The Watch - ‘The End of the F***ing World’ (and We Feel Fine) and the Oscar Noms (Ep. 221)

Episode Date: January 26, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the recently announced Oscar nominations (1:00) and whether they are in or out on 'American Crime Story: Versace' (14:00). Later, they kick off a two-week run of discussing and reviewing the Netflix series ‘The End of the F***ing World’ (26:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio with all his rules and all his clothes and all his money. It's Andy Greenwald! Is that a Versace you reference? No, man, it's Phantom Thread. We're talking about the Oscar nominations today, and Phantom Thread was one of the surprise big winners. Listen, we got to get on the same page here because we have a lot to talk about

today. We're going to talk about End of the fucking World. We're going to talk about the second episode of Versacee, Oscar Noms. All I want to do is talk about Phantom Thread. We're going to wait to talk about that on Monday. On Monday, we're going to talk about the Grammys, Phantom Thread, and Waco. Listen to the way Chris said Waco. If you want a little preview about how my man is feeling about this show. I don't have a compound. I live in a very normal neighborhood in Los Angeles. It's not like the West Texas Plains.

It's very basic, yes. I was like, to my wife, I said, do you want to check out Waco? And she's like 100%. Not only did we watch three episodes of Waco. That's a crazy choice. But then she watched a documentary about Ruby Ridge behind my back. there's something here. Do you want to...

Is this a safe space to talk about that? I don't know. There's nothing wrong. She's fine. She's just a curious person. Yeah. Okay. How does she...

Is that why she's so cool with the other girls living in your house? But the thing is that I think that what happens is like sometimes the show comes along and it does trigger you to just explore all the content, contextual things around it. Well, this is good. And we'll get to some of the other things we want to talk about. But it is a worthwhile thing to consider. consider when we talk about a show like American Crime Story, Versace or the previous OJ year,

the second screen experience, when we talk about that, we usually think about like, oh, desperately Googling the names of Game of Thrones characters so we can find out what castle they actually had or whatever. The family histories. We're just asking now. Cigils. Well, we could just text Mallory. One benefit of these shows is that second screen experience is not just Wikipedia as your

friend, but Vulture is running a very smart companion piece. They did this with OJ2. basically fact-checking each episode of Versace. And not to spoil the podcast ahead of you, all of you beautiful, beautiful listeners who are all wearing Galliano right now, I assume. Vona McQueen. Is that I found that fact-checking piece

much more interesting than the show this week. That's a little bit of a tip of the hand. So we're going to do Waco next week. We're going to do Grammys next Monday. We'll do Phantom Threat on Monday because it will have been released nationally. And you guys should all going to see it. Sheik, what a grubby little word.

But one of the reasons why we want to talk about that is because the Oscar nominations came out. And there were some really interesting moves here. Based on where we were from, say, October, when people started really prognosticating an earnest around Halloween about movies, who they were hearing was going to be frontrunners. Do you ever prognosticate not in earnest? Are you ever just, like, cash about your prognostic?

I'm pretty cash. I don't really have any sources or any inside track of information. I just like to say things out loud, and I think, you know, oh, this will happen and that'll happen. But it was weird. There was a lot of hand-wringing, and I thought that at the end of the day, for the most part,

the movies that we thought were going to get recognized did. And we're starting to go through some of the guilds, giving out their awards, but it still seems like we're getting mixed signals about who exactly is the frontrunner, what exactly is the frontrunner?

You mean now that the NOMs have come out or prior to us? Yeah, like there's some talk about Get Out being back in it now. Yeah, it should be. Lady Bird is still a frontrunner and three billboards is still holding strong. So I think, whereas last year,

it was mostly like how many will La La Land win? and then obviously you had the huge best picture moment. I think this year it's a little bit more horses in the race. I very much agree. I think my main takeaway was I like years when the Oscars comes in with its nominations and it's like, okay, Golden Globes, you're done. Like, you're dismissed.

You had a fun little party. The grownups are here to take over. Yes. Because we talked about it. The Golden Globes, directors nominating. The director's category was kind of a mess. A lot of wrongs were. were righted, such as they can be by, as much as they can be by arbitrary nominations.

What's interesting to me about this year, well, first let me just say, 2017, great movie year. Sure. I say this, now the 2018 has begun and I've started to make my way through these movies. Guys, great stuff out there. Movies are great, yeah. But any year that has Phantom Thread get out and Lady Bird is an astonishing fear. And that's, and they were all nominated for Best Picture.

Yes, yeah. That's wild. Let's celebrate that. Let's be happy about that. What's, I guess, the most interesting thread, not a phantom thread, a very, very concrete, tangible, dare I say, thread, is you look at these nominations and you could easily, as you may have been able to in years past, say, well, here's the industry favorites and here are the indie, the bones being thrown to indie stuff.

They would have said that Dunkirk or the Post would probably be the... Dunkirk, the Post. Yeah. And then seemingly just from momentum shape of water would be in that category as well. What's going to be interesting about this year, and this in some ways touches on our colleague, Sean Fentese's smart take on the Oscar nominations that published on what website? The Ringer or the other day. We don't really know what, quote unquote, the industry means anymore when we're talking about the Academy.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the president, I think now former president, radically changed the voting. block added 1,500 new voters, and we're starting to see the effects. Got younger, got more diverse. Yes. So when we say that here are clearly industry favorites, we don't even know what that means anymore. And I think that makes it exciting. Do you want to go through some other?

Well, look, but when the globes happened and when some of the earlier awards happened, there was a narrative that nobody was seeing phantom thread. It seemed DOA. And that Paul Thomas Anderson, unlike, say, maybe some of the inherent vice stuff, and even to some extent, the master had a... kind of got behind this movie. He was doing press for it. It's Dale D. Lewis is supposedly his last film. It's more digestible than maybe the last couple of Paul Thomas Anderson movies. It has it depends. It depends what you put in the omelet. Yeah, right. And it has an element of mystery to it.

So I think that this was sort of a movie that was ready to be appreciated by a larger audience, but that larger audience just wasn't finding yet. And nor were the sort of tastemakers outside of PTAs like hardcore fans and some of the people writing for websites or whatever. But it correct, the Oscars corrected that. Phantom 3 got nominated for Best Picture. Thrilled about this. D.D.L. got nominated for Best Actor. Lindsay Manville got nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Johnny Greenwood, incredibly deserving nomination for what is an astonishing score. And Paul Thomas Anderson nominated for Best Director. And it's Screenplay too, right? No, just Best Director, not Screenplay. Screenplay's real good. Screenplay's great. So very happy about that. That was one of my big takeaways.

Yeah, me too. You can listen to Sean's pod earlier in the week with Amanda and Cam. they talked a lot about the nominations. So I don't want to belabor it too much. I think that it's worth noting, especially today. So James Franco is not nominated for Best Actor. And we found out today that Casey Affleck will not be appearing to give away Best Actress. So typically, in the following year, the person who won the opposite gender award gives away.

The actress gives away the actress the next year. Casey Affleck will not be doing that he won for Manchester and Five the Sea last year. I would also say, I would be careful about fitting the, James Franco thing into the narrative. I do not think it's a slam dunk that he would have been nominated. That is interesting. I mean, it could be this.

Chalamee D.D.L. Caluia, Gary Oldman, Denzo Washington. Denzo Washington was the person I think who was on the bubble. Yes, because his movie, which did you see Roman and did not. And that is a, on one hand, a testament to how unpopular that movie was.

Yeah. Because I am a Denzel Washington stand and a Gilroy brother stand. And the fact that I didn't go see a movie written by Dan Gilroy directed by Dan Galway starring Denzel Washington about a lawyer in Los Angeles with Colin Farrell is nuts.

It's bizarre, whatever happened to that movie. Yeah, look, that was kind of a surprise, but the flip side of that is Denzel Washington is Denzel Washington. You know, people pay attention when he does a movie, especially when he does a movie where he is, you know, there's movie star Denzel movies and there are actor Denzel movies.

This was supposed to be the actor Denzel one. They've been talking about this for a while. I agree with you that it's possible, but I don't know if that. I mean, we never will know officially, but also, you know, the disaster artist did not connect on a large-scale way. It's a comedy, and those movies aren't always rewarded. So we don't know. I guess the reason I even brought it up is because all of those nominees are deserving.

Sure. You know, if Denzel is your okay, we'll plug him in, then you're doing okay. Yeah, I think then you get to, I mean, actress was pretty predictable. Sally Hawkins, for instance, dorm, a Margarobee. Disaster Artist was nominated for adapted screenplay. Sure. It was on the radar. Yeah, Sertia Ronan and Meryl Streep, nominated for Best Actress.

No real surprises there. I think if I was just going to mention anything, it would just be that the call me by your name guys didn't get nominated. Yeah, Army season's over. Yeah. I'm fine with that. Amanda was telling me that Army is working through that on Instagram right now. And that's pretty much it. Not on Twitter.

BuzzFeed dead at his Twitter. Oh, that's right. We are out here in these social media streets. That's right. What about you? Any big surprises? anything you're particularly pulling for, anything that you think in the next month or so,

I guess they've already started voting? I suppose so. I think so, yeah. You know, it's one of those years. There are nine movies up for Best Picture. Yeah. Call me by your name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, Shape of Water, Three Billboard's.

It's a really interesting list. I mean, there's nothing on there that is undeserving of recognition. You know, I think The Post is a well-made movie. I think I have not seen three billboards yet, so I'm not on any side of it. Right now, what I'm trying to think about in terms of this Oscars is real happiness that these three masterpieces from last year, all of which are totally different, and all of which are surprising and emotionally enriching in really profound ways, were recognized and recognized across the board.

Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peel as director. You know, I mentioned Johnny Greenwood's score. Paul Thomas Anderson is just one of the most important artists working. I just feel that way. And having him back in our lives every few years of the movie and to talk about it and to make us feel things, a joy. What I don't like about this, and this is something we can watch as it unfolds over the next few weeks, is the way we talk about this now. Not us, hopefully we'll be able to avoid it, and others that we enjoy and respect, but I don't like that people are caping up and taking sides.

How so? Well, I just bums me out that, I mean, I haven't seen three billboards. So I haven't read Wesley Morris, our friend's piece about it. It bums me out that certain movies are avatars for, not just that three billboards has become like the avatar for stodgy or more conservative thinking. And the assumption is that if it wins, it's a failure to recognize the other movies. It's actually the flip side of that, which is that people thinking that get out and Lady Bird are token nominations, that they are there because of a moment, a Me Too moment. Does anybody actually said that?

Yeah, there are bloggers and there's sort of a counter-narrative on Twitter that, that up that these movies are being celebrated beyond their station because of the moment we are in history with the president we have and the way the culture is going. And that just bums me out. That's a shitty take. I know. I don't know. I mean, sometimes that's one of those, like, these movies are like universally beloved, both critically and within reason and commercially. I think that they have really high approval ratings. They're not like, oh, let's just like throw some countermeasures out at Make America Great. I agree with you. I'm not making that point.

Right. But you're not like reading this on like Breitbart. This is like a real, these are like real takes. Listen, they have some really good points about the economy. There's some economic anxiety out there right now that get out really, really, you know. No, man. Like, get out. Don't get trolled, man.

That's all I got to say. I'm trying not to get trolled out here. Let's celebrate good art. We'll be talking more about the Oscar nominations and the Oscar race. We'll hopefully have Sean on in the next couple weeks. But let's just move on. Let's get back to the small screen. Okay.

Some would say where we thrive. Some would. Two weeks ago, we talked about American crime story, the assassination of Gianni Versace, or it's the assassination of Johnny Versace. I think it was the beginning of last week. It just... Polan American crime story. And we were both varying degrees of in on it.

We did it. We did it in or out. We both liked it. We both were like, we're in. Written by Tom Rob Smith, who wrote London Spy as show from two years ago, I think, that we both had a lot of time for. Very interesting writer. very moody writer.

And this was the follow-up to OJ, so it had a lot of pressure on it. And I think we're both curious to see how it was doing things a little bit differently. So we wanted to hit the second episode because it seems like, you know, American Crime Story is a big show. We wanted to make sure we kind of kept our finger on the pulse. And we had, I think, differing opinions on this one on the second episode. So why don't you go first because I know that you're ready to go? Bottom line, are you in or are you out? And are out of what?

Our producer, Zach Mack, is a big fan of segments. He likes when we repeat things and we stay true to the spine of the show. And one of the things that we're working on is this in or out idea, right? And last week we said we were in. Guys, I'm out. A week later, I'm out. I'm all the way out. Okay.

I'm out on this show. I was trying to put my finger on why as I was watching this hour. By the way, it's an hour. It's a 58 minutes, which felt tough, especially after the 18-minute runtime of End of the Epping World that we're going to be talking about soon. I knew that this is going to do that to you. You and many, many. I knew that the 18-minute runtime of End of the World

is going to make everything else feel like Lawrence Farabia. You are not the only one who knows that about me. It has made that point to me. So I'm watching the second episode, Manhunt, and a lot of the things that I liked from the first episode are certainly present. In performance, in production design, in Tom Rob Smith's writing, which I think you correctly described as Moody. There's something, the rhythms that he, the rhythms his writing falls into are noticeable and not different.

It's not working. I just think it's actually not too soon to say that this is not working and that it is essentially inert. So what is it about it? Is it the structure? Here's why. OJ was the perfect vehicle for this idea for an anthology series because it's not just that you had different aspects of life colliding in such a bright. splashy and still relevant way. In the case of OJ, a race and celebrity and money and power, it was that, look in the title,

the trial. It was about a trial. A trial is an event where all these things collide over a long period of time, and you can mine storylines from that. The only collision point between Andrew Kuanan and Gianni, Versace, came at the moment of assassination. I guess there was the previous meeting that they showed in the pilot as well. Sure. The rest of it is making the case why these two stories should be twinned beyond the fact that one killed the other. And I think that it is essentially failing on that score. Okay. It's not that

there aren't the same. There's still a heady stew of ideas here that we touched on when we discussed it last week. But the show ends up, I think, failing all of them to a degree because we have Darren Chris's performances, Kunan, which is really interesting and, committed, that sounded like I was judging it. I think it's really surprising and I think it's a really strong performance and certainly watchable. Then you have the Versace half of it and no bits of moody writing can convince me that they should be paid equal attention to. It just simply doesn't work for me on the show. Both halves feel like they're suffering because of the attention to too many things. Is this a show about obsession? Is this a show about a series of

not just serial murderer, but a serial fabulist and this attempts to invent himself and what the 90s were like and what his background was like. Is this a show about a successful designer? It certainly is tough to watch this show after watching Phantom Thread. Not that they should be the same thing, but just in terms of the attention to detail for what it means to design clothes in people's bodies. And then we see this show where there's just some reference, you know, there's that conversation that I know you want to talk about with Penelope Cruz with Donatel and Johnny backstage. I just feel like it is kind of failing all of them as it attempts to create a similar, sensational story out of more disparate pieces.

So I definitely hear what you're saying, and sometimes I will, I am not strongly in the in camp, but I am far enough out in it to still say I'm in on this show. I think you're getting at something important, this idea of twinning. And to me, this second episode was largely about this idea of a quest. So, and Versace's quest is survival in some ways because he wants, you know, he's living with AIDS. But in another way, he's on a quest to extract the beauty that he fills in his soul, the love that he fills in his soul, this idea that these people, like his lover and his sister need to be part of one family that he wants to have this extension of himself, whether it's through his clothes, through his relationships or what have you. Everything for him is beauty. Everything is this pursuit of an almost romanticized, gilded.

kind of idea of beauty. And then on the other side of that, you've got Andrew, who was on a quest that is the, you know, if you split the hair, it's the wrong way. It's the wrong path. And it's the quest, it's the ambitious part. It's the ambition to the,

to the point of sociopathy or psychopathy. It's being a sort of unconditionally just lying in almost every interaction he has with other human beings. He's constantly changing who he is. He's changing license place. He's changing outfits. He's changing the way he talks, the way he walks, what he says his name is.

And I thought that that was an interesting way of looking at these two lives. I will, I agree, and I think that what will happen is in three or four, I will be where you are, where I'm like, this just isn't coming together in a knot. We've already seen the knot. The knot is the assassination, you know? And I know that there is a further pursuit of Andrew that is going to probably be pretty complete.

compelling to watch. I see what you're saying, though. What I guess I'm curious about is, do you respect the ambition or do you think it's just like a swing and a miss? Well, I do respect the ambition because it could be done so much worse. You know, I think that part of my reaction is frustration because I think whether you got the, whether you used the life rights or you adapted this from a book or ripped it from the headlines, both stories are potentially fascinating, whether they are based on fact or they were more liberties taken. The idea of this continually reinventing murderer,

questing for something during that era, is a worthwhile story to pursue. The life of literally Versace or someone like him is worthwhile

and potentially interesting. The ambition of trying to wrap your arms around all of this tied with this salacious knot,

trying to elevate this from, again, a tabloid story, as we remember it, into something approaching

prestigious art is worthwhile. The fact that the cast is what it is, the fact that our guy, Tom Rob Smith was hired to write this, is proof that they were taking this seriously. You know, this isn't, like, Law and Order of the Menendez brothers or whatever, which not even to ding it. Maybe that was fine. E.D. Falco is in it for God's sake, but those shows exist because OJ did well. Well, it's interesting that you bring up the idea of tabloom, because I think Allison and I, Alison Herman and I had this conversation, I think right around when the show debuted, where she was like,

it's interesting to me that Ryan Murphy is taking these essentially campy stories and then trying to render them in this docketrama way. And there's something missing in this, which is either a commitment to it being, here are these figures that you think of as these larger than life, sometimes campy characters like Donatella Versacee.

And we're going to do it and this really like, you're in the room, and Gianni and Donatelle are arguing about whether Alexander McQueen and Galliano are replacing him at the forefront of fashion. I'm like, I'm all the way there. You want to do this. But that is, everything is getting lip service to some extent

because I don't feel like there is an investment in one story or another. And since they're telling three or four stories, and I hate to do this, but there are just moments where I'm like, this just feels a little bit like, like you guys didn't spend enough time on this. Yes, look, I love what you're saying, and I agree with you.

I would rather them be catty and, you know, and bitchy or whatever they, whatever was closer to reality when they talked about Alexander McQueen in that moment, then really have that conversation just be kind of an on-ramp for them to talk about the nature. And the jealousy between the siblings, because Donatella is like, I want them to look like these sort of gothic, anorexic, you know, models. And Gianna is like, I want them to look, like, feel full of life and wear bright colors and celebrate. Yeah. I would rather have that be, I'd rather have more of that than have it just be an on-ramp for them to talk about love and marriage and commitment and all these things that they're actually saying. Ryan Murphy, who we, you know, I generally don't like his shows, but I will tip all of the cap. I'm not worrying, I'll tip your cap to the fact that he is the poet laureate of American trashiness in a way. That sounds like I'm dismissing him.

He can take these things like all the way back to nip-tuck and he can find a way in to this lurid subject matter and make it deeply compensating. He sees a tabloid supermarket magazine, and he sees it as a canvas. And he sees the people's love for this stuff or connection to it is more than, is worthy of something more. It should not be dismissed. And it's an essential vein of American culture. I agree with that. What was so impressive to me about the OJ show is that the way that it was constructed, and of course this is the subject matter too, the tabloidiness of it ruined everyone.

The celebrity nature of it ruined everyone. Everyone who entered into that courtroom, whether it was a, you know, a previously distinguished judge or the DA. Lifetime prosecutors, yeah. People who did this for a living or even our vision of a sports celebrity. All of this was tarnished by what happened and the way we covered it and the way we devoured it. And we were forced to confront our own hunger for it. This doesn't, this isn't that story because Versace's story is in and of itself a worthwhile thing. And he was an artist and a great businessman.

man, and he got murdered by someone else. So the conflation of the two is, I begin to see why it was troubling to the family, to be quite honest, because it's basically saying both of them were on similar or potentially, you know, parallel American journeys, or there's a questing to find out what that commonality is in these early episodes that I think fails. Right. Well, I think that'll give it a couple more episodes. We don't know. Maybe we will revisit it. Maybe we won't. You will talk about it to an, with an empty chair across.

a Koreshian monologue about my love for Versace. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll come back and talk about end of the fucking world. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Mac Weldon. With a smart design, premium fabrics, and a simple shopping experience, Mac Weldon underwear is better than whatever you're currently wearing. In addition to looking and feeling great,

all Mac Weldon products are crafted with natural fibers that have built-in performance capabilities, so they work hard too. They even have a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally anti-microbial, which means they eliminate odor, all that, and they are shipped right to your door. If you don't like your first pair, you can keep it, and they will still refund you, no questions asked. FYI, I am currently rocking a Mac Weldon T-shirt. Wow. It is literally my favorite T-shirt.

On brand. Yeah, it's just, they make great, great T-shirts that you can wear underneath, like, dress shirts, you can just wear on their own. I don't know. Just like they don't shrink. You look great. Thanks, man. Color pops. Right. And like don't I look like I have enormous biceps?

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I thought she could be interesting to kill. So I pretended to fall in love with her. Walking all day with my feet on. She's nice. What is? I thought probably he was gay. He does pray. Let's leave the shithole town.

I'm going whether you come with me or not. You win? I didn't know where we were going or when I was going to kill her. I punched my dad in the face and stole his car, and that felt like a good place to start. Greenwald, we are back. We are here to talk about end of the fucking world. We're going to do this Thursday and next Thursday.

Half and half. Very short episodes, and it's an eight episode series. So we're going to do the first half of the season this week, and then the second half of the season next week. People were talking about this. People were asking us to cover it. it seems to be doing. There was some 13 reasons why vibes around this, where it was like nobody's really

checking for it and all of a sudden it's going to become a teen phenomenon. I think that it fulfilled that to some extent. I would say that this is a complicated show to talk about mostly because, as we mentioned, episodes are routinely in the teens in terms of minute count. Such a smart call. And in some of them, not a lot happens. You know, like there is, they are essentially made up of a lot of, it's a travelogue show of these two kids on the run after committing some crimes.

They're crazy in love. Sort of. Or they're crazy, comma. Yep. And, you know, a lot of it could be taken up by just some voiceover and somebody tries to steal something from a store and then they get away with it or they don't get away with it and then they keep driving.

You know, there is a lot happening and not a lot happening at the same time. The second half of this season definitely becomes much more dramatic. The first half of the season is a little bit more spunky, I think. puckish Yeah, I mean it is a filthy, violent,

racy, uh, bloody, teen comedy. Sure. Right? And it is, so it's not,

it definitely isn't to everyone, won't be to everyone's taste. I think my main takeaway from the first half of this season, which I cannot stress enough how quickly you can go through these four episodes. It's really a game changer. Is,

this is done. extremely well. It's based on a graphic novel that I was not familiar with. I don't think... Charles S. Forstman. Which I don't know. I don't think it was particularly... Popular. Yeah, this is not like adapted from Twilight, but this is... It's adapted from some source material.

It's adapted... I can't speak to the fidelity to the source material, but it is adapted and made expertly in terms of the casting, the direction, the tone, the music, the writing. It is all of a piece. And, look, you may not always be able to tell when watching a TV. TV show if the writer and director were on the same page or if they had to cut around a certain performance, you know, to get what they needed. Sometimes people, sometimes we think we see those things when we are not liking the show anyway. You can see it when it's all working in concert.

I will promise you that. And this show sings. I mean, it just moves. It is, all of those compliments need to be a little bit couch in the fact that one of the things I'm reckoning with and watching the show is maybe I'm beginning to realize, or at least now I'm ready to admit, that things, shows, movies, whatever, that are pitched intentionally at frequencies that teenagers can hear and respond to, I feel like my little eardrums maybe aren't picking up those frequencies as much anymore. What I mean is, generally in culture, things for teenagers are more, are more. They are more melodramatic. They are bigger, broader, like, wilder to get that attention. attention, you know, to get that hit of teenage emotion.

That's something, look, I wrote a book about emo music. Like, that was right in my wheelhouse, that kind of thing. And obviously, as the culture has changed and maybe gotten louder and faster and maybe bloodier, Ferris Bueller's Day Off for us becomes end of the fucking world. Yeah. Maybe. So all that is to say that while I really, really enjoyed watching this show, I do not feel like seen by it.

I don't not feel transported by it. I'm totally, totally into Jessica Barden's performance as, as, Help Me, Alyssa on the show. I think she's incredible. Even more incredible when I find out that she is 25 years old, IRL. Yeah. This is an actress who, in a scene with a potential paramour, has to assure him that she is 17. Yes. And we're all like, it's a legit question. She's 25.

Right. It's a lot of fun And it's huge You know the kid the main kid Dex's father in the first episode There is a murder As you get into it This is the language of the show

But Am I parsing this too finely Well okay so for me this thing Was one of the first shows That I've seen That I think is a product of the I mean you could say that it's got It's obviously it's British

and you could say that it's a product of the British limited series system of which they are actually, they tend to adhere to that. When they say something is just going to be a three episodes or four episodes, I mean, with the exception of Broadchurch, which has had a multi-season run after it seemed by all accounts, it should just be one season. That's the American influence. Yes. Right. So there are no big little lies season two's there, really. I mean, you get a Sherlock once every 18 to 24 months. That's more of their speed. And you like it. You're happy for it. Yeah. So this is eight episodes, and it's very contained. I hope they don't make a second season because I think it's a perfect paragraph as is. And I think that for the most part, it has no, it is entirely influenced by film.

I think it is, you're talking about it being set at a frequency for teenagers. They don't have phones in this movie. They're purposely in the first episode, in the show, they mention, I don't have a phone, no, neither do I. Well, she destroys your phone in the first episode. Yeah, and they don't, there is not a lot of cultural signifiers for, for any kind of contemporary teen life. Good point.

It is all this sort of hyper-cool vintage music. It's them listening to the radio or vinyl. They dress essentially like Courtney Love and Christian Slater from True Romance. Christian Slater's character from True Romance and Courtney Love from the mid-90s. They do voiceovers that are close to something like Terence Malick's Badlands. This is Lovers on the Run, a classic story that's been told over the last 150 years in Bonnie, Clyde and Badlands and True Amance. And I think they do a really good job of making it feel contemporary without making it feel

self-consciously of the moment. Yeah, that's a good point. But the story it's telling is very specifically the two people and their perspective. And then later in the season, it changes slightly. I think it has a lot of, it owes a lot of debt to the Cohen brothers. It owes a lot of debt to Quentin Tarantino. And it owes a lot of debt to Ben Wheatley, who's a British filmmaker working right now. He made Free Fire last year.

he makes these relatively violent, relatively dark comedies. Steve O'Ram, who plays James' father, has been in a couple of Ben Wheatley movies. It has that kind of imprint on it. So I didn't necessarily feel like it was tuned to teens, though you could make the argument that it's 19-minute runtimes is the perfect thing for people who are flitting around

on their phones all day. Like, do you have 58 minutes to watch a four-story-line Versace show, or do you have 19 minutes to watch these super cool punk kids with awesome music and doing voiceovers about whether or not they're psychopaths? But also the quick cuts, which are actually done well. They could be gimmicky, but they are a part of it, and they propel the story forward because everything is of a piece. Yes.

Yeah, I was definitely looking at it from that aforementioned emo perspective, where the idea of like the entire discography of Alkaline Trio is like, here are the ways I'm going to murder you, but that means I love you. And I appreciate how, and since we're talking about the first half of the season, I appreciate that by the end of the fourth episode, when our heroes are in a bit of a pickle, they have dropped... I think you can talk about what happens in the first four episodes. Well, they've dropped the facade that he is a psychopath.

James, yeah. And they begin to bring to the four the emotional scarring that he has and the actual connection between these two people. Right. The entire story is just like these two alienated kids who find love. And it's a pose, you know, because it always is. So that's the part of it. And then when you have the bloody knives and the potential of what he's going to do and then actually what he does do, that's just adding to it.

So it's adding to the vibe. I mean, you said, is there, has there been any, and maybe this is more of the conversation for next Thursday? So there has been no confirmation on whether there will be another season? I think that there, I've seen some blogs that are like, please don't make another season of this. Are they the same blogs that think Get Out as a token nominee? Yeah, right. No, I've seen a couple of pieces that are like, this ends in a perfect way, and we can talk about the ending next week. I think that the one thing I wanted to bring up about these first four episodes is obviously it does a lot of work to sort of present these two, not unlikable, but definitely disturbs characters. Makes them tough, yeah.

And it does an interesting thing where in the first three episodes, you sort of really start to get into these two and are really pulling for them. And then there's a really, really gruesome murder, albeit of a sex offender. Yeah. Yeah. The violence was pretty kill billion. Kill Billy. You know, like it was pretty

grotesque. It went for it. Yeah. I don't really have a question as much as it's sort of like it was almost a self-fulfulfilling prophecy for James who thought of himself as a murderer to be to finally do it,

but to do it in defense of this thing that he loves. Yes. I mean, I, I, look, there's, one of the things that I like best about the show and it actually, especially in the early going, leads to some of the funniest moments,

is, you know, Alyssa's bad behavior is basically just talking back to people and being sarcastic or being, you know, poking at them or being cruel. And it's very funny, and it's very teenage, and she's great at it. And then that face that the actor plays James, help me, I don't remember that guy, the kid's name. Oh, James is played by him, Alex Lothar, who's also in an episode of Black Mirror the season prior.

When we talked about, right, where he's getting all the texts and running around. he his obviously he is particularly stone-faced because that's that's the bit but there is something that is so true to experiences of early dating or teenage life where he's just like along for this ride because it's really exciting yeah um and his slow understanding of why she is behaving like this or what is what is actually fueling it and interest in finding out more about her you know that that rings true like that is kind of a universal teenage teenager boy experience, I think, when those teenage boys are interested in dating teenage girls.

Yeah. So I like that. I think that it's very much in keeping with it over-the-top story, with an emo story, with television the way it is, to add a artery-pumping murder midway through. But this is the moment when I reached, where I return to that ledge where I'm like, the ship will sail on and I admire you. Right. And you've made the right choices for what you are in this time period.

and maybe I'll just wave to you from the dock and Godspeed. I have to go back to it, and maybe we'll know more tomorrow. I mean, we'll know more next week when we finish the series. It's presence on Netflix. It was a co-production. It was on the BBC. Channel 4. Sorry, on Channel 4 a few months ago. Its presence on Netflix makes me think that there will be more.

I mean, that is the Netflix model, is not to let it go. I mean, we talk about shows that only had a few episodes per season. That was Black Mirror until Netflix came on board and then said, no, no, we're going to make more of these. we just finished talking about dark, which Germany doesn't have the same television tradition that UK or the U.S. does, but now they are right on board with us. We're just going to make a lot of them.

So I would be surprised. We'll talk about it when I know how the show ends, but I would be surprised if there are more, and I... I will put it this way without... We're getting 14 reasons why, or whatever they're going to call it. I will put it this way about this show.

There is a very specific... Lovers on the run stories can only go on for so long. So maybe they could squeeze another season out of this, but there is something that is perfectly complete about the way that they have done this series so far that I would, I hope that they just let these people make another thing. But, but, you know, look, not to go back to my favorite thing about the show, it's runtime. Let's talk about it. It's crazy. You can knock out three in an hour. There is really, really something to say for a show that gets in and gets out, particularly when it is so. It's crazy. It is

so thrilled with the ideas that is playing with and excited to show you some tricks that it can do. If this was much longer with that level of cuts with the sort of suspension of the suspension of disbelief that requires to be in this world. It's cut to the teenage rhythms of life.

Well, that's why it's great. Yeah, yeah. That's the pulse. Yeah. But I would feel that way about show-offy stuff. It doesn't feel show-offy because they're like, no, we're just showing. And then we're turning off. I appreciate that. I hope that people take up that mantle. Yeah, I think that there is, it's, it's, it's not unlike watching a YouTube compilation of stuff from Tarantino or Wes Anderson or Cohen Brothers movies. And then it's just over. It's just, it's very quick. I, I'm very affectionate towards the show and especially the second

half of the season. I'm looking forward to talking about that next Thursday. Just look, maybe I would feel differently about the second episode of Versace if it wasn't 58 minutes. I just don't think it was 19 minutes. No, man, it doesn't need to be. You have not convinced me. Sorry to go back to it, but you have not convinced me. me that we need 10 episodes of the show that will total over 10 hours. I am not convinced you? No, the universe. FX has not convinced me. I don't think so. And there's also just like a lot of waste

in Versaji. Yeah. But they are using the waste to create a mood. Yeah. That's their choice. End of the fucking world uses the absolute sparsity and like just the scarcity of anything as a propulsion system. And it's pretty cool. Yeah. The last thing

is you talked about how it's unclear what era it's set in. It's also unclear where it was filmed. I immediately wanted to know because I was like, it's very rare to see an English show that is sunny. I think they're driving towards the South Coast. More or less, but there are a couple of articles that luckily did not contain spoilers for the back half of the season. But from British newspapers being like, where is this supposed to be?

Because the accents are one way, but she was allowed to keep her southern accent and she was sent to boarding school. Like, what is going on here? Yeah. And I'm all in on that sense of geographic dislocation plus southern accents. All right. We'll be back on Monday to talk about the Grammys, to talk about Phantom Thread, to talk about Waco.

We'll discuss the second half of End of the Fucking World on next Thursday. Yeah. So thank you for listening. Go get your mushrooms, Perensky. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. The NFL playoffs are in full swing and the Ringer NFL show

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