The Watch - ‘Spider-Noir’ Is Unsure of Itself. Plus, ‘Widow’s Bay’ E6-7, ‘Euphoria’ S3E7, and ‘Top Chef’ S23E12.

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Chris and Andy talk about the controversy surrounding ‘MobLand’ (8:12) and their anticipation for the upcoming second seasons of ‘The Agency’ (15:43) and ‘Sugar’ (20:09). Then they discuss ‘Widow’s Bay’ Episodes 6-7 and the growing excitement around the show (25:26). Later, they react to the series premiere of ‘Spider-Noir,’ a superhero period drama starring Nicolas Cage (46:27). Finally, they touch on the penultimate episode of ‘Euphoria’ Season 3 (01:07:27) before breaking down ‘Top Chef’ S23E12 (01:16:49). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy Order and it will come. Like today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio wondering if Hamish Linklater can play stretch four for the Sixers. It's Andy Greenwald. Look at the way you wove it together.

Yeah, all of our interests. Widows Bay, the Philadelphia 76ers. Free agency. Free agency. It's great to see you. Today on the menu, let me tell you a little bit of how we do things at this restaurant. Yeah, great. It's small plates.

They're meant to be shared. It's farm to table. How many do we need per diner? We're going to do the most recent two episodes of Widows Bay, which both came out this week. I'm going to stop you. Before you even start, we're going to do the last four episodes of Widows Bay because we're not on the record together about any of them since episode three. So you obviously didn't listen to any of my monologuing. No, I heard that you did it.

I said we're not on the record. And we also are going to talk about Spider-Noir. We're going to talk about the most recent episode of Euphoria and the most recent episode of Top Chef. Man. I also have some news at the top, but it's been a minute. It's been a minute since I've seen your beautiful visage in person. You've been traveling a lot.

Not that much. Really? I mean, I took two trips within the United States. Two trips within the United States within the last two weeks. That's traveling a lot. That is traveling a lot. I did it. Pacific Northwest.

What are you trying to hide? What if I did? too. I'm just raising a lot of money. You're bundling. Yeah, exactly. It's great to see you. You can reach us at the watch at Spotify.com. I noticed we just got a flood of new emails.

Every once in a while, I got to tell you, we're getting to the point where we might be able to do an Andy only, Effringer's only mailbag. Stop it. But it's all just people being like, I'm going to read Effringers too. Yeah, well, I see a lot of gunna. I don't see a lot of actual page turning. You know what I mean?

You can follow us on Instagram at the Watchpot underscore. You can watch us on YouTube. at the ringer dash TV channel where we're there with the Prestige TV pod and you can watch us on Spotify where I hope you listen to us

but we're also available elsewhere where you listen to podcasts Is our email address Has anyone signed it up for any like Act Blue emails or recurring donations? No, doesn't seem like it. I mean, I do get a lot of like

I feel like I've seen an uptick in like random PR emails where I'm like you don't know your audience like would you guys be interested in covering the Iron Man race but not Tony Stark but like guys who have to run, swim, and bike.

I thought it was going to be Tony Stark versus like Iron Heart. You know what I mean? Versus war machine. I always kind of had a sneaking suspicion that I might be able to do an Iron Man. Okay, hold on.

This is the earliest time I've ever closed my laptop. But just in the, I can do all three things. I had, you know what, but I can't, I don't know if I could, how long I could do them. Is there like a, like an Iron Men for Softies? You know, like SoftBatch. Iron Boys?

An Iron Boy competition where you get on a little tricycle? Did anybody know about an iron boy competition? Wait, wait, when was the first time? Maybe it's on an island somewhere. When was the first time? I'm careful. The first time you ever learned about the Iron Man competition. 80s ESPN.

Right. So basically, I'm going to ventriloquized this for you. I feel like we probably had a similar experience. Like maybe you're home from school one day and you turn on the Ocho or ESPN dose. Yeah. At like 2.35 p.m. on a Tuesday. They didn't have a flagship. They didn't have a lot.

college football, bro. So you turn it on and you would just see someone like weeping running in a speedo, you know, which is usually would be Cinemax at 11.30 p.m. on a Friday. But in this case, it was the middle of the day. And I also was entranced by this for exactly the reason you said, I can physically do those three actions. Yeah, it was kind of like it actually seems like it would be refreshing to take a dip after a long. And you know what else I thought was really good about it? I thought the order was reasonable.

What is it goes, swim, bike run? Yeah, I think that's what it was. Someone can Google that for us while we go here. Honestly, the only thing that bothers me about it is, like, wouldn't I get a little chilly on the bike after getting out of the ocean? Yeah, because my only reference for this wasn't that sports were hard and I wasn't qualified to do them. It was, my favorite feeling isn't getting out of the ocean.

I'd love to, like, dry for a little bit so I don't chafe. But 100% you have locked in on something that I haven't thought about in decades, which at no point did I think I'll never be able to. do that. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's something to put on my list. I think as only children, we had no tutelage. Our fathers, they turned their backs on us at early age.

Certainly athletically. But I didn't have an older brother to be like, this is how you bowl. So a lot of what I do, much like Natasha, hemstrich and species, is mimicry, you know? And so you see someone. I think I was very sexual and violent at the end. But, okay, your version works too. I would watch a guy bowl on ESPN, and if there was a bowling birthday party, I would do an elaborate, like, kind of fucking... You'd go for spin?

Yeah, I would beat de jesus, and I would, like, throw a ball six lanes left because I'm not, like, a professional bowler, and I'm not an Iron Man, but I probably would start really strong. The other thing, and I'm sorry to delay on the wide world of sports that we're going to talk about today. This is more interesting than the last two episodes of Euphoria. It makes it seem, I'm kind of under the impression that we've made great leaps and protein intake in the last seven years. Like you and Craig or like who? No, just like gels, bars, all those things. Like you could put it into more vessels. But did guys back then, if they needed protein during like a race, like just eat turkey or what would they do?

The pace car for the Iron Man Triathlon was the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile. And it would drive alongside the athletes. And the athletes would take ham and salami, and they would eat it, and then they would light a cigarette. Yeah. As they ran. Yeah. It was a purer time. Here's the secret.

Everybody was fine. Yeah. No, I know. Everybody was fine. Those guys all lived forever. Did they? I don't know. Their hearts exploded in Maui.

They were like, you're too old for this, and they're like, I'm 25. Well, there was that dentistry bit for a while where it's always like joggers, joggers who die of heart attacks. Oh, no. That was about. joggers get hit by buses. Never mind. You could iterate. I could.

I have a lot of... I feel like I have a Dennis Lurie-esque quality to me sometimes. You've both been in Boston. Yeah. I've been to Boston. You're wearing denim. You secretly want to be a dramatic actor? I do.

I do. You love firemen. Should I stop? What do you want to start with news-wise? So we have... That was exhilarating. I don't care what we do now. Okay.

So I have one thing for you, which is a new segment I'm introducing to the Watch podcast. And just, you know, for first-time listeners of which I'm sure there are zero, as with every other segment. This will be a consistent staple for two weeks of this show. And I've never been prepped on it. Yeah. Well, often, here's a behind the curtain behind the curtain, I will be like, it's time for us to do this segment. And you're like, I don't have, like, remember I'm like, oh, what are we reading this week? Like, or watch of the week.

What do we watch this weekend? And you'd be like, nothing. Yeah, I didn't do anything. Yeah. And then you Instagram and you're like, look at this. book I read, you know? Yeah, because... I think you save a little bit of your stuff for IG.

That's from my personal brand. That's right. Which is floundering. So if you could give me a cosign or retweet. Our new segment. Yeah. It's called Your Silence is deafening. This is great.

This is great. I'm already in on this. It's been 48 whole hours. We say this to each other all the time on text. And you have not publicly commented on Tom Hardy's exile from Bobland. Not publicly, but I've been huddling with my team. trying to craft the correct response. So while you spin your wheels,

trying to decide how you're going to phrase this. To be clear, I did prep a statement, but it was flagged. It was really came in too hard. For folks who don't know, Mobland is a show on Paramount Plus. It was created by Ronan Bennett, who did Top Boy and then taken over show run and executive produce written by Jess Butterworth,

who also does a show we're going to discuss in a second called The Agency and Jess Butterworth. as an accomplished screenwriter, a playwright in England. He apparently, according to reports, had a falling out with Tom Hardy, which is not the first time this has happened with Tom Hardy. The second season of Mobland is completed, and it was announced, strangely, I thought,

since I don't think the third season has been renewed or greenlit, that Tom Hardy would no longer be on the show, that there was some sort of ultimatum Butterworth or Hardy, and it seems like Jess Butterworth had won that fight. then hilariously, I think, a lot of, like, leaked kind of accounts of Tom Hardy behavior. Yes. I saw some counter narratives flying around certain circles, yeah. And then as of today, the last thing I saw was that, and this is not from a, like, super reputable source, was that there is some efforts to bring Hardy back into the fold.

Oh, who's leading that charge? Who's leading that charge in the media or who's leading that charge, like, to do that. I think David Glasser, who is like the kind of 101 studios of Rosario, who also oversees a lot of Taylor Sheridan and stuff. Everybody's waiting. Where do you land? Mirror and Hardy. Oh, I'm on the clock now?

Wait, so you as one of the media's biggest Tom Hardy boosters. If anybody's ever listened to me, they're going to know. Yeah. Look, it is what it is. If you sign time Hardy up, man, you sign up for the whole ride. You can't get off midway. I would say. off after season two.

There are certain things. I've been referencing this a lot because I love it, and he's been saying this for years, but our friend and colleague, Brian Curtis, is now they tell us, notebook dump, which is the piece that appears

after a coach is fired or someone is deposed. At the end of the season, yeah. Yes, and suddenly, like, all the reporting that they didn't feel they could source or verify or even report on freely,

they can now say because that person is out of the building. The oppo dump for the big anti-Tom Hardy lobby was locked and loaded. Yes. This is not a, secret that he is challenging in the works.

Just read Kyle Buchanan's Fury Road book. Yes. And so while I appreciate your Bain boost- Rism or join the rest of us in not watching taboo, I think that I'm just curious. I'm going to float a hypothetical for you. Let's say that you were scheduled to do a podcast with me. And at the appointed hour, you arrived, sat down, and I was nowhere to be seen. Now, so far, this is not a hypothetical.

this is every week other than today. Yeah, but then you come bustling in three minutes late, and you're just like, apologies, apologies. What does that I sound like? Jesus, so sorry, everyone. There was a horrid mess on the tube this morning. Tom Hardy, according to the accounts in Kyle Buchanan's book, left Charlize Theron sitting in the,

I believe the term is war rig for three hours before, sauntering onto set. Well, I think he was trying to locate his voice, you know? He was trying to get... We need locate it. It's always at the bottom of an old well. It's always the same voice. What are you talking about?

I just like, I think Hollywood, I don't want anybody to get their feelings hurt or be in any kind of physical danger. I do find stories of onset, like, you know... Sure. You know, cultural or personality clashes to be pretty interesting to read about. If Hollywood never had any of those...

it would be a little bit less interesting to read about. Okay, that's fair. It's just, I don't know. Are you that concerned about the third season of Mobland? No, and I didn't really like the first season of Mobland that much. I mean, I watched, I think I finished it. I can't remember. But it was just one of those things I knocked out, like, two episodes on a plane ride kind of thing

after the first couple of episodes. And I love that cast, and I think, you know, it's been a strange show. It was supposed to, initially, the idea was it was going to be a Donner, the Ray Donovan spin-off. Then I think it kind of mutated into half gangs of London, half-yellow stone set in London with this crime family. And some of the reporting suggests that's been a little bit aggrieved by the fact that it went from being a Tom Hardy show to a Tom Hardy,

Pierce, Brosnan, and Helen Mirren show. And it sounds like he and Mirren specifically are butting heads. Allegedly. I mean, what is that? Big Mirren getting her litigation bag against me. What if, Helen Mirren doesn't care about what we say, but her husband, Taylor Hackford, is incredibly litigious and a longtime listener of the watch.

I'm not entirely sure that's the case. Helen Mirren may very well care what I say. Wow. You've changed it since your trip. No, I'm just saying I still maintain. I know for a fact, Taylor Hackforders listen to proof of life. I think there is a 50, the proof of life rewatchables. There is a 50% chance that he was like,

you're going to get a kick out of this and played it for Helen Mirren. And then there is a 25% chance within that that she was. was like, this is my favorite podcast. I love these guys. Keep playing out this. Then there's a 10% chance than what? That she's like, let me deep dive

this guy's podcast career. Music exists was really, really thought-provoking. And then she makes the full connection after reading all of Chuck's books, that you're the one playing pool. Let me just add. There's a non-zero chance that Tom Hardy's also doing this to get off the show, which sometimes happens.

Yeah, I think the most interesting segue for me from this is that Mobland has the kind of incredibly contemporary, representative, torturous... Did you watch an episode of this? Yeah, the first two. Torturous development cycle of many, many shows of the moment, particularly we're going to get to Spider-Noir in a minute. What is...

I feel like there's a... It's not a meme, but I feel like it is a saying that, like, if you put the dev boys on something, you're going to end up with like a fish with feet. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm getting the analogy wrong, but there's some idea that if you keep developing something, you will end up with something that is so far from the initial purpose

that you're not even sure why it exists. And I kind of feel that way about mobland. It's fine, and all of the people in it are good. But I don't know, I'm chasing after an observation that I can't quite land about, like, that's what Tom Hardy's doing? Okay, I'm fine with it either way. I got the impression when this first started when mobland, If I remember correctly, I can't believe how long we're spending on this.

I believe he said, I want to be in London close to my family. This is a steady gig that I like. That is so close to what I said about Harry Potter. There was just one, what was the word he said that he wanted to be close to? His family. Right. He's figured it out, man. So another show that is on Paramount Plus, along with Mobland, is the agency.

And the agency is coming back, I think June 21st. soon. And I'm pairing the agency's return with the return of a a bit maligned show on Apple TV, but one that is close to your heart, a passion project viewers, which is Sugar, the Colin Farrell detective show. Also returning for its second season, honestly, surprisingly, it's been two years, it seems like? Okay.

Has it? I don't know. Sure. Yeah. When was Sugar on your top 10 insanely enough? It was not on my top 10. Oh, yes, it was. No, it was not.

Didn't you put sugar in your top 10? No, I love to Zag. I love to surprise and delight you. But no, sir. I'm just going to look up Sugar Season 1. Excuse me. I promise no. I think that I said that the pilot was one of my favorite pilots of the last few years.

It's 2004 is when it debuted. Wow. It was a different time. It was a different time. It was Joe Biden's favorite show. We've changed. Maybe that's what you're mistaking me with. Also, isn't it funny that this is the new normal

where we are talking about these shows? It's like, oh, the agency's coming back, sugar's coming back with its normal two-year gestation process. Agency was last year, wasn't it? No. Damn, really? That was also Joe Biden's favorite show? Joe Biden loves the agency.

Do you think? Yeah. I was Googled Joe Biden, the agency. What are you going to get from if you do that? Yeah, anyway. 2024. No way of knowing, but I'm glad you Google. it. Okay, which one do you want to talk about first? I want to talk about like, well, first of all,

like you alluded to, coming back after such a long interval, but also where you're at with these, like the opportunity for, since we're doing a lot more recurring television now than in recent years, a show that maybe was wrong footed at certain points in its first season, tonally, was still trying to find its voice, et cetera. Which one of these do you think has the biggest opportunity or the most likely opportunity, most like highest likelihood of improving in its second season. Well, I will start by saying both have delivered excellent trailers for their second season. They sure have. No question about it. And both in, if you were just going by the trailers, present a pretty exciting vision of 2020's television where very attractive movie stars

fully embrace the genre trappings that are really possible to explore within serialized television. So that's cool. I think that said, there is no question. I'll just say this now. Like the agency season two is going to be much better than sugar season two. Because we know what it's about because it's based on the bureau. So we know where season two goes. So let's separate the conversation for a second to say that the agency,

one of our favorite shows of two years ago, both because it was stylish and incredibly well-acted. And it's low-key, a pretty good London hang show. despite all of the stress that Martian was going through. It is, as you said, it is a fairly devout adaptation of one of the greatest shows probably ever on television, the French series, Liburo. And as the season progressed, I think it started to develop its own kind of chilly swagger that suggested that it was going to deviate in ways, maybe not always plot, but in terms of the delivery of the plot in ways that it felt kind of exciting. And second season of Libero is better than the first season with a lot of very cool set pieces and moments of tension.

And this trailer looks so sick. It made me so excited to watch it. And it actually made me appreciate even more how nice it was to have such a quality, consistent entertainment for those 10 weeks two years ago. One of the crazy things about the agency is that, you know, it's got a pretty star-studded cast. Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gear, Catherine Waterston.

Richard Gears' Homer's Dad? From Euphoria? Yes. Carrie Lowell and Richard Gears' son is Homer. Well, Dylan on Euphoria. That's the character. I just wanted to make it relevant to our young TikTok fans. They will have more to do this season based on.

So if you were watching season one and you were like Richard Gears in like six scenes and Catherine Waterston's not on this show really. Barely. And John McGarrow, like, what's he doing? You know, they'll have stuff to do this season. It looks awesome. It does. Sugar. Okay.

So, okay. I can't even, we can't have this conversation without spoiling an element of. of sugar. Many people listening are probably like, what are these guys talking about? I haven't even heard of sugar. Sugar came out two years ago. Detective shows set in California, like I'm L.A., like I mentioned. Stars Colin Farrell. People

sometimes ask, do I have to watch the first season to start the second season? We have started to push the limits on what we are capable of with that. I would like to take five seconds of just staring at you and maybe vamping. Sure. And in one second, we are going

to spoil a big part of what makes sugar sugar. And you know why we're going to do it? Because fucking Tim Apple doesn't want you to know. He doesn't want us to know. This trailer hides the ball. And by the ball, I mean one of the great television bag fumbles in recent history. You know what I said when I watch this trailer?

Are you having a fucking laugh? Yeah, because this is a trailer for the show Sugar should have been. And let me tell you, it's not. But also, it's like, is this the first season of sugar? Also, you can't just trail. your way into the movie you wish it was. We've seen this fail in movies again and again. Three, two, one.

Colin Farrell's character on Sugar. Is a fucking alien! Yes. He's a blue spaceman. When does that come out? Like episode five. Right. It's excruciating. Did you know that when you were watching it?

No. And then he's an alien. Yeah, and then I stood up, went out for a pack of cigarettes. Never came home. Never smoked him. Did you I think I stopped watching Sugar Does his alienhood

Yeah Play a major role in the second half of the season Yeah Oh okay Yeah dude Wouldn't it in yours I don't know This second season trailer makes it look like he loves boxing

Like I don't know Like we don't know I keep waiting for DJT to tell us what aliens love I keep here and there's a press conference coming I know And maybe it's like they love noir movies A lot of people on the streets are like aliens right now.

Yeah. They're coming up to me with tears in their eyes. No, that's just the Alien Earth FYC campaign, which is all over town. Yeah, this is a huge twist

in the show that they are not giving away in the trailer. Because it is a fucking anchor around the neck of what could have been good. It is,

I wish I had done the prep to prepare for a, the same thing. The fucking fish with feet. This is what we have here. Like, it's okay to do a small thing well. Yes. Like, Ina Garden made a whole career out of it, and she should work at Apple TV, frankly,

because you have Colin Farrell, one of the most stylish and compelling and charismatic actors of our time, looking incredible in beautiful suits driving a sports car in a neon... It's a neon... Rockford Files. Tinged. Yes, but, like, also really embracing the idea of, like, what L.A. light looks like, and what a noir would look like in bright color, not in whatever fucking rinky-dink technical color

they did to spider noir to try to appeal to multiple audiences at once. We'll get there. Coming attractions for Andy's Spider-Noir. I'm just saying. And that would have, in the great words of the fucking Sater dinner, Dianu, like that would have been enough.

Yeah. But instead, they were like, no, no, there's also a secret society because this guy likes noir movies because he's an alien. We don't need it. that. Do you think that Colin Farrell signed up for this to play a detective or an alien? I think Colin Farrell signed up for this for a chance to wear suits that weren't fucking fat

suits in the back lot of Warner Brothers doing Penguin. Yeah. And yet, he does have to wear an alien suit at some points in the show. In a perfect world, this show gets renewed because they're like, just do the parts that work. We don't care that he's an alien. That's fine. And maybe they did lean into it because they beefed up the cast. Like you were pointing it out. Yeah, Sheawig him, Sasha Kaye, Tony Dalton, like a really great ensemble of the season. The plot already looks more interesting

than the kind of... It looks like a detective investigating like a missing boxer and then Tony Dalton, Lalo from Better Call Saul, plays a sheriff's deputy, I think, and Chey Wiggum seems to be a fixer. It's just so, so, so weird to me.

And it... I don't know. Like, at a time when Widows Bay is on the dock and for us to talk, about like I'm kind of I'm definitely giving I don't really want to rail on Apple's development process for why this happened the way it happened and even within the context of it's an alien show and a detective show the big reveal being just being slow walked episode five was also such a weird fumble in season one anyway

it's just a bummer because I watched that trailer and I was like this is a show I want and I think they're probably smart to do that and say like look all the the stars are on Apple and they're all kind of doing genre stuff and you'll have a good time with this. Listener, I don't know if that's true. Well, I can, I can assure you that we'll, we'll at least give the second season a college try. I'll jump back in. Yeah, you don't care anymore. You don't care. You show me the way. You led me down the path of, we don't have to watch TV to talk about TV. I was a trailblazer in that field. Let's be positive. Okay. And let's talk about Woodhouse Bay. Woodhows Bay released two episodes this week for a very clear purpose. These two

episodes are linked in ways that I found just like this series itself, surprising and delightful. Episode six is called Our History, and it's directed by Ty West. Who's a big deal? Great horror director, directed Pearl and Maxine, an ex, and he directed House of the Devil. Like, he's a great horror director. Also directed a really cool, like Brian Jones Town kind of, uh, Jones Town-esque, um, movie called The Sacrament that I really liked. Anyway, he directed this episode, Our History, which is set in 1702.

It stars Betty Gilpin as Sarah Westcott, who comes to the Widows Bay Island, betrothed to Richard Warren, who is the town, you could say leader, savior, captor, and Richard Warren's played by Hamish Linklater, kind of in a sly nod, I think, to his Midnight Mass character, who was also a priest who worked. on a rural island. And when we find these two uniting in 1702, a plague of violent insanity is kind of gripping the island.

Reminiscent of what we saw in the fog in the premiere episode. That's right. And Sarah finds herself in the center of these proceedings and attempts to save herself and warns children as he and some of the townsfolk aimed to stop her. Should we talk about these episodes separately or together? I would like to actually take one if I may, brief step back

just to contextualize our conversation of these episodes. When they revealed that he was an alien, Widows Bay is the best television show of the year to such a staggering degree. Look who's trying to get an FYC campaign? Let me try again. Which camera? Widows Bay is the best television show of the year

M-Dash Andy Greenwald, comma, primary host of the watch podcast. Whoa! That's for the poster. Primary. You were trapped. traveling. Okay. Of course, I was gone for a week too. Anyway, my point is, this show is so good in a way that staggers, humbles, and delights me. Like, my experience watching it is such that I am enjoying

it. I'm laughing. I'm riveted. And I can't stop thinking at every moment of all of the brilliant creative decisions that went into almost every frame of it. Before we even talk about these episodes. We can talk about like the directorial and cinematographer and camera choices that are that are involved in a show this specific, this tonally and aesthetically specific, that shifts. It's a period piece this week. Previous week, it was a crazy drug trip. There have been, I believe, four directors so far, Hero Moray, Sam Donovan, Ty West, Andrew DeYoung, and Andrew DeYoung, who works with Tim Robinson a lot and is fantastic. Fantastic. There is no aberration from episode to episode.

That's the kind of thing that you see in a long-running show where there's enough of a book on it and a style guide that when people come on, they feel comfortable knowing what it is they're stepping into. To do that from a cold stop is just remarkable. Yeah. The tonal balance of this show to be legitimately scary, to be legitimately funny

and to be legitimately gripping is something I've never seen done before. And it's doing it, in such a, it's subtle in the sense that this is not a giant, expensive, starry adaptation of something. It is not based on preexisting material. It was not presented to us as the next big show. The way that it was put together with just this like quiet, confident, competence, and, you know, occasional brilliance is wild to me. I co-signed everything you just said.

And by the way, I know this isn't really a valuable comment, but everyone's talking about that. Like everyone, when I have conversations with people, someone will be like, oh my God, the editing. The editing is so exceptional. Someone will say, oh, notice Alison Jones, the legendary casting director, you know, freaks and geeks, Barbie, the office, Veep.

She worked on this, and you can tell. Like, down to the guest stars week to week. I'm blown away. Well, and to your point, several shows that I have been, From not engaged to highly engaged with over the last couple weeks have come out on Netflix and Amazon. Spider-Noir, for instance, dropped its whole season. Legends we talked about, like the burrows on Netflix I talked about with Joe last week,

feels like in the sort of larger conversation, their moments already come and gone in some ways. Because your engagement with a binge is individual and personal. Nobody is on the same page. You can feel widows. Bay uptick in group chats and in conversations at, I'm sure, school pickup or whatever, where it's like, what are you watching or like dinner parties or conversation as a restaurant? And it's like people are picking up on Widows Bay. They are catching up on Widows Bay.

They are excited about Widows Bay. I feel like there was like an awareness that this is a special two-part event this week. Completely agree with you. There's also something like, you know how I always, I heard Sam S. Mail. my head where it's like you cannot get mad at a piece of art for what it didn't do. He was talking to me. But you can't be mad about the choices that it makes. It's like you have to evaluate the choice it did make, not what it could have done.

I think that's right. I want to just say that in less sure hands or in a less certain showrunner's hands, like other than Katie DeFold, like this would have been, this art history episode would have been drunk history. It would have been Betty Gilpin doing kind of Krasinski gym office faces while all this stuff is happening because she basically is doing a note perfect 18th century like Puritan woman but also doing Amy Poehler and Perks and Rec. Like she has comic timing and she is giving it a modern sensibility I think that is like as soon as I got here I was like what the fuck is going on? what I mean? Like, she has like that kind of like, I know you're watching me and this is a break from this show's reality. Yes.

But I'm going to be consistent with the way Matthew Reese reacts to things on the island as well, even though it's 300 years apart. How did they do that? I don't know. How did they do a 300 year flashback episode with the confidence of a show that has been running for multiple seasons? Yes. There's these subtle choices that I'm.

dazzled by like we we watched the first episode and we raved about it and then we watched the second one and i think we took time to praise the fact that the show seemingly pitched itself in the first episode as here comes the big trouble like this is going to be an event series for lack of a better word but then almost immediately it walked it back the tourists did come and there was suddenly more space for episodic situational comedy or hijinks of this type of horror film this type of horror story And I was ready to settle into a perceived take of. That's pretty smart for a show that might run multiple seasons made by someone who worked on Parks and Rec, for example. Then I realized it was doing both at the same time to make the commitment to do the flashback to the island's founder and then deal with that character and blow it up.

This is exactly where we want to go. Is a level of confidence in the larger story project that is remarkable. And it caused me to go back, though, and notice all the little smart decisions like the fact, that episode three C-Hag and episode four

Beatriz which is a contender for episode of the year are happening concurrently so playing with time in a way

to pre-address the idea The Trees is the Patricia episode? Yes. Yeah. To almost pre-counter

the criticism that it can't that befoules a lot of television which is it can't be the most important thing that's ever happened if we have time for a bottle episode or a side quest. All of these things

are not amateur decisions. They are not rash decisions. They are thoughtful, considered decisions that are paying off the story. And so all of that is preamble to say, these two episodes were balzy as hell. And I'm glad they dropped them together, which is another smart decision. When they were digging him up at the end of, I think at the end of our history, they start digging him up? I was like, that was cool. And I'm sure they're digging him up to get the necklace, right? Or something, you know? Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. That's not what they did. And this is comic screenwriting that is being applied to a sort of chamber horror drama where it's like, what if he was still alive in that box? And then what if Hamish Linklater was just on this show for an episode? And what if instead of being on Frozen Cave man lawyer who's freaking out about like there being electricity and stuff. He's actually like,

I've decided I need to die because I've been tortured for hundreds of years. And then he's like, actually, I kind of want to live. Can I throw one more what if at you? What if R, meaning the audience's introduction to his resurrection or he never died, that the fact that he's still alive, is played entirely through the perspective of Tom waking up from one of the most calatious 24-hour mushroom trips and recorded history so that he shows up and Richard is already upstairs. Yes. There is no jump scare in the coffin.

And Patricia is rattled and Wick has already cut his hand trying to open. Like there has already been all this stuff happening while Tom is like I've been asleep for a day. That is another sign of filmmaker confidence, storyteller confidence, that we don't need to hit every potential spike. It's funnier to have them be like, don't open that. We tried that already. We already did it.

Our main character is behind the story. Yeah, so in Seasickness, which is directed by Sam Donovan, as Andy mentioned, who worked on Skins and Severance and the Crown and written by Dave Harris, I've seen this, many people say this has got a lot of Jaws Juice on it. Jaws Juice. Yeah, well, just like the three of them on the boat singing and kind of looking for something out there. I thought this was a really cool episode.

and I really liked how even though it's basically all shot within the cockpit of Wick's boat, the time it takes to be like, here's the practical amount of space and time that needs to be covered. He has to get to this buoy, but Wick can't go past the buoy.

Tom can, Richard needs to, to be evaporated into bones, but, you know, like, you never leave anything and it isn't an exposition dump, but you do get a sense of like, when's what can I get off the boat? And how is Tom going to be able to sail the dingy? And what are the rules?

Yeah, what are the rules? And it's still only 40 minutes or whatever it is. And it still flies by and has time for a B plot of Evan discovering that his mother at least didn't die during childbirth. If not, I would imagine, I'm starting to wonder if she's still alive somewhere, right? Well, I think Are we now on to Supposition Corner? I mean, I think, I don't know if this is like...

Supposition Corner could be another recurring segment for us. I don't know if it's going to go well for us. I don't know. Not as good as your silence is deafening. That's a much... That was awesome. I'm a little spooked because this is the week because the Knicks swept their way to the finals.

I don't know what you're talking about. It's a basketball team. That all of the video footage of NBA experts being like the Knicks overpaid for Jalen Brunson and this is not the kind of signing that we'll get you to the finals. Becky Hammond being like you'll never win with a small guard. I'm just saying I don't want to,

I want to be very careful now that I know that these takes live forever. I didn't know that until this week. I thought I didn't know that all of these podcasts remained on Spotify. Well, if you talked about anything of consequence, I think that might matter. But since we're mostly talking about, did you ever watch Iron Man? That dude was an alien. Okay, that's fair. No, so, well, okay, I could say this as a supposition corner,

or I could say it about like the watching a show that is made by people who know what they're doing. It's just such a pleasure. But in the second episode when Tom locks himself into the hotel overnight, we do see weird paintings and scary paintings. And we see that also in the first episode when he's touring Bashir Sulloden through the museum or whatever. And I think when we saw that, we were like, well, Katie Diplold really learned from Parks and Rec

about how funny historical shit can be. One of the paintings in the hotel is of what appears to be a toddler, loose at sea. And I feel like I'm not. the only person. I've not read any coverage of the show yet, but like, that is clearly Richard's daughter who received the brooch coming off of the boat, making it back to the mainland, and then beginning a bloodline that ends with Tom's son. Look at the big brain on Brad. This is probably the most covered idea. Damn, dog, that's my job, is to go dig it in the crates for

that kind of stuff. That just appeared in this crate. You know, it's straight from my brain. There's many ways to watch this show and you can watch it with a scalpel or you can watch it and you can sit there and just marvel at the comic tone and the spooks and the creeks and the night.

You know, it's great. I actually, I think, I mean this as praise. I don't care. Yeah. That this kid is related to the founder of the island. Like, my enjoyment of the show is not dependent. I'd seem to people be like they should have thrown the bones overboard because I think they bring Richard's bones back. Oh, there's ways they should have

behaved. That's a cool way to watch television. No, I mean that will probably come back to literally haunt them that they did not get rid of Richard's bones. And his Vienna sausages. Yes. If you were Richard,

and you're 330-some years old. Yeah. Isn't a gift shop blow in your mind? Aren't you just like, holy shit? I'm on a t-shirt. Yeah. There's lights. I don't know. I was basically, you know, living alone in... You're like, the Knicks have gotten how far

with a small guard? Dude, I'm just, like, I was living alone in London, one of the greatest cities in the world for seven weeks, and I almost lost my mind. Yeah. He was in a box for 300 years, and he came out pretty chill. I know, take that, Nate. I'm saying...

Maybe keep it together a little. Chill out. Yeah, so I... I was okay with that. He's a little bit... He's a little bit touch. You know, he's a little bit different kind of guy. Buried Alive, having a moment?

Yeah. Top five burials alive. Alive burials. Don't list the other three. The bride. Oh, you want to do the other three? Because this could burn us if there's another one we're forgetting. The Brian Reynolds movie buried.

Which was a remake of a, like a Danish movie, right? Of course you know that, yeah. This is what it means to be. This is the international sign for being buried. How would you know that? Because the movie isn't Danish. I didn't understand any of it, except when the guy was like this. It's another really good buried alive person.

Nicky Santoro and Casino Spoiler Sorry Nicky's barely alive When he goes in I don't think that's a distinction That's worth noting Yeah doesn't they hit him with a bat

Like 150 times Yeah but not But he's alive I'm not saying he's alive For long But Burial alive Hit us up

The Watch at Spotify.com Let us know your favorite That'd be good Evan Now you've talked a little bit about the links you're seeing, the theories you're theorizing about.

He is an example of another thing that this show does really well, which is it can have storylines that last 25 minutes and are deeply satisfying. It can have storylines that last multiple episodes, like, say, the mushroom trip, which obviously has after effects.

If you were Tom and you would just tripped your balls off for multiple days, you'd probably be like, am I still high when you meet a 300-year-old man? Yeah. But it turns out he shares something in common with him because of the mushrooms spoke to both of them. The Evan plot is obviously, like,

I guess would you call this a season-long runner? Is this guy's rebellion and search for self? Yeah. And by the way, Kingston, Rumi, Southwick who plays the kid, is the presumed innocent cast having a moment? Yes. Him and Chase Infinity both having... They are having a moment.

He's great. Yeah. Yeah, I think that it's, again, it's just the smart construction where it is often rebellious teenage characters are created purely to exist as stress and plot creators for the main character. But this kid is given the dignity of his own plot line. Like there's a tiny moment in the episode where he is called out or caught by Bashir, the sheriff. And he says to him,

would it be cool if when I turned around to go back to my friends, I yelled, fuck you pig? Yes. And Bashir says, absolutely not. but then the camera cuts back to him to smile about it. And it's like, that's a human moment and a show that would otherwise, you know, might not need to have room for that. I do want to digress again,

which I know is off-brand for this podcast, especially today. But as our resident pharmaceuticals expert, you were asking, Tom's experience in the previous two episodes ago, was that similar or dissimilar to when we met for the second time ever on the streets of South Philadelphia in 1996?

was nearly as intense of the guys. I think that they were dealing with some serious shit. Mine was like four hours long. Yeah. That night. Yeah. And largely enjoyable other than seeing the Death Star in the sky. Oh.

And maybe feeling like I was in apocalypse now. Somehow the Death Star is returned. And then my buddy tried to climb into like a two by two shelf in his closet. How'd that go? Didn't work. I mean, but he was like, I'm going in there. But what's weird is, and people want the full story of this, can listen to the train spotting episode of Rewatchables.

I think we get into this great, great, granular detail. We should create a lore playlist for... For my memory of what was weird about my experience was that me and my girlfriend at the time were walking downtown towards Tower Records to buy the Tribe Called Quest record that came out that night. But we were stopped. I do the work. Hashtag ally before that was a thing.

We were walking... And we were stopped by... Is that the love movement? No, beats rhymes in life. We were stopped by police officers from walking down a street saying, no big deal, can you go around? There is a suspect on the loose on this street.

And then, a block later, I see your ass. And you were just like, hey, what's up? Now, did you interact at all with the police activity? If I did. Because I think that would have freaked you out. I don't think I did. I was aware of that activity. But, you know...

If you were focused on... on the big picture in the sky. I also think Philly PD, they try to keep the crowds moving. You know what I mean? Like it's... They always say it. Yeah.

Man, what a show. I'm so excited for these last few episodes, so 8, 9, and 10 still to come over the next three weeks. As a segue, because we're going to talk about Spider-Noir in a second. And Spider-Noire does not deserve all these strays, but it's just what we got this week. It is what it is. I want to uplift Widows Bay even further just to say that this show exists

because Katie Diplold was passionate about a story and a vibe and a tone a type of show that she wanted to make, and she found incredible partners who were open-minded and excited to join in and bring their talents and hero Marai and everyone else that she assembled to make the show. It only comes from that relatively pure creative act. Her, which is rare in movies and in TV these days,

where a lot of what we see is an example of people doing their absolute best work to clear a relatively arbitrary bar that has been set for them by rights holders or development executives or network executives or whatever. That's part of the job. Yeah. And it can be done well. You guys are all free to write novels.

Yeah, exactly. For free to be subsumed by generative AI. I think this is actually segues nicely into Spider-Noir, as you alluded to. So Spider-Noir is a new show, executive produced by Lord Miller on Amazon Prime. Whole season's already up. It is a extension, I guess, or a riff on,

a character that Nicholas Cage played in Across the Spider-Verse, I believe. Yeah, in the Spider-Verse movies, he voices a version of this character. I do think it's a sad sign of how cooked we are that all of the press for the show makes it clear that this is not the same character because it could be. This is another iteration or expression of the idea. It's really weird that they are making that. It's almost like they want to keep the sanctity of these animated blockbusts. and do a spin-off of it, but not explicitly, because, like, what if it doesn't work,

we don't want to damage the brand? I don't know. Well, also that it's more, but it's even more than that, it's that there is an established canon to these fanciful and honestly brilliant Spider-Verse movies that contain the idea that there are thousands of spider people, sometimes Spider-Horses and cars, and that each one has a very distinct identity. And so to protect the gentle, uh, soul, of these devoted fans, they have to make it clear that this spider noir

is not the same spider noir there's just more than one. Okay, gotcha. Are you feeling better about that? Yeah, this is a show set after World War I. One. And it stars Nicholas Cage

as Ben Riley, who is this sort of retired spider man, now private detective, investigating unhonestly, like beyond synopsis set of missing persons cases, and trying to track people down

and trying to get blackmail and interacts with several, I would assume, canonical Spider-Man. Interations of them. Iterations of Spider-Man villains. It is an incredible cast of Cage, LeMoran Morris, Brendan Gleason, Lucas Haas,

Lee-Jun Lee, Lee-Jun-Lee, Cameron, Britain. Your guy, Jack Houston. Let's see him in a minute. You ever watch, Boardwalk? Yeah. The whole thing?

Yeah. Do you remember Grantland? We used to do the damn thing back then. We put seven shows up. Yep. And we talked about them. Who put the shows up? The podcast?

The TV networks. They were like, here's seven TV shows this year. Enjoy. Oh, yes. And we were like, yes. I wasn't. I was like, actually, this was problematic. And people hated me for it.

Boardwalk Empire? Yeah. Was that the first time you snowflaked out? I didn't, first of all, I've been snowflaking out since I first watched the triathlon in 1986. Who will think about the sea life that these people are disturbing? Oh, their legs are damp. Who wants to sit in a wet bike seat?

That is actually like a pet peeve of mine. See? Wet, swim shoot shorts on a bike seat. Chafing. Thank you for speaking your truth. Usually you hang me out to drive with this stuff. But the way I say it sounds kind of cool and like normal. I know.

It also suggests that your childhood was like fucking goonies all the time. And I was just alone in my backyard going like this. except didn't have a backyard. Anyway, no, Boardwork Empire, I was like, it was kind of like

prestige karaoke even then. It had some moments. The reason why Widows Bay is able to pull off the two episodes that they did this week is because of choices,

confidence in those choices, and commitment to those choices. I think that nothing sums up how I feel about Spider-Noar, the two episodes that I watched and sort of some light, scrubbing through some of their episodes.

Nothing sums up how I feel about it more than the fact that when you click play on the Amazon Prime Video app or site, you are offered a choice between true hue color or authentic black and white. Now, there's a probably a reaction some people have where they're like, cool, I love choice. I want them to choose. I don't actually like this. Present the show you want me to see. And I think it's indicative of how I ultimately feel about this show

that neither looks very good. The black and white is not high contrast enough for my taste. It doesn't have the atmosphere of old noir movies that I think it's looking for. It kind of has a monochrome to it. Yes. And the true hue looks like running Sin City through a colorization program to like pop colors.

And I kind of found it. it really distracting. And I have to say, I don't know if I've really ever talked about this. I'm not a huge intercourse cage guy. Wow.

I like him. Yeah. I like him at his peaks. I like him at his lynch weirdness. I love Raising Arizona. I love Wild at Heart. I love... Moonstruck.

I love The Rock and Conair. But I am not like everything this guy does is so fascinating. and awesome. And do you feel like he's like kind of playing with one hand behind his back in this game? Like, or something? Like, or I don't know.

Why am I like, I'm like way more into Brendan Gleason and Lucas Haas in this show than I am Nicholas Cage? I feel like I'm going to meet you halfway on this. I think that Nicholas Cage being the star of the show and making the choices that he makes is probably the most interesting thing about it. That said, I agree that it ultimately is, not that interesting. I think it's fun seeing an actor who I think this is not a controversial

opinion hasn't hasn't had laser focus for swaths of the last two decades in terms of his career choices. Got some notes to pay off. It's true. So to see him kind of like relatively locked into something that he could do quite easily is amusing. And there are moments like there's a moment in the second episode when he, when Ben Riley pretends to be a plumber. And so it's Nicholas Cage pretending to be someone pretending to be someone and you feel the liveliness of it that pops even in the, I agree, the kind of cloudy black and white sidebar. Like, if you want to see an argument for black and white in the 2020s, watch Ripley, which is every frame is so beautifully considered and composed that there's no other way that you could imagine seeing it. And I would say,

I don't think this is, but it's also, it's not anecdotal to say this. This was like, Garrett Bash, who's the producer of that and producer of many, many other FX shows, works with Tycho Waititi a lot, basically said that they just shot it one way and then they told Showtime who they were making it for. That's what we did, because Showtime was like, can you give us options? Yeah. And I think giving options is a hallmark of a successful contemporary creative career, but it is not necessarily the quickest or straightest path to great creative solution. So in the case of the show, Orrin Uziol is the showrunner, and I think that he has done a really, really solid job doing something that I'm not sure is possible to do in a way that would satisfy. Yes. And what I mean is he is clearly a talented writer and clearly a talented storyteller and clearly confident in the ways that are necessary to get something like this over the finish line and get it made. But some of the things that are most on display here is a very contemporary writerly skill, which is tightrope. walking, which is finding or trying to find a healthy balance between the two great flavors that don't always necessarily taste great together. You can see the indecision in the options of how to

screen it, but for me, the most damning indecision of the show is, is this a noir show or is this a superhero show? And I know which side I find more interesting. And I found it as I watched a couple episodes of it, the constant safe return to the home base of, but actually, that guy's the sandman. Actually, it's just going to be a superhero fight. If he gets pushed off the roof, You can always sling some webs to... I found that... I don't even know what the word is. It's not disappointing.

I just found it non-elevating. I think that because of the dominance of superhero and comic book stories over the last 20 years, you and I have often said, like, use it as a Trojan horse to make the thing you really wanted to make. And I don't back off of that. But if a guy gets shoved off a building,

it's supposed to be a dramatic moment where you're like, is this it for this character? And or, you know, even if he's just at the edge of the building, because that's a place, I'm sure there's dozens of war moments where guys got a gun on our hero and he's standing at the edge of a roof and it's just like, what's going to happen? I think that if you can throw webs from your wrists to save your own life, it kind of just robs the dramatic moment.

And that's something that comes up a couple of times in these two episodes that I've watched. I also, I mean, as noir storytelling goes, I have found it a little bit too in between one long story and episodic stories of like, and now I have another case this week, you know? It's a cool idea, and I applaud them being able to do it. There's also a little bit of Agents of Shield stuff happening here

where I'm like, you guys, is it Spider-Man or what? Like, you know, like... Choose. Just if this is, like, let these guys cook. Like, let them have the toolbox. or don't. To me, what would be interesting, I hear your point about, like,

it's kind of a cheat code to reduce stakes if everybody can survive anything. The thing that I was disappointed to see, but not surprised to see, was that everyone has superpowers. Yeah. What's interesting to me about the concept

would be about a guy who's a private eye who is basically cursed with abilities that other people don't have, and then what do you do with it? Like, the idea that he could, I mean, because it is a, classic trope of detective fiction and noir that the detective takes more damage than anyone

could possibly survive and keeps coming. He would have maybe a more legitimate reason for being able to get back up again despite the bruises, but the first person he encounters in his detective mission can ignite himself on fire, which is immediately makes me just that, to me, that flattened the stakes. If there's going to be two shows where there are the normals, and Lamourne Morris is doing a great job playing Robbie Robertson and another canonical journalist character from the Spider-Verse. He fits into this world like a glove and is having a lot of fun, and the scenes with him and Nicholas Cage pop for me. But he's existing down here with the normals, and Ben Riley's up here with the superpowered freak shows, and that is less, I find that less interesting. Did you like the stuff of Gleason and Haas, the Silverman and stuff?

I like those actors. Yeah. I like those actors. I think my biggest disappointment is... As television shows budgets have gone up and visual spectacle has gone up, the opportunity to make the writing, for lack of a better word, more muscular and kind of the star has gone down. And certainly there are plenty of things that are overwritten.

But the idea of the writing being the star of a show is not really in vogue. Everybody wants to have room to have the banter that goes bang, bang, bang, bang, and then the scene starts. Yeah. That bang bang is noir. That's noir dialogue. And so I wish there have been more opportunities to play that out because instead it kind of fell flat to me. You have the trappings of what it's supposed to be with Lee-Junli as a, you know, as an ingenue, femme fatal.

And you have Ben Riley as the put upon gum shoe. Gumshue wanders into her place of business where he doesn't belong and he's, he's declassing the joint. And then you have dialogue where he's like, well, a singer has to know all the nubeshoe. numbers, maybe a detective has to know all the answers. That's not that snappy. That is a simulacrum of snappiness. But again, there are a lot of mouths to feed when you have a show like this. And I want to be transparent because we touched on this when we brought up the trailer. This was something that I pitched on and I was involved in. And I don't want this to sound like sour grapes because I did not get this job. I did not deserve to get this job. And Orrin-Newzeal

did a much better job than I ever would have. But it was interesting to be inside of the process. of how stuff like this gets made. And truly, the way stuff like this gets made is off of the success of the Spider-Vverse movies. I think that anybody who works, most people who work in 2026 probably know the experience of, wow, there's a lot of people on this Zoom now.

How did this happen? You know what I mean? Yes. And it's like, it's not a bad thing. Nobody involved probably has ill intentions. And, you know, the way that those things kind of bloat is natural. but you could probably do like a hard a clear-eyed assessment of like

what's this person what's the like what is the reason why this person is now giving me notes about this stuff or whatever and it's you're right part of the job of the 21st century screenwriter showrunner is to please all the different stakeholders and because the genesis of this is spiderverse was a big hit and so Sony and Lordin Miller

sold a package of Spider-Rexam versus shows creatives unattached to Amazon. Yep. And the first one, which was Silk, went through two or three show runners over a period of years and eventually frittered out and never got made. The process that I was a part of for this one, frittered out years ago and was stopped.

And then restarted a year later. And then this was the development process of it. And but even in my limited experience, like, Lord and Miller are, I mean, I think there's, They're geniuses with what they do. No one does what they do. And it's incredible to watch the final product of.

They are also creators. So to walk into a process that's like, we have these toys. What do you want to do with them? Because Amazon's going to make the show if we hit the target that we haven't been able to fully articulate yet. And then you also have the stakeholders who wanted a superhero show and the stakeholders who wanted to be involved, but maybe not as involved. And then there's the Marvel presence.

And then there's Amy Pascal. and like, that's really, really hard. So I bring that up not to spill personal stuff, just to say, like, to get this show on the air looking really good is fucking amazing. It's just ultimately not something I think, I think we want to spend eight hours watching. And it's incredible that it's there,

all these good intentions, good performance, and good thinking that went into it. What do you think is the logic behind making it a binge? I have no idea. I mean, the only thing that I would say is maybe, like, if you watch the boys, or if you remember how the boys was released. Yes, 3-1-1-1 or whatever, yeah. But the first season was a binge. Oh, yeah.

So I think that Amazon has some internal metrics that are like for this type of genre show or this fan base, it's better to give it to them. Well, it seems like, yeah, if I remember correctly, I think off-campus, which is a big hit for them, went up as a binge. I imagine any successive seasons of audience. I could see that being pulled back. I think the summer I turned pretty happened. I mean, it's been interesting to watch that network. I wouldn't say stumble into because I'm sure it was very, very conscientious, like, kind of owning Y-A and owning, like, young female romance stories.

They have like a whole vertical there where it's like obsession is in session and it's like, not only is it a bunch of originals, but they've curated all these like movies that they think fit into this aesthetic. I wonder whether or not they'll continue to do stuff like that. And Peter Freelander, you know, who we remember from Netflix, is in charge over there now. But like, it'll be interesting to see if that streamer in particular becomes less about release dates and more about like centers of interest, verticals, basically. I think that's a, I don't know if it's smart. I think it is a clever and defensible programming strategy.

But I would say that the executive mandates and executive themselves have moved around so much that a lot of these streamers and services that even what we have done podcasts where we were like, ah, Paramount Plus's central argument for existence is coming into focus. It's working for them. They found a couple things that work and they're building from them, mostly Taylor Sheridan and it's just the shows that fit into that aesthetic. Taylor Sheridan's gone under the new leadership there. I mean, Dutton's doing very well.

No, I mean, it continues. I think he's going to finish out a couple of shows, but yes. For sure. Dunn Ranch is a huge hit. I'm just saying that, like, he is now moving to Peacock. And so what will Peacock do? Similarly, you know, Amazon seemed like it was finding some fertile ground with the YA stuff and then also the MA stuff.

The Terminalist and Reacher and Jack Ryan and, like, like dad stuff. And we don't fully know what their direction is going to be under Peter Freelander, but I noted with interest, and we talked about this briefly with Kaya,

not the show itself, but the release strategy, that Terminalist, I think, has been on the shelf and is finally getting a release date for its second season

in October. So if they wanted to keep pumping that well until it was dry, they haven't really done it, then that might signal that that's not what they're doing. So I don't know the...

They just want to get Terminus closer to midterms. Oh, yeah. Or are they trying to read the electorate. Do you think that the plight of the white Afrikaner farmer is like going to be a real driving issue in Maine?

I just wonder, this is probably a topic for a different show, but I wonder if in I know that when we've talked to Casey Blois, when Casey came on the show he talked about how he was like, I'm on spring of 28. I'm planning out. HBO

has that thing where there's this baton pass from one show to the other over the course of year. They tried to do that. usually like a couple of weeks of like docs or event programming or whatever but you know you usually have like a sunday night like show that to hang your your laundry on and i just wonder whether or not as people increasingly find themselves detached from the cable bundle and also watching things almost entirely on their own schedule and entirely up to their own tastes in the same way that like i know drake put three albums out last week but in some ways

I don't feel like that happened, you know, because in my algorithm, it's just not a huge deal. Do you basically get away from the release schedule as a paradigm for television and make it more about, like, what we want is to have stuff there so that when people have found a vibe that they like, they can continue to watch things?

Netflix has explored this for sure. But Amazon and their really strong links to the publishing industry, I think, is exploiting their kind of ability to be like, this book is hot, make it into a show. This book is hot, make it into a show. So it'll be interesting to be talking about this deep into the Tala Rico administration, you know? I can't wait. I think that one of the less talked about in terms of the front-facing, like actually watching TV show storylines, is,

are these streamers better serve programming for untapped viewers who will sign up for the service? Making deep obsessives of the people who already have it. Yeah. And I think that was the Star Trek strategy. that Paramount was doing for a while of like our floor is the however many people watch everything that says Star Trek on it and we know that they'll pay for our service because that's what we have. There was some really interesting reporting in the last month and also a good episode of the town podcast about this, which is like Peacock saying, we're getting closer to profitability and then looking under the hood and what does that mean.

Yes. And the most interesting thing about that to me wasn't the rise in subscribers and what the NBA has done for them. It's the fact that like, I'm paraphrasing here, but that the true. return rate was still very, very high. Of people signing up and then like, they sign up for the NBA season and they sign off. And so maybe the tier isn't the subscriber number, it's the stability number of like how many people you maintain

from the people you get at hot times. It's one of the reasons why I've always been confused when there seems to be overlapping Taylor Sheridan shows because I'm like, couldn't you just spread these out so that there's 12 months of Taylor Sheridan shows and you don't have anybody ever trying to cancel? That sounds like a YP. That's a knee problem.

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Top Chef and just do some After Dark, huh? Yeah, do you want to... So we, should we just wrap up Euphoria? Oh, yeah. Next week? You can keep Euphoria. I like After Dark Free.

It mirrors Nate's last moments. Well, should we... I mean, we could touch on it. I feel like we should hit it harder next week. Yeah, but let's just... I wanted to just say I am up to date on Euphoria as are you. I am up to date on Euphoria. I like to text you to let you know I am.

This is the penultimate episode of the season and likely the series, I would imagine. And for the first time, perhaps in this show's history, I was bored. I've been using that as a bit of a little bit of a metric, but I just found, despite the intensity of the episode, I felt like I had seen these scenes before. Like, there had been, we were repeating a lot of beats. And I thought, cinematically, there was some brilliant stuff in it. I would watch Coleman Domingo and Zendaya,

as I have in the special that they did, where the two of them talk about addiction and spirituality and salvation and redemption extensively. I think that their relationship, Ali and Ru's relationship is fascinating. And I thought Ali's, you know, sort of origin story and him going through the pandemic, losing people that he's the sponsor of was heartbreaking and fascinating. Not only heartbreaking. One of the things, I mean this is a compliment about this season of television, is that there have been a number of fully formed

pretty compelling television shows just tossed out on the table like stuff you find in your pocket. The cutting and the shoot, like, Natasha Leon makes a cameo as a prostitute living with Ollie for a while. Like, the cutting and like the banter and the energy and the electricity coursing through that is absent when Maddie is on like page,

like the 70th iterative. of I'm a pimp, but I'm also a manager's assistant, but now I'm a pimp again. And I think ultimately, like, Levinson probably had to, like, unite the threads in some ways. I didn't know he was going to try, honestly. Lexi narks out everybody and then Maddie narks out everybody thing. I just really hit my head against that.

I was like, I don't think these people would be that naive. I don't think Maddie would be so naive as to, like, idly tell Alamo that Rue is. is now working for the DEA. Yeah. That's fucking crazy. But didn't you feel it coming when she just brought it up her, when Roob blurted it out? Yes.

And I felt it coming when that scene went on for a long time, being like, obviously, this is going to get away from Lexi as she just passes this along. And not to carry water for it, I was starting to feel like in this episode there is a version of, or there's a defense of the show baked into the idea that the Hollywood writer from the comfort of her very nice. apartment with beautiful old film posters that she clearly bought it on posterati. Great place to browse. No ads, but I like it. That all of this madness is springing from her imagination in a way? That was a season two element.

It was like Lexi writing a play about season two basically. But yeah, I think the last time we talked about Euphoria, I had sounded the alarm that, or maybe when I was kind of monologuing about it, which point I... On the podcast or in your life? On the podcast where I mistakenly said that Jesus Christ saw the burning bush and not Moses,

which goes to show you what Quaker education does for your biblical studies. Was that the light within? Was it the burning bush? I just thought that the crime stuff was starting to reach its... It was getting a little high up in the atmosphere and losing oxygen. And I think this has been proven true. Like bringing together Alamo, Nas, Nate, Maddie

Cassie and by extension Rue and the Lori stuff I just think it's just like he has to do that to end the show but it just didn't feel

as graceful as some of the other moments of these series has for me I think the biggest compliment you could give the show is that it is a wildly expensive wildly audacious

improvisatory exercise by someone who had not a blank check but had a lot of open road and a lot of big stars and a very small window in which to get them all together and to see what happens.

It's diminishing returns in terms of just compelling entertainment, I think, is fair to say. I do want to just circle back to the idea that Coleman Domingo is so alive in everything that he does and the show, I don't know if it's a full show,

but about a recovering addict who has become a sponsor trying to keep people alive during COVID, I would watch that show. Sure. And the short story version of it we got was incredibly compelling. And also has something, this is not really a fair audience thing to do, I think, consistently. But sometimes I feel like you can feel a creator lean in, you know, to things that are touching the third rail.

I mean, Alamo origin story, too. I'm sure you, I know that you were like probably rolling her eyes a little bit at that. but I thought that had energy and I thought it had POV, it had like... It had juice. Yeah, it had juice. And so...

And that is a marked distinction, I would say, from the scenes that increasingly to me feel like outtakes from like a Bugsie Malone movie where kids are playing dress up. Well, and then you get to the Nate part, which is just like... I suppose on one hand, I can make a defense for it

where it's like, you know what? Like, there is no such thing as character armor on the show. and or plot armor or whatever the term is. But like just because it's Jacob Allorty doesn't mean that he's going to escape from a burial. You know, that was a one of those character arcs that makes you frankly wonder like what the relationship between the creator

and the performer is. Aggressive. Because he doesn't really have a lot to do other than get mutilated this season and then he dies. You know, like I. And I need your context for this because, we touched on this, not watching the first two seasons,

I am completely unaware of... That character is a bad fucking guy. And like, you could say... So was this justice? But that's the thing, is that as Rue and Ali talk about redemption and, you know, how do you feel about, like,

the fentanyl you've brought over has killed people and what is... What is salvation and redemption in the eyes of that? Like, you know, obviously, Nate... I think that might be what they're trying to say.

is that like this is a guy who didn't deserve to get out of the hole. I don't know. I mean, like, that is also like, I would be very curious to know what Sam Levinson said about that. You know, maybe at the end of the season, he'll talk a little bit more openly

about some of this stuff. You know, you can also speak to Alorty's popularity as an actor and his busy schedule and wonder how much of this was like we have X amount of time with Nate. It doesn't work. He's not going to be able to show up at Lori's house

with two guns to save Cassie or something like that. here's what we're going to do with it. But that felt like a very small plot, like a subplot that just got extended for seven hours. And it was an unsatisfying conclusion to an end of a character's, but on the show the entire time, I thought. I hate the Maddie and Cassie story more.

Okay. I find just completely torturous to watch and so deeply uninteresting, especially because it just kind of, this episode just undoes everything that happened in the episode before. It's like the, she's popular on only fans

now she's gonna be in a TV show now she's not on a TV show now she's gonna go back on OnlyFans and it's like I don't I don't find that particularly compelling drama for characters that I'm not something missing there

was so like I thought Cassie was sending Nate money was he not using that money to even put or had she stopped because during this is awesome I'm getting so much money but I'm still living in

like a courtyard apartment I didn't really but maybe the money stopped concurrent with the brief pause on her only fans account during the moment she'd canceled but like she would have made. I don't know. I just don't understand like what happened there. Like the, I don't either.

And I will say again, you know who, you know who is giving one of my favorite performances on the show is Sharon Stone? But she's like, you're right. Who gives a shit? Yeah. Brian Grazer cameo. Yeah. There are a lot of, I mean, there are a lot of good ideas and good performances tossed out here. Yeah. But, but what is it building towards? And I guess it's building towards like most entertainments. massive shootout. Yeah. You know, I thought it ended with like a really good like fuck cliffhanger or like Fay,

you know, a little out in front of her skis intellectually, probably as a character being like, I don't really know who to trust. I feel betrayed by Rue. I'm going to wake Wayne up now. There's going to be like this drama. So excited for that.

Excited for the finale. When you're faced with a choice between an old friend and a Nazi, what can we do? It's kind of like voting in a, Texas senatorial race. Let's do Top Chef. Crash out season. Wow.

This is spoilers for the most recent episode of Top Chef. I... And I would say this episode was so upsetting. Kaya's not even here today. Yes. She has taken a personal day to just think about Seeger and what he went through

and whether that moose killed anyone. The chicken liver paté. The moose, yeah, not the snake. I enjoyed this a lot as television. Okay. Did you enjoy it as Top Chef? His... Well, his behavior?

In the after the elimination cook, which takes place over the worse of several, multiple days, but then ultimately they have to cook in the woods and the heat. Yeah, it didn't bother. That part didn't bother me at all. Like, I'm excited to talk about it. It was unexpected, especially for a show that has increasingly trended towards, actually we can all get along. Actually, I am here to make friends.

So to see someone behave in such an unconsidered way, was almost refreshing. I do think that the emails we got back asserting that Seeger is actually a pretty cool guy, all of them came from, I guess, Chef Seeger at Hotmail.com. There were people from, I think, Chicago who were like this, that was actually not representative of who he is. I would say that it is.

He still could be a good guy. I think he just has a temper, yeah. But, yeah, I would say so. And so to see him crash out was a burst of energy in a show that, hasn't had a ton of adrenaline this season. We haven't had a moment like that in years. In years.

And the judges were shocked by it. And it was such an insane hill to die on because, as you alluded to, he served melting chicken livers on a hundred-degree day. And I think that if he goes back and watches this show, whether he thinks it's edited against him or not, I think he would see, you know, pride comes before the fall. And there was several moments where, you know, whether it was the whole hog cook that sent him home the first time. or this particular one

where he was so confident that the gelatin was going to make his chicken liver. Because he's done it before. Because he's done it before but probably not in the woods with coolers of ice which one was left open

at a certain point. And then I think him trying to like in fact let's go to the tape on them. That was wild. Hasn't never worked in the history nobody's ever done that. I don't think anybody's ever been like

let's look at the bylaws of Top Chef. Also he is still tried to take Jonathan down with him. He's also a good cook. He might be a good guy as his friends attest. I don't, this is a TV show.

And being a good cook and a good guy doesn't have anything to do with winning the very specific peculiarities of Top Chef, which involve cooking a dish to the rules, but also to the technical specifications and arbitrary likings of a well-established panel of judges, let alone Vox Populi of like a bunch of people showing up and being like, I don't want to eat that. Yes. You lost on that alone, even if it was well executed, I think. So that was wild, and it was particularly wild because, as you just alluded to, he shouldn't

have been there anyway. Like, the show messed up earlier by giving him a glide path back onto the show that almost no contestant has ever been granted the grace of having. I don't even know if it was really that much of a glide path. I just think it is the way that they edited the series this year to allow for Last Chance Kitchen to have suspense. Also meant that there was like a three-week liminal space. of is Jen on this show?

Is Seeger on the show? Who's the Last Chance Kitchen? They were caught very off guard by their own rules of a different sort. And I think Daniel Feinberg and the Hollywood Reporter has a pretty good blow-by-blow of the screw-up. But basically, like, continuing to tell Jen that she could hang out

for as long as she wanted to, even though she couldn't perform on the show, and also wasn't really lighting the place on fire anyway, created a circumstance where Seeger is outright eliminated, skips Last Chance Kitchen, where he probably would have been defeated by Rhoda, and then acts in this episode like he is entitled to his spot in the finale. Justin could have taken Seeger's spot.

You know, Justin could have just been like, yes, I will go instead of Jen. I will. So all of that, but the bigger issue is the show's clearly just ravaged budget is really, really showing up on the screen now. And I know that we spent time two weeks ago being like they never go outside anymore. And then they were literally outside sweating watching their parfays melt this week. but there's different versions of outside and being outside. And a week in which they go to Asheville, which in some ways is the show at its best,

being like, as chefs, we have a unique role. The Asheville part was fantastic. The Asheville part was okay. And here's why. The Asheville part made me want to go to Asheville. 100%. Successful. Yeah.

So if that is the goal to both highlight a place that looked awesome and also highlight its recent struggles and suggest what we can do and why we shouldn't forget about it. So mission accomplished. In terms of the flow of Top Chef, I would say an episode in which they're like, we're not going to do a quickfire. You guys are going to get into unbranded vans because we lost the BMW sponsorship and drive two and a half hours to a town in which you will drive by three to four interesting sounding restaurants and eat snacks at one with no judges or the host present felt pretty rinky dink to me. Like have the courage of your convictions and fucking film there or tell Kristen to get. in one of these cars and go there too.

And don't be like drive by. I mean, this is what I do when people visit L.A. where I'm like, that's a pretty cool small plates restaurant. And my guests are like, should we go there? And I'm like, no, we couldn't get in. Like, what purpose does that serve for anyone other than my own ego? Do you know what I mean? Like, that was insane.

And then later. If you want to eat at 4.45 or 10 p.m. Yes. You're welcome to it, but I'll be in bed at both those times, weirdly. But like, then when Rota's like, I made Filipino. food because I was inspired by this restaurant. That's my restaurant. That's my restaurant. Like, okay, could we see it? Oh, you couldn't

afford to show it to us? It's a strange thing because a lot has happened this season where I feel like they have been battling the elements. As my wife pointed out the other day when we were chatting about this, she was like, you know, it goes back, you remember the finale of Denver where people's bread didn't rise because they were cooking on the top of a mountain, you know, like. I think about it constantly. This is not the first time the top chef has made.

elements and an element of the show. The rain in the Portland season. And there's also, you know, I think I am being a little bit more easily annoyed by, you know, and now everybody switch foods with the person to your left. That was despicable. You know, and now mystery diners are voting and we're not. Or now, like, there's a lot, like.

Remember when they were like, and now let us bring out our guest judge for Quickfire a guy no one's ever heard of. Congratulations. You really, you really did it. But the strange thing to me is that Canada, which I know was a passion project for Gail and I have to show go there,

was in my memory, largely shot on a soundstage. Yes, it was. And North Carolina and South Carolina, which seems hot as fuck, has been 10 shots, like 10 shoots out, like at a NASCAR track, or in the middle of a public park,

or in Asheville in the forest, or not Asheville in the forest, because they went back to Charlotte for the forest. On the Appalachian Trail. with a snake. That just seems like why did you guys do that? I mean, I guess maybe they listened to us

and we were like, get the fuck outside. And they were like, you ask for it. Now it's hot as shit and nobody's moose congeals. Like, I guess we should take some accountability there. Not that we can dictate what Top Chef does. But I just feel like there's been and Feinberg and the Hollywood Report it's a really good piece, writes about

these two institutions that he, like I agree with Dan, I wish every Monday had a top chef and every Wednesday had a survivor. I would be a happier person if it was like a 12 month a year thing. And which night are the Sheridan shows running in this 12 month scenario? They just run on my vision pro. There you go. I think that in some ways, like, they've iterated too much to keep up with maybe perceived Joneses. I don't think it's the iteration.

I just think there's a budget thing going on that we're not qualified to talk about or even ask about. And I think that the answer to the question, if you ask it too loudly, is do you still want the show? And, you know, it is the only reality show left, competition show left. No, it's the only competition show on Bravo. It didn't used to be. I mean, Project Runway. And I was still a fan of work of art, the art world one with Jerry Salts is a job. I mean, couldn't imagine well sell it to Food Channel?

Like, Food Network? I have no idea. It clearly still works on some level for the Bravo Comcast brand. Yeah. It's just they want it to work in this way. And I think you can see the, like, this is a small thing because we watch it. We either watch screeners or we watch it on Peacock. But it currently this season, the show is premiering on Bravo linear on Mondays at a time TBD each week.

So much so that I saw Kristen on social media being like, don't forget, we're on at 930 tonight for some reason. Like they're not. Yes, they're not loving that aspect of it. Because it's getting swallowed up by like summer house stuff, right? I would assume. but I do think it needs a rethink because this host and these judges can make worthwhile television

and the finale still could be good it's not their fault that they tried to iterate by having brothers and a couple and it amounted to nothing. Yeah, I find that the judges have been marginalized this season too. There's way too much noise going on around them. I don't feel like I'm hearing... The thing that I love about this show

and probably my greatest engagement with it was this sort of run where I think they encourage chefs earlier in the season to cook, quote, their food. And you can think it's cheesy to be like, I'm telling a story or this is about like my background, but it actually produced compelling, television storytelling to have somebody be like,

I've grown up through this French culinary tradition, but now I'm really going to start cooking the stuff that my mother used to make me, but put my spin on it. Or I'm bringing technique to something that traditionally is very wrong. or whatever it is. I feel like Tom and Gail and Kristen

and then at various points, you know, before Padma, were really like, you're on top shot, fucking impress us. Like, do it. And now I feel like there's just been way too many goofy things

that have stopped someone like, for instance, Sherry or Jonathan, who, I just think Sherry is only now starting to be like, I'm making this fritter because this is, this thing that,

and nobody's ever had this before or whatever. And, you know, even Lawrence, who I don't think is very, like, demonstrative about what's going on, but has been cooking this amazing food all year. I don't even feel like they're celebrating it. I don't feel like they're... Well, because I think that the ceiling this season has just been wildly lower. Now, again, you cannot...

This is the vagaries of a competition show. You cannot guarantee a Buddha, a Gregory, a Tristan. Survivor 50 just had this, where it was, like, all the really great players kind of got voted off, and I think Aubrey's good. but like you just have like at the end sort of weird mishmash of people. Yeah, and I think that there was a moment earlier in the season

where we're like, oh my God, Rhoda is another, like a Melissa or someone who's just like, Melissa King, like who's just like day one, oh my God. You are rising to every occasion and you're surprising yourself and we're on a generational run here or you hope for someone like a Tristan who catches fire later and you're like, oh my God, the prince who was promised was here all along.

You can't guarantee that year after year. But what we're creeping towards now is, Lawrence is going to win, which is deserving. I don't know about that anymore. But what he has executed, what he has done is a very, very technically precise and satisfying execution of what you were talking about, which is like I grew up eating this kind of food in a Cantonese household, and I am going to be able to execute a version of it that is elevated.

Yeah, like a fried catfish on a bow is like really cool. And he baked the bread. That was awesome. That was an incredibly compelling performance on Top Chef in which you, the viewer, who can't taste the food sees the degree of difficulty and can just see that they nail the execution and that's satisfying as a viewer. The rest of them are just kind of stumbling their way

to the finish line and maybe someone will step up, but I find it very hard to imagine that there is going to be a level of excitement, exhilaration, or inspiration in a finale for the way this season has played out. And I don't, I think it would be a mistake. I think Roda Lawrence and Sherry is a good final three. It would be a decent final three.

Jonathan's still there, obviously. The loss of Anthony hurts. That was a bummer. That sucked. But I think that it would be a mistake to walk away from this season and be like, yeah, you know what? Sometimes, like, was the guy the one Denver, like, Joe.

Seems like a really good guy, good chef, good on TV. But, like, not necessarily the heights of ambition or technical, you know. Or maybe not the drama of Brooke and Kristen or whatever. Right. So, okay. So you can't guarantee that every year. There have been down seasons in terms of the excellence on display or whatever. But I think it would be a mistake to focus on that at the expense of the fact that

the clear, clear, clear diminishment of ambition and budget is hurting the final product of the show. And I don't know what to do about that because we're lucky to still have it. Yeah. But I don't know. I feel like that's the ultimate of the room. I would like to also like at some point,

we have gotten so many emails about the Padma show. Oh, she. And... Did they have budget? Maybe they did. I think it might be worth checking out a little bit more thoroughly to see. It's odd that it was running concurrently. Like, you know.

I mean, not odd. Aggressive. Aggressively. Let's wrap it up there. Yeah. Monday, this is Euphoria finale. Yeah, and so there's a couple other shows I want to check out. Yes.

I don't know if it'll be from Monday, but we have maximum pleasure guaranteed on Apple. We have the Amadeus show that is on Stars. Joe Barton, UK last year. Yeah. I feel like there was probably others. I feel like... We need to also address the fact that, like, we're getting a lot of new shows. Yeah.

And it's tiring. It's hard to finish them. Did you watch the Burroughs? I did. I didn't watch all of it, but I watched like three episodes of it. Is it weird to see actors that we think of as relatively young people be like in cocoon? This is just like, yeah. Yeah.

It's very well done, though. A friend was telling me about the show and was like, well, you know, there's a great scene in Bill Pullman's retirement home. And I'm like, I'm going to need you to stop there. It's true. It's true. Kai, Sarah. Thank you. Kaya.

Thank you. Kaya's coming back for the Top Chef finale. That's why she's not here. Thank God. We'll see you guys on Monday. everybody have a great weekend you have a great weekend yeah i include you in that thank you all the branskins