The Watch - ‘The Bear’ Season 5, Episodes 1-3 and ‘The Agency’ Season 2 Premiere. Plus, the State of Comic Book Movies.

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Chris and Andy talk about the widely negative critical response to ‘Supergirl’ and what it says about the state of comic book movies (3:22). Then, inspired by the full season releases of both ‘The Bear’ and ‘The Agency,’ they talk about how the binge-drop model affects each show (21:59). Later, they discuss the first episode of ‘The Agency’ Season 2 (34:29) and the first three episodes of ‘The Bear’ Season 5 (46:16). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and join me in the studio. It's final service chef. It's Andy Greenwald. Oh, 86, my takes.

We're done. Andy, it's good to see you, brother. Back here in the home of burning insulation in downtown Los Angeles. And I feel good, man. I feel superpowered. If you hear a little frog in my throat, it's not. hard living. It's pure ammonia fumes. It is Thursday. What day is it? Thursday the 25th. So

we're recording this at 10 a.m. The bear will release this final season at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern. We're going to talk about some of the first few episodes, but more broadly about the bear as a project. Probably if we spoilers through three, because that's the project we've done in the past. I think a lot of what is broadly available about what this season is about, is out there. The little caterpillar eyebrows going up and down. We're also going to talk about the first episode of the second season of the agency,

but I think both of those conversations will be broad enough that people don't have to get too nervous about spoilers. A couple of things for you at the top. We're going to talk also, because the bear and the agency wind up being binges, we're going to talk a little bit about the binge model. I also want to talk to you about the DSA rising

in New York City. Great. No, I'm just kidding. Oh. I was very excited to talk about that. Temperatures going up in rural France. No, I wanted to just say that you can email us at the watch at Spotify.com and you can follow us on Instagram at the watchpod underscore and you can watch us on YouTube at Ringer

dash TV along with the prestige TV podcast. And you can listen to us and watch us on Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. How you doing? Great. Couldn't be better. How has the tenor been of our feedback from the fans on the more bespoke play? Like, email. Like, are people digging it?

Yeah, I think a lot of people are just like, here are my two cents. I would say that's generally, generally where we're at, is like people being like, either you forgot to say this or I like that conversation, I'd like to add this as my two cents. So we are really running with my father at a film festival strategy. I respect that. I respect that. I was only saying it because my favorite feedback that I got from the more traditional, you know, I'm more rough and tumble, like, in the Coliseum.

You know what I mean? And my favorite thing that was recently posted on our... On Facebook? On our Facebook was, wow, does Andy not know Toy Story 4 was released in 2019? And I'd like to turn to the camera and say, I absolutely fucking didn't. Sorry.

What did you say it was? I said that I lumped that movie clearly unfairly in with releases like light year and COVID releases. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed that when you said it. And I was going to protect you by maybe asking for an edit. But I was like,

let him learn for it. mistakes. No, I appreciate that. Leave me out there for the second half, even though I gave up a critical error. Even though there may be a concussion. Even though Brazil has scored three goals, I have to learn from this goalkeeping. Oh, man, the World Cup rolls on. What else rolls on?

The superhero comic book movie era rolls on. Does it? I highly recommend people read Sean's newsletter today about Supergirl and the state of superhero movies and the era that we have been living through. it's a really great piece I have not seen Supergirl yet I have been taken aback almost with the sort of

not negativity because it's part of the job and Lord knows I'm sitting across the table from one of the grades when it comes to serving it up but it's like I think people are ready to be done with this

and they're certainly ready to there's no more passes. We're all out of passes. You sent me veteran critic Owen Gleberman's review for variety.

I've always said Glyberman. Interesting. Well, much like my toy story for dart throat. Same. Gleberman, Glyberman. I hesitated. I hesitated.

I sent you Owen Glyberman or Owen Gleberman's variety review, which is an old school fucking back of the head pan. It's a real like, let's take Tommy out to get made.

No, Millie Alcock walked into a room and there was nothing but Milar on the floor. So, yeah, and I said it to you and I was just like, man, the knives are out for this one. No, you actually said, because you are a very good textor, you said, Mortal Kombat voice, Fatality. It was a great text. Yeah, great text. Thank you. And you were like, I feel sad about this.

I do. I don't know why. I have no skin in this game. I have no shares of Warner Brothers Discovery Paramount Plus. Norad, Northrop Grumman Corporation. But, and I'm not even a DC guy, you know, as you know. Yeah. Shout out Joe House.

But I feel like there is still something about Big Jim Gunn's approach to the DC universe that I, as a comic book fan, wanted to work. Now, I'm not saying it's all done. Like if this movie is a miss and tanks, they are pretty pot committed to the, project. I thought it was very interesting that another story that was in the trades this week as the review embargo was breaking of Supergirl was that David Ellison went down to Atlanta to the set of Man of Tomorrow to sort of, you know, have a little chat with Peter Saffron and James Gunn. And so at least optics suggests that he's still...

About maybe Superman flying up to the reflecting pool and taking a big drink of the water. You're like, mm, that's good water. There is no algae. you're bleaching it. A man saved this pool. No, Lois Lane being the next... Happy 250th. The next guest on Usha Vance's storytelling hour. I too will pat your knee.

It's great. Does she have a pod? I don't know what that was. Okay. Katie Miller, are you thinking of? Stephen Miller's wife? No, did you see the clip? This is...

How online are you or are you not? I feel like Kai's Latin. You don't want to know where I'm online. Do you know what? What is Adam Friedland sent you? Is there a whole other internet? No, you know what happened the other day? almost instantaneous to its publication.

I was notified by a friend who will, I'll leave him anonymous for a moment at least, who was just like, are you aware? And it was Taylor Sheridan on Joe Rogan for two hours. And within the first 10 minutes of this podcast appearance, Taylor Sheridan talks about a deaf, possibly autistic horse that he has that sees ghosts,

blames the Qataris for indoctrinating young children with trans ideas. And also like takes a giant drive-by on trans. Trump and the rule of like how he's not respecting the rule of law. This is awesome because one thing, you are closer to the Sheridan verse than I am, but one thing that is often said to me from people who are remotely in the orbit is his politics would surprise me. That's actually true. People have said that to me. It's not as cut and dry as you think. Exactly. I think he believes in, I think he believes in personal liberties.

I think he does. I think he does. And who among us? Yeah. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you. This was much more exciting than what I was going to say. Anyway. Also, big picture, long-time listeners will notice that I was about to get like real deep in the weeds of the possibilities of like, you know, multi-panel comic book storytelling. And you were like, a man was on the Joe Rogan show talking about horses. And his horse sees ghosts.

Yeah. No, it's just that I still, Superman was a flawed movie as, you know, I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy movies while entertaining were probably also flawed in similar ways. but I like his approach to the adaptation of comic books to another medium where he does run towards the things that make comic books specific and unique and often a little bit weird. Like there's also a flying dog. Like also they can be brightly lit, brightly colored, silly things can happen with a, you know,

it can be broadly colored in terms of the color palette as well as the pathos. And I like that. Yeah. And I also just felt that for what it's worth in this fallen world that is, you know, now that Krypton's gone, that he was, it really did seem like he was building a cinematic universe, I don't want to say in an autourish fashion, but in a very, very idiosyncratic fashion.

Yeah. That these are the projects that he wanted to use to introduce something as opposed to just bringing out the big guns and sitting back and watching the box office rise. I think it's worth noting that he was brought on with Peter Safran at a moment when the DCU was still in mid-flight. You know, so for instance, Supergirl was coming out of the Andy Machete Flash movie, I believe. And it was Sasha Kaye was playing Supergirl.

And it seemed like there was going to be a Supergirl movie. Yeah. And I believe that might be Anna Nagara script. The original script. I'm not sure. I believe she retains sole screenwriting credit. And even got a specific shoutout in that OG, O&G's review. Yeah.

everything I've read about this movie suggests that this is not one script. Yes, I would I probably agree with that. The funny thing about this is, is like when Gunn took over, his big, big idea was we're never going to make one of these

unless the script is absolutely rock solid. Yes. And I just wish like Jiminy Click was there to be like, really? Jimmy Moore! You know, because it's fucking hard, man. They make They make these fucking dates. They're like, you gotta come out this day.

It's not shot yet. It's not written yet. It's like, but we need a DC movie on July, or June 28th. And it's like, all right, lots of things are going to go wrong between now and the end. But also they're daisy chaining them in the sense that like they didn't, they, you could say that it's a vote of confidence or you could say it's the opposite by introducing Millie Alcock's Supergirl and her connection to the fucking Superdog at the end of. Superman. Yeah. And then immediately either boosting or just signaling that Superman is going to be in this movie

also, that these are all one thing again. And I do think that Guns statement that we're not going to do this without a solid script is just absolutely sensible. You know, that's our friend Damon Lindeloff. That was his plan to, with Star Wars very, very specifically. We're not doing this to meet a fan expectation or a release date. we're not doing this to satisfy a fictional history or meet a trilogy, the stated goal of that, sadly now gone project,

was we are going to make one singular quality film. And anything else good could spring from that. There's maybe five movies in the history of superhero movies that fit that criteria. I totally agree. How can you make a single solitary scripted statement of a film that also requires the view of many, many other films. I mean, that is also why comic books tend to be ongoing. Issue six.

Issue six could be really good, but you kind of have to read five and seven. Yeah, but that takes like two minutes to do that. To read those? Yeah. You swipe it on the app real fast? Yeah, I mean, if you're just like, I'm going through it. The reason I'm being defensive about Anna Agarra's script is,

I don't know if you know, she is a friend school graduate. I don't think that this is representative of her talent. Nor the Quaker light within her, which we see and we share. But I guess I just felt kind of bummed for two reasons. One being overall, I would like this to be fun. I would like it to have a personality because I think these types of movies make a case for their continued existence if they have some creative spark or verve and aren't just boilerplate onto the next one.

And two, I do hate when a vitriolic online discourse is met by a on the other side. of the battlefield met by a good faith critical panic. Yes. And then you're not even, you know, the people who hate Millie Alcock or hate a movie about a superpowered woman. I just want to let you know. I don't hate this because I'm a misogynist.

Exactly. You hate it because of the scripts written by a woman. Yeah, I haven't seen it. It could be good. Say more about that. Well, I just think there's plenty of opportunity for like this could be like, there's a little bit of like,

I think a tied building. Yeah. that is led by everybody kind of having their head turned around by obsession and backrooms and the enthusiasm for some of the original movies that are coming. And even stuff earlier in the year, like the drama where people are like, I want to go to the movies and see different stories that I've been seeing for most of my life or stories that look a little bit more like my story or stories that are just about different corners of the universe or different kinds of people.

and I think probably unfairly movies like Supergirl, which have been probably in some form of gestation for several years and had no idea that someone was going to make obsession and have it turn into the fucking hootie and the blowfish album on us. I think they're probably like this has not the two have nothing to do with one another, but you can't help but pull them together and be like, the page is turned, man, and you're yesterday's news.

One thing I like about, unlike the DCUs thus far, One thing I like about the Ringer Corporation is that we do provide content for different age groups and fan bases because I was alerted via Instagram that Danny Haifitz didn't know Gwen Stefani was in no doubt, and yet you just softly... I don't know that he's representative

of any generation. He's a very specific kind of person. But so are you, and you just specifically dropped a cracked rearview hoody reference about a 2026 film. So, you know, we got to be who we are. The reason I actually mentioned that is like there is a certain point where you're like,

Is this people seeing obsession for the third time? Like, who hasn't seen it that wanted to see it? Do you think that there is fatigue? And then we can move on because, like, we haven't seen the movie. And, you know, I'm curious because I think the next... Have you stopped us before, brother? Get ready for the rest of the year of podcasting. Like, I think the next DCU movie is Clayface.

Yes, which I'm very excited for. Which is, you know... Which is an... As of now, before Dave flies over to Atlanta to take a look at the cut. as of now is a hard R horror movie. So I wonder if the mistake here, and again, it's premature to call it a mistake, but it seems to be an absolute heat check moment here

for the gun-a-sense, was the mistake too much cryptonian James Gunn content back-to-back? Because that's what he was passionate about. And I think someone is clearly pumping the brakes on, let's just have two Batman at the same time, which I think is smart for people who aren't following the story, the degree that we are.

The Robert Pattinson, Batman movie, the sequel, directed and written and directed again by Matt Reeves, just went into production in London many years after the first. But during the interregnum between movies, there was talk from the Gunverse. That there was going to be like a fun and zany Batman. That this one is like an Elseworld's different multiversal Batman that he can do what he wants.

with, but we're going to have a Batman that's going to hang out with Millie Alcock and David Corrin's with Superman. And that's going to maybe be based on Grant Morrison's recent run where Batman's son is Robin. And I think they're probably like, let's chill the fuck out, which I think is probably good advice. But I wonder, broadly speaking, to your point, about the desire for something organic, authentic, perhaps slightly democratic socialist, do you think that the element of these movies that might not be hitting anymore isn't just isn't the like the the canonical fealty and the demand and the homework

but the shininess like is there something like do you think there would be an appetite for a little bit more rough and tumbled DIY like the saffty brother uh Nike commercial aesthetic in a supergirl movie doesn't have to be supergirl i'm just wondering if the shiny cg i think i don't know why it's tracking where it's tracking from what i can understand by seeing the trailers i'm like i don't really know that there's a ton more in this movie that isn't in the trailer. That sounds like this is a girl who's got some trauma, who's got a bad attitude,

and wears a blonde shirt, and she has, like, a standalone fight with a guy and saves her dog and then learns the power of family, right? I mean, green light in the room. Right, but, like, I got it, you know? And then once you sort of get to that point where you're not feeling, one of the things that's sort of been always, like, I've been hitting my head against

with a lot of these comic book movies other than Nolan's Dark Night, James Mangold's like Logan, like a couple of others, is that they are pretty visually dull to me. Yes. So part of the reason why people read comic books is because they're fucking cool to look at.

And we've made dozens of movies that look like shit. And I think people might just be getting tired of that. I think that's a more specifically correct way what I was trying to ask. That's just my eye. Maybe there's a bunch of people who are like,

I look at two-dimensional video games all day, and this is cool. Like, you know, I mean, I liked Gun Superman because it was brightly colored. Like, honestly, I was like, this is different. I had to just get one quick fire reaction from you before we get into the larger conversation for today, which is that there was a truly, like, the egg just cracked. There's no, like, sourcing to this yet. It's in the lower rung of the internet movie world reporting. but that Zendaya is in talks to be the new Jason born, whatever that looks like.

Yes. And you say what? I say this would herald an incredible new phase in my parenting relationship to my children, one that I think could probably break things the right way finally for me, you know? Because they like Zendaya? Like is a very soft word. But you didn't, you did not take your children to see the drama. And you say, and why is that?

Do it. Do the Charlie Rose. Do it. I did not. I did not. But, nor have I shown them the born quartet. You know what I mean? Sure.

And by quartet, I mean, there are only four born movies that you and I canonically recognize. Because the titular Jason Bourne born movie where he plays a bare-knuckled fighter in Eastern Europe. Never heard of it. Yeah. Didn't happen. I like Alicia Vikder in that movie, though. I like her and everything. But just, you know what?

Just watch Irma Vep on HBO. Max, if you want your Vakandera fix. I served that up to you. You really did. You are excited by this. I mean, there have been... Well, there's nothing to be excited about. No, but there are enough, like, actual...

It's beyond rumblings. Like, we've heard, we know people, like, who are in the mix for a next born movie. The conversation that I heard was primarily about, like, the last time around, getting Matt Damon back involved. That this would... It was going to be Edward Berger directing it. Yeah. And Edward Berger was attached.

to direct it and that there was, you know, that there was a script and that my sense is that that that script had a little bit of baton passing potential. But those always work out. Look at Mission Impossible. What was it was the one with the first render? Was that three or four? The Mission Impossible four was the one was supposed to be the baton pass. Yeah.

Anyway, I would have to say that watching Matt Damon on the Odyssey Press tour, it's unlikely to me that he is going to get in born shape anytime soon. And I mean that would all due respect. still in Odysseyshire? He's like this. Like he is like, I'm so tired. He's like, and Patton's in Allen are like, yeah, mate, that was kind of brilliant. He's like, I had to walk up a mountain nine takes with an IMAX camera on my back.

Wow. Humbling. Yeah. I know you've been doing weight training recently. Do you have any perspective on that? I mean, like, I'll be joining him soon, I'm sure. With an I max camera strapped to your back for upcoming podcast. I'm very excited for this.

It's also is smart for Zendaya. because one of the keys to her absolute fame and dominance is not just that she's one of the best actors of her generation, is that she has very cleverly chosen blockbusters, classy blockbusters to associate herself with. And that was... She is actually having maybe the platonic ideal of a Hollywood...

A 2020's Hollywood Star's career. I agree. Where she is kind of going across the spectrum in terms of the size of the role she's taking, but she's never like off the poster, you know? Like she's always going to be there. She's working with really interesting filmmakers and more importantly, rather than just being like,

just sign me up for whatever you want to make. Like, it seems like the drama, the Dune Odyssey, a Ronnie Spector movie with Barry Jenkins is supposed to be her next thing that's shooting in the fall. And if she does this, I bet- And Spider-Man, which is going to be the biggest movie of the year. Right. Right.

Pretty good. Pretty great. I know that you, have some takes to get off about Taylor Swift's upcoming wedding, but we could save that for After Dark. Sure, okay. Because I... I know you do too.

Because this is the... You're about to put the socialist and Democrat Socialists. This is the one space where I know my children will never hear what I say on a podcast co-hosted by their... That is true. That broke the seal for them.

We have the bear and we have the agency. The bear has, as of recording yet to be released, the agency is in its entirety. The second season is up. Let's talk a little bit about... the binge model before we get into the specific shows

and now I can't help but hear Jiminy Click every time I speak Let's talk a little about the binge model Chris There's nothing

I love more than Jiminy Click so it's fine Do it Did you ever see the one with him and Larry David? Yes

The one with him and Bill Hader Maybe along with the East Bend and down outtakes my most watched YouTube clip We're haters just crying Not a star's name

is this as good as it gets. I guess somewhere someone's got numbers that suggests that this is the best way to do things for any given, whether it's Netflix, you know, for FX Hulu's purposes under the Disney umbrella, they have always released the bear as a binge, I believe.

They have. And initially, we took that, sorry to cut you off, We took that as a reflection of their, we don't know what we have attitude towards the show. For the first season. For the first season. Yes. I think it was kind of like,

would you guys like to check this out? Well, go for it. I think that the show has evolved over the years, over the seasons, and this is the fifth and final season, into one that writes and shoots to be watched in one huge binge, one long sitting. So I would highly recommend people,

and I've seen seven of the eight. You've watched three of the seven, that were made available, seven episodes were made available for critics ahead of time. We have not seen the finale. I would encourage people, if they like the bear, to watch as much of the bear as they can in succession.

Because I think that's the desired effect comes from that experience. As far as the agency goes, both because of the complexity of the plot, the sheer number of characters, I know that that show came out last year, right? 24? 24.

Again, kind of a House of the Dragon thing where you're like, right, and this guy I would know from where? You know, because like you just have to, you have to like really assemble all the pieces on the chess board when you're watching the agency. And I remember now with the Bureau, the Bureau, the show that the agency is based on,

I did watch that in a binge. We did pretty much watch five seasons of TV over the course of like two or three weeks. Well, with the pandemic. Sure. But you could keep all the characters in place. You could remember all the storylines. There were certain

things that would emerge that you were like, I can't believe this, that might have a different feeling if you waited a year or so to watch it. So there are different angles to this whole thing, but I guess I would start by saying let's take the agency, because I think we should talk about the agency first. Yeah. But broadly, like, do you think that

this model works for a show like that? I want to pick up quickly just when you're talking about how we watched it. Like one of the great pleasures of the contemporary era of television is the opportunity to rediscover and to unearth. And eventually, I think a lot of people do this. I don't, but like the rewatch. And so we have too much new stuff to watch. Right. But like, LeBiro was so delicious because it was all there for us. We were late to discovering it. I believe all five seasons were completed by the time we started. And, you know,

when you have a show in your life with your partner, with your life partner, sitting cross for me. It can be so fun to just soak in it for weeks. But that said, you also alluded to this, it does change the relationship with the show. And there are incredible things about LaBierreau, the way it would subtly reset every year and be widened the aperture to be about also a different part of the world or a different hotspot or to see the larger game board. I feel like appreciating that would have been different in the moment. Not necessarily better, not necessarily worse, but the show contained enough richness to allow for both experiences.

What I don't, and also I don't begrudge people who are like, well, I've never seen Mad Men. Oh, here it is, let me dive in. Like, that's great. What I don't understand, and I hope someone might, what's our email address? The watch at Spotify.com. Someone please let us know about this,

because season one of the, so. We did get some cool emails about why CEOs do get paid what they get paid. Oh, how they work hard and deserve it. Kind of. Great. That's sort of thin. By S-O-R-D-D. I do want to talk about why I think the binge model is horrific.

But specifically with the agency, what I don't understand is it is, in many ways, a feathered fish of development in terms of the Bureau was a massive, massive hit within France and respected internationally. the rights to it were bandied about and claimed with a great fanfare by Showtime, right, a few years ago. And the idea was that George Clooney and his producing partner Grant Has Love for Smokehouse were going to develop this. And maybe Clooney was going to direct it, et cetera, et cetera. This was going to be showtimes like really, really big, like, we're still in the game kind of thing. During the development process of the show, Clooney clearly fell off of it, as did the exact. of the Showtime network. So it got folded into being

like a premier offering of the new Paramount Plus streaming service. The Butterworth Bros. Jez and John Henry Butterworth. Write the show. Jazz and accomplished playwright and very prolific screenwriter.

They write every episode and run it. I think Joe Wright directed some of the first season. Yes. And Neil Berger, who is a long-time Hollywood director directed

this first episode. And I will say without even getting into it, this first episode looks like it costs $200 billion. To be clear, Clooney and Hasloved, Remain producers,

has love directed on the first season. It's not like, they went out. But the first season was released with a little bit... You just like, you look at a script

and it's like, well, now I need an EP credit because I looked at it. What town do you live in? Guys, windhorst fingers, the opening credit of almost any show we cover.

And you can figure out some pretty interesting, let's call them passive income opportunities. But the cast is so starry. Michael Fastbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jody Turner Smith, Catherine Waterston, Richard

fucking gear. The first season, which was really excellent, was a traditional release model. They released it in December of 2024, and it ran until the end of January, 2025. It seemed to do well enough. Yes.

They had green-lit a second season. It is so profoundly not a cheap show to make. So I have to say, I was shocked to discover not only was the show back with a apparently not a robust marketing and promotional effort but it was back as a dump on Sunday, all 10 episodes. I still think, and talk me out of it

or maybe just take the opposing viewpoint here. I take that as an insult to the people who made it and I take it as a sign of a lack of confidence in the show from the Paramount people. That is my takeaway. I do not have any facts to support that. that is how I perceive it. So am I old-fashioned in taking something that way?

I can see both sides in it. Okay, so I can see... He's running. First season comes out. Michael Fastbender, huge movie star, or big movie star, star-studded cast. You develop word of mouth by releasing week to week.

Maybe once the second season is done, they're like, our fans are our fans. And we want to service them and meet them where they are. and give them 10 hours of stuff to watch as soon as the clock ticks. It's not a big tent strategy. It's not a big tent strategy, but like how many times have we gone through these TV shows and we're like, is Widows Bay and the Pit are the two shows of the last three or four years

that I can think of specifically that have had week-to-week acceleration? Well, I think you're right to bring that up. More often than not, it's people being like, man, I feel like I'm so behind on this, you know? I think you're right about that. I saw, and I'm sorry I can't credit this appropriately, but I did see an article basically saying it's not accidental, or it's not coincidental, I should say, that the largest week-to-week growing shows,

if you just look at the growth, not necessarily the overall audience, over the last year or two years have been on Apple. And the argument, and it included Cape Fear in that, which is also apparently growing week-to-week, even though it's priced at a different point and clearly had different expectations. than Widows Bay did.

But the argument was essentially that because Apple is a boutique service, it has relatively humble, let's say, subscriber base, but unlimited coffers, they can afford the strategy of letting people find their shows and letting word of mouth build. Paramount, I don't have the numbers, but Paramount is in a lower tier than the dominant streaming services. It could just be that they don't have that patience or they don't have the business strategy

to let things develop that way. I'm open to that possibility as I was complaining about the other day. All of this is so frustratingly opaque. I find it incredibly annoying as a fan of building week to week as a fan of how I enjoy watching this stuff,

especially a show as dense as the agency. I wish it was otherwise. And also I just find it indicative of larger cultural shifts that I'm powerless to stop, But I hate, which is just the overstuffing and overindulgence of everything. Yeah, I think that the only counter I have to that is that I can see binging in the same way that people are like, I get my news from newsletters and I don't go to websites anymore.

So basically this idea that you find your fan base and you service them to the max, rather than we want you to subscribe to our network, our premium cable channel, our streamer, and we want to develop a relationship with you where we parcel out things over the course of a year, and you have to wait until Sunday to watch this. And that works for us, and I think it works for TV shows in terms of, especially new shows, to build them up over the course of a season. But for the pure corporation customer relationship, they may just be like, this is what people want. Well, it's algorithmically stuffing them with what they think they, what they feel confident that they know they want. And, you know, I want to talk specifically about the show, of course,

But one thing that I've been noticing recently with just how my kids and their friends engage with things, when we suddenly had unlimited options, like when suddenly there was Spotify or even, you know, before that wink, wink Napster, right? Like it was mind-blowing for us as people who used to have to search out things. And we had a lot of appetite for what was next, what was behind the next door, who influenced this? How can I find out more? Because knowledge was at a premium and access certainly was at a premium. this generation, at least in my experience with my kids, and again, like their peers at the moment, the ceiling of that being currently 13, maybe that changes, there is no searching. There is no, everything is fed to them.

Yeah, it's the difference between, I'm going to go get that, like, at a store and bring it to me in a box. Yeah, I mean, if my daughter opens YouTube and YouTube already knows everything she probably wants to see, then her worldview is limited by that. Yeah. And I, maybe it's too,

grandiose to say it, but I do feel like the binge model is deeply connected to that or has become entwined with that in terms of expectation. Like, oh, well, you know, I opened up the service and it knows I watched the first season and here's the new season. So I will just stay in my Wally Pod forever. Yeah. I mean, we can talk more specifically about the show. Let's talk about the agency. The bear itself is, I think, made this season specifically, I think is made as a four-hour episode of television. I think there are some episodic breaks. There are commercial breaks that are in the actual episodes. But I think that if you think about the seven episodes that I've seen, it feels like a complete statement. The agency is as traditional as prestige TV gets in its construction. These are

47 minute episodes. We'll talk about the first one here because I had a revelation while watching this. Whoa. I admired and liked watching the first season. Okay. There is something, and I cannot quite put the metaphor together, but it's almost like watching like a thing that I love in another room or something. Like there is, there's an element of for as excited as I was to see the Bureau remade or interested in it, I was like, but it just feels like I've seen that scene in a different language with different characters. This is a really strange experience. This episode, and we can get into a little bit of the discussion about what it is, initially starts and it's tracking along relatively close to the way season two of the Bureau starts.

Yep. Correct me if I am wrong. But midway through this first episode, we are introduced to a new character in the universe of this show. Right. And listener, the heart rate went up. So basically, like, we're picking up right two months after the first season left off story time-wise. Sami is kidnapped and is being held hostage in Africa.

Martian is now working a desk job at the CIA's London office. And is fully a double agent. He's now working for the British, which kind of inverts what the Malatru character and the Bureau is working for the Americans. The French agent working for the Americans. For similar reasons, to save his love. And where the second season or where the Bureau is, a little bit more concerned with Syria and

goings on in the Middle East and jihadis, this is now getting more and more into Russian paramilitary groups and the Ukraine war. And we are introduced to a character midway through the first episode who's known only as Viking, who is a former U.S. Marine, although one who's got a bit of a fabulous side to him,

a former U.S. Marine who is now working as a henchmen for this Russian paramilitar. It's basically Wagner group, but they're calling it Valhalla in the show. And I was like, oh, this is what I wanted. I wanted a curveball. Well, now, to be clear, the Liburo has a similar,

it is a French national. Yes. So, the, thematically, the person who we're chasing is one of ours is the same. Yes. I did find,

and maybe this is also what you're responding to, I leaned in. when it was a ex-US Marine at the moment when the show, I think, is beginning to engage less with the, like, perfectly curated museum piece of Libreau and actually digging into what it would mean to be about the CIA right now.

Yeah. And there's a, to me, the most interesting and most declarative section of this episode, and clearly we're talking about only the first of season two, is the conversation between Jeffrey Wright's character and Richard Gears' character where they're like, man, we used to kick ass

and people used to be afraid of us. What the fuck happened? Yeah. I thought the collision between that plot be taken from the first, taken from the French show, but added to the very nouness of it, did elevate everything. Yeah. And I think rooting it in, there's a bit of a strange experience watching the agency where the central intelligence agency's office in London is populated by United Kingdom actors playing Americans. It's so weird. Yeah. With the exception of, you know, there's several Americans. in it, but Dominic West and

Michael Fastbender are and the guy who plays Grandma, right? Yeah, and the kid downstairs in tech who is just like an absolutely, like that is one of the most English faces you could ever, ever capture. Like that guy would break so quickly

under CIA questioning if you put a Greg sausage roll in front of him. That's right. Or mention having a few drinks at spoons. So there's like this odd feeling But I did like the idea that this Viking character has emerged out of like fringe like 4chan Manosphere and then through the lens or through the prism of like Aryan Brotherhood, white power, white nationalism in America to somehow find himself in Africa in Africa working as a Merck for a Russian paramilitary group.

It's just a really nice like curveball on making it more like what would these characters from these countries be facing? Yeah, I think it's a really, really complicated production in ways that I think are almost difficult to parse because it is British screenwriters adapting and a very, very French show, but more than that, a very, very, like, 2015 show for a contemporary American television audience about contemporary American geopolitics. Some of the adaptations work incredibly well. Some are more stilted. Some are still finding their way. I found myself in this episode more drawn to the most familiar plot from people who'd watch the original series, which in this case is Danny in Tehran. Yeah. I think Sauri Leone is awesome and exciting in the role,

and the peril of that feels a lot more pronounced because she's the agent in the field. That was also beat for beat what Libero did. And with the setup of who's going to get turned, who's going to become a source, all of that, and the way that the Martian character is going to play with it. I still find, the show is almost like, and this may be why I'm also worried about its future, it is so aggressively complicated and chilly. I'm super into that, but it is dense, and I still think that... I think this is the same conversation we had two years ago, and I think we're both responding to Fastbender. It's Fastbender. And they made a choice to Central, to make him the the choose him as the actor

I think that he and his this period of his acting has settled in on like I have like a Michael Fastbender guy that I play who is like a cold heartless sociopath who likes racing cars and who likes racing cars and then on the side

in Frank or in you know in this or that I might play somebody like kind of more funky and interesting but it is funny that like we noticed him we I mean like audiences suddenly were like who the hell is that and Inglorious Bastards because he was everything you're saying.

But I remember the first time I really became engaged with him was Hunger, the Steve McQueen movie about IRA Hunger Strikes and I was like this guy is on another level. It feels like he's the next Daniel Day Lewis. But he has kind of settled into

the killer Prometheus kind of Assassin's Creed guy. And in this show so far I think maybe lacks some of the soul of the character from the original and series. Now, that's okay. Okay, if they let the big dogs in the pen off the leash.

Thank you. And that's right gear, Waterson, and McGarrow, yeah. And if they let those people cook and there is like little, little spots of daylight that, like, you don't put, you know, it's like, you don't get Jeffrey right to have him for one inning in the seventh. You got to let this guy out, like, go. And I think that's coming. And I think you can see that emerging because he is charged with the mole hunt. Yes. I'm very excited to keep watching this.

I mean, some of the best moments, it's so odd. Some of the best moments of the show are the little throwaways like Catherine Waterson's birthday party. Yes. You know, the things that the Butterworths are inventing for these people are riveting and exciting. And I hope they do that. I think the best comp, and this is kind of surprising to say, would be Mad Men. Because Mad Men built a cast of real characters, broad, funny, surprising, warm,

around John Ham's central performance, which was defined by, this is not a criticism of John Hamm in one of the iconic television roles of all time, but that role was defined by its tightness and its insularity and its reticence and everything else warmed it up or surprised it.

I think that's the best case scenario for the show because Fastbender's Martian is essentially like a blunt object. And the one moment that I didn't like in an episode that I was otherwise like, ooh, the clues in the crossword puzzle, inject this into my veins, was when he is so stressed out about the lack of rescue for Samia

that he then F-1s his Ford Focus to the top of a garage and then screams in frustration. And I was like, this seems like an actor note. Yeah. Then it does a character note. I just have to stress again that this show looks like it cost $100 million to make on one episode. It looks so good.

They stage a giant shootout in Khartoum. I don't know where they actually shot it. But more than that... What doubles for cartoon these days? It, I think, is shot kind of maybe animorphic where, I mean, like, I thought that the birthday scene also was so full of life and so well done. And also it was just so great to have Martian trying to pretend to be a human being while also watching all these people flirt and have champagne and, like, turn 40 and all this stuff.

And he's like, you know, dying on the inside because he's a double agent who's desperately trying to save the love of his life's life. More of that, man. Keep putting Fastbender amongst real people and keep putting him up against brilliant British character actors who will like undo him a little bit. We

should have this show. We, as viewers of television. As two white men in our 40s, we deserve this. Could something finally be for us? Hello? No, but generally, like, there is so much fucking money in the

international streaming television space. And this the middle of bureau still exists. I mean, that's the challenge, right? It's still competing with the original in terms of what you could watch on any given Tuesday. But a high-minded, high-quality,

high-cost, elegant international spy thriller should just be on the checklist of what is on these services. They are hard to do. There's too much talent here for it to go two sideways. And I hope that the rest of the season,

which some people listening may have already watched, fulfills more of its promise, both in terms of an inheritor of the original, but also as its own thing. And then, like, let's keep going. Yeah. There's this experience that I have not been able to articulate, and I think that it's kind of fun.

We've been talking about television together for 12 years or whatever it is, 13 years. 14. 14 years. That's true. One year I didn't really watch TV and talk about it much with you. And then I don't really count the Andy Greenwald podcast. That's fair.

And... Would you like a list of the guests who did you? did count it. We'll run it on the side of the screen, Kai. We've spent so much time trying to be like, this is why this show is good and this is why this show is bad. And sometimes you just turn on a TV show and you're just like, I'm not changing the channel, brother.

Yeah, that's generally you with Paramount Plus. No. That is your default home screen. There's plenty of shows. I am not watching Dutton Ranch. I am not watching plenty of things on Paramount Plus. I stopped watching MobLay. I was just like, I feel like I got it, yeah.

You feel like you got the land? You have to lay the land. But there is something about, like, I just think the agency is just really, really, really well made. And I would probably be head over heels for it if it was the first time I was seeing this story. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool.

With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg. that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Let's talk about the bear. We'll go into depth on it on Monday when maybe you have a chance to, I mean, hopefully, like, finish it, you know, because, oh.

Is that too much? No, no, let me just get my eye towel for a second. Move some things around. Look, there's a lot of TV right now. There's House of the Dragon, there's the Bear, there's the Asians, see, there's, there's, there's so much to love. Is there? Yeah. So I've watched the seven episodes. I'm not going to spoil anything.

There are a lot of what you would hear from me that would be a spoiler is now widely available in the reviews that have been published today in the trades. By the time this goes up, I think the season will have gone up, but I don't have anything to say about the finale because I haven't seen it. I guess I should let you go first. The reviews have come out and the reviews seem to have devoured them as the FX press room would like us to devour them. So reviewers are like, boy, the seventh episode's really great. And boy, the other episodes really build up to it. I really think it's important to have a

conversation about, sincerely, Charles Barkley voice about what's happened to the show over the last three years. And it was a massive bummer to watch the first three episodes of this season. I think that there are really strong arguments to be made about the joys of insulated, siloed, collaborative community-based filmmaking. Like when you work with your pals and you work on something that you're passionate about, great things can come from that. And the first few seasons are a testament to that, certainly.

There are still moments when watching The Bear where you see flickers of that affection that the cast and crew have for each other, the deep, almost wordless understanding that the performers have or that Chris Storr, the creator and director, has with people that he's known in his real life, and he's now put on the camera,

that's all wonderful. The flip side of that is when you completely make something for yourselves and with yourselves and don't talk to anyone about it, it can choke the life out of something and feel like the most insular drain-circling exercise imaginable. And I found these three episodes to be a continuation, to be fair, of what's happened in the last few years,

which has been an almost outright disdain of traditional television storytelling. Now, I don't want to be here and be the William F. Buckley of streaming television, standing a thwart, you know, the fucking Disney Plus logos yelling, stop. But there is a reason why television, whether you sent, delivered as a binge or not, is often broken story-wise a certain way. Yeah. Why storylines are spaced out over time. Why conversations are had in vibrant writers' rooms about,

where do we go next? So this does not feel like more and more and more and more of the same thing. So the fact of the first three episodes of the season aren't just the same characters feeling glum about the potential professional opportunities ahead of them in the same spaces. Only now it's all over the course of one service. Only now it's all over the course of one dark rainstorm in the super, super claustrophobic Michael Man Fever Dream stage set of the restaurant. I found it, I was just sort of choking watching it. Like I did not get pleasure out of it of seeing these people say the same things to each other in sort of stagey, non-story advancing ways. I was really, really, really frustrated.

And not to make this too inside baseball, but like, and I would say this to Chris is a great guy and we love talking to him and hopefully we'll continue to talk to him in the future. This is in no way personal. But I do find it odd that the show two years ago stopped having any. conversation at all with the outside world. They don't do any press. They don't talk about it. They didn't even set up what this season was. It's just like, here's another bunch of hours,

and it feels so disconnected from the relationship that I had as a fan, not as a podcaster. So, you know, I think that's a worthwhile conversation to have. And maybe that's where we can leave this discussion. I was much more positive on what I've watched, but I was feeling like nervous at the third. three episode mark. I don't know if your attitude's going to be changed about it, but I think that this season of television would be greatly, would greatly benefit from not even like a cover story on Jeremy Allen White where he walks us through everything or a promo binge where they're playing with

puppies talking about their five favorite meals they've ever had. Like there's lots of reasons why that stuff is actually pretty tired. But I do think that it would have helped this season or helped you watched this season if they had come out and said this is about a day in the restaurant. If they had come out and said, let me explain how our menu works. No, but like being serious. I am too. If it was like, hey, so this is about the pre-service portion of a day, a chaotic night at the restaurant, and the culmination of everything that we've been talking about on this show,

and that we are shooting it essentially as a relay race that goes like increasing, up in terms of intensity to a kind of mirror of the early seasons of the chaos of the handheld sort of like Carmi doing crazy things and yelling at people and then pivoting it to being like, well, what would happen if Sydney was running this restaurant and what happens on the night where they're actually working collaboratively? I think that would be a good thing for people to know going into it. Maybe nobody cares and maybe it's like the Bears back and I'm going to watch it or I stopped watching the bear three years ago.

Yeah, and this is the vibe that I know that I'm going to get from this restaurant, even though now we're using scraps of offcuts, like to, there's a moment when people start yelling again, as they always do, and it plays off of Sidney's face. This is, I believe, in episode three of the new season. And her face is then intercut with images of all of these people shouting at each other in previous seasons. Yes. And I'm like, we're really just recycling that as opposed to generating new content. I think there's an argument to be made that when Karmie was locked in the walk-in freezer two, three seasons ago,

that he never came out. These are all dream sequences because every single person has been stuck and frozen since then. Now, again, I would love to, maybe we'll have the opportunity to have the conversation. Like, is this because this was always one story and then FX and the cast and crew

or everyone's having such a good time? They're like, let's make three more seasons out of this one story. That's the evidence in front of us, but that they're having the same circular conversations that every character is basically locked in place and that the only variations so far in this new season is an expansion, an IP expansion of Friend of the Ringer Brian Copleman's character in the form of his daughter. Like that's the big addition so far. I don't think that's his daughter. I think that's like somebody who owes him a favor. Oh, another quants.

She comes in, plays by Elsie Fisher. I'm like, this part of the show is not as compelling to me as I think the people making the show think it is. Similarly, Maddie Matheson being intellectually and emotionally a child and beloved by everyone is diminishing returns to me, even though, again, I think the people making the show find this incredibly delightful. So anything to push the ball forward, instead, we get a Hans Zimmer score on top of it, which is, like, honestly, felt like shaving incredibly,

expensive alba truffles over Kirkland mac and cheese. I liked the addition of an original score instead of constant needle drops. I mean, I love the music of the bear, and I have a, I have the playlist that is all the songs from the bear. But I thought that doing an original score for the season and nailing down the camera and making everything like the sensation that you're supposed to get is that Sydney is giving people a sense of calm. Right.

And so the camera needs to calm down as well. And so that there are push-ins and there are like quick cuts, but essentially like from what I could tell, like there is very, very little of the usual like bare kind of chaotic handheld in somebody's face giving you a panic attack camera work. It's all like on an axis. Just like I don't think, and I don't think the show agrees with me. And I think there's room to grow here. But just like I don't think that a tweezered, aniseptic restaurant that serves a. the set tasting menu is necessarily better than a sandwich shop. I don't necessarily think three extra seasons of Lionel Boyce proving he can be a morose,

dramatic actor is better than the kind of sweet, slightly more humorous character that he played in the first two seasons. Now he's staring at a candle again, you know, and only unlocked in a room with Will Polter. Now, obviously, that might change. But I don't know if that's a different tone, but now it's been the same tone, and I don't know if it's necessarily better. Similarly, I think Chris is a phenomenal director and an incredible, accruer of talent and he understands the actors that he knows and loves so well and has brought

out shades of people that we had never seen before, even in the show, like what Oliver Platt's doing, what Evan Moss Backrack is doing. It's, that's still what Abby Elliott does. You know, these are things that I didn't know these actors who I was familiar with could do, and I love seeing them do it. I also know he is absolutely sincere in his filmic knowledge and his love of Michael Mann and everything. But this vessel that he has been given by the, by, by, the gods at Disney and FX isn't a Michael Man movie, no matter how much music and neon light you put on it.

So my frustration is because, I think more than anything, the organic joy of this show for absolutely three full seasons, even if the third season was a little bit shakier, was such a special, special thing. Now, special things don't go on forever in the television or the restaurant industry,

but these last two seasons of just so aggressively being something else. I'm finding I'm frustrated. I'm going to watch more, of course. Yeah. And this is where binge drops can burn you. Because by the time some people are listening to me say this, they're going to be like, how could you say that if you haven't seen seven? Exactly. Yeah. But I'm trying to engage with it as an honest steward of my relationship to what has come before. There's a strange thing that's going on with this show. Obviously, we've talked a lot

about the method of its release. But I think its deepest pleasure is still the pleasure of any TV show, which is the durational aspect of it and the relationship you build to the characters. And for as circuitous as this road has been to get there, I found myself deeply invested in Marcus, in Richie, in everybody's well-being. And I don't know how else to put it that way. You know what I mean? I usually don't have like a, this person needs to be okay feeling when I'm watching a TV show and caring about characters in that way.

But it does hit you that we've been talking about this show for a long time. We've watched a lot of hours of this show. I think that we have complicated relationships with the show because on one hand it's like the best TV can do. And on the other hand, it feels like it didn't quite live up to the potential of the first two seasons. But I think that this fifth season proves its, it proves its necessity for existing. I love that.

I can't wait to see it. I think I just cannot believe that the Karmie character has just been bubble wrapped, essentially since season three, locked in the same exact emotional stasis that he's been in. And then when you have him finally say what he needs to say at the end of season four, the creative decision then is to pick up the next day where he's still bubble-wrapped, hasn't told anyone yet. He doesn't tell anyone else until an hour in. And then let's get people going to where they need to go. And maybe that begins in episode four, and I'll find out this weekend, apparently, because I'll be watching the rest of the series. I mean, you just let me know where

we're going to be on Monday morning, you know? I know where we're going to be. Here. Unless another factory catches fire. It was lovely to talk to you. I can't wait to... I'm very engaged in continuing this conversation. Okay.

Do you feel like when we disagree that somebody has to win? Do you feel like you need me to come over to your side of the force? No. No. I don't think. I mean, you know I don't. But you're so articulate about your really critical opinions. But that's also helps me.

because I know you're wrong. And so I have empathy, you know, because... Sweet simple, Chris. Yeah. Just watching Rogan and Sheridan. He's just like just dreaming of deaf horses, you know? We're going to get out of here. Thanks to Kai and Sarah for producing today.

We'll be back on Monday. We'll probably be talking some combination of House the Dragon or the Bear or whatever, the agency. Like, whatever Andy gets Andy fired him. No, no, no. Whatever get Andy, I want you. I want you to be... All of those things fire me up.

Devo to my Knoxville, you know? So you're just sitting on the sidelines being like, too old for that shit? Well, I'm getting just probed. By a dragon. I mean, it's felt like that for the last few years. Everybody have a good weekend. We'll see you soon.