The Watch - The ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 2 Premiere and the Debacle That Was ‘Dark Phoenix’ | The Watch

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

‘Big Little Lies’ is back for Season 2 (0:34). Meryl Streep seems to be just what the show needed (6:12), and we check in with the rest of the Monterey Five (14:01). Plus: How did Fox get ‘Dark Phoenix’ so wrong (25:00)? Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Amanda Dobbins and Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Game of Thrones on HBO. Game of Thrones has critics raving that the final season is, quote, the biggest show on TV, era-defining, and TV's greatest show of all time. For your Emmy consideration, an outstanding drama series, and all other categories, visit HBO.com slash FYC for more on Game of Thrones. I need sports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. I'm editor at the ringer.com, and joining me in the studio, she also doesn't trust short people. It's Amanda Dobbins. Hello. Man, okay, so Amanda's here. We're going to talk about Big Lowellies. She is the co-host of Big Little Live,

our after show for Twitter for Big Little Lies. It'd be weird if it was called Big Little Live, but it was actually about Thrones. That's true. I've almost said, like, talk the Thrones one and once just because I've heard you say it so many times. Also, frankly, like, learning to say Big Little Live instead of big little lies.

It's tough. I had to practice that alone in the shower at home. But there's so much to be done with the big little construction. Yes. There's literally no end of things that you could do. I told Juliet earlier today that I wanted to have a segment on the show

with another guy who's shorter than 5'9. I list it 5'9. If I'm being honest, that's not really what's going on with me. And have a segment called Big Little Guys. How was it? Big Little Guys respond to Merrill Streep's accusation in episode one.

Honestly, I was pretty intimidated. Okay. I was pretty intimidated by her directness. I want to talk to you about a couple of different things. So Big Little Lies obviously debuted on Sunday. You can catch Amanda and Mina Kimes after every East Coast airing. After the East Coast airing of Bigelow Lies on Sunday, Big Lill Live goes live on Twitter. I thought the first show was Dynamite.

Oh, thank you so much. You came in real hot. Well, there's only one way to do an after show. Yeah. But the thing is is that you really did identify something. that I think this show gets so right, which is after watching the Deadwood movie, which I love very much,

after watching the last season of Game of Thrones, which everybody had their ups and downs with, I've been thinking a lot about fan servers and the idea of like, you know, like, what do you really want from these things, especially when it's been so fully established what people's relationship to the characters are. And I thought you identified something specifically with Merrill

that was really, really smart, which is that like Merrill seems to know she's on Binglealai's, but is not sacrificing the performance to do it. Yeah, it's, she's in on the joke while also making the joke better, if you will. And something that's so interesting about fan service and a Merrill being on this show, I hesitate to say this like on the watch, so close after Game of Thrones, but this, this season two is going past the source material. Yeah.

The first season of Big Little Eyes was based on a novel by Leanne Moriarty. And one season one book, that's how it worked. And there is no sequel to Big Little Eyes as written by Leanne Moriarty. So it was originally supposed to be a limited series. And because it was successful and because it won a lot of Emmys, they decided to make another season. And so they were immediately deciding to go like beyond the book, beyond the chartered territories. And I know that in some cases recently that has not gone that well. But I think in this case, it's just brought like a level of intention to the show.

of we're doing this because we liked it the first time around, and we know what we liked about it, and we know what worked, and we know what fans want. And someone like Meryl Streep, who was not in the first season, is coming in as a fan, more or less. I mean, she's also coming in because she's Meryl Streep, and I'm sure they, like, paid her a lot. But she famously was like, I don't need to see the script.

Yeah. Like, I'm just down to be in big little eyes. Like, let's work it out. Right, because presumably she liked watching Rees Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoe Kravitz, like, hang out and kind of yell at each other. She wasn't like Adam Scott, that's why. I'm dying to work with Adam Scott. Maybe.

But it seems like she just wanted to be a part of the show and hang out with those women and get to do what they're doing. And so I think that that does inform her performance. Yeah. And I thought the thing that the first episode did really well is like, yes, there are some like slow-mo. Everybody gives each other a hug at the school dropping off and like we're all back together. but it did a really good job of not necessarily playing into weird like we need to give you this because this is what you want and also I thought that there was some nice character development

there was some nice like people had obviously changed between what's the guess here is for it's like another is it the summer yes I think so the gala that was the finale of season one where things went quite wrong and then Alexander Scars guard character died was I believe at the end of the school year And then this is, and that was first grade. And so they're starting second grade. Not to get too technical here, but do you think it's, we're talking, this is summer 18?

When they filmed it or when it's supposed to be. Just had a hard time imagining Zoe Kravitz spending the whole summer in Tahoe with all the fires, you know, because somebody who had to go to, we went to Tahoe. It was kind of like, it was pretty smoky over there. I mean, it could be summer 18. I think Zoe Kravitz spending the whole summer in Tahoe after she's been complicit in a crime and they're covering it up. and that no one thought to check on her at all, was also kind of strategically a questionable choice. Sure.

summary 18 is fine with me. The main noticeable aspect of, like, time in the episode for me was how quickly everyone's hair grew. Oh, yeah. And you can also see, the kids were a bit older than three months, which makes a lot of sense. That's always going to be a hard thing. Yeah, because this show aired in February 2017. So it's like almost two years since we saw them in first grade, another in second grade. It's like, it requires a leap of faith. Sure. But I think they have nice haircuts in everyone. is so. Zicky has a cool hair. He's going to be the brand stark of this whole thing, where he's going to be, like, he just like gets pretty, like really old. Yeah. And that is like,

I'm actually the mayor of Monterey. Right. And also young Sheldon. Yeah, that's right. Let's talk a little bit about Merrill. So obviously, she is the thing that changes the entire dynamic of the show.

She's both brings a very different energy. You know, like when she first started talking, I was like, so she wearing prosthetic teeth probably? Yes, they are fake teeth. I was like, man, man, that's a choice. But it's a good choice. It really does work. And I like how confrontational her appearance and her performance is with the established sort of codes of conduct among the characters on the show.

Where it's just like she's so almost like lacks the social graces that these people think they have even though they don't have a lot of social graces. Yes. And she is really, she suspects the social graces as well. So she has an audience stand in sort of in the sense that she immediately confronts. Madeline and immediately is also like something is a foot here. Like I don't believe what you told me. Sure. Which is necessary because it was totally implausible the ending of the first season, which is

again, why I'm really glad they have a second season because he dies and it seems like they all agree to keep the secret and then they're just like frolicing on a beach. Yeah, right. And that's it. And so she is serving that function of like, are we sure? Mm-hmm. I also credit David Kelly for writing the short people theory. But and for being so difficult and gross and kind of a satire of a certain type of helicopter mom or indulgent mom and a suburban experience.

And also a mother-in-law, I mean, as a mother-in-law send up, this is like truly everyone's worst nightmare. Uh-huh. So she's both serving an important plot point and just really, like really a pain in everyone's ass instantly. Yes. and it does a couple of things that were like, I thought very, very like on the nose. Like when she confronts the kids, when they're flipping out in the back seat

and she's just like, you know, you need to respect your mother. That's why the sun shines on her. And then obviously the dinner scene, which had sort of echoes of, I think it's the, I don't think it's the pilot, but really early in six feet under,

there's like the Italian grief thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I thought that that Merrill thing about like, is my grief too loud for you? was kind of like reminding me of that. But that's just such a perfect, like you wouldn't even be able, that has to be drawn from some experience because you wouldn't be able to make that up.

No, it's true. It also, her performance is so quiet throughout the rest of the episode, like actually literally quiet. She speaks in a low volume and I'm a huge Devil Wars Protestant, so I mentioned it in the show last night. But it reminds me a lot of the kind of low menace performance that she does in that, which is like power by making people draw into you. She said she based that performance on Clint Eastwood, by the way, which is...

The Devil Wars Prada one? Yes. Yeah. Clint Eastwood also famously, the mayor of Carmel, which is next door to Monterey. It's all coming together for me, the extended Merrill universe. But it also makes that scream so much funnier because she really just is at a low volume throughout the episode. And then, like, an astonishingly loud, like dog, high-pitched level scream.

Yeah. Amazing. And in instant meme, it's already, like, people are already... putting the S-Star-is-born Gaga wailing into it. Yes. Which they had to know was coming. That's how the internet works. And in a way, I think it's very smart because they are stocking the episode with things

that are going to be internet-friendly. But it was crucial because I think that if you would just kept the same Monterey 5 and you had just done, you know, Reese does something where she oversteps her boundaries or Rana does something where she's wound up too tight or Zoe Kravitz like makes kombucha or whatever, it would have been fine. But, like, Merrill adds not only dramatic tension, which is what they absolutely probably were searching around in the dark for. And I don't think they could have just done it with Scars Guard ghost the entire time of

like I'm just sort of haunted by all of this. They needed like a antagonist to come in and do that. And it was sort of an ingenious way of slipping it in there. I completely agree. Here's my question for you. And we talked a bit about this on the preview show. But what does Merrill do? Does she break good?

Does she kill someone? Like what's the, where do you think it's going to go? And I have no idea. I have only seen the first. episode, so I'm not spoiling anything. But, you know, there is a rule in movies, and I think now a TV shows, but someone of Meryl Streep's caliber only agrees to take a role if they get to do something fun. I think that ultimately, at the end, it will probably wind up where the first season wound up,

which is everybody as friends, but not before a lot of drama. Yeah. I think ultimately, like, she has to be confronted by the reality of what her son was, and she will come to accept that. That seems like where this would go, unless it's just like your goddamn right, he's like this. I made him that way. You should have been thankful for everything he gave you. Yeah, I saw some speculation today that also maybe she dies. Oh. Which you could see, I think Meryl Streep would play that scene well, you know? Sure. Sure. I don't know. I just think you're right that she's such a necessary antagonist and they could not have done this season without her. And in many

ways, like there was a second season so they could have Meryl Streep on it, which is, I think, like the best TV decision-making ever in history. They could have done a second season that's just Reese running around selling houses. Like, they could have gotten away with an extension of the vibes from the first season, but there wasn't it, there wouldn't be no drama to that. Yes.

And so that's exactly right. I think that Meryl means like a heightened amount of drama. I think this will probably be a bit more of soap opera-e of a season than last season. I'm okay with that. Oh, yeah. I mean, the thing is, what's funny is like we've, I was mentioning Game of Thrones and Deadwood

and obviously those two shows are completely different and made under much different circumstances so I've been no way I mean this as a critique but you can feel the confidence with which big little lies was made like you can it was even telling to me that it was what 44 minutes? I think it was like 40 41 like so in and out

like they didn't have to waste a lot of time they knew exactly what they were doing they already have the setting they already have all the locations they already have all the gestures that they're going to make. And it's so economical in that way. Like, it probably could have been even shorter. But I thought that, you're right. Like, the way they'll have, like, not just B plots, but D and E plots, like, where, like, what Abigail decides to do. And typically, I think what we have is, like,

a little bit of a, like, well, how does that all tie together? How will those all? But I don't think that stuff's, I think that's just, like, interesting shit to watch on Sunday night is, does Abigail want to go to college or not? It's my favorite type of TV, which is just like, it's meant to enjoyed. Yes. And I think it has ideas and it's really well made. This season is directed by Andrea Aril. And it's still written by David E. Kelly. And it has possibly the most Oscar winners per TV show. Oh, I would imagine. I think. Or like Oscar wins if you're counting all of them. So I don't mean to undermine it when I say it's pleasurable. I think that it's doing everything that it does like extremely well. But you're right that there isn't that burden of either storytelling or

outside forces or even just are we going to make the finest television show ever made? It's like, we all like to do in this and we're going to do it again. Yeah, and it doesn't seem like, I think that they are doing a good job of cross-stitching different relationships where they're like showing, showing Adam Scott interacting with a variety of different people and they're showing. Yeah, you know, like even like having Shailene off at the Monterey Aquarium, which is also like just a perfect place to put Shailene Woodley anyway. Yes. It's just like... Explaining how the octopus is made and then kill each other. Definitely have this haircut and tell me about disguising yourself as a predator.

That guy who's the surfer dude who also works at the aquarium, he was on Big Love, right? Yes. Julia Lemon was really excited about that. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about Abigail. So Catherine Newton, she's on the society, so I've spent a lot of time with Catherine Newton 10 hours with her this year already. She really comes with like, I'm listening to Late Period Portis Head on my laptop and making these life decisions. Really good foil for Maddie, though. Yeah, I don't know who's right in that argument,

which is why you know that it's good. And we, like, we talked about this on the show, and we were actually arguing each side. And I was supposed to argue Madeline's side because I love Reese Wethers been more than anything else in the world. And Mina Kimes was arguing Abigail. But then by the end, I was kind of arguing Abigail side because they both make some valid points. Sure. I think it's important to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you in this life, including college. Yeah. I think also that homeless people are important and you shouldn't like yell about them at the top of your lungs.

Yes. Reese Wethers. Well, Madeline. Reese Wetherspoon wouldn't do that. It's a really good mother daughter story. Yeah. You know? And I have maybe not been in that particular fight, but I've been in so many like them.

And I think anyone with a parent has somewhere or another. I like how much Madeline has like is gripping the wheel tight. very literally in her road rage moments. But that's like a really excellent way to spend your time is just to watch different people sort of chip away from her level of control that she has over everything. Yes. The Andrew Arnold thing, you mentioned, I just bring it up.

I honestly, I want to have like a more constructive thing to say about it, but it seemed relatively seamless. In fact, I was kind of happy not to have as many Jean-Marg valet cutaways to sand footprints, although there were a few in there. There were a few. I mean, running as a way to deal with. with grief and unresolved issues is like the major theme of this movie. And I love this show.

I'm sorry. And it's like last season it was Shailene Woodley. And this episode one, there's Bonnie running through the forest, trying to end everyone's staring out at the ocean. In their defense, it's a very beautiful ocean. It is. I do want to say I'm not wild about Bonnie's gait. I think that that you have some like technical notes for her.

Bonnie does a lot of like high motor. Like I just don't feel like she knows what to do with her arms. And I have no doubt that that's because she's like sort of running. running on a decline in the forest, so she's probably like embracing myself. Right, yeah, you've got to put the arms out like wings to kind of. Yeah, but I feel like even in the time between when she runs up on Scars Guard in the first season to push him and now in the Redwood's jogging scene, something happened in Tahoe to change her, her running style. And I'm worried for her knees. Yeah.

I'm concerned about the times she's putting up. Like, I think we could get her a better, a better time in the three mile or whatever she's doing. It seems like she's moving pretty quickly, though. Sure, yeah. Here's one thing I'm going to say, though Merrill Street did not point it out in last night's episode, Zoe Kravitz, also a shorter person. Yeah. So we don't really know what her balance and her- So the only trustworthy people here are durn, right?

Is Shealien supposed to be normal height? I think she leans probably taller. And Nicole Kimman's obviously quite tall. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see whether Merrill Street or Mary Louise, as she is known on the show, actually holds to that theory. while confronting her own daughter-in-law. Yeah. But, yeah, that, the short women thing is the funniest thing that's happened on TV all year.

The relationship between this show and what, just to circle back to fans or just to wrap it up, though, I thought that was best exemplified with Reese starting to sell houses. I honestly couldn't believe that I didn't write that. And I don't mean to take credit for David E. Kelly is a TV genius, and I'm just a person who watches TV, like occasionally. Yes. So I don't mean that anyway, but it's just an understanding. understanding what I am interested in as a person who loves this show enough to do an after show about it and making that happen.

I was shocked. I guess I don't regularly receive fan service and I was like, wow, is this what it feels like? Is this what you guys feel like all the time when they just put superheroes on the movie screen? No, it's like, for me it's more like when they announce they're going to make Triple Frontier. I'm like, wow, someone's been reading my dream journal. I think you felt that while we were watching Triple Frontier. Yeah, yeah, there was definitely moments. You were just like eating a twicks and being like Metallica, yes.

And you shared your twigs with me So that was really nice We saw it together Yes, I did My favorite bit is just like Madeline's AirPods etiquette I was so mad about this

Yeah And he can't do that Being like I'm on the phone Even but like I guess she's doing so well In Monterey That she can just afford to like

alienate her customers So I actually don't think she's sold a single house Because number one I don't Because she just started this over the summer, and it takes a while to sell houses. And she also says when she's in the real estate office with Merrill that they also handle rentals. Yes. So I kind of think that.

Her and Oren. Yes, Oren. Yes. So knowing what I know about her realtor skills at the showing. And also the staging in that apartment, it was not what it should be. It's pretty spare. Yes. I mean, which I guess for a rental, that would be fine.

But if you're, if it's a Ocean View home in Monterey, that's on the market for sale? It doesn't need to look like a bank robber's house. It would have furniture in it. Yeah. Yeah. But so knowing what I know about her skills and also just the timeline, I do not think that she's selling houses like hotcakes. I think that that was part of her first day of school. Like I did it. I'm a successful career woman too now. Yeah. She's showing off her plumage. She's just like, check out what I've been up to. Yes. Do you think that this show will ultimately be about not a toning, but like what do you? What do you? You know, what you think is like the, because I think that like when you watch a lot of stories, you're like,

this is what needs to happen because dramatically and sort of emotionally it will make sense for there to be some sort of reckoning. Obviously there's like the concern that Bonnie is going to go to the cops. There's still the detective who Laura Dern had a great line about the detective, but the detective they seem to think is not on the case. She knows Susie Burke at IBM. Yes, is quite still on the case. And then there's Merrill investigating this. Do you think? I think that there is a perspective as somebody who's read Leanne Moriarty and is now only guessing what involvement she had in plotting out the second season. What is in the Leanne Moriarty universe, like usually the conclusion of something like this? Is it somebody gets, is there justice?

Is it kind of like more of a, okay, this is what happened and we're kind of reckoning with it? Bad things don't, I mean, bad things happen in Leanne Moriarty novels, and then there is always resolution. So it is much closer to season one. I think the issue with the season one resolution is that it just happened very quickly, like quite literally in the span of 10 minutes. There's usually an epilogue. I love Lian Morarity, I think that her novels are just like very smart social observation about, they're all set in Australia. It's just FYI. But they are still like immensely readable, traditional novels that have resolution.

So it's typically an epilogue like a year later and like so-and-so is doing this. And I think they will have gotten away with it. So for season two, knowing what I knew about Leon Moriarty, I think that there's going to be some other shoot-a-drop, whether it's another death or some other big revelation, there's going to be, I don't think it would be all about resolution and healing. Yeah. Just because she has an appreciation for plot and has an appreciation for, like, characters doing things. You can tell that, too, because, like, they're just really good at, they've made this world in which they all. have to meet face to face because you don't want to put it in Gmail. Right.

And like all that stuff that Bonnie's like, it didn't seem like you cared about me when I was in Tahoe. And she's like, I'm not going to email you about a conspiracy to like cover up a federal crime. I like that they're always in parked cars or going to each other's houses. It's old school TV stuff, but they've created a world in which that is a really fun reality. Right. I think I was also really surprised after the first episode. I assumed that season two would be about tying up all the loose ends of season one.

and particularly Celeste and Jane, who are characters who have gone through a lot, kind of working through their trauma. And like I said, you know, lots of therapy scenes and kind of, because parts of season one were really heavy and dealt with like really serious issues. And I kind of assumed because I as a viewer knew that, that all the characters would know that and this season two would just be like about working through things. And it's really interesting that they are all in the denial phase. Yeah.

So I realized that season two might be about like what resolution means to that. and also to characters and to a TV show, which I think is an interesting pursuit. It super is. Okay, so we'll try not to take too much advantage of your time, but have you back sometime during this season to talk more about it. You can watch Amanda and Mina on Big Little Live after the East Coast airing of Big Little Lies on Twitter.

Nailed it. Thanks. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you, Chris. Thanks again to Amanda Dobbins for talking to me about Big Little Lies. You can watch her on Big Little Live on Twitter after the East Coast airing of Big Little Lies on Sundays. I'm going to take a quick break, and when I come back, Jason Concepcion on X-Men Dark Phoenix and the debacle that it was.

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And now with my protein-packed scramble, life's just that much better. Don't wait for the weekend to add a little hot, hearty breakfast love to your a.m. It's time to run with your arms wide open to the egg aisle and take breakfast back with just crack an egg. All right, joining me now on the phone is Jason Concepcion. Obviously, I'd love to have Jason in the studio, but he has his own version of the legacy virus. So he was nice enough to stay separate from me and Kaya today. but a little cold can't stop Jason from throwing more cold water on the X-Men franchise

I went on the big picture and talked about this with Sean last week but then this weekend actually it was almost I can't remember the last time I've seen people jump ship on a movie publicly this fast so not only was the Rotten Tomato Score just absolute dog shit and it made much less than expected in his stance to lose upwards of, I think, $100 million at least. But Sunday, we had a piece in deadline about the box office returns, and then Boris Kitt today in the Hollywood Reporter wrote a piece.

The headline, Jason, for this piece, quote, We were wrong. We were wrong. You hate to see it. If you're going to spend $350 million on a movie, the thing you don't want on a Monday is for the Hollywood trades to write a piece about you. The quote, we were wrong. were they wrong? You saw Dark Phoenix. What was your take?

I mean, my take is, from reading these pieces, as first of all, there were certain structural issues that made it very difficult for this movie, I think, made it more difficult than it should have been for this movie to succeed. The Disney Fox merger made it so this movie was like a kind of weird orphan. Yeah. The decision to combine what should have been two scripts into one script and one movie midway through the production process made it strange. The fact that they couldn't just, they really,

and you could tell this from watching the movie, the fact that they really didn't have any idea how it was supposed to end until they tested, like, an ending where Gene Gray dies. Yeah. This is a movie where there are a race of alien by Jessica Chastain. Yep.

And I really have no idea what they, want. Why are they here? Right. Why are they trying to kill Jean Grey or help her? But also, their arrival on the scene just being like they pick the most bougie outdoors, like furnished by anthropology barbecue in the world and just jump Jessica Chastain's dinner party and inhabit her body and her ability. By the way, spoilers if you haven't seen Dark Phoenix, but it sounds like if you were going to see

you probably already saw it, and I'll listen to this podcast. And if you're not, I hope you enjoy it anyway. Jessica Chastain's main powers that she's able to crush people's stomachs. So we've got this advanced alien race. They travel light years across the galaxy after this cosmic force, which, you know, if people are familiar with the comics, we'll know as the Phoenix Force. And then when they get to Earth, all they can do is just like punch people and grab their

stomachs like that. Yes. That's the advanced weaponry of this race? Yeah. Okay. What a strange film. It's symbolic, though, of a larger problem that I think you're getting at, which is that there are traces of the Dark Phoenix saga that we know and love from the comic books in the movie.

Like, they are like, oh, yeah, right. So this is supposed to be this weird power dynamic between Gene and Charles Xavier. And, you know, we've got a little bit of her love story with Cyclone. we've got a little bit of her being basically gaslit by some villains into thinking that like her powers are actually too great for the restrictions that the X-Men put on them and that she could be the most powerful mutant of them all and she gets kind of seduced into this becoming a villain herself to some extent. There's little bits and pieces of that in this movie. but it's just sort of fascinating that in 2019 you can still see a major studio

get scared of its own shadowed like that and then be like, no, no, no, no, no, we need to make this way more about fights. You know, it's interesting because I think one of the things that really that Marvel kind of figured out when they locked their formula in was a way to stay

true to what the essence of their characters were to just kind of not be afraid of actors onto two, to audiences that maybe you weren't super versed in that lore, to not be afraid of colorful costumes, et cetera. And I think strangely like Fox learned like the wrong lessons of that, which was to like, okay, well, let's put the aliens in it. And Gene Gray, you know, encounters the Phoenix Force

when they go up in a space shuttle up in a space. I don't think that that necessarily is the right way to do it. I think also the fact that you're talking about, like, how many timelines do the X-Men franchise? I mean, Sean and I tried to kind of break it down, but, yeah, I mean, they definitely had a reset movie with Days of Future Past that wiped away the original three movies with Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. But still, like, didn't really make anything of note really from that, the ashes of that, like, that reset. They just made Apocalypse, which was also played by reshoots and is one of the campiest stupidest movies ever. And then you see what happened, Dark Phoenix, which in some ways isn't even campy enough to be like a bad good movie or a good bad movie. It's just kind of drab.

It's so cheerless. Yeah. It's so grim. You know, I think this really is a franchise and desperate need of a reboot. I keep thinking of like when the Avengers, or when rather the MCU movies kicked off with Iron Man. They pulled a lot of that DNA from the Ultimate Marvel line, which was like a relaunch of Avengers, X-Men, and various other of Spider-Man.

And so can you just, for people who don't know, can you explain a little bit about what happened there or what that was? Sure, it was like a parallel line of comics called the Ultimate Universe. And they basically took their most popular characters, rebooted them for their early aughts when the line launched. And you know, you just get to, you get to update the characters, you get to kind of cast off a lot of the multi-timeline baggage. You get to start fresh, and they got to do that.

I think that's kind of the end. The Avengers movies pull a lot of their DNA from that. I think X-Men could really stand for that. And I think one of the other things is like, you know, like a core, one of the things I loved about the X-Men, They were my favorite comic book team. And why they spoke to me so, you know, so strongly was, you know, the metaphor, the core metaphor of the X-Men is like that diversity. The X-Men are, you know, the government is hunting them.

People don't like them because of who they are. And I think that that is a theme that is just as relevant as ever, but also, like much more complex to really pull off now, I think. Right. I think about some of the storylines that has happened in the last 10 years where it's like, you can really look at some of Magneto's points now and be like, actually he's kind of right. Yeah. Like the Sentinels were a government program. You know what I mean?

Like when he's like, Charles, why are you trying to fit in with these people? When you're trying to prove yourself to the humans who are like literally hunting you, they sent a giant sentinel to Genosha and killed like 20 million mutants and the Avengers never came. Nobody came to help. Why are you trying to prove yourself to these people? That's essentially right. And I think that's a much more complex kind of thing to pull off now. Yeah.

And I think that that's something that the various resets that this franchise has had without ever stopping down. And honestly, without, I mean, you can see it in the Hollywood Reporter. piece where, you know, this is a franchise that's been played. And initially, you know, it was run by Brian Singer, who was sort of agnostic about the comics, banned them from the set, wanted it to feel completely different, which, you know, you could make the argument that the first two movies are very, very good, so maybe he had a point there. But as superhero films became a larger and larger and now dominant part of pop culture, to not

really fully engaged with that was obviously a mistake. The behind the scenes people working on it, there is a little bit of a revolving door, but you have a lot of Simon Kinberg. Lauren Schuller Donner worked up to a point, although she tweeted this weekend, like, don't give me any your condolences. Like, I haven't worked on a next-man movie. That was crazy. That's wild. Like, Lauren Shuler Donner is not like some guy who works at barstool. Like, she pop, her popping off is a pretty significant disavowal of this whole thing. Tweeted and deleted. Yeah. And then you've got you know, basically like them letting everybody know, like, yeah, you know, Kimberg wrote two movies here and they made them make it into one. And they moved this crucial move off of the February release date that they really wanted.

But they gave that to Elita Battle Angel because they didn't want to piss off James Cameron. And I think that you can kind of sense that Fox knew that this title was going to become part of the MCU and that there was maybe not as much in it for them to keep it propped up. But what's wild is like you watch Phoenix and you're like, oh man, this is obviously such like a contractual obligation for everybody involved. But their contracts were up after Apocalypse. Fastbender, McAvoy, and Lawrence came back because they wanted to make this movie. It's wild. Well, I mean, you know, like the million dollar, the multi-million dollar paychecks are probably good too. It is honestly, it's crazy.

And the thing about like watching this movie and watching really X-Men movies since first class, is so good, is that there's never the feeling that they're building towards another movie in a concrete way other than the phoenix, the spoiler, of the Phoenix, for the sky, you know, as the camera pans up. That's the only kind of inkling you get that, oh, well, maybe we'll make a sequel. Whereas the Marvel movies, you always feel like we're building towards the next movie, whatever the next movie is. The solo movie is building towards the team up movie, which is building towards springing some other character out forward.

And these movies, it just kind of feels like, oh, if it works, we'll make another one. Yeah. But we're kind of scared. We don't know. Yeah, and I think that, you know, we talked a lot during Thrones over the years, really.

You know, George Martin wrote that book with an eye towards it being unadaptable. And, you know, we don't need to relitigate the last season of Thrones by any means, but I think Benny Off and Weiss, for the most part, proved him wrong.

You know, I mean, for the majority of that series, they showed that, like, look, yeah, you may have to make some tough choices. There may be some things that fans of the books really want to see that we're just not going to include, but for the most part, getting to see the Red Wedding or getting to see what happens in Winds of Winter

will make up for no Lady Stoneheart or no Young Griff or whatever. The X-Men, to me, though, that's like when I was rereading a couple of lines over the last few days and leading up to going to see the movie and in the aftermath of seeing the movie. It was reading like Executioner's Song

and Age of Apocalypse. Yeah, hell yeah. Whatever the one that starts out with the Joss Whedon one where it's the woman with like the giant metal head, I can't remember what that line is. And it's like, I think it's like a sentinel-based thing. But there are so many of these storylines that are,

they seem, they seem like they could only ever happen in comic books. And we look at comic books now as like, look, this is just a platform. like you know, these are just like a way station until you get to the big screen or to the small screen. But there are certain things that happen in comic books that kind of can't be translated to screen.

I mean, I agree with that, and I disagree with that. And I agree with that in the sense that stuff that happens in comics, and particularly X-Men comics. It's just so wild. Like, you know, like the Dark Phoenix saga climaxes with a intergalactic battle between like these like and the X-Men in the blue area of the moon. You know what I mean?

In a battle for honor, right? Like, isn't it like this weird? Like, it's almost like the mountain and the viper, like, where they're like trial by combat and whoever wins on the moon is going to, like, win the soul of Gene Gray. And it's so, so weird. On the other hand, like, the MCU just pulled off like a massive multi- timeline, multi-galactic battle with Earth Heroes versus Thanos that honestly is the most comic

book thing I've ever seen on the screen. Yeah. I really think what it is, is you've got to just plug into what the essence of like the characters and the team are. And to me like the X-Men are young, they're in school. You know, they're barely, and the leaders of them are barely out of school. And what comes with that? They don't follow rules well. horny. Like, that's a thing that's never really been translated, maybe first class a little bit, never really translated to the screen. Like, and what I think made the X-Men title so thrilling, like, when I was reading them in middle school and stuff, is, like, these are kids with, like, hormones and they're horny, and that, like, comes out in weird fights and tensions and, like,

love triangles. And then when they go into battle, they're, like, really not that well-oiled of a team, but somehow they eke it out because of like the fact that they're, they have a really deep friendship and familial bonds with each other. Like when Gene Gray is like, I have to protect my family now at the end of that movie, that's supposed to be like a hammer line. And it's like I did nothing. It did nothing.

This probably needed to be at least two movies if not a trilogy. You can see in the Marvel thing. And the other thing that I think the X-Men movies have always gotten wrong. and this is again, speaks to the perhaps lack of a Kevin Feige type figure overseeing. I mean, I know Kimberg is the architect of these movies,

but without knowing like, hey, we're going to be making these movies in 2025. So we are of a place we're getting to. We know that we've got X amount of years with these actors because they're signed up for a certain amount of movies

and they're going to be within the age realm of what these characters can be. You kind of had like a problem with that with Patrick Stewart and E. You change that now, but they couldn't get rid of Jackman because he was too damn popular and he wanted to make the logo movie. So he's sort of hanging

around. You have Days of Future Pass. But one of the things that really struck me as I was rewatching these movies and it happened again in Dark Phoenix and you just never see Marvel really make these mistakes is you're never confused as to who these characters are. Like there are lots of people in the X-Men movies where you're like, is that supposed to be Richter? Is that supposed to be like Sunspot or Jubilee? But they're only on screen for five seconds and nobody ever says their name. Yeah, they don't waste your time with that. But in the Marvel movies, like you know every single person from Mbaku up to Tony Stark. If you're on screen in a Marvel movie, there's a reason for it.

And if you're just a red shirt, if you're just a Chattari warrior, nobody worries about you. You know what I mean? I 100% know what you mean. And that's also kind of a thing that's been kind of a theme of the X-Men movies since the Sanger Days where they get these shots of young mutants running through the halls of Xavier's Academy, be like, oh, is that, that's Toad or something. Yeah, but the Marvel movies don't do that. If they're going to introduce the character,

then you're going to get time with that character. Otherwise, they're not going to waste your time with that. And it makes them for a much more lean experience. I don't think it's a spoiler at all to say that the dazzlers in this movie for five seconds. Yeah. And it's like, okay, great. That doesn't really add to my experience of the movie other than to say, okay, you guys know who Dazzler is.

Congratulations. Speaking of the Marvel thing, You've got new mutants is in a shelf somewhere in a in a in a fox and like they're going to try and fix that. Who knows if it ever comes out? There's even been rumors that they might dump that on Hulu. Like there's been all sorts of stuff. I think they're reshooting it now.

I'm not sure. But, you know, we are all presuming that within, I would guess, five, six years, the X-Men are going to show up in the MCU movies. And that the, they will, they could arguably take over for say guardians as the next kind of group of the X, of the Marvel universe. Now my question to you is with all the things that the singer movies got right or wrong and that the

Vaughn movie got right or wrong and that the Kinberg movies since then have gotten right wrong, are we sure that Marvel is going to be the right place for that because exactly what you're talking about with the horniness I would also mention the X-Men are rarely getting along. Like Marvel made one movie about them not getting along like Civil War but like the X-Men are always like you stole my girlfriend or you have a bad idea about how to run the mutant race or I'm actually partial to Magneto

but you captured me and made me work for you there's lots of different like groups underneath the X-Men like X-Factor and X-Force that have different allegiances. Do you think that the MCU is eventually going to be able to assimilate the X-Men and if they do do you think that something will be lost in translation? I think that some of the rough edges, the thing that gives me hope about it, weirdly, and the way that Marvel was the...

Yeah. The fact that they were able to do that, I think, gives... You know, because the thing about the X-Men is, as Sean put it in the big picture, and during your conversation, is they're kind of punk rock. Yeah. You know, it's like, the Avengers are, like, the Beatles to spin this metaphor out. like, you know, they're squeaky clean boy scouts,

and the X-Men are like creatures. Yeah. They are, the Avengers are like billionaires and gods and geniuses, and the X-Men are like freaks. They're like, we're outcast of society. Runaways, orphans, parents didn't want them, parents tried to

kill them, like all kinds of stuff like that. Wolverine is basically the Frankenstein monster, yeah. So I think that there's a really interesting, there's a really interesting dynamic to be had, with this group of heroes that are also kind of anti the structure that is that is kind of embodied by the Avengers. I think that that would be really interesting if they can pull it off.

You know, like these are kind of like two groups that really, though they're both heroes and interested in helping people and saving the world, really wouldn't necessarily get along because, you know, the various weaponries and android and things that are used to hunt the X-Men and the mutants can always be traced back to... So it's just, it could be, I think it could be super interesting if they can pull that dynamic off of, like, this more scruffy team to give you contrast to the squeaky clean kind of like good guy thing that the Avengers give you. I think that would be so cool if they can pull it off. I think it would be hard, but I think it would be incredibly cool.

No, I think you're right. It's going to be fascinating to see how big the Disney tent gets over the years and whether or not they loosen up some strictures where it comes to what characters can do. I mean, I think even today, like, you can't have a Disney character that smokes, which is fair enough. I guess I understand that. but a Wolverine that doesn't smoke a cigar

is kind of hard to imagine. Do you know what I mean? It's like a, it's totally a part of his character. So the idea of them kind of mixing into this very quippy, everything's cool, everybody looks good, everybody's pretty happy about who they've wound up becoming in their life world of the MCU where you've got these like bronze gods

versus like I'm a killing machine whose claws are basically like arthritis, you know? Right, yeah. And that everything about me, like, Cyclops isn't cool. Cyclops actually can't control the fact that his eyes bleed lasers. Right, and Wolverine's like, but my adamantium claws were actually created by a guy who was, like, kicked out of Tony Stark's dad's, like, laboratory. You know, like, it's all connected in that way. I do think that they're, I think that they're, I could make a prediction.

I think the way they introduced the mutants is basically like the Avengers just didn't know about them. There's no psychic characters really in Marvel, the MCU. There's no like Charles Xavier type character. So I think they could just say, oh, Xavier's just been like hiding all these people.

And now they've kind of gone, they've gone from underground to mainstream. That's pretty interesting. The thing that makes me so excited is just the idea of treating those characters over the course of like 10 years of movies. I mean, if they can get the casting rate, if they can find the right Shepard, whether it starts out with the director who then turns the reins over or whatever it is,

like to find that right combination of cast and behind the scenes talent and then let it kind of play itself out over seven to ten years. That'd be awesome. Because like honestly in ten years, I'll watch the Dark Phoenix saga again if they get it right. It's wild to watch Dark Phoenix and I find myself sitting there going, man, is Last Stand better? Yeah, I know, I know. And Last Stand is like considered one of the worst super movies, I know. Really, like psychops, eyes off screen. Yeah.

All right, Jason, thank you so much for calling a man. We will be in touch soon whenever they, whenever the next Dark Phoenix leaks come out. I'll definitely have you back on. Thanks for having me. Later, man. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by City on a Hill, the new drama series from Showtime, starring Kevin Bacon and Altus Hodge.

City on a Hill airs Sundays at 9 p.m. only on Showtime. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the movie yesterday in theaters June 28th. Yesterday from Danny Boyle and Universal Studios imagines a world where only one person

remembers the existence of the Beatles. The movie stars Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon, and newcomer Hamish Patel. When the trailer first dropped, we at the ringer, we have this internal communication system

slack and we had a lot of questions. We were pinging each other. A lot of the channels were hot with questions about what would happen to the world as we know it, without the Beatles. Many of those questions we still have today,

and today in partnership with Universal, we want to discuss one in particular, which is essentially what would happen if you woke up tomorrow and you heard a Beatles song, and you would never heard one before, the Beatles never happened, and a relatively classic rendition of a Beatles song just was on the radio and in stores,

and somebody was like on YouTube being like, I wrote this song, Hey Jude, or I wrote this song, Happiness is a Warm Gun. Like, what would the reality? reaction be to that? Well, it's almost inconceivable to imagine everything that happened after the Beatles. So it's wild to even imagine, like, would we even understand, would Rock even be as popular as it was, you know, as it is without the Beatles? Would Rock be something that kind of got cycled through? And then in the 60s, it ran out of gas and something else came along. Like, it's almost impossible to

guess. But just from a pure songwriting standpoint, the thing the reason I think the Beatles resonate is because of those melodies and because of the simplicity and beauty of like the messages of the songs, I think that that would translate immediately. Like I think that people would be really blown away by Hey Jude or Blackbird or any, pick any classic Beatles song, drive my car. Even if it sounds unlike other stuff that's on the radio, the pop music. architecture of those songs is timeless. So I think that they would hit it off. But who knows?

Maybe yesterday will answer this question to see if the movie addresses the existence, like what would happen if the Beatles came back in 2019 or started in 2019? Plus all the other questions we have. Watch the trailer and catch yesterday in theaters on June 28th.