The Watch - ‘The Bear’ Season 2, Episodes 7-10. Plus, ‘Black Mirror’ Creator Charlie Brooker on the Newest Season.

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the last four episodes of ‘The Bear’ Season 2. They discuss the way Richie’s character evolved throughout Episode 7, “Forks,” (1:00) and the way that Carmy and Sydney’s relationship in the season finale was depicted (37:49). Then, Chris is joined by ‘Black Mirror’ creator Charlie Brooker to talk about how the pandemic inspired the latest season of the show (1:06:02). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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, every podcast counts. It's Andy Greenwald. This one more than others.

I hope so. Andy, what a show we have today. We're going to conclude our coverage of the Bear Season 2 by talking about... Conclude our episodic coverage. I think there's more... We'll talk more meat on that T-Bone. Yeah, man.

We already have to go back through and discuss what the Bear Season 2 means to R.E.M. streams. I've already checked. I am locked in on that. In addition to talking about the last four episodes of The Bear, though, Charlie Brooker is on the show today, creator of Black Mirror,

and I talked to him for, I'd say close to an hour, about every episode of the new season of Black Mirror, and he told some awesome stories about the creative genesis of this season and where Black Mirror is going. Did you know that, I don't think we talked about this,

so some of these episodes are set in the past, and that that is supposed to be like a, a sub-label of Black Mirror called Red Mirror. What was he going to tell? He told you this, but not Netflix. The last episode of the season is like a Red Mirror film. And he was like, in my mind, I had this idea we were going to do a whole season maybe

of Black Mirror that was called Red Mirror and it was all set in the past. Wow. Yeah, it's really cool. I'll do a little bit more about Black Mirror when we get closer to the interview. I'm really excited that you did this. And I want to say, on the record, to your face, that I'm genuinely happy. Apparently, all this idle venom is just poisoning

our communication. Because when you told me, you talked Charlie yesterday. I was just really happy for you. I think in general, comms is not a strong suit of the Idol. I think that's right. On and off screen. That's fair. Really the only big news this week. I mean, there are some other pieces of information that are flying around

the multiverse, but as soon as we exited our Monday recording. Yeah. We're like, okay, so we have episode five of the Idol we're going to miss talking about on Monday because... Oh, and we stopped recording. Not when I stormed out of the studio.

at you for your retrograde beliefs. When we walked out of the studio, hand in hand. When we were recording last episode, we were like, there are six episodes of the Idol. So say if the internet, so say if I didn't see a title or anything like that,

it was TBD, but we were all operating under the assumption that we had two more episodes of the Idol to go. Right. And it turns out where we're wrong. That's not true, yeah. It's that they have announced that there is only five episodes of the Idol

and that the final episode will be airing July 2nd. It's called Jocelyn Forever. Is it? I prefer TBD, honestly. An interesting curveball, I guess. Well, so there's been, I think the fallout from that was an assumption by some people, I think people who are generally Andyheads, that this was in some sign.

Yeah, a lot of benefits to that. Yeah, huge, huge benefits. That because the show was not working or that it was not received well or because I said some strong language on Monday. I'm an Andy head. Sometimes on some subjects. That it was, an episode was knocked off of its run.

Like they just said, no, thank you. We're not going to even air that one. It's called the Revenge of the Hairbrush episode. And it was just too much. It was too controversial. That's not the case.

This was announced originally, whenever that was, two years ago, I think it was a six-episode order. From my understanding, it became a five-episode series, possibly even, I can't source this directly, but I think even before the second iteration of the show,

it had already fallen to five episodes. This is not scandalous, this is not news, except to us. Except with the fact that we're leading our podcast with it. Well, I think, you know, we like to put out fires, not just start. Yeah, of course. We're a voice of reason. And we will approach this episode with the same, you know, attitude of measured sobriety that we've approached the previous four episodes, right?

Except we're going to be doing it two days late. So a little bit of house cleaning. So we're doing our next week, we'll have one episode. We'll record that and put it up on, I guess, Wednesday. And this is, I want to assure the Andy heads, this is not due to any kind of response to our last few episodes. We're not being canceled. You traditionally have a lot of responsibilities on Independence Day. Yeah, it's weird, considering the name of it.

And then, so we'll do one episode next week. Andy's going to throw up an annual Baransky barbecue playlist of some sort. I've contributed a few songs to him. Guys, one of the great things about being friends with Chris is there's just radio silence for a minute. And then you get like a six or tightly curated. Well, you said send me six songs. Yeah, but what would I send you if you told me to send you six? 14. Yes.

I want to be very clear. Tightly curated six song package of fantastic songs. Thank you. I loved it. Thank you. Listen to them on the way here, veering all over the road. Great. When military gun is like, I get very high, so do I.

Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be a good playlist. I'm excited. And then, yeah, that's it. We'll do a show next Wednesday. There will be Idol and some other stuff. And then we're done.

We'll be back when they do a succession spell of. Or an idle season two. No. Okay. We should stop beating around the bush because we got four episodes of the bear to get to, including the first one we're talking about forks, which I alluded to on the last episode as my... Is there anything else you wanted to get into?

Nothing, right? You had no other chest clearing... That's nice of you. That's nice of you. That's nice of you. Boy, you really shouldn't give me this opportunity, but no, I'm excited to talk about the bear because it's the best show.

Forks is the seventh episode It is the quote unquote Richie episode It's my favorite episode of the series It does everything that I think this show does well It does it at like elite Like Trent Dilfer would be crying If you saw these skills on display, elite levels You sent me like 15 crying emojis

When you finish this episode I think that part of it is like part of the elevation I feel when I've watched it and I've watched this episode a couple of times now is how awesome it is to have a show that can just do something like this. Now, it's not the first time that television is like, what we'll do is focus on one character per episode.

Shout out the Lost and tons of other shows. But the depth that they give Richie by exploring his character in this way. And if you look at it in the totality of the first two seasons, I mean, there's one way you can look at it and be like, boy, he sure gets exceptionally good at this job in six days. On the other hand, it's television and it's elite television. And I think that this is a guy who's been looking for a purpose, as he said in the first episode, where he's been like, he was

just kind of lost at sea. He doesn't know how he fits in at this new restaurant. And he's a people person. And then like that's what he figures out is like how to work with people, maybe more than working with food and working with electricians and gas suppression lines and all this other stuff. What did you think of the episode? I think it's absolutely stunning. I think it probably is, and I should just put an asterisk here to say that

you guys know I'm not a rewatcher. I think I will rewatch this season. So having only watched the season once, I think this is definitely the standout episode. I absolutely loved it. Broadly, I think awards are ridiculous, but if Evan doesn't win an Emmy, then what are they for?

Here's my big picture thought about this absolutely incredible episode. I do think... It is funny to think about the Emmys here in the way of all NBA and them deciding that Yokic and Embed can both be in a front court like Kieran Culkin running for Best Actor.

Kind of clears the way for Best Supporting Actor here. It does, but also they're going to be in different categories. That's right. That's right. And I do think season two did not make the submission window for this year

because season one, if I'm correct, when the Emmy nominations are announced in the next few weeks. It's the 31st of May, right? It'll be season one that is eligible for these Emmys, even though we just watch season two.

I believe. Okay. So among the many ways that the last 10, 15 years have completely broken television and our brains about how we talk about it and cover it, I think one of the most

undercovered ones is that we've sort of accepted this complete stratification that fantasy means dragons and elves and gnomes and reality means Kate Winslet investigating overdosees in Philadelphia. Everdose is terrible. And I have a lot of love for both of those planks

of entertainment. The pharmaceutical industry. I'm going to clear some space here for you. I want to hold space for you. Should we talk about big pharma? It's hard because I have Chicago accents in my head right now. I know. One of the things that is so incredible about the bear, and I think needs to be talked about more,

is not just its understanding on a molecular level of molecular gastronomy and cooking and the specifics of what happens in a kitchen and what it gets right in terms of reality, quote unquote. It's the fact that this show is a fucking fantasy. And I love that it's a fantasy. And when I say it's a fantasy, I mean this guy who we've spent, I don't know, 16 episodes with up to this point, is not going to become a three-star Michelin matri-D in five days. That's preposterous. But it doesn't matter because what we're watching isn't really about whether they can open a restaurant like this at this caliber in 10 days.

We're watching the deep emotional journeys of characters that we've come to love. And every box for the character, everything that gets ticked in this episode are boxes that they've been building and they've been stacking and they've been stacking. and they've been organizing. And it's absolutely wonderful to watch. You know, it doesn't matter that it's, quote, unquote, implausible. It's a journey. Yeah. And it's how many minutes to take us on this journey?

And what moments do they choose to communicate that journey? And how does Evan Moss-Backack-play that journey all in one episode? It's really stunning. And I love it, like with everything with the series, I love it as an episode of television, and I love it for what it says about why we love television. I want to stick with this fantasy part because I think that's a really good point.

Part of why I love this episode is some of the references it makes specifically to Michael Mann's Thief and beyond just using the Tangerine Dream music, I think it's Diamond Diary or whatever the track is. By the way, the playlist of the second season soundtrack

is, you could do a lot worse than just to listen to that for the rest of the week. But aside from the sort of homage to things like the music from Thief, and even I think in the beginning the obvious affection

Christopher Storer has for documenting the architecture of the restaurant that they shoot in which I believe is called Ever or is ever? I'm not sure it's Chicago, it's Curtis Duffy's restaurant and this is this episode, this one. In Forks, yeah. Oh yeah, this is the one of Chicago's highest ranked

restaurants, Curtis D'SChi. But just like the way and this kind of came up earlier in the season when Sydney gets inspired to make the pasta in a certain way by looking at buildings on her river tour of Chicago. But beyond that, it's exactly what you're saying. Like a lot of this episode, especially at the turn, when he gets to put on the suit,

Ritchie is, this is like a fantasy of like Ritchie gets to become deckered in Blade Runner. You know, like Ritchie is a superhero in this episode. And I kind of I wanted to ask you, you know, we were a little bit hard on Jamie Lee Curtis's performance

in the end of the last podcast when we were talking about the family dinner. And, you know, I think, like, I'll just reiterate that that was not, like, an indictment of her. It was more of a just, like, tonally, it, like, just kind of missed a little bit left. You know, if everybody else was Tom Glevin, she was, like, a little bit right outside. Would you have preferred a more subtle actor, like, Abel Tesfay in the world? Is that? No, I like, Hank Azaria.

Yeah, okay. Nice. And one of the arguments in favor of her performance that I saw, was that you have to imagine that these people are being seen through Karmie's eyes, which I did not necessarily consider watching that because there are several characters from the bear in that episode.

Yeah, and a lot of the conversations are not including Karmie or private. But that, like, her behavior or her performance is somewhat tweaked by, like, it's through the eyes of Karmie. I thought about that in relationship to the super heroic arc that Richie goes on where he kind of like, he learns to accept Tiff has moved on. You know, he becomes this samurai of Major D.

And whether or not, like you're saying, it's like five degrees, a little bit to, the dial is turned to the left of fantasy versus reality. And I think that's a really good point. I think the show, and this is also why the show is good, frankly. The show is not interested in teaching us how to properly expedite at this level of fine dining. the details of what they're doing when they say, you know,

four by four all day or whatever, like that's there because those words are accurate. But that's not what the show is. That's not what this episode's purpose is. It has a purpose. And you feel that intentionality throughout the whole thing. And the purpose is for a messy person to discover what can come to him with order.

Yeah. And what solace he can take in order. And what he's capable of within an order. He's looking for a person. and he finds it in service. Yeah. He finds it when they do the staff meeting and the head matron D says, here are the important people coming tonight, Bo Burnham, you know, some attorney.

And then he's like two teachers from a public school. And it's like on their Instagram, they've talked about how they've always dreamed of going to a three-star restaurant and they've been saving for a long time. And he's like, we are breaking out the entire, we're like, all the supplements. All the supplements. And they are getting a tour and we will, we will, not be dropping a check. We're going to blow their minds. And I was like, come on, man. I mean, like, that's fucking want to have a catch dad stuff when you're watching that. And they cut

to Richie, and you can see the light goes on where he's just like, oh, yeah, that's what this is about. There's also so many subtle moments of, like, self-worth because, you know, the last time, one of the things this show does so well is it, it takes advantage of its serialized nature. And so that, like, and we'll get to this, but like the special dessert for Uncle Jimmy in 10 is a direct reference to a conversation that Jimmy and Richie had in six, which was five years or however many years before. So the idea of Richie's relationship with a small indie artist known as Taylor Swift is introduced in, I think, episode two. Yes, when he's telling his daughter that he loves her and he loves Taylor Swift, but he just needed a break. And then Taylor Swift comes back because he is finagled tickets, which by the way, respects.

This guy is the king of Chicago. Richie is the guy who would get Taylor Swift tickets, though. I thought I was the guy that could get Taylor Swift tickets, and that's not true. I think they've released a few more. I think they've done the like... Kai, I'm stepping down for a minute. I have to suddenly sign up for Capital One card. Did you see that Disney's putting out the sing-along version of Hamilton?

Isn't that just Hamilton? Isn't that just your car? What's the difference? I'm sorry. We're going to have to unpack that later. By the way, really not heartbreaking, but really earth-shattering moment that I thought that four years whenever we played Hamilton, I was so artful and timed very loud coughing fits during the curses to a degree that my children

never heard the curse words. And then I was just told by my older daughter that she's known the entire time. Yes. And if she didn't, she went to a Dodgers game, so she found out. She learned at the Dodger game. And also she was like, because otherwise, like, I was worried you had COVID.

Not that it's a lot of curses, but there are a couple. Anyway. So when Taylor Swift comes back as a plot point in this episode, he's finagle the tickets and he's doing it He says he's doing it for his daughter, but clearly he's doing this as a giant gesture to get TIF back. And it's not...

Who he's doing things for and his role in it, and his own value or worth and having things done for him are so in question that at that moment later in the episode when he blasts fucking love story. Yeah. Pertheses, Taylor's version.

And it's for him. Yeah. It's ecstatic in every possible definition of the word. Yeah, I also love the fact that he never loses him, like, his richiness. You know, like, when he's listening to Love Story, if you watch that scene, he's still screaming, learn to fucking drive at someone. Oh, yeah. So that he can get around them so that he can drive through the alleys at like 75 miles per hour.

I also want to just small detail before we move on from it, shout out that the chef, the stress chef, not Olivia Coleman, but the chef who comes in and is just like who's responsible for the smudge. Yeah. That's my guy, Adam Shapiro, Philly native and founder of Shappie's pretzels. Really? out here in L.A. who we've been seeing a lot on the picket lines

because like the late night hosts keep doing pretzel buys. Really? Nice guy. That's cool. He's the guy? Who does the like get me the micro basil? Yeah. Wow.

He's also an actor. That's cool. Shout out to him. He does a good job. You just mentioned Olivia Coleman. We talked a little bit about six and kind of the almost getting tweaked out by the famous faces

joining this cast of relative unknowns before this show, or not even relative unknowns, but never put in this position, maybe. Ritchie walks into the back of the restaurant on his last day, and who's there but Olivia Coleman peeling mushrooms, and she is Chef Terry, whose restaurant it is. And this is an example of having LeBron James play pickup basketball for five minutes.

This is fucking pretty impressive. Yeah. And she seems to inhabit that character so completely and fully. And that story she tells, while also in some ways of fantasy, you know what I mean, is so beautiful. And recounting her father's journals and then also being like, I didn't really get along with him. I'm just like, I don't know, dog, what else you want from this medium?

I mean, she is one of the best actors we have because she's totally alive all the time. And I think another thing that the show is so, so special and smart about is pairings. Yeah. Which is relevant to restaurant work. Flavor combinations. And especially this season, we've seen how it's not just that, like everyone, like Evan Moss-Back, is awesome. Yeah. I think they understand what uniquely makes him awesome as a performer.

And part of it, I really believe, is his CV and his life story and his experience, which is he's always been a good actor. And he's been working consistently for a number of years. But his particular things that he's good at haven't always found the widest audiences or the best possible spots for him. And he's hungry. We talked about that a lot. And we talked about season one. How there was hunger in the performances, not just in the subject matter of the show. And so I think they 100% know what they're doing when they're like, we're going to put Evan in a room with a simple, almost like acting class activity.

Repetition. You have to move your exercise. Listen. There's a business here with Olivia Coleman. And their relationship is. instantly fascinating and compelling and believable. And part of that stems from the fact that this dude can fucking hang, right, with anybody. But no one let it.

And that is a mirror of Ritchie as well that is extra than the text, but I love it. The other thing is worth saying is that like these high, high fucking in restaurants do this shit. I was going to ask you this. That's real. I don't know. I've had some like good meals, you know, some nice places. but I don't know that anyone's ever been like, hey, like, we looked on your Instagram

and you put up a picture of fucking Tyler Durdon and Fight Club. Well, I mean, your Instagram is kind of quiet. Yeah, my Instagram, I don't think anybody... I don't know, I don't know what people would think I want at a restaurant, but no one's checked. That's fair. Have you ever had that experience, though,

where somebody has been like, we overheard them talking about how they love slushies, so we went and got them a big gulp, but made it with, like, No, but that's because you know this. When I dine, I expect complete silence at all times. What you mean? I don't want conversation at the table, so I don't want anyone overhearing.

I just think everyone should monastically be staring at their food. Are you serious? No. That was weird. You believe in me for this. Because I've had dinner with you 10,000 times. I'm sorry. Important dinners, I want that. You know, with the Andy heads.

No, that's never happened to me, but you do hear stories. And, like, there's some restaurants that became, a couple times we've seen. seen glimpses. I think Richie was even reading Will Gaderas or Guderra's book. I don't know how to say his last name correctly. I think that's right. And he was a partner in 11 Madison Park. He did the front house. Because Carmi says 11 Madison, dude. Yeah. Yes. And they would do things like that. And they would bring in whimsical additions from the city. And they were very famous and probably still bring people into the kitchen and they make you special drink in the kitchen. You know, making the full showman experience is part of that. Yeah. But I think the big,

note was just taking care of people. And, you know, another thing about the show that I think is worth noting is there are many, many examples of series that are essentially skeptical of their project. I mean, this is a hard one-to-one, but The Wire is a show about cops and policing. And David Simon, 25, 30 years ago, has, since 25 or 30 years ago, has been extremely skeptical of how policing is done in this country, and the institution and the systemic rot associated with it. So there's moments of it that we cheer for these guys and we love bunk, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a lot of side eye and investigative eye and interrogative eye. And then we get we own the city and it's like cops are okay.

Yeah. Well, super cop. I keep trying. I keep trying to bait you. This show fundamentally believes in the restaurant industry and fine dining and service. And you see that echoed throughout, not just this idea that all sorts of knock-around castaway characters can find purpose within it, but that everyone is welcome in these restaurants. Maybe if they scrimp and save and then get comp or whatever, but everyone is welcome.

And you see it too, and we didn't really even address this in episode four, but this idea of staging, which is essentially interning for a short period of time. Where Marcus goes to Denmark and... There is a spirited conversation about that. And I mean that legitimately, like, I think that it is... I think many, many people have experiences like Marcus's, where it's just eye-opening and brain expanding and you are welcomed into a larger community and you get to learn and grow and then that person sends you a parting gift, you know, et cetera.

And then there are people who are like, I was a slave, you know, and I should have been paid for that and it was abusive. And their stodging experience. In their staging experiences, you know, and that it's free labor. And so there is a worthwhile conversation about that. And I don't ding this show at all for celebrating things because it's, again, it's not suggesting that everyone involved in the bear on screen is an incredibly healthy, balanced person. No. Who's doing great and that this is good for them. Yeah.

It is not shying away from that, but it is doing the trauma on the personal level and is showing an aspirational piece on the professional side. And I think that's consistent. Yeah, I think it's consistent as well, especially in the larger context of the entire season. Before we get to the next episode, I just wanted to say that lots of things happen on this show where you're like, I'd really like to eat that. Or like now all of a sudden I'm in the mood for this. Very strange. but just the way that Richie is like that old-fashioned's not going to drink itself.

Do you guys want some Bacardian diet? I was like, should I have a fucking Bacardian diet? You are very susceptible. What is the last time you've had a rum and Coke? I think it's been a minute. Yeah. It's been a minute. Kai, a big rum and Coke person?

I try to stay away from dark liquors. Wow. She's like every single time she shocks me. Did you think she was a big like... I didn't think she was like a big bourbon person. Macallon 26? Actually, you know what? I feel like Kaya's a tequila soda person, right?

Yeah, that's a nod. She's nodding. Yeah. Anyway, I was like... The most amazing thing about the show is that it made me fucking want to eat deep dish pizza. This is one of your bits? This is one of my strongest bits. Which is that's disgusting food?

No, it's just casserole. Just relax. Okay. But that looked good. Yeah. He did a nice job of that. All right, let's get to the eighth episode. Okay.

In the fantasy version of the bear, this is the season finale. the sweetness, the culmination of all of our shared experiences, watching the fire suppression test, I'm going to call my girlfriend, I have personal growth, everything kind of like is right on the precipice of everything that's going to, like the next night. It's like, you know, it's not friends and family night, but it's basically like their opening night is to know that they're going to open.

And I think that this episode is fantastic. The only thing that dims it is that it's coming. off the back-to-back double-barreled brilliance of six and seven. But what do you think of this idea that like the fantasy version of the bear, the like, you know, maybe the, I don't know, the superstore version of the bear. I don't even know, but like a version, there's a version of the bear that ends with like everybody's high-fiving.

And it's just like Coach K was right. Karmie's fixed. Richie's the best matre d in the world. Nat figured it all out. We passed the fire suppression test. We're going to be able to pay off Cicero. Yeah. Iber's back.

You know? Well, a couple of things. I think that eight, which I loved, is an argument for dropping the season at once. Because I tried to ration out my watching of the show because I love it so much. But I did do seven and eight together. And in one sitting, I mean, not just for the podcast. And so the specifics of it don't pop for me. Yeah.

I remember the vibe and spending. Everything you're saying, I certainly remember the episode. but I think this was an argument for why it ultimately is okay that they dropped it just because I really do feel, I think about the season like a season in a way that I'm not sure I would have otherwise. Even though there are standout episodes, I feel it was all connective tissue, it was all building to something.

It's funny because there are lots of shows in the last couple of years where the people behind it have said, well, we think of this as a complete statement or a seven-hour movie, a 10-hour movie. This actually is like a, six-hour movie. With a couple mini-movies. Yeah, well, there's some chapters.

You know, and I think the way we broke up this season is, like, if we wanted to, we could have done seven and eight, and then we could have done nine and ten. There's some, there's some space between those two sets of two. But you're right. This is a complete statement as like a, and I guess I do understand why they put it up at once. I think this is, this episode really also reminded me of something else that makes the show unique, which is, well, I mean, first of all, I don't know what, like, the discourse is about this, and it's a half-hour show, so when it's nominated for Emmys, it'll be in the comedy category, which is partly true. It definitely has comedy DNA and is very funny. But it's also, to my mind, one of if not the most compelling dramas on TV because of the way it focuses on characters and emotions. And I think when we first started talking about the season, you talked about Friday Night Lights. Yeah. And I think it's a really great comp because you might be able to do better than I can. can with this, but I was trying to think about the last major drama, successful, broadly popular

television prestige drama that you rooted for the people in, and you rooted for their success. Now, obviously, when you watch Mad Men, you know, I didn't wish ill on Don Draper. Everybody roots for Peggy. But the thrust of the show was so much about Don. Don's failings and his fucking up and his fits of ego and cruelty and things. And also the fact that it was not just a Peary piece, but a time bomb because we knew that his era was ending even if he didn't know it. It kind of robs you of some of that feeling.

We talked about Succession where the trick of weekly television is we wished well for these people, but we weren't really rooting for them because their project was installing a fascist regime in America. Yeah, I think the intensity of Succession creates a sensation that feels like I'm rooting for, but is actually just emotional investment. Yeah, you're rooting, I mean, you're rooting also for more highs. You're rooting for it's the, it's the Walter White thing, both as a metaphor and actually literally, right? And it leads to the kind of the bad fan analogy of like, wait, are we rooting for him to like get revenge, even though he's a monster? Anyway, this is just a long-winded way of saying, we root for these people.

Absolutely. We want them to succeed. Yeah, that is like when you're watching finite lights and you're like, I can't, like, nothing can happen to Landry. It's a different sensation. And so I think that it has. helps my viewing in the sense that I knew they were going to pass the fire suppression test. Yeah, well, it didn't matter. I also, and we'll get to this in a moment, but like, I'm not that worried about Claire and Carmi's future, you know, whatever it may be. That's not what the show is

doing, you know, it's, anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying, maybe it should be in comedy because this, one of the codes, this, the bare cracks is that this is a Mike Scher show, but a drama. This is Parks and Rec. That's what, yeah. Tweaked. Yeah. In that there are situations, their comedy, but really their characters, and we're really pulling for them.

And guess who else is pulling for them? Chris Storrh and Joanna Callow and everyone else who works on the show, they don't have a cruel bone in their body. And if the show is ever going to run out of road in terms of its crackle, its spark, it'll probably because everyone's the best at what they do. Except. So. And that's, we're way away from that.

A lot of Mike Scher shows have. have started out, well not a lot of them, but they have started out one place and they end in another or they develop into something else. Famously Parks and Recreation, the first season, the Amy Pillar character, is a little bit closer to early versions of Michael Scott.

Oh yeah, it's cringier. But abrasive and nobody likes this person. And then as the season goes on and as the show goes on, she becomes like the kind of, not only the central character, but the heartbeat and everybody wants her to be happy and everybody wants to do right.

her. Yes. So the thing that I find fascinating about the last two episodes of the bear is that they reposition Karmie as the biggest, his own worst enemy. Right. And in that sense, somewhat of the worst enemy of the restaurant itself. Because he's obviously not healed from a lot of the psychic trauma that he's experienced as part of being part of the Brazado family, but also his relationship to success and

his relationship to leadership and helping people. and running a team. It's like, you can rub your chest as much as you want to be like, I'm sorry. But what's clear over the, I'm going to talk about these two episodes together because it's the opening in... Eight, nine or nine and ten? Nine and ten. It's because it's like opening night, kind of.

Eight, eight, let's just once again say, it's bizarre to me how good Maddie Matheson is on this show. I know. I know. And watching them figure that out and just fully just letting him be a major part of major scenes. Yeah. And be funny and sweet. It's just, it's cool. But 9 and 10 are essentially like making Karmie into the richie of the show again,

like where it's like who's the guy who doesn't fit in, who's the person who doesn't seem to have a purpose, who's the person whose home life is so fucked up that it's bleeding into his work life. It's basically Karm. But it's also complicated because what, the thing that he identifies as the problem, and I think inaccurately, is that he's actually becoming a human. Right. It's not that he's...

Goes to one party. Goes to a party once and look what happens. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's an interesting... It's an interesting wrinkle to it. One... Again, I think that it's low-key, incredible, that they pick their spots because, yeah, they're streaming, so they can have a 38-minute episode and a 29-minute episode. So they take what they need, but they do broadly try to keep it within the realm of half hour.

And because of that, there was less real estate for Carmi Claire than I thought there might be considering its importance to him and to what happens to the restaurant. But I do not feel like it was, at the end of it, I did not feel cheated. I didn't feel like we, because they picked their spots. And even the way that the finale begins, I think it's the finale, right? It's the montage of them in bed together. That's doing work. And that's good visual storytelling to sort of lay a little bit more groundwork so we understand where, he's at. Yeah, what have they been dating for like six weeks if you kind of do the math?

Yeah, and we haven't seen a lot of it, but again, you don't have to see all of it. Like, that's also such a, it's a, it's a storytelling trap that I think a lot of writers fall into, um, that you have to, you have to tell everything when you could just show it in a few glances. Um, do you, do you want to talk about nine specifically? Okay. What's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, nine's good. Yeah. I mean, I worry we get into this finale, like we're getting into like... Well, I thought 9 might be a good place to talk about the central relationship with the show, which is actually Carmen Sidney, right?

Like, for as much as, you know, Claire emerges as a love interest and we get a lot of stuff with Richie and we see the larger Berzato family. I think even though they don't spend a ton of time in frames together, a lot of this season is about, like, whether or not these two people who don't trust one another, we'll learn to trust one another. What if? I mean, I mentioned Don and Peggy a second ago, and that was intentional because they were on my mind.

And it's in nine, and it's all over 10, particularly the scene with a screwdriver run to the table. It's so fulfilling as a TV fan and as a fan of these actors and characters that the show fucking does it. It writes the conversation that we're feeling, that we're interested in, that Don and Peggy never really had

because of the power structure, and the power dynamic and also what that show is doing and also spread out of seasons and the time that it was. Yeah. And the time that it was. There is something that is,

you know, it can be compelling and horrifying the level of vulnerability and the lack of filter that the Brazado family writ large but also kind of broken people in this industry have. And so they have the conversation

about what they are for each other while they're fixing a table, you know, and then to your point, then a minute later, they are their worst selves again. And they've, they've installed their own fire suppression system in their relationship with the rubbing of the chest,

which I think is really fascinating. Yeah. But yeah, it didn't forget. This is the Chris Farley interview part of the show. No, no, because I was going to say, one of the most, the Don and Peggy thing is really interesting because I think that in some ways over the course of Mad Men, you can make the argument that Peggy is transforming from this pretty mousy assistant. to into Don, right?

Like that she's picking up on some of his genius, but also some of the ways he moves through the world. Yeah, he's modeling. Yeah. And, you know, when Peggy is kind of... She's modeling. Aloof in the creative room that she sits in with Stan and everybody. Like, she is modeling Don's behavior, right?

Because that's what a leader does. And I was thinking about that's a really good kind of comparison to make, because as you see Sid increasingly using Tums and Pepto and Roids or whatever throughout the... season and getting more and more stressed out as she walks around in Chicago and sees restaurants that are up for lease or closed and including some that she had visited on her food tour to find inspiration for the menu. And I think that that idea that, you know, am I a partner and am I employee? Like, is everything a handshake or do we have things written down in contracts?

And is this guy going to be here for me? And you can kind of see her turning into Carmi. I'm so fascinated by this idea that people who cook and make things that need to be tasted are like smoking and pounding pepto. You know, like, and it's just like almost like they don't have the stomach for it, but they're creating it for like other people. And they keep denim in their oven. I mean, that is, I mean, I remember many chefs do this. I remember like David Chang giving an interview like 15 years ago being like,

I don't have any food in my house. I have a bottle of saracha. Yeah, if you watch Chang's like what I cook at home, I mean, he's got two young kids, but he's basically like noodles. Now he's just microwaving potatoes. Yeah. And it looks good. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it really raises an interesting question that the show isn't afraid to look at, which is what is closeness? Because these relationships are quite literally forged in a fire. Like when they are in the shit, when they're in the weeds and they're in service, they are depending on each other on an existential level. And they're saying things that you would never say to people and they're admitting things and they're showing parts of themselves that, you know, we've been doing a podcast 12. years that we've never seen from each other. Yeah. And then... But honestly, like, how many stressful,

really stressful experiences of you and I experienced together? We used to drive on 95 a lot. Yeah, but I was always incredibly chill about that. We've been to a lot of Sixers games. Yeah. Do you think that counts? No, not when we were watching them.

It was like the Doug Collins era. Like, that was the... No, the Larry Brown era. But, yeah, but like when we were going to Doug Collins games, that was like the epitome of no expectations. That's true. Okay. Well, maybe it was more fraught for me, Chris.

It was like tense before we would start filming like a Game of Thrones after show, I guess. That's true. I think I had a little bit of a Sydney freak out right before we did that Atlanta panel with the Glovers and the entire cast and crew. You threw up in front of your dad. We are the natural choice. I continue to believe to represent that show. It's true. So, no, but I mean is that closeness is so wild. And I think people chase that. And as literally, to your point, even made in jest, like, that's not present in a lot of people's lives or relationships.

But what is it really? How close are you? Is closeness alone enough or is there also a level of empathy that's necessary? Yeah. You know, because the thing is about these brasados, there's no filter. And we saw it when unspeakable things are said and done at the dinner table and half the people there just go slackjawed. Like they've been, like what's her name in the Matrix when she says, not like this? And they unplug her in the real world.

I mean, that's, sorry, spoilers. For our favorite character, what's her name? Guy, not only having the bear spoiled for her, but also the Matrix. Kaya has a little airplane bottle of Bacardi that she's just reaching for right now. You know, and so, but they say these things, and then what do they take? Like, what words land inside of them? And you think about the walk-in scene with Karmie and Ritchie where there's a power shift. There's an emotional re-leveling of the relationship, right,

where Karmie's being a lunatic and Richie's being mature. And my takeaway from that scene, which was so incredible, and the shooting of it as if it was a split wall, was brilliant and it allowed them to play off of each other. But when he's yelling, at a certain point, like three quarters of the way through, Richie just starts yelling, I love you. Yeah.

And is it heard? Does it matter? Or is it all just noise? I mean, that's what you feel in these moments of service from this wild, brilliantly staged, finale. And we've noticed we jump right to the finale. I mean, Sydney cooking sugar and omelet is a beautiful moment of delavan. And makes sense, you know? Everything about it was considered, not just that a simple omelette is the test of all great chefs, but then she can't help but

be her and she puts chips on it, which sounds awesome. I mean, it looked delicious. I'm not a huge chives guy. Really? Yeah. You bumped on that. Do you like a sprinkle of barger? No, I'm just expressing like a personal preference. Like I'm not, when I'm having an omelet. I don't need a ton of chives. moment of our relationship since the Doug Collins era. Since I was like, we'll be fine. There's no traffic. He would always say that. Okay, let's kind of, I mean, is there anything else about nine that you wanted to hit?

The ACDC drop, the having Sydney call it at the end, that's great. The thing that I noticed in nine, even as I was watching it for the first time, is the thing that becomes apparent in 10, and I was going to ask you restaurant expert that you are. Yes. What's Karmie supposed to be doing? I thought you were going to be like, aren't walk in a fridge, built better. And the answer to that is yes. But it's like that whole season, the fridge has been this metaphor for Karmie taking

his eye off the ball and his need to approve everything and not actually follow through with some of these things. And by the way, wait, let me just want to put a quick pin in the Karmie thing because I was texting with a chef pal, Daniel Patterson, who's a very accomplished cook, and he loves the show. And it's interesting. Chef Bragg. Because you know, kind of. No, only because his wife Sarah, who is our old friend and listens to his show. I was just kidding. It's really mad when I don't mention their names on the podcast. So I can be bought. I expect an omelette with potato chips in return. But no, but I thought it was interesting. I was to hear what he thought about the show because we've

talked before about how people inside the bubble of something are often the most critical when it is. Oh, yeah. And the example we always reach back for is like when the wire showed journalists, we were like, all right, that seems a bit far-fetched. But when they show anybody on a dock near a boat, I'm like, that's authentic. That is the fucking Encyclopedia Britannica. Yeah, I know. I thought was interesting was his point was the emotional storytelling is so first of all triggering, but also from his experiences, but also so right on

that the details don't matter, including the fact that all walk-in refrigerators are built with a way to open the door from the inside. Okay. So that is a convenient storytelling one, but it's storytelling crutch, but it's a smart one. I'm sure Christopher's door is going to be like, actually this is how he would have gotten locked in.

I'm sure, but at the same time, who gives a fuck, right? And I love that that's accurate. So, In terms of what Karmie's job is, that was a little unclear, too. I guess he could have been like the way Joel McHale was for him in the flashbacks of what maybe was 11 Madison Park. And standing behind Sydney and being like you're fucking up. Except not doing that, right? So maybe your question is even more important because there is no role model for him for that role.

Yeah. Right. We didn't see Chef Terry doing anything from Ritchie's POV, even when he was helping or observing the expediter who maybe had a crush on him, but maybe we'll revisit. sure. But not we, us, maybe the show will. Yeah. No, you and I will. We're going to get to the bottom of this in our new podcast series.

Long-form fan fiction. I would. Richie and Lisa. It's one of those things where asking that question is the right thing to do because then it actually works when he's gone. And what's bothering him the most in that moment? Did he misspelled Radicchio or that he's unnecessary? The roles, though, are Richie's going to work front of the house.

and like kind of oversee the dining room and make sure everything is working well out there, right? Yeah. And then Sid is doing Expo. So Natalie's matri-D and manager. Richie is captain, I guess, front-of-house captain. Sydney is head chef. Yes, she's CDC.

C-D Chef to C-D-C-to-Quazine. So she is expediting and running her brigade. And Tina is her sous-chef. Tina is her sous-chef. So among the people cooking at the very station, She's the first. What about, does the guy smoking meth? Where does he fit into the org chart?

He's just the fucking king of the world. He's feeling great. What is Marcus saying? Like, he says it makes him a rock star or whatever? And they were like, he did cook those carrots really well. They were kind of into it for a minute. I think that as anyone who's watched even half of an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen understands that like people swinging in and like taking over stations and moving around

is just part of it. Okay. So now whether Marcus's journey from guys, at the sandwich shop to the greatest baker in North America who can also step in on Gard-Monget. Okay. I mean, I would sacrifice myself for Lionel Boys at this point, so I'm fine with it. It's such a beautiful performance.

But that's the way it flows. The TVness of the necessary TVness of the show comes out in the finale. In a way that was, I love the finale. You know, and I actually thought that, I think for me, actually, actually, the Jamie Lee Curtis appearance and the finale is not like it doesn't like balance out the

episode six but I thought she you know her appearance there which is sort of hovering over the episode as soon as Natalie and like mentions that she's invited her. It's like you know she's coming in some capacity. Yeah. What did you think of her scene and like

the partner that she had which is Pete who is essentially like a punchline throughout this series until now? There were a couple interesting swings in the finale. And just to put a button on what you were saying before, I think in a perfect world, Karmie's job in this friends and family would be he could go out and pour the broth for Claire. Yes. And that's fine. He should have time to do that. Like a million stars are exploding inside of his head when it's doing that. Yes, he can't let go and be present in that, which is what informs what happens later. Again, I think the show is

mirroring its characters and in the construction of a menu because you have to, there are things that fall along very conventional lines. And I love that. You know, that feel good, like the Richie and Neil kind of like, I'm scared, whatever, Richie's stepping in. Like, we felt that coming. We saw him observing it. We knew he wasn't going to fuck it up. And that feels great. You know, there's something to be said for surprises, but there's also something to be said for being rewarded for knowing how stories are going to feel and slipping into the rhythm. I think there are things that it did that were like, you know, the way Sidney splashed the green sauce on her plate. Moments of inspiration.

Which are showy, but controlled. And under that heading, I would put the oneer, which I didn't time. But there is a section of this episode when they were going in and out of the kitchen, table to table, and whether it was a true runner or they hid some cuts, who cares? Well, it's kind of cool because the story behind the first season oneer is that they had built this elaborate set with moving walls, and they had basically rehearsed it and run the scene like seven or eight times to shoot it. And how intense it was. but it was also a reflection of the ingenuity

with what is a relatively low-budget show. And the second season, obviously, had a lot of expectations, and the restaurant itself grows to the extent that they have two sets now. So they can go in and out of a door and have a warmly lit room and a harshly lit room.

But they spend all their money on the needle drops, so it's still a low-budget show. Taylor's version doesn't come cheap. I can't fucking believe that. Twice, twice in the episode. It's funny that Richie was I'm like, no, I think Scooter Braun deserves some royalties, so I'm going to play the old version of love story. So the man made some good decisions and now he's punished for it. That's very richy.

But you know what I mean? That was bravora filmmaking. It was awesome. It was exciting. It felt it fed the adrenaline of the moment. It was appropriate. It was not show-offy. And I loved it. And I loved it. And it's, I think it's relevant to bring up because it's a crucial part of the artistry of this episode, but it's not the headline. It's not what matters most. And I love that for what matters. most in the show. One of the other swings, like maybe one of the dishes that they could have 86 but didn't, was we're going to hang the emotional fulcrum of the episode on a returning Jamie Lee Curtis and Pete. That's wild. I mean, we've already established that they take these chances. I mean, it's Maddie Matheson's arc to being an important emotional anchor. Sure. All of that reflects what they're willing to do and the trust they have and the people that they've hired. No, I mean, having Richie become the heartbeat of the, the show is like

if they had just been like Woody is now Sam you know yeah they will do that they will take a shot like that to our younger listeners that's cheers not toy story

right but all of this is to say did you think it was Toy Story Guy put the Picardy down guy this is good

this is why we podcast for all generations yeah I thought the Pete part of it was great I thought that guy stepped up I thought that he cried really well on camera, which is hard.

He did a good job crying, yeah. I also think it's just part of the show's fantastic toolkit, which is to say, everyone hates this guy, but he's in the family. And he loves her, so that's okay. And also, there's nothing wrong with Pete. There's nothing wrong. It's just people are just like, fuck you, Pete, even though he's just like, I'm just a nice guy who brought a tuna casserole and I didn't know.

That's what's so funny about it. Right. But I thought the Jamie Lee thing, it bumps me again, I just want to say, so I know what you're going to say. I rewatched it last night. Which is six or ten? Ten. Okay.

And I just want to say that I did think that the moment she finds out Natalie's pregnant is quite, quite amazing. You know, her like, oh, fuck. Like, I'm so far from these kids that I didn't know. Her recoil. Yeah. No, it, but she's so, like, she's trying to be nice to peed about it. Yeah. I think that my one note, and I haven't rewatched it, and I'd like to rewatch it again, was,

I think something the show should be commended for is the creation of this character and the depiction of this character and the unflinching way it looks at her as a narcissist and the way that that has abused her family and those around her. And because the tenor of this episode

was so tender and gentle and loving towards its characters even though Karmie goes through it, I almost felt it was too soft, which isn't to say I didn't want her to come in and start breaking glasses. I actually, see, that's funny that you should say that. I thought that this was a pretty harsh episode.

Well, it's a hard episode. Harsh episode on the characters. Like everybody who they all go through this night, and when you look at the end of it, you could say that person had a bad night in some ways. Well, there's different gradations to that. Like, Marcus ultimately had a good night until he finds his phone. Right.

The dude who's just high on crack had a good night. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think his night's just beginning. Until he runs out of crack. I guess what I mean is... But Sydney's throwing up in the alley and is kind of like, is this what it's going to be every night?

That's my read. Yes. And like basically after seeing the ticket machine gurgling... Out of paper. Yes. Right. So is the implication that they got all the meals done or that they actually missed a bunch of meals again?

I didn't understand the implication of that other than... Well, because that's the... That's Jaws from the first season where she didn't... She turned... it on accidentally, but didn't turn on the ticket. She turned on deliveries, and they all hit it once, right? I think that the implication was that the night was objectively a success. Right.

In that they got it done, they pushed through. So I took it more metaphor, not that they were missing things, but that it would never end. Gotcha. That this night is nothing to be celebrated because it is. And that's why she's outside throwing up and can't accept love from her father, really. But she does. I mean, again, that's the, that's the, the, the, the, the, the, Robert Townsend is so wonderful. I just love every time he's on screen. I love what he's doing in his character.

And his, him is the bat, like the sort of counterweight to Jamie Lee Curtis, too. Yeah, I think that's important, too, that it's a, it is a counterweight. He's just like, anything you want. But when he's like, this is the thing. Yeah. What that would mean to someone is really beautiful. And the show had room for that. You're right. I don't think it was a soft episode.

And I don't think the show is, is just, I mean, this is a unfair. I don't mean to do a drive-by on Parks and Recas show. I loved, but because it was a comedy, ultimately everything worked out, always. And I think the show is positioning itself correctly where I don't think any of these people are going to step into an elevator that's not there.

Kai, that's a spoiler for the 80s show, L.A. Law. But certain things in their life aren't going great. It might still break down. Look, we should table the Jamie lead thing because clearly she's going to be a part of the show going forward,

because she didn't even see her kids in this episode. So I think instead it's probably best to look at this episode as one of my favorite types of storytelling, which is the graduate ending, right, where you kind of get what you want, and then we linger on, wait, what did you want? What's it going to cost? Guy, that was a spoiler for the 1960s classic film The Graduates.

This is a good bit. Yeah. She clearly loves it, too. And I'd like to thank everyone, this is my last episode. of the watch. You're beating Kaya to the punch? Yeah, I think it's fair. I think I've served my purpose.

One thing that was really fun to think about, and again, smart, smart calibration, we don't really see the food. There aren't a lot of shots. We barely see the menu. We see it, and it's... It's like welcome broth, T-bone. I mean, like, when I saw the menu, I was like,

oh, chaos menu all year, and you're just kind of like, what the fuck are you guys making? But ultimately, it's the Brasotto menu. Yeah. You know, it's the seven fishes. There's seven fishes. And there's a homie soup and there's the canoli.

Yeah. That is everyone, you know, it's a beautiful idea. It's the Michael, they call it. So, but I think the show is well served, again, understanding what story it's telling by not lingering on a lot of people being like, that's incredible. Because some of it probably was incredible. Some of it was probably fine. Yeah. And also, who cares?

We're not even though. Well, the MVP of the night is kind of like the things that Richie Lurie Lurie. in his stodging and reading about 11 Madison Park. The service wins. It's like bringing out soda to Sid's dad and bringing the chocolate banana to Cicero and just like the little touches that they're doing. And I think, I guess that's where I was kind of going

with like it ends on kind of a bittersweet note. Carms in this walk in fridge. He's unintentionally, but like you could say intentionally, you know, pretty much ended his relationship with Claire by screaming behind a door that he is losing his fastball because he's like trying to find love and joy in his life. And it turns out Claire is on the other side of the door when he thought it was Richie, right, or whoever, or Tina. And, you know, everybody actually ends in a kind of place

of real uncertainty, I think, with the exception of Richie, who also is like, you know, carm's supposed to be the guy, you know, did I basically tie my horse to another Michael? When he calls her Donna, when he's like, okay, D-D, and he's like, what the fuck did you say? He's like, are all of you guys so fucked up that you can't, you're, I'm just now attached to another chaos agent. Well, that's also the thing. That goes back to this idea of, is closeness have any value if it's abusive? Does closeness have any value if it doesn't have any empathy or recognition or listening or hearing attached to it? And, you know, you see, there's a version of episode six where you listen to Malay,

Stephen, his words, and you take them at face value, where he's like, I love doing this every year because I'm with all of you and we are connected and traditions matter. You could also look at it like these people are masochists. This is an abusive circumstance that they could walk away from at any time if they respected themselves more and they don't. Well, this is like the sort of, I think, great reckoning that people everywhere are having about their professional existences, which is like... I know one person that's having it at this very... moment. This idea of whether or not your professional life should be a surrogate family and whether or not your experience and your professional environment should be life or death or should feel that way.

And, you know, I think you and I grew up at a time when people intentionally, and I think just because of like the market forces around us and whatever, like created a world in which like, if you fuck this up, the world is going to end. Even if it was you missed a period and a story, or you didn't file records right away, you know, in a store you were working away. Like, you know, just like absolute, like, crazy people, like throwing shit at you and stuff. And, you know, I think that that's good

that we've had, like, this great, like, kind of conversation about, like, what are we supposed to be doing in these places for not always a lot of money, you know? And for not a long time. Yeah. This is not like you're putting in sweat, equity, and taking on abuse for a long career. Yeah. The family side of it is interesting because I,

we both come from very small families I'll speak for both of us but for me weirdly I would go back to the Bursado dinner like I would be like well that's what

that's our family dinner that's the firework you missed in the Doug Collins era you know what I mean the action is the juice you know what I mean I just would go I think I would just be like

well that's what happens you know at dinner once a year and I would probably be more like Stevie I'd be like I do like doing this And then you and Sarah Paulson would go back to New York and go to some of the nice restaurants that you're like, thank fuck, we don't have to do that for 364 more days.

Yes, yes, thank God, this is just. Yeah, you'd opt out. You'd be like, I'm in, I'm in La Jolla. My phone is off. Really nice. Yeah. I'm in the walk-in and I've locked the door. Yeah, well, I think that what anything is worth is one of the thesis questions of this

show. And it's a very different calculus for Robert Townsend is Sidney's dad. He's named Emmanuel? I feel like we should be calling him by his character name. When he says, hey, this is the thing. It's incredibly empowering and it's incredibly meaningful to her. But he is also not inside of her understanding the toll that it takes on her and the realization that that machine's going to keep spitting out tickets and she's going to keep throwing up. And so what is that even, it's in some ways, it's even more interesting. Well, and they're all create, I, I love, love how so many of these characters are creating

circumstances that maybe are not self-evident where it's like Karmie and Sitter both like this is the last time like I can't do this again so if this doesn't work I'm out and we believe that well I believe that they they believe it I believe that they think

like that like there's a world in which they could have just served upscale sandwiches you know and probably like let that place keep humming for a little while but Kami wants to do some different. And then Sid wants to get a star and then, you know. Well, if they were at peace inside of themselves, they would be. Right. There's a lot of, like, dignity in being like, I served the best sandwich in Chicago. Like, that would be pretty amazing. And it would be a better

life. Right. And you close it three. But they don't understand what a better life means, what it would look like. They have no modeling for it. Well, they're compulsive too. It's like, Sidney's putting out the, in the first season, she has to do her, her meal that goes to the critic. And she sneaks out that plate. And that guy is like, well, this is amazing. Yeah. I think the show is amazing, obviously. I think we're really lucky to have it. I think that everything that we said in the conversation about the first season about what like a happy story this was came out of nowhere, celebrates all the things we love in TV, it's about a subject that we're interested in, and also that it just seemed to delight people and unite people. It was a

really, really nice thing. I feel like all of that is true again and magnified. And I feel like how hard that is to do it again, much like in a restaurant, can't be overlooked, cannot be undersold, that they grew it, that they took the responsibility of all that pressure,

of people being like, we love your show, we can't wait for it to come back, and they were like, well, fuck, let's go. Let's fucking go. Let it rip it. Let it rip.

Yeah, I don't remember the words, because I don't, you know, I don't deal with that. I deal with images and feelings. But I, it makes me so, happy to have the show to talk about, that it exists in the world, that we have Jeremy Allen White's performance, which for the second straight year, we just critically undervalue

in a way because it's so fucking amazing. And I want to add, I don't know whether it was on Instagram or like a newspaper. There was a, there was a picture of Jeremy Allen White, the actor, like, you know, the kind of photo you take for a newspaper story about the show. And I was like, there is not a trace of Karmie in this person in this picture at this moment. Interesting. His body was different. His face was different. He smiles.

And the degree to which he becomes this brooding, intense genius is really incredible. Think about, we always talk about how amazing he is supporting everyone else and being the wall that they're bouncing their ball off of. And then in that last scene with Ritchie, he's the wall and the ball and both rackets. Yeah. Same character. It doesn't work without him. I'm sure that we'll talk, we really want to talk to Christopher Storer.

Hopefully we'll keep talking about The Bear. I was just going to ask, so you think more Jamie Lee, probably down the line? For, like, in a likely and if not guaranteed season three. Yeah, there'll be a season three. We already got the email we expected,

which from FXPR being like, the most watched, the most blah, blah, blah. Like, it's a huge hit for them and it's something they're really proud of. And also, the people involved in this season, tell you how highly the show is thought of within the creative community. Oh, fuck, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's no question it's coming back, but they just haven't announced it yet.

But yeah, I mean, the first season was, what do we do with this? And then this was, can we do it once? And it's like, now how, what happens when we get reviewed? What happens when somebody quits? What happens when? How do you do it again? Yeah. You know, there's plenty there. And I think if we, hopefully, when we get to talk to Chris. What happens when Chris Ryan opens an artisanal Picardian Coke? restaurant right across the street that closes at three also

authentic sandwiches but all we serve is running Coke the canoli was great but also the show knows what's up because what was the single

like eating and drinking moment that looked the best in the entire finale it was when Neil and what's his name the other dude it's Gary they're sitting on the bench

eating a hot dog and drinking Estella or Peroni or whatever it is that looked good that was my Picardia. Picardia Coke. All right,

let's get into my interview with Charlie Brooker. This is a long episode. Thank you, thank you for doing this today. Thank you to Kyah for producing. Were you thanking me or the listeners? For everybody.

So I will say at the top here, this is a full spoiler episode, not only for the most recent season of Black Mirror, but there are spoilers for assorted other episodes throughout the run of Black Mirror. One of the interesting things that we talked about is the idea of whether or not Black Mirror can only be watched once,

and whether or not once it's, you find it sort of find the turn in each episode like whether those episodes could be re-contextualized in some way. I'll put it that way. I'm not going to step on Charlie's story. Charlie Brooker was awesome. We talked for about an hour about each episode of this most recent season and also it's creative roots in the things he was doing and thinking about during the pandemic. And it was just like a really cool

open and flowing conversation. So yeah, obviously it kind of helps to have seen all the episodes in this new season of Black Mirror. But you know what? You can do a lot worse with your time than to watch Black Mirror. I'm going to listen to this interview. All right. Which is something I say about all your interviews, but especially this week. Do you say that to Terry Gross? Do you just write her a note and just be like, I'm going to listen, Terry?

And she goes, Andy, thank you for joining me on fresh air. First of all, don't play with my fantasies like that. But yes. Yes, I listen to. What would you do if Terry Gross was like, Andy and Chris, you're going to be on the pod? Yeah. Not pod, the show, Fresh Air. And then I like just, I completely ball hogged.

I was just like, all I did, I just talked the entire time. I cut you off. I basically, like, elbowed you out of the studio. That would be fine. I think as our fellow podcaster, Michelle Obama says, when people show you who they are, believe them. You know, so I would just, that would be my attitude. Andy, thank you.

Thank you Charlie Brooker. That's what we're going to listen to now. Thank you to Charlie Brooker. Thank you to Kaya. Thank you to Andy. We'll be back on Wednesday to talk about the finale of the idol, and I'm sure, much more. Happy Independence Day, Peranskies. We'll have a playlist up soon.

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it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. I'm so honored to be joined again on the watch podcast by Charlie Broker. Charlie, you came on the show in 2019 to run through the episodes of season five. That's right. We're going to do the same again.

I'm so glad to see you. I hope you had an okay last couple of years. And thanks so much for this new season of the show. Thank you. It's nice to be back. Yeah. I mean, I think like a lot of people, the last couple of years has been a little black mirror. It's been weird, hasn't it?

It's been a lot. It's been a lot. And I think we're only just, you know, we're not even close to really working out what the psychological ramifications of it all are. But I'll keep it light. I won't go straight there. I can count on you for that. Yeah.

Yeah. So an interesting, definitely a very interesting couple of years. I was wondering whether coming out of that couple of years and when you start thinking about making a new season of the show, you know, these episodes are so discreet and distinct from another. There's some like connective tissue narrative-wise that pulls them together. But I thought I happened upon maybe a little bit of a theme to the season that I wanted to bounce off of you. And I was, before I did though, I was curious whether or not you, when you write these seasons, do you think about overarching ideas that connect them all?

Generally, generally not is the honest answer. As in like now often when embarking on a season, I've usually got a good idea of what stories I'm going to put in it. And quite often there's like, you know, so I'm thinking, oh, well, I can't do two sort of AI stories in this season, if you sort of mean. So I'm trying to sort of portion it out that way. And sometimes I'm thinking, okay, well, I want one that's romantic. I want one that's like a sort of like nasty, punky sort of like, like, you know, leave you devoid of hope.

So I think of it in that, in those terms, rather than big themes overall. one thing that and now approaching this season was slightly different I've said this elsewhere so this season the episodes were written

in the reverse order and it started out with Demon 79 but it was very much I was starting thinking okay a bit of a refresher I'm going to write a season of Red Mirror it's going to be Red Mirror

it's going to be horror crime mayhem etc etc that's the best laid plans change. And Red Mirror was going to be retro. It was going to be set in the past specifically, or was it going to be genre stuff? Now, there's quite a few episodes this season

that are set in the past, and I think that was a sort of consequence of that starting point, because what that did was it revitalises how you're thinking about the show. Because I certainly came to this season thinking, I've done a lot of episodes, which are set in a near future,

in a near dystopian future, and there's a lot of transparent screens and people crying as their phone destroys their life. And I just kind of wanted to disrupt that a little bit and change the approach a little. So that was, hence the sort of in a way complete cobweb clear of thinking, I'm going to do it almost a sister season that's almost in a different genre. What it then did was it then unlocks the door so you can start doing, so an episode like Beyond the Sea, and again, we can get into these. Beyond the Sea, which is a, in a way, classically black mirror premise with a sort of

MacGuffin at the heart of it, whereas I think before I would definitely have been picturing that as set in the near future. Yeah. Yeah. And it was interesting that I then, by then, I'd given myself permission to set it in the past, which made it a different, a very different story. Well, so I'm glad you mentioned this idea of like this, of the red mirror idea, because this was something that obviously you've talked.

about a little bit in relationship to Demon 79. Demon 79 and Locke Henry are my two favorites from this season. And in some ways, I think they really scratch my itch for British noir that I have. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Demon 79, I guess we can actually go in reverse order if you want. Yeah. Really reminded me of the David Peace, Yorkshire Ripper novels.

Oh, the Red Riding trilogy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just vibe-wise and just everything is brand. everybody's smoking. And I was curious whether, I mean, you obviously will have a much deeper relationship to British crime fiction and British crime television than I would. But what were some of the influences? What were some of the things that you were thinking of when you were writing that and

producing it? So, well, so that story was co-written with Bishop Kay Ali, who I think is great. She's British as well. She's younger than me. So she's not old enough to remember 1979. And unfortunately, I am. I was like eight years old in 1979. And really, I don't know what the difference between how a British audience perceives that episode

and a more global audience. Because in a way, it's a melting pot of so many paranoias, fears, styles. There's hints of sort of hammer horror in it. Yeah. The references are drawn from certainly part of my collective memory of the time. sort of nuclear paranoia was starting to creep in around then and like blossomed. It's a strange word to use about nuclear paranoia. But during the 80s, I can't remember at what point the decision to set it then was

because we were talking about the idea. And quite often with Black Mirror, what you find is you're discussing one idea and you come up with something else. There was a different story we were discussing that was to do with a serial killer. It was a sort of a Black Mirror take in a way on a, on a serial killer story. And then that sort of swerved into a discussion about, well, could you do a kind of buddy movie about it?

Like, could you do a sort of buddy movie, romantic murderous story? That's where it came from. But originally it was like present day. And then something about 1979 suddenly occurred to me, and it felt like it was an era that was on the cusp of change. There's almost, within that episode, she's sort of gazing at a red jacket.

There's a little new way. Yeah. Sort of post-punk. It's almost like there to slightly, as well as like symbolizing danger and so that it's also slightly symbolizing a new era coming in. It felt like being someone who remembers that time, there were so many musical pieces we could draw on. And the sort of, you're right, everything's brown and orange and everyone's smoking.

Everyone's very gruff. It's very northern and very, very British. It's one of my favorites as well. It's overall of everything we've done because it's such a unique and strange beast, that piece. It's quite hard to classify. And like I said, spoiler alert, hopefully, like people have seen it before listening to this,

because it becomes a sort of romance in the final moments. It's not completely dissimilar to San Juanapero in that way. It's sort of like this love story in the face of oblivion kind of thing. And you've got these two. two incredibly charming leads. And Bisha sums it up much better than I can in a way. And she was saying, well, this is about finding your companion, finding the person, like in the face of oblivion,

finding the one you want to be with finding your people. Yeah. So to speak. Which is ultimately what it becomes, but it's along the way, it's part horror, part comedy, part. And it's kind of unclassifiable. And that's one of the things I really like about it. because, again, in my view,

it's kind of mission accomplished in that it's extremely, it's both very much a Black Mirror episode and also not at all at the same time, if you're sure to me. Yeah, and that's the Red Mirror label. And then the other four episodes, while also doing these different eras, you have the 60s for Beyond the Sea of the 2000s,

the mid or earlier 2000s with Masey, it does feel like they're distinct from the way demon was shot the way Toby shot it and like the kind of cinematic references that you guys were playing with. I was curious why, what was it about the earlier 2000s that made you want to set Maisie then? Because I remember that as like a sort of emerging toxicity and the blogosphere at that time. But what was it about it for you? Well, and also, so one thing I should probably say up straight away, in a way is that that was shot as a red mirror as well. well. Okay. And I actually, we made up some titles that said Red Mirror that are very much like

our old Black Mirror titles. And I put them on. And then I thought, oh, this sort of tells you what's going to happen, like weirdly. This like, and so we took them off. And then I went, no, no, no, I've got to put them back on. And so put them back on, took them off, put them back on, took them. And I couldn't decide whether that, that should go out, labeled Red Mirror that particular episode or not. And I was, I was, it's, sometimes you get so close to something. You can't you can't decide, and I kept changing my mind right up to the last minute, tried to change it again as well at one point. And I sort of, I'm tempted to go back and change it again at some point.

Well, that is the nice thing about Netflix. You can never, you could always update the album there, you know? Well, I think that's probably a box they don't want to open too wide because you could, do you mean, you could go back and change almost anything. I know certainly, I mean, I think there's been things in the past they've changed. But like, you know, now that people have seen the app and they know what happens in it, I could go back and change it. Maybe I should run an Elon Musk-style pole.

So is it just essentially that the werewolf is given away somewhat in the... This was my concern at the start was that, are we giving that too much away? Hence the Red Mirror of Black Mirror is sort of my agonising over that. Why it was set there was, I mean, I think it's fairly clearly... And in my head, so prior to Black Mirror, I did a show called Dead Set, which I think is on Netflix in the US, I'm not sure. It was, it was like a prototype black mirror in many ways, but it was a zombie horror that we played straight. And it was, there's an apocalypse breaks out in the, around the Big Brother House and the housemates, the contestants of the last people to find out.

So it was taking, it was a piece of media satire, really. And so, Maisie, I'd been like a lot of people, by the way, one thing, another thing to say is you can see that a lot of the stuff in this season was born of the pandemic where I was watching a lot of TV. Yeah. Yeah. So like a lot of people, I watched like Britney Spears documentary. And it was sort of born of that. So that's why it's sort of set there. It was like, A, it's like the time just before, it was, so it was a time before people had,

everyone had smartphones. So the paparazzi were a lot more powerful, I guess then, or the certain they probably were more prevalent. Now everyone is a potential pap, basically. So it made sort of sense to set it then. And it was, it was, I'd had an idea for a story I wanted to do a while ago about an unscrupulous pap who hides a camera to try and, the idea at the time was somebody hides a camera to try and catch a starlet sort of doing drugs or something and discovers they're a shape-shifting alien.

Basically, it was a sort of a slightly tongue-in-cheek horror romp. And that's what this became, because it was, I was watching one of those documentaries. And it was a, it was a strange time. and people were, you know, hunted down. And there was a pack of a pack of animals following them. So it just became a bit of a, in a way, shaggy dog story, almost literally, like where, so what if you flip that round? And you literally make the paparazzi become the quarry.

And that's why that was set then. And it was also, and then you've got a sort of pattern where you're thinking, well, am I, are we setting all the, what if beyond the sea gets set in the past as well, if you said them in. So we actually almost, if we'd done them in a slightly different order, they would have literally been going in reverse chronology. Yeah. I do want to digress here

because this is the idea of doing something before the prevalence of the iPhone or the smartphone has come up a couple of times in our conversation. I was just reading an interview with Steven Soderberg. He's got a show coming out on HBO and he was talking about how the smartphone is the worst thing to ever happen to filmmaking because nobody has to talk to anybody anymore.

You can just, it's all texting. Any question is answered by Googling. You can film anything. You can always find somebody or something. You're never lost. And out of this interview, I saw some discussion where someone had actually listed all the movies that had been made by, I think, 10 or 11 of, like, would be largely agreed upon to be the best filmmakers in the world, like PTA, Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro, like, going

through this list. And nobody had made a contemporary movie. something like 12 years. They had all been, all of their films had been period pieces. That's really interesting. Discussion that essentially

that like, it's almost impossible to tell an interesting story where a smartphone has also been used. Well, you get something like bodies, bodies, bodies where they lose reception and it's sort of like they lose their coverage. And it's sort of a major plot point in there.

Starting out with demon and making it, well, this is the reverse of what I expect. from a Black Mirror episode. Yeah. And starting from that, it's interesting that I don't know. And again, you can, I mean, the thing is,

there's always contrivance, isn't there? And still, to this day, you see scenes where, and you don't notice or care, I think, most of the time as a viewer. You see things all the time in shows where somebody has basically driven across town to have a five-sentence conversation with someone and then leave. And if anyone you knew did that in real life, you'd think they're a psychopath. Yeah, I had a single friend drop by in eight years. Yeah, just dropped by.

I just came by to tell you that, you know, the department's throwing you out sort of thing. It's like that. It's conversations like that. And then they get in their car and leave. So that's sort of always happened. But I suppose I hadn't thought about the fact that it is, you're right, that the number, of, I guess you just have to hide it. I mean, I suppose, I also, I suppose there is a, there is, we're seeing more, again, like something like demon, the idea was for it to feel a bit like a lost movie from the late

70s that also is shot through with a modern sort of sensibility. And there's a lot of that going on generally in the culture at the moment anyhow. So in that respect, I was, again, probably being heavily influenced. by, even stuff like Mad Men, you know, which, which looked like a 1960s, sumptuous sort of feature effectively. But I hadn't thought about that, that it's better than having to say, oh, well, and we've got another episode where somebody's character looks at their phone and has no reception, that's a plot point.

So we had to do it in another episode that's sort of set now. Yes. For that exact reason. So you're right. And also, I guess, be it. on the sea, sending it in 1969, maybe subconsciously I'm doing that because they can't just pick up the phone. Yeah, I was like, you know, they have this technology in their dog tags where they can jump into each other's subjective experiences, but they can't FaceTime

with their wives, you know, right? No, exactly. And when, like, there's a moment where David, Josh Shahan, his character is watching the funeral, watching a funeral, which. was always familiar. Now again, somebody, somebody pointed out to me that that episode, and sorry, we've segued into it, but, but so beyond the sea, that episode, it was an idea that I'd had in my sort of mental rollad decks of black mirror ideas I haven't done yet. It was an idea I'd had for a while. And then it felt like something told me, oh, it feels like this is the right time to do it. Somebody said at some point, when I finished the script and I handed it,

to someone and they said, this is a pandemic story, isn't it? And I sort of thought, oh, I hadn't, I suppose it's the ultimate working from home. Well, even the Aaron Paul character with Kate Mara moving, Cliff moving to the country. Is in the countryside. You know, it's important that my boy run around in the fields and like all that stuff that was so prevalent, you know. So vital. And the idea is we don't quite exist.

exactly spell it out. I have seen some people saying, why are the robot versions of that? So for people who haven't seen it, well, you should have seen it because people, we'll put a spoiler warning at the top. We'll assume. But so they've got, so there's like kind of robotic avatars of them on Earth and the actual physical human is up in space. And the idea is that they're spending most of their time embodying the sort of mechanical avatars, so to speak, on Earth. And then every so often, when there's an emergency or for regular physicals, they sort of effectively transfer their consciousness back to the ship. And I've seen people saying, why isn't it the other way around? That doesn't make any sense. Why isn't it the other way around?

Well, we do say in the story that part of the point of the mission is to see, is to do with survive, that we hinted at the sort of plant life on board that ship. Yeah. It's to do with their sort of, it's partly, we never explain exactly what the mission is, but it's to do with seeing whether humans can survive, whether this is, you can transport biological human beings over a large space for a long time. And the idea of the mechanical avatose is to keep them same. That was sort of part of it, which again is a sort of is a very, you know, because we all went through a lot of, we all had to suddenly grapple with isolation, you know, so it's sort of speaking to that, which is probably why it felt, somebody pointed out to me, there's a sort of hippie gang

that show up near the start and commit a terrible act. And somebody said to me, and they all refer to it, they've all got like, they're all like Theta Kappa. They've all got names like that. Yeah. And somebody said, well, those are all Greek letters. That's like coronavirus variants, right? Oh, man.

And I didn't thought about that. Oh, God. I just stared at a wall for a bit after that because I hadn't, that wasn't a conscious thought. That wasn't a conscious decision to do that. But when they pointed it out, I was like, should I change it? I hope we don't. And at the time, I think Omicron, we were up to Omicron or something. So you'll eventually, one day somebody will be watching Beyond the Sea and we will probably have.

We'll have Theta and Kappa. But I was thinking, oh, God, that doesn't happen before. The fascinating thing for me about Beyond the Sea, I'm so glad you said that thing about they have a specific mission that never really fully gets revealed to us. But obviously it's more important than moving moon rocks back and forth or watching weather systems because there's this feeling that they can't abandon the mission. They're something significant. It's because they're so far out is the logic.

They're so far away it would take them years to. So it was sort of also the sort of prisoner's dilemma of it, I guess at the end is that it's you can't, if one of them, dies, actually, they're both probably going to die up there. So they're sort of reliant on each other. They're too far gone to turn back, yeah. I was also wondering whether or not when you sketch out a piece like that, so for as much as there's information that's not on screen or explicit about that mission,

how much do you think about this slightly altered 1960s America? because I was kind of curious about, like I thought that the reasoning behind the Manson-esque attack that happens was so fascinating, but it was almost like I was like, I wonder if Charlie is sort of suggesting that something like this was inevitable given the sort of the context of the time of the late 60s and like any sort of variation of reality,

something like this happens almost. It was almost so, again, I think the thought process was, or the way I was seeing it was. So like I said, had the idea for a while, but in the original, like my conception of it, by the way, at one point it was under the sea. It was literally under the sea at one point. They were going to be sort of in an aquatic base or something. But the idea was...

That would have been a very timely... I know. I'm like exceptional. I mean, that was a... God, that whole story was horrendous. But the... Originally it was going to be a forest fire that wipes out one of the families, like by accelerated climate change, that sort of thing.

Natural disaster. And then when I thought, after doing Demon Sevent 79, or after writing Demon 79, I thought, what if this was set in a different time? I think it was just, I was walking. I sometimes like to try and get out of the house and go for a run or walk if I'm thinking about things. And I think quite often I find, like, music is just, well, sort of, prompt all sorts of ideas. And I was listening, I think, a piece of music book, The Beatles came on or something like that. It maybe it was around, because I'd watched Get Back, like, a lot of people.

And so I think a bit of the Beatles came from 1969. And I just thought, well, what if that story was set in 1960? Oh, okay. Well, hang on, how would that change things? And I was thinking through, well, does it matter the technology? Does it matter? No, because it would be magic if we said it now. It's sort of technological magic, really.

It's not, and I quite liked the idea of doing this retro futuristic. It was suddenly very exciting. And then that is the thing that prompts you to think, well, what if it's rather than a forest fire? What if it's a, you know, a Manson-style cult who find this, who are, who find it appurant what's going on here, who find it, who've got a sort of very, extremist and twisted sort of point of view of what's going on here. And then that sort of speaks to the, it also makes it, it's a person like the violence in this episode. It's handed down from one person to another throughout.

Didn't you wind up shooting that episode in the studio where they shot Get Back? We did. This was, I'm glad you asked me about that because like this is, to me, this was like, now, so it was Twickenham Studios. And I hadn't realized when I watched Get Back, I thought, we'd shot at Twickenham Studios before. So we did USS Callister, which was our sort of Star Trek, effectively, like, you know, homage in season four was shot on the same stage. And then we were like, we were talking again about we're building a spaceship again on the same stage.

And then it suddenly occurred to me, hang on, this is the stage from get back. That's, oh, wait, that's the corner that George Harrison's, I mean, Krishna guy was sitting in. Like, and this is set in 1969. So that was a bit, that was a bit spooky when I sort of thought about that. Is it like, I love that about, I was, I was such a bore on that topic. Like anyone who walked in, I was like, did you know, this is the stage? Like, and not everyone was as interested in me. Yeah.

And it was not as interesting as me in that. Yeah. There was this weird period during, I guess, when did that come out? So was that sort of the end of a lot of the work from home stuff? But I feel like I, I feel like. Yeah. I feel like when get back came out and it was watched, I feel like each one of my friends watched it in an out of order.

Like one would watch it and then another would watch it. So I wound up having the same get back conversation for about three months. And I was like, sure, let's let's run it back, man. I know, it's amazing. You can see them read the song. I loved that. I loved it. I loved it because it was like I was expecting to find it.

And I watched it with my wife. She's not a huge, but certainly she wasn't then a huge Beatles fan. or anything. We put it. And I said, look, this is about eight hours long. Let's just put it on. We'll just press play. We'll see how far we get. And we sort of hoovered the whole thing up over like three days. And it was like, it was like being transported back to 1969. And the thing I found, this is a digression. But one of the things I found so fascinating about it was how contemporary the Beatles felt. And it obviously helped that the, you know, the footage is all being cleaned up. And it was, it's obviously amazing to see Paul McCartney like create. I think I'd cry.

if I met Paul McCartney in real life, you know, him creating all this stuff. But they seem so contemporary. And then when it gets to the end of the documentary and they're doing the rooftop concert and they go out and there, the crew is interviewing people in the street, you realize how futuristic the Beatles were?

Yeah. Because everyone else is a bit like, they either seem to be a sort of bowler-hatted British gent going, well, what's that going on? The Beatles is the most admirable. Oh, wonderful. as jolly good, or it's sort of like, you know, almost like a cockney window cleaner walking past, like, going, oh, what is someone, Governor?

What are the Beatles? Is it? Oh, yeah, I like, and it was like, gee, like the Beatles were from the flipping future. Yeah. I think all of that must have in some way been blasting into my head. Again, I don't know at what point I thought, maybe we should say this episode of 1969, done, but it's starting to sound to me like it was midway through Get Back. But that's incredible. It's amazing where you pull these influences from, but then it's

also, I don't know that we'll ever have a time in our lives where we probably watched more stuff uninterrupted than those two years there. No, I know. It was, it was insane. So I watched a lot of documentaries as well. That goes into Locke Henry, right? Yeah. Lock Henry. So Locke Henry was, and I'm, you know, I'm a gull along with the rest of us in that I've watched so many sort of serial killer documentaries and true crime pieces to the point where I think I've run out of murderers. I know. I think there should be, they'll end up being some sort of AI system that generates an

endless true crime documentary making people up as you're watching it. That came about because again, I was watching TV. It was actually pre-pandemic. be honest. Pre-pandemic, I was watching a show. Again, with my wife, so many episodes this seems to be. I was watching a show with my wife. And we were watching it.

And it was a documentary. It was a BBC true crime documentary about something that happened in Scotland. And it opened with an amazing sort of drone shot over a lock and a forest and some sad piano playing. We ended up Googling where it was because we wanted to go on holiday there.

We did end up. going on holiday to Scotland. We didn't go there, but we did go on holiday to Scotland. And it just struck me as that's a weird, that's a weird thought, isn't it? Yeah. That that's what, and so the idea that, oh, this would become a tourist draw was one of the sort of starting points for that. And then I said, and then it sort of became, that's, the reaction to that episode has

been fascinating to me. That's my favorite. That's your favorite. Well, it's, and I'm really pleased because, hey, I love them all. I love all our episodes, but it's interesting with that one, while making it, I forget, so while working on the script and writing it, I forget that it's quite scary. So it's interesting that I've seen people's reactions. Some people are like finding it incredibly disgusting.

and incredibly scary. My worry was, are people just going to see this as a slightly detached, dry media satire? Because partly because of the way, the ending, that it becomes this sort of, you know, that we sort of jump out of the, we've been following the story, not quite in real time,

but we've been following the story, there's suddenly we jump ahead and we show you a trailer for the finished streamery production that Davis ends up. sort of being interviewed in. And my worry was people are going to see this as a piece, a slightly dry bit of media criticism. And I think that's partly simply because being so close to something,

being on it, being, knowing from the beginning what the twist is going to be and what the, you can lose sight of the power of that moment for Pete, like when it's when Monica Dolan is, again, spoiler alert, I've just said it, but when Monica, who plays Janet, I had lost sight of how disturbing people would find that moment. And then it was gratifying that people have embraced that episode, I think. I'm a Mahala Harold, like, long-term investor in her. And she's so good in this.

And this, Locke Henry actually brings me to, I teased this earlier, the idea that I wanted to bounce off you is like the unifying, kind of theory of this season, which is the original conceit of the documentary that they're going to make about the egg guy and this idea that he is the last thing standing between the commodification of nature, right? And I kind of think in a lot of ways, each one of these episodes could be distilled down to something fairly natural being corrupted. So in Beyond the Sea, it's like your subjective experience and the corruption of that through the technology that they're exploiting and this idea that the only way to true for these two guys to truly know one another

is for the other to experience the most horrific thing that could possibly happen to another person and then in maisie it's the sort of corruption of privacy or the corruption of like the individual self and you know i just i thought that it was just like a very interesting idea that it's almost a throwaway line in Lock Henry. And I was curious whether or not you gave much thought to the egg guy or whether that was a little bit of a thread that you were pulling on. You know what? I should say, yes, it was.

But I think you've stumbled across. Again, I think it's a bit like the, I think it's like a bit like the pandemic comment that somebody made about beyond. I think that I think certainly it's not something I was consciously aware of, put it that way. I think that certainly generally in Black Mirror that tends to be,

it's often about authenticity and reality, generally, and like, and again, that's not something I'm going into it thinking about, but that's quite often, even if you look at, like, say, Demon 79, there's a question throughout, like, is this happening?

Is this not happening? Is this, you know, or beyond the sea? It's like, where are there authentic? Like, it's something about the detachment of those things. Well, I thought that throughout, I thought that throughout Joan is awful because I was like, there is a certain

surreality or plasticity to like her job and like all these things were like, this is just far enough removed from real reality that I'm wondering what's going on here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we pull out to reveal that it was, it was, that was fun. I mean,

again, that was another, I was watching TV with my wife. Because the pandemic had been happening and you get into a pattern. Also,

we've got two young, youngish kids. we spend a lot of, like, the evening revolves around, what are we going to watch for 58 minutes now the kids are in bed before we fall asleep sort of thing. And I was watching the dropout, and it was, you know, and it was partly though I was watching the dropout the Elizabeth Holmes drama.

And there was a sort of like, wow, this seems to be dramatizing something that happened 10 minutes ago. Wouldn't it be odd if there's an episode where she switches on the TV and she sees the dropout? Right. was sort of the thought, which then unlocked. I was also thinking about an idea to do a news channel that uses sort of deep fake AI content to make like constant fiction.

I might still go back to that idea because it's a fun idea. And then there was something I wanted to do about sort of main character syndrome on social media. So an idea about like an average woman finds she's on the front page of the newspaper because her co-workers don't like the way she choose food or something like small like that. and those ideas that you're watching the dropout and the thought like, well, what if you switched on the TV and there was a show about you, that makes that becomes a lightning rod for all those other ideas to sort of come together.

And it was such an absurd idea. Now, usually in Black Mirror, we take absurd ideas and play them straight, like by and large. There's often, I think, probably a lot more humor than I think sometimes people maybe give the show credit for or notice. But we're just bad at adding you. we're in throughout a lot of the episodes. But with Joan, it felt like, well, the way to approach this,

let's do an all-out comedy episode. Let's just go, let's go for it sort of thing. And so it was fun to do. Again, it's a fascinating thing to me to see. This season, a thing I've noticed is, so every season we've done, people always rank them. And they say, that's my favorite. Didn't like that one.

That was my favorite and that was my least favorite. And usually you find a, a, very clear consensus over what are people's favourites emerges really quickly. And I've noticed more variation in this season, I think, overall than I've ever have before. And that means we've got something for everyone and also something that not like. We've got something you'll love and something you'll hate, presumably. But I think that's possibly because this season has got the wildest diversion of styles that we've ever done, which was a deliberate thought going in, was, okay, I'm going to keep pushing the,

the confines of what this, it's so, so we've got, so something like Joan, which is sort of farcical and heightened and goofy and has a big comedy cast. And it's interesting to me

that you'll get some black mirror viewers embrace that and love it. And others go, I don't want comedy in my black mirror. Right. And it's, to me, it's all the same.

So it's hard for, and it's partly because, like, I also do comedy shows. And I love that. That was that sort of my best. background prior to Black Mirror in the UK. I did a show that's also you can find on Netflix, did a show there was a co-production with the BBC called Cunk on Earth. Yes, yeah, one of our

favorites of the year here, yeah. Oh, great. Well, it was fascinating to me to see that go up on Netflix outside of, so it went out on IPlayer here, BBC I player last year. And then this year that went out. And to me, Filomena Cunk could almost be in a Black Mirror. Like you could all, I could, I could imagine doing like a con con con con-AI black mirror episode. But I don't know that black mirror viewers, but it's interesting.

To me, it's all like this is all coming out of my head. So there's often, going back to that thought about what's the thread that links things. To me, there's a psychological thread that's going through that's just like, well, on some level, this must be my taste. On some level, I like, sometimes I like a broad comedy where a woman defecates in a church. And at the other end of the spectrum, you'd get a sort of Locke Henry where it's like a devastate,

you know, this horrific thing happening. And it's devastating. For what it's worth, I have noticed the exact thing that you're pointing out, which is, yes, there are, for some reason, I think because it's an anthology style show, I think people like to rank it because you can look at these things discreetly. But then I have also noticed in my conversations with friends about the show that I've articulated that my black mirror is white bear and metalhead and Lock Henry. That's your profile.

Yeah. And it's the darkest possible, scariest possible. The most sort of brittle, pitiless. It's the pitiless end of the black mirror's spectrum. Yes. Is that the wicker man, it's the end of the Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith breaking his glasses. Yes. Is that sort of merciless?

So that's what you like. Yes. And I like entire history of you. And I like San Juano de Perel and I like some of the sweeter ones. But for some reason, I remember, I think White Bear was the one that I saw where I was like, is this my favorite show. I don't, you know, like, you know, this is, this is the one that has tapped in. I love white bear. I love, well, this is, it's interesting in the.

White Bear. So people often say to me, what's your favorite? Like they ask me, what's my favorite episode? And that's a really, I can't answer it because I, well, it wouldn't be fair. Because like they're all made by different filmmakers, different cut, like they're all. And so you love them all, like your children sort of thing. And also it does change. And I do think it is a wild, the profile of this show is hopefully reflects a lot.

So again, in my head, it's perfectly like white bear in San Junipero. Those are probably in a way the two polar opposites tonally, aren't they, of this season overall? If you were going to say, if it exists on a spectrum, you'd probably put White Bear at one end of that. Or national anthem, maybe. And something like San Junipero, hang the DJ maybe is another like super sort of sweet. But to me, they're all... They're all in the same continuum, though. But I can't, but I can see, I can see that they are exceptionally different, like, in a way.

Those, those, those, so Locke Henry and Joan is awful are very different tonally, even though they're both arguably media satires. Basically, they're both. And so it's interesting to me, I always laugh. It's a fun thing to do in a season is to put in a handbrake turn like that. Like to go from Joan, which obviously is a, you know, it's a crowd-pleasing. You know, it's a big crowd-pleaser, basically. So you get, you, you, you know, similar to we opened season three with, um, nosedive,

which was, yeah, a crowd-pleaser. Season four, yes, is Callister, quite a crowd-pleaser. And then you do a hard turn into, just as you think, you know what you're getting, we sort of crunch your face into a lock Henry or a shut up and dance or something like that. And that's kind of deliberate. It's sort of a mission, it's, it's as close as we get. get to a mission statement, I guess, in some ways, or it's certainly a... But it is a bit mad, isn't it? It's a bit like buying an album and it, like, it opens with a

disco number and then suddenly there's like a... Well, you put your hits up top and then you put the complicated art track second, you know, like, yeah. Complicated art tracks. It's, it's, I can never, we always, I mean, that's the other thing is that working out the order of the episodes is always a real headache, because you cannot predict. And it's, I think especially with this season, because again, the attempt was make them feel more different to each other than other seasons have. Okay. That was, so if there was a sort of thought, again, like, as I've said,

it sort of changed tack like part way through, went from red mirror to black mirror, but there was definitely an attempt to push so that you're constantly, so that they all feel very different to each other. I think we have achieved that. it's interesting to see, I think that's, that's then, that's probably explaining

why I think people are ranking them so differently. But that has, historically that's been the case, I've seen the same, I've seen, I've seen Metalhead. For instance,

Metalhead is another very divisive episode from season four, black and white, robot dogs running around like Maxine Peak. And I've seen that at the top and bottom of some of those, like, when people curate lists,

like, here's all the, episodes ever ranked and I've seen strong arguments for it to be at the top or the bottom from people, which is, National Anthem is another one, the Prime Minister, the very first one. It's quite a, as we would say marmites here in the UK, our notorious yeast extract spread that advertises itself as a product you will either love or hate. But I suppose it's weird that we've got that within overall seasons of the show. All right. So before I let you go, I want to ask you one more question. I think I asked a variation of this in 2019, but I feel like it's fair to check in, which is, I now, it's pretty obvious that Black Mirror can be Red Mirror, it can be a comedy, it can be a horror story or what? It can be anything you want it to be. So in that sense, do you view Black Mirror as like the bucket you can literally put any story you're interested in telling it? Or are there things that you think of?

ideas that you have that you don't feel like would fit in Black Mirror. I think it's interesting because that slightly speaks to my Red Mirror versus Black Mirror quandary that I had this time around. I don't think there's a tone that you wouldn't explore is maybe the way I'd answer it. Yeah. In a way, like I'd still think, I'd still go to Bat for like an animated episode or a musical episode or a Victorian period drama. So I think in terms of the overall tone, I think it's the all bets are off.

I think, oh, I don't know. Because to my mind, there's always an element. There's all, if there's not an area, if it's not examining some sort of dystopian technological, what if kind of thing, then there's an element of media satire, generally speaking, going or societal comment. Again, something like demon. is, Macy is a satire on that, that sort of time and that era and that sort of environment. So is demon.

But I would class those as red mirror, I guess. And you can make the argument that they are engaging through screens in a way. It's just different screens. They totally are. It's interesting because Bandersnatch, we did Band Snatch, which was, again, was actually the one sort of technological thing going on. And it mainly, obviously he's writing a video game. He's writing a computer game in 1980.

in that. But it was the medium via which you were sort of watching this, the interactive aspect was the sort of most, in a way, Black Mirror element. I don't know is the answer. I mean, I think that it's interesting. I think I'm always going to be drawn towards, kind of like you say,

like one instinct I always have is to create a white bear feeling per season. And now having done, when we were like writing San Juniperi was a definite first attempt to sort of broaden what the, broaden the tone of the show. Romance seems part of it. Like I always want to do a romance.

So I don't, I honestly don't know. I guess I'll find out when I finally do an episode that like makes people physically attack me. That's when I know that it's, it's interesting because like I say to me, they're all, they're more alike than they, it's only if I step back and look at them,

I go, what the hell? Like, this is a bizarre show. This really is that it's such a selection box of, we always used to say it like it's a box of chocolates and you don't know what you're going to get. It's always good. But you don't know what the filling is, but it's always dark chocolate. Yeah, yeah. That is the case, but we do have, like, it's quite strong lemon flavors up against, like,

caramel and, like, so it is a whole, I don't know. It's interesting, though, because the other thing is that, obviously, having done a season where I was like, well, I'll blow the cobblers out, I'm not going to, I'm going to not allow myself in a way to do an episode that's kind of like ones we've done before. What inevitably happens is that it meant that there's a lot of ideas I haven't done. Sure. And there's a lot of ideas. It's another thing that's probably worth pointing out is when I was, when I started this season, partly part of the thought for starting there was that it felt a bit, during the pandemic, it felt like things had plateaued a bit. Partly we were all on. Zoom. And as in the in terms of the disruptive nature of technology, it felt like things were out of sort of, now suddenly everyone's talking about AI, chat GPT, it's like the front

page of the Elon Musk buying Twitter. All of this stuff is sort of suddenly frothing again. And so my head is full of what you might call trad mirror sort of thoughts. Yes. Yes. So

it's interesting to think you know, do you do your yeah, it's interesting so I've got my head's full of stuff. I love the taxonomy of black mirror that you've got where it's almost like it's post-punk but then there's no

wave but then there's two-step but then there's and it's all happening at the same time but you have trad mirror, red mirror you know. Well in my head so I would say on the show I'll go well that's quite a trad mirror idea isn't it? Beyond the sea I was like well that's very trad mirror. The

fact that it all hinges on this because it hinges on a sort of technological device that's wrecking these people's lives, right? But it's not the device that's doing it. It's the people. It's the compulsion, yeah. Yeah, and Joan is awful. It's a very trademirre premise in a way

and that it's an existential nightmare. And in that case, very tight, like weirdly timely. I didn't know writing that how timely that would be because that was written, it was the last one to be written and shot, but we wrapped just before like chat GPT came out. Yeah. But I'd seen stuff like mid-jury, like the AI image-generating stuff. Like I'd see, that was in my head.

But again, that I kept saying, well, that's very trad mirror that one. And sometimes I talk about something like Locke Henry, I would say, oh, yeah, okay. And that's our, maybe I need a phrase for it, Brit Mirror or something. That's like very national anthem, shut up and dance. Do you know what I mean? It's that sort of gritty, grimy, sort of like gray sky, sort of horrible stuff happening in the United Kingdom. Sort of seems to be one of the, didn't I mean one of the,

I'd love it if at some point in the future on Netflix, you could rearrange the episodes as playlist like that. Yeah. And do a season that's like, Brit Mirror. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like, the happy ones. No, but that's like making a playlist on Spotify where you're just like, well, this is only for when I am cooking alone and it's cloudy out, you know?

Exactly. Yeah. Well, I mean, oh, you get like, you'll get, you're right. Yeah, it's exactly that. It's like this is your, when Spotify goes, this is your running mix. This is cooking. This is easy, like Sunday morning. Yeah.

It's those, there's a black mirror for every mood. I say that. I mean, now, is there a black mirror for every minute? Certainly quite often people say to me, I get people who say, oh, I haven't, apologetically, they'll say, I haven't seen your show.

Not that anyone has to apologize in this day and age, when there's so much, so many shows that you could watch, like why anyone would say, I'm sorry, I haven't got round to your show yet. And they often say, because it sounds scary.

Yeah. And so then I'm like, well, watch Sanjiu DePere, watch no, dive or watch Hang the DJ or watch Joan is awful. You could watch that. There's elements, USS Callister. There's elements in there that's sort of scary, but it's generally those are the more popcorn crowd-pleasing end.

Yes. They're more, I still haven't done one that my kids could watch. That's the next challenge. Kid Mirror. That's great. See, that could be another vertical. Black Mirror Jr. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, what would that be like? The thing is, my kids are getting older. So it would be like, so soon they'll be able to watch it. And then, yeah, you know, I'd do like a Zucker Brothers Black Mirror episode, to be frank. Oh, my God, that would be amazing. Airplane mirror. I didn't pitch that at one point.

I know I wanted to do, again, I probably shouldn't say too much because it might be something I do at some point. But it's again, again, I did it because I did a show in the UK called A Touch of Cloth a few years back that was like, like, if you imagine, ultra dark naked gun. Okay. And it was John Hanna who's in Locke Henry. It stars in it and it was a parody of ultra dark, bleak detective shows and we did a couple of seasons of it. And it was one of my most fun projects that did. We shot it at the same time as the first season of Black Mirror.

It was fascinating to go from one set to the other. Comedy, obviously, it's a lot more tense because there's a constant concern that, because it has to be funny all the time. But I would sort of embrace that at the same time as doing an episode that's like even darker than white bear or even darker than, you know, for my purposes, I hope that you, you know, you keep mining that white bear metal head. That's going to, that's always, that's going through it like a stick of rock.

I don't know. Is that a thing? Is that, do you have sticks of rock in the U.S.? No. Okay. Stick a button. That doesn't make any sense. That's going through it like a, I don't know, like a, like a vein in a fish.

That's always going to be there. That's always going to, like a fault in a rock. That's always going to be part of it. If you did a season number, there wasn't one that left people like utterly depressed and miserable, you failed. I know. I would feel like I didn't get my money's worth. Exactly. Charlie, thank you so much for being so generous of your time.

And thank you for this season. It's excellent. And I hope people get a chance to listen to this as they, after they've finished the season. Thanks so much, man. Thank you. Thank you.