The Watch - ‘Star Wars' Prequels and ‘Breaking Bad’ Sequels | The Watch (Ep. 305)

Episode Date: November 9, 2018

Diego Luna will return as Cassian Andor in a live-action ‘Star Wars’ series on Disney+ (3:34), AMC is developing a ‘Breaking Bad’ movie about Jesse Pinkman’s life (15:08), and a review of the second half of ‘Homecoming’ Season 1 (35:34). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. The flagship rewards credit card offers three times points on all travel purchases and two times points on everything else. Three times the points on travel means getting rewarded while road tripping or even commuting to work. You'll also get other benefits like a statement credit for global entry and TSA precheck of up to $100, 24-7 member support and access to Navy Federal's online shopping center. Check out NavyFederal.org for more information and to apply now. Message and data rates may apply. Visit navyfederal.org slash flagship.

Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Dell. The Dell XPS13 with an Intel Core I-7 processor is the laptop for people who never say no to one more episode. With lifelike color, brilliant sound clarity, and smooth streaming, Dell Cinema technology makes whatever you love to watch even better. Call 800 by Dell to learn more or visit Dell.com slash Dell Cinema. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the new Amazon series Homecoming, directed by Sam Esmail, the creator of Mr. Robot, based on the critically acclaimed podcast by Eli Horowitz and Michael Bloomberg homecoming stars Julia Roberts as Heidi Bergman, a caseworker at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center. But four years after starting a new life, Heidi is faced with questions about why she left the facility. And she realizes there's a deeper story beyond the one she's telling herself.

Don't miss homecoming. Stream it now only on Amazon Prime Video. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the Rigger.com and joining me on the other line

sitting over some aged meat at Fat Morgans. It's Andy Greenwald. Hey, that was my favorite little scene. Yeah, that was my guy Tim from Justified, just hanging out. Was that really? Yeah, I don't know, what he was doing in there? I think that he is the boyfriend.

of the Frankie Shaw waitress character. Okay. Now, I know that. We're talking about Homecoming, obviously. This is not a spoiler. Do you know how I know that? How? Because I was talking about that scene

just now in the edit bay and my post producer for Briar Patch was the post producer on Homecoming and he said, oh, do you mean her boyfriend? Wait, in real life or just the characters? No, no, the character. Okay, yeah. In real life, Frankie is happily married.

Okay. Chris, don't... This isn't a salacious podcast. No, it isn't, but we are going to deal in some solaceous. breaking bad in Star Wars rumors. Not even rumors.

Hardcore reports. Boy, you know, guys, first of all, thank you all, as always for listening. Chris, thank you as always for listening to me. I just feel like, you know, it's been tough. I've been away from you. I'm in Culver City. I don't see daylight anymore. And right before we record, we get just juicy Breaking Bad and Star Wars news.

This is big for our brand. Did you wake up on Wednesday morning in America and say to yourself, I need a Cassian and or prequel? No, but I have been thinking that one of the most undervalued assets in entertainment is the prequel to the prequel. Like, why do you think, like Chris, like you, remember when you used to do Hollywood Guide? You just tent your fingers. I love this story, but could you go earlier? I think the note is, but why does time always have to move forward?

Yeah. You know, like, let's just keep rewinding the tape. What if there was more than one road? No, I just think it's more like Rogue.5. You know what I mean? In case I know nobody knows what we're talking about. Today, Disney head honcho, C.O. Chairman Bob Iger announced that Lucasfilm, this is from Star Wars.com.

Lucasfilm is in development on a second Star Wars live action series for Disney Plus the company's new direct-to-consumer streaming service, which doesn't exist yet. The first one, obviously, being John Favreau's The Mandalorian, which I think is like a kind of Buick you can get too. The series which will go into production next year follows the adventures of Rebel Spy, Cassie and Andor, during the formative years of the rebellion, and prior

to the events of Rogue One, a Star Wars story. I'll tell you what, it couldn't be about Cassie and Andor and take place after Rogue One. Am I right? Do you know what the most depressing movie in Star Wars continuity would be? It would be Rogue 2.

Rogue 2 is just a lot of like charred body parts floating in space. It's just a guy with a broom. This is dark. This is dark. It's kind of a dark time. Wait, I want to talk about this, Chris. If only I had a microphone in front of me to talk about this. Sorry, you want to set the stage. No, I was just going to say that again, just like we were really tantalized by the log line for Rogue One and somewhat delivered, I think that you and I both really liked parts of it and there were parts of it that made no sense. the long line for the Cassian Andor show is a rousing spy thriller which will explore tales filled with espionage and daring missions

to restore hope to the galaxy in the grip of a ruthless empire. Well, look, I think the first question to ask is one that is on the lips of every watch listener. This doesn't, what does this mean for Narcos Season 5? Right? Because your man Cassian Andor is currently fighting the rise of the Mexican cartels. No, he's not fighting anything, man. He's aiding and abetting.

Oh, is he on that side of the fence? He's the drug lord, and Michael Pena is the DEA agent. What? Yes. Wow, okay, so I haven't seen any of this yet. Okay, so I guess we know where this is going. All right, so there are your NERCO spoilers, guys. Following up, I'm of two minds about this.

Because on the one hand, there's way too much Star Wars. We don't need multiple live action Star Wars. a series. I'm not even sure if I need Disney Plus in my life, if we're being completely honest, which frankly, you should be. Don't you have a straight up, like, Mary Poppins addict in your house? Okay, a couple things. Because I'm remote right now, I thought you said a Mary Poppins attic, which suggested there was a extra floor of my house. Yeah, just all of umbrellas, no. Covered in carbon bags. Don't you have, like, whatever Chris Rock was in New Jack City, that's what the kids in your house are for Mary Poppins.

Oh, look, me too. You have to understand. But that doesn't mean I need a streaming service with a live action story about the, you know, chimney sweeps. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm not against Disney content. I will be first in line for Mary Poppins returns. What I'm saying is I don't need 10 episodes a season of Mary Poppins begins.

However, Chris, however, if you were to make a Star Wars, live action series. This is the one that I would choose. Okay. This is the one that I would choose over the Mandalorian, which sounds like a dude who plays like a medieval instrument in the corner of a tavern where elves drink flagons of ale. That sounds like somebody, a Mandalorian is a guy that Jeff Tweedy adds to Wilco on like the ninth album. We got to get some Mandalorian on this one. Move over, Nels Klein. We need a Mandalorian. I think that I really like, look, we like Rogue One a lot.

I really like Diego Luna's character in it. I like the idea because we haven't gotten, even in the Han Solo movie, we never got a Han Solo type character. And that's kind of, and this is the closest we've gotten. This dude just kind of does some shady stuff on the margins of the empire. That's cool. That sounds fun, and it sounds more like a TV show in the traditional sense of a TV show, in that it could even be less serialized, right? It could even be more like justified in the sense that it's a one character, having some adventures,

sometimes serious, sometimes not, but with standalone episodes along the way, that's appealing to me. Yeah, the interesting thing here is that Diego Luna's character Cassie in Rogue One, especially in the beginning of Rogue One, is essentially an assassin. I mean, he does kill people in the name of the burgeoning rebellion. And so I'll be interested to see how dark this gets. Obviously, with most of the Star Wars watching universe knowing his fate, it will also cast sort of a shadow on the events. I don't like starting things knowing where they're going to end up.

I prefer. I mean, like, I think in something like Star Wars, so much of it is imaginative and so much of it is this fantastical exploration of myth and legend. So even if there has to be an arc to follow along with the hero's journey, I still feel like there's the initial attraction to that was this feeling of these new archetypes out in a new galaxy. And so to work within these constraints, which I think a lot of this IP stuff is doing. and we're going to talk in a second about the new chapter of Breaking Bad, which is similarly sort of handcuffed to its sort of family tree. But like with this, it's just I do kind of wonder about the execution. You can't make too bright of a show out of a spy assassin who will eventually get newped.

Yeah, and I think that it's worth, well, it's also worth talking about how this is going to work. Like Star Wars has always been family-friendly entertainment, and it's often the more interesting parts of it, It's Hans shoots first, right? It's like they want it to be a little bit edgy, but it also has to be family-friendly, and how are they going to walk that line? It's worth considering that while they potentially could make a darker Star Wars movie, and they keep almost trying and then reverting it,

this is going to be for the streaming service. And one of the interesting aspects of the streaming service that they announced, it's called Disney Plus, and it's going to debut in late 2019. And we say streaming service, this is just another thing you're going to have to subscribe to if you want the content. Yeah. And Disney's pulling its content from Netflix and other places in, advance of this. It's apparently, and this is from the news releases, the press conferences

today, and also I'm reading it from Joe Adelian, the expert TV reporter for Vulture, that unlike Netflix, the Disney Plus app or interface will actually be five kind of micro-sites devoted to brands. There's going to be a Star Wars, I don't know, page or site, Marvel, Pixar, Disney, and then the outlier, Nat Geo, which I guess is a completely different demographic, but somehow in the corporate family. So what that means is if your kid is used to, you know, I say kid, you know, anywhere from 5 to 15 is used to grabbing the remote and going to Disney Plus and then now going to this, you know, and checking out the Disney or Pixar content, they will also be accessing the Star Wars. They could easily access the Star Wars content, all of which is to say,

your point is really well taken. It probably won't be a roguish assassin show. Or at least it won't be emphasis on the assassin. You touched on this, like this idea that they do at least tease this idea that they're going to make grittier Star Wars fair. And I think that a lot of these movies do start out with the best intentions. And to my mind, the only one that's kind of seen the project through

from soup to nuts as like the vision of one of these directors is Last Jedi, which is also the most controversial, probably of the more recent Star Wars films. But they tried to make solo into a Lord and Miller gangster Western, which Ron Howard had to come in and finish.

Rogue One itself was infamously possibly taken over by Tony Gilroy but went through a lot of recutting and a lot of tonal shifts. We can say taken over. Yeah, and it went through a lot of tonal shifts. You know, they were still rewriting elements

of The Force Awakens when JJ was still shooting it. I mean, there's like an entire other script with Luke's hand floating in spaces, the opening image that Mike Arndt wrote, right? So I think it's Star Wars, the latest iteration of Star Wars is always a work in progress. it'll be fascinating to watch whether or not they tighten things up a little bit for the plus, you know,

because you'd think that with the amount of money that they're spending on these movies, they'd be a little bit more under control, but maybe the chaos is something that gives this series energy. I don't know. Are you saying that Kathleen Kennedy has something in common with Bain? I'm just trying to connect the dots here. You know, in retrospect, I'm beginning to think that one of the most, One of the most unlikely things to have happened in major blockbuster entertainment in the last few years was Logan. Realizing now how hard it is for these brands, you know, that basically the maintenance of these brands underwrites these massive, massive corporations,

that Fox actually let James Mangold go crazy, you know, and make an adult Western as much as it was an adult Western. Similarly, you know, obviously that's been working for them with Deadpool as well. and that's been central to Fox's ability to kind of differentiate itself from Marvel with a different type of success, right, and how Sony has tried that strategy with Venom. Marvel has never really done that. You know, I think there was some thought that Marvel TV might do that with their Netflix series, which were certainly a little more, I don't know, gritty as the word. I mean, there were less aliens.

But I think the thing to think about isn't just that Disney is traditionally a more family-friendly company than Fox. it's that Disney is thinking long term of itself as a direct-to-consumer portal. Yes. Right? You couldn't make a Ironman story that in which, you know, the Tony Stark is an alcoholic storyline, which is something that comic book fans really love. You couldn't do that as a side story and then knowing it would ultimately go on to a service like this and be up there right next to the more family-friendly movies.

Yeah, but here's... Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm happy to keep advocating for drawing. Tony Stark, but please cut me off. Well, no, what's good about Logan, aside from Boyd Holbrook and his fake arm? It's the finality. It's the feeling that you're watching the unforgiving of a superhero movie, that you're

watching a character wrecking with a life of violence, reckon with all this guilt and regret, reckon with this broken body and a broken mind, and try and find some sort of redemption, and ultimately find his redemption in his own death. Now, even though nothing is ever really dead in a comic book movie or a comic book for that matter, that's something that isn't, it doesn't play into the idea of building out 25, 30 years of Star Wars content. And I, you know, I'm kind of interested to know who is the person and what is the idea that they were like Cassian and Andor is the thing that we need to kind of revive.

Maybe it's just that they're like, there's a lot to be done in the spy genre in this world. And we think that this is the best way to do it. but I think that this is going to be an interesting thing going forward, and we can talk about it with Breaking Bad now. Finality does matter. Finality is something that people fix their eyes on a point in the horizon and a story and are like, okay, we're moving towards something. And I think as television and movies collapse a little bit,

that'll be something that we get into a lot more is the idea of, are people fine with things just being never-ending and indefinite? And we can always bring this back, or we can always turn the clock back 10 years to before this. And how does these stories impact the stories to come later? I mean, we can start talking about breaking bad stuff now if you want. I do. I do just want to say, I think the best case scenario of the Cashinandor thing is what you just said,

that someone was like, boy, that would be fun to make this sort of this type of story. I think the truth is probably closer to this is a story that exists in the most fertile period of our pre-existing mythology because we don't have to make up new stuff. Do you think that there's just also like a business side thing where they had Diego Luna under contract? No, but I'm sure it's connected to the fact that they were able to get him under contract. You know what I mean?

They looked at their schedule and they looked at his schedule and they checked the average lifespan of Mexican drug lords and they were like, this is going to work out. So, okay, so moving to the other news, which is this week news broke first that Vince Gilligan was writing and directing a movie for AMC in keeping with their, you know, really just this week revealed strategy of making movies based on their properties with the Rick Grimes Walking Dead movies. At first, it was unclear what

this would be, although everyone assumed it would be Breaking Bad related. Foolishly, Chris, I was out in the field. I was out in the field learning things like a, like a journalist, and I forgot during production of Briar Patch in Albuquerque, all the crew was buzzing. And I was like, what's up? And they were like, we just heard. Vince is coming back to do the Jesse movie. And I was like, well, that's really interesting. And then I forgot. You should get a job with Maggie Haberman.

Dude, I am dropping bombs on Twitter. Joe, did you guys hear about this Russia shit? So I'd like to apologize to you and to everyone for not owning that story. But so that's what's happening. Before we get into it, I wanted to actually use the segue that you already gifted us, which is this idea of finality and story. storytelling and building towards things, et cetera, et cetera. I also think actually this is going to play very well for our discussion of the second

half of homecoming. Right, which we probably didn't even tease. One thing that people tell you, I think, as you become an adult or working in the world, or anyway, I'm not sure what field, but in most fields, I think where you have to have meetings with people, this certainly applies in Hollywood. The most power you have is the ability to say no. Like, if you're really willing to walk away from something that gives you power or leverage in the situation, I think that thinking about it.

that thinks creatively, the biggest power that you have and the hardest to use is saying something's over, right? I just think that that is enormously powerful and not always respected as such. That said, the Breaking Bad crew has won our trust. Now, with a show that has moved in the other direction. It is surprising, on one hand, to think that they would once again reopen the stitches and risk altering the legacy of something that is beloved by so many, particularly messing with the ending. But we have been saying every time we come back to Better Call Saul and we scratch our heads and we wonder how this is working

and we still can't believe it's working well, they have earned our trust on this. They are able stewards of their own legacy and have earned the right to tell whatever stories they want in this space, right? It goes against my general belief about storytelling to say that, but I do feel like they've earned it. Oh, every single Adam in my body is like, don't do this. Don't do this.

You actually gave this specific character a perfect ending. You gave him some sense of escape while also having this ambiguity around what he is escaping and where he is escaping to. His character goes through such, I think Jesse goes through an easy. equally fascinating and in some ways more subtle transformation over the course of breaking bad than even Walter, who I think Walters was a little, you could put it on a

fortune cookie, a piece of paper inside of a fortune cookie, the whole, what is it, Mr. Chips turns into Scarface. That's right. But Jesse's is much more emotional and I think in some ways complex and it's built, it has a lot more loss built into it. But all that being said, I just, I cannot deny them this because, not that I have, not that I have a choice, but because of what better call Saul is, I just, if they have an idea for this and they think that they have a good idea, I just trust them. And what better call Saul is doing with taking, I don't know if you want to call it kind of like a story, a narrative

metaphor, but using the idea of the detail and process and complexity of legal work, right? And using that almost as like a template for storytelling where they're so invested in these little meticulous step-by-step processes of this story. So whether it's Saul on a bus going to that town in Louisiana to send all that mail to free fuel, you know, these little Mike investigating the warehouse and looking at every single nook and cranny to find these problems with the warehouse in this past season. Moments like that, those are new kinds of storytelling for this group of people. I think Big and Bad have parts of that, but never so explicitly.

I have to imagine they have a similarly new way of talking about Jesse and a new way of telling this story. The log line I saw was a man escapes a kidnapping and is on. the run, right? And that was before it was, it was sort of confirmed that this was going to be the Jesse movie. And then Brian Cranston went on the Dan Patrick show recently, right after the news broke, and said that he hadn't seen a script yet, he hadn't seen script yet, but then sort of let drop, he was like it would give closure to some characters from Breaking Bad that didn't have it. Now, that could be in reference specifically and explicitly, like only with Jesse. That could also

have something to do with Skyler or Walt Jr. or a couple of other people in there. There is also the overarching, like, they could tie the whole knot together, and this could intersect with Saul. I think the other thing that, the other thing that they've shown they can do, which is not at all as easy as it sounds, is to understand how to treat supporting characters as they transition to leads. I think one of the main concerns going into Better Call Saul was, well, this character is a little broad and works so well, playing off everyone. else. What happens when we just turned the camera on him?

And, you know, by creating essentially an entire other character, Jimmy McGill, they solved that problem. They took what was the concern that this Saul Goodman as a caricature, admitted it, and then ran back the tape to see what he was before. Similarly, I think Jesse really in my, I mean, Jesse is a brilliant character and a brilliant performance by Aaron Paul, of course. But for me, it's a, it's a duet with Brian Cranston. You know, I, the character.

I couldn't always, I was not nearly as interested in the character when he was split off from Walter White. But thinking about it through the better call saw lens, whoever Jesse is after his experience is essentially a different person. And I'm sure that Vince Gilligan will understand that and will embrace it. And running it all the way back to the thing we said about when we were talking about Logan before, to me this seems like a pretty exciting template for that kind of a story. for someone who's been through something who is changed and scarred irrevocably from it reckoning with one last thing.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's exciting. Vince Gilligan has earned the right to tell us a story and we're excited to see it. I'm also excited to see who Jesse Pinkman's Kim Wexler is, whoever it is. It doesn't have to be a woman, it doesn't have to be,

I mean, it can be whoever it is, but they obviously still have characters in their back pocket, you know, or they're able to come up with characters who are as interesting as, these people who we know and love from Breaking Bad. Right. I mean, if you look at existing characters as having square pegs because they are so well defined, they don't bring in people who are round holes. You know what I mean? They have this ability like master craftsmen to create characters that fold perfectly for dramatic

purposes into the pre-existing character. And that's what Kim Wexler is. That's what all the new supporting characters of Better Call Saul are. So it's exciting purely from a writing standpoint, And honestly, before we even get to what it's going to look like or how it'll be directed, et cetera, et cetera. I do want to pivot from this before we get into Homecoming to this kind of cool moment for AMC where they are, as we said, just two days ago, throwing out the rulebook and saying, we're just going to make stuff with the toys that we have, right? They're going to make movies now because the rules don't matter.

The shape of the widget doesn't matter anymore. And it's not a bad idea. And it turns, you know, the whole idea before. is that you would do, as community said, six seasons and then a movie, well, that was always a suspect strategy because TV shows are not movies. And going to a cinematic release of a movie, it just changes the stakes. It changes the definition of the property, and it often fails. Now we're just making more TV episodes, but in a different shape. And I think that's really interesting. And honestly, AMC seems more forward-thinking in this than other companies that

we often point to as forward-thinking. Particularly, I'm thinking about how David Chase is currently making a Sopranos movie that is a prequel. I forget what it's called, the Ghost of New Jersey or something that's called. Maybe we can look it up and correct my mistake there. But, you know, it's written. It's being cast.

I assume he's going to direct it as well, and it'll tell the story of Uncle Jr. And Tony's dad, it is a theatrical release. Don't you think on some level it would make more sense as a two-hour HBO special? Yeah, I mean, maybe it led up that way. They should do with that, what they're doing with the Deadwood movie, which they just began filming apparently.

Exactly. And so it also makes me wonder, have the overtures already been made to Matthew Weiner, for example, who I got to say, you know, we all know how many episodes of the Romanovs I've seen. But it does not strike me

as something that Amazon would be really super excited to revisit, just judging by the reaction to the show, the running time, the expense. But you think Don Draper in the 80s is like, is it imminent? Well, I mean, that's a show that did do flashbacks, and they weren't that great to his childhood. I don't know if it's the Don Draper in the 80s show.

He strikes me as someone who, I mean, Winer also writes novels. He wants to make movies. I think that his sense of the art that he does is different than Vince Gilligan, who has always approached it much more like, honestly, and I don't even say this pejoratively. I think this is a fair observation of two men that I don't know. one has kind of a blue collar approach and one has a white collar approach to making television and both have succeeded marvelously. But Vince Gilligan has never seemed very precious about it. Like he doesn't mind going back into the minds and having fun seeing what's there.

I think that Winer obsessed over the ending of Mad Men and tinkered with it and felt like, that's my final statement and now I have more things to say. So I don't think he'd necessarily do this. The other thing is that AMC, you know, owns the Walking Dead with its studio. Breaking Bad is through Sony, but they obviously have a very good relationship with AMC. see, Mad Men was Lionsgate, so I don't know what those conversations would be like between those companies. But all this is prelude. Do you think there's a Mad Men movie in there? What would it be for you? Do I think there's a Mad Men movie? I mean, there's characters like Joan and Peggy

that I think are two characters because of where women were and what has happened over the last 20, 30 years, 40, 50 years, however far you want to project forward, I think that there would always be interest in what happened to them. You know, obviously, it depends on who you ask. You know, we just did this post this week about who's had the best post-madmen career. And it's almost hard for me, the hardest person for me to imagine going back would be Moss. You know, it would be hard for me to imagine her going back to Peggy for some reason. I don't think that there will ever be a Mad Men reboot or a continuation of that story. I really, he seems like the kind of guy who would rather die penniless than go back and do something over just for a check.

I will say in terms of, do you have one? Well, I was just going to say, you could do what I do and consider the chilling adventures of Sabrina to be Mad Men Cannon. And that Sally Draper just took a turn. No, I mean, I said this before I wrote it in Grantland. The story that would interest me would be Sally Draper growing up. up like in, you know, downtown 81, like Warhol, Baskillat, like, blending into American Psycho 80s, right? Like, just a completely different era. Not even saying Kieran and Chippka, like maybe you just sort of imagine what Mad Men would be like in that era of a very different,

you know, very different storytelling, very different city. But there probably won't be and there probably shouldn't be. I would just say that also just my last note on the business side of things is that this does seem like a very savvy way to draw interest to single nights, which is a huge challenge in this day and age. You know, usually if you're going to do what this is us or whatever, you have to draw attention by promising or teasing huge plot developments. But for the most part, shows whether they're released week by week or dropping all at once, they are kind of like in their own little vacuum and people are watching it at their own pace.

I mean, even as we talk about homecoming over the course of a week, pretty much everybody I know is like, when are you guys going to talk about the ending? You know, or like, did you get to the end? Did you get to the end? Bodyguard, people watching in a day or two. If something catches fire, it tends to burn really hot. One way for networks, one way for television channels to kind of draw a little bit of

attention and get a little friction going around a night, which I think is important for advertisers, is to say this is the beginning, the middle, and the end of something is going to happen tonight. I don't disagree with you, but I wonder if people, maybe if we have listeners who are more attuned to the business end or advertising could actually let us know their thoughts on this. I agree with you conceptually that it's a smart way to get attention and draw eyeballs, you know, which is what the game is still did. And also, I mean, Aaron Paul's on Westworld, so it's like how much Aaron Paul can they really book, you know? Well, but, but the Netflix

strategy, for example, that we talked about at length at the time where they surprised debuted a Cloverfield movie after the Super Bowl was such a brilliant move for them because because, you know, they stole a night, basically, and it was very splashy, and it made you feel not just that Netflix is something you have to have to watch reruns of friends, but something you need to have in the same way you need live TV because you never know what's going to drop on the service. But that works for Netflix, because Netflix's job is to, you know, appear unmissable. You know, you need to subscribe to have it.

And once they have it, once you have it, they have you. That's not how a network works. I mean, even this move towards anthology series. I think on some level is very challenging for traditional networks because you can't count on anything, right? If people don't like second season story that you've had to use all the expense to get new locations, new actors, new marketing to reintroduce it, then they're pretty much shit out of luck, right? Because the whole point of the business was always consistency that you could deliver it to advertisers. So I'm curious, is AMC doing these things because the old rulebook isn't working? Are they doing it because they know that owning the Walking Dead extended universe and the Breaking Bad extended universe makes them a good outlet for your dollars when they also become an over-the-top service or if they're bought by someone who has an over-the-top service?

Or is there value in grabbing people for a Jesse movie and then using the Jesse movie to advertise Lodge 49 and all the other shows you have on your air? That's the question I don't understand. Maybe they don't know the answer. It'll be fascinating as this thing develops to kind of see how they're kind of mounting this. whether it's like a very special event, or is there like, you know, with the Rick Grimes movies and Walking Dead, it sounds like they're going to make several of those.

I don't think that, I just don't know where they're going to put Jesse. Like, Jesse very well could be managing a Chipotle on Sunset and Vine. You know what I mean? Like, they could go in so many different directions. I assume they're going to keep it in the Albuquerque underworld, but who knows?

Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll find out soon enough. And you know what, guys? I'll have boots on the ground there next year. We can rely on you to be the first to break. the news. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be back to discuss the second half of the first season of Homecoming. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the big homies at Sonos. Meet Sonos Beam, the smart compact sound bar for your TV and the newest addition to the easy to use home sound

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and backed by 24-7 protection and do not worry about installing and configuring your system. will D-I-F-Y do it for you. Just visit ADT.com slash smart to learn more about how ADT can design and install a secure smart home just for you. Greenwald, we're back. As Kaya just informed us, the Sopranos movie is called the Many Saints of Newark.

That gave us both a little pause of reflection. It's a lovely title. Have you spent much time in Newark? It sounds like a Gaslight anthem album, doesn't it? It does. It does. Have I spent much time in Newark? Didn't you and I drive to New York together once?

No, I mean, I feel like we've done some Trenton trips. If you know what I mean? Where's the prequels movie about that? That sounds like the beginning of Camerons. I used to get it in Ohio, you know? Yeah. That was pretty much our early 2000s listeners. Really just completely the same.

Let's talk a little bit about the end of home coming here. Okay, so wait. Oh, yeah. Spoilers. Spoilers for. the second half of Amazon's homecoming. Sorry to our producer, Kaya, who is not cut up. I know.

You're burnt. You're burnt, Kaya. But I did have just a couple notes, because as everyone knows, I am recording this podcast from Smail Corp. I'm in the belly of the beast. I have a giant plate of pineapple in front of me. My opinions are completely suspect. I get it.

I did want to say that Sam's note to me about our podcast, about his show, was that he wanted me to correct you that it's Stefan. James. Okay. Thanks. And otherwise I told him that I found your slavish devotion to his show unseemly and that you were laying it on a bit thick and he disagreed. So that that's where we're at. I got more, man. I got a whole new bag. Oh, Jesus. All right. All right. Here we go. Why don't you go first this time? I feel like I gave my opening speech. We can go a little bit more ping pong back and forth this time. I don't want to turn it into the monologue hour. No, I look, I'm perfectly happy to do the monologue hour.

I also, you know, my takeaway from the second half of the first season is that this Geist company, who, I feel like they're not on the up and up. I also wonder, and I mean this sincerely, because, you know, the finale, season finale suggests, you know, we all know there's the second season coming. The finale suggests that we are going to get more into the Geist Corporation. and my main question is, does this mean that Homecoming is set in the 30 Rock Expanded Universe

and that Rip Torn's Dongeist character is somehow a wayward sion of this company? That's right. Do you think that's possible? I don't know. You know, all I could hope for is that Hong Chow is like a major part

of the second season because she's just in that one scene that she really gets to let it rock with Bobby. It's like, with Bobby Connavalli, is she just that look she gives him? She's like, we're not talking about her. You know, it's such a great moment. Let's talk Hong Chow.

I'm a huge fan. I don't know how much. She's in the second season. I do know that from being inside of here. And I, for one, I'm very excited about that, too. I think she's a tremendously interesting actor. I thought she was just, I think we talked about this. I think she was so great in what may have been the best episode of Forever,

the Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph show on Amazon that I like quite a bit. I'm glad that you said that you're just dropping season two, spoilers. already. Like, I know that in like three months, it's going to be like a dusty Albuquerque setting for you. And I'm going to be like, how's it going? And like, Cranston's going to be walking by you and full Walter White regalia. And you're going to be like, no, nothing much. Just had some Christmas chilies. Just eat some green chili. The reason I wanted to, the reason I'm happy about that news is because for all of the enormous positives that we've been bestowing upon homecoming, I really think Hong Chao brings something,

a type of performance that actually is otherwise mostly absent from the show, which is interesting because in all the pieces written about it, I think Alison Herman's piece about Sam and everything referred to him as a paranoiauteur, putting this film firmly in the series firmly in the tradition of films from the 70s, Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, etc.

Yeah, and Adam Neiman wrote a piece that kind of took frame by frame different scenes and talked about what Sam was doing in terms of creating tension or isolation. A bunch of things, I highly recommend both pieces. Right, and I think that Hong Chow performance is unique on this show in a surprising way because she is just so jittery and nervy

and discomforting naturally. She's not putting on anything. This isn't, and again, I actually really liked his performance, but Jeremy Allen White's performance as Shrier, you know, that's a type of character on these shows, you know, he's the jittery, paranoid guy. And he played it very broadly as he should to make an impact in his limited screen time as a guest star. But Hong Chow was in the background, just slowly vibrating to freak everybody out. And I love that baseline.

And I'm excited to have that brought to the fore. Yeah, me too. I mean, it's interesting to think about this in terms of where it's going, because it honestly, throughout the entire run of the first season, I was blissfully as if I was taking some sort of medication that was deleting that part of my brain, just blissfully kind of uncaring about where it was going or what the second season might do, would we meet Mr. Geist, what happened to Ron? Is he still seasoning that chicken in his kitchen? You know, all these things. You know, we just did a podcast, we just did a rewatchables episode about all the president's men for absolutely no reason

whatsoever. It has nothing to do with what's going on in the news. And one of the things that's struck me when I was rewatching all the President's men, and I'm sure at this point, everybody's sick of hearing the 70s paranoia's cinema comparisons. But it was the ending, which Sean talked about, fantasy talked about a lot on the rewatchables, was how that movie ends and how you, in your mind, you might even remember it ending two or three times before it actually wraps up. And I felt like there was a bit of homage, intentionally or not, in the way that the season kind of wrapped up.

It was much more of a coda than it was a, cliffhanger, you know, and it was kind of investigating what happens as people return to memories and these memories start to like come back to them a little bit or whether or not that's a good thing to remember at all. You know, you come out of this catatonic state and you are sort of maybe robbed of something, robbed of this trauma that creates the tapestry of who you are, but maybe it's better not to. And then obviously there's some ambiguity at the end with the Fork suggesting that Stefan is actually, the cruise character is actually aware of who he's talking to. I think we could talk a little bit about episode eight, which I think is actually a masterpiece.

And it's, you know, oftentimes with shots and shows, we're talking about like a true detective tracking shot or a piece of virtuistic Steven Soderberg camera work in the Nick or something. Sam himself has done these sort of long oners and Mr. Robot. but the switch of the aspect ratio in eight is fucking, that's a highlight reel, man. It's really cool. And it's really cool to consider every aspect of filmmaking as part of the storytelling. You know, it's nice that it was actually, and I didn't expect this.

I didn't know where things were going. But the idea that the aspect ratio was telling us something about our character's mental state, not just as a neat way to differentiate the time periods, because again, I never listened to the podcast, but I've come to understand that that sound effect was the way that they jolted between the time periods on the audibly. So I thought there was just a visual flourish to accentuate that, and I really appreciate it that it was more than that.

The thing that I'm interested in is where you fell after watching all the episodes, which, by the way, I mean, what a delight. to watch an entire season in a week and then be able to chat about it. Thank you, running times. Where did you fall on the central relationship? Well, actually, maybe that's the question itself. I was about to refer to Heidi and Cruz as the central relationship of the show. And I was curious where you fell on what that relationship was because one of the things that I,

I don't want to say, struggled with because it did not affect my enjoyment of the show, but I am not sure where I am with it, which is, is the show asking us to believe that on some level they are in love, that this is a romantic connection, or is it merely like any port in a storm for people who are being buffeted on all sides by lunacy? And even as I'm asking you the question, I might want to reframe it because I do think the ambiguity of that relationship has meant that the actual central relationship of the show is with Sam's camera and us, the viewer, honestly. I think that is the dynamic relationship that carries us through all 10 episodes. What a fascinating question. I think that that it calls, as soon as you said that,

I started thinking about maniac, you know, which explicitly addresses the nature of their relationship in the final episode of that show. And I don't want to give it away. But Emma Stone and Jonah Hill actually have a conversation about like, what is the nature of this relationship? Why are you doing this for me? What does it mean? Obviously, Cruz and Heidi don't have that conversation in in Homecoming, it didn't occur to me. It didn't occur to me like, is she doing this because she's in love with him? Is she driving across the country to find him because she's in love with him? I think that she goes to his mother's house and there's that scene, a very good scene,

and she says, you know, I understand what you did, but I don't forgive you. And Julia Roberts says, I don't want you to. And that's a fantastic moment. I do think she needs forgiveness and she needs closure. I think that that's how she rebuilds her the missing part of her mind, essentially. She needs to go back to that. There's a utopian element to where they're going.

There's like this kind of off the grid. We're looking for gold. There's a kind of fantastical, mythical search happening there. And maybe she finds it. Maybe she strikes gold by finding him and seeing that he's doing well, that he's building this deck, that he's doing everything that he ever dreamed of doing.

but it didn't it was I was not pressed by whether or not they were in love but I wonder whether or not the lack of clarity does make Sam's camera and the obsession that I seem to have

over the filming the filmmaking behind this show and I think a lot of people have responded to the music and using all these 70 scores and I think that's a really astute way of looking at it well I would take it a step further

and I think that the show itself in the text of the show has helped us answer that question, right? Because the key conversation between Heidi and Walter is about this road trip. She says she's never gone on one. And he talks about what it could be like, what it would be like to go on it with another person. And would that other person ultimately become as uninteresting as the landscape, right?

There's this idea of like, would we run out of things to talk about? I don't have the, certainly I don't have the dialogue in front of me, but that's how I remember the scene. But this idea is that maybe they'll go on this trip together. And I think the important thing is neither of them ever go on that trip with someone else. They both go on that trip completely alone. We, on the other hand, as the viewers, go on this trip with Sam and with the camera and with the story that Micah and Eli wrote. So we get to go on a trip and we are not alone, even though, of course, you know, sometimes we are on our couch alone or whatever, wherever we watch shows as it happens.

And I think somewhere in that observation is the answer to the question that I've had after watching it, which is, why did I enjoy it so much if I didn't understand fully the emotional relationship between the characters? And it's because I was on a ride with good company. Do you think that that line that Colin says to the group of military and DOD and Big Pharma people when he's giving that presentation where he puts up that question, and he says for the first time, I'm actually looking forward to things. Is he right? Did that medication actually work? Does it actually, in a weird way, bring these two people together and free them up from their pasts?

It's a good question. I mean, I think that... I mean, aside from obviously the incredibly nefarious nature of what they're doing and the culpability and, like, obviously, like, I think that they're even greater applications. in a lot of ways that this show does go hand in hand with Maniac in terms of like the use of medication and pharmacological sort of advances to cure us, you know? Well, I think all these shows,

all these sort of like medicating shows, all these hospital shows, Trippy shows, Homecoming, New Amsterdam, Homecoming Legion Maniac are really about what are we doing here? what are we doing when we can do anything? And I think it's also always been a meta-commentary on what are we doing when we can do anything on television now, when there are no guardrails anymore and there are no budgetary constraints. And that to me, actually, I'm glad you asked that, that to me is Homecoming's most interesting thematic question because the idea of someone who had a, like Walter, who had a rich and varied mind full of memories, full of conflicting emotions and memories, could be. stripped down to the core of, I don't mind going back to war because it'll just take, it'll feel like it's a day.

It'll feel like it just takes a day. Right. Well, because that medication is probably compressing memories so that that's what it feels like, yeah. Right. But also his happy place with an unknown memory, we don't fully understand. He doesn't seem to recognize Heidi. We're not sure. He seems to suddenly take great satisfaction in hammering nails into a deck.

Now, there are people who I admire in the world who are like, I like to garden and that makes me happy. And I probably couldn't keep a garden alive anyway, but the idea of letting go of everything else from, you know, whether it's Twitter alerts on my phone to watching TV shows and talking about them with you for an hour to just be purely present, sounds terrifying to me, right? But that's the goal of all of these. But like, that's the goal of meditation or yoga or whatever these things. What you're saying is you're worried that Walter stops subscribing to the watch? Exactly, though. I mean, I think that's the interesting question here, which is how do we medicate ourselves? Is, you know, Instagram stories any different than this geist pineapple drug?

But is he happier? Right. And I think that that's the interesting question for me. And there are times when that question rang out loudly, you know, past the, the, the, incredibly clever and engaging 70s homages. And there are times when that emotional question was more muted. And again, not in an unpleasant way, but it wasn't winning out over the style. It's not altogether different than what Lydia does with Colin and what his wife does, where she's just like, rather than tell me what's bothering you and what you've done to me,

essentially, put it in this box and let's move forward. And that doesn't come off as, it seems like it's coming off almost as an assertion of power on her. part where she's like, I'm almost going to rob you of this, you know, your, your sensitive vulnerability here, and we're just going to continue to be this power couple because we have an idea. It's also like sharks, right? Sharks only move forward and they die. And I think you're a killer. Yeah, that's what she says. Hong Chao's character says you're a killer. It's playing, you know, we've spent two podcasts prior to this one praising the runtime of Homecoming, the longest episode is 37 minutes, the shortest is 24, I believe.

All of these things that we are now unearthing and talking about, frankly, there isn't room in that runtime to explicitly state or engage with a lot of them. So this conversation we're having is really interesting to me because it speaks to what we expect out of prestige TV now, which traditionally for the last 10 years actually has been the room and space to marinate on these bigger ideas. And on the best shows, it's done subtly. Um, you know, and on the worst shows that generally get canceled or are Westworld. It's done very explicitly. Um, is, I don't, there is no answer here. Like, which, which version is better? Like, can we

have this fun ride? And then once we finished it, take a moment and pull over, you know, pull our preas over or whatever Collins rental car was and chat about it. There's just enough there there. with this. I think that there's a version of this show that's, whether it's the performances are pitched at a different frequency or there's a couple of other, I mean, there's a couple more special effects things.

If it's not handled with care, it feels like a coming attraction for itself. It feels like a trailer for itself. I know that as somebody who watches way too much TV at this point, I am so allergic to unnecessary buildup to things and the kind of long putting one brick on top of another that happens in TV shows where I am so, I mean, whether it's ADD or not,

I'm so desperate for things to move along at a quicker pace that to be able to have a conversation like the kind that we're having about whether or not, with all the nuances about these characters and the thematic sort of richness that's coming off of this show with a show that's only like, sometimes it's like on average about 30 minutes long. I think is actually quite an achievement.

You know, I mean, there are lots of shows that are an hour and six minutes routinely that we don't talk about, you know? Yeah, well, one thing about the show that makes it, and people have asked why with our connection to Sam or why my direct connection, you know, working across an office from him at the moment, why we're talking about it. First of all, it is what it's the genre we like to talk about and we're interested in. But as this conversation proves, this is a show that at this moment, We can't have a conversation about it that's detangled from the state of television

and the state of storytelling on television and what we expect and what surprises us. And that's been baked into everything we've said about it from when we found out it was a half hour, or that it was adapted from a podcast or that it was on Amazon with Julia Roberts and a two-season commitment. So it's on top of everything else, this show is the show to talk about, I think, and to engage with at the moment if you're interested in the business and the business of storytelling on TV as a whole. there's, despite its short running time, there is a lot there and there's a lot past there to consider when talking about it. And frankly, I would love to know we don't have time to do this and we're not going to do this, but readers feel free to call us on it in five years or whatever.

Like, this is the sort of thing that I would love to revisit free of this context to see how we consider it then with a rewatch. Does it play later? Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, so I'll just call you again in like three or four years and we'll watch Homecoming. And are we done until then? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have to, you know, I just got to get ready for this Cassie and or show. So I'm going to be kind of busy.

That's fine. I'm going to screw on my press hat and just camp out of the desert. I think, guys, I'm on to a hot story. Okay, so we have a week before Thanksgiving, Greenwald. We actually, sounds like we're going to have Micah and Eli, the creators of the homecoming podcast and writers on the show come by next week at some point. I'm also going to be talking to Eric Newman, the showrunner are Narcos next week.

That'll come out, I think, on Thursday. Kaya, am I right? That's correct. That's correct. We also have a very cool interview we're conducting next week. Don't pretend Kaya wasn't just listening to Shea Serrano's new podcast. We all know she does not listen to the while. Oh, you guys are still talking.

So we have a bunch of stuff happening. But Greenwald, is there another thing you want people to start watching soon? I mean, we have everything that I'm excited about starts at the end of next week where it's Little Drummer Girl, Narcos, and Escape from Damora. I think that those are the things to throw up on the watch list, and I will consider them homework as well, and I look forward to talking about them with you on a podcast in three or four years. Okay, Betty. I'll talk to you soon.

Just have a great day, Branski's. Really? Really, you've heard it. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Navy Federal with three times the points on travel and two times the points on all other purchases. The flagship rewards card makes little excursions feel like the trip of a lifetime. earn rewards whether it's a weekend getaway, a short road trip, or even your daily commute. Redeem points for cash or travel and enjoy access to Navy Federal's online shopping center where you can earn extra rewards at your favorite retailers.

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