The Watch - 'The Curse,' ‘Fargo,’ and the Last Gasp of Prestige TV

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about some of the news from the week, including Jon Stewart returning as a part-time host of 'The Daily Show' through the election (1:00) and the Oscar nominations (18:27). Then, they talk about the finales of ‘The Curse’ (21:41) and ‘Fargo’ (1:07:02), and whether these shows are proof that prestige television can still be made, or if they are the last of a dying breed. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's your boy Johnny Bananas, and I'll be covering all the treachery, deceit, backstabbing, and murder from season two of the Traders U.S. on my podcast, death taxes, and bananas. I'll be joined all season by my fellow castmates to swap stories, provide all the behind-the-scenes antics, and sorted details from filming. So, Sally Fourth, and join me for Season 2 of the Traders every Saturday on the Ringer reality TV podcast feed. know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, Gucalcumab taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic

reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew,

the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. And I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, the Green King. It's Andy Greenwald! Oh, that's nice. Yeah, man. You could have said Greenwald. And then just, like, shorten it.

That's my note. Well, you're the podcaster. You know, you tell me. Mama hostility in the room today. Just because I've double-booked the studio sessions and I'm recording... What do we call this one again? This is the watch. We're still cranking it out, man.

And then I was doing the other one later. We're alluding to Stick the Landing, Andy's Rocket Ship Hit podcast, which is great for you because you don't have to watch any more TV than you're actually watching. You just go back into the brain bank. Yeah, that's exactly how it's going. No, Andy's doing an amazing podcast called Stick the Landing about some of the most important finalies in television history. The most recent episode with Fantasy went up this week. Yeah, Wednesday. The Madman episode. That was great to do. I thought that was an awesome pod. I listened to that.

Did you? Yeah, on 1.2 speed. That's fair. I mean, I'll take any listen I can get. And then Adrian Griffin got fired. So I switched out. I had to jump on Rissolo there. You know, hear what he thought. Do you think Adrian Griffin is going to go to Esselin?

I'm just trying to really figure out. He could use it. We're all way wrong. Andy, today we are going to talk a little bit about two shows that kind of fell by the wayside for us because of, I mean, between True Detective and Christmas and everything else or the holidays and stuff. Those were equally important to Chris, I should say. There are two events. Celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and night. country. Really, the two lords gave us a gift. One was Christmas and one was Nick Pizzolato

gifting you with the extended total universe. That's right. So we are going to talk about Fargo and we are going to talk about the curse today and we're going to try and unite those ideas around some comments that have been floating around the television industry. I think generally there's just been a lot of chatter about like prepare for some big changes and prepare for the kinds of shows you're about to start seeing on TV to feel a lot more mainstream, a lot, safer a lot more, blah, blah, blah. And whether the curse and Fargo act is kind of like booies out in the night of like, yeah, you can still make good stuff, or are they the last, some of the last revelers to leave the party, right? Yes. First though. Also, last house cleaning.

This is Thursday. We're recording today. You're going to be on tour next week. But is it even worth mentioning? Is it sold out? I mean, it's worth mentioning just if you want to show interest in my personal life. Yeah. I mean, like, I am, are you noting this? First of all, that's your professional life. It is my professional life. I will be on rewatchables tour. So we have an episode going up Sunday night, you and I for True Detective. And we'll talk a little about Mr. Spade.

Detective Sunday. And then I'm out next Thursday because we will be on the road, Chicago, D.C., Philly, New York for the rewatchables tour. I'm really excited. Those are some great cities. You're visiting at peak time, just like the best time of year. Yeah. And if you want to come up and say hi to me, I ask you to just give Sean a hug. you know, give fantasy

as much physical contact as seems reasonable. He is just a physically warm and inviting guy. That's very sweet of you look out for it. That's exciting. I wish I could see those shows.

I wish you could too. In New York, where are you playing? Webster Hall. That's wild. It is crazy. It is crazy. I have a quite process that part.

You're playing Webster Hall. Yeah, I saw LCD sound system there. So the killer is there. Yeah. And now it's you, the other killer. That's awesome. How are you? I'm great.

I'm great. I've been, been really good ever since I saw and documented the Madam Webb poster in the wild because I was getting a lot of flack for that when I came in and just like hallucinated from me and Kyle or just in general? The two of you, look, we've all worked together for a long time

and I thought that we had built up like a bedrock of trust. And I came in and I was like, there's a really weird new poster and the way you guys looked at me was really sketch. She just did it again. It was really skeptical. Really skeptical.

So I was really glad. that now the world knows that even if you can see the future in this world, you can't always stop what's coming to you, even if it's bad, or whatever it was. I don't remember Kai saw it more recently. So that felt good to be affirmed in the world. I'm really excited because Dakota Johnson has begun her press run for this, so she's going on Saturday Night Live, but she's also started saying things like,

I don't know what happens in this film because most of what I did was against a blue screen, and I thought it was a silly idea, but I did it anyway. Oh, she's doing that? Yeah. Isn't that what also would... She also said like S.J. Clarkson was just on top of it and that like she wanted to work with her. That's nice.

So I mean like she's not killing me. Who directed the Marvels? Nia da Costa. She was the one who's just like, I wouldn't know about that movie. I was making another one. Yes. We should assemble a hall of fame of like post-filming shrug quotes.

Not my problem. Yeah. From people. In a way it began with Gwyneth Paltrow being like, I don't know. Was I in that movie? Yes. Plausible deniability.

That's... I show up to Atlanta. for three weeks. And I live at a residence in. She doesn't live in a residence in. No. She's driven past one probably on the way to the airport. Otherwise, yes, solid.

I tried to show my daughters a silent film the other day. Is this on brand? Well, look, like, I was just reaching this point where one is older and can now watch, you know, pitched up stuff. I can watch more, like, stuff from our childhood. Like Nightmare on Elm Street. original roadhouse. And, but the younger one still just wants to like, like, just grind cartoons like we've seen

before. Yeah. And so I was like, I was, oh, you know what it was. Maybe this is relevant segue to, if we're going to talk about Oscar Noms at all. But like, I was listening to Greta Gerwig talk about how silent films, like Harold Lloyd's safety last were influences on Barbie. Mm-hmm. And how she watched it with her steps on.

I was like, yeah. That's awesome. I want to be like Greta and not be nominated for an Oscar this year. And be doubted by myself. Well, I already am Greta in that sense. And that is something she and I share. Yeah. And so I fired it up.

And, you know. How'd that go? It didn't go great. Didn't go great. I enjoyed it. I mean, how long did your daughter stick with the silent movie? I haven't watched a silent film in a very long time, so I don't know how long I would stick with it. I would imagine that my second screening during a silent film would probably cause some narrative issues.

because you would miss all the times the words were written on the screen you'd be like, why is that impish man in glasses nodding so intensely? No, I mean, it's incredible this movie. It's still really, really, really funny. It still works.

I think, but I think just like it was like presenting them something in Esperanto except silent Esperanto because they, by the time we got to the end and he's hanging on the clock, I think they were stressed. Yeah. They found that stressful.

But then the next day, went over to Vidyats, the theater here, and we saw Wally, the Pixar movie, which they'd seen before on a screen. And I was like, guys, this is a silent film. And they were like, yeah, but the robot's cool. Okay, this is where we're at. But Wally must have been the great equalizer between the two children

because it's an animated film that also has like... Silent film? It's also silent. Was I one of the children that? There's no talking about it. No, no, but the first like 30 minutes are silent. Oh, yeah. It's a great movie.

It's kind of like, there's long passage of John Wick that are silent. Oh, so really? You know, we don't do a lot of science. I was just walked by another studio and I saw a couple of guys in the studio podcasting and they looked like quintessential podcasters. Like they looked like they were being very respectful. Yeah. They had tons of notes.

They were all wearing scarves probably to protect the instrument, you know, to make sure their voices stayed warm. Not you and I, though. You don't think that two former rock critics in their 40s wearing plaids and sweatshirts are not stereotypical podcasters? No. We break the mold. That's incredible.

This week, I did not watch any silent films, nor did I revisit Wally. We live such different lives. I did watch the first two episodes of Masters of the Air. I regret not getting to that. I'd like to hear your take, because I will engage. It premieres tomorrow. It does. The embargo of reviews has lifted.

I think that this is an interesting one to talk about maybe down the line in relationship to true detective, because it's another thing that's sort of an extension of something that people treasure, you know, like obviously. Detective Season 1 especially, but the series itself has a lot of fans. And then this is kind of of a piece of Band of Brothers in the Pacific and from the Playtone, Spilberg, Tom Hanks, World War II content factory. There are a lot of factories in World War II. That's true.

Rosie the Riveter. And I like it, you know. I think that there are some really fair critiques to make of it. I also do feel like there's some of it is built into the, it's guys in a plane. And the main question is like, do they get back from their mission? Do they land? Do they stick the landing? Stick the landing. Yeah. And honestly,

also gave me watching these first two episodes of Masters of the Air, a greater appreciation for the work that Boeing is doing. Because, you know, it's like, these guys barely had doors. So think about that. Yeah. The greatest generation, look what they had to do. Yeah. Do you

think Masters of the Air Night Country would be good television? It would be phenomenal stuff. Do they have instruments to like to do that? I also, you know, there's something, there's something about like the fact that like obviously a lot of the aerial sequences have to be done with CGI. I would say you, they're noticeable, you know, and I don't know what it is, this allergy that I've kind of developed for, especially in TV, CGI work being done.

And it's funny, it's like growing up and you watch like Memphis Bell. Did you ever see that? It sounds very familiar. It's like the Matthew Modine, World War II. bomber movie. It's Eric Stoltz is in it too. And that feels like, I mean, obviously it was made like 30 years ago

or whatever and like they probably like just filmed the plane flying overhead because those planes were still not operational but functional enough to do that with. This is much different. They have to have like whole battalions in the air and they have to run bombing runs over Bremen and stuff like that. So it's got to have like a certain epic sweep. But

watching Memphis Bell in comparison to this, it's like you guys could have just done it this way. that's what I think you're getting at something interesting that in some ways leads into, I think, the conversation we're going to have about TV is you just said you have to have all these battalions. Yeah. Do you? I don't know.

I'm just asking the question. It's cool to see, so in the first couple of episodes, I think you get a sense of how they flew as like flying fortresses and in formation. And the whole point of that was to make it so that they could defend themselves from fighter jets flying at them. But, you know, I think that it gets taken out of the

reality of the situation when you see stuff that's like sort of so obviously computer generated. I totally agree with you. And I don't think it's necessarily, again, I haven't watched yet, but I don't, I'm sort of, I think this is what you're saying as well, that it's not necessarily that the CGI is bad or rushed like the multiverse of madness. It's that the nature of it. There's like limits. Changes your relationship to what it is that you're watching and is unnecessarily distracted when we should be focusing on the masters in their cockpets. Speaking of The Masters. Oh.

John Stewart coming back to The Daily Show. Yes. We usually don't talk about late night shows or... We used to a little bit. We used to a little bit. When we could stay up that late. But I was pretty surprised to see this. You know, obviously his Apple show ended recently enough, I think.

There had been like this whole thing about like, who's going to take over the daily show for Trevor Noah. There was a bake-off for the host. We, I was big fans of Roy Wood. I think everybody was kind of like, that seemed like an obvious layup to get Roy Wood to do it. and then he just walked because he was tired of it. I think he was tired of the contest. And then Stewart's coming back to do one night a week through the election.

So for basically most of the year. I can't remember when he left The Daily Show. When he left? 14-15 range. So pre-Trump in the first place. Yeah, he missed. And now he returns for the second round of this battle of the champions. I love sequels.

I was thinking about this. This is my take. Okay. Get it off, King. Let's go. When it comes to politics, I think that a lot of the sort of conversation around it, at least in my life,

has kind of emanated over to, emanated, it's moved over to group texts. Immigrated? Yeah. It's moved over to group texts. And so the speed with which that moves, if you want to, like, joke around about politics

or have like, you know, like, this won't stand. I can't believe it. McConnell, where's your response? You know, like... Those are the text with me. Where he... Mitch McConnell, have you no decency?

That's basically how we address each other. Oh my God. Can you imagine if that was actually how we texted. Shameful, all caps. I don't know that... I guess I'm very interested to see John Stewart return to the desk and see how he is going to approach this. But I feel like there's only two ways to, like,

look at this election, which is either like abject terror or like the darkest of dark laughing, where it's just like, damn, he called her bird brain. You got to like lift your arms on the roller coaster type stuff. Yeah, that kind of thing. So what do you think about stewards? I generally agree with you. I was laughing because you were reminding me both in the way you were speaking, but also the inevitability of this returning to my life is my phone calls from my father.

Yes. Well, you've seen what this Trump has done now. What we need is a real deal maker like Kirsten Cinema. Remember, my dad, my dad got blue-pilled by MSNBC. Yeah, my rod too. And we just like watch, he got really mad when the Ed show got canceled. Did we talk about this? He's like, that's a real working class fellow who tells it like it is.

And then he went to Russia today. Not my dad, but Ed Schultz. Anyway, yeah, I think brought, let's look at it through two. lenses. One, for the, what appears to be a not so stable ship, which is the CBS Paramount Corporation, securing a very big star to come back to a, I don't know if it's a floundering franchise. It just won an Emmy last week, but a franchise that is no longer as its future is not as assured as it once was. It's back in the news. He is still a major draw for the people who watch those types of shows. This is an enormous success.

And it also, I think, just internally highlights some very smart, flexible thinking. Now, leaving the chair unattended for a year is wild. But if it was all in the service of getting to this point, which I don't think the full year was, but this is probably at least the conversation started, you know, during this year and thus extending the thing. I think that's really smart thinking for a very, very radically changing time. I think the order of events was like, I can't remember Trevor Noel won. like an Emmy, right, for late-night show. And I think in some, there was some sort of announcement

that, like, the Daily Show would go hostless and that it would be essentially guest hosts for the year. And then it was like, oh, the Shores coming back. The Daily Show didn't win because John Oliver has won every time he's been nominated since, which I think is concurrent with Trevor Noah's stewardship. This year, John Oliver's show went in a different category, opening up the category.

Okay. So Trevor Noah won for his last year. that's why he was up on stage taking the award. And that's why Roy Wood was also on stage and he left the show and why Roy Wood was mouthing, hire a host, please. Yes, which they did not.

Well, they did. Which they had done, yeah, whatever night it is. So, yeah, okay, so for the business perspective, that's really good. That really, like, lifts up a franchise when it needed to most in a year that it should be relevant. The other point is, one, I feel profoundly,

which is, I don't think John Stewart got him. You know what I mean? Like, do you remember, like, the early Trump years of being like, this blistering monologue from John Stewart will really exposes some inconsistencies in Donald's argument? That doesn't work. Yeah. And I think that him continuing it on Apple, but like with even more fire in his belly. And sincerity.

And sincerity. Well, I was an insincere, but you know what it is. He is a very sincere person. And I think that speaks very highly of him and well of him. And he's a charitable human being in the world who sets a good example and blah, blah, blah. I think that's all awesome. But the idea of like, let's skewer this, I agree with you. Just on a human level, it feels very tired and tiresome because we're just in it.

We're all just along for this ride. Let's start it up, man. Do you want to, do you want to, do you have any, would you like to speak your truth on the Oscar nombs? Do you have any thoughts there? I've done. Did you know that Greta Gerwig and Margo Robbie were not nominated in their respective categories? Did you know that? Yes, I did.

And still, your silence is deafening on this topic. Well, I'm putting all of my efforts into. Holding Mitch McConnell accountable. That's right. I do think perspective is the right thing. Did she see Kyaz girl Carrie was back in the news? What? No, what? Yeah, she was like blackmailing a dude. Who are we talking about?

Or she was getting blackmailed? I can't remember. Carrie Lake. Oh, Kaias. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was she doing? She blackmailed a dude? Some guy who like runs the Arizona GOP was like, I must. She's your guy. I must resign because this phone call that Carrie Lake and I had got recorded and released where I'm basically like

begging her not to run for Senate. Right. But she released it. She was like look at the fucking deep state coming for me. That's awesome. That's 4D Chess. She got him. She did. He had to quit. What does John Stewart have to say about that? I can't wait. I was happy past lives.

I don't have. I don't really, I thought that for the most part, like there was not a lot of like surprises or disgraces in there. Like if you could make the argument that Greta deserved to be nominated for best director, but I thought zone of interest was astonishing and I loved anatomy of a fall so I'm pretty happy that

Justin Tray and Jonathan Glazer got nominated. I mean, what about you? You were just a lot of great movies. What was the one you just said that you were so happy? Past Lives. Past Lives. You know who else like Past Lives? I was surprised to hear. The sports guy. Yeah. Impassioned defense or like would not defense. He was advocating for past lives. When did you talk about that? I mean, I guess you're not really listening to the big man's podcast anymore like I am. But you will get like, like 80 minutes deep on Yes the Lions, though. I will. When did he talk about?

Recently, I feel like one thing that's good about Doc Rivers taking the Milwaukee job and freeing up that slot is that Bill can get really into independent cinema. Into film? Yeah, it's just like just shine a light on the little movies that matter. I was happy about that. Yeah, look, I don't want to get involved in the discourse. Like, it's not an individual thing. This group votes and then the results come out.

And you can read tea leaves and you can make proclamations. it is a systemic thing because this is a system. Yeah. But a lot of good people got nominated, and I think that's not a bad thing. And Barbie made a billion dollars. It's true. I like the point. Someone, have you ever gone on X.com?

It's a new website. You keep saying that you only look at X. It's getting bad. It's getting bad. So lack and Sheel and, like, other Eagles. The Beiriders, and then you reference X a lot. I know. I'm backsliding.

This is like the guy shows like streaking of Marlboro. It's like, I quit. No, it's been bad because the Eagles have been so tumultuous and so dominated my life in miserable ways

for the last few months, I'm constantly seeing which quarterbacks coach we've interviewed and then I linger a little bit. I'm not proud of it. And you go over to For You and what does Four You have for you?

Four You has all the Eagles people I don't follow. Uh-huh. Like deep, deep eagle stuff I don't follow. Like I didn't realize the degree of dudes named Shane who are just like, schematically, this is all wrong.

And I'm like, who are you? Follow. Immediate follow. But because, you know, I don't know if you know this, but like I occasionally, I'm a pop culture podcaster. Yes. You know, I'm in the game. So I see things like some, I'm not going to miss, I'm not going to miss quote, paraphrase

a tweet, but basically someone being like, relax. Everyone knows Greta's going to get nominated and win in like 20 years for her eighth best movie. Oh, yeah. That's going to be a biopic of Hillary Clinton. in which she will star as 2016 Hillary Clinton. Oh my God. Do you think Hillary Clinton's ever just like,

I'm just trying to like throw, like, I'm just trying to say I like this movie, you know? If so, that is a sign of a broken system. That was a bad one. That was a bad tweet. That was a bad tweet. Okay. Let's take a quick break and we're going to come back

and talk about the curse. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes. swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch.

Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. 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, that's when Prime's same day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime.

Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful. But that's because it packs a lot in.

Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com

forward slash active cash terms apply. This episode is brought to buy Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty, limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack.

That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. save at Whole Foods Market. All right, Andy, let's talk about the curse. Let's talk about Fargo. Okay. Which one do you want to do first?

Should we timestamp this for people who didn't do both before we kind of like wrap our arms around both of them? Yeah, sure. I mean, I don't do that. Do you have a guy? That's true. You're going to be on tour. No, I mean, I don't do the timestamps. But yes, we will timestamp our conversation.

So why don't you tell me what you would like to discuss first? I think we should talk about the curse first because I feel like it was a more pressing issue that I was very late on. Okay. Pressing issue. I mean, I don't know, but it was a conversation starter. I do not remember a series in a long time. We're the finale kind of conveniently, because you've been podcasting so much about

finallies, but where the finale of the series clarified and unified the entire thing for me, the way that the curse did. Okay. And I think sometimes, like, I cheat a little bit. we'll kind of start talking about a show. And they'll be like, well, I want to see the entire season to kind of be able to really read the, you know, the full statement.

And then I quit after the third episode. Well, no, we both do. Where we just let it kind of drift away. I don't know, the Daryl Dixon show really grew on me. Go on. That would be amazing. If I had encyclopedic knowledge. If you had a third secret pod, that was just about Daryl Paris.

That would be my most popular pod. What did you think of the finale? Let's start there. Well, or do you want to start with just general thoughts about the show? I kind of want to start with general thoughts about the show because I don't know if I agree with you in the sense that I'm extremely grateful I watch the whole thing. I like many people who made it that far was very affected by the finale in ways good and bad. Yeah. Mostly good, I think, in terms of the finale as a whole.

I am really struck by a series that went in so much. many different directions. Now, we talked about some episodes after we saw them. We referred back to a couple. You and I obviously both watched the entire thing, but at different speeds. There was a hell of a lot of good stuff here. This was an incredibly worthwhile investment of time, if you want to think about it in purely like fiduciary terms. I also think that what it wanted to do or what it was interested in was never not fascinating. And just smaller details along the way, like Whitney's artist friend. Kara. Kara. Nijonia Austin plays Kara on The Curse. And her performance was fascinating and expert and subtle. And the different degrees on her setting of disdain were remarkable.

And the way in which she, to coin a phrase from the show, like perpetually sliced the lunchmeat of herself in these long takes of these conversations was remarkable. I thought that like Benny Safdi's performance, was fantastic. Yeah, in that episode, the Dougie and Asher Hangout episode. Oh, the Dead Prize episode, yeah. Was amazing. And one of my favorite extended sequences of the year.

I thought, there were times when I thought, like, I would find it hard to watch or boring, and it was never any of those things. But what was clarifying to me about the end that I thought was really interesting was, like with many TV shows, that are this long.

and this was 10 hours of television, you have to, you have to try to tell different stories and raise up supporting characters and show interest or at least follow... Yeah, like V-C-D-E plots. Yeah, and follow your muse down a couple of different cul-de-sacs

to see what's there, and Kara was one of them. The finale revealed what, you know, I think maybe other people saw before I did. The show was just fundamentally interested in this partnership and partnership, which includes a business, which includes,

television show, which includes a marriage between Asher and Whitney and who they are and their just fundamental core selves, whether they are decent or indecent, whether they are good or bad or like charitable or liberal or whatever they are. And that's fine. That's cool. And where it went at the finale, and we should talk about the finale, I thought was really amazing and kind of affecting, kind of moving. I also could have. help but think that the clarity with which they articulated that at the end would have been better served with clarity throughout. And I think this gets to the heart of a larger conversation we want to have about who's

responding to the show positively and why what people want out of television. And if television is just like a place for interesting artists to hang out because they have more real estate, okay, that's certainly exciting if you're an artist. And I don't begrudge that. And I don't want a world where the curse doesn't exist. but I couldn't help be like, wouldn't it have been kind of sharper if it was a satire of these two people

that was a movie that went to that place? Or if it was four hours, it felt, it felt muddied to me because of the sheer size of it. Yeah, I wonder whether or not some of that is influenced by just the sort of making of the show

and knowing that it was initially sort of conceived of as a 30-minute comedy. Yeah. And then was expanded to this, hour-long, I guess, dromedy, but it doesn't really matter what you want to call it, because the switch, the 30 to 60 thing, and the sort of,

it's still in its clay form and we're shaping it, almost feels like you would deduce from that that there is a degree of like, well, we're throwing things at the wall, and we're going to kind of see what sticks. And that betrays what I think is going on in the show, which is the amount of consideration that went into so many of the choices, which I don't think I really thought about until the end, like I said.

I think I was waiting for a reveal or I was waiting for kind of like a comeuppance for these characters, maybe. Like I had some pretty basic sort of expectations going towards the end of it. And then I think what I wound up coming away with was like just thinking about much more profound topics than I was even prepared for. It was interesting to see this series be embraced. You know, like it is a huge Reddit series. So there's like a ton of like, you know, conversation happening online about it. I've noticed a couple of like pretty prestigious or like art-leaning journals or quarterly or periodicals writing about it rather than you know like the the usual kind of like

vulture breakdown which vulture is recapping it but I just mean like it has sort of transcended just something that's on TV to something that people are really trying to unpack in a serious way which I think is fantastic whether or not like and I think one of the reasons why I think it's so interesting that that's happened is because art is such a huge topic of the curse. And the idea of what kind of, what is the payoff for making art? You know, is it like any kind of, is it a sort of personal salve for you to be creative? Is it to virtue signal to the world, what kind of a person you are? Or is it to kind of garner critical praise and to be treated like an artist and be thought of

as like a really brilliant person. And it's been kind of fascinating to watch the meta conversation about the show itself somewhat mirror some of the themes that are in the curse. I would add one more thing to that too. I think that's very well observed.

But I also think the show is interested in, is it the obligation of an artist to turn one's creative camera inward or outward? Are you exploring yourself? Are you exploring the world? And where is the line? And that's obviously something

that has been motivating Nathan Fielder and everything he's done, even more overtly comedic thing that was leading up to this. I also just want to add, like there were moments throughout,

particularly in the finale before it became the finale, like before the back half that we will get into in a moment, where I felt more overtly the comedy that it used to be.

Like when the contractor gives them the baby present. Yeah, and he's like, it's a boy. And he's like, get that guy, get him the fuck out of here.

Like that whole thing. Like that felt like leftover crows. Yeah, like when Asher and the contractor are like play fighting, he's like, come over here, man.

You know, like that kind of stuff. stuff, yes. Which is fine, because look, dramas should be funny, but there was kind of like a ready-made, like, oh, here's this and we're going to shape it. And sometimes, and I'm noticing this too, in some creative people's response to the show, like, it is enormously gratifying, I think, to see the creative process in all of its, with warts and all, on the screen. Like, we see them fighting and shaping and moving towards something, and we're seeing the labor not just that they put in on the set, but also in the edit.

and try to create this thing. That can be very exciting. And I don't know if that's a universal, I don't know if that moves the universal pleasure meter for all audiences, but some certainly. Let's talk about the finale, because I don't want to lose sight of the specifics of this episode, which people are going to be talking about

and have been talking about for a while. So we start with Rachel Ray Show. It's moved nine months into the future, yeah, since the ninth episode. And we're on set with Rachel Ray and Vincent Pestori who's making his meatballs, and then zooming in from Española are Whitney Nashor, and she is quite pregnant. And the show has premiered,

but it is on a streaming service instead of HGTV proper. And Rachel Ray is not that interested in it. And basically only asks about, like, she says she likes to take longer showers and has some fun with it. And it's a great opening set piece. It's also in, it's like real time. It is agonet.

It is very long. A lot of dancing, a lot of weird flirtation. A lot of focus on her cleaning products. And then we're back in, back in New Mexico. Yeah. And they are baby-proofing. Yeah, they're nesting, right? Like, this is like the days leading up to the birth. But it's not just that. It's that the unair-conditioned passive. home is not good for a newborn baby. So they are surreptitiously putting in air conditioning and like having to depressurize segments of the house in order to do that. Right.

Asher has also decided his push presence is going to be to give Abashir the house. He's like, and he's like, when do I have to pay the property taxes? which, by the way, very relevant question. It's a good question, yeah. Very good question. This last act of, like, great liberal generosity is not received as it was intended. Yes, which is sort of like the culmination of many gestures on the Siegel's parts to get credit for their large ass. Right.

Yes. And my favorite being the jeans, the store in the strip mall with like the jeans and Whitney basically being like, it's, being like, it's fine if they get stolen, I'll just pay for them. $15,000 later. That was a great scene. That whole scene where like the rich kids come and steal, but the one guy's just genuinely hitting on the woman who works there, it's a great scene. That's the other thing that is confounding about the show. I am going to keep referring to the size and length of it, which is perhaps relevant to Asher's Egel's own foibles. But things do bubble up. That's an incredible set piece, just like Dougie's behavior in the restaurant.

You know, like there's a lot of stuff, or the first time he uses the breathalyzer. There are these moments. Anyway, the part everybody wants to talk about is that the next morning, Asher wakes up on the ceiling. Yeah. And the rest of the episode is playing this out to outrageous extremes. Right. So Asher basically is being sucked up by some sort of gravitational pull, and he's up on the ceiling. And while he's on the ceiling, Whitney goes into labor.

Whitney leaves to go to the hospital and Asher is, you know, kind of gets himself outside of the house. Because the thought is that maybe this is a pressurization thing because of what they did to the baby's room and that she might get caught up in it. They try to use the, like, the Dyson stick vacuum to get the phone to call the...

But anyway, he gets as far as the porch. Mm-hmm. And she calls their doula. Is it a doulo if it's a man? I don't know. It's a good question. Yeah, we'll have to research that. and the doulo basically births Asher

out of the house, assuming that it's somehow house-related, but then he is now on a tree. Yes. And when he's there, like Whitney goes to the hospital and nobody,

I think everybody is assuming that Asher's having a nervous breakdown about his child. So, depending fatherhood and Dougie's like, my father left. The firefighters and Dougie are all like, why are you running away?

And like, you know, it's a big deal. But like, well... And Dougie's like, get the drone, get the cameras on him. This is always thinking

content. Like a good podcaster. The first responders do what they think, is the right thing, which is like this guy's not floating away. So we're going to like make him feel like he's safe by throwing a net over him, but we're really going to chainsaw this tree branch down and he's going to fall into this mat. And it's an agonizing scene of watching Asher obviously know what's going to happen to him. They chainsaw through the branch and Asher shoots up

into the atmosphere, into the sky further and further up into space where he basically dies as his child is being born down back on earth. He, you know, asphyxiate a whatever of oxygen deprivation up in the atmosphere and dies very much in the image of a baby, very much like 2001, floating above Earth knowing that he has sort of had this experience of transference. And that's the end of the curse. And he had already said, basically like to Whitney, there's a little me in you at one point. Dougie cries in the dirt. Everything he's done is fraudulent. And then I think one of the last lines is like, was that all for TV? Yes, it goes to the last line is the neighbors saying,

what show is that for? Like, that's all for TV. I think this is probably intentional because of the way that Nathan Fielder makes his work. But part of me, I don't know if this makes me a bad viewer or a good viewer, but I was like,

is this all leading to an investigation of the newborn baby's penis? Like, for real. Like, that seemed to be hugely important to the show, judging by the conversation in the beginning. and Whitney's own family history. And then he's like, there's a little me and you.

And I'm like, how little? And also, so when the nurses are all going through, I'm like, that took me out of the scene because I thought that's what the show is going to do is just going to be a dick joke at the end. That's not what it was. The further I went away from the finale, I was pretty moved by it in a way that surprised me

because the absolute just egg, existential panic of that moment is played completely straight. It's a pretty good performance from a guy who, as much as he doesn't do real interviews, a lot of the interviews, including the one that he did with Emma Stone on Kimmel or about like how he's not a good actor compared to her. He does a good acting. Yes, he seems very scared up in that tree. It's fucking terrifying.

And I liked the way the show was like put into the text of the show, Dougie being like, this is scary for fathers. Like it is not, or the, the, the, the, the, the, the, this is, there's conversation in the episode about how, I think Dougie, right? Like, it's instant for women. But it is not instant in terms of, what is, what is my relationship to this baby? What is my role in this earth? Speaking from personal experience, my role is to show silent films that are underappreciated,

but they will remember dad. Yeah. Silently. Because they have, because they're watching cartoons on iPads with headphones on. That's right. Don't make them watch anything else. That moment did what we want art to do. TV or movie or whatever, which is like, wait, what?

Oh, my God. It's doing something so bold, so specific, but it is communicating with me. It is landing, even though I'm totally, totally in the dark about what actually is happening or where it's coming from. I feel what they're intending emotionally. I'm receiving that signal. But are we reviewing, how do we review this stuff? How do we consider this stuff? Are we considering this as the curse as a one-directional highway leading to this moment of ecstatic artistic release and saying that was an incredible journey and that was a beautiful finale or a beautiful expression?

I don't know if it was a finale. Or are we looking at this as a 10-hour piece? and the route that we took to get there. So what I haven't said the whole time that we've been talking about, this is whether I loved it or didn't love it or liked it. And I don't really know that those are really applicable terms here. I think it's pretty easy to say that this is a singular work of television greatness, like clearly.

Like Emma Stone is phenomenal. The conception of the show, the story of the show. I actually do think we will never see something like this again, or it would be very unlikely that we will, and we can get into that in a little bit about the sort of state of TV. I think that's true. I found it to be the most thought-provoking thing

that I saw probably in last year on television, you know, now in retrospect, like the things that it's making me kind of consider about spirituality, about art, about perspective, like point of view, these ideas about liberalism and about like what people owe one another, all these things. And, you know, just there's like clearly like,

a lot of stuff in that show. I don't know that it's a show that you're supposed to quote unquote love. I don't think that's, I mean, I think a hallmark of what Safdeen Fielder did. Yeah, like, I think that the whole point of like, usually when people throw around words like that when they're talking about a series,

it's because they're talking about characters that they love. Yeah, and they want to see their stories. And caring about what happens to those people and whether they get to spend enough time with those people that they have like this sort of like strange relationship that transcends the screen they're watching them on and they become like, like invested in the future of those people.

And I think I was relatively like, there were moments that I feel that way about the characters in this show. But, you know, I found myself very much dominated. My feelings about the show were very much mitigated by the way the show was made. In so much as I mean, like, I felt like I was watching it on the wrong end of a telescope.

You know, like the voyeuristic nature, the way that they use some of the visual language of reality television, but what they're showing is all the stuff that you would presumably leave on the cutting room floor of a reality show if you were like filming inside of Asher and Whitney's house. And it made me ask like a lot of questions. Like there are a couple of scenes people have pointed out where there seem to be characters within the show that seem to know that they are being filmed and they look at the camera. But like Asher and Whitney do not. And just the nature of the passive house with the mirrors and the distorted funhouse mirror.

Dougie seeming to have a pretty nefarious motivations at various times about like, what to film, how to characterize these people. Like, is Dougie himself being filmed by someone? There's one of the episodes, I can't remember if it's like six or seven seems to end with someone following Whitney, right? Like, it kind of feels like there's like a perspective. There's also the episode that begins with someone driving away.

Yes, yes. So that stuff really was in my head way more than like, way more than do I like Asher or not. You know what I mean? Yeah, and that's good. I mean, like, I think it's almost hard to extricate this specific conversation from the larger conversation, which is maybe a way to foreground all of it. You said this a moment ago. Like, it feels different talking in a critical way about the curse at a moment when I do think it will be years before we ever get a curse again if we do.

Yeah. We said this before. It bears repeating. Like, Nathan Fielder has an overall deal with HBO. People want to be in business with the Safdi's. A24 is involved in this. This was, HBO did not want to make this show. Showtime, in its previous iteration,

when it was, I think, correctly taking bolder swings that got passed on by other people, picked it up, and then during the production of the show, not only did the show change from 30-minute, whatever it was going to be, to a 60-minute show. Like maybe it was going to be closer, like curb your enthusiasm or something like that. Or, you know, more of what we would expect from Fielder,

which is like a little bit satire, but then slowly, slowly corroding around the margins until we could end up with a finale like this potentially. Showtime changed. Showtime went away. This is now just a show that is also on Paramount Plus. Paramount Plus is not in the business of making shows like this. Right. And I no longer know if even the, like,

to take on a show like this, the thinking used to be, this will drive conversation and this will drive looky-lose and subscribers to pay cable services or streaming services, and it will send a signal to the larger town that we work with artists that you want to work with. Look, I mean, the idea of, like, Emma Stone could win another Oscar in two months,

and, like, we have her on a TV show. Like, that seems like a no-brainer. I think those days of thinking that way are over. I think I guess they have enough data, and we can infer from their data that having artistically-minded projects in your... interesting, I said product, in your streaming library does not move the important needles for them anymore. And, you know, you look at, I mean, ratings don't matter anymore. But if you look at,

like, the overnight showtime ratings for this show, they are jaw-dropping. Jaw-droppingly small. Yes. Yeah. Which, again, that doesn't matter anymore. No one is looking at that. But it's, it's interesting. It's interesting compared to, like, we're not that far away from a time when HBO and Showtime would trumpet numbers. I don't think that this show is very popular. We can put it that way. But my point is actually, does that matter? Not does that matter in terms of its business, but like, why do we expect something as obviously challenging that is being as lauded for its provocative, transgressive, absolutely unique point of view? Why would we even think that it would be popular? Right. So that's right. So anyway, I went off on a tangent there to say, like, why

we're not going to see this again. Okay, so we won't, but we did see it. Then I think, we go back to that question that I have before about what is what is TV like what is it for and one of the things that I continually bump up against both in a critical hat and even in a creative hat is like if you have you don't you no longer have endless real estate but if you approach it that you do because in a movie generally you know that your script is going to be 120 pages and then you know see what what comes out of that in TV is it is it 30 minutes is it 60 minutes is it four episodes is it episodes? Is it built to be a limited? Is it built to me many years? Like laying down those fence posts matters. And if you look at it as a playground, which I think is a very exciting place

for some creatives to be, and I don't begrudge that at all, I think you get something like the curse, which is in some ways an unfinished, rough and tumble thing from people who in the past have made, I mean, Nathan Fielder made a show for Comedy Central that had certain expectations and ad breaks. And Safeties have made movies that have certain expectations and length. They were freed from those shackles when they made this and you could feel it. That's good for them as artists. I don't know if it was rewarding ultimately for your audiences because I continue to think, and I mean this as a positive thing, having watched the series, there is so much exceptional stuff here from performances to ideas to execution that I wish it was sharper. That's pure, I'm a TV critic

again saying that. I wish that this was Nathan Fielder and Penny Safdi went in a room and wrote 120-page script. Or, and again, we've put away the conversation over whether anyone would pay for it. But if they had said, this is a four-chapter story, it is four episodes in this world, I think it would have been a better final product. That's not the product we got. I'm not living in a fictional world where it was. But even things like Emma Stone's exceptional performance, over 10 hours feels diluted.

When I do think it's an incredible piece of acting. It's just that she was doing it for 10 hours. So I appreciate it slightly less, if that makes sense. I want to ask you a question. I'm not trying to push your buttons. I just, it's come up. So Christopher Nolan just did this Q&A with Benny, where obviously Benny was in Oppenheimer,

but I think Christopher Nolan actually posted a curse Q&A. He did. Yeah, yeah. And was like, this show reminds me of Twin Peaks the Return. And that's the show you obviously think as one of the crowning achievements of television, right? It's a great question. I don't know if I think of it as one.

I think of it as one of the crowning achievements of one of the great filmmakers of our time that aired on television. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is, we've been having this argument and maybe we'll continue to have it in different forms for years. But like, it is weird that like anything that airs on television is a TV show. And we're comparing them to each other as if they're all the same thing with the same purpose

and the same artistic ambition. But, you know, all the different age Sheldons, they're all on television too. I know. So, for me... All the Dutton's are on the same streaming service as Ash and Whitney. For me, the Twin Peaks thing is kind of a false comparison, especially for the return. It's more, it would be better to compare it to the original Twin Peaks,

including season two, which had its ups and downs as it was just like a TV show. And was at least good faith engaging in the form of what TV show was then, which I think many people feel like robbed it of what made it unique until Lynch came back for the finale. Twin Peaks, the Return, is a old master. He was a little bit younger, but he's an old master. Just unplug, not unplugged, like uncorked. He's just going.

Yes. And his connection, I talked about this in, when Sean had me on the big picture to talk about Miyazaki. I think there are very few artists, and I think Miyazaki and Lynch are maybe two of two who effortlessly communicate their own idiosyncratic dream logic to an audience. And you just vibe with it.

It's just here. And it makes it's true, even though it's insane. I don't, I think Safdeenfielder, for good reason, aspire to that. But I don't think they... Is that a marketing issue or is that it actually, like, they haven't earned it yet issue? I don't think, I think earned doesn't come into it here because I think they are, I keep saying good faith. Like, I think these guys are artists.

I think they take what they do very, very seriously. And I think they think about it. And I think they express themselves and handle themselves and, you know, enter into the world from a place of art, which is awesome. And I hope they get many more opportunities to do that. But I don't think that their instruments is as, and I think they would agree, it's not, they're not on a lynch level yet. They're half his age. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I think it was probably more of a comparison of artistic bravery as much as it was like necessarily saying like one to one, this is as good as, you know? This is a thing that I think we struggle with in articulating

on a week-to-week basis on the podcast, and we get into arguments with people like our friend Sam S-M-Smail about this, which is, are we looking at this as the latest provocative visual art piece from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdi? Or are we looking at this as Showtime Sunday Night Show? And those two things might not be, we might not be able to make those two thoughts agree in any meaningful way. And maybe we shouldn't.

Because, like, if we're saying, these people are real artists, then what you do with real artists, you meet it on its terms. Yeah. Right? And I'm like, this is a wild provocation. Some of it connected. Some of it didn't. But it is what it is.

It is not really helpful to be like, oh, if only they had X, Y or Z. Yeah. Like, it's like, it is strange to be like, it, your point is very well taken where you're like, over the course of 10 hours, you wonder whether or not, like, especially since they do leave some strings, narrative strings, relatively like floating in the wind. Yeah. The whole Abashir Nala thing, and even the Kara thing, to a degree, they were interesting digressions from the Seagull's story. Yes.

As was like the casino stuff. None of that is a sin, but it felt slightly unfocused in the taking of it. I mean, I should say all this, we're like, oh, it's unique in television to do this. Like, if you read art criticism, which I'm trying to make my children do more and more, you know. Right. Kidding. It's legitimate in terms of, like, you. If you accept art and you accept criticism,

critics can be like this needed some editing. Not like it should be four hours instead of ten, but maybe this exhibit would have been better served if there had only been five paintings. Yeah, right. Or if smaller canvases or whatever, the artist could be like fuck off, or it could be like,

this is a conversation that we're having because we can't control how it's being received. So, yeah, it's a fraught one because I liked it, I dislike parts of it. I hate, that we're in a place with the culture where we're not like, and next month we'll get to do it again with this,

you know, with the new, um, the new David Lynch series that he was supposedly making for Netflix. Yeah. I think they, they put the kibosh on. So we're limited and only being able to talk about this.

Yeah, I think it's a miracle that we got something like this. I wish it wasn't such a miracle. I wish it was a little bit more common. I wish that there was an understanding on the part of a lot of these like technology companies who have turned into content companies that there are, there is a certain responsibility for the sort of

development of the medium with which they have invested and that it would be great if they could just take a line item of their massive amounts of money that they have rolling through the company and just be like, we're going to put this aside and we're going to kind of like just give people blank checks. You know, like we're not blank checks in spending

but maybe blank checks in when you turn this in and over the course of the streaming era we've seen this happen before. Like you mentioned Lynch, they can be wildly unsuccessful like Too Old to Die Young by Nicola. winning refin, which is like something that I was mesmerized by, but was literally a double middle finger to anybody who was watching it. I also think, and I know this was weird or potentially weird, coming from someone who

has basically devoted the last 10 years of his professional life to TV in one sense or another, I don't know if this works on TV. I just, I mean, I think it's interesting and I think it's good, but I do think there is something that is fundamentally TV that, and I can hear Sam scoffing as I say this, but I think that the most successful expressions of art on TV have been compromised. And what I mean by compromised isn't just like act breaks or they took the network note or they featured the Apple product. I mean compromised in the sense that they are deeply collaborative in terms of the writing

and the production design and the conversations that are ongoing in terms of what the show is going to be and look like and how it's going to play out. And also collaborative in the sense of like, how are we going to end? And where are we going with this? What do we want to do with it? This might go on longer than we realize. This might be shorter than we realize. And being, like, more alive in the moment,

that seems to be fundamental to the medium to me in a way that I just don't think is true for film, which I think is more, which can be a definitive statement, which can have a more autort sensibility about it. Now, yeah, films are collaborative too. But I just increasingly think as we see people dabble in TV or take a shot in TV, sometimes we get beautiful things. Like I think Jane Campion, like, you know, Top of the Lake was like, it was a Jane Campion project and it was a riveting television,

but it was a murder mystery. Yeah, it was a fucking detective show. Maybe that's why it worked on television. Movies are better at bigger things sometimes, unless they are done over time because, you know, you were referencing, like when Sean and I were talking about Mad Men, like we could have kept digging for five more hours because of what that show showed us beautifully and artistically

about the human condition in the 20th century. Like, that's incredible. It is richer text than many, many, many movies, but in a different way. So maybe that's a good way of kind of getting into some of David Chase's comments because Chase has been talking with some publications recently

in the honor of the 25th anniversary of Sopranos. Yes. He's also, it had been rumored and talked about that he was working on a show idea with Hennifel, who we love, who did a teacher, and that they were working on a, series and it sounded like it was like rolling towards, you know,

in its development process, out of these conversations that Chase has had with journalists, specifically with the Times of London, I think he has kind of alluded to some resistance or roadblocks in developing shows right now and has kind of pronounced television dead. He has... He's the best. He's the best.

Here's some quotes from the Times of London piece in general. that the 25 years since the Sopranos were a blip. We're going back to where I was, said Chase. They're going to have commercials. And I've already been told to dumb it down. We seem to be confused and audiences can't keep their minds on things. So we can't make anything that makes too much sense,

takes our attention and requires our audience to focus. And as for streaming executives, it's getting worse. We're going back to where we were. Back then, the networks were an artistic pit, a shit hole. The process was replaced. In meetings, these people would ask you to take out the one thing that made the episode worth doing, I should have quit. Let's provide a little bit of context for this. So the reason why I'm bringing this up in relationship to the curse is that I've also seen pieces like in the LA Times where they're like, is the curse the last prestige TV show?

Is the curse like the funeral? Will we ever see anything like this again? Did the dreams of prestige TV float away like Asher into space? David Chase has a complicated relationship with television. Yes, we should. I mean, I love it. He's the king. And one of the reasons he's the king is because he has always hated television, even when he was making the best art in television that maybe has ever been made. He, if you read interviews with him, if you listen to him in the radio, if you know anything about his history, he's a frustrated musician who then fell in love with cinema, who in his words basically got co-opted into television because of the allure of a steady paycheck because he had a young family and spent his, you know, would somewhat call it like your most productive years. churning out episodes of Colchak the Nightstocker and whatever else. Does that television title give you the most joy to say?

Because you always like sell it. I love it. It's such a great name. You know, and then, by the way, if you were an impartial observer, he also worked on Northern Exposure and like I'll Fly Away and like things that were at the time, heralded as being like at the forefront of the medium. He's always hated it and resented it and felt like a failure and a sellout. And like his most famous creation, he got into something too late.

I mean, Tony Soprano is him in that sense. and then he made the Sopranos pilot and was so excited that it was going to get rejected because he had already figured out a plan to finance it as a feature so he could take it to a European film festival. And then wouldn't you know it, HBO whacked that dream and made him the most celebrated showrunner in history by giving him carte blanche to make one of the most incredible shows ever that on some level he couldn't wait to get away from

so he could make movies. and then when he finally, he made one movie that was pretty good, and then made a Sopranos movie, which was already a little bit begrudging, and then because of the pandemic, it aired on TV. That movie got put on Max. Yeah. He's furious about this.

He's, I mean, I've interviewed him once in this podcast, and, like, I know people, he's a beautiful guy. He was out on the picket lines every day, like, but he is kind of a depressive who hates television, which fuels all this, but he's not wrong. Yes. And I would say that we have generally, like, heard feedback, like this, like about the changing tenor of development and of green lighting.

As someone who is in development on a number of projects, the expressions of on the faces of the people on the other ends of the Zooms has changed dramatically. Okay. Can you even just begin to articulate what that is? Well, I would just say that, I mean, there's certain things that are just completely different. Like, he's exactly right. This is not like about one thing in particular about we're going back. Like, that is what people want. People want cop shows, detective shows, hospital shows.

People will not really... There are always exceptions. There are always people who can jump the line or skip the rules and they don't apply to them. You cannot go in and pitch a limited series anymore. For years, that was everything. Because we want to get the biggest star and we want to make the biggest splash

and attract subscribers. No. People will not even take meetings unless it's a potential ongoing. Now, what is an ongoing? That's changed. An ongoing, best case now means what? Fargo is an ongoing. Or White Lotus is an ongoing.

Or ongoing means... two or three seasons, then you're in our library and you're done. So everything is a limited series. And when you're in our library, then we're going to sell you to a fast channel. Or you're not in your library at all. Yeah. But yeah, so, but that's, sorry, that one sticks a little close to home. But yeah, it absolutely is a culture of fear and retrenchment and backwards thinking.

Now, I've also heard, and I believe this, that this is, a lot of this is not due to any, like, changing taste or aesthetics. it's post-strike industry uncertainty because we've ended up in this place of streaming services that can't support themselves and there's a lot more, they're more dominoes to fall. And I've heard the more optimistic spin from people who have been in the business a lot longer than you or I have even been adjacent or thinking about the business that, look, fundamentally people here want to buy and sell television shows. And we're going to get back to that in a year or so. But how those television shows will be consumed and how they'll be paid for may change.

and if that starts to become a little bit more of a concern, then you get back into the idea that these things need to have ad breaks or that these things need to have a little bit more of an uplifting ending because certain brands don't want to be associated with it in that sense. Yes, I also think, I mean, I'm trying to be devil's advocate here, even though I kind of, I agree with David Chase, but I also think, as we often discover, when we do our top tens in December, that, man, there's a lot of good stuff

and there's stuff where we're not even anticipating. I think that's still going to be the case. there aren't that many people who have earned the right, I'm using the earned word, to go into a studio or a network and say, I know this sounds really bleak and like I'm kind of just vibing off of this, but trust me. Yeah. That's just, I do think, I think our... The weird thing is that the show he's pitching with Hannah sounds like, why wouldn't you do, it's about like a sex worker who goes into witness protection? Yes, but I also think he sold it to FX. FX has ads. Yeah.

FX has always had ads. It is basic cable. Now, is FX even a network anymore? Is it just a window on Hulu, I mean on Disney Plus? Like, okay, you could argue that. But that's the nature of it, you know? I think that you kind of have to make the work to go into the box that they've given you the keys to. But, I mean, I say that.

I don't know anything about the script. I know anything about the development or notes process over there that they've gone through. But it's... I like how tortured he is. because your description of his character is very, it coincides with what I'm trying to say here, which is David Chase wanted to be a European filmmaker. Yes.

He wanted to be a critically beloveduteur who made portraits of humanity that like really, you know, probing, whatever. And that's really what you do with the Sopranos. There's this mafia girding around it, but it's essentially about a guy who's trying to figure out how he relates to his family, how he relates to his heritage, how he relates to the world. And he's doing it through these conversations with his therapist.

And it's a miracle that the Sopranos happened. And it's a miracle that Mad Men happened. And it's a miracle that The Wire happened. And it's a miracle that Breaking Bad happened in the specific way that it did. And that it was given time to turn from kind of a weird comedy into one of the darkest, most expertly plotted thrillers we've ever seen. Yes. And that's kind of been my experience over the course of my life, which is that you and I've been making this podcast in some way or another for more than a decade now. we ignore 80% of television.

Yes, we do. The popular stuff. The stuff that we treat is the most important shit in the world is generally watched by like two to five million people at the most. And that's how many people listen to our podcast? But my point is basically like,

this has kind of been the case for the entire history of television, including the two decades that David Chase is referring to as this golden era where you could get away with everything from Twin Peaks the Return to Friday night lights to whatever.

And then I guess in the kind of context of our conversation here, and we're kind of biffing the Fargo part of it, but that the curse is this sort of like last gasp of, they just gave these guys money and they told them they would put it up no matter why. And I think that there is some truth to that. But on the other hand, it's always been hard. Yes, this is important. And it kind of sticks with me when I think about Whitney in the curse's conversation

about Kara's quitting art. And she's like, quitting art is an art now. And like she's getting more credit for quitting art than like basically alluding to the idea that like this is a person who makes fucking stupid houses. And she is like, why aren't my houses being considered art? Yes. I want the gratification. I want the affirmation of both art and commerce.

I want to be successful. I want to be critically adored. It almost never happens. Yes. And so. And an artist certainly can't control whether it happens. Yeah. And it's your job.

I think as somebody. who follows it is to basically take stuff stuff like the curse seriously. You know, like it's basically to like unpack it to make people think, man, these guys really like it or these guys really talked about it an interesting way. I want to go watch it. But I have no expectation. In no world

do I think the curse should be more popular than it is right now. Yes, I agree. To quote... And that's not anybody's fault. To quote Twin Peaks, we live inside a dream. And the dream of the last 10 years is an insane one, which was that you could

make boundary pushing work within television, a medium that is notoriously historically hostile to any kind of pushing whatsoever, unless it was pushing soap or products during the commercials. And you could do that, and you could get super fucking paid for it. You could get really rich. It was a gold rush out here for that. That's awesome. I'm thrilled that people were rewarded for their hard work. I want everyone to get paid for making art or for making worthwhile work. But that, it's worrying, but that was kind of an aberration. Now, it's complicated by a point that you have made often, I think, on the podcast, which is that unlike when we've seen this happen in music, because we lived through the 90s, when the people making music that we love got signed

to major labels and got rich, and REM was the biggest band in the world, or when we've seen it happened to movies, like with the 90s, Indies explosion or into the 2000s even, movies and music, you can DIY. Now, will people listen to it or watch it? it, I can't tell you that. The means of distribution do matter, but they matter less than they used to. Television is still television. It is still controlled by the media companies of which they're increasingly fewer options, and there are still the necessities of it.

People have to pay for this. They have to subscribe to it, or advertisers have to do it. That's just the nature of it is deeply compromised from jump, and there is no indie television. That's why there was always such a hostility towards it in the first place. Yes, and so this idea that the artist came flooding in and we're like, This is ours now. Yeah. It's a beautiful dream.

It's a beautiful dream. And I hope more artists do get rewarded for it. But I also think your point about like we ignore 80% of television and that the television that we that we revere on this podcast and we have fun talking about from Sopranos to Succession does align itself with some of the 80% that we ignore just in terms of how it is made. Sure. Its relationship to commerce and deletions. and runtime and all these other things, those are compromises. And I think good art came from them. But it is a different way of talking about art versus like, let's just let Nathan and Benny cook.

Right. Which God bless A24 and Showtime slash Paramount Plus. They did. They let them cook. And not everyone liked the taste. But I'm glad they made it. Glad they made the meal. Did you like Fargo?

I don't know how to tie that in. I know Fargo. Well, Fargo is also an interesting one because- The reason I had it included was because I was like, Ferre's sort of, in a lot of ways, pop as Fargo is. I don't know how much longer stuff like that will get made, necessarily. I think two things about Fargo. Like, I think that this is something I've said 100 times on this podcast,

which is like, I really like and admire that Noah found a Trojan horse. Yes. Like he found a way in. I don't know if he could do it today, but maybe there's a sexy beast television show coming out. You know, so maybe it's still a viable thing. which is that he found this remarkably seaworthy vessel that was existing IP and now is using it to tell the stories that interest him every few years or so.

And because it is, I think more because it is recognizably, quote-unquote, a crime show, less than it's a beloved Cohen Brothers movie. I think that it, I think that FX is rewarded for the investment. It seems like that in terms of as much as ratings matter, like I think it does pretty well and it gets nominated for things. I think a lot of the things that you said about the curse I would apply to Fargo for myself this year, which is wondering whether or not. it needed as much real estate as it took and whether or not it kind of filled out.

Like, I ultimately, I think, put this in the upper half of Fargo seasons for myself, but found that the original reason why I enjoyed this season so much, which was a little bit more of the thriller cat and mouse element, was subsumed by some of the ideas being thrown at the wall, whether it was like red states versus blue states or Old Testament versus New Testament or debt versus forgiveness and all these kind of like heavy, heavy ideas that I kind of by the time we're in the tunnels of the end of Fargo

and this incredible shootout and all these comeuppances that happened for characters I felt a little bit strangely disengaged with what was happening in front of me. I felt exactly the same way. I agree with you. Like if you're going to rank the seasons, I think it probably goes 2-1-5-3-4 for me. So I think

in terms of like a successful execution of a season-long concept, like, yes, it absolutely worked. But my takeaway from watching it was the first two hours were fucking awesome. Yeah. That was a banger. And I can't help but into it. I'm not talking about this, but like, Noah wants to make movies. Kind of like Safdi wants to make movies and other people. And he made a really good two-hour movie in those first two episodes.

And then I felt a lot of like thematic structure. in scaffolding, and we have to make eight more of these, and we have to fill these hours kind of coming in. And it didn't seem like ultimately there was enough story there to merit it, because, as you pointed out, it was a really cool cat and mouse thing. But the cat found the mouse two hours in, and then the cat one did some other stuff, and the mouse kind of went back home, and then went back out again and came back home again and got caught. And there was a lot of that. You know, the first season, which I have not revisited, I may misremember it, but it felt like there was the Oliver Platt storyline going off onto the side.

There was a time jump. There was some more stuff that kind of filled the frame to fill out all the hours of the television show. And I kind of appreciated that. By the end, when you're reduced to, again, Juno Temple, like, acted her ass off. But I felt... I even went up, like, really, like, enjoying the Jennifer Jason Lee character. Who was the person I was bumping against the most in the beginning? I just think that...

Lorraine. Part of the purpose of the show, I think, was... to end up in a place where the shared experience of being female in this world would be more important than their political divisions or their proclivity to literal hand-to-hand combat. But that the Juno Temple character was just essentially perfect. And so then we get to the end of the show, and at that point the conceit just washed over me

because like Wayne's behavior in the finale, all building towards a moment that, again, this connects to the Safdi-feelder thing for me. Noah had a again, I'm just riffing. I've not spoken to him about this. But I think he had a vision, he had a real passion and an idea

of what he wanted to do at the end of this show with the monk character and with the forgiveness and eating something homemade, imbued with that classic food network ingredient of love as opposed to sin. And I love that idea.

And I will defend and be excited about the pitch, you know, in the room and like what you want to get to. Like that's what I want in my life. long-form storytelling is to be like, this is what it is, and I'm going to get us there. Getting there, where it landed, yes, the getting there felt bumpy, because then in order to get there, you kind of callously dispatch Lamourne Morris's character, like he almost wasn't even on the show. John Hamm's reward is prison violence, which felt weird for a show that was trending towards

a different kind of morals. It was way more mayor of Kingstown than I expected. It was. and all of it to get to like a character like Wayne being like, gosh, this violent man in a skirt sure wants to drink a beer and talk about football. It's like, oh, so now we're still in Fargo, but now it starts to seem cartoonish because we're using it in the background noise to have his total credulousness get us to this final thing.

That didn't work for me. That didn't work for me because I think the idea, maybe like the filmmaking of the first two episodes, was ultimately bigger than the ongoing television conceit of Minnesota Nice, the series. Yeah. But it's an interesting thing to talk about because it just the fact that he could do all that, even things that you and I bumped against, put that in the larger bucket of, is anyone else going to get to do that? It's a question. Yeah. And would it take five seasons? You know what I mean?

Like how long do you need to get your sea legs? And would you be able to do, hey, that fifth season of your show is really interesting? I don't even know if that's ever going to happen again. True. I also think that the first two seasons, again, I don't have any insight into how they were made. I was never part of those rooms. I don't know. But they felt more of a piece with the business of prestige television in the Sopranos Madman era of like, okay, let's beat this out. We'll do this. Here's what we're going to do. And here's what we're going to land it. Whereas the third, fourth and fifth season kind of jumped the rails into the future where you're no longer bound by doing one every year. you can chase your own bliss in terms of I want to tell this kind of story. I want to try to do it this way. I'm going to take five years off and now it's going to be this, which can benefit the art, but it's a different thing. I would almost say they're from different eras almost.

I definitely agree with that. I feel like we should wrap it up there. Yeah, some of us have more podcasts to do today. We'll be back on Sunday night with the true detective recap and a little bit of Mr. Spade. Double detective. And then we'll see what Andy's got next Thursday. Who knows? Yeah, because, you know, I've had that date circled for weeks.

I am prepared. Thanks to Kai for producing. We'll be back on Sunday.