The Watch - The Big Winners and Losers of the 2024 Emmys. Plus, ‘Industry’ S3E6.

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Chris and Andy recap last night's Emmys ceremony, discussing how they felt about the overall broadcast itself (1:00) and whether or not it really matters whether ‘The Bear’ runs in the comedy category (16:28). Then they break down the latest episode of ‘Industry,’ talking about Harper and Yasmin’s face-off and Eric’s continued downward spiral (40:18). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Syriot Sohey from the Ringer here, and I wanted to let you know about a new show that I'm hosting, the Ringer WNBA show. We're breaking down and analyzing the latest happenings in the W, the personalities, the people who make the league as fascinating as it is, and we're going to be featuring some of the best guests and experts from around the league. Tap in with us every Friday through the end of the season

over on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know about one in three people with Plexeryasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, Guselcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur, treatment, your doctor should check you for infections in tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you

have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor

at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, he's got daddy's attention. Now, it's Andy Greenwald! Do you think I should have come back from this trip with like full Madonna accent? Or should I just sprinkle in some lingo in the way that would be like the most annoying? I wonder when you're going to get Brit Pilled and start saying like, do you want to get tea or brew us a cup or, you know, just... So tea, basically. Have low-grade alcoholism running through your veins.

I will say the T-thing is more likely. I've got to say, it's great to see you. It's great to be back here with Kaya. We're going to be talking about the most consequential night of the television year and also the Emmys. We're going to be discussing industry. I don't disagree with this. But we're going to hit the Emmys first than industry.

Greenwald's back from the UK, and you look tan. Nope. I look soggy. I'm retaining logger. You know, the L.A. to London time zone shift is such that I arise as you are heading out into the night. And it's been so inspiring that every morning I wake up and I'm like, how's my guy?

And you're like, pints! Having a pint! Wait, when you wake up, I'm... Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. You're basically like on your way, you're making your way home doing your little pub crawl, you know? Well, my little pub crawl. I was humbled by my... aging, intolerant.

I mean, this is, again, big picture, it's good to be able to not be able to drink so much. But people really, really can pack it in. Yeah. I'm not so good at that anymore. I used to think I was. Do you think that you'll get better? I don't think, I think it gets better. Do you think?

It's just like, it's just a volume issue. Because, like, you sent me at, like, a Instagram reel of a guy ranking the best number of points to have in a night out. Yeah. And number five was 12. He was English. Number four was three. Number four was two.

He was basically like, eh. Yeah. 12, he's like you're urinating all over yourself. I mean, but nine is great. Nine was great. I had two and then had like questions about myself the next morning. I was not, maybe it was also still a little tired or whatever. You're a sensitive cat, man.

I feel like I used to be able to, whatever. So that, I think, but your point, your first question, the T thing is terrific. Underrated. Yorkshire? You get jacked up on it, or what do you do? Well, I didn't understand. I was working with wonderful people, very generous people, who were pointing out to me the difference between going out for a shop tea or making a proper tea in the office.

And I appreciate the way it is distinct from coffee. Like, everyone would have one or two coffees in the morning, and then someone would start making teas for everyone. And, you know, your own preferences with milk and stuff. Like, that is a nice, that's a low-level buzz that worked for me. The other thing that I was noticing was I am. I'm a sensitive cat and I'm an accommodating cat. So I did notice myself actively.

So what you say in the morning. I stare myself in the mirror. Accommodating, Andy, ready to make. Ready to go get a pre-breakfast sandwich and white knuckle his way through another. No, I was taking on words that I didn't need to. Like, I was trying to be so helpful that I would go get my coffee on the way to the tube. And I'd say, could I have a quartado to take away? I didn't say to go.

Everyone would have understood if I had said to go, but I was just like, hey, hashtag ally here. Yeah. I said take away. I was trying to explain that something was crazy and I stopped myself and I said, it's mad. You did. Everyone was like, oh, oh, yeah. I did. Why?

I catch myself just talking way too much like Keanu Reeves and Bill and Ted when I'm over there. It's just saying everything is radical or awesome or gnarly. Yeah, I don't know why, but like it just comes out and then I just feel like an idiot. Because you're just stumbling around jamming zins in your cheeks asking for pints of Budweiser but like the small American size pint Can I get a little glass of Budweiser? Hey everyone! I just need to wash my nicotine pouch down.

It's awesome to see you. You flew back right into the mouth of the lion. I flew back with an Emmy nominee. Our second, do you want to blow that person spot up? No. Also, we didn't fly back together. He was just on the flight. Big spoon, little spoon.

I'm so sorry you're going to lose to baby reindeer. I want to know whether or not, sometimes the Emmys come up out of nowhere. They surprise us. Like in January? Yeah. When they've had the Emmys? This just feels like we've lived in a perpetual FYC.

And I wonder if it's kind of, I've made this suggestion before that they should do the Emmys twice a year. Now that I've gotten to the end of this cycle, I will say, I agree with some of the people who pushed back on that to us in private channels that that's not how it works and that it should be a competition and it shouldn't be

like everybody everybody has a shot at this you know um was this Nick Saban was I on these channels what are you talking about and I agree that the twice a year

would be a exhausting right I think fiscally undisciplined indeed and this industry is if nothing else just an exemplar what if we do it twice a year

but it shoots in hungry there you go They outsource the Emmys. That's not funny. Anyway, I just think that, like, I think there was a little bit of Emmy fatigue on just in terms of, like, I just feel like we just did it. But that being said, pretty pleasant broadcast. I thought Eugene and Dan Levy were good. They're okay.

I liked, okay, but my attitude about hosts. Yeah. Is it's way more likely that they will fuck up massively. that it is that they blow my mind with... I think hosting is not like batting fourth. You know, it's like batting seventh. Just don't end the rally. Is this before the DH was universal?

But you know what I mean, though? Where I'm like, I'm not looking for transcendence for my host. I'm looking for... I almost want to forget you were doing it. Right. I sort of agree. I think that that... Not to go on a digression about hosting,

but I do think that the style of comedy that the levies were doing isn't necessarily hosting. It was more bits that depended on each other and everyone understanding their dynamic and the relationship. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it does demand a certain, like,

we're pressing pause on the broadcast to do this now, as opposed to my mind, like a more, like someone who hosts things for a living is more likely to be a six or seven hitter than someone who's just like, I need to stop this and do bits now. Right. Okay. But I didn't think they,

interrupted the flow as much as the Emmys taking a page from the Oscar playbook and being like Remember when moms were on TV? Here are some. We all love moms. We all love cops. Yeah, right? That was dope. We're back, baby. It would be funny if I was at the Emmys and I was just like for the one guy.

He was like Bobby Simone. Tears going down. You John John's eager to be Nash Bridges or Settie Crockett. All cops are brilliant. Yeah, that's you. Yeah, so let me go back to your first point, which is, and I'm sure everybody listening remembers this, but like there were two Emmys this calendar year because of the strikes. Last Fall's Emmys were delayed until January.

I would say that there was clear confusion, not just in terms, we don't know if there was confusion in terms of the audience, we don't even know how the show rated yet because we're recording this Monday morning. But I think there was unquestionably confusion in the voters. as to what exactly they were voting for, which might suggest that because TV is a 24-7, 12-month-a-year business, making it a calendar-year show as opposed to an FYC season year might be more helpful.

We can get into specifics or get into it in a second, but just to say that, like, everyone voting in this period this summer for the bear was voting on season three. Even though they were technically voting on season two. Yes. And next year will be season three. There's no question that the bear airing its third season during the Emmy consideration period for its second season heard it this year. I specifically thought of that when Liza Colonza-Ais won.

Absolutely. Because she won for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. She's a phenomenal actress. It's a great story. It's a great narrative. It's a great, a great, quite moving moment. And a great, one of the better moments of the ceremony. She won for an episode that is not eligible yet.

She, without a doubt, won for, what's that episode called? napkins? Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. She deserves to win for that. I believe it is. Was that the one?

Is that her episode? Yeah. The Tina episode? Wait, is it, was napkins? No, crushed ice is the one where she... It's called ice chips? Ice chips. Do you like crushed ice?

What about pebbled ice? I love pebbled ice. It's my preferred ice delivery system. Like a cold, cold soda over a giant glass of pebbled? Welcome back to the United States of America. Oh, now we're talking. Yeah. We don't get a lot of things right.

We get beverage cooling. But we're like, this planet may be dying, but at least it's dying for our buffet of ice choices. Like, explaining to people last week that it was currently 41 degrees Celsius at home when they had been like in a bit of a bother because it had been like the equivalent of 78 degrees and they were like people were going to the hospital. Were you doing a lot of stolen valor over there where you're just like, it's a bit of a tough time? for me. My children are so hot. While we're working, can you hold space,

please, for the second graders currently, schvitzing in Northeast. CR is at the Lamley for the third time. He's so hot. He has so many cups

of pebbled ice right now. Crushed. Okay. Let's talk specifics about this Emmys. Okay. So you like the broadcast. I,

as a TV show. I thought the broadcast was fine. I will admit. that like with all award shows, I do a lot of other things while they're happening. So, made a soup. What kind of soup you're making?

I mean, this is the second time you've mentioned it to me. Speaking of stolen valor, my wife made the soup. So she made a, like a hominy, tomatoio, kind of like a Mexican thing. What? I grabbed some chicken from a local chicken dispenser.

What was the liquidity? Of the chicken or the soup? The soup was quite liquid. I mean, yeah, but I'm saying like where... The chicken was just from Kismet. I just, I just... Oh, you got some cooked chicken. Pulled that apart, yeah.

And then you put it into the soup, thus restoring it to its proper density. No, you like a damp chicken. Yeah, I do. I mean, I don't like a dry one, I'll tell you that. So you didn't want to cook the chicken in the soup? Oh, because it was just for you, the chicken. You got to understand, man.

Cooking for two, it's different. It just hits different. I cook for one all the time. Yeah, but like, I mean, but you roast a chicken for one? No. All right. As far as the Emmys goes,

I was in and out. So, like, there might even cringe moments that I missed. there may have been moments of absolute heartbreaking sincerity that I missed. I see. I did enjoy it, and I obviously know the winners and losers of it. And I thought that the segments I saw it, to your point about the bits, I just wanted to mention that routinely at award shows in general, but the Emmys and I guess the Globe specifically,

there's nothing funnier than Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wigg and some combination of SNL people coming out and doing their thing. That is usually in the back of my mind, I'm like, why is Maya Rudolph not hosting these things? but I think to your point about bits, I wonder how hard it would be for her to come back out of I am saying robid to

Lauren Michaels and then being like, and now we're throwing it to John Leuizamo for this speech. For his speech. I think it would be fine. I think that there, it was generally just like

it was very sincere. And I think that in a show where again, like it's not, there's something about the Oscars and the slow death march towards the Oscars where basically the same six people more or less win every award

and every award ceremony leading up to the Oscars. Often we're like, oh, well, you know, Dave Vine Randolph gave her better speech at the SAG Awards or whatever, but there's also a sense of like... McCona, he's done the same speech three times or whatever, yeah. But by the time you get to the Oscars,

there is a sense of polish and practice and significance. You know, I think that the Emmys maybe partly because they're happening all the time. They happen twice. but also because they are a grab bag of people who win constantly, people who may never win again, that what you're banking on in the speeches is less polish and more delight. Yeah.

Or surprise, you know, like Anna Soi was a sweet moment. It was so unlikely, you know, a year ago and so deserved. So what I'm saying is when the general tenor of the speeches is going to be more or less consistent. and in this case consistently earnest or even like our guy, Christor so happy to see him win. We also know he hates that shit. So he said his piece,

which was very, very well taken, I think, and we'll appreciate it in the room about the crew. He hates giving speeches. He doesn't love like this. No, he loves the academy. He deserves the accolades. But I think he did say to us. He was like, I'm fucking hate.

He threw it back at them. No, but like I think he said that he had COVID for the January Emmys. In some ways, that was a preferable outcome because he didn't have to. to do the shit that he doesn't like to do. He said his piece, and then he moved on. I think having a little bit more, not edge,

but a little just bit more Tina and Amy at the Golden Globes for the ceremony is better because then when you're counterbalancing earnest speeches with like, and we all once played coaches. But not Kyle Chandler. That's the other problem. The Emmys are so haphazard. It's like West Wing, but without,

Roblo and Bradley Woodford. You built these segments with the hopes that you would get the people that would justify the segments. And not to diminish anyone who participated in any of them, they were all pretty good and, you know, people who we have loved on television. But like when I think of the great sitcom dads of the last 80 years, George Lopez is not in my top 10. Walter White's number one. The best dad. He went out and he earned for his family, like we used to do in America. Do you want to go through the categories or is there more of a storyline?

approach you'd like to take. We can do either one. I didn't. Well, I think we should start where we've sort of been teasing around, which was like the bare fatigue or not fatigue, the surprise. I think that as a way to pivot into that, I think that people were confused as to what year they were considering. I also wondered if there was a sense, and this was floated in a Hollywood reporter recap of the show that I also checked out this morning, that voters maybe thought that their responsibilities were beyond voting for the categories, front of them and more protecting the sanctity of the categories, meaning was there a backlash to the very season three coded argument that the bear isn't a comedy actually?

Well, I don't know that it was too funny? Two was funnier. What's funny about two? When he throws the fork? I actually, I hate this argument. Let's say it. Let's talk about it. The night to get outraged about this is not Emmy's night.

It's totally fine. You can do whatever you want. but like this is like getting pissed off at the Super Bowl about like some NFL rule change that you didn't pay attention to. And I get it and it's frustrating. Are you talking about the overtime rules? No, but I'm just kind of like I'm whatever it is. It's like if you lose the Super Bowl on the new kickoff, like you should have said something

about the kickoff earlier in the season. Oh, like 49ers fans of the overtime. And you know, ultimately I think Hacks and the Bear pretty much split honors on this category. I don't, you know, hacks is also something that. We're like, I'm not necessarily doubled over in laughter watching hacks. No. But, like, we're not getting, I'm not calling balls and strikes on that as much as it's just, like, the bear going into that night, it's like, yeah, it's nominated in comedy. I guess we all kind of know sort of that this is really more like it's sort of 30 minutes is what we're talking about here.

Like, I do think that there is, there is category smudging. I wouldn't say this category. I don't think these things are broken. I think we use inaccurate words. I think that there was an argument for a long time that this category should be renamed half hour, an hour. Yes. Whether you say it's because of the runtime

or because of the larger umbrella of comedy or drama, there's no question that the energy and pacing of 30-minute shows are different than hour-long shows. The bear has the dramatic and emotional stakes and often the lack, the same lack of laughs as Shogun. But it has more in common, I think, just in terms of its energy

and the way that it uses its storytelling real estate with Abbott Elementary than it does Shogun. I think that it is... I get that. I completely agree. And I think that there are other examples in this category of things. Like, if you want to be strictly it is written for the purpose of making people laugh,

then yeah, like curb, murders, what we do in the shadows, Abbott, is... They're doing something different. They're doing a certain thing. The Barron Reservation Dogs, and I would honestly at this point suggest Hacks, are doing something else. Yes.

Hacks is about comedy, and there are comic lines in it, and there are scenes that I think are written for the purpose of it being a punchline at the end of the page. But I think that the overall mission statement of Hacks, I mean, even the way that the creators of Hacks were talking about the show

in their acceptance speeches, I mean, obviously, like, they were very funny, but they were also like, this is about, like, you know, like a segment of our population that often goes unseen. Yes, and making us feel included and inclusiveness and things, which are very valuable, especially for, I'll do the same bit they did. You were doing travel baseball, but I was watching Monty Python that I VHS taped off of like a PBS fundraiser.

So I get it. I think the other thing to remember is the award, like the acting awards, the award that Jeremy Allen White won for the second straight year was not best comedic performance in a comedy. The award is best actor in a comedy. You can make the case that he is the best actor in that category or delivered the best acting performance, certainly in season two. Larry David is not going to...

Larry David is never going to give an interview again. He's done. But I'm saying if he did do an interview, he wouldn't make the case that he is a finer thespian the Jeremy Allen White, it's a different thing. I think it does get a little foggy. I almost wish the writing categories did self-segregate like that. I almost wish there was a category that was comedy writing in television

and dramatic writing in television, and then you could sort of cross-pollinate the categories because Christor and Joanna Callow and stuff, like their episodes are just, it's a different form of construction than what we do in the shadows or Abbott Elementary or certainly curb, which, by the way, gets nominated for writing and it's not written.

They just do an outline and improv. So all this stuff is a little bit smeary. I think ultimately I agree with you. I think it's just a weird thing to have these very, very divergent seasons up against each other. HACS season three just finished relatively recently had finished airing. We, I think you and I were, the general public seems to have liked the season more than we did. I have loved that show in the past. I love Paul and Lucia and Jen as writers.

They've been very kind and generous to be on the show. I liked them personally. I thought they were great on stage. I really appreciate that they did bits, that they had a plan. But that was my favorite series of season of the show. And I just, if you're just purely going on a quality of season,

the Bear Season 2, which was both of our number one show of last year, I think deserved to win it to something that had the word best in it. This is why I'm advocating for Best TV show. Now, I don't know what would happen if Hacks the Bear, showgun, and baby reindeer,

we're all in the same category. But it would have been interesting. I would love to see the vote tallies on that. Oh, you want to, you're worried about voter integrity? I'm not worried about voter fraud. I just want to see the data. I would just want to know. How many academy members are in Maricopa County?

I sent you this article from the New York Times the other week, but I think I probably sent it to you at my patented 5.55 AM, so I didn't get much traction in the CR household. But this is California time, by the way. But the Times ran a story about the year in the 70, when the Emmys experimented with a Super Emmy. Yeah. In that it gave...

It was like for five years? It was a short time... I don't know if it was that long, but it was a short time where they gave out the Comedy and Drama Awards then they gave out like the Best Actor on TV award also and Alon Aldo was just cleaning up. What a time.

I do think that it might be worth doing for a show of the year so that you can category it and then you could have one bigger show that wins the big prize like Best Picture where everything is competing against each other. I think that would be kind of interesting. Because while coming off of last night,

like the relative gamesmanship of the Bears a comedy or whatever dominated, at least like the Twitter feedback. Can I ask you a question? Procedural question? I just wanted to say that the gamesmanship of this whole thing has never been more blatant where FX renewed Shogun, both because Shogun was awesome and they want to make more of it, but also because in the short term,

they knew they could dominate the drama category. Because succession wasn't on. Because succession wasn't on. So that's gamesmanship as much as any. anything else, right? Well, I mean, now they have to, I mean, at gamesmanship, they're also making another season of Shogun. Now, whether that resembles the first season of Shogun much, I don't know.

But. But one of the reasons they did it is they also thought they had a real shot at the, as we say in England, the treble, right? They thought that they were going to win Shogun drama, bear comedy, and they thought Fargo had an outside chance to win miniseries, which would have been wild, and you can't. They thought that they winged the reindeer, you know? Yeah. They wounded them.

I was just going to say that you get into an interesting situation where they sometimes do with awards at the end of seasons of sports seasons, where it's like, especially in football, I think, they have like an offensive and defensive player of the year, but then they also have an MVP award. And it's like if you're a quarterback, can you be the MVP but not the offensive player of the year? So if you have a comedy series and the bear is in that section

and it loses to hacks, can it then win best Super METV series? Yes. I actually think that would be very interesting. Well, I'm just saying that there would be controversy. And I hope you're ready to deal with it. And it wouldn't, first of all, I live for controversy. I'm very, very confrontational, competitive person. Two, I think that, yeah, because we're making this up. I noticed that last night when you were adding Lorraine Newman all night.

Lorraine Newman, who is Hannah Imbiter's mom, and she's former SNL castmate, original castmate, was tweeting all night saying like, fuck the bear. That was cool. Because she was mad that Axe wasn't going to win or that her. daughter didn't win. Did she retract? I didn't look at her feed after the hacks went on its run. Do you think that she was grateful that Elon was tweeting crazier? Because no one noticed whether she deleted or didn't delete last night?

That's true. I'm saying this probably wouldn't actually happen in practice, but it would be great if the comedy... Because in my mind, like, nothing ever works out the way you plan. But if last night, Curb or Abbott had won comedy and the bear had won show of the year, that would be justice. I mean, whatever. That would mirror my own beliefs. I think the other main takeaway from the shows that did win, and we can go down, this will include an opportunity to talk about the other ones that we didn't mention. But I would say that this year, this ceremony, really underscored that the median age of the Emmy voter might be a tad higher than the network people would want. And I know that's rich coming from us, but it made me feel quite young. It's important to note in the same regard, way that the Academy Awards for films,

this is really more, it's not so much a barometer of like the important television or the TV that's going to last a lifetime or whatever, as much as it's what people in the TV industry think is important, right? And it's kind of fascinating to be on the, definitely what we're going to do. I was going to say,

I don't know if it's what they think is important. I think it might come down to what they actually watched. Yes, and everybody watched Baby Rainier. And it's not that I didn't like Baby Rainier at all. It's just that I didn't necessarily hold it in the same regard as some of the other shows that did or didn't win that night, the other night, last night. But I do know, anecdotally from talking to people, that Baby Rainier was an enormously popular show within the television industry.

Yes. and that it was one of those things where you would be at a dinner party or you'd overhear people talking at a restaurant about it, you know, or somebody will come up to you, be like, what are you watching? And they'd be like,

have you heard of baby reindeer? What a rich social life you're having while I'm taping Monty Python episodes. It's credible. Some things never change. Yes, this is accurate. This is my life as Matt Bellany's driver. You just parked outside the Ivy?

I'm like, I'm doing drive, but it's just taking Matt Bellany to stop. Just taking him to screenings on the Paramount lot. So anyway, I... Yeah, because just to run down the list, sorry to interrupt, but here are the shows that won, right?

I mean, there were a few outliers. I can do it, yeah. But Shogun, hacks, Slow Horses, one for... Will Smith. By the way, the bear is a comedy and Slow Horses is a drama. Okay, sure.

Like, Slow Horses is funnier than the bear. Let's put it that way. And Will Smith is a comedy writer. The Crown, the morning show, Baby, Billy Crudeup won, Elizabeth DeBecky won for their roles in the Crown. The Morning Show, Baby Reindeer. Like, this is a, this just strikes me. The person who watches those shows is a slightly older median television viewer. And maybe that's...

But what do you think the younger person would be voting for there, just out of curiosity? Oh, well, I mean, like, this is also, I mean, the Emmys, sorry, the Oscars do this too. We're like, you know, you see more excitement, more inclusivity, more a wider range of options in the nominations and then the same things always win except for original screenplay, which is the one time the freaks tend to run the asylum. What I mean by that is Reservation Dogs was nominated for its third and final season and it, you know, it did not win anything. Mr. Mrs. Smith, I was stunned that it was nominated. It was very exciting. Didn't win anything. Yeah. I'm not saying I thought it was going to unseat some of these other shows. shows, but it was just a reminder that the majority of the people voting are the people watching,

this is what they would watch, right? I guess I'm happier that it's that, that it's baby reindeer and whatever, than it is like morning show and just getting seduced by the star power of like some of these sea level like shows that are like really more about like, oh, wow, like I'm in the same room as Ruth Witherspoon. The counter argument to the point that I just tried to articulate is that Steve's one direction for Ripley, which come the fuck on. Like, if it didn't win, then that would have been a sign, actually.

This is actually an argument against what I just said. This is that Steve Zalian won direction in a category that Baby Reindeer was up for, suggests that someone actually did watch the shows, which is not a ding on the director of Baby Reindeer who did an incredible job. So it's not ever, it's not guild-based at all. Like, directors don't vote for directors, right? It's not like that. Do you know?

Oh, well, no. like the Oscars, the individual to get to be nominated other cinematographers vote for cinematography, but then the ballot everyone votes. Everybody votes. But this was a sign, and your guy, Bob Ellswood won, as he should have, even though he beat my good friend, Zach Geller,

last week for the creative arts Emmys, he won cinematography for, so there is a sense that people were watching. I thought the other big surprise was... Were you tweeting and rage for Zach losing to Robert Ellswood? But I only added Lorraine Newman. I was like, injustice is everywhere.

Lorraine, open your eyes. Lamarne won for Fargo, which I thought was interesting because Fargo was otherwise shut out, and Lamorne is awesome. He was good. I thought he was pretty unfairly used in that show, ultimately. Wait, you thought I was unfairly used in Fargo? Yeah.

He was fantastic in Fargo. He was, but I thought the character was, I don't want to spoil it, but I thought the character... I mean, it's Fargo. That happens to people. Yeah, but I thought one of them, I thought that one of the problems of the season was that it had a lot of, it had a lot of curle cues and a lot of like, and this is what this is about and this is what domestic violence looks like with puppets,

but it also had great actors who didn't actually get that much to do ultimately. Okay. But that's a specific criticism of the show. He was great on it. I was happy he got that opportunity. His speech was the best of the night. There you go. Totally cool.

Even if it was like a retroactive new girl recognition prize, which I hope it was. Were you shocked by Jody Foster? No, it's funny. You know, it's funny. Brie Larson for lessons in chemistry, Juno Temple for Fargo, Sophia Vergara for Graselda and Naomi Watts for feud. Could you say that again?

But could you do Griselda in the Benny the Butcher way? Like, could you do the Griselda records drop? If it was about Griselda, the rap group, I think she would have had a better chance. I think she would have had a chance

if they had the ceremony in Buffalo. I was not surprised. You know, it's funny. every year I sit down with you twice this year to talk about the Emmys and I'm like, aha, here's what, here's the sense we can make out of it this year. We can. And you never can because what you see is like the factions that always exist within the Emmys. For me, Jody, first of all, Jody Foster was very good in Night Country.

There's no question about it. And also it is some of those other, like, well, maybe they all, I was going to say that was a star performance. Everything you mentioned was a star performance. But the Emmys used to, 20 years ago, need. jerk, just give the award any time there was a movie star. You could argue there are no movie stars anymore. They're all TV stars. This felt like

you could make the argument that this is just them saying, well, Jody Foster is the award-winning actress. She deserves this award. You could also say, quite plainly, that it may have been a close vote. Lessons and Chemistry does seem to have been popular, and Brie Larson was in like every frame of it. But Jody Foster was very good.

Yep. On a big Sunday night HBO show that had mixed reactions, but did well in the ratings. Were you surprised? You're more on TDI. Do you know what it was? It's that, obviously, True Detective had not won any other awards for the nominations that it was in. Like directing went to Zalian. I think, you know, like essentially like I'd sort of started to, I'd forgotten that True Detective was in the race until she won. But looking at that group, I guess it's not a shock. Not, which is no disrespect to anybody in that group, it was just more like, oh, I could see why Jody Foster would win this. The only major snub that I had was Tadanobu Asano, who played Yabashige and Shogun and lost Billy Crudup, who, look, Billy Crudup gets a lifetime pass from this podcast.

We love him. But that was like, like a, he was very well-known actor, but that is a star turn on the best drama of the year. And maybe neck and neck with NSOI for best performance on the show. I thought that was a bummer, just because I think he deserved it. But the show is clearly rewarded. There's like little disappointments here and there. And I think I wonder, I don't really know how it works

where it's like, you know, you have multiple actors in the same, from the same show in the same category and whether or not there's any vote splitting. I think there is. Yeah. I think they're absolutely. It didn't buy, Evan Moss backerack won, but Lionel Boyce was awesome nominated.

So it didn't necessarily affect that one. But like there are examples in that, in that supporting actor category you're talking about two performances from Shogun. I wondered whether or not that had anything to do. do with it and gay crot up the win. I think it did. I think it unquestionably did.

The other thing is that it's not just two actors from the same show. It's two actors that some Emmy voters may not have been familiar with individually prior to this. So they weren't able to, in the moment that they had a bell in front of them, be like, oh yeah, this guy I particularly liked, as opposed to thinking everyone in Shogun was pretty good. We hit everybody that I was happy for.

I mean, I was happy for, I was happy for, I was relatively happy with like the who won the Emmys, you know? I think that the... Who are you sad about? Who are you mad about? I don't think there was any. I don't think I was like mad about anything. Do you know, like I don't watch talk shows anymore? Are you fed up with John Oliver?

You want to... No, it's like, that's the thing is I don't really watch Oliver. I don't watch daily shows. So I don't really have a strong feeling one way or the other for those talk show awards. I thought it was cool. Traders jumped in there. That's usually amazing racer survivor, I think. Wonderful, Alan.

That was great. Yeah. I thought it would have been incredible if Padma had announced Top Chef the one year she wasn't the first year that she's no longer eligible to receive the award along with everyone else. You would have loved that tea. I think she's doing fine. I think she would have been supportive. And also, I think weirdly the Traders Award is one of the most significant awards of the night

because it was Peacock's first, certainly first like major Emmy. Yeah. You cannot plan. it's funny, whether it was cable or streaming, you cannot plan how you're going to break through. Is there an award? I guess it's probably not on this night because they do the creative Emmys

and they do a series of other sort of awards, but I was wondering whether Peacock would win some stuff for their Olympics coverage next time. That would be sports Emmys, right? I guess so. My children were like, will there be kids shows nominated tonight? And I was like,

depends how you feel about fallout. you must choose between the Emmys and Caleb Williams versus CJ Stroud. I waited so they were no longer watching TV to begin my own toggling between those two interminable events. Because I was away, that was the first NFL game I've seen this year. And I was like, is it, it was like five hours long. That game sucked. It was in the third quarter. There were some really good games yesterday.

For so long. There was some awesome, awesome stuff yesterday. I was. Me and the brohead gang, we were down low. We were down bad. Down bad. It's troubling to a degree that I don't want to admit to myself or to say to you, my number one football brother, that with my new rash of transatlantic travel, Sundays might be for kids again.

This is going to be a tough one to be like, Daddy's back, he's a little sleepy, and Josh Allen is on a tear. Like, that's going to be, why am I talking about Buffalo so much? I do like, though, that you just, like, will text screenshots of the, like, the game tracker and be like, what happened here? It's in my, the phone is in my pocket. I can parent. I can do more than what thing about. But also, I didn't, I do spend way too much time looking at the, like, the ESPN, not watching the show, but just like, not watching the broadcast, but like the ESPN updated whatever of the sport. And I'd never seen this particular third and ten player where it said, Joe Burrow aborted.

I was like, is this a Kamala Harris at? What is this mean? Like, he missed the throw? Yeah. Why doesn't it say... I think it's just like it was just the word that they chose. Whoever the game cast AI guy is, like, I don't know. Yeah.

J.D. Vance? What do you mean? Who's choosing? Okay, so I just wanted to say, let's end this conversation where it sort of began, which is about this category fraud debate. All right. That seems to be now the main sort of talking point after the award show. All right.

We're, as you mentioned, this awards for this part of, this Emmys was about the second season of the bear. So the next Emmys will be about the third season of the bear. And there is going to be a fourth season of the bear. So theoretically, there's another two Emmys of Bear run. Correct. Do you think, have you, would you be shocked if this debate somehow reached the higher, a high enough level that there was like some consideration as to whether or not the bear should be reclassified.

I think that that speaks to, that goes beyond like, yes, we could, in the court of public opinion, it may become a sexy talking point. In the court of John Landgraf and that's the only, that's the only court that matters, right? Why would they take a popular show out of a category it dominates and put it into a more competitive category that they have? Especially since it would be going up presumably a. against Shogun at some point. And it's potentially

its fourth, because Shogun's not coming back for a minute. But yes. Right. Why, their whole strategy, I mean,

these things are, these things are built over many years in advance with planning the best that they're able to plan. So I can't, that's never enough. But it would be up to FX

to decide they were reclassifying rather than like some sort of council of TV elders that were like, you know what, enough's enough. I mean, interestingly,

a few years ago, Orange is the New Black and shameless were forced to category jump. to drama, when they both were comedies or thought of themselves as comedy. So I do wonder if like, is the TV Academy soft policing

the 30 minutes versus 60 minutes thing? I guess they are. Yeah. So they're acting as if those are the categories. So maybe, Chris, who watches the watchman? Maybe it's incumbent upon the TV Academy to change the names of the categories rather than the shows.

All of that said, if we thought this year was a backlash to the bear. Next year is going to be tremendous. Next year might be a considerable backlash, especially because the fourth and final season will have aired during the FYC time for the third season. So a lot riding on that season. I mean, there was anyway.

But if the fourth season does what we think it will do, which is A, be excellent, but also picks up the momentum. It would be amazing. It was like, we're going to return to the hilarity that you associate with the bear. We're getting back to our roots. Just a sloppy sandwich shop.

Everybody eating sloppy steak sandwiches like trifonies. All right, we're going to take a quick break, come back and talk industry. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for.

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be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. All right, man, welcome to Nikki Beach. Santrape. Is that where that's at? You know, I didn't Google. I actually have no idea where Nikki Beach is.

It's Ibitha. I thought it was in Santrape. You don't get to Ibiza a lot? I've never been. Have you? No. but I will say people talk about it much more in England than we have ever talked about it.

Kaya Abitha, ever? Kaya's never moved faster to answer a question. No, but I'd love to go one day. For the clubbing or for just like the sun and fun? Be honest. Yeah. Can I say both? Sure.

You are a young person. You can. You can. You are a young person. I would like to go for not the clubbing or the fun. Do you know who goes clubbing? Older English people. Like, it's not like you don't,

age out of Abitha. No, there was, I told you this, that I was out with some, not young English, younger than us, but so like established adult English people. And there was a House of Lords, House of Lords night out. And it was, and there was a spirited conversation about what the current best Friday night club in East London was. Oh, yeah. And I was like, I'm just thrilled using any of those words.

And you mentioned one and I was like, oh, I know that place. It wasn't that. I didn't want to do this on air. You were wrong. Santropay. You're wrong. Anyway, if you ever wanted to see the big short, have a marriage story baby on screen,

that's what you got last night with this episode of industry. Is it? Oh, go ahead. No, you had something. I just wanted to, I had sort of a way to start the conversation about the show, but you please this episode. But if you wanted to. I know.

I love to defer to you and your vision for this. I guess I just wanted to say that I was really, grateful to Mickey and Conrad showrunners, writer, well, not writers of this episode, Joe Charlton wrote this episode. But I just was really happy for there to finally be a hashtag girl dad episode of industry. You know what I mean? That's where you want to go.

It's the only place to go. I was just like, this is great. It's funny that you should say that because I think that there's a little bit of a like, it's a Rorschach of like what, I've seen a lot of different like feedback for the episode that differs. You know, some people be like, that's, that's right, Harper, you tell her. Oh, really? Oh, for the end.

Or just in general. Like, I mean, I think that the episode is an interesting one because it's a series of scenes where different characters are condemning their counterparts to being exactly who they are. And telling, you know, like, there's a lot of like externalization of, I think the kinds of things that are very difficult to ever say about someone else. And it happens like five times in this episode, where it's like in any other show and in any other life, you may say that kind of thing to somebody once.

And it happens five times in this one episode. This episode was a water balloon fight with paint thinner. People scour the shit out of each other. And I, for one, am here for it. Like, the very, very best TV shows, I think, of this century have all done this, where it's like, people who have spent a lot of time thinking about how to be a person, what it means to be a person.

In the case of many, I don't want to presume about industry, but in the case of some of the best American dramas, certainly like Mad Men, or soprano's, it's like people who have as adults gone to therapy do things through in a way and then brought that back to their art. Use, like people have been doing since Aristophanes with theater. It's not real life. People say the things that you don't say in real life.

So you can see what happens in a controlled burn. Like, that's what I like in TV, but what I revere in TV is when that attitude and that precision and that intensity of writing is married to a plot with stakes that merit that level. That you definitely understand. That I know everything about. As someone who shorts all the time, I got it.

No, but like, it's not just yelling for yelling's sake because the other part of the TV beast that they're feeding is, like, wow, things are really, this whole thing could collapse. So when you can have people, you know, when you can have the larger plot on the brink of complete shutdown, but also people's psyches doing the same, you're fucking in for it. Yeah, this show kind of operates at a perpetual penultimate episode speed. It always feels like what could they, possibly be next?

Isn't the next episode, the Come Down episode, isn't the next episode, the take a breath episode and reset for the next season? And I feel like we've had the Rishi episode, the Rob episode,

now this confrontational episode that also solves a little bit of a mystery of the season. And you didn't find it that mysterious, but yes. What do you mean?

Last week you were like, we know what happened. Well, I just think that the implication you seem to have is that she had like garotid him. I had no doubt that he had passed, but I didn't think that she killed him. And I guess now that's a question. Did she kill him or did she just not save him? You're not going to weigh in?

No, I thought I'd let that. You're an undecided voter? I wanted to let that cook for a second. You know what I mean? I just want to let that linger in the air. As a trained lifeguard, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would have had to have answered the call. It's a trained lifeguard. He would have thrown away your Newport. Left my sash. Cannonballed into the med. Having a bit of a sash.

He said, don't struggle. I'm here to help. I drink this. Is that an erection, Charles and honey? You look, if someone is in distress, you pull them in with whatever you can get your hands on. It's no problem. Yeah, I think we're going to,

We're going to obviously talk to Mickey and Conrad at season's end, and I think they will be able to articulate this a lot better than I can try to do so on their behalf. But one of the, week after week we get on here and we praise the show, which we love so much, and we praise it, though, for reasons not just that are on the screen, but for the larger progression, which I just am beyond dazzled by. And if you think about how we were on, and I have not rewatch, so I may be mischaracterizing it. But I think when we were on the mics four years ago in 2020 talking about season one as this incredibly riveting discovery, we were like, we don't always know what's going on either, but we're diviving.

The vibes are so incredible. To go from a pure vibe show to whatever the fuck this is, like on an absolute masterclass tear is remarkable. And it does feel like that they have incepted not just like the TV of the last 15 years, but also all the commentary about TV of the last 15 years, which is to say, make every scene the best possible scene. Don't waste any fucking time. And maybe this is also the mindset of people who are fresh off a sesh as opposed to like 12 hours later

or it hasn't been two days yet, where it's just like everything should feel the most all the time. Yeah. So that every time you see a character, we don't, like I don't know what Rob's been doing since ayahuasca, but when he sort of swans into the

swans into a scene and swans back out. Gras and Celsius and then leaves. He bats a thousand for the episode. Do you know what I mean? Like every single moment is the best moment. And that is incredible. It's an incredible high. Mahala has been pretty, I wouldn't say sideline to this season,

but has been looming over this season. Yeah, I bought the dip. Without a lot of screen time. And you knew that that was going to pay off. Like, you bought the dip, but like it was like, she was coming. And I think that her plan, which has been aided by a little bit of like,

I happen to be in the bathroom when Sweet P and Yaz are talking and then developing this idea about these ESG companies that Peerpoint is heavily invested in being in fact bullshit, exemplified by Loomi, that as this stuff goes on, she had formulated this plan to essentially exact her revenge on Peerpoint, generally, but Eric specifically. And she'd been kind of doing,

that piecemeal and then it happens all at once once Petra gets a wind of it and once she sort of pushes this along and encourages Harper to use Yasmin as like the conduit by which to get whatever important information

they need so that they can like basically put Peerpoint in the red zone. I thought that that felt really significant and that her missed screen time was made up for entirely by the scene with Eric

and the scene with Yasmin. What did you think of her in this episode? I think she's incredible. I mean, I think that, again, it's a rare balance of a creative team that loves its characters, but they're not in love with the characters, clearly.

Like, they see them for the flawed people that they are, and they revel in that. I thought that, first of all, I mean, I thought Mahalo was incredible in the episode because she, it was set up for her, like a downhill slalom and she just executed every turn. It's crucial for this episode that we see the two very real sides of her. And holding two visions of someone is very, very hard when you are furious, you know.

But everything that was said by Yasmin at the end was true, but also so is everything that Harper said. And at a certain point, how do you separate the two? Like, she was helping her friend. Her first instinct was to help her friend. We saw pangs or tugs of humanity. She did ask Petra multiple times not to do this. She also overplayed her hand, which is worth noting. Like, for a season in which she's executed every professional trade brilliantly and correctly,

when she threw down the urine rehab, that was a massive, massive misplay. She has not bad at 1,000. No, but I mean, in terms of her professional... But she needed Nicole to bail her out of some stuff. Like, she's fucked up a couple times. But I mean, her professional machinations of like choosing to go to the fake Davos and say those things, got her what she wanted, and she was in the bathroom at the right time. And so she's on a hot street in terms of her, I think of Leviathan's arc. But the overplay of the personal information had a direct causal response.

She was then on her back foot and then had no choice. but to let Petra run roughshod over Yasmin. Now, whether she would have done that anyway, we don't know. But I'm saying that, like, Mahala's playing the humanity of those moments so, so, so well. And the craziest, I mean, I feel like there's a lot to talk about before we get to that last scene, which I thought was kind of high-key, aggressive for HBO to air on Emmy Night to see these two women do that. There's a moment in that scene when Mahala enters and she's still being Yasmin's friend.

And then when Marisa says, fuck you. says fuck you for the first time. And the reaction that Mahala gives, and that was also obviously chosen in the edit and directed really well, her reaction to that is a stronger physical recoil than she does to the actual physical slap. And something dies in her eyes, and she goes shark mode. And to be able to navigate that while still playing a consistent person is wild.

And ironically, it's the trigger in the error confrontation is yes. She's like kind of shining him on and is like you need you need a glass of water. You're emotionally incontinent and it's only when he invokes yes to her that she turns and is like do you ever listen to the shit that comes out of your mouth? Like your ideology is people are collateral. I enact your philosophy and you have the gall to come into my office and say I'm a bad person. Yep. The connection between those two scenes was my favorite thing of the episode possibly of the season. Just the idea that these two fights are one fight. Yeah. And that these two people on opposite sides of a woman are telling her,

you think you're a monster, and I've played some part in trying to assuage that fear from you, like to tell you that you have these good qualities to show you that I love you. Eric, not so much, obviously, but in the earlier parts of the series, it clearly, you know, adopted her, essentially. and to have them both be like the thing you think about yourself, specifically with Eric, he was like, I want you to know that what you think about yourself is true.

The brilliant part about it is that we never really see, Bahamas never turns around and goes, am I a bad person? This is such a crucial point. She is such an amazing character because we don't have to wade through her own misgivings about herself. I can intuit it. I can watch her jaw tense when certain things are said to her,

but I don't ever have to sit through her on a tube, sending a voice memo to a character off screen being like, I don't know, maybe I'm a bad person. It's like, no, it's up to me as an adult viewer to make that decision. This is such an important and incredibly brilliant observation. And I think that it speaks to... Welcome back. Welcome back to you.

You know, because speaking about distinctions and speaking about adults, there is such a wide disparity in our life between our thoughts and our behavior. And I don't mean in terms of like which matters in the world or whatever, but I mean in terms of how we spend time in one versus spend time in the other. Because as adults, like we can feel a certain way. You can feel sick. We can feel annoyed. We can feel depressed. Or we can have a recurring thought in our brain. Like, oh, I'm an imposter.

I don't belong here. Am I a bad person? But then also, you get on the train or you turn on the podcast mic or whatever the case may be and you do your job. And when you, there's something very freeing of like just letting go of the brain part, right? And just doing the thing. And I think that that's what you said just really highlights the fact that the show is about movement, that we experience her psychology through how she makes. moves through the world. And I think the fair assumption is that in the time we don't see her,

things could get kind of low. I mean, that was written into the show at the top of season two, right? I think it's made clear in both on screen and then in some conversation that the COVID was, COVID was not a good time for Harper when she was left alone with herself and her thoughts. But as she moves through the season, she is shark-like. I think also, shout out to the the warrobing team because her oversized power suit was unbelievable. And, you know, like the Gordon from the Gordon Gecko girl collection. Yeah. Yeah. So significant. But yeah, I think that's a really, really, I think it's a very, very important observation. We don't really dwell on that. And I think that that's another,

and I think that ties back to the other observation that the show just doesn't show us the down moments. And I think there's a lesson here for a lot of people making TV. It does in terms of creating naturalism. I think that there is a, a great extra couple of frames before Eric comes into Harper's office and he's going up to one of these townhouses I guess that when you're walking through London

it'll be like the Swedish Society of History and Naval Planning and then it'll be like blank blank hedge fund investors you know like these weird businesses that are inside of these homes and Harper is this kind of like almost like a cat

at rest on her desk like bored looking at her computer Yeah, it's a very different workplace than Peerpoint. But it's not like, they don't over-emphasize it. It's just kind of like, it's just the calm before the storm, but it is such a nice piece of like human behavior to show Eric interrupting. Well, also, I mean, Peerpoint is the gladiator. You all have to sit straight, like, why aren't you at your desk?

You're always on. You're always being watched. And then for him to bring that energy into this sedate space, and then Petra's reaction to it too. you know, is correct. I thought that the... Oh, yeah, her little, like, walking and be like, oh, is he drunk?

Like, that, like, kind of, like, I both heard you're tearing him apart, but also, like, came in and sort of made it seem like it was just a freak accident that he came through. I think the other thing is that the, the Petra Harper scene was also one of the best of the season so far, where she misplays her hand. She says something.

She out-harpers Harper in a way. She says something that factors through the rest of the episode. It factors through the whole life of the series. She says, good work is the only relevant currency. Yeah. Well, that's what Harper's always said. That's what Harper's always believed. I don't think that's true.

But when people in positions of power say that to you, it is going to have an effect. Yeah, that's what she says to Eric. She's just like, I'm just what you made me. Now, there is a really, really interesting quote from Mickey Down in a Vulture article that went up right after the episode written by Jackson McHenry. And it was a little bit of a behind the scenes for this. episode. You know, I think that Jackson as the writer was sort of posing to Mickey, like, something

along the lines of like, well, you know, that's a very intense scene for two friends to have at the end of the episode. And Mickey says, are we sure they were ever friends? Yes. And I think that's an important, I think he was being a little bit like, but what about this? You know, like he was asking kind of like the right keep thinking question. But it's an important way of looking at this show that I think is.

sometimes a complicated one, which is essentially like just because these people are on screen together and just because these characters share space together doesn't mean that these are their lifelong relationships, that these are the loves of their lives, that they are going to know these, that they're going to know one another five years from now. This is a particularly intense period of time where these three people have chosen probably out of convenience to live with one another at this house that Rob's bought. But this idea that friendship isn't a transaction, that there's some purity that defines friendship outside of like,

it's a friendship, but it's also about what we're doing for one another at any given moment. And Harper does something for you as yes, does something for Harper. Maybe neither of them really like what that thing is, but they use it. And then at the end, when that thing runs out, when the transaction comes to a conclusion, this is what you get.

You and I have often, we go back to this because we're English majors, but sometimes try to keep the idea of new criticism that it's just, we're just going to deal with what's on the page, what's on the page, what's on the text. But it is worth considering the writers, the creator's relationship to the field that they are writing about. So for example, we've been talking about homicide recently, the 90s show that David Simon was involved with.

It was based on his book. David Simon went undercover with the homicide department in Baltimore and came away with complicated feelings about policing that was later put into the wire. But a kind of awe and reverence, and I don't mean that the moral sense.

You think David Simon wrote the cop's tribute on the Emmys last night? I think he wrote your reaction to it. He gets residuals. Again, I don't mean like an amorally, like this is all good, but I mean an awe and reverence for those people who live that life and whose brains work that way. And you see that on the screen in homicide. And honestly, you see it with Bunk and McNulty and stuff

like that. Mickey and Conrad worked in this world briefly and then ran as far the fuck the way from it as they could. That's worth remembering too, right? Like these are not people who are like, there's a long-term life here. This is a way to, like, the best friends we ever made were on the trading room floor. Yeah. That is, that's not their perspective. And I think it's very, very clear. And one of the things that is so truly, truly game-changing about this season is that Eric got pulled off of the balcony into the orchestra seats, into the scrum.

You know, into, not orchestra seats, the fucking general admission mosh pit. Yeah, the pit at a knock-loose show. Yes, and whatever, you know, whatever sort of constructions he built to protect himself from the actual bruising here, whether it was the way he carried himself, whether it was carrying a baseball bat, whether it was everything to become a partner, whether it was having a family that he purported to love and that loved him, all that shit's been stripped of him. And Ken Long's performance is unreal this season.

We talk a lot about consistency that he's playing the same character that he was two years ago, but Jesus Christ, like the bottom's been dropped out. I love the fact that everybody is like you basically smell like a night out in Scotland. Are you drunk now? Like, he's drinking martinis at lunch with Yaz. Three martinis at lunch. Yeah. And then does a hell of a...

It's called, I believe, from what Rob said in episode one, a grubby wank. Yeah, grubby wank in the bathroom of a brosury. But I would say that my admiration for the performance is because he doesn't act drunk. He acts reckless. Yeah. His eyes are spinning. Yeah. His face when the...

the lawyer says to Yaz, you know, stay away from that fucking vampire, is a wild piece of acting for the screen. That scene is excruciating. And that scene is intentionally excruciating because it is, you know, it comes relatively quickly after the Yasmin and her father scene. And again, like, I feel like maybe in German there's a special word for bravery in screenwriting because it's not, I'm not saying they're brave, but taking a character that has a certain cachet on the show

and making him just depraved, like making him feral. It's fascinating. Yeah, you can also... There's a version of any TV show where Eric represents a certain thing to the audience and is useful in a certain way to the creators so that you would draw the line

of him actually sexualizing his associate in this sense, you know, that it's a misunderstanding, even if it's a legitimate one, but his intentions. But no, I mean, he is, he thinks he's ahead of it. He's trying to mansplain the function of desire in society, someone who works for him while chugging drinks on a stressful workday. Marisa is so good in that scene when she flips out.

Maurice is amazing in that scene. Yeah. That's a fucking crazy good scene. It's a crazy scene. You know, as soon as he asks her if she wants a blue steak, you're like, it's not going to end well, man. The other thing that is crazy about the show, why we spend so much time talking about it

and why we praise it and why we love it, is that, so Marisa is so good at playing the moments when Yasmin is just like, what the fuck? She did it to Henry in the previous episode, when despite the room, despite the fanciness of the surroundings, she will respond in a very, very loud and human way.

Yeah. And what Harper reminds us in the end, is that Yasmin can do it because she's used to a certain amount of protections. In an insane way in that scene, we are shown the fact that her response, which is appropriate, considering the way this dickhead is behaving, is privileged, right? Because someone who couldn't afford to lose the job, I'm not saying, would go along with it, but might fake, oh, I have a phone call, or might just sort of nod and smile and defer or whatever. And she does fucking not do that.

And what's the line that... Eric fucking fires her. He's two for two when we have to talk about the revenge, the revenge in associates meeting where all the people cast off the show are together. Fucking Jackie's back. But Jackie is back, guys. No, he says the world, what Harper says to her is, the world is showing you what it is without any of the protections you're used to. Yeah. And then Yaz is just like, I don't know whether it's like being an assar, being a narcissist with an inferiority complex doesn't make you an underdog Harper. It makes you completely fucking nauseating. And do you, are you asking me indirectly if my notes for this episode are just me pausing the show to feverishly

typelines verbatim into my notes app? Yes, that's correct. Good. I love to see that dedication from you. I never ask this about industry. Okay. But I am going to ask it about this because you're a writer too. Thank you. And we've talked a lot about the double down style that the writers of industry employee where it's just like fuck this we go for it every time it's heavy metal football to borrow a soccer term it's like i call it football now too um they they go for it they go for goal every time and then it's like we pick up the pieces next episode and figure out how to go again we've got two more episodes of this season can you even conceive of what's next for this show without watching what's next for this season without watching a scenes from because we well i mean conrad micky

have publicly said that they're doing Michael Clayton next, which I feel like, guys, listen to us. We talk about the show every week. You don't need to, we're dating. You know what I mean? You don't need to impress this anymore. What I know about the show already tells me how excited to feel about it, which is the fact that like nothing, nothing is holy, nothing is sacred. They can make a show about anything in English society at this moment, and it can be industry. PurePoint, this could be the last two episodes of Pierpoint. I would imagine that there's a like Sterling Cooper, Draper Price aspect to Leviathan.

And what's fucking crazy. But that would be too easy, probably. But they also did that last season. I know. Remember when Eric and Rishi and Harper are shopping themselves around? I mean, they're willing to do that. So as long as these characters are, you know, not waving, drowning together in the swamp of contemporary British capitalism,

we have a show. I think that's so, so, so exciting. And I think that, um, I mean, I don't know what else there's to say about the, like, the Kenny revenge plot. But like, it's executing on such a high level, evidenced by the fact that you could make a scene that feels like, fuck yeah, with three character actors, two of whom we haven't seen in... Every piece matters. In two years. All the pieces matter.

Second, seeing that in real time, what's one of the best, best, two, honestly, best scenes of the episode? It's finding out that Sweet Pee and Anraj are friends. Yeah. we met these people six weeks ago. Yeah. Arnars has been on the show, was on the show previously. Again, testament to both the show

and my declining mind that I don't remember him. Yeah. But he wasn't like this. You know, they keep pushing people in the margins to the four and then people who have the attention,

they kick all the way off the island only to pull them back when you need them. Do you, my last question for you? Yeah. Is do you want to institute within our friendship a two-way radio

that you can just press a button in London? and be like, California, I need a little bit of insight on AJ Brown's hamstring. That reminded when I was like, who's he talking to? It's New York. I thought he was going to give some big hurly burly in its original off-Broadway production monologue or something. And he's just talking to New York? That's basically what happened in the last two weeks.

We actually have that device. Do you have as a fan? Because we talk, I'm going nuts about like the structure and like the meta, whatever. Like, just story-wise, what are you dialed into with two episodes left? Well, this is, this world is a crater now, you know? So I'm curious, I get, okay, here's a good way of looking at it. I had a little bit of a trouble getting over when Succession did Safe Room, the episode Safe Room, where Kendall comes to Shiv has this emotional kind of, like,

honest moment where he's like, it's not going to, going to be me alludes to something in his past that's going to stop his father from ever giving him anything and that he's basically his dad's like slave, you know, and she's trying to reach to him and at the end it's just like a little boy hugging his sister, you know, and it's like this incredible, incredible moment. It's one of my favorite episodes of the series. And then the next episode, they're back to fighting like cats and dogs in this comic kind of succession way. Ultimately, I think it paid off at the end. You know, it's not like I have like this huge criticism. of succession because it's a TV show.

But after watching Harper and Yes, do that, I don't want them to be like fancy a cup in the morning. Do you know what I mean? Like, I want there to be consequences to actions. And I suppose Rob is now kind of in the place, Rob and to some extent, Henry, or have been off-screen for a little bit. Rob, just for this episode, Henry, for the last two.

He was alluded to. Insanely, last week was Company Man. He's only been off-the-screen. Oh, right, you're right. But it feels like these episodes are so long, it does not feel like that. No, but I guess I'm curious to see what roles they have to play in the sort of social strategy. But, like, I'm very curious, first time, like, is Yaz like I'm moving out? Is Yas like Harper has to move out?

I know that seems quotidian, but like, no, no, I love it. I want a consequence to an action. A couple things. We didn't mention the incredible scene of the media barren hiking in the Scottish Highlands wearing. I can spike this story, but you have to basically become my boy's cortisone. And speaking of lingering, the moment then he rejoins what I guess or maybe his adult daughters is crucial. And it's a throwaway, right? But it's crucial.

So I see a future for Henry and Yass one way or another, right? The show has done Harper and Yaz hate each other before. They did it for all of season two. I think the show understands that like Mad Men, when people are bound together with work. And blackmail. And blackmail, you know, that. I mean, hate and love are the two things that keep people tied together, and they're both choices. And so I can see that continuing.

But I also think the show is doing something kind of subtle and sad in the background, which is maybe the only relationships that can survive are the relationships where you don't fuck each other, which is why Robin Yaz can still get into bed at the end of the night. Not literally, but Harper has fuck Yasman. over a lot. So I don't... I guess the practical response answered your question is

they're going to have to share the screen this season and next season. Nothing's been announced. The show is definitely going to get ready. I want a sense of a continuum rather than like this stopped and now we're like sort of kicking the can down the road a little bit and resetting the relationships

of it. I would say that these guys seem to have like an almost supernatural ability to understand when to dip in and dip out. I will also say that I think the times that they, I think the way they know how to use long pauses, resets, happened between seasons. Yeah, I think you're right.

Like, we actually, we weren't, we weren't talking about the show. We loved it, but we weren't talking about it with this level of depth in previous seasons. But the way that, I mean, we didn't, I don't think we did whole Monday shows about it, or maybe, maybe we just ratchet it up slowly. It was like a classic Ibitha Sesh. But, like, the way the show came back and was just like, boy, COVID. And then was like, but here we go. Yeah.

was very smart. Yeah. And maybe it'll be the same thing about like, boy, lacerating friendship ending, mutually assured destruction fight scenes. But here we go. Also, did you have a Pet Shop Boys phase? No.

I respect it, but I never choose to listen to it. And it's my fault. It's a flaw of mine. We'll wrap it up there. Thanks to Kai McMullen for producing. Andy and I will be back on Thursday, possibly with a special guest, but we'll probably be discussing slow horses.

We also have the first episode of the penguin this week in two days. Boy, do you see your boy Colin up the Emmys? I did. And I would love to try and talk about how to die alone, the Natasha Rothwell show that you can watch on Hulu that I found to be quite delightful. She really is one of my favorite performers, as you may remember from Insecure.

So just check that out. It's on Hulu. Okay, so we got slow horses, we got English teacher, we got How to Die Alone. And the penguin. And Agatha. Oh, and Agatha. We have Agatha all along?

Man, I better start watching TV. Clear your schedule. Well, I'm going to be in America for a minute. Talk to you guys soon.