort of shepherd us through the process because he'd been through it before. But when he did it, he was a first time or two, you know, with his show Mr. Robot. So I think they just sort of throw you in the pool. And is there, is there anybody there is like, well, you guys need a B plot for this episode or

something like, no, no. Okay. And did you ever feel? Because that's the thing that's so great about the show is it once feels incredibly formally inventive and it and very familiar. Genre-wise, it feels familiar. And maybe even there's a certain naturalism to the acting. Obviously, like, most people have spent 30 years with Julia Roberts in their lives. So they're just kind of, there's a level of familiarity. But then, of course, there's so many parts of the show that are completely disorienting. So I was always wondering whether or not there was somebody who had their hand on the wheel and then somebody who was like, I'm going to go, let's see if we can do this. And let's see if we can do that. Let's see if we can do this. But I imagine that, that you

you've been thinking about this story for years now, right? So you know the material better than anybody else. Yeah, it's interesting. The way you say that, it's like there's kind of two ways to think about that. I think the way that Eli and I write together, there is this weird mix of very precise structural integrity mixed with sort of wandering around and babbling. And those are sort of our two respective responsibilities.

So, like, my job is to kind of dive in with the characters and hear them talk and let them sort of take the scene into these weird strange, like sometimes naturalistic, funny, unexpected places. And then it's sort of Eli's job to try to corral all this into a house that can stand up. And then even more than that, like really like sneak up on a viewer and take them by surprise. So I think that mix is sort of what makes the sound of it and the feel of it pretty distinct. And then when we, Eli and I started working with Sam, it was like he has this very rigorous sense of film history that he really cares about.

Yeah. And so he brought to our weird kind of offbeat story, there's these, like, nascent elements of paranoia and thriller and things like that. And what he brought to that is, like, the signifiers of that so that the audience, like, knows the genre that they're in. They're not getting the beats necessarily that they're expecting.

Yeah. But they're so unsettled because they're being queued in these genre ways. Like, something is happening. You've seen this before. Yeah. And then I think it creates a sort of strange taste, yeah. The first time Sam walks in and starts talking about Hitchcock and De Palma and Parallax View,

are you guys like, yeah, for sure. And that was always there. Or are you like, oh, okay. Well, at first it was just something to talk about. You know, everyone loves talking about 70s, paranoid thrill. It's become just sort of this exalted form. But, yeah, but I think we had no idea how far he would take it, how literally he meant those references.

Yeah. We talk about TV, especially on this podcast so much. this, I mean, kind of almost as like a fallback, but we always seem to just describe like these otorist theories to TV where it was like, well, this is Matthew Weiner's show or this is Sam Mus Mill's show. But this seems like such an interesting collision of ideas that actually wound up all fitting together. And if you looked at it just on paper, you would just like kind of like, okay. Like I don't know if you guys know, but like there's this whole joke on the, on sort of like film Twitter area, but it's like, it's basically director bullshit. And

It's when a director, like way before a movie is really even out yet, is like, well, you know, I've been incredibly influenced by apocalypse now. And then it comes out and it's like Kong Island. It's like Kong Skull Island. Right. Sure, I can see it. But you're also just like, you're kind of buying yourself like six blog posts just by saying that. But then when the movie comes out, it looks like a Michael Bay movie just like everything else does.

In the jungle or something. Yeah. But like this isn't director bullshit. Like he found something inside this material and you guys made this thing that it doesn't. one of the things I think is crucial is that even though there are these signifiers, like you're saying, of these past thrillers, it feels very contemporary to me. And the paranoia and that feeling like I've medicated something out of my mind is like very, I think, prescient for right now. I mean, do you guys think about those things in terms of making sure it wasn't a museum piece and not in a gallery? We're like to check out my cool, you know, homage to rear window here. You know, it's... Right. Well, I think that gets back to the collaborative element that you were talking about. because, you know, first of all, the way Mike Giao was talking about the way he and I work together, I think is really important that there are two brains. And if one person tried to do both sides of that,

they would kind of infect each other too much. And that tension is, I think, really helpful. And it was the same when Sam came aboard. In some ways, he was working with the material, in some ways that was contrasting. There was a tension between that style and these sort of naturalistic, very human scenes, which is not necessarily something you go to De Palma for. So it was because that had to be integrated with these scripts that it sort of did and sort of didn't fit with that hopefully makes it all feel like something strange but functional rather than kind of a genre exercise or just people talk in a room or just this rigid series of beats with their life to it.

For the material, obviously coming from the podcast, and I found that each person that I to talk to about Homecoming the podcast has completely different readings on different interactions or feels differently about Colin than the next person or feels differently about David Schwimmer than the next person in terms of his performance. There's something that once you commit it to film, I think it gets a little bit more fixed. And for as much as you can have a variety of opinions or takes on something, you're committing to an understanding of the material. What was that like as, you know, you're putting together this collage of phone conversations and tape recordings and, you know, all these little things that are in the podcast.

And then they become basically, well, this is the historical record of this story now. Oh, that's interesting. So you're saying, like, once it's a TV show, it kind of, like, that'll draw the attention and that'll become the real document. Like, people are, like, for as, as much as I love Catherine Keener on the podcast, like, now I'm never going to not think of Julie Roberts, when I think of Heidi. You know what I'm never going to not think of that specific lighting of the offices when I think of the facility's offices, you know?

Yeah, I mean, what you're saying makes me think, like, when you do the podcast, when we did the podcast, not only does the viewer not know what it looks like, the facility in there, like, we didn't know. And we never once talked about it. Really? Or, ever. Okay. Like, it was just, it was not necessary and didn't come up, and that's not our process.

Like, we didn't, like, sit around and, like, each draw pictures and have, and maybe there's a process there that's really good. That's just not how we work. Yeah. And we were just talking about the characters, their interactions, and how it's going to affect the overall story. So when we went to do the TV show, people started asking us, like,

well, what does it look like in there? And we literally had to invent that stuff and just, like, come up with it. And then you say that to a technician or an artist, and then they sort of try to express that idea. So, yeah, it's like the podcast just had, you know, in a way had these, like, people in this, like, elemental situation. And then when we went to do the TV show,

all this other stuff kind of grew around it. And that's one key difference is that, Like the, yeah, the TV show is always going to have more resolution and be more high definition because it has those details in there. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was thinking about that scene when you were talking of when Colin and Heidi go back to the office when she's going back to the address that she has in the envelope. And she's walking through and it's that disorienting she's been here before, but she doesn't recognize any of it. I imagine that must have been almost like watching the show get made. It's like, in your mind, been there before, but you haven't really seen it. So it's this new experience.

Yeah, and it's also interesting because a lot of our job there on set was to keep it true to the show, all these little decisions. And so there was this constant questioning of myself also of, well, what is the show? Because we're sort of rediscovering the show once in the podcast, once in the writing, and then another time, of course, when we're making it. So deciding, like, I know what the show was, but I'm still figuring out what the show is becoming. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I read an interview with Sam where he talked a little bit about what the show is about him. You know, and I think that everybody's thrown around paranoia, but he mentioned something specifically, I think, about it's about lonely people connecting. Is that what you guys think it's about? It's a good one. That's solid. For me, I think it's more about or also about the compromises we make and the blinders we put on ourselves. Because I think a lot of what happened to Heidi, she did to herself because of what she wanted to think about. And I feel like we're always kind of creating a narrative for ourselves to get us through the day. It would justify going after what we want or what we're not proud of.

And so I think Heidi had to navigate that in a way that connection with Walter is what brought her back to maybe a truer or simpler or less conflicted version of herself. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with all that. And then to me, the thing that is at the, for me, the thing in writing it and thinking about it is like this sneaking suspicion that you might not be the person that you think you are or that you aren't a good person. And so, like, and it's pretty reductive, but if you've ever gotten, like, really drunk or something or, like, blacked out, kind of and then heard about things that you did, it's, like, a very specific sensation to, like, have done something and then have someone describe it to you. I mean that it's one of the only things in society that you're allowed to say like, oh, I was drunk. I'm sorry. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Well, you can't say like, oh, I didn't have a granola bar at 11 a.m. So I lost it. Right. You know what I mean? So this is, we kind of rigged up this whole thing to like sort of, but it's the eeriest feeling. Like someone's telling you about something that you did and you have no recollection of it and the position that puts you in. And so for me, a lot of the scenes sort of center around the problems around that.

And it's weird how the tendrils from that sort of grew out and get it too. identity, memory, the government, complicity, like all these different things, just from this sensation that this one character has that I feel like people are very, that anyway, I was very gripped by. Well, you know, one thing I've been thinking about a lot, because I went back and listened to some of the pod again after watching the show. And I think that, you know, one of the things that kind of translates from the pod and through the show is this, what happens when, it's hard to articulate, but basically what happens

when a group of people are working on an idea. It's kind of an interesting idea about collaboration, but just how things can get corrupted, basically, how an idea can get corrupted, how some of another person can get corrupted. And I think that happens in just like any office. It's just like, well, one person has an idea. And they're like, what if we did this?

And it's like, well, I'm going to take a piece of it. This person's going to take a piece of it. Somebody's going to have a note on that and tell you you can't do it this way. And what if we did this or what if the real reason we were doing it was actually for this? And all these different things start to come into it you get into the hierarchical situations.

And I love that the higher up you go into Geist, the more almost mythical it becomes. Because then it's just like, well, what are we even doing? Like, and who's telling us to do what we're doing? Yeah. Yeah, I think in that group, the way that it's this collision of individuals that creates the plot, I think,

is pretty central to homecoming. That there actually isn't, you know, people talk about this individuals versus institutions that's kind of inherent in the paranoid thriller. But to me, in a way, homecoming is the opposite of that because these maybe individuals assume that they're going up against these powerful

institutions, but really it's individuals all the way up. And everyone just panicking and making it up. Most of those people probably have pretty sincere motivations. I mean, it even seems like in ways Colin does have a sincere motivation. I would say half that and half he's scared and not that

competent. But still, those are just human experiences, you know. And on some level I think like the idea that there's a puppet master controlling all of us is almost a reassuring fantasy, even if it's like evil. That there's a geist. Yeah, it implies an order. And it kind of implies it implies as a difference between me and them, right?

Yeah. But I think. Or I had to do it. I was being told to do it. I'm getting paid to do it or whatever it is. I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of the performances on this show because they're so good and they're so unflashy. Like there's nobody who's. I found myself never being bored by any of it, but specifically not by Bobby Cadevalli.

And I wanted to ask you about how he brought to life some of the more formally inventive parts about the podcast, where it's like these phone conversations and this guy Colin who's like running around. And then you see him. And I think that's sort of one of my favorite elements of the show or the interactions between Julia and Bobby and the split screen. And could you tell me a little bit about the process of making those scenes? Because I think Bobby has said that he was on set doing those conversations live, right? Yeah, so we would do the calls twice, where we would be, let's say, with Bobby at Ron's house or with Bobby at the golf course or whatever.

And then Julia would be on set on an earwig, and then they would sort of have fake phone communication between each other. And then they would do the scene that way. And then however many days or weeks later, we would shoot the other side. So Julia at the facility or Juliet at her house or whatever like that. And then it was up to the editors to bring the... those together via the split screen and kind of make that all work. And, you know, the idea when initially came up was like, oh, that'll be cool. Like split screen, it's very much in the genre and

everything like that. And but there wasn't like, I think you could approach that from a very like systematic storyboarded way. Like here we're going to be like this and here we're going to be like that. But it wasn't really shot like that. It was a little bit more haphazard than that, I think in a good way because it left room for the performances and everything. And it became in the editing just sort of like kind of leading on the editors to make those performance work and kind of bring them together. So between treating the phone sound as like proper phone sound where it has like a futz on it, is what they call it, and then also basically like timing out the lines and getting those overlaps right because those are arguments that they're having, you know, so they're kind of talking over

each other. So it's really, it came off really seamlessly and those scenes like having an energy to them that's really great. But it was sort of a feat of editing to bring these very disparate things together. And you can do so much when you're showing it. I mean, like in the the Schwimmer-Keener conversations, you know, I was always fascinated by how, you know, he would get distracted or he would always have three or four things going on and he was so able to kind of be like, oh, this Detroit airport looks great, you know? And then he would also be like kind of reprimanding her or asking her questions. But in the show, you get these amazing character beats that you can't show in a podcast, obviously. It's like whether it's the face painting or the golf bag or even like Heidi, Heidi having the iPod. headphones and Colin having Bluetooth said something about those characters and all these little flourishes

are so great in that way. Yeah, it was definitely an effort. You know, we'd first write the scene often and then we'd think, what's he doing? Where is Colin in this one? And it was this balance to on one hand keep challenging ourselves and pushing ourselves, but then we also had to rein ourselves in because you just

kind of wanted, like, what's the most ridiculous thing Colin could be doing or wearing and put that in. And then also we had this tick where we kept having people just be arranged objects just because it was a thing to do. But then we realized, like, we had 16 scenes of people arranging things. Everyone was OCD. Yeah, so then we had to pull our shelves back a little bit.

What was, like, the most out-there column location that you got rid of? I mean, I feel like the most out-there thing that, which we ended up keeping was when he's doing that whole scene and the face-pain. Yeah. Which, was that even only on set? That was our great AD, Peter Cohn, who has a legendary film career, is like, wouldn't it be funny if he had face paint. Yeah.

And then it was like, oh, everyone was like laughing in the van, so they decided to do that. We can actually kind of top that. There was this, in that same scene, there was in this script, Colin is fascinated by a stiletto high heel. Silver. Silver that he's arranging outside the door. So there's only like the briefest remnant of it in the show right now. He does stop and rearrange some shoes.

You can check it out in episode three. I think it was when he's coming into the house. And he starts, like, yeah. Well, you have a really good memory. So, yeah. So just, you know, that was our most glorious overreach was to somehow delve into like, Collins got a foot thing or a shoe thing or something.

And like, that's how like kind of desperate and bored we were, like trying to come up with stuff for him to do. And then luckily, I think only the best stuff made it through. Yeah, and I thought that that was the same thing. In a completely different frequency, I thought that was also great about Carasco, who's a character who really obviously is, been expanded in the in the in the in the in this season of the show or at least it's a much

different than our understanding and but everything about it it's like if shea wiggum's not playing that part I don't really know if I have the same read on that character and it he found this like rumpled but like pretty like pretty like morally like an honest guy who's sitting in front of this dos prompt and this dos prompt is like the lever of justice in some way in this show right and he's someone if you're who getting back to this kind of institutions thing assumes that the institution, you know, heroism for him is to serve the institution. And he's coming to terms of the fact that the institution is just a bunch of Pam Bailey's. Yeah.

And he's not as good looking as like Woodward or Bernstein. And he's, you know, his mission is not going to ever be like on the front page of the Washington Post. I really, I thought his whole performance was great. Let's talk to the extent that you can. I'm curious about what it's like going into. You have this show out. You have the reactions to this show out. And I wonder whether or not, like, you guys, you know, you're around, you're on this podcast.

Like, how does that get into the writer's room at all for season two? Does it start to creep into your minds even if it doesn't creep out of the moment? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, we love to hear about the characters that people are really connecting to the storylines. Just this weekend I was talking to someone about Shrier and his storyline. And I think, like, especially when there's so much room in the story.

Like, Shreier's bit is so he's got this, like, Florida theory, and then he, you know, gets removed and, you know, it's like spoiler or whatever. And then he shows up again in 2022, sort of wrecked and destroyed by this program. You know, in some ways we are. We're like, okay, what's the arc for this season? And we've, we've never done multi-season shows before. So I was like, okay, great, done with Shire, moving on. Like, we got to get the rest of this written and put together. And then it's so interesting to hear people, like, they really want to know what next for that guy or that person.

Yeah. And so that was something for me, like, I wasn't really. thinking about that, but then when we start to consider season two and as we are getting more and more into it, it's fascinating to see, first of all, like, what people attach to and then secondly, what they don't really care as much about or aren't, like, you know, focused on as much. So I'm watching it pretty closely. Yeah, it's been great just because when you're making a thing, you are always making these guesses about the person on the other side, especially if it's kind of a mystery. You know, you're always deciding where they're going to know, where they're

going to be wondering, and you're very much in a dialogue with that imaginary person. And then normally I put the thing out and just kind of shrug and move on to the next one. So this is so weird in that we have actual numbers, perhaps even hundreds of people experiencing this on the other side. And so it's just great information. I mean, it's dangerous because you don't know what to take from. Just because people want to see more of a thing, do they actually want to see more or do they just want to want to see more?

You've learned about this term called fan service, which I'm sure is very familiar to you. I didn't know about that. But then, yeah, you're like, I've never had this impulse where like, oh, this is what they want. Yeah. And then there's this part of your brain. And then there's this part of you, okay, well, how do we do that? And then there's this part of you that's like, well, we got to give the people what

they want. Yeah. And then it's like, weird to have to be like, well, hang on. And it's like, is that really what they want? Or like, is that an expectation or a desire that we can like do something with to drive further into a story? Because they just don't want a bunch of people like hugging and kissing and sitting around happy. They won't like another thing. Not until season three.

Right. They'll accept it then. Do you guys have a loose timeline of your writing now and then would you try to go to production at sometime next year or? Sometime next year. That seems like a good thing to say. Sure. Okay. All right. I wanted to ask just because we're starting a wind towards the end of the year and not

to put you guys on the spot, but we start asking people a lot around this. What's favorite thing you've seen recently? maybe from this year. Is there anything on TV or in the movies that you've been really inspired by or really loved this year that you wanted to highlight? I just watch Outlander and the Great British Baking Show and I've been working through Game of Thrones.

Like I have the most like boring. I mean, no, no, I think those are great shows. Those are great shows. Yeah, but that's like my TV diet is pretty meat and potatoes, I would say. What I'm really excited about the moment is I just rewatched the apartment. Oh, yeah, Bill Wolderman? Yeah. Which I knew.

I knew it was good, but I was really impressed with and felt very modern in some way. I don't know if that's up for any awards this year. We could bring it back. And I enjoyed Maniac, I think, and I'm still kind of thinking about it. I'm packing that, yeah. I actually, you know, I think I feel we've talked about on the pod. We talked about how they're maniac and a homecoming are very interesting cousin shows. Yeah.

Just because obviously the pharmacological elements of it, but also just there are elements of the Jonah Hill Emma Stone relationship and the cruise and Heidi relationship where it's like kind of transcends whether it's like, is this a romance? This is just a friendship? It's just like a relationship and it had interesting echoes. Well, and also just is this serious or is it funny? You know, I find just the quickest way to lose me is when shows take themselves so, so seriously, because I just don't know of any of them can really maintain that over the course of a season. And so that gray area that I think we're trying to occupy maniac, patriot.

Even like VEP is on the other end of that spectrum, but it's still somewhere... It's about serious things. Yeah, right, of course. Yeah, I think that's the territory that we're eager to explore. Those are good answers. All right, guys, thank you so much

to Eli and Micah for stopping by the watch today. Check out Homecoming. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks, guys. Today's episode of the watch was brought to you by ADT. ADT can design and install a smart home just for you backed by 24-7 production like Doorman Service,

which is an ADT Automation, that unlocks the door for packages, friends, or your kids, or turn-down service, an ADT automation that arms your system, locks your doors, and turns down your lights and thermostat. It's all controlled from the ADT app or the sound of your voice and back by 24-7 protection. Just visit ADT.com slash smart to learn more about how ADT can design and install a secure smart home just for you. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Hotel Tonight by showing you top-rated

hotels with unsold rooms. Hotel Tonight makes it easier to book your stay at an amazing rate. And even though their name is Hotel Tonight, you can book in advance. Perfect for spontaneous weekend getaways, three-day weekends, day weekends, day vacations, road trips, business trips, booking a place of the pool, and more. So to start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels, go to hoteltonight.com or download the app now.