The Watch - The Best TV Character of the Century. Plus: ‘Ozark’ Season 3 With Executive Producer Chris Mundy | The Watch

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

The Ringer launched its Best TV Character of the Century bracket today, which led us to debate what makes an excellent TV character (1:09). You don’t need to fully understand what’s happening in ���Devs’ to know that it’s a great TV show (31:31). And an interview with ‘Ozark’ executive producer Chris Mundy about Season 3 of the show (47:01). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Chris Mundy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We hope The Ringer can provide you entertainment and companionship during this time. So as always, feel free to check out The Ringer.com, where we're still covering the latest in sports, pop culture, tech, and media. And the Ringer's YouTube channel can provide endless amounts of entertainment. You can find that at YouTube.com slash The Ringer. Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Watch. Hope everybody is staying safe out there.

On today's episode, Andy and I talked about the Ringer's TV character bracket. We're pitting all the great TV characters of the 21st century against each other, March Madness style. So you can check that out on Theringer.com. A lot of great stuff there. And you can also vote. Andy and I also talked about the most recent episodes of devs. And we talked about the new season of Ozark. And in the second half of the show, I spoke with Ozark showrunner and executive producer Chris Mundy about the third season, which I think is absolutely extraordinary. And we'll be talking a lot more about that in the coming weeks. So enjoy today's episode of The Watch. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on Zoom. He's my favorite TV character. It's Andy Greenwald. Would I make your top 64? No. Just on the sheer fact that you're not a television character.

Well, you and I were television characters from our long, run hosting the Game of Thrones after show. So we're referring to the fact that the Ringer is running the best TV character of the Century Bracket as we speak. So by the time you hear this, round one will be in the books. And, you know, we didn't have any reality TV characters. And we didn't have any after show hosts eligible. So who knows where we would have landed?

I know. Tough. You know, I feel like people, I feel like my role as host of Talking Robot has, hacking robot, I mean, was a little more beloved than my role as co-host of After the Thrones. Yeah. Now, a lot of people, we do, we are doing this, we're capturing this podcast today on Zoom, so we'll have some video of it. And a couple of people who chimed in after they watched our little better call Saul breakout, I believe, from last Thursday's pod, there was a couple of people in the in the mentions saying, get Greenwald a tripod for that microphone. Yeah. And, and, and, and,

Andy was, and what did you say to the people asking about that? Well, look, you know, I believe in transparency. And so what I said was the truth. Or at least, you know, at the time what I believed to be the truth. Sure. I left my microphone stand in the room you're recording in now in our last meeting pre-lockdown. In the CR salon, yeah. A meeting that was marked by your refusal to use your own tripod, which is,

Again, you know, fog of war and all that seemed suspect to me over the last few days that maybe you had actually not had one and had taken mine. So I just let the people know that, you know, there was some open question as to where my tripod was and whose you were using. And then? I feel like that's the salient portion of the story. So you have a tripod and I have a tripod. How did that happen? You know, I think that we were, I think we did. did as good of a job with the tripods as we could have.

We couldn't have seen what was happening or what was going on. As soon as we realized there was a tripod situation, we ordered millions of tripods. It's kind of like devs. Yeah. It was like devs. I think we're doing a great job with the tripod situation. I called Alex Rodriguez about the tripod situation.

Should I keep this going? We may have too many tripods now. The truth is, that's right. That's right. Why aren't you asking these questions of big tripod? Greenwald, it's great to see you. It's Monday. Never apologize, Chris.

This is the lesson of this era. Never apologize. It's working for you. We're going to talk a little bit about the ringer's TV character bracket. We're going to talk a little bit about the fifth episode. Fifth episode of Debs? Yeah. Yeah, the fifth episode of Devs.

And then the second half of the show. Can we also talk about Chris? I know you love it when I just freestyle a little bit. But can we talk about the third episode of Zero, Zero. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know what I talked to today for a later podcast, Andrea Reisbrough.

You did not. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty jealous. I guess you can't really say chopped it up when you're talking about zero, zero, zero. You can say it. I have a question for you. And again,

this is the kind of stuff that back in the old days, maybe wouldn't have flown on the watch pod because, you know, we kept it pretty straight up and down. But now, you know, you're drinking out of a solo cup. I know. All bets are off. I just want you to ballpark it for me. Like, which, what are you more concerned about your wife walking in on?

You opening your PlayStation 4 or video chatting with Andrea Riceboro? She didn't video chat. Unfortunately, Andre was Vox only. She called in, but she was delightful and was, like, really, really insightful. talking about her character on the show and that show. I would say that over the last couple of days just as I was kind of like doing some back of the envelope

math, 0-00 is probably Breyer Patch excluded. Second fave show of the year and the finale is the best episode I've seen of the year. Whoa. Yeah. Since we're talking about it

and we've been doing a piecemeal, people weren't necessarily prepared. I'm loving watching the show. You're my Don Minu. Chris and I traded a lot of Don Minu texts over the weekend, especially because Don Minu, for an older fellow, really seems to take to quarantine. Like, he really makes the most of it.

Yes. He gave me a lot of ideas about where I should keep my CCTV monitors. But he's living in the Italian breadbasket there. It's lovely. Yeah. It's lovely. The pecorino cheese that he could just reach up out of his hole in the ground to grab. We traded a lot of Donminu texts.

I really, really am enjoying the show. And I think that listeners can probably tell that some of the tripod issue was probably, on some level, connected to the fact that you cautioned me away from watching it. I think it had to be. Well, this is the second time that this has happened where I feel like I made a pitch to you, but then just kind of assumed you would never follow. through that the last time this has happened is in a quasi-infamous moment in watch pot history when you gifted to me on Christmas or right around the holidays.

Yeah. You watched Ozark for me. And now Ozark's back. And I tried to watch it for you again. Long pause. Season three or did you go through season? You were trying to watch season two. No, I fired up season three for you.

Okay. But wait, let's one show at a time. Yeah, okay. Zero, zero. You know, I didn't think I wanted to know so much about long-haul freighters. But it turns out, what a fascinating, rich subject that is. Yeah, yeah. You know, just from the location of the tools necessary to tighten the oil drums, you know what I mean?

Or perhaps, if you're feeling frisky, to loosen them up. The detail is what makes this so great. And we've talked many times about the thing that seems to make or break shows in this era is just kind of knowing what shape box you're going to put your story into. And I really think to make a show like this, you have to have what appears to be one of the most expensive boxes ever constructed for a television program that may or may not be true. It's a multi-country international co-production, so I'm sure they made it work. Much like the cocaine trade. It is a completely opaque international co-production. But it is storytelling on such an rich and epic level, right down both in terms of the vistas

and the boats and the helicopters, but down to the details as well. I was joking about the CCTV cameras and monitors, but that makes the story. I was quasi-joking about the tool wall in the fuel room of the tanker. In the engine room, but that's what makes it so rich. and it's so enveloping and it's such a great watch. I think season is episode three, which is Andy's referring to an episode that largely takes place on a long haul shipping boat

where Dane de Han's character is kind of overseeing the shipment of this huge load of cocaine from Mexico and it's on its way to Italy and, you know, trouble happens, trouble ensues. That's where the show really like, I think jumps, starts to jump up a level. Like the first two episodes are kind of introducing you like almost a dozen major characters and kind of setting up the world in a kind of painstaking way.

But once they get like on the road with that shipment, I feel like that's where it really takes off. Absolutely. I also think it created a lot of like sometimes when I watch shows, I used to, you know, maybe like many people when they watch anything, they like to think like, oh, could I have hung with that crowd? What would I have done in that moment? I no longer do that for myself. because, you know, I'm a devoted and humble school teacher, really, it's what I do. It's my passion. You know, it's what I, it's how I spend my days. So I think about it about you.

And so far I've got to say, Chris, and I'm not just saying this because you're my friend and you didn't steal my tripod. I think you're doing pretty well. In quarantine or just in life? Well, yes and yes. but what I mean is in my ranking of watching zero zero zero and I'm going to put this to you. There are three examples and I don't think this is a spoiler

if you haven't watched the show. It'll probably just make you want to watch it more. Three moments in this show in episode three of zero zero zero where I said, would Chris Ryan have done the same thing? Oh no. And I had yes to all three,

but I want to put them to you. Okay, okay. Number one, if you were overseeing your father's cocaine ship, to Italy on a large, large boat with a skeleton crew. Yeah. Would you spend the majority of the voyage sitting on the edge of the boat listening to a disc man?

And if so, what exactly are you listening to? Because that's the other thing. I really want someone to step in with memes with Chris Dane to Han's character. Again, what a name. he's listening to music as a Mexican army chopper lands behind him. It's strange that he couldn't hear it. Then he was just like, oh, look at these guys landing from the sky while we're in the middle of the ocean. Is it just like a love supreme?

Is he just like, is he just vibing out? Would you think he's listening? I mean, you know what would be really funny is if he was listening to like ocean wave sounds as like a meditation app? Light helicopter chop. Mexican special forces banter. I mean, I would pay someone Bitcoins to just drop in like Young Jeasy, like onto that sea. Just to hear what it sounded like if he was listening to Standing Ovation. So would you, would you, Chris Ryan, A, be listening to your music and then B, when the helicopter landed in the middle of the ocean, would you immediately stride right over to the paramilitary guy with a machine gun who gets off the helicopter?

I think I would probably be listening to Magwai. First of all, I wouldn't be on the boat. I'm not a big boat guy. No, I don't like, I get seasick. But second of all, I don't think that when I see guys repelling out of midair onto my long haul ship of cocaine, I don't think that like dialogue is what I'm looking for. To be fair and to be clear for people who haven't watched the show, the ship itself is not made of cocaine. that would not be seaworthy. Okay, point two.

Let's just say, Chris, that you are hanging out with some of your oldest friends. Like maybe, maybe me. Maybe Chuck Klosterman. Maybe Sean Fennessey's in there. You know, people you feel generally comfortable with. You've socialized. You've raised a couple of glasses with.

And also your eccentric grandfather, who's just emerged from at least a couple of years in self-imposed exile, maybe missing a finger, but nobody asked him about it. Yeah. So you're hanging out. You know, maybe the mood's a little weird,

but probably it's because of his grandpa. smell a little ripe. And then he's like, wants to change it up a little bit. And so he suggests that bring in some company and that company happens to be a 450 pound hog, which is then trussed up, hung from the rafters, stabbed in the throat and bled out. And then grandpa takes a mug, it'd be like a chipped, I don't know, what kind of mug are we thinking? Like maybe a mug from, I got a mug from the coffee exchange up in Providence. Maybe it's, maybe it's that style, like something you've had for a while. Yeah, or just like, it's almost like an, An ancient Roman diner mug.

Yeah. An ancient Roman, oh, does you mean like the true grail from the end of last crusade? It's like, choose wisely. Fills it with still steaming

hog blood. Yeah. And just goes to town like it's a soy latte. Just downs half of it. I would do it. First of all, you know,

I mean, I like trying new things. And I think also, like, I was very early on bone marrow, if you remember correctly. When bone marrow hit Brooklyn, I was an early adopter. You were doing large bone lusias, right?

Like you were lifting it up. Prime Meets used to do, like, they had the bone marrow that you could get with, like, it was like an add-on. And I was just like, I'm your bone marrow guy right here. At it. That's how people knew you up on Court Street for a while. So you would. Boney M, there he goes, yeah. So once again, I'm right.

Like, if someone offered you a mug of hot, and I want to really stress this enough, it is body temperature hot, straight from the tap pig blood. Yeah. Your boy, Chris, quote, I like to try new things, Ryan. Just take a sip.

And not one of those, like, baby sips either. Did I ever tell you the story about how when, right before I moved to Los Angeles, me and Zach Barron, and Sean Fennessee and John Caramonica, three of my closest friends, we went down to New Orleans for like kind of a going away vacation thing for me. Did you meet with the Linwood family while you were there?

No, I did not. But we did go on a sort of road trip outside of the city one day, and we stopped at a piggly-wiggly because I was getting cigarettes, and I think I was getting Caramonica, Dr. Pepper, or something. So I wanted to pick up a pack of Camwellites. and inside the guy in front of me wearing a full sweat like sweatsuit

Valor sweatsuit was buying like a pint of pig's blood wait wait so you can get it like in a go cup like what do you mean? I think he was just I think you can do it because they use it down in New Orleans I think it's like a del like you remember the Tony Bourdain Cajun country thing like they use it Or you could make like Budan out of it

Yeah exactly so I think that that guy had an end an end point like another use for it It wasn't just a beverage did you pause? Did you say, excuse me, sir? It wasn't the weirdest thing I saw in Louisiana that week. So I think by that point I was like, I had already thought I saw Dr. John like three times,

if you know what I'm saying? And so I was just like, let's just roll with it. Plus the cigarettes were really inexpensive. Okay, all right. Last one. Last one before I'm done with zero zero. This is the zero zero zero personality test. I like that we're doing this.

So far, you are passing with flying color. you would do great on the show like I believed you to. And again, I assume nothing weird or bad happens for the rest of the run, three episodes in. So this is the nadir of something's going to have. It's really hard-wording. It's kind of like perks and wreck. So you are doing a, again, we're not going to spoil it. You're doing some kind of double, if not triple cross.

And you can't let people know that you let someone escape. So you have to make it seem like you were in opposition to them. is the first thing you do. I want to stress this. Not the second or third. You don't look around to see if anybody saw you. You don't like weigh your options. With the practiced assurance of Russell Westbrook pulling up from half court as the buzzer's going,

you pull a handgun, hold it to your own shoulder and pull the trigger. I don't trust my aim enough to do that. That's the thing. So I just feel like... I honestly feel like I would shoot myself in the heart if I did that. Right. And my thing is, even if I had gamed this out, like worst case scenarios for a Tuesday night, yeah.

At the critical moment, I would be like, couldn't I just like nick myself? Like, couldn't I just fire a practice round into the sky? I just feel like, you know what I did? Guys, I really damaged my hearing. Because then what's incredible, and this is the only criticism I have of this episode, which clearly I enjoyed on a granular level, It's that the character in question

shoots himself ostensibly to provide cover and also ostensibly has successfully not killed himself. Gives himself a story to tell, yeah, right. The people that he's trying to trick arrive and he, through the pain, says the stuff he needs to say to draw people off of the scent. But then his friends say something that I was interested in seeing the follow-up coverage of our main guy,

which is they don't say, my God, you can't believe this happens. or like you almost got, like he, you must have almost gotten him. They, what they say is quickly lift him before he bleeds out. Well, that's the moment. It's not the first time that a guy's been bleeding on their pavement. No, it's fair. I'm just saying like, that's the moment where I would begin to question my own plan.

Yeah. I think, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? So, Chris is for episode three of zero, zero, zero, zero. You are not zero zero. you are two for three on could you, could you hang in this world?

And I think that's a passing grade. Two for three gets you to Cooperstown, if you extrapolate that over a career. That's great. Andy, I just want to talk to you a little bit about a couple of things. So I want to do the character bracket, and I also want to talk to you.

I mean, if you want to talk about devs, we can talk about Debs, if we want to talk about Ozark. I'm loving this season of Ozark. The character bracket is, you know, there's a lot of things that happen on any given day that make me feel somewhat old. I did a

podcast appearance, a Zoom podcast appearance yesterday on the Wrights to Riki Sanchez podcast, a Sixers podcast we both love. And it was a charity pod for a couple of the charities that Spike and Mike's podcast work with. And the chat, because there's

usually like a chat in Zoom, was really savage about my aging. Like they were just like you look like Adam Silver's dad. So that made me feel old. But nothing has made me feel older than this TV bracket. And watching some of, A, the recency bias, but also like the lack of respect for institutions

that we're seeing in the voting. So talk to me. I mean, the big thing is that BoJack the Horseman, or BoJack Horseman, is it? Wow, Dad. Bojack the Horse beat Kendall Roy. Well, that's not recency bias. I mean, the show is called BoJack, the Horseman.

It's more about, like, Kendall Roy is a kind of classical anti-hero character. And while Bojack is also an anti-hero, I think his, like, Daffy, like, it's a horse who struggles with depression, is kind of a little bit more newfangled. Wouldn't you agree with that? I'm going to defend this one. I'd like you to bring up other ones, which I will roast savagely, which I will hang from the rafters like a pig. and bleed out into our waiting mugs. This one, though, I will defend, primarily because Succession at its heart

is a ensemble show. So it is possible to love Succession and appreciate Succession while not individually championing Kendall Roy. BoJack Horseman is the lead character of a show called BoJack Horseman. It's just, you know, it's are you a fan of the system

or of the star player? That's an interesting point. So let me turn this around on you after you so eloquently just excused away Kendall Roy is being vanquished in the first round. How do you feel about... By an animated horse. How do you feel about Cartman from South Park

beating Fleabag from Fleabag? It's disgusting. Burn the Young. You don't deserve this world. That's not the Young's fault. We're fucking responsible for South Park, right? I've never taken ownership over that, just like I never took ownership over the tripod issue. I mean...

Look, do I find that abhorrent? Yes. But again, it's a numbers game. You know what I mean? And South Bark has been a popular show for 20 years. And Fleabag has been a critically adored cult hit for three. Yeah. It's just, it's not fair.

Well, I mean, you're really Steve Koukking me here. Like, I thought you would have like hotter takes. the big one that was disappointing for me, but I think was a matter of seating, was that Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation beat Boyd Crowder, like tagged Boyd Crowder, vaporized him. I mean, the other thing is, I imagine,

I'm just, boy, I'm really, I'm a numbers guy, you know what I mean? Like, I'm just, I work next to 538 for a while, and so I really feel like I picked up some of that, that sensibility. That's right. And I wonder if there's a correlation between, gift search results in all of this. Whereas like Cartman, like Leslie Knope is even for people who

haven't watched the show or haven't watched the show in a while. Is it kind of go-to reaction meme? Yeah. Yes. And it kind of an iconic character for a certain type of personality and a certain type of internet conversation. And so that kind of makes sense to me. Shout out to me for using the phrase go-to reaction meme and BoJack the Horseman in the same podcast. People don't understand. Maybe I should get on that long boat to Italy. People don't understand that everyone is using this, if you're fortunate enough to be home and safe and well, and even a little bit bored as some people are,

like people are using this time in different ways. And I'm doing it raising my children in the same way that like, you know, the island raised the children of Blue Lagoon. You know, like just natural law and things. It's not a bad example to use for children? I don't remember. I honestly don't remember how the Blue Lagoon.

I didn't paned out. I think okay. I don't remember. Anyway, I definitely on a hike this morning with my children was gaming out the odds of whether what they were walking through was poison ivy. Not with like any sort of like sensibility. Not with, you know, there's no Shazam for nature, which would really help me. But I was like, it's probably fine. Uh-huh.

Probably fine. Anyway, people don't realize when I was texting you asking you about your weekend what you were up to. you were busy becoming a meme lord. That's right. I did hit you with some great memes. You made me with great memes. Like, you had them at the ready. You had Judge Janine.

Like, that was still fresh. I've been, now that I've spending more of my life on Zoom than off of it, I have to find different backgrounds. So I judge Jeannie from her home broadcast is a pretty good reaction meme. And Mayor Pete with the self-isolation beard is pretty good too. The Janine thing, though, was just amazing to me because that was as fresh as pig's blood in episode 3 of 0-0-0.

Like, it was still steaming. That had just happened when you sent me there. I know. I know. Anyway, who are you really pulling for in this character bracket? Like, one of the ones that will really upset you once we get through this first. What I'm interested in is that...

So one of the things that's been sort of fascinating talking with a lot of different people about the pot I did with Chuck, music exists, which is still... We still have episodes coming for the next few weeks and that's on Spotify. and where we talked a lot about the relationship music's had to our lives over the course of our lives.

I think it made me sort of question a lot of things that I felt were like self-evident about like, not even like the canon of music, but just sort of like rights of passage that everybody must go through, like whether or not they have a punk phase or whatever. And I think that you and I over the course of the years of doing this podcast, just assumed that most people who were engaged with television also went through a certain television curriculum, more or less, you know, at some point that they would watch a madman or Deadwood or any, I mean, like, we've gone over these shows, but I think we kind of, you kind of just assume based on what you read on, and what you see on Twitter and just like the discourse around

television that there are these staple shows. So it's been kind of interesting to see something like, for instance, one of the most fascinating results here is that Noho Hank from Barry, a character I love quite a bit is beating Al Swerinchen. Yes, that is an example of recency bias, I think, without question. You know, I think you could throw a couple things and do it. One, more than anything, recency bias. People really love that character. I think he passes my meme test.

He sure does. He is more likable, I would say, than Al, who is not the most lovable figure. But I also think you are speaking to something really true. I mean, he's more comical. He does pretty, Hank is involved in some pretty dark shit. too. But he keeps a winning smile, great positive attitude. He'd be great. He'd be great in Zoom meetings. People haven't, the dirty secret, which probably isn't dirty, nor really a secret of this golden age of television where we're all, you know, you and I are always pining for the monoculture or whatever,

talking about this shared canon. People haven't watched everything. Sure. You know, everyone has blind spots, but people, I think, tend to have pretty large ones. You know, you've copped to the fact that you haven't watched all the Sopranos. I was talking to a friend who is the head of a studio in television and was using this time to watch Mad Men. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, it's just not possible to have watched everything, you know, so that'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I want to ask you, and we can obviously keep tracking this, right? Because when is this poll going to be done? By the time you hear this, round one is over, so we'll go to round two tomorrow, and you can find Andrew wrote a great opening piece for it on The Ringer, and we have, like, complimentary pieces

running all week. Kitty Baker did, like, a really cool interview with, with Catherine Donahue, the actress who plays Lindsay on You're the Worst, who unfortunately lost in the first round, but it's a really fun interview between Katie and Cather. Who, Chris, when you heard about this, and obviously you were probably involved in some of the, from the ground up, without thinking about it too hard, without, like, pouring over your notes or or your own DVD library or whatever it is that you have. What was your answer?

Who's the best character of this century? Like who immediately popped into your head? The first person, I mean, my number one character was Swar Engine. So my personal top, I'll give my top 10. How about that? Wow. I mean, I'm not prepared to join you there, but that's cool. Here's who I voted for.

Al Sweringen lost. Fleabag, lost. Russ Cole is winning his first round. matchup. Stringer Bell, not nominated. Charlie Kelly from... Trigger Bell didn't make the 64? No, it's like Omar is in the 64.

Was there a one character per show cap? No, it's three. Okay. So Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope from Parks both made it. But Stringer Bell, Charlie Kelly from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Taiwan-Lan Lannister from Game of Thrones, Gus Fring from Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, Paperboy from Atlanta,

Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights and Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm. That was my top ten. Strong list, friend. Thank you, brother. I had, as soon as I heard the question that you guys were doing it, for me was Ron Swanson. Really? Yeah. How come?

I thought of. I just, and maybe this is also because I'm thinking about Nick Offerman and how great he is on devs, how quite different he is on devs. But there is something that is so titanic to me about that character, just in terms of getting it all right. like the most specific vision for personality, for point of view, for comedy, for how to be used in a scene and what he could be play off of

and what could be played against him, the way that the character was met with the perfect actor for it. And just the, there's just something pure, almost as pure to me as like a Homer Simpson character, the way that character was conceived of and deployed for maximum comic effect.

I just think it's stunning. And then I would probably go into your stringers and Omar's and paperboys of the world. But without thinking too much about it or even thinking about shows that I loved or would put in my time. Like I didn't think, my brain didn't go straight to Don Draper because as soon as I think about Don Draper, I think about, oh, well, Roger Sterling or Stan Rizzo or like, or Peggy Olson would be in my top two. Yeah. No, you know, my bottom 10 reflected that. It was like Tracy Jordan, Boyd Crowder, Max from half. Endings. Diane Lockhart from the Good Wife, Good Fight, Jonah Ryan from Veep, Molly Silverson

from Fargo, Roger Sterling from Mad Men, Kim Wexler from Better Call Saul, and then I had a little fun in the last two with Baby Yoda and Barb from Stranger Things. God. What a rich century for television characters. Anyway, do you want to talk devs for a minute? Sure, yeah. I thought, you know, the Kenton monologue from the beginning of episode five, Fantasy was tweeting about this, was a real, like, signature moment for the show. I remain a dedicated reader of the devs Reddit boards. Oh, yeah, what's going on there?

Well, the devs Reddit boards, man, like, I got to admit, maybe I just, I'm a little rusty, but, like, it's kind of going over my head a little bit, like, in terms of some of the stuff, like the theories that they're talking about. I grasp what's at stake and I grasp loosely what I think that they're trying to do on this show

but some of the theories I am the guy who responds to the guy who starts the Reddit thread and he writes there's actually literally one about the dead mouse scene in episode 5 and a guy writes like a 750 word like mini essay about it

and then the first comment is I can fuck with this and that's me I'm just the guy who's just like huh that's the discourse fuck with this? Yeah. I mean, it's like, what a haunting episode. I think I find myself a little bit grabbing on to characters like Kenton who feel a little bit more of our world. But I imagine

that everybody is approaching this show in a different way and it still remains this sort of totem of mystery on TV right now. What a miracle that it's even on. Yeah, I think that, again, my main takeaway is that the show is beautiful and thought-provoking and haunting and unlike anything else. not just the Kenton speech, but thinking about how truly chilling it was and disquieting and relevant at this particular moment in our time, not so much about what he says

about Chinese dominance, but about American, what's the opposite of dominance? Well, just the idea of the cascading effect. You know, it's like, how do you respond to cascading, you know? Exactly. And then the way that the scene was so beautifully framed and shot,

it's just stunning to look at. this was a show, an episode I thought where the show's, the show is extremely cerebral, and I think that's obviously where Alex Garland does a lot of his best work. So again, using purely cerebral way of looking at it, this was also a very smart storytelling package to give us story moving in a couple different directions at once and filling in some gaps. The downside of that cerebral storytelling is that when the show focuses on the emotional moments, unless you get something like playing unspeakable horror and tragedy off of Nicolnsk, Offerman's incredibly evocative and performative and, you know, emotional face, it leaves me chilly.

So like Lily and Sergey meeting cute and saying they loved each other did not have the same effect on me that it had on Allison Pill watching it on her, you know, past transmitter. Sure. I mean, I wonder whether or not that's sort of the point is that the sort of emotional beats that we're used to being, to hanging our coat on and certain shows are now, we're being shown the the hollowness of those moments because of their malleability and the spacetime quantum physics world that we're playing with. Right. I mean, that's an aspect of it. She's watching it on TV too and it's having an effect on her, which is in itself kind of interesting. The thing that of course, I'm sure I'm not alone,

that really stayed with me after the episode was just the beautiful way that Alex Garland filmed, told the story of a multiverse, right? Where, you know, know, one seconds of difference, Forrest family returns home safely. And they're happening almost overlaid on top of each other. And again, that is an extremely provocative thought, particularly at this moment in time, that, you know, if one thing went slightly in a different direction, where would it have left us? And how tantalizingly close that alternative present can feel. Do you feel like it's necessary to have an understanding of what Forrest and Katie are trying to do to fully... Like, I mean, to what extent do you feel compelled to understand this show versus let this show wash over you?

I feel zero need to understand it more. Do you understand it? You know, it's funny. I would have said yes. Is there a version of you that understands it? Definitely. It's interesting that you say it like that. And I think that it prior to you asking the question that way, I would have said yes to the degree that I need to.

as you phrased it, do I know what Forrest and Katie you're up to? I realize I don't know their endgame for projection or revision. You know, is there endgame to bring to jump train tracks, tram lines, as he says, into a different one where something happened differently. I don't really know was his goal to just watch what would have happened to Amaya. Could he watch her future? Could he watch her past? Or how was he going to get it?

I don't actually know, I realize, as you asked me that question. But I don't feel any need to. I actually was pleasantly surprised to realize this was the fifth episode because it's not a chore in any way to watch it and to watch it week after week. It did make me wonder, and I'm going to throw this at you, unprepped. Is this the Dev's personality quiz? No, but I was wondering, obviously, I can't be the only one who, when thinking about the multiverse and the tram lines going in different directions, you know, if like there's a little bit less Russian disinfo in 20s. 16 that things would have shaken out. And I was thinking because I've also had my,

I've been on my walks and runs outside of my own self-quarantine here, like doing a lot of music on shuffle. And I was thinking about, if things had gone differently in the last presidential election, I was thinking of whose careers, and this sounds a little glib, so I hope you'll allow it, because I'm just kind of riffing here.

I could think of two people who I feel like their careers were in some ways derailed. Not that they're in, not that they can't bounce back, not that they're not still successful, but that they were primed for a run that the world and the world's appetite for what they were peddling changed drastically. Okay. After the election. One was our old friend from New York James Fallon. That's not really our friend. But I don't think, I mean, he's still on TV every night and, you know, NBC's very happy with his work and that's great. Seems like a nice guy. But, you know, he was, like, dominating in the late-night wars.

And tonight show is doing great. And everybody loved playing. And then it kind of paved the way for Colbert and more polemical late-night hosts. He just wasn't really made for this moment, which is, I don't even mean as a ding against him. I think he would probably admit the same thing. The other one was someone who came on my earbuds the other day when I was running, which was Chance the Rapper. Do you have any thoughts on this? You know, I think

So you think that chance the rapper's career was derailed by the election of Trump? Yes. Wow, you really are spending a lot of time by yourself. Yes, no, actually, I've not been by myself in three weeks. But sometimes, you know that part in the first Star Wars where C3PO is like, if you won't be needing me, sir,

I'll power down for a while. Sometimes I do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With my family. Yeah, because I was listening to, a coloring book, which is just still a phenomenal album. And he's just like tap dancing over all these styles. And he's such a consummate showman.

And he's kind of like Fallon, you know, and he's telling his truth. And his truth, it can be fun and it can be sometimes kind of dorky and it's whatever. And then something, I just, I literally, I was listening. I'll just give you my full story here. I was running up a hill, shouts to Kate Bush. and smoke break came on from Coloring Book with him in future. It's a great track.

I was loving it. And as I was listening to it, the image of the two forests from Debs 5, one walking towards his family and one marching off an impossible grief came into my mind. So I don't know whether that speaks more about the way my brain is right now

with Chance the Rapper or specifically the way Debs is playing with my mind because it just felt like two roads diverged. I just feel like what chance is more of a in the coal mine of like what happens when you almost go too far outside of traditional like promotion and distribution models just right now. I'm not saying that ethically or whether or not he's like a visionary, but it just felt like after a certain point, like I wasn't really sure like is this a chance the rapper mixtape? Is this a chance

the rapper album? Is this an album that he made with his backing band that is not like officially a record of his? And it was, it's almost like, I mean, that happens with artists, like, where they have that moment. You and I were a huge guy to buy voices fans. They were so prolific. They've always been prolific. But in the window that we love them, their prolific nature was part of the appeal. And then it became overwhelming and we couldn't understand, like, which way was up. Now, Chance isn't that prolific, but I feel like Chance was like, he kind of almost walled himself off a little bit in that way, where he was like, I've kind of like set up my career so that it is entirely self-sustac.

but it felt like maybe he took a step back from being part of something larger. Does that make sense? See, I hear you and I disagree with it. I also wasn't prepared to talk about Chance the Rappers. But you're so good at podcasting, Chris. This is great. This is the version of the point of the podcast where you are just willingly taking the gun and pointing it at what you hope is not your heart and pulling the trigger. And it's working out great. I think that his celebrity is partly because of his ability to just not be limited to one thing. And so he could still sell out a show or host Saturday Night Live and the goodwill is all still there in his own personality and persona.

But there is a thing with artists where they're like, they're holding the conk and they've got it. Or they're holding the third rail, right? Yeah. And sometimes it's taken from you and sometimes you can get it back and sometimes you, whatever. And to go from the highs of that to the record he put out last year, which no one wants to talk about

because everyone likes him was really bad. I just found it really interesting. And maybe we could revisit this idea. It doesn't have to be, honestly, like going straight to the presidential election to Chance the Rappers' Dudd album, it's a stretch. I have only been with people under the age of six,

six and under today, so forgive me. But I do think the dev's idea of the two roads diverging in a moment and then what happens in those moments is a pretty rich construct for us to talk about culturally. I'm pretty sure. I mean, I don't know what Debs is about. It could be about Chance the rapper. It could be, right?

I want to get to our interview or my interview with Chris Mundy, the executive producer of Ozark, to talk a little bit about season three. It's a spoiler. I think it's a, I would call it a spoiler-free interview. At least if you haven't gotten a chance to finish season three, don't worry about it. We mentioned some stuff that happens. but it certainly isn't life-changing in terms of how you understand the show. So I definitely recommend that interview.

And Chris was really cool to give us his time today. I would say that Ozark Season 3 definitely does not start in like a chill way. That's my review. But I thought that you were looking for unchill shit because that's like why you were like 0-0-0 is actually like fine for me. You know, I didn't give it a fair shake because let me just paint the picture for you of my life in romper room quarantine, which is that because I still have work to do, I got a little furloughed time yesterday, Sunday to come here. I'm in my wife's office. It's like get a little work done. And I also thought maybe I would make my friend happy and check out Ozark during that time. And so the sunshine outside. a pandemic raging and I'm like on like I can hear my children like on scooters like just outside of you. You know what I mean? I was like this is a very tenuous moment. Yes. So in this moment, watching someone, again, hogtie living people to each other and then putting an explosive device

next to their face while we hear them whisper no kiero morere, which, for the non-Spanish speakers among us means I don't want to die. Uh-huh. It was a mismatch. That's all I'm saying. It was just a classic mood and time mismatch. I can only ask so much of you, so it's okay. It's okay.

I am in no way commenting on the quality of the show. No, I actually think that season three in some ways might be the best season. What it reminded me of was the thing that I really, really loved about Ozark season one and all the episodes I've seen is the commitment to the bit. What I mean is the show is so wholeheartedly what it is, and it never shies from the more insane choice, you know, in a way that is... Chris talked about that. He talked about how, because I asked him a lot about, you know,

one of the things that really drew me into the show in the first place was how Ozark never seemed to leave stuff for later. Right. Like, oh, we can try that some other year. Like, they seem to have cleared the whiteboard in the first episode. episode. And everything about the show, the reason the show has such a distinctive energy is that they keep thinking of new ways to sort of challenge these characters. And I think that the way in which specifically the Wendy character played by Laura Linney evolves over the course of this season is pretty stunning. People are going to be talking about it for a while. Awesome. Can I just say,

before we get into that, this is Monday, eighth episode of Briar Patch is on tonight. I'd love to talk about it with you guys a little bit on Thursday. This one and next weeks are, I mean, one is supposed to love all one's children equally. These are probably my favorite. Awesome. Jessica Lowry did a beautiful job directing it. It has the single, the moment that makes me laugh harder than any other moment in the season, thanks to Jay Ferguson. I just really wanted a dance party on the show, and we got one. And Alan Cummings by the Punch Bowl. So I think people are going to dig it. This is one of our most successful episodes. And now that we got Zoom up and running, hopefully we can do, we can get some Briar Patch Thursday guests back.

I would love to. I can tell you for a fact that the crew and cast are avail. Okay. So, I mean, I hope people are following Brian Garrity on Instagram because he's just doing home workout videos. Is he? Yeah, he's just like dry lifting water things, jugs of water. So everybody's doing great. I'm excited to hear this interview with Chris Mundy.

I'm excited for all of you and grateful to all of you for listening to us during this time. everybody be well. Let us know how you do with the 0-000-0 personality test. Yeah, because I want to keep this going, because I have a feeling there are going to be some more corkers to put to you next week. Let's hope not, though, for my sake. I hope that as this show goes on, you find less and less in common with my behavior.

I watch the show and I'm like, that's Chris. It's my guy. It was great to talk to you, man. Enjoy your pig's blood. Bye, buddy. I want to thank Chris Mundy so much for joining me today on the watch. Chris, obviously, is the executive producer behind Ozark and has been working on this show since its inception. Chris, thanks so much for joining The Watch today. Oh, thanks for having me.

It's nice to be here. So I want to get a little bit of biographical business out of the way first, because your trajectory, your career trajectory, is very near and dear to the Watch podcast's hearts because Andy and I, the person I usually do the podcast, we both come from music journalism backgrounds. And I know that you kind of got your start writing these incredible in-depth features for Stone back in like this sort of the mid-90s. And I remember reading some of these as I was going back today. How did you make the transition from journalism to TV writing in the first place? By sort of a happy accident, my wife was also a magazine writer and decided to go to, was right as we were getting married and decided to go to law school. And we were living in New York

and I was writing for Rolling Stone and I'd been there for 10 years and with no intention to ever leave the city or the magazine. And she ended up going to law school on the West Coast. She went to Stanford and we were just supposed to zip up to Palo Alto and then zip back to New York and I was still writing for the magazine. But I was sort of displaced and she was like, well, you know you'd like to do some of this other kind of writing, and I was a fiction writing major in college, and she's like, well, we're in California. Why don't you to start writing for TV?

And I was like, but we're in northern California, and I've never done it before. And I just kind of did it on a whim and mailed something off that I wrote kind of quickly and got my first job. And next thing you know, we haven't gone back to New York. It's been very strange, and I suddenly accidentally have a whole second career.

So that first job was that Chicago Hope? It was the final season, Chicago Hope. Yeah, with a guy named Henry Bramel, who was the showrunner, who was an amazing, amazing guy. Oh, yeah, he worked on homicide, right? He did. He ran homicide, and he'd been a instructor at the Idaho. We're a writer's workshop and a novelist and a short story writer. And he was, and he started out in TV sort of accidentally at about 40 on Northern Exposure. So he was a really, really great first person to kind of guide me into, like, what the job could be. And did you find that, you know, coming from a journalism background? Because I

wonder whether, going back to like the 1930s with people like Ben Hecht and there's this tradition of journalists becoming screenwriters, but I wonder whether there's just, there's good habits built up. I very rarely do people say journalists have good habits. You know, you're used to working collaboratively. You have to work with both with sources, but also with limited resources and with editors and you're used to deadlines. Did you find that the transition wasn't entirely foreign? It was weirdly equatable for tons of the reasons you just said, yeah, like you know how to hit a deadline.

You go out if you're doing a profile of someone, you've got scenes that you're watching, you've got to figure out what scenes you're going to use. You want to show, you don't want to tell. You're trying to, you know, you're not just relaying a series of information. You're trying to get some deeper meaning behind it and sort of trying to figure out what it's actually about

besides just the things that happened. And you write in these kind of like, series of scenes that illustrate a person. Certainly the kind of journalism I was doing, which was more like, you know, I'd be on the road with a band for a week, you know? So it was weirdly, it was a weirdly transferable skill, thank God. Yeah, I just, I really, I was going back and paging through some of the older profiles

and, you know, the Elliott Smith piece that you wrote in, I think it was 90, must have been, I can't remember eight or so. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, you know, the opening scene. seen is you guys are just at a bar probably in Williamsburg or somewhere and you're describing the kind of intersection of these different neighborhoods in the bar that the Elliott Smith has sort of cornered himself away and and it's just so evocative like right there you can kind of feel like

that that almost works as like interior Brooklyn bar that's exactly right and you're you know using that piece as an example I spent three or four days with them so then you're like filing through your brain being okay what what thing that we did is is best sorts of sets the scene. You know what I mean? It's a weirdly similar skill, you know. So, and I loved that job. And I love this job.

So, you know, you've worked on, since, since writing for that final season of Chicago, hope you've worked on all these different shows. You worked on network procedurals. You kind of, you worked on Lowerner's Sun and Helen Wheels at a time when I think we were kind of referring to it as prestige TV. And now we're kind of in this peak TV streaming era with Ozark. To your experience, how much is the day-to-day changed for you? I guess obviously you have different roles on different shows.

But have you noticed any functional changes on the day-to-day basis as the industry itself has changed so much? Not really. I mean, the biggest change for a lot of people, certainly for me, that did network TV at some point is just, you know, I was on criminal minds and there was one season we did 26. You know, we were almost always doing 22 or 24. So, and we'd start up, all the writers would start together on like June 1st, and you'd be filming by mid-July. And so on a show like Ozark, we're only doing 10, and we won't start shooting until about four months after we've all been together. You just say you have time to try to really build a layered story that it's just harder to do in network just because of the sheer demand of it. So that's the gigantic difference.

But in terms of besides that, the way a room works, the way a set works, no, it's all kind of the same. I mean, I love being on something like Netflix where you're not writing to any commercial breaks. Sure. You know, that's so much more liberating than, say, you know, whatever, swearing or violence or nudity or whatever. You can say, like, oh, yeah, you've freedom in that way.

But, like, but really not writing this sort of artificial stoppages and allowing the story to just be. the biggie. That's the thing that's really great. In the absence of having commercial breaks and the absence of knowing you have to fill out 20, the idea of writing 26 hours of television is almost inconceivable to me now in the course of just one season. But internally in the Ozark Writers' Room, what are some rules that you would feel comfortable sharing that, you know, that you guys have introduced to the specific world of the show itself? I'm always really fascinated to talk with writers about, oh, well, we have these set of rules, like, of what an

episode of our show can and can't do or shouldn't, shouldn't do. Do you have anything like that? No, it's funny. We've actually, we have a stated rule that's the opposite. Like, anytime we feel like it's something that we would never want to do something just because it's what we do. And so, you know, season one, we had a flashback episode that was 10 years before that was really important to our mythology in our mind, and we did it all, we did it out of chronological order. You know, we've always tried to, we'll do scenes with characters you've never even seen before on their own, which, you know, some might say isn't the wisest thing to do, but, you know, for us, if it works, it works. We really want to make sure we don't have a mold. And, you know,

we've had a little bit of magical realism. And, you know, Russ, you know, Wyatt's uncle showed up two different times as a dead person in season two. And just because we loved those scenes and we wanted to be able to do them. And we spent a lot of time with Mark Menchaca who plays Russ and having him play guitar. And we were like, oh, and Russ could play guitar in the scene too. Because Menchaka's amazing. So, you know, but we really want to make sure there's no, that we don't get into a pattern of saying like, oh, no, we can't do that. would we be surprised the average viewer to know how much not necessarily obviously biographical information but mannerisms or you know hobbies or just even just like abilities like playing guitar would

would seep into a show be it ozark or any other oh totally absolutely we found out too late that that uh that Trevor long who plays uh cade actually tap dances and we'd known that Cain would have taft danced. But yeah, that's the really great thing about TV is, is you all live together and like make this thing as you go. So like pieces of the real life person can seep into the character a little bit. Or you get to know those things better. And, you know, especially over time,

that's the amazing thing about, you know, doing a season three and hopefully doing a season four, you know, just like it just continues to grow and your knowledge of each other grows. Yeah. And I would imagine that even, like, I wonder if there are just like little things like, say, like costume choices that are inevitably influenced by, because there's something very, I find it very fascinating specifically that Marty's uniform for the most part has like not deviated at all. Jason's been in pretty much one pair of pants for three years. Yeah. That's right. And I think there could probably actually be a super cut at this point of him buttoning his shirts up to the second of last button. But I do feel like Wendy's out of like, like, costuming has changed a little bit over the three seasons as she's become more and more comfortable, I guess, is the only word I can think of. But as she finds her surroundings more

natural. I think that's a really good observation. Yeah. And as she kind of like, you know, we think of Wendy as kind of like weirdly coming back to herself in the Ozarks. You know, she came from Boone, North Carolina. She's sort of like cleaned up in Chicago. But now this is like a perfect melding of those two. And the wardrobe is kind of reflected that. Our wardrobe department's amazing. And so, you know, this is stuff they think about and they talk about and they talk about with me. They talk about with Jason and Laura and Julia and everyone. And there's a lot of thinking that goes into that and those kind of evolutions. So obviously I want to talk a bit about season three, but I also want to like just in case,

because it just came out on late last week for our listeners to still be able to get stuff out of this interview if they haven't seen the season yet or the whole season yet. One of the things that really immediately grabbed my attention when Ozark debuted those several years ago, was this idea of narrative compression that essentially, like, in the first episode of Ozark as a series, you could have squeezed out two seasons. You know, and that was, I think that you kind of just immediately realize that there are no observable speed limits in this show. Yeah.

How, as a writer, as somebody who's thinking both about the show, how, as a writer, as somebody who's thinking both about the short term and the long term creatively about the show. How do you know when to tap the brakes, if ever on this show? It's a really good question. We argue about it in the room a lot. And people always be like,

oh, I think this is more than one episode here. And I'll be like, oh, it kind of feels like it's one episode. But, you know, I think you know when to tap the brakes if it's just incident. We don't want things just to happen to happen. But if you can be combining character with action, you know, or event, then we're okay. Then that's in our sweet spot.

Or if that action really exists to drive to the reaction around it immediately afterwards, whether or not it's a Marty Wendy conversation or Ruth and Wyatt going through something, or then it's worthwhile, you know? So I think pretty quickly we found that rhythm. And we don't play a lot of mystery on this show. You know, a lot of... No, I know exactly what you mean by that. The best example is you could have spent a year

with the kids not knowing that their parents, what their parents were doing. But in episode two, Wendy just says, your dad's laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel. Right. We want to deal with what the ramifications of the things are, not play they like what someone doesn't know. Yeah, there's not a lot of when we'll ever.

find out something that the viewer already knows, which is, it's funny. Andy and I have been talking about that over the course of this year with a couple of different shows about what, we were actually talking about it with outsider. I don't know if you got a chance to watch. I'm assuming you watched O'SReyder just because of your relationship.

But we were talking about how interesting it was that at various points in outsider, the viewer knows more than Holly, the Cynthia Revo character, and how disorienting that can be at times. But Ozark is kind of the reverse of that, where I feel like the characters are really the tip of the spear. We're never ahead of them particularly.

Yeah, no, it's very much on purpose. It's very much just driving at like everything is out there and open. So now what are the human emotions reactions to that knowledge? Yeah, I was looking back in an interview you did, I believe in a variety where it was an interview you did with Peter Gold. And you said something really fascinating where you said, if you're making a decision based on, oh, this is a franchise of the TV show,

it's probably going to be a bad decision, but you're thinking like a business person then. You're not thinking like a writer. When you guys were making season one, was there a part of you that thought maybe that that would be the only season of Ozark? And how did it change once you realize, no, this is something people are pretty invested in.

And it needs to be sustainable. You know what? I actually, we just always thought it was going to keep going. I think you kind of have to. I mean, even if you're living in denial. But from the beginning, I just felt like, you know, obviously Jason's so good, both as an actor and a director. I remember saying when we found out Laura was going to do the show that she had agreed to play Wendy, like we came into the writer's room and I actually said to the writer was like, oh, my God, we got Laura Lennie.

Like, it's not okay for us to suck. Like, you know? And I didn't know Julia's work before this, but. immediately in seeing her, you knew how good she was. So, like, we just sort of felt like we needed to operate on the theory that we were going to get to keep going and we were going to be lucky enough to keep doing it. Sure. So that kind of stuff luckily never came into our brains.

It was always just like, of course, we're going forward. Who's the character who's surprised you the most over the last three seasons? I guess in terms of, if I had asked you, you know, the third week of season one writing, you know, where do you think Wyatt's going to be? be in a couple of seasons. Who do you think was the person who you've been most surprised by their arc? It's, you know, it's funny. It's not a, it's not a surprising answer, but I would say Wendy, just because, I mean, honestly, in season one, it, I mean, they've all evolved. We talk about the fact that the first time you see Ruth in season one, she's a maid at this little crappy motel.

Yeah. And when the first time you see her in season three, she's running a casino with Marty. So everyone's had an evolution. But, you know, Wendy's character was this kind of like woman from Naperville who was kind of, you know, probably on a few committees. And even when they first moved to the Ozarks, it was kind of, well, maybe I'll get a real estate license. Sure. And so we've just really tried to chart that and step her evolution out in ways that felt real. but the extent to which she sort of has come into her own, Laura said something really interesting early on in season one

that she feels like the interesting thing about the show is none of these characters know themselves very well. Sure. But Wendy's self-knowledge has come on a little stronger than some of the others, because it's like I said, it's just kind of this perfect combination of Boone, North Carolina, and Chicago in this other location.

And so I wouldn't have been able to say, season one that she was going to end up where she is. Whereas Ruth instantly in the room, Ruth was all our favorite character, this like 19-year-old girl in this world of sort of overly masculine men, but yet she was the most powerful and almost like this feral creature.

I mean, we just, we loved that character, and we knew, and especially once we were so lucky to have Julia be so, so good, we knew we were going to take her places. We didn't know where for sure, but we knew, like, you know, if we were smart, we'd take her places. So Wendy Evolution's a lot. Sorry, I'm the long answer, but that.

No, it's fascinating. It's, it's been really fun to have the Wendy thing just play out in kind of real time and yet look where we are now. Do you need Jason and other characters or other actors on the show to necessarily agree with Laura's view of that, or is that more of just a sort of her way of looking at it? Because I think one of my favorite things about the show is, regardless of how much the characters know about themselves, what the show is really about is we don't know anything about ourselves

until we're in situations like this. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I know. I actually think that, you know, season three was really built on this of differing points of view. And I would hope that half our people think one person's right and the other think the other person's right. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Because like coming out of season one, we had a real kind of physical cliffhanger because Dell had been killed and what the hell was going to happen. And really coming out of season two, it was very much an emotional cliffhanger of, oh my God, wait, who am I married to? And we built the season on that emotional cliffhanger. We tried to do, you know, I mean, to whatever success we had. And it's not an interesting story if they're not each right in a certain way. Oh, that's really interesting. So how do you balance that? Do you have like sort of checks and balances when you're writing about like making sure that even if somebody is losing an argument that their point is coming across in some ways?

I think so. I think so. Or at least if they're making a bad decision, you understand why they're making a bad decision because you know that character well enough. You know, I mean, these guys make a whole lot of bad decisions all the time. But at the same time, because we've now spent 30 hours with them, I think we understand them well enough to at least. hopefully if we've done our job pretty well, we at least understand where the decision came from, you know? Thematically, you know, I know that it sounded like when David Simon would sort of go into a new

season of the wire, he would always sort of think about like a big theme that would, whether it was the impossibility of progress or whatever. I mean, I guess that's the theme of the entire series. But, you know, he would kind of have these thesis statements at the beginning of seasons that the season would kind of revolve around. have a thematic North Star for each season. Do you think about this story in discrete chapters? We have one for the season and we put it up on the board in big old letters and the same way of like, you know, like a political campaign will put their thing up there.

Yeah. And then within each episode, we try to have that in each individual episode as well. Huh. Can you share with the theme, what you guys wrote down for the third season? The last year it just said safety equals expansion, safety equals a status quo. And then we had another, I'm trying to remember the exact wording about marriage and basically about equating marriage and capitalism. It can't work if there's a winner and a loser. But those like they stayed on, those first other ones stayed in. the board in my terrible handwriting for the whole year. Oh, that's it.

It's so fascinating. Because, like, I mean, the thing I've been loving about season three is the way in which, you know, whether it's, whether, you know, it's an idea of family, whether it's like by vows or by blood or out of a sense of loyalty, how vulnerable those connections are when you're trying to balance them with your individualism, basically. Yeah. No, and that's something we talked a lot about in season two as well. It's like one of the things that was big on our board in the same way for season two was intimacy equals danger.

And what do you do when the people close to you are posed the biggest threat to you just by the fact that they know what they know? What do you do when you're afraid that your children might do something stupid because children do stupid things, but it gets you killed? Right. know, there's a lot of really good stuff to play with in our world, you know. Did you feel like there was anything in this season, I guess maybe from the earlier part of the season just because in case folks having had a chance to finish it yet? But what was your favorite moment from the earlier part of season three to see come to life? It's a good question. There's always, there's a, I mean, there's different things.

Like there's a conversation on the lawn between Jason and Laura in episode one that really lays out everything we're talking about. That was really fun because they're both so good in it and it really kind of like staked out our season for us in a way that felt organic and not just like a writer

with a bunch of exposition just because they're so good. The fact that we actually had REO Speedwagon on that boat. Beware of like saying something in a writer's room because the next thing you know

we're like, wait, is this really happening? Are they actually going to do? it? Like, wait. So that was, I still can't quite believe that that happened. One of my favorite throwaway lines of the season is definitely when the REO Speedwagon tour manager is like, so you want us to launder money? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As if that's not the first time, Oreo Speedwagon had been asked to do that. I know, I know. They were really nice too, because at first they were like, their first reaction was like, oh, no, we don't want to

say that we're laundering through us. And then they came back and you're like, you know what? we're like, we're down for all of it. And I was like, God bless you guys. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. And I also, I just, I wanted to ask you about the, the, just the absolute blowout couples therapy scene with Marty Wendy and maybe the MVP of the season, Sue.

Oh my God, Sue. Yeah. Where did you find Sue? Sue, like, this woman, Mary Louise Burke, who's been like a Broadway staple forever. So our casting director, Alexa Fogle is just. Oh, Alexis's been on our show before. She's the legend. She's crazy.

She'd cast the wire to speak about the wire. But so Alexa, you know, brought her in a bunch of, there were like so many good sue choices, but she's so funny. But yeah, that scene, that's the other scene I probably would have mentioned as the thing getting to see come to life because that fight was always a big tent pole in our season. We knew we were going to do that. And we knew it was everything we'd built from the end of season. season two, we didn't want to have that fight right away. We wanted it to like simmer underneath

the tension and come out midseason. It's literally the start of episode six. So it's the first scene in the second half of the season. Yeah, that was like watching like an NBA all-star game or something where guys, people are just throwing each other alley-oops. Chris, thank you so much for joining the watch today. I'll let you go. And I really appreciate you taking some time out to talk to us.