The Watch - ‘The Boys’ Is Back and More Gory Than Ever. Plus, ‘Barry’ Is Only Getting Better

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about some of the news coming out of Netflix's Geeked Week, including a new show from the creators of ‘Dark’ (1:00). Then, they talk about the return of ‘The Boys’ for its third season and how the show continues to nail its tone (17:21), before talking about the latest episode of ‘Barry’ (35:49). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joanna, do you ever wish you could definitively prove that you have the right opinions about movies? Uh, yeah, Neil, because I do have the right opinions about movies and television, right, Dave? No, because I'm more right about those things, and I demand trial by content. Oh, boy, what is trial by content? Each week, we'll take on a huge question. Each of us will bring a choice and combine with listener submissions and your votes, we will come to a decision. It's trial by content every Tuesday on Spotify, the ringer.com, wherever you're listening right now. Don't let Neil win.

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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, shooting up the podcast version of Compound V. It's Andy Greenwald! What would that even look like? What would that do?

It's like a vile full of stamps.com ads. And you just shoot it right in there. And then extra flaming hot takes burst from my mouth. That's right. That's right. Greenwald, it's Monday. It's so great to see you. I'm back in California after a sojourn to Austin, Texas for ATX this weekend.

It was the big television festival down there. Thanks to everybody who came up and said hi and everybody who's fans of the show who reached out and say hi down there. It was really cool. I did a Station 11 panel. I did a justified panel. I feel like television is flowing through me like so many mitochondrions. Is that what they call them when you get the force? I use the soft eye.

I say Midichlorian. Midichlorians. Yeah. How are your midichlorians? doing? They're low. I just tested. It was much lower than I thought. The folks at Cedars told me to come back in a few weeks after I ate some more celery. We're going to talk about top chef, Barry, the boys, all that, right? But I do want to stay where you're at. Because, Chris, this isn't like, you know, in the newsroom that we never worked in. There was always a divide, right, between, like,

the opinion writers who, like, stood in their ivory tower, scratching their chins and it's, like, observing. And then there's like the reporters, you know, boots on the ground, talking to people, shoe leather, know what's really going on. And that's what you are for this podcast. I like that to call that the Mags versus Maureen divide. Yes. Yes. And that's you. That's you. You were, you were out in Texas. Yeah. With people who make TV, with people who watch TV. What was your, what was your vibe? What was it like out there in America with people who actually consume and make this stuff? You know, it was interesting. I did a podcast or like a micro conversation with, with Dan Feinberg from the Hollywood Reporter

with the very broad topic of what is pop culture and we inevitably, I think partially because I opened it by talking about just the onslaught of TV that's happening right now and whether or not that's creating a good ecosystem for conversation about television. And we did the usual lamenting of the depth of the monoculture

and whether people are ever watching the same thing at the same time. And this is a really interesting example, Andy, because I'm coming into this podcast. We have three or four great shows to talk about. Legitimately, like, despite flaws here and there, like shows that we love watching. I also have finished Stranger Things,

finished under the banner of heaven, watched a few episodes of Pistol, and, like, have all this stuff to talk about. But, like, it's one of those times where it's, like, you and me, like, even though we're best buds and TV aficionados, like, it's hard to stay on the same page with what everybody else is watching, right? Did you get that vibe from just the way that the festival flowed as well?

Like, was there, it was interesting because I saw that HBO had a big presence there and they were like debuting some Westworld stuff. And I wondered, like, is that the big show of the festival? Because maybe, you know, like ranked choice voting. Like many people there would have ranked West World as a show they watched as opposed to others. Or it was the festival a reflection of the way we've been perceiving TV, meaning something like Station 11, which, you know, not that rating, exist anymore, but probably wasn't very highly rated, but those who watched it, it's their

favorite show. And so that I also got the impression that there was a very deep emotional connection to Station 11 based on the people in the crowd. So I did one where it was Patrick Somerville and then the like basically the heads of department. So it was David Eisenberg who does the editing on the show and Jeannie Baccarat would cast it and Steve Cousins, who shot a few episodes and Helen Wang who did the costumes. Like it was a bunch of people from those departments talking about making an episode of television. And in talking about moments from the show, I noticed, like, people in the crowd, like, getting choked up, like, thinking about it.

There were a couple of big reunions there, which is also interesting to think about being in the nostalgia era of prestige television, where, you know, like parenthood and scrubs and justified all had differing kinds of reunion panels there. So, you know, being 10, 15 years into the quote-unquote, golden age of television and having nostalgia. There's been a bunch of stuff about the Wire's 20th anniversary going on. There's a podcast launched about it. There's, you know, obviously with we on the city,

there's almost like this appendix to the show now. So, yeah, it was interesting. I didn't get the impression that the straight TV fans were as bothered by the amount of good stuff to watch as the people who make it their business to talk about it. But I could still see like a kind of like, I'm never sure what I'm supposed to be completely on top of it any given time. And my only other follow up for you, Chris, is as someone who has not set foot in the great city of Austin

since I believe South by Southwest 2005, I imagine it's changed a little bit. But I also imagine that you as the avatar for we have changed as well because there was a time when one could exist for four days with no sleep and just mainlining Koso and Lone Star. I think I did send you a picture of me holding a Lone Star and a Cigarette though. did. And I was like, well, he's still there. I appreciate that. How did you, how did you fare? Like, it's a, it's a hot climate at this time of year. And everyone's always telling you to just eat molten cheese. Yeah, I, I kind of took care of myself this time. I had a turkey sandwich. You know, like, everybody was like, you got to get the queso. I was like, I got it. You know what

you mean? Like, it's not that I don't like caseo, but like when the, you know, the humidity is itself queso, you don't need to be also eating it. I went to a couple of nice restaurants, though. Okay. That's good. I mean, that's good. I mean, that's good. the classier version of it. I didn't know there were restaurants last time I was there. You know what I mean? Someone handed me a rib and I was like, I'm good till Tuesday. I don't even know if it was an edible rib. So where do you want to start with these shows? You want to start with Barry? Because that's like the most recent. Actually, I want to deflect one more time and just add, just piggyback on this conversation that we're continually having about the state of TV just to say two little bits of news that have emerged from something I didn't even know about, which was Netflix trying to, I guess, have its own kind of like Disney Day where they have, they have like, hashtag geek week, geeked week thing, where they're announcing updates or trailers or release dates

for, I guess, what, genre shows. I don't really know how to characterize them, shows that might exist within the larger ringerverse, let's say. And my first thought, because this is me, was one of sort of cynical skepticism. Because one of the things that Netflix has lacked traditionally is the franchise stuff that is causing, powering other services, obviously Disney being chief. among them, but also Amazon, and to a lesser degree, Warner. And that's caused some, you know, some clucking about Netflix's future because they don't

have these bricks to build their future empire on. Yeah, with the exception of Stranger Things. Well, that was the thing I was going to say. I have not watched this season yet. I do not have a spare 15 hours at the moment, but I promise to carve it out. I found it deeply satisfying, but also, like, I found this season of Stranger Things as a Stranger Things fan to be a return to form, but also like the way in which it is a completely different show from its humble origins as like this Amlin homage that had like these kids

constantly interacting to now people scattered across literally the globe with these very almost superhero story challenges in front of them is pretty, pretty eye-opening. But also, this is an important opportunity for me to once again check myself and my own experience is not the world because the show is massively, massively popular. And it's massively popular in a way that runs right against everything we're saying about the death of the monoculture. Because even just anecdotally, people in my life who I did not know went for this sort of thing were like, oh, it dropped this weekend. Great. There's my weekend. So that is a huge, huge driver for them. Clearly, they invested well. Financially, I don't know, but in terms of their like focus on that.

And now they have this week to sort of build up their other properties around it. Two things of note that I just wanted to call attention to. You can check out these. trailers on the YouTube.com yourself. One is for a new series called 1899 that I think we talked about when it was announced. These are our dudes from... Get the fucking windbreakers out, baby. It's dark season part Zwe, I guess, would be the correct translation. The team that made dark, which, by the way, like, we covered that show pretty heavily,

three super, super dense seasons of the most Germanic time travel imaginable. You finished that, right? Yeah. I love the experience of watching that show. I've been talking it up a bunch recently in both personal and professional settings, and I feel like it's weirdly underseen. I mean, who would imagine? Like a pitch black time travel show in which the only hope is that hope doesn't exist?

I can't believe it didn't catch on. Was that your pitch for the Just Shoot Me reboot? You were like, have you guys seen dark? It was called Just Shot Me. And you didn't know what time, you know, all this stuff happened. So this new series, and I think a lot of the press around it when it was announced, was that this was Netflix's jumping into the post-Mandalorean era of CGI by investing in one of these walls, basically, and they were going to make the entire show, which is about a very, very international cast playing,

a very international gathering of transatlantic passengers on a giant boat in 1890. And then I guess weird stuff starts happening. but this was like, they really put this forward being like, we are making a truly international show, and we're going to make it in a very COVID-friendly way because we're all going to be in a box together making it. Right. Which is pretty good until the COVID starts calling from inside the box.

But whatever, they got through it. The trailer looks super dope. It has a lot of style, which I kind of was excited about, because, you know, Dark was very mannered, but I don't remember thinking it was like the most visually dynamic series out there. Second one, and we've been tracking its development, is Netflix finally let us see Sandus. Man.

So is Sandman like a big comic for you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there are people for whom there are just like profound storytelling forks in their cultural roads where even if they liked comic books and whether they read like Batman comics or X-Men in their younger years, either someone handed them Sandman as a gateway drug or they picked it up or the weird goth at the comic bookstore was like, this like me has onks all over it. you should check it out, it blew my mind open. I mean, it is a really profound experience and also like just so smart and rich and complicated and world expanding.

And for all those reasons, that's why it's never been successfully adapted, right? Because it's very, very hard to say this is a comic book property when, you know, the severed head of Orpheus is a supporting character. So even with great excitement about finally seeing it made and the feeling that it probably TV is the best avenue for it and you see this amazing cast assembled and my old friend Alan Heinberg is the showrunner of it, still seeing it is different.

And I got to say this trailer had me. This trailer really, really got me because it seemed to do two things. One, it looks amazing. Tom Sturridge is perfect. And then the sort of tweaks or recastings or reimagininges of certain characters, He plays the character of Dream, the Sandman, Morpheus,

one of the eternals that, like, controls the things that always exist in humanity. His siblings are destruction, death, desire, despair, all these things. Gwendolyn Christie from Game of Thrones plays Lucifer. Oh. One of the things David Thuleas is in it, I mean, your guy, Boyd Holbrook plays like a nightmare who becomes a serial killer. It's pretty cool. But anyway, the point being, not only did it look truly beautiful and transporting and imaginative, but maybe this is just the way they cut the trailer.

but it seemed to me that it had the momentum that I think was always the issue with turning it into something because it's amazing to like meander through 60 or 70 issues that have entire like standalone issues about this immortal god talking to Shakespeare and inspiring The Tempest.

Like that's cool. But also, what's the next week on? You know what I mean? Where's the TV show here? And there's something about this trailer that suggests that Alan and Neil Gaiman who created the comic worked on as well and David Goyer, like, maybe found a sweet spot between like, you know, a compelling

propulsive reason to make this show and have it be part of Geeked Week, but also the little like super intellectual filigrees that made it really special to people. So I got really hype when I saw this. And people listen to this podcast know me, that didn't happen all that. It doesn't always happen. You know what? The way that you're pushing this, I feel like we should do boys first year. Because you want to do boys? Oh, anyway, just to say Sam Man's coming in August and the trailer's out now. That was the newsy event. Do you know when 1899 is coming? Had I finished the last beat of the trailer before pressing pause and sending you the link?

I don't think they have a coming in yet. I want to say also just because you mentioned Boyd Holbrook in Sandman. So I did this justified panel when I was down in Texas and it was me, Graham Yost and the writer's room from the show. From the original show, not necessarily the reboot was happening. And they talked a little bit about the reboot where Boyd Holbrook is. is playing the Oklahoma Wildman, who if you've read City Prime Evil,

the book it's based on by Elmore Leonard, is quite a character. And I thought what they were saying about the justified reboot was really cool because, I mean, it's not a reboot. It's basically, they kind of came to the point where they felt like they had something else to say

about Raylan and what that character would be like several years later. And also, candidly, without making it, I don't think that there's going to be things in it. I think it'll just feel like, justified, but they were like pretty open in talking about how they wouldn't really be able

to make justified now the way they did in 2010. And how... Culturally you mean? Or in terms of business side of it? I think the flippancy towards gun violence. And like a lot of episodes of justified end in some kind of duel. And, you know, Raylan by the end of the series, I mean, Graham Yost said even during the panel, he was just like, this guy would not have been a marshal.

for more than one episode. Like he, like this, and I think that our relationship to violence on screen, I think in, in like, you know,

you can see the trailer for Bullet Train, the Brad Pitt movie that's coming soon. It's like there will always be a sort of area where you can do a lot of like cartoonish stuff. But I think if you're going to try and have something that feels grounded, you really have to reckon with the characters

and what the characters are doing and kind of the after effects that violence has. it's why I've always really, like, you know, responded to the violence in Scorsese movies is I feel like the violence hangs over the characters for the entirety of the piece. And part of the reason why I like justified is you could leave it in the previous episode and move on, you know? Well, I think that's a really interesting point to make because one of the reasons why violence works in Elmore Leonard novels, which I adore and consume like candy, is that with very few exceptions, they're standalones. And so there are generally three to four.

acts of violence in each book, usually resulting in the elimination of three to four of the characters that you've come to meet over the preceding 250 to 310 pages. And then that's done, right? It's like you don't have to deal with the hangover, the reality, the horror, the trauma, because these characters have experienced this moment in their lives and they move on. TV used to be built that way. You're alluding to it. I mean, Justified was an old-fashioned show on a more new-fashioned network. Like, you could leave the previous episode behind. And that's kind of, we don't make TV like that anymore. Yeah. Now, this isn't to say that Justified didn't reckon with what happened on those episodes, but I think that they are approaching this from a really interesting

new angle. And so I'm really excited to see whatever it's, I think it'll probably be called Justified. Maybe it'll be called City Primeval. I don't know what the sort of hyphenate of it would be. But very excited for that, and I'm very excited for Angenie Ellis is also going to be in it. It's going to be pretty sick. It's pretty interesting that we've now talked about the challenges of serializing comic book IP and violence on television as a table setting for the boys season three. Yeah, so let's get into this. So, you know, the reason why I kind of was like coin toss between boys and Barry is, and I was thinking about this because someone came up and asked me this in Austin, either one of these shows could have a reasonable shout at the belt right now. Now, I think it's

hard to make the belt decision in a world where, there is a television show about Obi-1 Canobi currently on every week. You know what I mean? You don't really know, and also a show about the sex pistols and an adaptation of a John Crack Hour book and a hilarious comedy and hacks. And like all these things that are happening at the same time, it's almost hard to be like, sure, but everything comes after this thing. To me, you could actually make an argument that boys or Barry are the real belt holders

right now in terms of either what they're doing with TV as a medium or how they split the difference between making you think and making you really happy to watch it. So why don't we start with the boys since if I just

read off a list of its attributes to you, I just can't imagine you being in on this show yet you came at me like on fan time on like I'm making time to watch this because I find it deeply satisfying and entertaining.

So you just, you just put on the ones. I told you on Saturday I'd already watch two of the three. And I've never watched two of the three of anything by choice, I don't think. You still haven't been finished Game of Thrones. Remind me which one that was. I totally agree with you. I also want to just say, as an asterisk, that we aren't done talking about hacks. We are going to have some more hacks content in one of the next two shows.

We'll revisit the finale and season finale and more than that. And justice for the trust, the process joke. That's coming. We're going to get vengeance for that. I totally agree with you about these two shows. Barry and the Boys are my two favorite things on TV right now for very, very different reasons. My journey with the boys was a twisty one at first. You know, I think we first engaged with it in advance of the second season.

I missed the first season when it aired, and then it was such a phenomenon and our friend. I mean, I think you had checked it out, but I hadn't because I think the first season was on in 2019 when I was in production. production, our pal Aya Cash was joining the show for the second season, so I wanted to check it out. And I turned on the first episode, and I almost turned it off when the first, little did I know. 30 seconds in. The first of many human bodies exploded, showering Jack Wade with meat juice of human. Which is a recurring thing. The food that I avoided in Texas is what showered.

Yeah. Personal Koso, yeah. It won me over, ultimately, with it's just like, full commitment to its own bit. You know, you can't say that it was doing that in the first 30 seconds to shock. It was doing it to set the tone because that is the tone of the show where everything is at 11. And everything goes far past what good taste might suggest. Second season, I thought, was even better.

And by the time we get to this third season, and by the way, I also totally confounded you. And I asked you when you thought the boys' season two had aired. This is pure COVID time. It has been almost two years since the show has been on TV. It feels like it was nine months ago. Which is insane. Yeah. But whatever has happened in the intervening time, whether it's just the sickness of all of us during this time, metaphorically and otherwise,

or just the continued leveling up of the confidence of Eric Kripke, the developer and his creative team, I was so ready for the show to be back and I was thrilled. And it doesn't make sense. for me necessarily. Other than to say, first of all, the way that I engage with a show is definitely different

than some of these other shows. I think it's incredibly fun to have on and I was grateful that there were three episodes and I didn't care that they were like 59 minutes. I was delighted. I also think that Kripke and his team are doing something really remarkable in two directions that often contradict each other.

One is the confidence with which they are using the satirical scalpel that the show already had, and using it, well, it's a chainsaw, but they're starting to use it more like a scalpel, I would say. The degree, there's such confidence in it now that it's fully working to me as a media satire, the stuff about this world where one company controls

all of reality TV and all of your apps and your government and also your superpower team and the way that it trickles through like the American Idol hero show that's on it and the flashbacks of the pageants and just the cynicism of the way government actually controls everything in our lives, even though we think government and or media, even though we think we might be free, is really flowering in a good way and at a good time. But the other half of it, and I think when we talked to Eric Kripke about this, either nine or 28 months ago,

was there's something that is so reassuringly old-fashioned about the show. In that there are so many characters. And a subhead on that, there's so many characters that I enjoy. played by actors that are really having a great time. And each of these characters is just almost methodically serviced with plot and storyline. And so one episode feels so expansive. I mean, this is a series that I feel like could easily, certainly for Amazon's bottom line, give us 15 or 16 episodes a year, let alone eight episodes every year and a half like it does.

So obviously the episodes are packed. But there's a lot here. And it feels very old-fashioned to me that we settle in for an episode. hour and we're going to move nine balls in 19 different directions, you know? Yes. I don't mind ping ponging all over the map like this. It's been, it's really scratching an old kind of TV itch for me. There's some shows that you can sense a feature script being expanded into six episodes.

And then this is the example of a TV show made with a major studio movie budget. So there is this D plot of A-Train trying to find his role in like Vot now that he has been kind of relegated to the bench. And he's trying to reimagine. Because if he runs again, his heart will explode. Right. And he's like trying to come up with a docu series about him going to Africa. And it's like that is not, I don't know if that will like pay off, you know, down the line. But it is entertaining as shit.

And they're just like, you know what, this is good TV. These scenes are good TV. Sending Frenchie out to do this is good TV. And are there bits of this show that I find a little bit repetitive from the last season? Sure, yeah. Like, do a lot of the conversations maybe tread over, like, ground that we've covered already? For sure. But they really, really, really have nailed their tone.

And it's funny that they kind of lampoon in the beginning of this season, Zach Snyder movies in a hilarious way where like there's a cameo that I won't spoil for people who haven't seen it, but they're essentially making a movie about what happened with Stormfront, you know, in the previous season. And, you know, they're satirizing these Zach Snyder movies. This show itself to me would have been the perfect way for Zach Snyder to go with his filmmaking. Like what he has is a little bit too much self-seriousness. I don't mind the iconography and the filmmaking that he does. I think it's a little bit, you know, a little bit like painted on abs for my tastes, but I get it.

But Zach Snyder abandoning his sense of humor, I don't know if he was ever particularly funny, but like the zombie, like the Dawn of the Dead one had actually some pretty good bits in it. Like him kind of like abandoning any kind of self-awareness is what is sort of damned a lot of his movies for me. This is kind of like the, he almost should make a move. with Kripke writing it or something, or I would love to see like Zach Snyder coming in and making a couple episodes of the boys.

Yeah, or collaborating with Garth Ennis who created the comic book who has, this is his sensibility writ very, very, very large. Yeah, the thing about it being TV versus movie is interesting because right now, for me, the boys is in that true TV sweet spot where being completely honest with you,

I don't care what the end game is. I am not interested at all. I love every, twist and turn of Homelanders psychosis and how dangerous it gets and how the stakes keep getting more and more dangerous. Great. Keep it going. I'm the frog in this big cauldron and you're doing a great job on the thermostat. You know what I mean? Like it is comfortable temperature and it just keeps getting hotter and that's fine. I don't feel there are unanswered questions that need to be answered here, which is a really rare spot for Prestige TV at this moment, but a really good one.

I was thinking back to how the boys was nominated for Best Drama at the Emmys. And these three episodes really made me feel that it was the right decision. Because for all of the, you know, exploding human bodies, some generated by, you know, shrinking bugmen inside the urethra of other men. Yeah. This is so traditional TV in that it's just kind of building. And we'll just see where we go from here. And I really, really appreciate that. The other thing that's old-fashioned TV that I just really pick.

up on is, look, there are many, many different ways to be an actor. There are many, many different ways to run a production or have a successful TV show. I think one of the more interesting stories from our perspective of the last year was the fact that Succession, which is arguably or maybe inarguably one of the two or three best shows that is currently in existence, is divided, not in, that's maybe a dramatic choice of word, but the acting styles of the leads has everyone in the cast on one side and Jeremy Strong on the side. And Jeremy Strong on the the other. And the resulting show is a brilliant masterpiece. And they all seem to support him. And it's fine. I'm not trying to stir the pot. But you know, you read the New Yorker story or any

interview with any other cast member. And they're all like, we like to laugh and joke around like the Roy family. And Jeremy Strong is, you know, in his trailer, practicing ways to safely break his foot if that's what Jesse Armstrong has written to happen this week. Right. Right. So that's certainly possible. And again, I have no actual insider knowledge of what it's like to be in Toronto when the boys is shooting. I could be totally wrong about this. But I just genuinely like and enjoy so many people in this cast. And they are all magically tuned into the same frequency. It appears in terms of what the tone and the tenor of the show is and where to pitch their performance. So whether it's, you know, it's Jack Quaid, who is just really fantastic at being the type of guy that

that was in every movie we saw growing up, like the sort of the top, whether it's the Tom Hanks role or maybe more of the role of his mom, Meg Ryan, like he just has that kind of affable presence in this. Like Las Alonzo's great, Aaron Moriarty is great, my boy from Banshee, Anthony Starr,

who is on one this season. Which is really saying something. Colby Minifie, who is, I think, clearly supposed to be written out in the first season, who's just been given more and more room to cook in the margins.

Like, this is a cast that is really clicking and just seems to enjoy it. And I don't know. I keep coming back to this. I brought this up with the Emmy Rossum interview last week, and I always use the same caveat,

which is, I'm not looking for like a Judapital, like let's just improv and joke it up because we're friends' IRL. But the energy is kind of palpable when people are viving and enjoying themselves. And I'm a sucker for it. Yeah, I think it's also, the show's ability to shock

is kind of remarkable. And I don't mean that just because of like, Like, oh, someone's head will half explode and then fully explode. You know, like it's more because, and I guess we'll get into like some stuff that happens in the first three episodes here. So if you haven't had a chance, you can skip ahead to the Barry conversation. The moment where, so Homelander is, it's his birthday. It's a very funny episode because it's nice to see that everybody has hangups about their birthday, including Homelander. And he does a yearly, does like a very public saving.

of a life, you know, for his birthday. And this year, it's going to be this young woman who's considering throwing herself off the top of a building. And he lands and he's just like, okay, I'm just going to catch you anyway if you jump. And he goes on to have this kind of existential conversation with this young woman. And while they're talking, he finds out that Stormfront has taken her own life in the hospital did. And Homelander doesn't just, you know, encourage, he doesn't encourage this woman to jump.

he, I think we're supposed to understand, throws her off, right? Or threads her to the point where she has no other choice but to end her life, yeah. Right. And I couldn't believe, like, how, I knew that was coming the entire time. You know, I knew that this was not going to go well.

And I was like, this show is like, kind of got no ceiling in terms of what could happen from scene to scene. And that is sort of like, that's that sweet spot you're talking about where there is this quote unquote safety of a TV show plotting, there is the feeling of like, oh, and now we're going to go to this plotline, and then we're going to go to this plot lane, and we'll circle back to this part.

And some of those things I tune out for, but the capacity to shock, not necessarily in a graphic way, but in a kind of an emotional reaction way, is still there. Yeah, and they go for it. I mean, last year, I think we talked to Cripke about this, there's the scene where they basically explode a whale and drive through a whale, speedboat through a whale. So there are two moments in the third episode that were so appalling and challenging for me to watch that I had to either mute the television or sort of walk away. Now, does this mean this is the highest level of television making? Like, are we at a place where just to feel anything is what matters in terms of just being shocked or horrified?

I don't think we're there yet. The show executes these, and actually they're not execution, so I can't even make a clever pun there. The way the show executes these shocking moments with almost painterly detail is notable. They don't half-ass them. They full-ass the horror. And there's a moment in episode three where Huey in order to avoid suspicion from his head exploding boss, the only potential I didn't come to work today, boss card that he comes up with is to ask Kimiko to break his arm. And so everyone just stands around sipping tea watching this,

and you know it's going to happen because the show is going to do it. And it does it. And it's awful. And then at the end of the third episode to welcome his joyous return to the team, Homelander throws an intimate dinner for The Deep and his wife, which he serves only seafood, and including the, as he terms of Korean specialty, of raw octopus and makes deep eat his octopus best friend,

who is crying out in pain and begging not to be eaten. It is, look, I don't know. I don't know where we are as a culture, but I'm going to remember that moment for a long time. That actually brings up something I wanted to ask you, a little bit just to be like a little to provoke conversation. We know what the boys is satirizing. Yeah.

Is it about something more than what it's satirizing? or do you think that it's basically having its cake and eating it too? It gets to function as a fully operational franchise show and then also take the piss out of other franchises? Well, it's deeper than that. I mean, it is a show about the logical endpoint of consumerism that is paid for and marketed by Amazon. I mean, it is its own parody.

I think one of the things, and I'm probably on the record is saying this for the first two seasons. Shout out to butcher ordering Connect 4 over Amazon in one season. Right. I was like, oh, that's interesting. A real world. Oh, right. I think I was on the record for this early, which was exactly that point. I didn't know what it was actually making fun of. I think that in this current moment, when we are all hurtling off the cliff of nihilistic capitalism, it's somehow, its successes are ringing more true to me. And particularly as superhero stories and superhero mythos as essentially good or important. or formative texts. And look, I was formed by my love of comic books, so I'm not excluding myself from this. But the acceptance that this is culture

has just become more and more solidified, if not calcified, right? Like, that is kind of where we're at. Yeah, that's why we were like probably losing our minds over Top Gun Maverick. Yes, but yes, that's absolutely part of it. It's like just another lane to drive in for a couple of miles. But on the flip side of it,

it's also why we were losing our mind in a not positive way about Obi-Wan, because you could say that, and there are legitimate people whom I like and respect who are finding things to love in the show, and I do not want to, you know, leave Bantha tracks all over their affection. But the show is bloodless. I don't just mean because people don't explode like they do on the boys, but everything is careful, right? Everything is curated, whether it's curated to feed into a larger narrative of a universe later on, or to not offend anyone, or to just do nothing more than to gently remind you of things that previously existed, there are zero risks taken. And you could say the boys is gratuitous, it's over the top, it doesn't have a, you know,

it's trying to hit a satirical target with an elephant gun. Yeah, probably all that's true, but it's trying, and it's having so much more fun doing it, and I feel like that's a palpable difference that's causing my affection to grow. 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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Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Let's talk about Barry. Yeah. Speaking of affection growing. So if you're not already listening,

please listen to Sean's pods. They go up right after the episode, go up there on the Prestige TV feed, and he's interviewed. He talks with Bill Hader about every episode. It's a fantastic way to, like, process the show. I just wanted to highlight it because I thought, that was on the most recent episode

that went up on Sunday is about as good as a 30-minute television show can be. I can understand if some folks, some of the plots incongruous. I think the Noho Hank stuff is the comedic high point of the show and is also

somewhat tonally different from the Barry Fuchs Sally stuff that's going on. That being said, it's the best directed show on television, I think. And this past episode had two or three scenes

that made me feel like my soul was leaving my body. which was appropriate because I think that's what was happening to Barry as well. What did you make of this most recent episode? I think that this is the best show on TV right now. And I think it's gotten there on completely on its own strengths and merits. Like it is not a big IP show. It doesn't have the belt because of the attention paid to it. Not to make the narrative entirely about us, but this is a podcast, so maybe we can.

I think that both of us are maybe more me than you, like felt a little, friction rejoining the Beryverse in the first episode. I wasn't all the way there. And here's the thing about the Beryverse. It's just going to go. It doesn't need us to be on board or not. It knows what it's doing with such precision and such confidence. And you see it in the direction and you see it in the chances and choices that it takes with tone. But I did not understand that a show that can be as extreme as it has been, whether it's in terms of the comedy or the violence or the drama could synthesize them all to be what it is currently. And to have done so, it's just such, like this season, this is seven episodes, there's only one episode left. It's not like there was

one episode this season where you're like, well, that's an outlier because they were trying that, and it didn't quite work, so they pulled back. Right. Do you know what I mean? It has just built, and it is built, and it is built, and it's a powerhouse. I mean, this is an episode of TV called Barry where the character of Barry does not speak for the entire episode. For legitimate story reasons and legitimate emotional reasons.

How is a show that features scenes like this episode of Barry did with Ryan's father while Barry's basically dying in the back seat and this guy's talking about the pitter-patter of children's feet

and how scary that is and ends the way that does with that man taking his own life also include Noho Hank's reaction to the guy coming up with the blow dart and just being like I thought you were doing that

but I wanted to let you finish I mean that was visual comedy on such an elite tier it was so funny him walking through the Colombian market being like Christopal Christopal but that's the thing is it's like

it can do such broad comedy like that and then it can have the car scene. It can have Sally in the elevator So my experience watching that scene and this is also what's so great about the show at this moment in 2022 where I don't think any of us, I don't think you have to be a podcaster

to watch TV on multiple levels at the same time watching it being locked in to the storyline but also watching it thinking about the performers and thinking about the reaction to the performers and thinking about the performers of their roles and the larger world. And so I was watching that And Sarah Goldberg is screaming in Darcy Cardin's face. And I love Darcy Cardin. She's genius.

She's brilliant on the good place. And, you know, a legendary improviser in Los Angeles. And I was like, this is such a hard thing for an actor to do to be screamed at. Yeah. You know, especially in a way that, you know, I think I was conditioned to be like, it will turn silly because Darcy's character has been comedic, largely during her time on the show. But then it keeps going. And it doesn't stop. And it keeps going.

And then the camera stayed with her, and both because she's a good performer and because she's a good human, and because they directed it, the episode was directed so well, the camera caught something so real and true in her eyes, you know, which was that she had been, she's performing. I'm sure she had Sarah Goldberg are good friends and it was fine. But you can't be alive and not have a reaction to that in your face, and the camera caught it, you know. The thing that I was thinking after watching this episode and just the confidence with which it pulled off all of these twists and turns and highs and lines. Lowe's, is this idea that like, I mean, it's so hard to make a TV show, right, full stop. But when you write a pilot, you need a confidence in which you're kind of making a bet against the larger world.

Like, I bet you're going to find this interesting. I bet you're going to, you know, you're going to be compelled by this and want more and want to see more. And then if you win that bet, you then have to make a series. And at that point, you're betting against yourself being like, boy, I really hope or Or if you're more confident, I bet that I, in whatever fit of creative ecstasy, cause me to write this pilot, put the fences down in the right place. Built something that's sturdy enough to go in all the directions I want it to.

Put my arms around all of the right things so it can contain it. Built the right vessel, right? Yeah. I just have never seen a bet like Barry. Because you know Bill Hater, I mean, it's not like he's a slam dunk when he sells the show, but he's a beloved comedic performer, one of the most versatile SNL cast members of all time

and he's paired with Alec Berg who had done Silicon Valley and so much else for HBO. Yeah, of course they're going to take a flyer on it. But this is the same show they were making five years ago. It's just has reached this point that they saw, I think.

You know, it's just moving forward with a level of, and you keep saying there were confidence. I just really in awe of it on a technical level. You mentioned Hater and Berg and I think that there is that, it's not tension, it's actually the,

maybe the engine of what's happening here, which is Hater, and I don't know this personally, but I'll just say, Hater putting the show in impossible corners to get out of, so they have to just knock the wall down behind them. And then Berg being like, feel free to knock the wall down behind you, I'll just build another house on top of this. And so even though it feels like Hank, Sally, and Barry, while interacting, are almost in three different tonal shows.

Yeah. whatever they do in each episode somehow supports it. And you, somebody should just do the like title sequence and have it say Sally. Because the whole show, you're kind of like, I wonder what they're kind of doing with Sally character, you know?

And I wondered if they maybe even arrived, not at an end point, but when Barry does the scene that you and I loved so much, which is like, well, yeah, I could just like sneak into her house and replace her dog with a slightly different, looking dog and her face

and it's like Sally is confronted with pure evil and it's just like get the fuck out and instead it seems like she's almost been poisoned by that scene because since then she has herself been spiraling out and tapping into yet until

this moment unseen level of rage in that character. The show's doing something really provocative and profound because it is coming from a place of empathy for people's pain and their unmet needs and the things that they enter into the world or enter into relationships with, right? Like, it's never shied away from the fact that Barry was broken by his experience in the military or that Sally was deeply traumatized by her experiences and abusive relationships.

But then it doesn't give them a pass. You know, the poison inside of them has continued to touch themselves, touch people around them, right? And then the show is asking us to say, like, at what point is someone good, not good, worth saving? worth rooting for or not. And that's pretty treacherous terrain. And I admire it. The thing that I also keep thinking about when watching this week's episode and last weeks as well was it's no secret why IP is king because it's such shorthand within

these companies that are so shareholder value-driven to say, well, it's going to be like this. And then you can sign off on it without being afraid of your job because you understand where the target is, which can be very hard when something speculative or just a pile of pages in a final draft document. that's not only limited that thinking isn't just limited to IP.

There's a project that I was working on I am working on with someone and talking about it and the question she asked me was I get all that but what's the tonal comparison? Not because she cared so much as like that's what studio people are going to ask. Yeah. And I was like

and I named a couple things and I was like but I that last piece I'm not really sure what it is. I can feel it. I know what I want it to be but I don't know what it is yet. And I was thinking, about that question with Barry because what do you think haters would have said? I think he probably would have said

it exists in my brain and I'll show you. I don't think there's anything to compare it to. There are things in Barry that shot of him where it's like a tracking shot of him walking down the sidewalk in the valley somewhere and then it turns into the ocean. First of all, that's like Christopher Nolan level shit

the way that they did that shot. It's beautiful, yeah. And second of all, like that tracking shot reminds me of 1980s Vendor's movies. You know what I mean? Like, it was like the way

that like Robbie Mueller used to shoot people walking down the sidewalk and vendors and Jim Jarmish movies. There's, I'm sure, reference points that the Hader

has that like 25 cinemophiles would have, you know, and I don't know how you would explain that to a studio. Maybe that's the sort of beauty of what HBO often does is it kind of lets people

have that, you know, like you can exist in that place. And in, And in some ways, what they're doing on Barry harkens back for me, at least, to some of the sort of soaring moments of the Sopranos and Madman where you're like, this thing could go absolutely anywhere. Yeah. And think about that, though, in relation to the larger conversation we're having, which is I'm praising Sandman. And I don't mean to now throw it under the bus. I'm really excited about it. But a lot of the praise that I think I gave the trailer earlier in this episode was tied to the accuracy with which it met my experience. expectations for what this project or property could be. And that's a certain kind of achievement that shouldn't be scoffed at and is important.

But the best experiences in TV or in art are ones where I don't know what your target was. You show me. You know, there's no ceiling here. And the very best TV shows are able to achieve that, whether it's fleetingly or during, you know, the entire existence of a series. And that kind of like, trust me, shout out. to Sugarfish is kind of being lost. Like, you know, this doesn't need to go on the pile of, you know, dozens and dozens of episodes we've done bemoaning the state of cultural decay in the entertainment industry.

But that specific thing of like, I got it. I know what I want this to be. And my job as an artist is to deliver on it. And your job as a studio is to pay for it. That's kind of going away. And it's going away in some of the more creatively-futable. friendly places too. I mean, we don't know yet what's going to happen with this discovery takeover of Warner's and HBO. I mean, there are a lot of shoes left to drop, but it's a different

culture coming onto a culture that at least, you know, in Casey Boyes' little fiefdom, billion-dollar fiefdom, creative was came. I hope that that Barry serves as a sort of shining city on the hill then. And like you can still do stuff like this. I have no idea how many people watch this show. But what they're doing with this is like so far be a on the like my highest expectations of what they could have pulled off with it. Let's wrap it up there. So Thursday I think we're going to do a little bit of a bow tying on Top Chef. Hopefully we're going to have a guest who will be joining us on Thursday,

a really fun one that we've been angling for for a while. And we'll kind of do the season and review with this guest and talk a little bit about the season and what's coming up next for Top Chef. And I'm sure we'll sprinkle some other stuff in there. I know for all mankind is coming back, trying to encourage my boy Greenwald to jump in. So I got to get there. You're not the only one. The trip to Mars is now.

Like, you could, it's, they, they jumped ahead in time. You're good. I got to do it. I got to get that. And then also, I know you're pumped. Ms. Marvel is coming this week. It is. Yeah.

I might make you watch a couple episodes of Pistol. It just, I think it's a very interesting show to talk about. I started it. I started it. I did. I did, yeah. I was digging the, the music world, Danny Boyle aspect of it. Yes.

I was very much. digging that. The other aspects of it were not quite clicking for me. There's a real weird thing happening right now where some historical shows, like especially ones rooted in like a biography, like this one is, which is Steve Jones from the Sex Pistles biography, the characters speak with the perspective of people who have written biographies about themselves. And I do think that while that is probably very satisfying for maybe some of the people involved, it doesn't always feel like real people interacting. Yeah. You're frozen by history, yeah.

Yeah, we can talk a little bit about that. So Thursday, we'll hit Top Shop and some other stuff. Andy, thank you so much for joining us. Joining me. When I said us, I meant me. You know what? You're welcome. And our producer, Kaya, McMullen.

Thank you, Chris and Kaya for inviting me to join you on this podcast today. I look forward to at least a half dozen more. Talk to you soon.