The Watch - The Bob Shakeup at Disney, Plus ‘Fleishman Is In Trouble’ and ‘The White Lotus’

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about the major news that Bob Chapek is out as the CEO of Disney and that former CEO Bob Iger will be coming back to take his place (1:00). Then, they talk about the first few episodes of the new Hulu show ‘Fleishman Is In Trouble’ (30:03) before talking about the latest episode of ‘The White Lotus’ (44:32). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line. He's back. It's Andy Greenwald. Woo! Kaya, cue the Iger counter.

Oh my God, Andy. There are a lot of important bobs. There are brilliant bobs. There are formidable bobs. There's one about bobs. Cardinals Fireballer Bob Gibson One time King of the North Bob Stark

Yep Lyndon Johnson biographer Bob Carrow Yeah But really there's just two bobs Bob Iger and Bob Chepec And Andy guess what Yeah Now there's only one

I mean here's the thing It's cute that we were like Bob Wars Bob Wars rock Hollywood But here's the thing We treated Bob Wars We were just two guys in the middle of a pandemic

looking for ways to talk about the world. There was never a Bob war. There can only be one Bob. That was so obvious. And in a way, it reminds me of Disney lieutenant Kevin Feige's realization that armor wars, there aren't many armor wars. It's not a TV show. There's just one.

Especially when you're talking about the legacy of a fighting man and a military strategist like Franklin Delano Roads. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're back to War Machine? Rear Admiral General. So we're going to talk about White Lotus. We're going to talk about Fleischman's in trouble. Is in trouble.

Yeah, I was just, I was adding an apostrophe. I did that too. I've got very familiar with Tobe. I did Fleischman in trouble. Like, I've, I've shortened it. I've made it my own. Andy last night. Chris, do you remember in, and we did this for rewatchable,

so this is not a tangent? Remember when in kicking and screaming, Elliot Gould leaves a voicemail for his son, Grover, and he's just like, Nick's in trouble, call me. So every time I see Fleischman is in trouble, I think of Elliot Gould's voice, which is very accurate since he would have played Fleischman 40 years ago. Okay, let's get into last night.

Crazy. Chargers Chiefs, it's like an exciting, but also chill Sunday night, just hanging out. And then Brooke Barnes, I think, from the New York Times, broke the news that Bob Iger would be returning effective immediately as CEO replacing his, hand-picked successor Bob Chepec, who had had, I would say, a tempestuous rain at the top of the mouse house. But the question really gets to, like, would Bob Iger have fared better? Would Bob

Iger have fared better during a pandemic? As the bills came due for streaming, Disney had a earnings report recently where it turned out that they were, what was it? They were $1.4 billion short of they lost 1.4 or 1.5 billion dollars in a quarter yeah right in a in one fourth of the year when Tony Gilroy says

cut the check he's like I got to get I got to get this cereal right for Cyril everybody's coming back to Farix baby we got it um yeah so the question is like obviously bob check but chip it out

Bob Iger back in Bob Eiger, who had, I think, announced his retirement, I believe three times, had had a couple of dalliances with various successors, one of whom Kevin Mayer has gone on to start one of these newfangled, like Venture Capital-backed studios. You know, Bob Eiger, who is credited with purchasing Marvel and bringing the MCU to life along with Kevin Feigy, who brought Lucasfilm into the fold, who did the Fox deal, probably behind the scenes and not a lot of people

who follow this stuff. Unless you follow this stuff, you don't really know or care about this, but his acquisition of BAM, the baseball, the back-end technological, like basically interface to create online video

that has become industry standard in some ways, I think across the board, or at least was a crucial, a bit of business that he did. He did a lot of really, really big, great things with Disney and it was known

as a talent-friendly, kind of creative guru over there. And then Cheapak was sort of seen as a bean counter, right? Bean counter Bob. That's what they called him. And was seen over the last couple of months especially, aside from his dealings with Ron DeSantis and the Don't Say Gay Bill and everything that kind of came out of that,

was perceived to, I think, be squeezing customers, which I think maybe like lost him the locker room. in a lot of ways, whichever locker room you want to call it, whether it's the court of public perception or public opinion, or whether it's like longtime Disney adherence, people who like really subscribe to the whole ethos of the place. But the idea of $20 surcharges and express fees and this, especially in the parks,

but probably coming even in a greater way for Disney Plus, kind of like it wrote the obit for him, you know? And now we're here. Iger back again for two-year term with the express purpose of finding another successor. And Andy, I think that the number one question that everybody wants to know is, will you be throwing your hat in the ring to become Bob Iger's executive protege and CEO in waiting? Well, as people love to whisper, I've already got my foot in the door.

So the answer is yes. Two, that's the number two question on everyone's mind. The number one question is, can we as a business-obsessed? media, stop using the word grooming now because it's just, it's not working. It's not working when he says he's back to groom his successor. I'm bumping on that. You're the writer. Give me my alt. What's my alt? Well, I think, I think you were right. I think to identify and enrich, no, teach, educate, familiarize. Look, let's do this two ways. Let's first make the case for being encounter Bob. Okay. Okay. Who, frankly, there's a version of this where he never had a chance.

And let's talk about it. You alluded to the fact that Bob Eiger retired or announced his retirement multiple times, despite, you know, beginning back when he was still in his early 60s, a man in his prime. He said, hopefully. And yes, had a number of hand-picked successors who he didn't allow to succeed, who then were either forced out or left when they saw the writing on the wall. Then he does anoint Bob Chappek, who comes from a parks background. He's a parks guy. As I am I. You were a cruises guy, if I remember your time as a cast member correctly.

They still talk about you. There's a lot of ideas. Yeah. So he did not come into this job with the experience with talent and creative and content creation. that other potential successors might have. When he was announced in this role, that was a lot of what his sort of orientation process was like, was sort of getting his hands in a lot of the other side of the business, let's say.

So then Iger does step down, kind of, in February 2020, which as industry expert Matt Bellany said on Bill's podcast already today, in February 2020, a company that had major business holdings in China probably knew what was coming, or at least had a sense of what the worst-case scenario could be. And then Iger did stay on in like a kind of co-pilot capacity, right? I mean, that already, I mean, I think we probably joked about it at the time. Like that, that's not cool.

You know what I mean? That's just, that's a little weird to have dad hanging out a little too long, you know, behind you with one hand on your shoulder. He was staying to sort of help and sort of transition, but that clearly caused some friction. Chapec then, I think we reported on this, made some restructuring moves that were within his right to do, but probably rubbed some of Iger's people, if not Iger himself, the wrong way. So I love that you said we reported on this as if like you and I are just...

We reflected on it. We riffed on it. We've never reported a damn thing, I don't think. Yeah. So we just chatter. We just chat. So then it's, yeah, 2020, which it was, you know, not a great year. One of the best, one of the best years out there. society, parks close, cruises close, much to your chagrin and belt tightening across the board, right when they are trying to ramp up their transition into a streaming service, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a tough one. And then you add in the things that happened this year, which was the just sort of tone-deaf bungling of the Florida, don't say gay bill, where you first tried

to like stifle any comment on it and then had to come out strong against it, which was exactly the trap that people who thrive on, you know, crushing the libs like DeSantis want, creating an enemy out of a company that was generally seen as just a friend to all. There were other smaller speed bumps along the way, like the Scarlet Johansson,

brouhaha over her pay and her value when Black Widow went straight to streaming. At the time, people were like, well, Iger would have handled this differently, more gracefully, more quietly. This wouldn't come out

under the previous regime. And then, yeah, there's this idea that they're gouging people back at the parks. There's the... And then apparently the final straw was kind of lulling through a press call, I mean, an investor call where he's like,

yeah, we lost $1.5 billion, but you should have seen the other guy. And he kind of learned it from watching you, Dad, where lots of streaming giants and Bob's and Dave's and Ted's can just get up there and be like, I just little a ton of money on fire, but down the line,

we're just seeing nothing but streets paved with gold. And I think... This is going to work for us. He probably was just like, what do you want for me? I got Luke Skywalker back on the screen, you know? So I think the other side of this is there was, I mean, at least they didn't even pretend that they had to make some pilgrimage to a ranch to convince Bob Eiger to come back.

No. Bellany had an interesting piece last week about Iger doing like investment, like cheerleading, essentially. Yes, but like investors came out and they do the rounds and he took the meeting, even though he doesn't really have an official role with a company anymore. Kind of interesting. I think that, again, Bill talked about this a lot on his podcast, so we don't need to get too into it. But, you know, Iger is 71 years old.

That's a full decade younger than our president. Clearly, there is precedent for people doing jobs like this later into their lives. He seems to be in great health. And was absolutely, I mean, this is just, you know, this is just psychoanalyzing from very, very, very, very. far distance, but kind of bored, right? Like, people were like, is he going to run for president? Is he going to buy a sports team?

Like, what do you next when you have all the Kwan and suddenly you don't? He wanted back in the ring. And so this is the moment. Now, the question remains like, what does this mean for the company? What does this mean for a lot of the big questions that have been hanging over the company? You know, Disney's stock is not doing great. People are speculating that they may need to make a decision. Nobody's stock is doing great, though.

I'm doing fantastic. No, but I mean. I showed in Twitter. In those sectors, it doesn't, those stocks aren't doing well. People are asking what can the company do about ESPN? Is that the right place for them to be in? Was the Fox deal ultimately the best move to make because Fox makes content that Disney doesn't or hadn't in the past, et cetera, et cetera?

Let me start here. I guess I already started. Here's the reflection part that I want to say. Again, this is small sample size theater. But I do think it is notable that in the, not even 24 hours since this news broke. And in my own conversations with people who have work for Disney, do work for Disney, hope to work for Disney someday, there is universal acclaim for this. No one on the creative side is shedding a tear for being counter Bob, which I don't know if that's

fair. I have never had any interactions with them. I don't know of any decisions he made that stifled creativity. I guess the thing people are pointing to is that he consolidated the creative decision making on the business side, which is the opposite of what Iger had done, which was basically letting his lieutenants, whether it was Alan Horn who ran the film department, or Kathy Kennedy, who runs Lucasfilm or Kevin Feige, kind of run their own shops, right, and make decisions creatively so that not everything has to be a meeting when it could have just been an email. That is absolutely going to be unwound, but there is a sense creatively that, oh, thank

God, this will be a friendly place to work again. And I say that based on no personal experience of decisions made, but a reminder, and I think this is worth just putting here since, this is almost a direct felony quote, no one has any fucking idea what's going on or what's going to happen, whether it's in the economy, whether it's in the industry,

whether it's with strikes on the horizon, whether it's, if streaming can be saved as a viable thing, nobody knows what's going on. One thing that has kind of emerged as a constant is that older school executives who cultivate good personal relationships with creative people

are still somehow succeeding. I don't even know if anyone's thriving anymore. But when you talk to people about who they want to work with and the way they want to work and the relationships that matter to them that they can count on, they talk about working with HBO, which has been relatively stable with Casey and Francesca. They talk about FX, which has had the same brain trust under John Landgraf and his lieutenants for over a decade. They look to that. They aren't talking about the great meeting they had with the seven different divisions of Amazon. You know, that that's not the way that this has gone. So turning back the clock to a talent for.

friendly executive is, obviously, this has much deeper ramifications for a company this big, but I do think that that is something to underline and think about. So your mini-series about conquering the American West for Truth Social, that meeting did not go well. Wait, I think you're mixing up my projects. I had a mini-series about conquering the American West by launching Truth Social. Like, Truth Social was the way that I conquered the West. and that was set up at AMC Plus. I can confirm that. The most interesting kind of wrinkle

that's come out of this so far or ripple effect has been the rampant speculation about what does Bob Eiger, what's he going to buy? Bob loves to buy stuff. bought Fox. bought Lucasfilm.

Sidebar. Is this podcast for sale or were we included in the previous sale? Everybody, as a number. You can edit this part out, but I'm just saying, just curious. You know, there was already some Netflix stuff out there. There was some speculation.

I think Derek Thompson was kind of like throwing around some names like Snapchat or TikTok as like one thing Disney does not have is it's social media distribution arm. I don't know. What is that? Social media is really having a moment. Well, if you were Disney, I suppose you wouldn't really want to. get into some of the hairy aspects of what goes along with social media. But could you present like a safer, kinder, gentler, more stable environment than Twitter?

Here's what's weird to me. And again, not a stock expert, not an industry expert, just a guy with a very tall microphone stand in front of him. Disney has all of the things that all of the other companies want. Disney has IP, characters, stories, tradition that all of these streamers are desperate to buy. It's why Amazon bought the Lord of the Rings franchise. It's why Netflix is trying to turn stranger things into something bigger than it maybe even could possibly be. They want this stuff. They want this deep bench of things to boot and reboot forever, right? They want actual concrete business models where they produce toys of characters and people buy the toys and take them home, where they enter into a physical park space and hand money over for pretzels

and Black Panther masks. Everybody wants that stuff. And if there's one thing that I've learned from even a cursory reading of like financial stuff recently is that what's going on now with interest rates and inflation and everything means that people are paying for things more or less at value. The era of we're going to undersell this because we can show growth and then it'll all work itself out in the watch. That's over now, right? I think Derek Thompson has talked very intelligently about this and has a piece coming in the Atlantic about it. He mentioned it on podcast.

So Disney has a product people want. And one of the, I guess, mistakes, although it made sense at the time, may have been underselling Disney Plus as a subscription service, entering the marketplace with product that people absolutely want. And remember, we joked about this about Cheapac too, that there was we were from the era where Disney would put their classic films on VHS for a short time only. Yeah. The only way you could watch Dumbo for 10 years is if you spent $60 for a VHS tape or whatever. Then it would go away. Then they would bring it back again. So it was odd to see Disney introduce the streaming service, which again would be the only place to watch Dumbo for the foreseeable future for $7.99 a month. Now, am I complaining? Because that was, that's a great, that's a great price for a family where people want to watch cartoons and Bluey, et cetera, et cetera. But they're the one that could have charged more. And I would imagine that's where we're headed, especially as all of their different siloed off properties merge into one thing, whether, you know, so you're not just the stuff that's on the, the, the pluse hub, but like your, your Hulus, your, your, that there's a time coming where there's going to be a more of a centralization of the products that they offer, rather than.

a bundle of ESPN Plus, Hulu, and Disney Plus. But I guess the thing that I don't understand, and that's also why I am absolutely, I'm going to say this. I'm going to take my hat out of the ring, not in contention for this job, is that it seems to me the real disconnect now has been Disney's entrance into this marketplace that it hadn't been in before, which isn't to say streaming is wrong, because that's not what I'm here to do, but it's basically... That would be a hell of a pivot for me.

Unclear what I'm here to do, but maybe we'll know by the end of the hour. but the idea of them buying something else ephemeral doesn't make sense to me. It does not seem like that. That seems more like a panic move as opposed to shoring up the core business, which is making products that generally people want that they can't get anywhere else. Yeah, I mean, I think it was in one of those threads, be it Derek's or maybe it was Matt's column where they were talking about, like, the sort of era that Iger oversaw the great explosion of growth at Disney

was a parks and cable TV company. that funded a movie business essentially. And now they are a digital media business that happens to have theme parks. Or at least that's the way that the company itself is constructed. And I think that this whole story to me, and that this is probably a much bigger conversation,

perhaps one for the end of the year about larger trends in popular culture to the extent that you and I are smart enough to understand them, is like five to seven years ago or maybe 10 years ago, somebody probably should have been like, are we sure we should do this? Oh, yeah.

Now it's too late. But now you've got multiple companies running billions of dollars into the red to give us pretty good television that we all have to pay the same amount of money that we were paying our cable fees for if you cut the cord and you want to have

HBO Max and Hulu and Disney Plus and Netflix and Amazon Prime and whatever else. and just generally speaking, like the way in which Disney made movie making and movie going into a fully eventized, it's a billion dollars or the box office or it's a failure kind of experience. And the fact that like maybe just Disney just got too much power and too many other companies were like, you know what, this is the only path of success is to find Black Adam, spend $400 million making it and hope to make a billion and a half dollars at the box office.

It's insane. I mean, and I do think there is a chickens coming home to Roos thing because, to your point, like Disney broke the movies. They broke the movies. You know, like now movies, they have to be half to a full yard in industry term, billion dollar successes or their failures, and everything else is irrelevant or goes to streaming. And then they wanted to continue that success into streaming. But they set the bar where they set it. So when you make a Marvel show or make a Star Wars show, it has to look as good as the movies because it's all one thing, man, right? And so then you end up with a billion dollars in debt because you're creating this content for a smaller box with fewer people paying for it. And if there's one thing that I learned during my time researching my groundbreaking truth social project, it's that maybe people don't want as much freedom as they think they do. And I say that because this idea that the cable bundle was some sort of like- Truly the spirit of the American West. Right.

Well, I'm just saying, like, if the cable bundle was some sort of, you know, Faucian, like, controlled Orwellian mind state problem, why were we all fine with it? Like, we were all basically fine with it. We were paying probably a little too much money and getting a lot of stuff that we didn't watch, but it was easier. You could turn on the television and the channels were there and you knew where to find stuff. It was ad-supported. Everyone was paying the same amount too much.

And the studios were flush and they could make whatever they wanted. But they blew this up in pursuit of somehow carving out independence and finding more freedom and finding their own financial path to whatever. But they did this. It reminds me of when, like, you remember that when, so I, in high school and in college, I had Apple computers always because I liked them and that's what they had at my school. And I remember people being like, no, man, with a PC, you can optimize. You can do anything you want with it. And I was like, I don't want to do anything with it. I'm not McGuiver.

I just want to open it, see the flying toasters, and write some stuff. Like, siloed things can be elegant and work. And so there's just a little too much freedom at there right now. So much of this came out of this very period of time where Bob Eager left Disney in the third place, I guess, not in the first place. Now, think about like when the pandemic was really first popping off. And you had been like, well, I've decided what I need to do is move myself and my family to the middle of the Moab. desert. You know, and that's going to be now, and I will teach them.

I will be their school instructor and their father, and this is what we're going to do. And you change the paradigm of your family. Well, isn't that what, like, HBO did with putting all the movies on streaming the first day? It's like, well, once you start telling people that this movie will be at home rather than at the theater, then they're going to start waiting for little things or whatever it is, but do to just watch it home. And this is what they, like, they kind of made this bet thinking all of, you know, the future of society was going to be fundamentally changed. And it obviously has been in a lot of ways, but people are going back to go see Barbarian and all these movies.

And we're all too online, including companies and boards and CEOs. You know, there was, it's incredible. And someone, maybe Derek Thompson, I don't know, someone will write this book probably. but like the shock to the system that was early 2020 was so fascinating because it revealed how not just me, someone with a relationship with anxiety, was like, oh my God, things are uncertain in a way I didn't expect them to be. But everyone was like that. Corporations were like that. Nobody had any idea. And nobody was okay, maybe due to their own desire to control the narrative or maybe they're because of late stage capitalism or maybe that's the same thing. Everyone was like, I'm going to grab this.

this is an opportunity. This is a feature, not a bug. So we're going to grab hold of the wheel and save the short term because we don't know what the long term is. Well, guess what? I mean, I think the arc of history, I don't know if it bends towards justice, but it does flatten out until you can't see an arc anymore. Stuff happens. And now we're in a really, really weird place where we are all, but whether it's as consumers who like watching TV or whether it's as investors who are seeing their Twitter stock, you know, become a distressed asset, or whatever, we're all just hoping somebody smart knows what's going on. And a lot of these moves are suggesting that no, nobody knows.

And that doesn't mean bringing back wise Papa Eiger is wrong because he was very, very, very good at this job. And he was very good at it through different eras of the job. But it doesn't mean that there wasn't panic behind it and uncertainty in the other end of it. Yeah. I mean, I think for him, it's really just more of a question of like, how many times can you do the victory lap? and how will it feel

if at the end of this supposed two-year run he either doesn't find the prince who was promised or oversees a continuing downturn of the company he helped build and how does that feel legacy-wise

and I don't know if guys like that worry about that I think they must because they come back to work to do the same job but like you know what I mean? I think that there's also like a competitive spirit aspect of it and like finding you know what like if he's just going out there and speaking universities and doing the public speaking bit. And it turns out he can't

own the sons and he can't be president of the United States. Then I guess Disney's the better way to spend your time other than playing golf. But here's another way to look at the play overall for the company. And it's a version of reality that literally people like Bob Eiger can subscribe to genuinely because you know what? Everything is going to be fine for him regardless. He is he is handsome. He is beloved. He's in his later years. He's white and powerful. He's going to Good, regardless of what happens or whatever we're sort of speculating straw man about his legacy. But what he does bring is something that I think Wall Street, I thought Wall Street thumbed its nose at until we saw these investors report today that are like, the magic is back. Buy.

So maybe this is all bullshit. But he brings back a megawatt grin. He brings back a belief in the childhood magic of Uncle Walt's company that makes them different, makes them special. he makes all of these people feel better. You know, so there's this panic about Star Wars and future Star Wars. I would just be concerned that he creates, but this creates a reality in which only he can do that job. Oh, that already existed. That already existed.

That only he can do this job and that there's nobody suited to do what he does. He wants that. That's very flattering. And he clearly thinks that in the same way that people who become president. They're like, well, thank God it fell to me or else we're in chaos. Like people who have that kind of messianic streak, I mean, that's very clear, right? But I do think, and there's no way to quantify this, we're not in those rooms, and we won't see the results of it for at least a year.

But I do think that there is a lot less, there's a loosening of muscles in the various creative arms of Disney today. Like, we could sit here and we do this for a podcast, be like, guys, is Marvel okay? Like, yes, they're making more money than anyone else. But, like, I saw a world of Wakanda. We'll talk about it next week. we've seen some of these TV shows. I'm like, are we sure.

People are doing the same thing about Star Wars. They're probably doing the same thing about Pixar. They're doing the same thing about even Disney animation. Like, what's going on? And if you have someone, at least with a familiar hand on the rudder, maybe those people in those offices can be like, oh, I remember what we are. We're still the thing people like and we can operate that way,

not operate out of fear. Because that is, this is not something that you can really quantify or source, But when I was talking about like meetings people take at certain companies versus other companies, the shifting of the guard from like old Hollywood, which had many, many, many, many problems, but was kind of based on like, I believe in you. Let's give it a shot, sport, to the streaming tech takeover where everything's like, I hear you, but I'm going to have to run this by my 16, I need 16 other offices are across this and we're going to have to conference and decide how this is going to play. and the kind of trickle-down fear-based economics at that instills in a company, maybe that does matter. Maybe it's, maybe this is still me talking about when Bryce Harper comes to bat, you know, and he wins a series when everyone is like, the one thing this guy could do here is hit a home run and then he does the thing.

I don't know. Guys, maybe magic's real. That's my new take. 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

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Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. We've addressed to whether or not you would put yourself up for this job. Yes. I don't feel like you gave a definitive answer one way or not.

If you were to become Disney CEO and one of your, one of the properties under your umbrella is FX, Hulu. What level of commitment are you making to the Fleischmanverse going forward? Like the expanded Fleischman verse? Am I hoping at the end of the series that someone, I'm trying to think who would be, Fran Leibowitz steps out of the 92nd Street Y and is like, I'm starting us. Medical procedural with Toby Fleischman, a kind of a groanish with Hannah Fleischman, you know, a sort of behind the scenes, like making of a play with Rachel Fleischman. Oh my God, Chris. Jonathan Saffron Forer emerges from the subway and says, have you ever heard of the Ashkenazi Initiative?

And it's the whole next decade of movies? Yeah, I'm in. I'm 100% in. I mean, I'm excited. This is an interesting podcast because we start by talking about this. future of the company that has made us all action figure collectors the rest of our life. And now we're going to talk about two shows made for grownups. Yes.

But one of them is owned essentially by Bean Counter Bob and his once and future boss. No, it's wild. But it's also pretty exciting, I think, for both of us to be able to talk about White Lotus and Fleischman because these are the shows that haven't existed for a while. Yeah. And I'm glad they do. So, okay, so you want to start with Fleischman? I really, really, really like Fleshman.

It's in trouble. And I think part of the reason I like it, aside from the fact that it's a very relatable content for better or for worse, I mean, just in terms of like adults and their love lives and their interior. Do you remember the time I showed up at your Hampton's house and got naked and jumped in the pool? It does. There's a lot of similarities between Fleshman and White Lotus. I mean, yes, they're both about sexual longing, fidelity. trust within romantic relationships. They're also about relatively affluent people. I think White Lotus might be at a higher earning level than the Fleischman's, but the Fleischman seem like they do quite well

for themselves. And they're both while driven by a mystery element, so for in the White Lotus, it's what bodies are in these bags at the end of the season. For Fleischman is in trouble, and I have not read the book, but obviously people who have know the answer to this, where's Rachel Fleischman? Where did she go? What's going on?

There's like an element of like, okay, gonna keep tuning in. It's not just gonna be Toby Fleischman, played by Jesse Eisenberg, going through the ropes of being a newly single guy

in New York City. They're very well-made shows. They do different things, but, you know, Fleischman is in trouble is like sex in the city for Suffian Stevens fans. You know, it's like,

it's pretty reliably pitched for TV. So let's take one step back. So people who aren't familiar with the Fleischman verse, Fleischman is in trouble, was the debut novel by a great magazine writer, Taffy, Brodus, or Ackner. It was a bestseller.

You and I managed to both not read it, which is, I think, helpful for this conversation. Sure. But not, much like Game of Thrones. We were not book reading. People might wonder if we've stopped reading. I can assure you I haven't, but nobody has made.

It's in play. I mean, it's a worthwhile question. So Taffy wrote, along with some pretty brilliant collaborators, adapted her own book for the screen. She's an executive producer. She wrote the scripts of at least the first two episodes. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, who are married couple who made Little Miss Sunshine,

along with a lot of great music videos back in the day. Our executive producers directed at least the first episode of the series. Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Daines, Lizzie Kaplan, a resurgent and resplendent Adam Brody. The Brotus... It's so fucking here, man. So, in the story is about a... The Fleischman's upper-to-upper-upper middle class,

couple on the upper-to-upper east side of Manhattan who have divorced when the series begins. They have two kids, and there are a lot of apps out there now. There's a lot of different opportunities for Dr. Toby Fleischman. And there's also, as Chris alluded to, kind of a slow-burning mystery as to where his wife has gone to. played by Claire Daines. My first reaction to this is I cannot believe how good it is.

And it's not just that I can't believe how good it is. It's that I have to give credit here in the same way we gave credit to FX for the bear, which seemed like it came out of nowhere and was like, oh my God, it's just they just got it right. With the casting, with the tone, with the vibe, with reading the moment, with delivering something that we didn't know we wanted. Every single book that gets not even a positive review in the New York Times gets optioned and has an afterlife, even if we never see it on the screen. Very few of them get adapted, and almost none of them get adapted successfully

to the point where you're watching it being like, this is a medium that the story was made for, and I can't imagine it any other way. So I think it's a testament to the FX's development team. It's a testament to Taffi, Brotis, or Ackner, and all the other producers involved in the show, that this thing just goes. It knows exactly what it is.

It has a visual language that works in an unobtrusive way from little, like, you know, aesthetic filigrees, like the camera flipping and seeing Manhattan upside down. to the way texting and voiceover and left and right swiping apps are projected. Like there's a visual language to the show that elevates it beyond the point, I think, that if you were just like, this is a show about a 40-year-old guy who's learning can get late again, it's more than that.

But it is just pitched in an emotional place that obviously we're more or less the same ages as the character, so maybe it speaks to us in a way that it might not to our younger or dare we say even older listeners. but just on a pure, like, practical production quality level, like I was just floored by it, even before I kind of fell in love with the show itself. Yeah, it's also perfectly cast. So I don't, like, I had no preconceived notions of who should be playing what role, obviously, but the way in which they have gotten that initial sort of trio of this, of Lizzie Kaplan, Jesse Eisenberg, and Claire Daines,

but also this sort of tertiary level of Adam. Brody playing Lizzie Kaplan and Jesse Eisenberg's friend, Seth. His name is Seth, which is hilarious. And also Josh Radner, who plays Lizzie Kaplan's husband, who I think has a bigger role going forward in this series, is just like really, really, really well cast as a slightly graying one school, now New Jersey house dad, or not house dad, but like, you know, like that vibe of them being, we've left into the city. We were raising. our kids here in the suburbs. Life is sort of what like we wanted it to be

but not entirely. Everybody has like a really good feel for their character and has been cast exactly to explore the space that their character is situated in and like Brody is a perfect example where it's just like obviously has like a little bit of an edge

to him but is essentially like the guy you want to talk to at a party and they have just created this like environment where like that can happen. And I don't know. There's just not a lot of TV shows like this right now. I just, it made me think that we've just failed a generation of actors, maybe generation of creators in all sense.

That's a much better way of putting what I was going to try to say, which is just like, they're just, like, what's Lizzie Kaplan been doing? And why hasn't she just been doing stuff like this? Because these things haven't existed. I mean, I was joking about Elliott Gould, but like this story was mainstream culture 40 years ago. Now, you could very much make the case that there were a lot of things excluded from

that mainstream culture that very much privileged a certain affluent view of Manhattan, the Manhattan Demi Mon. Like, I get that. No, I know. I don't think that it's, I don't think I may destroy you. What's got replaced is, like, superheroes came in. And, yeah.

So we weren't wrong. Here's the thing about Adam Brody. It's like a market correction. Like, we weren't wrong about him. He's a very good actor, a very charming presence and a very, I'm very happy to see him. and he's doing great. Not like parisocially, like I'm happy for him

because he seems happy with Leiden Meester or he's able to execute this. He's really good. He's really good. And then you're like, well, where's he been? And then it's like, well, what are his choices been?

You know, like he could be in Witt Stillman movies. Whit Stillman doesn't make movies really that much anymore. Thanks, Bob JPEC. But these sorts of stories don't exist. And these sorts of actors, I mean, I understand Jesse Eisenberg was in the Zach Snyder movies. I'm not going to dignify. any more commentary on that? I'm not going to see them. I would rather think that didn't exist.

What are these actors going to be doing? And now they have something to do. And we're all beneficiaries for it. You know, this is in a weird way, when we started the podcast, right, and we started talking about over 10 years ago and we were doing some of our, again, like the way, way, way outside of baseball view of inside baseball, one of the things that I started saying a lot in my columns and talking about even before he himself came on the podcast was what kept FX and what kept John Landgraf, who's the head of FX and still as the chairman of now the network in the studios, even though he's empowered his deputies more. What kept him thriving and nimble was identifying market forces and market inefficiencies. And so he was kind of the one that was just like,

oh, well, miniseries, you know, event series, that's something that we can do that other people aren't paying attention to. And then it shifted to half hours. We can be more nimble and exciting at a cost point that makes sense for us in half hours. And you get things like Louis, which we don't talk about anymore, but better things and Atlanta reservation dogs, etc. I can almost feel the conversations where maybe he was musing or some of his deputies were like, well, what about stuff that's just kind of emotionally interesting and real and good? Yeah. Now, there's a lot of work to do between saying that and coming up with this and casting it and making. Well, look what they made this year. They made the bear. They made it. This is the last season of

Atlanta. They made the patient. They made this. They made the old. man, which I thought fell off a cliff, but was really, really good for the, like, they have, like, good adult taste. They have taste for, it's like, you know, actually, your kid's not going to like this. You know what I mean? But, like, that's okay. You can still, you're still allowed to watch something about people who falling in and out of love. And can I also say, you know what this isn't? It's not big little lies, which I do not mean as an insult to big little lies.

It's not that. You insulted them a little bit. And I did when it came out, too, and I would do it again. but I don't intend to hear. I'm just saying that that conception of what a best-selling book could and should be and could and should look like

on the screen, the Nicole Kidman industry, right, or the Reese Witherspoon industry with Little Fires Everywhere, nine perfect strangers, those things are heightened and they grab you

in the same way that a very successful Beach Read will grab you. This show, what I'm dazzled by is I was completely, I completely bought in by the tone,

the voice, the performances, the humor, the emotional observation, even some of the kind of cringy stuff from my perch on Dattington Island that's hard to see about the Fleischman's in their situation and the way the kids are

and the way they are with the kids. But then there is kind of a mystery. Yeah. It's so subtle that it's, I found it deeply unnerving in a way that I have never felt about a show where they're like, oh, guess what, there's also a body bag here.

Well, there's a story, it gives the show a story engine that it might not normally have. If it was just, this guy got divorced and is now dating that's one show. That's a series, not a limited series, right? Now that this guy has to go running all over the city

to drop his kids off with his babysitter or to go find out whether she's checked in at the office or to find out if she's at the Hamptons and all this other stuff, he's like now has a reason to exit stage left and show up stage right scene after scene after scene. And that's really smart writing. That's really smart storytelling.

The thing that I think that we're both... I just don't interrupt you. I just want to say that though that in and of itself is different. It's an inverted iceberg, right? It doesn't start with the body bag. It starts with the life. And then slowly, and I'm not suggesting there is a body bag, but like to all the book readers out there, here we are again saying things like that. I'm actively pulse racing freaked out by the mystery in this show.

Like I have no idea where it's going. So I don't know what it's coming. But it led with the part that these shows usually are not designed to lead with. Usually they lead with as White Lotus does. Oh, there's body bag. So relax. Within six hours, you'll be at the part that you might think is the most interesting part. Fleischman does not do that.

And there's something else that White Lotus doesn't do, and it's not an either or a better or worse thing. It's just an observation. White Lotus, you watch all these people, and you're slowly, slowly, slowly getting to know their hopes and dreams and their regrets. It's pretty on the surface in Fleischman. Like there is not only Toby Fleischman, who is a neurosis on his sleeve main character, and is constantly talking about how it feels to be alive. You've also got the Lizzie Kaplan narrator element, which is filling in all the historical blanks. We're on episode four of White Lotus. I don't know that much about Harper, Aubrey Plaza's character. I don't know that much about Cameron and Daphne. I don't know that much about Alby. You know what I mean? Like he says things from time to time, but it's a much more placid,

in the moment, what are the comedy of manners things that are happening, rather than this character is just doing a data dump all the time. And it's just two different ways of writing and two different ways of telling a story. I just am glad that I have both, is I guess what I'm saying. My God, that's what I mean. It actually feels really good that we're not clinging to one or the other of these shows, both of which I think are pretty excellent because that's all we've got. It's very nice to have them to compare and contrast.

consider. But yeah, I was really, I was, despite the pedigree, despite the network, despite the cast, I kind of was skeptical. I wasn't checking for it. And then it really got me. So I'm all in. I watch the first two. And yeah, we'll keep talking about it. Any, any deep thoughts on White Lotus? I think I wanted to lead with Tom Hollander. Oh my God. Yes. Showing up. So for folks who listen to the Ryan Russollo podcast and never get a chance to listen to when Trent Dilfer comes on the Ryan Russelo podcast, which is usually a big day for me when, when Dilfer's on. for Zolo. He has a bunch of really cool sayings, but one of them is, are you a thermometer or are you a thermostat? Which is, do you read the room or do you change the room? And Tom Hollander's

a thermostat actor. Like, obviously, I'm a big fan of his from In the Loop, the Thick of it. I'm a big fan of his from his many, many appearances throughout, like, you know, the last 20 years on small screen and big screen and on stage. He's also like a delightful. He's also like a delight full writer. And if you go back and read any of his lifestyle diary columns, he used to write for the spectator over the last 20 years. Like, they are not that far removed from the character he's playing on White Lotus.

But he has the Molly Shannon role of coming in in the sixth to kind of save the game. Not that this show needed saving. It's having a great season. But I think when he showed up, I was like, oh, I really wanted some energy like this. I really felt like this show needed a chaos agent. It needed someone to be like,

we're in fucking Italy. It's hot. Let's fuck. Let's eat. And they didn't have that. And now they do. And the show jumped up a level for me. I'm still reeling because I thought you were going to say that Tom Hollander was a frequent guest on the Ryan Rosillo podcast, which in and of itself is a podcast, I would subscribe to some sort of premium service to listen to.

I totally agree with you. And I also think that this was a sneaky important episode in what I continue to think is a sneaky great season. I think I'm ready to, you know, with a few episodes still to go, three still to go, I'm ready to drop the qualifier. Like I think it's a better show now than it was last year. I'm more emotionally invested in it than I was. There's one version of reading the series and being like,

well, this was kind of an in-between episode. This was getting us from one half of the season to the next. in terms of big events, there weren't so many. It was a lot of both reacting and rejoicing. It was funnier in a lot of ways, more explicitly funny. Even in some throwaway lines, I rewound twice the moment when Tanya and Portia and Portia are going to meet Tom Hollander and his delightful crew, and they pass the guy who's like handing out the towels,

and he's like, bonjourno. And she goes, that's a weird voice. I just kept rewinding that. It's really funny. Or just like the little. little like the light comedy of errors or overlapping comedy of F. Marie Abraham being like, those are the girls who are naked in my room, you know, and imperially gulping wine. I mean, or the piano player ODing on ecstasy. They're, you know, they're comic moments. But to your

point, the Tom Hollander characters, but you've got to go, you know, if you've got to die. You got to. Having a massive dose of Viagra and Bali as you play piano. You feel like that's the way to do it? Sure. I mean, like, there's, I can think of maybe like one or two

better ways, but doing that well, even briefly, holding the position of CEO of the Walt Disney company. That's how you do it. Even if it's just for,

just for a day. Yeah. If you just paid the extra premium with the parks to become CEO for the day. The thing that the Tom Hollander character and his crew brought

was something that was missing, which was the kind of like, to your point, like the vivacious La Dolce Vita. This was the episode where people on vacation had some exciting, surprising times. This is the moment when Tanya, who has played one role up to now in this season, was happy. People were nice to her. They celebrated her.

She had a good time. And, you know, I don't know, I always get hung up on these moments where you can feel a little extra thought being given by the writer and creator. Because she was on an arc that could have carried you through seven episodes, especially when she's not the primary character. But to pump the brakes, remind us that there's something else, to put her with a crew of people who see her and like her, which is the way anyone exists in the world. Not everyone is one thing all the time. So you have a Tom Hollander who's like, tell me the story from the very beginning. And she says, I was born in San Francisco. And his line reading of, oh, the very beginning is so funny, but it's also generous.

You know, it allows us, I believe, some breathing room for whatever chaos and murders is still to come. And I really, really relished it for that reason. I also thought it was very realistic to have a character come in. Because, like, you know, over the last two seasons of White Lotus, one of the very perceptive things that Mike White has done has shown that sometimes it's really weird to be on vacation and that you go somewhere and you're just like, I guess I'll go to the bull today? Or do you want to get a car to take us to this historically relevant village or whatever?

and why did we come here in the first place? And then Tom Hollander's character is just like, we'll have one of everything. And then bring us another one of everything. And that is, it is just a really like, it's a, it's just a very perceptive idea about how people spend their leisure time and especially if they're burning untold sums of money. Can I just ask you one thing though?

Mm-hmm. How, Cameron and Daphne are like Toby Fleischman age, right? they're like 40, 42. I think late 30s, early 40s, yeah. Do you think that he could physically drink that much and then start drinking again the next day? And look so amazing. Right. That might be pushing it a little bit.

So are you aware of like the discourse around this is going to be a season of cons and people are conning each other on this show? And that like who's conning who? And essentially there's like a feeling that Cameron and Daphne are, are. are cash poor and that's why you know like he and that there's like an element that all of these characters

ultimately are doing this to one another that's interesting no that's sort of a fun way to look at it no not at all only because the surface level of the show particularly this season has just to me been very solid

like it's kind of interesting I think I was trying to articulate this last week and even while watching it that season one maybe this was also contextual in terms of how and when we watched it. But it did feel so driven by external forces about like the dialogue, the discourse, you know, and everyone was sort of both themselves and speaking to or performing to something larger.

They were placeholders for something. And this season, you could make that case, but I don't think it would be a successful one. I just feel like this show is working so well this season and a more traditional, here are some characters in some situations sort of way. and so that when you have Lucia, who is fully fleshed out as a character, now having some sort of sexual relationship with a third member of our main cast, where Dominic has to be like, please, son, go have dinner with a girl, that's what I want for you, and then see what's actually happening. It's just rich in a, potentially unlike Cameron and Daphne, it is rich on its own terms. So I haven't even gone past that, but that's an interesting suggestion. Is that catching, is that getting some headwind or people, I mean,

some tailwind or people? It's making some noise on the boards. Let's just say that. I'm a little distracted because I was just looking at Tom Hollanders' filmography. Here's his 2014 to 2018. These are the highlights. In Muppets Most Wanted, he played Irish journalist.

Yeah, I saw that. And Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, he played Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Okay. And then in Bird Box, he played a guy named Gary. I mean, Tom Hollander come on the watch. I just feel like no one would have better stories. Right?

Oh, man. Well, we should wrap it up there. Wait, Chris, I'm sorry to cut you off. You know, I just love podcasting with you so much. Well, we have to keep podcasting. That's why I was cutting us off. But I did just want to say, you haven't seen it yet. So we're not going to talk Wakanda yet.

We're not going to talk Tar yet. We have some cinema podcasting to come. I've seen Tar. If you want to do 100 minutes on Tar right now, we can do it. I, it's the only thing I want to talk about, despite what I've, you know, just been monologuing. But I do think there's an interesting lane we should explore maybe during a down week, which is just like, I'd like to talk to Richard Schiff, Toby from the West Wing, about his, I guess, occasional paycheck as United Nations representative in the Marvel movies.

Oh, yeah. Because Richard Schiff is in World of Wakanda in a very strange and small way. And I imagine it similar to Tom Hollander being like, I'm the prime minister of the United Kingdom I mean, this rogue nation will not stand. You know, and then that's it. Like, what a weird job. So the thing you want to talk about with Wakanda forever is Richard Schiff. Richard Schiff and Lake Bell, why?

Is that not the way the discourse is trending? Am I telling on myself a little bit that that's my take? No, no. I just mean that it would be fun to do a podcast with working successful, respected actors who do day player work with ping pong balls in Atlanta or whatever. And like what that experience is like. That's what I'm saying. I have a much larger,

richer and fuller response to World of Wakanda that we will save until after the holiday. Is it World of Wakanda? I thought it was Wakanda forever. No, I keep calling that. It's Wakanda forever. I'm sorry. There was a comic book series

that our buddy Rembert contributed to called World of Wakanda. And I keep thinking that's what it is because that was the kind of like Black Panther without Black Panther series. It's Wakanda forever. I think that you're on to something, though. If Disney buys Warner's

and White Lotus Season 3 takes place at the world of Wakanda, a new resort? Yeah. White Lotus, Black Panther? Yeah. It was renewed for season three. I'm going to stop that. He's not buying Warners.

They say that. Of course, watch Iger's egg. I just, I don't see it. I don't see it. But then, do you think Iger was just like, on day one, they were like, sir, sir, into the crisis suite, we need to show you the opening boning montage of Fleischman's in trouble? Like, how are our engineers going to put this on?

our streaming services. Is this going to be on Star in the UK? Well, okay, he wanted the job. We were produced, as always, by Kaia McMullen. We were executive produced by Bob Chapec, who I'm happy to announce is coming on board at the watch as a sort of consuliary. It's a soft landing. You know, we've always, we always had his job. We have a very, very competitive compensation package to offer. Could I just say, though, there is something, if you look at like the Hollywood Reporter stories, and there are many already about this, they put the pictures of the Bob's next to each other. And Bob Iger looks like a golden god. Like in a

perfect suit, his hair is impeccable, warm smile that you would love to just like be sipping Saraw with somewhere on a white lotus property. Next to him, they always choose the picture of Chepec where he's wearing like a polo short sleeve with a name tag that says Bob on it. Like, he looks like he looks like he's at Superstore. Yeah.

It's like Bob Iger just got done playing like nine holes with Burnhard Lager, then Bob Cheapak's like an ice road trucker. It's not fair, but then this is, a lot of this is media and branding and like, look, man. But anyway, that's why we can Bob Cheapek come on the watch. Thanks for producing our podcast, Kaya. And we will be back on Wednesday with this special and or finale episode. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

And we'll talk to you soon.