The Watch - ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ ‘The Idol,’ Episode 2, and the ‘Top Chef’ Finale

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ and how this movie shows what is possible for comic book movie sequels (1:00). Then they talk about the second episode of ‘The Idol’ and whether or not the show could be considered “funny” (40:03), before breaking down the ‘Top Chef’ finale and what will come next for the show now that Padma is leaving (56:01). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew,

the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I am an editor at the Rigger.com and joining me in the studio. On Earth 65, he loves the idol. It's Andy Greenwald. Is 65 the one with the spider cat, or do you just pull that number out? Well, that's the first Earth that we see in across the Spider-verse,

an animated film that I went and saw on Friday. Yeah. Is it? According to Wikipedia. There it is. Okay, I just want to make sure you're doing research. Also, let's take a moment at the top of this jam-pack podcast.

Yeah. To celebrate Chris making good on a promise. Oh, come on, get the F out, man. Welch's grape juice over here. Finally went and saw a cartoon movie in the middle of the day alone. Do you want this podcast to become about cartoons? I want it to be contentious. I feel like that's been good for it.

We're talking about the Idol again, so it definitely will be. We're talking about Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. The Idol and the finale of Top Chef. Andy, it's great to see you. I don't really have any news. notes, you know, unless you want to talk, Jack Smith. I do, but maybe... Hey, can I ask you something?

Yeah. Do you think they got them? Like, you know how it's like, my mom is like, I think they got him? And I was like, I don't, I'm going to reserve judgment, mom. No, I think it's a wrap. Yeah? I think they got them. I think, here's my, here's my thing.

Here's my galaxy brain tape. If I, this is why people tune it, if I wanted to become president, or at least to become the nominating. of one of the two major parties in America. Yeah. I don't know. Call me crazy. Maybe it's just, you know,

maybe this is like the high school sports competitive gene kicking in, but I would maybe be, I would maybe take the opportunity. Jason Street over here. Jason Street after the pilot. After the shark fin stem cell replacement. I would,

I would take the opportunity to maybe get a little differentiation. Get some digs in. With the front runner who has just been indicted on federal charges of espionage. Yeah. You know, like that's,

just me. I feel like it is a pretty weird strategy to be like, I'm better than him, but also that guy's great. No problem. No problem. Has there ever been, okay, last thing, do you think what 45

did is equivalent to TV critics being like, no spoilers, but you don't want to miss this week's episode of House the Dragon? Better call Saul tonight, yeah. Is it the same thing? Is it the same impulse that caused a and to pull aside people on the third hole of the New Jersey golf course to show them.

Did you ever used to do that back in the day when you were a TV critic? Would you be like ripe and juicy Americans tonight? You know, like with many things, I would like to sit in front of you today and say no. But you did. My stat sheet is clean. No asterisks in my glide path to the hall. But I assume that I've engaged in all sorts of like really lame online behavior. Because the other thing is, you know, I don't know if you guys know this.

This is a running bit on the podcast The Watch. but I'm just clawed into Facebook. Like that's where I like to be. Catch up with friends, family. Tell me what you did on Friday. And what did I do on Friday? You fucking woke me up and you were like, man, this Trump stuff seems really bad for him. Yeah, that's because I was on the news tab of Facebook.

Before it's fucking banned in this state because they won't pay for it. No, but honestly, if I had gotten that news from Facebook, I would have been like, Seems like there's a lot of sides of this issue. Yeah, right. And then it all sort of said, here's the 20 spider variants you missed. No, Facebook does this thing, Chris, I'm just going to let you know,

where it's just like, you have memories. I'm like, thank you. It's wonderful reaching older age. And the memories are all me posting on Facebook in like 2008, like when it was new. Yeah. In the style of the time, which was your name was there,

and so you completed the sentence. Andy Greenwald is. Yes. So happy about Barack Obama winning the primary. Literally, that's one of them. Another one is, is wondering if these clouds mean a thunderstorm in Brooklyn today? It is so lame. You literally haven't changed at all since.

No, but now I own the first person pronoun. Yeah. And now I do it. Right. I do it. So how was your weekend? Fine, because it was buoyed by this journey into a world that I had here to for not experienced. The spider verse.

The world of moving pictures and drawing. Because you had never seen the first one. You didn't do it. I did. You did watch it? So people know we were recording last week and then when we finished recording, Chris was like, I think I'm going to go see the movie. And I was like, that's fantastic.

Couldn't do it. I gave you a window, much like, you know, Grace Period, you didn't give me with your airplane text when I was in the theater. But I was like, I'm going to give him some space. It's hard for him to go see a cartoon movie by himself. And at the end of the day, I was like, so. how was it? And you were like, I'm watching Blood Diamond. Which at first, I didn't understand was related to your duties on rewatchables.

You thought I just chose like when given like two paths in a wood that diverged. I was like, I chose the Blood Diamond one. A million percent. And I think most people feel like that is on brand as well. No, Duty called. I had to watch Blood Diamond. I mean, I lovingly and excitedly watched Blood Diamond for rewatchables. But I did go to a

matinee screening of Across the Spider-Vy verse. Okay. You know, I was the only single adult man there, which was chill. And one thing that's funny is that, like, I'm not like really, what? I'm just wondering, like, did you have to keep a couple seats around you per Megan's list? Like, what was the... Well, I did be...

I kept moving because, respectfully... Very chill. So I was sitting in the row that, you know, the AMC at the Glendale Mall, you know? Yeah. I was sitting in the row that's like... in between the two sections of the theater because a family had decided to sit to occupy my seat that I had selected. And rather than be like, why don't you just move your family of five? I was just like, you know what, I'm a visitor here in the Spider-Verse. By the way, that's also very L.A. City Council

where you were like, instead of discouraging crime, let's just tell car companies to make their cars harder to steal. I've put the catalytic converter in a cage. That's right. So I sat in the middle, which I think it was problematic in its own way but the entire movie a kid was kicking the railing above my head

so did that affect my enjoyment of the film listener? Yes. It did not. It did not because this one's a banger Andy.

Yes, it is. It's a banger. And you know, I want to really hold myself back from being like not since or the greatest ever and blah blah blah

because I don't know I haven't seen a lot of big animated films I just, you know, for a variety of reasons. But I was super curious because Sean said, first five-star movie, one of the best movies the last couple of years, you were like, I'll let you fill in your blanks

about how enthusiastic you want to be about it. I hadn't seen into, but I did watch it beforehand because I wanted to make sure I watched it on not as much of a booming system as the one I saw it. Not a metro booming system. Yeah. But what a fantastic movie. And I have a lot to say about it.

But I want to set you up because I feel like not only do you have your web slingers are a little bit more potent than mine, but also I think you have a little bit

more of a feel for it and I also think as a father of daughters. Here we go. This one probably hit home a little bit. It hit different. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I feel like there's a bunch of different ways to praise this movie and I think I don't, you were saying that you don't have

a lot of animated movies to compare it to. I mean, I think this is better than just about any other superhero movie. Yeah. Well,

that was the thing that I really wanted to talk about is we can be pretty hard on recent superhero movie fair because we want more from it I think it's not just like oh we think it's stupid we actually are like hey man like we are

albeit the graying aging out we are still the target audience for this we really would like if these were good we sing their praises and to see spider across the spider verse you realize like just what a desert we have been living in yeah I don't know

which, like, if we start at the highest possible altitude, this movie gave me or restored my faith in mainstream entertainment. In a really profound way. I felt transported, I felt elated, I felt uplifted, I just felt joy throughout the entire thing. And so much of that comes from how much careful consideration goes into every second, every frame. It is loud, but it is not noisy. It is kinetic, but it is not overly busy. It's beautiful.

It's choreographed. The emotional storylines are pure and true, and it, you know, people love when I use the word urns, but yeah, it does get darker. It gets chaotic. There's a lot of moving pieces and a lot of moving spider people. But it is so true to the emotional journey of its lead and leads that it's a pleasure to swing through the skyscrapers with it. The skyscrapers of plot.

It's so astounding to me because I think that one thing that we've become conditioned to accept is that this is the world that we live in in terms of the pop culture products we get and that these are hard to make and there are a lot of people to please and a lot of mouths to fill and a lot of boxes to tick in order to accomplish them.

And so we say, well, we grade on points of expectation or intention. even movies that have their hearts in the right place, like the Black Panther sequel, we quietly overrate, or in the case of this podcast, don't really cover it all, because we're like,

well, they were dealt an incredibly tragic hand by losing the star, and also this movie became important to the larger MCU projects. You have to shoehorn Julie Louis-Dreyfus into it, and you have to do all these other things. So it's just amazing that there's a beating heart in it at all.

Spider-Verse makes all of those arguments look like total bullshit. it because they actually ran towards making it more complicated and essentially saying that all of these movies are the same in the same universe, sorry, the same multiverse, right? It wrapped its arms around everything, even stuff it doesn't need to, like all of the Sony movies. Yeah. And even the MCU with a few throwaway lines. And it does it with style and wit. I just think it is a, the first movie was like this too, but the degree to which it improved upon the first movie, I just think it's a game changer. And I think everybody else has just got to get their shit together or honestly

give up because they can't compete. So one of the things that I loved about it was the palpable feeling of creativity in every single frame. And what I mean by that is there were parts of it that made me feel like I felt when I was in first grade or kindergarten and I was just drawing. Yeah. You know, and you are trying to create a sensation of like, you know, I would draw like ninjas because I learned how to draw ninjas really young. Really? Well, I learned... Can you still draw ninjas?

I mean, it's just a bunch of triangles and then blood spewing everywhere, which was something for my child psychologist. Kai, turn the TikTok camera on. Do we have that? I think... But you would basically try to create movement. You would try to create emotion.

You would try to create the sense of action, by like pouring yourself into a marker stroke or a brush stroke or a pencil stroke or whatever. So not only could you... you see that on the screen? But you also had 22nd century technology at work. You also had, especially my favorite part was the Daniel Coluio, like the Hobie character and the

cutout zine, punk pastage stuff, which I'm sure like you could say like, you know, Sid Vicious is turning in his grave, but like give me a break. And like, it was just really interesting to see all of these different styles collide. And yet, on top of all these different like formal innovations, there are some set pieces in this movie, which is essentially a combination. I think if I had one critique of the movie, it would be the set pieces are so loud and

chaotic. And then the chamber pieces are so quiet and sometimes long that it kind of feels like you're sprinting and then walking and then sprinting and then walking. You're never trotting if that makes sense. But that is like a really like light, like don't even. worry about it critique. But the mechanics of the set pieces, and I understand it's prohibitively expensive to like book the Guggenheim, for instance, where the first major action set piece takes

place. Like you couldn't. Oh, you couldn't do it in a live action. You couldn't do it in a live action, maybe. We sure, though? Yeah, exactly. And isn't it the thought that counts? Isn't it the idea of like, oh, like, think about this structure.

Think about how it's built. Think about how these levels are here. And what would happen if a piece of art came to life, like the vulture. And he looked like a devout. Vinci drawing, jumping around. And you're like, well, yeah, but you can do that in a cartoon or an animated film. And it's like, yeah, but like, Dr. Strange is animated. Yep.

You know, Quantumverse is animated. They could have done anything with those movies. And you get into like the VFX people and the 25 hour days that they're working and how, you know, under the gun they are and the last second changes. And I would just hold this film up as you let Lord and Miller and the rest of the creative team on this responsible for this. And, you know, because of COVID, they had a little bit more time to work on this. But this is still the longest, I think, the most people working on it, right?

Didn't have the largest staff. Probably. This is what you get. You get something truly remarkable. And there are things that happen in this movie, the Spider Society Chase getting out, the Guggenheim, and even some of the quieter moments, like Miles and Gwen going through Brooklyn. The Miles and Gwen scene is absolutely beautiful. And it fills you with, it's, it's, I guess. Keep saying joy.

Like, it's an emotional action scene, and it's exciting, and it's romantic, and you feel for it. I think that what you're speaking to is really an important point, because I think that the history of comic books in mainstream entertainment has always been one of deep, deep, deep, self-doubt, and self-loathing. Which is to say, for years before the first Spider-Man movie, the Toby McGuire movie, there was this idea that comic books can't be mainstream because they're for nerds. Nobody's going to get this. And then those movies were really exciting and good, and it suddenly cracked the code that, oh, no, everybody understands the hero's journey part of this. Everybody understands the wanting to be someone else. And also everybody can understand, certainly the bean counters in old Hollywood, old Hollywood being 20 years ago, that there's opportunity here for big, loud action set pieces that'll get people in the theaters in the summertime. But from that point, there continues to be, and this isn't just a comic book entertainment thing, it's just an entertainment thing, fear. Like we can't be too weird.

We can't be too out there. We can't actually capture some of the just hyper-kinetic, ecstatic mania of creativity that comic books alone can do. Instead, we'll do the multiverse, but it'll be mostly purple and green. Or it'll be three characters. You know, we have to tame it down. We have to tamp it down. And these movies do everything that you're not supposed to do visually, right?

It crosses, it mixes up all different styles of art. in one cartoon on top of each other. It does that with the soundtrack too. It deals with, it has like text on screen. It's self-referential. It's funny and it's gripping. And sometimes it's funny and gripping at the same time. It doesn't follow the rules.

It does follow the rules of comic books in a way that just feels really exciting. Yeah. And sometimes like it's funny like whenever I'm reading, like whenever I read like a graphic novel and compendium of a bunch of issues. Usually when there's something coming on TV or in the movies, and it's like, I want to read the comics version of this story.

So I read Secret Wars, you know, because that's largely rumored to be what comes next to you. I'll read it in like a night, even if it's like 180 pages or whatever. And my wife's like, you read that so fast. And I'm like, I think that's the point. Like you can kind of go and analyze every frame, but there's something of the like, I am creating my own...

Flipping. Yeah, your own rhythm. My own rhythm. and it almost goes back to like, you know, if you spin through a bunch of different pictures and it makes it look like they're moving kind of thing. Yeah. And there is a feeling of that,

that like original, I'm being blown away by this feeling when watching this movie. And I have to say, a 45-year-old idol fan that I am. Yeah. I thought, like, I was pretty moved by like, you're the anomaly.

Oh my God. Like the Miguel, like, and that has been done in every single multiversal story that we have seen where somebody is confronted with like, you know, you screwed something up

and now your parents are dead or you screwed something up and your aunt's dead or you screwed something up and you're never... It was ran before this and it's the same story. Exactly. But for some reason, I think the fact that this is like,

superheroes often are like outsiders looking for acceptance. They form these groups to create a surrogate family. And this guy thinks that he's finally found like people who will appreciate and love him for who he really is

and he finds out that he is the reject of rejects. And I thought that was just really well done. And his, you know, I know that people have compared this to like, you know, you do the Star Wars. The first one, you do Empire gets dark in the second one. This certainly ends on a dark note. I was wondering whether or not when you're watching this movie, you probably had a sense that there was going to be obviously a sequel, but were you surprised when you got about like 30 minutes left and you're like, I don't like to wrap this up. I think that I had, I think I knew because when they had originally announced this movie,

it was called Across the Spider-Verse part one. Oh, yeah. So I did have a sense that there was going to be a cliffhanger. I didn't understand where it was going. I didn't know where else there was to go. So I was delighted when I suddenly realized that he was in the wrong place, and they did that classic Silence of the Lambs. She's outside the window, but it's the wrong, or outside the house that it's the wrong house thing.

You rarely see that in cartoons, although it's become a trope. I want to talk about, yeah, I want to talk about the trilogy part. I want to talk about the emotional anger. the emotional anchor of Miles and his family, which is just astonishing. But just one last note about, like, is this too weird or is this too much? I just feel like something that isn't appreciated enough,

certainly in the boardrooms of Hollywood, is like, we don't want to be spoon-fed the things that we've already seen. We want to be challenged by something that you care about, that you're passionate about, and to be let in. That's a very different feeling and an exciting one. And I think that for people to see these movies, even if they haven't read comic books,

even if they don't understand the tortured history of the Ben Riley Scarlet Spider character, which I'm very happy to share with our listeners. You get it. Is there like a comic run with the Cowboy Spider-Man? Yeah, all of these characters.

Not all, but almost all of them have some... Do you still read Spider-Man? No. Okay. But I keep up. You know what I mean? Same way I am with like baseball season pre-September.

Like I'm watching who's coming up and down and the averages. Because I just want to make a small... I'm worried we're going to forget to say it. batting average champ. You get up every day. You open USA today and you're like, who's leading the National League in batting average?

And wins and losses. Because I feel like those are the only two true stats that still matter that people care about. I just want to make the point that like these movies, when you see Miles's room and the posters he has and his aesthetic and I'm like, yeah, this seems lived in. This seems considered.

He seems like a real person to me. These movies made me get post Malone. You know what I mean? Like the soundtrack is this... mishmash of artists that I feel like I've been dismissive of or haven't understood or heard and it's an entirely conceived aesthetic that makes sense

and when you're dropped into it you're just delighted. When we get to Brooklyn and they play the Rakim song I don't know how many people have heard that song before in the target audience or the kid who's kicking you in the rail probably wasn't you know to the rhythm of the track but like

everyone understands what it is and I just think that's an incredibly powerful thing. To your point about the trilogies I just feel like our generation ruined everything. Okay, no, the baby boomers really ruined everything. But we ruined everything in terms of pop culture because the first Star Wars trilogy became the de facto, everything has to be a trilogy,

and has to follow that pattern. And guess what, guys, not everything fucking needs to be a trilogy. There used to be stories that could just tell you a whole story in a movie. Yeah. Remember that? This movie is the exception that maybe that proves the rule because this earned it.

Yeah. This took everything in the first movie and made it bigger and deeper and richer and built on it and did the kind of tricky retconning that doesn't always work, which was the creation of a villain from a throwaway moment in the first movie.

And then even within this movie, took a villain, introduced him as a joke that matched the tone of the movie we thought we were getting. And then he became something... Like everything is tongue and cheek and everything is kind of like, never mind.

But it became deeper and richer over the course of it And it earns the third movie in a way that you rarely see. The spot, the Jason Schwartzman villain is like, wants the same thing as Spider-Man. He wants to be taken seriously. He wants to be real, you know what I mean? And I thought it was really well written.

You know, there's... Oh God, it's so funny. It's really funny. And I just thought that, like, watching this and I'd mentioned that I'd watched Wick 4 again, you know, on the plane. And, you know, you see the sequences in Wick 4. and I won't give anything like big away, but like there's a Japan sequence,

there's a couple of sequences in Paris where you're like, holy shit. Like that is, I'll think about the stairs for the rest of my movie going days. Really? In WIC? Yeah. And it's because like,

Stahelsky actually was like, I have an idea. And I always go back to, there's a Brian DePaulma interview. I mean, I think it's part of the Bomback documentary that he made, but it's like De Palma being like,

I look at these like drone shots or I look at like a shot where it's like, you know, whatever. And I'm just like, what's the idea in this shot? Yeah. And I thought that this movie was just bursting with ideas. And that was just strangely, I mean, I can't believe how refreshing it was. And I think it's sad that it's not more common. I do want to ask you this.

Yes. How did we wind up in the place where every goddamn thing is telling a multiversal story? It's really weird. I mean, it is deeply weird and that that is now just the understood storytelling mechanism. It does speak to, I think it speaks to two things. I was going to say it's connected to what's going on with comic books generally, but I think it also speaks to our pop culture condition. The multiversal storyline thing is kind of what saved comics.

People point to something in the 80s where Marvel was kicking DC's ass, and one of the reasons it was kicking DC's ass is because Marvel could credibly say they had been telling one story for 25 years, that from Fantastic Four number one, And then even before that, with characters like the Submariner and the original Human Torch, and Captain America that then got brought into the mythology, it had been one consistent story. And it was still manageable that there would always be these little asterisks like Editor's Note. Check this out. Johnny Storm is talking about the time he met Wolverine and whatever.

And he'd be like, oh, wow, that's cool. I'll go by that comic. DC had such a longer history that it was really hard to do that because there was the Justice Society of America with a Green Lantern who was a rich guy wearing a six. suit, and then a few years later, Green Lanterns were an international corps of space cops with magic rings that could do whatever. And it didn't really agree. There were three flashes then, and that was seen as a problem. So they did the storyline called Crisis on Infinite Earths, which suggested the idea of a

multiverse and that they needed to be rectified. And coming out of that crisis, there was one DC story. They just hammered everything together. Some things never existed or got folded in, and now there was one storyline. And what was Flashpoint? Flashpoint was like the 19th time they've done that since then. Oh, okay. So every once in a while they basically are like, uh-oh, there's multiple timelines. And then as recently as like, you know, 20 years ago when Miles Morales was introduced,

Miles Morales was introduced in a line of comics called Ultimate Comics that Marvel started. It was when Marvel was flailing. And they were like, our comics now have gotten too unwieldy because in order to read X-Men, you have to pick up issue 381 of uncanny X-Men and understand that you've missed decades of this shit. And you're like, yes. I love that. But I was, you know, head up. Mother, back to the comic store. Yeah. And you were like, hey, come watch Band of Brothers with me. And I was like, sorry, dog. Sorry, dog. I think Archangel's about to become angel again, maybe. So they launched these comics called Ultimate Comics, Ultimate Spider-Man number one, Ultimate X-Men number one, which basically, okay, what if we started it now? And it's modern. And some of the stories were good, some were

forgettable. And what was interesting about Ultimate Spider-Man is that they just did the Peter Parker story again. And then, and it was stylish and good. And also in keeping the storytelling of the time, I think Spider-Man's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy 15, it tells the entire Uncle Ben story in one page. And then Spider-Man's just like, zippity-dooda, time to swing around the city. Ultimate Comics took six to eight issues to tell that story. Okay. Well, this will work well in television. Anyway, a bunch of years later, Brian Michael Bendis, who gets a credit on these movies, was writing that and was like, you know, I feel like we got it wrong. It wouldn't be Peter Parker in Queens. It would be someone, and he created a character,

Miles Morales in Brooklyn. And that character became ultimate Spider-Man. It became very successful. And then Marvel had a multiversal problem, which is, we can't have two Spider-Man. We've been telling, I said Spider-Man, like some fucking orthodontist on the Upper East Side. Donald Spitaman. Benjamin Spider-We'll see you now. He certainly will. how can we have both? And then they learned that maybe this is actually a Bennett, this is actually good.

People love this. They folded miles into the MCU proper in the Secret Wars comic you're talking about. And then since then, though, they were like, because it's just interesting. The whole appeal of Spider-Man has always been, always, for the first 50 years, that there was one, one guy.

Now all of a sudden, a whole generation is learning the appeal of it is that he is an archetypal cross-universal figure that can be a horse. And that they, I love the idea that there are candid events and that there are things that have to happen to each Spider-Man to make him an Upper West Side Dentist, you know, and that that is... But the thing that, sorry, to answer you, this is the longest answer to a very good question, and I apologize. You were saying, like, why does everything have to be multiversal? I think part of it is that's another piece of comic book storytelling that has become mainstreamed.

But I think the deeper answer is we are profoundly culturally uncomfortable with uncertainty or things that don't agree. or line up. And so all of this pop culture we're getting now, not all of it, a huge amount of it that even we cover on the show is an attempt to fix the Joyce that don't line up perfectly in our canonical entertainment. So they're... Narratively? Or, yeah, because I think that it does a couple of things for one. But just to say, like, so much of the, like, so much of the Philoniverse is just like, I'm going to fix the Star Wars story by putting my story into it. And, making sure we understand that, okay, Boba Fett was left a dangling, literally dangling, into the jaw of a sand beast, but here's what happened.

I'm going to tell you what happened, because there's an answer. There has to be an answer. And then that sort of bleeds into, well, how can Toby McGuire be Spider-Man? And then also Andrew Garfield and also a cartoon Miles Morales. And these movies are like, don't worry, there's a plan for that. It's this, I think it speaks to some deep, honestly, deep American anxiety that we might not have a plan. We might not have a, that 9-11 didn't do this for us. I think it's the human desire to kill death.

Yes, but also to limit uncertainty. I think we don't ever want anything to be over and we don't want anything to ever die. Which is weird because the moments that you remember both in your life and the moments that you remember in the culture that you like typically have to do with endings or deaths. You know, I mean like those moments of, I don't want to spoil any shows just off the top of my head, but you think about. moments in the Sopranos or moments in Breaking Bad or moments in whatever, the TV shows that we love that often revolve around when this happened. And it's not like, then there's a multiversal version of Albuquerque

where we see Jane. You know what I mean? And I also think that there's something to be said for the idea that the studios are making something that their audience wants, which is the audience wants to say and who is in these movies. And now they have that say because everybody can be in these movies.

You don't have to choose just one Reed Richards. You don't have to choose just one Spider-Man. You don't ever have to worry about if you like the Andrew Garfield one or if you liked the Miles Morales one or if you like Tom Holland. They're all going to be in your life, right? Like you don't have to be like, God, you know, I was a really big Michael Keaton fan. But I guess everything changes and I get older. It's like, no, but next weekend fucking Michael Keaton is going to be on big screens playing Batman.

Apparently is the co-star of The Flash. I haven't seen that movie, but apparently everybody else has even though it isn't out yet. But what do you think of that? The idea that basically it's like this multiversal storytelling is a reaction to what audiences actually want. Well, yeah. I mean, I think audiences are comic book nerds now. I mean, they're just completis. They want it all to dovetail and make sense.

I think the danger, it's the rabbit hole that both comics and now the MCU has fallen into, is that it becomes homework. That it is not fun, surprising, clever, interesting, or even secondary to the story. it is the story. And one of the things about Spider-Verse that I think is so delightful is what I was saying before is that you don't need to know anything, anything about any of this to find it funny, bizarre, interesting. Like, do you think people come out of that movie being like, well, they must have invented the dinosaur Spider-Man for the movie? They didn't. But who cares? It's a dinosaur fucking Spider-Man. Similarly, I have never, and I apologize for this, because I know that you actually

have a small shareholder stake in this. I have not seen any of the Tom Hardy Venom films. Apparently, the scene where Spot enters into the real world and there's a woman behind the counter that's a venom thing I don't know didn't take anything away from my I what I understood about that it was funny so that was fine similarly Donald Glover sitting in a cage is either an incredibly like both clever and like righteous act of timeline fixing or it's just bizarre and either way it works because it's it's not the movie and when I say timeline fixing it's because don't Glever played Aaron Morales soon to become the Prouler in one of the Tom Holland movies. And there was all this idea, there was a lot of talk then that that was laying the seeds from Miles

Morales to be in the live action MCU. And then when this movie took off, that storyline was kind of abandoned wisely. So in this, he clearly became the prowler. Yes. And I would say that Tom Holland has been pretty vocal about being like, all the tea leaves would suggest they're going to do another Spider-Man live action movie with Tom Holland. into Spider-Man, but that that might also usher in live-action Miles Morales.

Which, look, everything is going to happen and everything's going to get made, and hopefully some of it will be good. But I think it's important to say that... That's the attitude. Yeah, just drown me in your bullshit, Hollywood. But this character and this version of the character

is perfect, is iconic, and, like, I really... You said you weren't going to overreact. I will. Like, watching this movie, I felt like just connected to the timelessness of the artistic cosmos in a way that you don't always get. And, you know, speaking of broken promises, like, you get that from, in terms of kids entertainment, like a Miyazaki movie or something, or Bluey, where I'm like, this stuff is pure, lawful good

in a world where most of this stuff is at best chaotic neutral, if not downright evil. Like, it's actually going to last and it matters. I, the voice acting. I wanted to ask you about this. The fucking voice acting in this movie is Godtier. Like, what Chameek Moore does as Miles is incredible. It's incredible. Haley Seinfeld as Gwen, like these are real people that I care about more than most movies I've seen.

Because, you know, it pays attention to specificity and emotion. I really like Lauren and Brian Tyree Henry. Oh my God, they're so good. Yeah, they're great. Great characters, great world. Schwartzman's great. Schwartzman is amazing. The Shortsman son is fucking on.

Right? Yeah. Like there was a moment when we were like, that kid was really good in Rushmore. Is he going to be an actor? Is he have a long career? Yeah, we're 25 years in now. Yeah.

He's getting better. It's an amazing performance. But Daniel Kaluya. Yeah. Oscar Isaac, like just. Yeah, the whole Miguel thing was really cool. I didn't know anything about Miguel O'Hara. Is that like a big thing?

So every few years, Marvel would like, here's a whole new universe. and it was before they had to have any connection to it. And in the 90s, like when I was in high school, when I was actually still reading comics, their big initiative was 2099, where there was, like, dark future versions of all your characters. And there was a Punisher, 2009, and there was a...

A dark future version of Punisher. The 90s were dark in comics, even though in retrospect. But, like, how much darker could it get for Frank? Do you want me to quote from the... And then Spider-Man, 1999, where Miguel O'Hara is the hero of Nueva York, and, like, kind of... correctly forgotten, I would say,

as a character in comics, at least as was portrayed that. Was he like a dirty Harry version of Spider-Man kind of? He was dark to match his city. Yeah. And I don't remember where the like, maybe he's also a vampire stuff comes from. I don't remember any of that.

But a lot of these characters, like the baby, May Day Parker is Spider-Girl from another, like, let's do a few years in the future where Peter and Mary Jane are married and they have a kid and she becomes, like there's precedent for these characters. Yeah.

not necessarily all being in a headquarters together. But, yeah, like, again, taking a character like Spider-Man 2099 and not being so precious as to, like, he had an arc. He had a reason for existing, but he was also the only one without a sense of humor. And the movie runs at that. It doesn't run away from that. And I appreciated that. Like, even the, when he shows up, Miles shows up and makes a joke.

And then everyone makes the joke because they're all wisecracking, which could get a little annoying. I liked the ending a lot. Yeah. If I was a kid, you took some kids to this movie. I did. Your own. And they said it was the best movie they'd ever seen.

I was going to ask if that would be like, I am your father, Luke, to have, like, you find out that your dad has replaced your uncle in this mural of remembrance. And I thought it was way more effective to have that happen, to have Miles see his father up on the wall rather than see his father actually pass away. and to be confronted with, you know, your evil doppelganger, the prowl, who's now the prowler, like, pretty heavy stuff. It was really heavy. And also, the way it was drawn. Did you have to, like, explain that to your kids? No.

Okay. Not explain it, like, this is what's happening, but, like, did you have to, like, be like, it's going to be okay or, you know, like? I think that. Or were you like, there is a darkness in all of us, and it's better that you find this out now. Well, a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B. I had spent the morning reading them,

the unsealed indictments. So I was like, oh, you want a break? Fine. Watch a light entertainment. I think that one thing that, the way to answer that question is to speak to something else that's just so impressive about the movie, which is that the movie, like Spider-Man, the true essence of a Spider-Man story, has a heroism and an optimism baked into it. So I don't think you leave that movie being like Miles' dream is dead.

dead. It's crushed. You leave the movie just as much excited about Gwen's new spider team that's going to come rescue him as you do about what this means. I think the nature of Spider-Man character is that it gets real fucking gnarly and he's still some he or she or it or they or any or the fucking car still has a sense of humor and a spark of hope and that wins out. That's sort of just essential to the project. And I think that the movie communicates that in a lot of ways, one of which was my buddy Justin sent me a link to this. Like Daniel Pemberton's score is doing

just as much creatively in terms of mashing stuff up as the visuals where Miles has a theme, prowler has a theme, Gwen has those drums that play through the whole movie, Hobie has the guitar that comes in. And as that ending builds to a crescendo, each piece gets laid on top of each other.

So it seems overwhelming. Like, oh, this is crescendo. Then they also have like the entire Metro Boomin' like soundtrack where it's like the James Blake's that plays when Miles is in his room. I was like, this is pretty effective shit. But it's telling you that all of these things are coming together. You know, it's communicating this feeling that it's,

that hope isn't lost, but it's just going to get, it's going to get hard. By the way, Spider-Man in India? Oh, yeah. That was so, okay, this is good. That is so funny. This is a good segue into what would be your, like, time capsule, like, I want to extract this, put it on YouTube and watch it over and over again, moment or sequence from the movie.

I love that whole sequence. The saving. Mumbatten, but also that, I should have the guy's name in front of me, like that voice performance, and the whole thing was just like, it's easy being Spider-Man. It's so funny. And then the introduction of Hobie is great. Like, that whole, it just builds and builds and builds.

But in terms of just visual storytelling, that Miles Gwen sequence is just... We're like, she's hanging upside down and he's sitting. Yeah. And they're just separated, but they're together. And it's, oh, man. I just, this movie, this movie literally had everything. Any mild critiques? Any, like, anything that you would say even as like a counterbalance to all this?

And you can say no. I struggle thinking of one. And yeah, people will correctly point out that like, I did see it with my daughters who were like, this is the greatest movie ever. So that also adds an extra. You know, it's okay sometimes to be like it's the greatest movie ever. For me, it kind of was because I love this type of movie. But I also love, call me corny. I love that so much thought, care, and wit and heart went into something so big on the biggest possible cannabis.

It cost a ton of money. I'm sure it was no easy feat. Lord and Miller are famously very, very exacting and demanding. But it worked. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I feel bad bringing up the Idle now. No, I think it's perfect. I feel great talking about the I don't know. Because you know what? Sometimes it doesn't work. All right.

So the second episode of the aisle, it's not really necessary to do much of a plot recap of it because I think that structurally and almost substantively, it kind of retraces the steps of the first episode. So you get like the first half of the episode of the idol, of the second episode of the idol is essentially a behind the scenes look at the machinations of the music industry. We get to see a video shoot, very black swanish video shoot I would describe it as. I like that you're saying it follows the same path,

but this time our feet are totally bloody and cut up. And we've been cutting the inside of our thighs, yeah. And then the second half of the episode is a sexual Bacchanal with a lot of drug use, a lot of very, like, you know, explicit sounding sex, I would say especially. Shout out to the Foley operators. By the end of it, we get sort of the first turn of the series, which is that this guy, Tedros Tedros,

Tedros, important, that's his name, is going to move in with Jocelyn, the star of the show, the star of the world here, and start to get his claws into her. I have a question for you. Okay. So here's who's in Idol gang right now.

Me? Are you still in the gang? I'm in Idol gang. Oh, after this episode, for sure. This is an incredible. This might be your toughest one. Idol gang is me, Fennacy, and Manola Dargis.

Now, Sean, I love... Sean is a troll. Uh-huh. That doesn't surprise me. I don't think so. Sean, Sean is a cinematic... Sean's the last honest man in this world. What about Joe Rogan?

Well... Okay, all right. Wow. Okay, so that's who's pro the show. That's who I know is in the gang. Me, Manola, and Sean. I did get a text from a very talented television writer-director who has been on this podcast. sources say.

Who is like, I can't help it. I kind of love it. I won't out her unless she wants to be outed when she hears this. And then she can come on and defend herself as she should. Here's the reason why I like this show so much. Uh-huh. So much. Here's the reason why I like this show.

Don't just let me be me. I let you be you. What's going to be top ten? This or Last of Us? Well, is it only one can be in there? Which is more likely to be on your top ten? Because you announced Last of Us was. I didn't say that.

I said Last of Us was in. the top. Did I say last of us is in the final top 10? I think that there was a moment when you may, you know, the nicotine lozenges may have worn off in an episode earlier this year. Where I don't know. And you were like, I feel like you felt like you were being not being positive enough. And you're like, look, this will be on my top 10. And I was like, I can use this and weaponize it against Chris later in the year. Yeah, because I never do that with any of your outlandish statements that you made. You never do. That's why I think this is a successful friendship. Like when we do the top five movies of the year,

and you're like, oh, yeah, across the Spider-Verse. That's the only movie I'll see for the rest of the year. Oh, that's not true. I saw the new Nicole Hollif Center, and that's almost as good as Spider-Verse. That's my Spider-Verse. One thing that came out,

and there was a Manola Dargis interview with Sam Levinson, the weekend, and Lily Rose Depp and the Sunday New York Times. And one thing that was apparent is both Manola and the creators of this show think they're making a comedy. do you think this show is a comedy? Do you think this show is more satirical?

I don't believe them either. But like, okay, so this was a knock against like Phantom Thread, right? Like, is that like you could say that there's a lot of... FAMTred is a comedy. Okay. But you don't think that the idol is funny. No.

No, I think it flirted with being funny in the first 20 minutes of the first episode. I don't think that's the funny part. I don't think that the funny part is... I mean, I think that there is some elements of that. But I think that the first... funny part is him being like, Tedros being like, when we first met, we talked about when doves cry and you have a picture of Prince in your house, there are no coincidences. It's like,

that is not a coincidence. It's Prince. This is, this is three people who don't have a sense of humor thinking something is funny. There's not a single funny thing about this. His name is Tedros, Tedros. I don't think they, I don't think they understand jokes. I mean, show me anything in the uver of those three individuals that suggests like a deep and mortoned wit lurking inside of it. Well, you have to see Euphoria Season 2. Is it funny? There's parts of it that are fucking hilarious. Guy, did you watch Euphoria Season 2?

Are you going to pull me into Pro-Idle Gang? Let's just see what you're doing. This is procedural. Let's just add, okay. I watch Euphoria season. Is the Oklahoma bathroom scene not funny? Yes. Thank you.

She said, yes, it's not funny. No, yes, it's funny. Yes, it's funny. There are parts of Euphoria season two that are very funny. Okay, so I retract. I retract. Weekend, not a laugh riot. Abel, I wouldn't say, like,

I can't wait to see Abel set at the comedy shop, you know? this show, look, okay. You can tell me that in an interview with a gray lady that they said that it's supposed to be funny. And I laughed last night. By myself watching that show when they were like, his name is Tedros Tedros and Hank Azaria was like, and she's like he's a person of color.

And they were like, he's Hawaiian. Wait, that was really funny. That was a good scene. I'm sorry, you're right. I thank you for that. I thought Hank Azaria was really good in the episode actually and I enjoyed it. That's a great point.

That was really, that was actually funny. And that suggested something. And all his Neil Strauss stuff where he's like, I'm not going to call her back. And then he calls her back. And he's like, I don't know. I just thought there was like a kind of darkly funny element to this show. I think that. And it helped.

It helped me enjoy it. I, I thought this was a truly awful episode. Like really, really bad. Like they, like a little bit. Any other network wouldn't have been like. Uh. Look, there's something. I know we were sort of doing political jokes,

but there was something vaguely Trumpy about HBO being like, not only is this coming out, we're taking it to fucking can, and it's good. And guess what? We're going to blow your mind. Oh, also, it's a comedy, or it's sexy, whatever. Fuck you, you can't handle it. Like, that is, and everybody's buying it because it's on at 9 p.m.

Who's everybody is buying it? It's me, Manola Dargis, and Sean. The people I count on most for artistic and aesthetic purity. Yeah. I'm not, okay, I don't think people are buying it, and I think that the odds of this getting renewed are very small, but I'm saying it is on. You are wrong. No, I think it's, I'm going to, I'm going to say I don't think it's coming back. Why?

Because it's fucking sucks, because it's a disaster. But people are watching it. Are they? I don't know. I got like 900,000 first episode, they had 9,000. That's succession numbers. Yeah. Like, I mean, like, I think that they have like, their pot committed to this.

I would be shocked if, I mean, maybe. Oh, you're right. I don't have any inside knowledge. That is me, that was me putting my thumb on the scale saying, please. don't make more of this. Right. But... And to our listeners,

we don't have to do this every week. No, no, no, I don't think we will. I think that it is still interesting. You got me worked up by bringing Manola into this.

I take her very... Do you know what else is funny? That's his house that she lives in. Yeah, I know. That's fucking hilarious. But that's not supposed to be funny.

It is funny. It is. He gave himself a rat tail. Like, he knows that this is stupid. He knows that this character is supposed to be pathetic. I don't...

All right. Okay. I'm going to consider... I'll watch episode three with that in mind. Okay. Here is my... Also, I think Jane Adams is having a good time. In a good way?

Yes. And I hope she bought herself something really nice because I actually... She historically plays very mousy parts, and I think this is awesome that she's doing this, and I enjoyed her speech, and I enjoyed her performance.

I think that it's really hard to swallow what you're suggesting because I think the show wants Jocelyn to have some pathos or humanity, but I guess it also wants her just to be a joke because you'd have to be a joke in some ways to be behaving or to be accepting and to be trusting in the ways that she is. And I think that the show is so not centered with her point of view or emotional truth or anything

that we're just kind of lost. We're just being presented with her as a blank slate, which maybe intellectually you can make a case for that. I don't think the show is communicating that very well. Are we mocking her? Do we feel bad for her? Do we understand her at all? Not really. The thing that really lost me is the second half of the episode. And I can't speak to authorial intent. But I will say that I thought it commits the cardinal sin, not the carnal sin, of erotic thrillers or erotic entertainment in general, which is that it's boring and kind of dumb. I don't think it's hot. And I don't think that I don't know that you're supposed to. I mean, I just, sexiness is deeply subjective. but generally in entertainment,

it comes from understanding what characters want and what makes them tick or what makes them do a lot of things more than tick, and then they're put in these situations that feel true to the characters, but more than that could feel specific or kinky or surprising. And to have boring-ass weekend

just be like reading like Kairons from Pornhub, like you keep the closed captions on. It's just Do you actually do you flick on the option on Pornhub to have the CNN ticker go? Wait, Chris liked his out. Better close this window.

That Bellany might need me. Jack Smith's giving a press conference at 3 p.m. Oh, well, that's hours away. I think, I just thought that was, it just was so lame. And it was, and that's the problem. A buddy of mine was saying that in his opinion, as coming from a, as a fan of, like, movies like basic instinct, like legitimately like a fan, like that's a great movie,

that one of the mistakes made in the show is that the pop star should have been Taylor Swift, not Britney Spears. Like, give me a character whose private longings and desires run counter to the public persona. So then you could be like, oh, there's actually conflict here or surprise or, you know, different kind of stakes. But when her entire image is apparently based on the Christina Aguilera videos

from 2002. Yeah, dirty. Then for her to be like, and guess what else? I like to fuck dudes. Be like, what? Yeah. That's an interesting point. I would actually say

if I had a critique of this show. Which you don't, because this is your spider verse. I would say that it's a couple of years too late. And that there is something unremarkable about watching it on HBO. Yeah.

And that I'm not like, I can't believe. Like, it's not like seeing Dennis Franz's ass. In terms of your erotic, Mount Rushmore. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like, it's not shocking. It doesn't feel like it's because I just,

I think I've lost the capacity to be shocked. I've lost the capacity. I have things that I don't particularly like. Yeah. And I have things that I do like, but I don't have like really, I just don't feel ever like scandalized. Is this the person?

Like, I don't like watching cannibalism, but cannibalism itself isn't shocking to me. 45 seconds ago, I started privately playing the Fortune cookie game where you add in the bedroom to everything. So I just added it to everything you just said. Like, I don't like cannibalism. In the bedroom. Yeah, I like things that I like in the bedroom. I like watching CNN in the bedroom. I thought you were watching SVU in the bedroom.

That's true. This is, I don't want to put you on the spot like this because I actually, I don't have an answer either. But I do wonder, like, what, what, what, TV shows in this most recent era have been sexy and why? Like, that's something to think about it. It's not something that a lot of shows do. It's a difficult word to like, because I think you get into semantic differences. Like, I kind of like, one of the hottest things I've ever seen.

I'm being honest. Dennis, Franzes. Is the moment in the hotel room between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez and out of sight. Yeah. When it kind of is cutting back and forth between them having the drink in the hotel lobby and then also them being upstairs and him doing his. speech and then like them almost kissing. You know, like that is pretty hot.

You know, but it's also romantic and it's also beautiful to look at and everything. I don't, what was your question? Well, I don't think that we just, this is part of a larger conversation that I'm sure that actually Sean and Amanda probably had too. Like, sex is out of pop culture. Yeah, right. Totally. And it's been removed.

It's been stripped away from a lot. Yeah. It's out of. And so what are people going to point to? Like, like the uncle sex on House of the Drag. We don't have stuff that talks about desire or whatever. And this is recency bias, and I'm not saying this is some incredibly racy show, but I think about one of the things that I loved about Daisy Jones,

which I will continue to beat the drum for, if only because it tried things that we aren't used to seeing at the moment on TV, was that when it brought the two leads together to write a song, not to have sex or to tie each other up, it gave us two attractive people who desperately wanted something that the other one could unlock. And you could feel that palpably, and it communicated that in the way that it was shot and everything.

This show doesn't do that. You know, and it's weird. Like, you can't, I will be fair, and I'm sorry, I got a little heated at the top, but like... Do not bother me, man. But there is... You can't dismiss it because, you know,

people are coming up to me, tears in their eyes being like, sir, sir, this show is beautifully directed. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. I watch it on mute, I guess. You know, there's so much, There's so many resources being poured into it.

I understand. I think the process stuff was pretty interesting, even if it's bullshit. I like the music video set. I liked the idea that this person is slowly being broken down and that their own sort of drive to impress this person

who's now in their head has crippled them and they can't finish the job here. There's parts about it where I'm just like, the Vanity Fair writer would not be on the set for this. They would have just ejected this person. They said the same thing about Tim Alberta.

at the Chris Licks morning workout sessions. That is true. That is true. What about Jane Adams, like, turning into it would be like, your story just got a lot bigger? No one's ever said that. No one's ever said that. But no, not that part when she was just like, guys were beginning of the second episode,

clear the stage, I'm going to give you an exposition dump. Oh, yeah. Last year, when this was happening, and your mother was ill, and these things happened, okay, all right, just tell us. I think it is, there are a lot of reasons and a lot of ways to criticize the show. I think my number one complaints, if I could distill them,

is that I just don't think it is successfully functioning as a narrative television show whatsoever. And two, it's not sexy, and that shit's boring. Okay. So give me some of it. They've also got, there's an interesting iceberg on the horizon for the show, which is, obviously the weekend does know how to fashion hits. Yes.

I don't know if Tedros Tedros does. He's got his own label. And they've got a little, bit of a that thing you do problem coming up where it's like I'm good with hearing I'm a freak. It's pretty good. It's a little bit of an earworm, but I wouldn't say that it's like my favorite jam of all time. Right. So I'm actively looking forward to seeing what Jocelyn does next. Well, again, like his first suggestion was apparently to just do the same thing that Fleawood Mac did on Big Love in 1987, which is just kind of moan into a microphone and then loop it. You fucking love

that song though. I do. I'm the target audience. Listen, I believe in Ted Tedros's musical vision. It's the Jocelyn piece. Ooh. What about that? Yeah, I love this. Who's the real idol? Okay.

All right. Okay, team Tedros. Should we move on to Top Chef before we get out of here? We should. All right, let's get through Top Chef. You want to do... Spoilers for this, yeah. Yeah, spoilers for the finale of Top Chef's season 20, the World All-Stars.

Do you want to do Padma or the winner? Winner. Okay. Buddha. Goat? Question mark? He was so far beyond... anyone. Was he, though? That I felt almost annoyed going into this finale because it was,

it was not close. I think everybody on that judging panel was looking for any reason not to give it to him. I 100% agree. And it was odd that he stumbled at the very end. I thought that was kind of, that was kind of interesting. And it seems pretty clear that if Sarah had cooked her liver. If Sarah had cooked the liver properly, she would have won. I think that's 100% true. Or at least that's how it was edited. It was strange to me that like everything, like Padma's crying, the judge,

the French judge is like, I liked this and I like that. And Tom was kind of like, what are we talking about here? We got like, it's this meal. It's not what you feel and it's what, not what they could be in the future.

I thought, I thought that at least the edit that they gave it made it seem like it was like 16, 15, judges decision, you know, kind of like in a boxing match. I, taking one step back, I thought this was an amazing season. I mean, the highest caliber cooking, the highest caliber contestants, the most challenging challenges.

And I think so Bravo to the Bravo team and the magical elves were pulling that off. I did think at the end, it did feel a little, Buddha was so far in a way ahead up into going into the finale that it was actually sapping my interest in it. it felt not competitive at all. There were people who I think could have cooked to his level who fell away for competition reasons. And that's kind of the problem why Buddha is the prince who was promised. Well, Buddha is technically the best and the most competitively agile of anyone who's ever been on the show apparently.

I thought going back to the season, like someone like Begonia was cooking on a level that Buddha could have beaten Buddha in terms of creativity and chops, but she couldn't play the game the degree that he could. Ali and Charbel similarly were on that level, and I would have liked to see Ali. I loved Ali. I thought he seemed to plateau at a certain point, whether he was like, he did. He just seemed to like kind of not run out of ideas, but maybe he did, or maybe like the sort of length of the season kind of became a challenge. Yeah. It just, I felt like in a way, I mean, Sarah came on strongly for right time. I'd probably prefer to eat Ali's food. Yeah. Along with Sarah and Amar like the most out of these, you know.

But to take a commonly used phrase from our boss, like Buddha felt like a cheat code. up until the finale. And then I felt like the finale itself was sapped of some drama or intrigue up until like the edit stuff you know in the very end.

It didn't, it felt a little off to me. Like it didn't land the season in the way that I was hoping. So like in previous, wasn't there a season where you got mad

because they made it, they had to make a dessert in the finale or some, wasn't there like some, was it a Brooke season that Brooke lost because at the end? Oh,

no, the season that I constantly point to was, They did one finale, Iron Chef style, where it was voted on live course by course. And that was the Brooke versus Kristen Kish finale. And then that's the one where this, I say this because it's self-serving, because this is 100% self-serving. But I also appreciated it. I wrote a scathing piece about that.

And then Tom tweeted at me saying, you're right. It won't happen again. Not that I stopped it. I think they all understood that. So they stopped getting in their way. Basically, my point was that this is what happened. when we get what we want. They're like, go cook what you want. Yeah, wherever you want.

Progressive, four-course, progressive meal. And, you know, like, you have all the money you need and everything. And, you know, it's a little bit of like, he can't find a lobster in Paris kind of thing, or plantains or whatever. However, one thing that was in abundance in Paris is proper traditional Mexican ingredients. I'm waiting for the question. Like,

did this make me reconsider my stance? No. No. But I thought that you would have, like, I can't believe you didn't lead with that. What do you think is more likely that you will forgive me for having Mexican food in Paris or that you will like the idol? Well, I'll forgive you for professional reasons because we have to keep doing this. Yeah. So is that what you were looking for?

Okay. The only other thing I would say was that I think in the episode Buddha says something about like an emptiness that he felt at the end of the last one and how he didn't know like, you know, and people talk about that. Like they get to the pinnacle of like what they're doing and and then they're like, shit, what happens next? And it is really interesting. I think Buddha's almost far more famous for his top chef accomplishments than his restaurant accomplishments. I'll be interested to see what happens with him next. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this before. Like it's a different career and it's a different skill set.

And he talks about mentorship, which I think is legitimate of someone like Claire Smith, who was a judge again, the British chef. She was a judge again in this finale. her at Gordon Ramsey. When he was stodging there, he was a low-level cook. And just to pull her out of a very large hat, like she came up, quote-unquote, the right and traditional way. She opens her own restaurant.

It gets Michelin Stars, and that's her restaurant. And then she'll make television appearances and do the side things. But her job, her career, is managing the profile and the food and the staff at her restaurant that brings in people from all around the world. And if you are someone like Buddha who has this wild competitive streak

and also this ability to be ingenious in the moment on this stage and on the scale, why would you do that? What is pleasing about that to you? That would feel limiting. I mean, that's being a manager more than being a cook, you know? And I don't think that's what he wants. So I'll be really interested to see what happens to him

because, yeah, to your point, like he is the top chef goat. There's no question that he is. And especially to do it back to back, which is truly insane. Yeah, he's been on the road for, I think, would Padma's say that they shoot from like end of August

to the beginning of October? She was gone for two months. You know what I mean? It's wild. I guess I just felt I don't know. I didn't feel as triumphant at the end of it maybe because it was repetitive

because it was the same winner. Maybe it's because it was the end of an era because this was Padma's last episode, something that she clearly felt, even if it wasn't addressed. Yeah, I mean, she's in tears at the end of the final meal. So I think she had, I mean, she did an LA Times interview.

She said that she didn't know, but she thought it might be her last season. I think that she seems like she's somebody who knows that that's the last time she's going to eat the final, you know, the finale meal. Could I make a suggestion to our friends who may or may not listen who work on the show? Well, I want to ask you a question.

You read that L.A. Times interview, right? One of the things that she says, obviously she's like, I want to dedicate more time to taste the nation. I think she was like, I'm very tired. She's also like, I can't eat this way anymore. So she eats every single dish, every single episode. She's the only judge who does that because she eats all of the quickfires and then she eats all of the eliminations.

And I think she was just kind of like, it's tough. It's tough to do that to your body. And I wonder whether or not that will be a consideration going forward. I wonder whether or not, like, they might have a host, but that host might not also be the quickfire. judge the way Padma is. Yeah, or the host does quickfires and doesn't join the final tasting. I mean, it's just, I think that's 100% a part of it.

Or you just get someone younger. It's just like, yeah, I can do this. And then be proved wrong in five years, but I could do it for the short term. But that speaks to the point that I wanted to make, which is I hope that they consider this, this really was the, if she's going to leave, if someone's going to leave, leave now.

20 seasons is a nice round number. They did 301 episodes up to this point. And this really was a victory lap for the franchise, considering all of the international editions and the winners and the way that it worked. It just worked bringing these people together and shooting it in other countries. There was no guarantee that this would work. And it did. And it was success, very memorable season. You're losing your host in one of the key faces of the franchise.

Use this as an opportunity to start over. But do you mean that in terms of the talent involved or in terms of the mechanics of the game? I think that you should look at everything. here's my hope. I hope that they shoot the new season in New York. I hope that they're like, let's, not that that's coming home. The first season was in San Francisco. But it would be great after these years of like traveling and pandemic season and everything to be like, okay, we're back in what is traditionally the heart of American. Sitting in a wooden box outside of a restaurant, in a year. Grass crawling over our feet. And being like, why did all the James Beard winners come

from Los Angeles? Right. But just in terms of like the energy of a city that's renewed and coming back and being like, we have a new host, we're going to pull a really interesting group of chefs, maybe all young chefs. You know, I don't know. Like, let's see, which doesn't mean... Top chef dime square. Is that what you're saying?

Kind of, I am. Like, don't fuck it up. Like, obviously, you want to keep the good times rolling. You don't want to... This isn't a new Coke situation. But it's going to feel different no matter what, so I hope they use it as an opportunity to really level down again because this was intentionally,

like such a high level of competition and some familiar faces and for people who watch world editions, everyone knew someone in it. 100% other direction this time. Okay. Mechanically, gameplay-wise, or season's structure. I mean, I'm putting you on the spot.

Was there anything, is there any idea that you have, you know, not to give them away, but of how they could make the finale is more dramatic or is there something that you think that they should do with Last Chance Kitchen? Is there a way that they could maybe

change the sort of roteness of quickfire elimination. I mean, this is the same thing they do with Survivor, where they have reward challenge, immunity challenge. I think that the thing you're speaking to and maybe one of the reasons why the finale felt flat was that what brings out the television-worthy greatness of these individually great cooks is the limitation, is the game, is the having to suddenly do something they've never done before.

And there was no limitations put on the finale. And no limitations makes it seem almost flat. Because honestly, at this point, 20 seasons in, like I think Gabri is a genius chef. He's awesome and a wonderful guy, and I would love to eat his food. I'd love to talk to him. Like, he just seems great.

And what was interesting, and sometimes confounding, was the way that he couldn't always shoehorn what he was doing into these things and yet somehow still as a finalist. Ditto, like, it was interesting that when he was left alone, the complaints were too much luxury, you know, that he was just falling back

on these sort of hallmarks of like this butter and cavi, and things. And he cooks at a caviar bar. You know what I mean? Like, he's used to high-end stuff. And it's much more interesting to see him do a Texas barbecue challenge, I think, with that skill set. So I don't know what you do, but I do think that in the past, they've sometimes tried to have the finale nod to the location in a way. Yeah. And obviously, opulence would fit for Paris unless it was just, you know, let's do a street talkeria to feel to you. Yeah, right. And like maybe just, you know, finger on the pulse of what the real trends are in the city. The Wahakian Arondesmont.

Yes. So I wonder about that. Like almost as if the finale should be, what have you learned this season? You know what I mean? Like that it feels cumulative? Sure. Because the meals that they cooked in the finale are meals that they planned before they arrive for the season. There's a fine balance for that. So Survivor they do in the finale, what happens is like there's basically four people left usually.

The winner of the elimination challenge says, okay, it's going to be me and a another person are going to the finale, the final three. And then the last two people have a fire making competition where they basically like have to build a fire out of like a Flint. Like a fast fire, if you will. What's another word for that? Quick fire. And I hate that sometimes because I'm like, so you play, I've watched like 13 hours of this television show so that we could get down to who strikes of Flint better, where the game seems way more multifaceted than that. Right. So there's a part of me that wouldn't want any too much trickery. It's like penalty kicks.

But it would essentially be like, what if there was a final four? So like put Amar or Ali in the final four, right? And then Ali and so Buddha wins. And Buddha's like, I want to go to the final three with Gabri. And now Sarah and Ali have to do a quick fire against one another, last chance kitchen style. And Buddha gets to call out the thing he wants. He's like, okay, make an omelet.

You know? And on one hand, that would be very exciting and a cool element of it. On the other hand, it wouldn't really be sort of a testament to the cumulative experiences of the people when they're like trying to cook their pasts and cook their traditions and also like have gotten to this point. It's it's a fine line between like, you know, kind of keeping things the same to staying too traditional and staying too stuck in your ways and reinventing the wheel. I think I would lean towards, as you're saying this, I think that I would love to see them do something that befits the location. So that if they were doing something...

Yeah, but they changed the location in the finale. I still kind of don't like that. But I'm saying if they changed... I'm not saying cumulative for the year. I agree with you. That would be awesome. But if they go to France and they're like, okay, so the traditional like the Escoffier court food involved these courses. And one was

a roasted meat. One is a soup. One is a dessert. One is a whatever. Then you have the parameters of the meal. And then they can steer themselves into that in a way. Just saying four course progressive meal, that's the best food you've ever made, is starting to feel flat because the one thing... You want to bring back that Denver altitude where nobody's bread rises. Oh, my God.

Well, you know, there is a competitive advantage to playing in Denver as we're about to find out tonight. Yeah, look, we can put a button on it by saying it's a testament to the show that we're still this invested in it as entertainment, but also it's somehow that it's purity or authenticity. I think it's unparalleled in the sense that it's the only one that I watch. but also of reality shows. But also, I just think it's really great. I think they did an amazing season. They should be commended for just how smoothly,

how easy they make it look. But I think that one thing to look at for the next season is how to make the finale feel. Finaleish. Yeah, and feel worthy of the season that preceded it. Okay. Thank you to Kai. Who's gone on this journey with us today as our producer?

Should we tip the audience to know that my children have been watching something on iPad and the other room? And sending you gifts being like, where are you? So thank you, Andy, for your contributions today. As the father of daughters, who's going to get yelled at when we wrap up for taking too long? It's camp. It's dad camp. We will be back on Thursday. I think by then, we will have Black Mirror.

What day is it? The 11th? 12th, 13. It drops that day. Okay. So I don't know how many you're going to watch that morning before we record. How many are you going to watch? That's the real question. And then I was also maybe, I was eyeball on that show, Spymaster on U.S.

Okay. Yeah. I tried that out last night and I was like, this show stinks and it was because I had it dubbed. So I went back. What language is it in?

It's in Romanian. Oh, of course. But I was watching it and they were like, Father, I don't know where you are going. And I was like, what the fuck is happening? And then I was like, oh, I have an undubbed. So don't make the same mistake twice. And there's a bunch of stuff coming.

So I'm going to watch the third episode of the Idol in the original Romanian. And I think that would be an improvement. Hank Azaria does all the voices. Right? That's controversial. Hank is area doing voices, you know? That's true.

He's safe, though, in this one. All right. Let's talk to you guys later. Yeah.