The Watch - The 'Landman' Season Finale. Plus, Our Favorite Depictions of L.A. On-Screen.

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Chris and Andy celebrate Los Angeles by discussing some of their favorite film and TV depictions of the city, including 'Drive,' 'Mulholland Drive,' 'Insecure,' and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' (1:00). Then they break down the season finale of 'Landman,' a show that ultimately made no sense but was very compelling (32:28), and speculate on whether or not it will get a second season (49:00). Our hearts go out to everyone who has been impacted by the L.A. wildfires. If you are looking for a way to help, below is a list of organizations that you can support during this time. LAFD Foundation YMCA of Los Angeles PCC Community Relief Fund Pasadena Humane Society Venice Family Clinic Dream Center LA Altadena Girls Mutual Aid Los Angeles Westside Food Bank Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get you. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA. And check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of

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I need sports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, it's Monty Miller's heart transplant donor. It's Andy Greenwald. We have a lot to talk about today.

Some serious, some not. But don't let me let the sun go down on this podcast without telling you what I thought was going to happen with John Ham's heart transplant in the season finale of Landman. Greenwald, we are here. It is Monday. We are in Los Angeles, California, where we record the watch.

We're here with Kaya today. We obviously did not do a show last Thursday because of everything that was happening in L.A. with the fires. It's been one of the craziest weeks of our lives, obviously. Our hearts go out to everybody who was directly affected by the fires that hit the Palisades, the fires that hit Pasadena all over Los Angeles. Myself, Andy and Kai are obviously all safe, but our thoughts and hearts are with the people of the city who are directly impacted.

We are going to do an episode today where we are going to talk about Landman. I thought Andy had a really good idea that we could talk a little bit about Los Angeles on screen as a way of celebrating this city. At the top, though, Kai and I just wanted to shout out a couple of charities if people are looking to give, if people are looking to support Los Angeles. These are ones that Kai and I have, like, worked with basically.

The LAFD Foundation, the YMCA of Los Angeles's Community Impact Fund, the Pasadena City College Community Relief Fund, they're doing incredible work out there in Pasadena. And the Pasadena Humane Society, Kyah, did you want to talk about some West Side stuff? Yeah, sure. So I just wanted to shout out the Venice Family Clinic.

If you are local to L.A., they are accepting donations all this week. I think a lot of places are kind of overrun with clothes right now, so they are mostly focusing on non-perishable items, medications, for state kids, stuff of that nature. Dream Center, L.A. I think is working to provide housing for people to. been displaced. Altadena Girls is a foundation that was founded by a teenage girl and is specifically focused on providing clothes. Yeah. They're at Altadena Girls on Instagram. Mutual Aid, Los Angeles,

has a super comprehensive Google spreadsheet of like every single place you can donate to and volunteer at, sorted by like neighborhood and stuff. then the Westside Food Bank as well. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure everybody who is paying attention is also just overwhelmed by the amount of GoFundMees that have been set up so kindly by so many people, because as you were saying at the beginning, Chris, this is this is on a scale that is incomprehensible and has affected everyone. All of us know people who have lost so much. And I think that these spreadsheets that you guys are talking about these charities specifically can sort of help fight the feeling of paralysis that it can set in when there are disasters on this scale, particularly, or even for people who

are charitably minded and who want to help. I think any bit of help helps, quite frankly, at this moment. I went out to Pasadena City College today on Saturday to help out with just like carrying water from one truck to a piece of ground. And they were like, we've just got more volunteers than we know what to do with. And I was like, I assure you I'm a podcaster. I'm more than able. to help in any way possible. Yeah, your physical form is underused in your day job. And I was like, I've been waiting to use these arms of mine. Are you like that meme of the dog with the tiny head, but with the giant arms?

Or is that just, you just have Rusillo arms underneath? But yeah, you can, you know, it's really, it's easy to feel powerless. You can help. So just if you're outside of Los Angeles and you're looking for ways to give the ones that Kai and I just mentioned are really great places to start. And I think that one thing that we're all feeling to live here is that this is, look, this is a very, very strange place, Los Angeles. And it is physically enormous to the point where, you know, it almost feels quaint now,

but that any time there is any event in the larger Los Angeles metro area, which is bigger than some countries, you know, you get the calls from people on the East Coast being like, is that near you? Yeah. And it's almost, the answer is almost always no. That was not the case this time. But more so, what's been remarkable is the sense that even in a city of which, and we're going to talk about some movies and films and culture, a city that has inspired so much art about how difficult it is to connect, or dare I say, crash into each other on freeways, there is a deeply, deeply entrenched sense of community here that can span regions, towns, zip codes, and the very best of the city has come out in response to these fires that, by the way, as listeners know, are still very much going on. Yeah, so thank you so much for, we'll kind of move on from the charity stuff there, but you know, you mentioned, I have a complicated relationship with the city in like, I think coming from the East Coast. But one thing that was always, I think this still remains true is that like my concept of the city is largely shot through the prism of what I see of it on screen.

Like what I expected from it when I moved out here. If I remember correctly, you had said you weren't worried about traffic because you had seen collateral and you can get anywhere wrong. real fast when you need to. So, I feel like you were just abused of that pretty quickly. Yeah, and I think when you were asking me where I was opening my checking account, I was like, well, not downtown Los Angeles. You never know. That money is insecure.

But yeah, Andy and I thought we would highlight some of our favorite moments or favorite shows or favorite movies of Los Angeles on screen just as kind of a homage. What was your first visit out here? Did you have some concept of it? I had never visited here until I came out here to visit Grantland. Is that true? Yeah, it was like, I think in 2011, I came out here, maybe early 2012.

I came out here right before I moved here to look for an apartment and go to see the office at Grand Island. Did you have a similar first visit to your most... It wasn't your first visit, but your adult visit to London, where you were like, I'm going to stay in your Wembley and see everyone and see all the sites and take in some theater. Did you do that here as well? No, I think I stayed downtown at the J-W at the Marriott. Shout out downtown LA. Who is the one that was across the street from the J-W Marriott?

that had all the Wayne Gretzky art in the hotel rooms. That's where they put me for years at Granlin before I finally made the... J. Dubglass yet. Before I upgraded myself to J.D. Yeah, I think the freelancers got put at the... What was it called? I can't remember.

I think it's gone through a couple of different corporate ownership since then. I think Rembrandt and I were like platinum members of that weird-ass hotel. Yeah. So that was... I think my first experience was in downtown Los Angeles. And then I still live where... At the place I moved into in 2012. I helped you scout that place.

You did great. I know. I feel very, very responsible for that. That was years before. Shout out to my landlord Jen. But I guess because you... Great lady. But you never had...

So what was the L.A. of your imagination before that? Because your dad was a film critic, obviously. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a testament to how he felt about California in the sense that I never came here until I turned 35 or whatever. But it was... It was an imaginary place. And I think you can kind of tell that when you come. come here, the first thing you notice is the light, you know, especially at dusk and you just, the California light does just put the zap on your head in a way that's just really, really, really,

intoxicating it. I still feel like to this day, you go through all of the day and all of the night to get 45 minutes where you're like, truly we are in God's country, like when the sun is setting. Oh, like magic hour and then when the night blooming Jasmine starts, you're like, there are no problems in the world. Yes. But I remember the number one thing I have on my list here of my favorite LA screen moments is when I moved out here was right around when Drive came out. Oh yeah. I wrote about that for grandma. And even anecdotally, it felt like in 2012, like there was less traffic. I know that's not real. Anecdotally. It was weird when you got off the plane and got on the like, you know,

the rental shuttle wearing leather gloves. wearing the stuntman mask. The dragon jacket. Yeah. A lot of dudes had dragon jackets at the Thirsty Crow in 2012. But driving around Los Angeles at night, listening to music is truly one of the greatest pastimes. If you can find yourself some green lights or an open freeway or whatever,

and nobody is trying to cut across five lanes of traffic, hit a Tesla that's on fire, then you're in good shape. You can just let the drive soundtrack rock or listen to chromatics or whatever it is that floats your boat. But driving around listening to music and thinking about Ryan Gosling is one of my favorite things to do. So I would put drive at the top of my L.A. screen list. You literally describe something that my older daughter does, I think. I think maybe.

Does she drive around Los Angeles? I think I've seen some of her work. All I do is drive around Los Angeles. And the music in this case would be, you know, tortured poets department. And we'd be talking about Ryan Gosling's performance in drive, or not in drive, in Jesus, in Barbie, or is SNL monologue? But you imagine if we showed her drive? What's he doing to?

Just make sure I'm there for that when you first do it. What's he doing to the voice from finding Nemo? That's disturbing. Is Oscar Isaac going to get to open a restaurant? You think that would be her way in? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I came here for the first time in the 80s and visiting my mom's best friend who lived in the

Valley. And I remember being told, like, two things. One, that my mom's friend's daughter went to school with Meredith Salinger, who was recently on screen in The Journey of Natty Gan. So I was like, clearly, I will now be in movies also. Yeah, I'll be sitting front row next to Nicholson at the Academy Awards. Not that I knew who that was, but yes. And then I remember we went to, like, Arts Deli in the Valley. Yeah. And my mom freaked out because she was convinced that Paul Simon was there, which is a weird celebrity sighting in L.A. But I remember her asking me to get up and go to the bathroom and look

three times. How old were you? Nine? Would you know who Paul Simon was? I mean, Graceland was popping back then. This is my birthright. Now, in retrospect, I think there were a lot of sub-5 foot five... Did you go up to a random guy at arts and just start doing Lady Smith Black Mombazo voices?

Sorry, beatboxing. No, I think that the danger was, as I now know, there are many, many sub-5-foot-5 Jewish men of a certain age, getting the pastrami. So it's very likely that it was just like a senior partner at ICM. Yeah. But then we went to Disneyland and like Universal Studios and did all the tourist stuff. But the idea of in the imagination, we'll get into when we talk about some other movies,

like it is remarkable. This is not an, this is not a unique observation at all. But the steady diet of films that tell us either this is Dreamland or Nightmareville are so intense that it is so heightened. And then all my other memories come from coming out here a lot during the Spin Magazine days, both for my brief time

as the video game correspondent and going to the E3 Expo. Out here? Yeah, out here, yeah. Magazines only ever put people where the hotels were in West Hollywood, like on the sunset strip. And the beauty of that was,

it was like MapQuest, almost pre-MapQuest era. But you could print out map quest directions. There was also that that beautiful thing that lasts for about 12 days when you move here, which is, yeah, I'll go, I'll drive. Sure.

So my experience was shaped by staying on the sunset strip, having a friend or two in Silver Lake and just taking sunset the whole way. I actually loved doing that. I didn't know there were other ways. And even to get to downtown once to the Expo, like that was the only way that the person who I thought knew L.A., who was an editor who had been here once drove us. But there was so much, it felt so profoundly different than our life growing up and then our life in New York that I always felt it was exciting, like full of possibility that any man I saw could be Paul Simon. Sure.

But it is, I sort of wish that that magic stayed after you live here, but instead what you find is a series of interconnected towns. Sure. with a lot to love and explore below the surface. But that first glow of what, of like, oh, what's behind that door? Oh, is that someone? I can still sort of like chase that tactile feeling of what it was like. Yeah. So what's your number one thing on the screen? So my, okay, so I'm going to give you a list.

I feel like, first of all, I think your list is really good. I just want to tell you. Thanks, man. I thought you did a good job. I found myself like. You should be doing this with Mallory, because Mallory and you, I think, have an equally like loophole centric strategy you're the one that does ties on your top tens at the end of the year sometimes yeah okay how you reserve the rights how can i choose between my tailors and did

your is your top five is it did you do movies and tv on one list or do you just pick five movies i just no i have i have a couple of things it's right in front of you right yeah thanks for that so professional even in the face of catastrophe yeah but you know what i'm like like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like an idea generator. Like I, I gift the idea to the room. You're a creative director. And then I, then I just take a, take a walk. You know, I let them germinate. So I got out and smell the night blooming jasmine. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Yeah, well, Ashring Ben put together. Yeah, well, Ash rins on it. Um, okay, well, you just, just kick it, man. You don't have to worry about a top five. Well, no, I have five,

but I have a couple categories. They all kind of fall into this idea of like, is it, all right, one thing at a time. The first one I was going to pick, was the movie that I ended up watching, I think, we've joked about this before, but growing up in Philadelphia, if you had cable, you could pay for HBO or whatever showtime, but there was also Prism, which was the local pay. Prism Rules.

Pay channel and it showed movies all day in Philly's games at nights, and in many ways is our brand. Being homesick from school, there were certain movies that were always on TV, and one of them was Muppets Take Manhattan, which is still one of my favorite movies. But the other one that was always on TV in the late 80s,

was the big picture, the movie that inspired the name of Sean's podcast, which was a Christopher guest directed Hollywood satire with Kevin Bacon. And it holds up, it's really funny, but it was on all the time. And in retrospect, it's pretty sweet. He's a film school student who just wants to make heartfelt movies about families getting together at Christmas time. So he's probably a successful lifetime director now. Exactly.

But I was thinking about this assignment. Or a cult leader. or both. That movie about Hollywood is a dream factory that can grind you up but it's still full of possibility. I watch that so much

and I think it's still worth checking out. I'll shout out a couple of my favorite crime movies. These are not hidden gems. Are these on your list? Or now you going off your list? It's right here. It's my list. I have my list open.

Heat to live and die in L.A. and collateral. Okay, this is what I... Okay, all right, first of all, let's just talk procedural here. I have your list now. front of me. Your number two is three movies. I mean, Andy, in this time, can we show each other a little grace? I think

at this time when people are desperate for structure and like, and like, you know, just something to hang on to? Yeah. All right, go on. I like these movies. L.A. crime movies is basically what I'm saying. And obviously Heat is my favorite movie. To Live and Die in L.A. is one of my favorite

movies collateral. One of my favorite movies. Definitely gave me some wrong ideas about what kind of trouble I could get into on Alvarado, although maybe the right idea. I think the right idea. BJ's on Alvarado at 2 a.m.

And that's the name of a club in heat. Well, name your top five things that you were most worried people thought BJs on Alvarado means. There's a BJs in Burbank that's like a grill, like you know, like a sizzler kind of place.

And then everything else. It also sounds like something that was advertised on the back pages of LA Weekly back when LA Weekly was in print. So you're crushing it. Is it code for something? Do you think? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, collateral gave me a really perverted idea of how long it takes to get it from LAX to downtown. Collateral, I rewatched recently, collateral is so cool and it is so slick. Yeah. And I definitely, I would love to watch it. With your daughter? She's just, that man isn't sleeping on the L.A. Metro. That homie has his briefcase. No, I just, what I mean is like, you know,

whenever, there's certain things that we talk about when we cover them when we're like, oh, you know, the journalism season of the wire always rang a little false to us, you know, trailblazing journalists that we were. When we saw collateral as just inveterate East Coasters, I was like, oh, man, what an urban fantasia. It's incredible the way, you know. Just go see some jazz. You could see jazz and then kill a couple of dudes.

just anything's possible. I imagine the way it was... I like the cut of your jib. People here seeing it must have just been just, this is preposterous. When Bill and I

interviewed Michael Mann for the three heat, he insisted, like we made a joke about that that he did not laugh at. We were like, hey, how about that 25 minutes

to get from L.A.X. And he was like, yes. We were like, okay, never mind. I mean, Michael Mann. To be fair, the last time

Michael Man Flu Commercial, you probably could do that. I know. Do you know what I mean? Like, there are, like, friends of ours who grew up here, do say, and I believe them, that the traffic was better. Yeah, I mean, you read books set in the 70s here and they're like, I cruised from Franklin, Franklin over to the beach in 21 minutes. It's like, like, the mythology of like the Laurel Canyon scene and like all the musicians. We can't complain about the traffic right now. No, no, I'm not. I'm not. But I do think it's interesting to think about, we're talking about the mythology of L.A. that like you read about, you know, Johnny Mitchell and David Crosby

and like the all the, like the beautiful art happening in the canyon. And then part of me is just like, well, they were making art because they were essentially sequestered in a place they could never leave because how could they get anywhere? Why would they get stuck in that gridlock?

But then you read like an Eve Babbitt's book and she's like, I changed my mind at 5 p.m. and drove to the Manhattan Beach. Oh. So that's how it was. In that family. In that family.

So wait, in that category, I would add. Yeah, the category of LA crime movies. L.A. crime movies, of which there are many, and they are great. Or do you have a separate category for noir? I don't have any categories. I just have names of movies and shows. But some of the times there's more under each number. I get it. I get it. Just feels a little shaky in here right now.

L.A. Confidential, or do you keep that separate? Yeah, of course, man. Let's just, let's just rattle them off. L.A. Confidential, Chinatown? Yeah, that's a pretty good one This would be a great Chris Farley podcast. Just name L.A. stuff until we can't think of anything else and then the pod ends. That's a good one.

Speaking of, okay, speaking of L.A. crime stuff, I did feel like there's a whole category that we could do of just Altman movies that capture L.A. I think my favorite is Long Goodbye with L.E. Koold, just from the architecture to the vibe. That place was up for rent recently. Did you consider it?

I'm curious about the, for example. situation, the elevator that he's got. But Chris, now that we're talking about it, we know that they allow cats there. I bounced it off my wife and she was like, are the cats there? And I was like, no. And she was like, I'm not interested. But she could bring her own cats there. I know that's been a... It's a controversial topic

in my apartment. I know. I'd be into that. It's just a phenomenal movie, but also just an incredible hang and like a beautiful updating, although now 50 years old, but of like one of the most essential flavors of L.A. is Chandler and how you can reinvent it for every era. I would also say shampoo is a super,

yeah, it's just an amazing LA movie. And shortcuts too. Yeah, and the player. That's way. Oh yeah, I had the player under, I had a category when I was making this. This place is hell slash will fucking kill you, which doesn't feel appropriate for this moment necessarily, but is a vibe of movies. Sure. Yeah. And one that's sort of fun to engage with. Of the stuff that we've talked about on this pod, and over the last couple of years even, I would put my last couple of shoutouts go out to a trio, I guess, I didn't even notice this until I looked, is of HBO shows. Barry, insecure, and curb your enthusiasm.

Oh, yeah. So. Wait, that just maps beautifully, different regions of the city. You know, just honestly really evokes a very specific, like you were saying, that L.A. is actually all these little towns and, in some ways, cities, but all these little towns interconnected by artery roads that, you know, we'll take you from one side of the city to the, you can go to Dodger Stadium to the beach on sunset.

But these are about like the enclaves. And I think that these shows actually helped me understand Los Angeles in some ways. Even though, even if they're not like every time geographically accurate, they're like quintessentially of their place. And Barry obviously in the valley, you know, insecure in South Los Angeles and then curb.

Insecure and curb especially. I mean, I think Barry is. brilliant in the way it portrays Los Angeles, both in, like, geography and ethos. But, like, the thing about those shows is that within the sub-communities and regions of this town, like, you really can know everyone or bump into people and have that kind of life. Yeah. And there's always more to discover and explore it. On that note, on my list is the 1994 film Mi Vita Loca, which is set and filmed in Echo Park.

Yeah. A very different era of Echo Park, but it's Alison Anders's movie, 1994, about... young women growing up in that neighborhood really holds up, watch it pretty recently, and it's just a beautiful... Did you watch it previously? I did, well, a year ago.

Did you show it to your daughter? I was like, yeah, that's the lake where they're getting jumped. Yeah, great. The swan boats aren't there. Do you do this with... Like, I find myself as I get older, especially. Like, I mean, when I watch anything from 10 years ago

or older, like within our lifetime, I'm watching the backgrounds as much as I'm watching the performances. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm just riveted by, oh, here is a glimpse of that street corner in 1996, or maybe even of 2003 when I remember it and I wasn't paying attention to how much it has changed. It's a great movie for that reason, but it's also just a great, great movie about the parts of L.A. Because going through this list, I'm sure you found it to be the case, too.

L.A. movies, L.A. stories, including L.A. story, are pretty navel-gazing in entertainment industry, refocus by and large. Or they are genre celebrations by a town that is always reinventing it. Yeah. I always like to give a shout out to this, but Los Angeles plays itself. Sure. You can probably still find that streaming in a bunch of places. It's, I didn't realize that it was. Tell people what it is. So Los Angeles plays itself is a, creator Tom Anderson, refers to it as a video essay. It was basically made in academic circles to like make a point about how Los Angeles invents itself through the way. it is shown on screen and how certain aesthetics and ethosas are perpetuated and reputations are made

basically for what the town is or could be. It's quite long. It's almost three hours long. I remember seeing in the theater with our buddy, Sean Howe when it came out, and it is riveting. A lot of the movies that existed when this was made in 2003, 2004 are featured in it. But it is so, so thoughtful and so fascinating, not just about the depth of the city, but also just about what filmic language can communicate about an actual place. It's kind of like the, it's a companion piece for the thinkier members of our audience. What's it? The Mike Davis book, City of Quartz.

Yeah. It's the same. It's like how this place was made on an academic level. Or you could just watch Drive with Chris. Put on your dragon jacket, boys and girls. Don't worry about if that's Paul Simon or not. Keep driving. Did you know that Drive was based?

like created by Nicholas Wenning Reffen just driving around with gozzling at night. Yes. Yeah. That did not surprise me. But like they had the script. It was like, it'd been around for a while. Hugh Jackman was going to maybe make it. And then they just like, when Reffen signed up, he rented a house in the hills, I think. And everybody who was like kind of working on the movies sort of live with him. And they would shoot in the day. And then at night, they would either edit or drive. Sounds pretty cool. Yeah. Wait, are you suggesting that we do that? You're looking at me in a certain way. I just love stories like that where it's like you can tell that the essence of the film came out of some sort of experience that was had while making the movie.

You know, like the apocalypse now going up the river thing. Can I throw a couple of things out of you? The last one on my list, the last two, have to have some classic noir in there in a lonely place. Probably my favorite noir, but like there is something about the way L.A. is shot in black and white that it always gets me. And then in terms of like neo-noir or kind of the movie that sums up all of the... the categories I had, including this place can be a nightmare, is Mulholland Drive. Oh, yeah. Lynch's L.A. is pretty important, I think, because he loves the kits.

Recently had a lovely lunch at his favorite restaurant, the Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake. Oh, yeah. There's a framed photo of him there. Yeah. What did you have? I had a Big Boy burger. What do you think? Do you think I got the salad?

Do you want me to come on this podcast and say I went to Bob's Big Boy and had a grain bowl? Do they have grain bowls there? Of course they do. It was really funny. Yeah, of course they do. I love that there was, there's a frame photo of him. There's a photo of Laura Dern there. Like, they know.

Yeah. And for what it's worth, you know, it is not a bit. Like, the, it's, I'm not even to get into the reasons why that I was socially adjacent to David Lynch briefly when we first moved here. But like, there's some mutual friends were like, it was about kids being the same age. And some mutual friends were like, you want to get to get dinner with us. us for the school event. And he refused unless they went to the Bob's Big Boy and Toluca Lake. It's the only restaurant.

So did you go to that's where you guys went? I wasn't part of this group. Oh, okay. This was later. Okay. No, my... I feel like I would have heard that story if you'd go to Bob's Big Boy with David Lynch. Everyone listening to this would have heard the story.

No, the highlight for me was when David's daughter had the, David had the parent-teacher conference before we did. Okay. And came out. And I said, David, how did it go in there? And he just looked at me and he thumbsed up and he went, solid gold. Which is also his answer when I interviewed him on stage for the FYC for Twin Peaks. Yeah.

And that was the only thing he said about the experience of reuniting all the most beloved people of his life for this now potentially career capping achievement. Yeah. So maybe it's more that you didn't want to talk to me. But either way, it was charming. There's a whole category of just like industry stuff that we didn't get into like. player, Barton Fink, once upon a time in Hollywood. Yeah, I mean, Seth Rogen's upcoming show, the studio on Apple. Yeah, the more we talk about it, the more it really occurs to me how much of this,

how much of what we're talking about is like this meditectual kind of state of our industry, state of how we interpret what we see on screen. The one thing that I think is lacking, and maybe it's because of the nature of this being, by and large, at least in the media, a company town, is that there just isn't a ton. and I hope some readers or readers, listeners will point out things we've forgotten. But like of just people living here, I mean, like Father of the Bride was filmed in Pasadena. They were just kind of normals and lived there. I mean, there's lots of sitcoms that are set.

In Los Angeles, they're either shot on stages or largely, for the most part, with the exception of nobody wants this, like largely shot elsewhere. I wrote down that. I was like seeing Adam Brody and Kristen Bell kiss in front of the Los Felus three, I was like, oh, there we go. Or, you know what show was very, very good about this? And as a show we don't talk about enough anyway, it just had its 10-year anniversary, is You're the Worst? Yeah. Was very, very much east side of L.A.

Coded. There was a Sunday fun day centered around the happy foot, sad foot sign. There was the Judd-Apitao Netflix show with Paul Rust and Gilling Anderson called Love. Yeah, I remember that. It was up and down, but it was also like... Gillian Jacobs. I'm sorry, Gilling Jacobs, yes. It would have been a very different show.

Gilling Anderson was on it. The only other two TV shows I wanted to shout out, party down. Yeah. Very industry-based, but very, very funny in its perspective on the industry and being slightly outside of it. And then I think one of the most crucial L.A. texts ever is a show that was supposedly, although, no, was set in New York, but filmed here, which is Mad Men. Because the show's relationship to L.A., how it positioned L.A.,

how it positioned L.A. is this like Dreamland? Don constantly coming here. Pete working here. Don getting lost in the desert The way that it served as a counterpoint To the claustrophobia of New York Again, on a future Mad Men revisit, we could talk about that But like the fact that Mad Men couldn't do His finding of spiritual sort of stability out here

An ending here at Esselin But that like It's I'm constantly struck by the fact That the show was so deeply period So deeply New York, but it filmed here So they couldn't do exterior locations Unless they were pretending to be here basically or unless it was very, very controlled. And I think that claustrophobia of being inside

of buildings or being dark was essential to the understanding of what New York was and then the counterpoint of what LA meant to those people, you know, mirroring the journey of many TV writers and dare I say podcasters. Sure. Is an important one. But I don't know. I guess the exercise is fun for us because we love this place and we love these stories and we love these movies and shows. But I'm also hoping that it will inspire listeners to maybe make a little film festival or a little, curate something for themselves in concert with making a donation to the charities we mentioned at the top that makes sense for them and wherever they are financially at the moment in terms of their own generous giving. Yeah, anything helps.

Try to pair them, try to celebrate this, try to remember that even though we're joking about all the industry stuff, that this is so much more than Hollywood. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is a real place with generations of real working class people who are very much affected by these tragedies. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something?

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Save at Whole Foods Market. Did you actually wind up watching anything this weekend? I watched the Eagles game. Yep. We should say to our listeners that we intended to watch the pit, which I know people have really enjoyed. I'm going to be honest with you, it was an extremely stressful and extremely upsetting week.

And I did not have the bandwidth to engage with the traumatic conditions of emergency room doctors. I could not do it. I look forward to watching the show and engaging with it. Maybe when we're out of the red flag warnings. I did in the thick of it, I did the pit. I did the pit a little while ago,

but I watched the second episode again just to kind of refresh my memory. Or did you have to reattach a leg or something? Is that what it's about? And then I watched Peter Berg's American Prime Evil. See, that's the other thing. I couldn't, the universe could not have set up worse shows for us to be watching right now.

It was really, it was tough. I needed to like switch out and I just was like, I'm putting interstellar on and I'm viving out. I got to like. You got to go to space with dad. Exactly. I get it. I need to go to space with my dad. Like there's literally no better way to escape than that.

That makes a ton of sense. We did watch Landman. And I can't tell you how excited I got on Saturday night. I can't remember what the last football game was on Saturday night. But like me and Mallory were just texting each other like three hours. to Landman. Well, also, Mallory just had the Ravens victory. So she was in a good vote.

So she was, she was vibing. And you open up old Paramount Plus. You load up the Landman finale on late Saturday night on the West Coast. We watch so much Paramount Plus now. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, I just, I just shine a light over there. Do you have points on the back? Do you want to follow me?

You can follow me. Are you auditioning to be one of the fourth CEO? I just want Daddy David Ellison to come scoop me up. Yeah. By the way, can I just. just add, long-time listeners of the podcast know

that my daughter's changed my avatar on Netflix to just daddy. Uh-huh. What they did on Paramount is even weird.

Is it Ainsley from Landpan? No, it's, it's something from SpongeBob, I think. Okay. But what they did was my older

daughter, whose avatar is Cora, from the legend of Cora, put a parental block on it. Mm-hmm. On me? As a bit?

I think she thought she was being responsible and being like, this will keep me from watching the Taylor Sheridan shows that Uncle Chris talks about so much and I can't be trusted to be left alone.

Yeah. But now, whether I'm logging in to the newest episode of Landman or our friends, Jim Nance and Tony Romo calling a playoff game, I have to enter a pin that she came up with.

Uh-huh. So the secure, I am the one that is being protected. It turns out this prison wasn't keeping us in. Or maybe I set it up and forgot to keep myself from watching these Taylor Sheridan shows for you. I was so excited when I saw that this was an hour and 20 minutes,

not for my own benefit, although I certainly enjoyed myself, but knowing that this was waiting for you. So mean. And I want to start there. This is a huge hit. To a degree I didn't understand. You should get into these numbers here.

I can't really speculate on what the actual numbers are. I know that there was a release from Paramount several weeks ago that said through four weeks, it had racked up something like 15 million viewers per episode. Yes. And that's in aggregate with all the whatever's. But regardless, there's no context in which that's not astronomical and insane for this era, especially on a streaming series. And then you get into the anecdotal part where if you read any of the interviews with Billy Bob Thornton that went up last night after the finale in the trades, he's just like, this is the biggest thing I've ever been a part of pretty much. You know, I mean, with the exception.

of Armageddon. I was going to say he was in Armageddon. Yeah, but like, I mean, I think that this is a very big show and I kind of wonder whether they had no idea that this was going to happen. Because there are certain things about it that this is a very, very, very, very soap operatic and dramatic show. And we're going to spoil it for people who haven't watched the finale of spoilers going forward. I would also like to note that, at least from my own anecdotal research, there is a large percentage of listeners who count on us for their landman Recaps. Well, let me tell you what happens.

Who do not watch the show, but listen to us. So thank you for that. For a show that is so dramatic, there is basically no dramatic tension in this show. Zero. It actively steers away from it. That occurred to me last night. Here's where we ended. Okay.

Tommy has gotten promoted and is essentially gambling with Monty's money. Now, the cartel has made peace with him. He will not get in any trouble for the Texas National Guard's bombing of drug dealers. He's with his ex-wife again. And loves her deeply and always has. Loves her. Daughter is with yet another five-star recruit. But this one will hold her at night.

In addition to doing other things that she can only whisper in his ear. His son has fallen in love with a widow who despite everything loves him back. And when she's like, I don't know if we should do this, he does the exact right thing. Incredible. And is like, walk me through your memories. Of your deceased husband. Of your deceased husband. Who I was present for the death of.

Whose role I have now taken? His son also has an idea that has apparently never occurred to anyone in the history of oil business in Texas. And is able to just cold call dozens of salt of the earth cynical, weathered farmers. Yes. And within the span of a single walk among the tall grasses, get them to sign a document. Giving him leasing rights to their oil drive. Without reading the document? No, they just want to have a cup of coffee with them.

They just want to have a cup of coffee, yes. And he is successfully now building a monopoly on the Wolf Camp terrain of Texas, where, like, I think you can sort of see the large tankers pointing towards each other of Tommy being in charge of M-Tex, which is trying to do fracking. And Cooper also trying to frack. Yeah. And this dad and this son are just going to be... We agree!

Let's frack! Let's frack! Both. I love you, Dad! This is great. We hate electric vehicles. They do introduce a new adversary to this series, which Andy rightly asked me,

as he was watching it, on text message. Is that Andy Garcia? And I said, yes. They don't have a Shazam for faces yet. So I was just double checking. Andy Garcia, it had been leaked that he was appearing on this series a while ago, and as the weeks went on, I thought maybe he would be, you know,

Bonte Miller, Monty Miller's brother or something. You thought Taylor Sheridan would look at Andy Garcia and think of anything other than El Hefe, capo de Tuduco of the Mexican drug cartels. Once again, you are giving him far too much credit. So he shows up just in the nick of time as Tommy is being seriously tortured by a cartel guy. Also, I want to tread carefully here.

because I know that in some ways you are considered management of the ringer, but do you have any thoughts on how El Hefe deals with sort of disobedient employees? Well, we don't really get much clarity on that because it's all shot POV style from behind the scrim of Tommy's. The repeated gunshots and the sound of bodies clunking to the floor left you in a state of confusion? Yeah, I mean, so Andy Garcia's character, I believe his name is Galino, shows up at the very end of the episode. And say it and push a T voice, it sounds like. Suggests that he and Tommy are going to be partners going forward in some capacity. No, they're going to be friends.

Yeah. Now, I thought that the line that was interesting was that he was like, I may be interested in getting into the oil business. That was when it got interesting. The show can't, I mean, it is the monkeys with the typewriters. Like, every so often a few lines of Hamlet emerge. Yeah. There are moments. Yeah.

You know, I enjoy those moments. But, um, I have to admit. that I have started skipping at the Ainsley scenes. Did you... I'm just trying to be accountable. Like, when she is talking to Ryder, I just click 10 seconds ahead. What, interesting, whenever I see Adriana begin to do a silent montage of looking at things while wearing a tank top, I slow it down.

That's, their relationship is the best part of the show to me. No, but like that seems so long. I know. I get it. You're looking at pictures? Well, so that takes me back to the hour and 20 thing. Yeah, it earned it. Everything's the bigger in Texas, homie.

Best example of, I can't tell if this is like Taylor on the Benihana grill making the onion volcano and just being like, I have it all at the disposal. I don't think so. But go on. Or is this just like a crazy mismash of found footage, scribbled bar napkin notes, plot pieces being stitched together, strike. affected shooting schedules where people are like most of this series is take place on the phone while Tommy is driving back and forth across Texas

I disagree I think that there is intention here and there is scaffolding and you know there's a sense of I mean he's a good he's a perfectly good writer and constructor of things right

like it's you know what's the line from waiting for Guffman where Eugene Lively's like I wasn't the class clown but I sat next to him and I studied him one of Taylor's favorites yeah yeah I'm sure He's like, just him and Paul Simon at arts talking about their favorite Eugene Levy bits. There is a shape and arc to it

that you can suddenly, every so often you just get a glimpse of and it's pulled into focus, right? Like the opening montage where there's the history of this business, the Cooper making the deals and realizing where that's going, the scene where the drug cartels are like, we'd like to go into the oil business. I'm like, goddamn, like there's something here

and you can feel it and you can feel the momentum under their feet. But there is no editing process. There are no notes accepted here. And that is his right, he has earned it, but there is a flabbiness that comes with it that robs the project of some not just momentum, but honestly it feels like existential purpose. You're

just trying to lose it. Like when you were intercutting between scenes of Ainsley strip teasing and basically promising to BJs on Alvarado for her quarterback boyfriend while the roughneck dude is watching minor league baseball downstairs and her mom is clarifying butter and they don't even lock the door with Tommy having nail hammered into his legs. But Angela said she doesn't want them having sex in the car. No, no, I know that she's respectful of their bodily autonomy.

I'm just saying it is a weird mezan sen of what's going on up there. You have to stop using coyote to cinema terms when talking about landmage. You got to let it happen, brother. All contrary. I think it is time to elevate this and consider it on the plane. This is the art we have. We don't get to pick and choose

the moments we live in, okay? Yeah. This is what I got. Sometimes there's a man. You know? So, but intercutting that romantic folio du if you will,

with Tommy being doused in gasoline. And having a nail hammered into his thigh. It was weird juxtaposition. Yeah. You know, similarly, let's go back to where you started, which is how the show just seems actively uninterested in dramatic stakes. No, there's tons of stakes.

There's no, there's no, like, they introduce life and death around every corner, but they do not extend that life and death past any episode. And I wonder whether or not that's part of the recipe for its success. Well, that it resolves every episode and moves on in the same way that like... But it essentially always starts from the, this place of what, well, what's going to be the crisis today? And Angela is like, I have a new idea about how to revitalize our senior citizens. I think that's a really smart observation. I think that the perpetual tension of television is to make everyone feel very safe and stable

and you know what you're getting every week, but also incrementally moving things forward without upsetting anyone. Yes. And he has found an incredible balance of vibes and procedural that works. What I'm suggesting is like, shut out West Andrew. Shout out, um, this novel presupposes. What this podcast presupposes is maybe it's not intentional. It's just working. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to suss out. I guess it doesn't really matter what the intention is.

It's what we see on screen. But what I'm trying to figure out is there was moments during the last episode where it gave me real last episode of 1883 vibes. And for people who don't know, 1883 is a Yellowstone prequel starring Sam Elliott and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. and is this incredibly violent wagon train story across the American West and the sort of foundation of the pioneer era of this country. Wasn't Ainsley in it?

She may have been. She played an old frontiers woman. Go on. Come on, man. So you're watching the last episode of 1883. And they like, spoiler for 1883, let's just say they get to where they're going. Let's say there's no 1884.

And you're like, oh, okay. So like is the next. season going to be about starting the town. And it's like, no, major characters die and then the show ends. Hard no. And I thought for a second watching Landman, I was like, I don't think Tommy's going to die. Yeah. But like, is this the end of the show? Like, it kind of almost had that freight train momentum over the course of the season and seemed to be resolving all of the, all of the open ends, like the loose ends. I see that, but I fundamentally disagree only in the sense that there was some, you can see the evidence of some longer range planning,

like John Hamm doing a season in the same way that Kyle Chandler did an episode. And Michael Pania did an episode. Exactly. And a few weeks ago, we were like, why is to me more on the show? And I think you suggested maybe she would become the new Monty or the step into his shoes. Okay, that works. That's interesting.

The issue that I take with it in terms of dramatic stakes is something that a writer's room can do. I want to be clear. This show is more successful than most things, period. And whatever he's doing is working. And I'm not suggesting that there is a way to improve this show. Let me just give you an option here to consider. The thing that the writer's room, a writer's room can do at its best is pitch alternates and keep the thinking fluid enough so that when you make a decision like he's going to be on the show for one season

to help the decision making to maximize every moment of the season that he is in to ring out every potential dramatic and emotional and charactery fallout from his demise. What was so bizarre about the show is that he does a couple phone calls, gets on a couple planes, give some speeches, has a first cardiac episode, is fine, is the recipient of a six-minute monologue from Jerry Jones, has a second cardiac episode. Tears his aortic wall. Leaves the penultimate episode

in a way that we think he's dead. This episode begins with him not dead. Being told that he could be okay. This is what I'm talking about. I feel like there was... A decision made? Like they were potentially keeping it in play? Well, okay, so John Hamm's fate

is only broadcast by a long shot outside of a emergency room where his family is sobbing and you can see a red light above his bed. So I was like, oh, I guess he's dead. Or they're really upset because he's, you know, got a machine breathing for him and he is not a lot. Like, he's not conscious. They could go in in post and put a little life in that meter.

All of the interviews are like after the death of Monty. No, no, he's that. Like everybody from the show is like, and then Monty dies. And I was like, that almost felt like let's shoot a couple of different ways of doing this and see what we want to go with. I completely understand a writer's room and other creative voices in there might stress test certain things and be like the tonal shift

between Angela and Ainsley at a strip club and Billy Bob Thornton being fucking tortured by the Mexican cartel is much is just like too too far apart. That being said Yeah, okay. Like

I almost feel like more shows could use the chaos of this shit. show. Like more shows should be weirder and a little less like, well, that's against the rules. No, you have to do this. We always come back to this point. And it's one that I am very sympathetic to, which is everything we see is so noted and so group thought that seeing anything that proves that there's someone alive in there is interesting. But interesting isn't always the friend of storytelling. And so in terms of the Monty thing, just choose. an event that lands equally on all the characters and stick with it. You know what I mean? Like,

have him die and then talk about it. Have him be, you don't know what his fate is and then have that land and move on. Don't stutter step it three times. Jerry Jones it and then put it in a montage. That just seems like a very weird use of story resources to do that. I will say, the cardiac surgeon who delivered the news, perhaps the best acting performance on the show, all sorts of season. Sir, I do not know your name, but I commend you. I thought you delivered some truly gut-wrenching news with precision and verve, and I was very impressed. It would have been awesome if it had been Joe's husband from Lioness was his cardiac surgery. That guy's too handsome for that job. Jay Manel. That part did work for it. I would like to say something. Please. And I don't,

again, I want to stress that I have nothing against this person playing the part. Yeah. Let's have the conversation. I would like to politely suggest that the character Rebecca who plays the litigator and negotiator of M-Tex Oil

that this character get Lyme disease and move to Vermont. Something that they can manage and go to some place I guess there's a lot of ticks in Vermont. No, but like a chronic condition that is not fatal.

Yes. Where it just takes them out of the game because this was the one part of the show. show. Not the one. But it was the part of the show

that I think bothered me the most was that she played three different people this season. Yes. She played this outsider POV character that's supposed to explain to all the snowflakes from blue states about how oil and the world really works.

Fine. Yeah. Then she softens and is almost kind of like an adjunct, not member of the family, but seems to be like, oh, I'm getting used to... And it was also flirty a little bit? These Texas ways. And you almost think for a second, is this going to be Tommy's girlfriend? Because the whole Angela thing in the beginning, it seems like almost more of an antagonist

thing, you know? And then on a dime, Rebecca turns into Voldermort. Thank you for that reference. Well, I wouldn't know. But I'm just saying, I hear that guy does some bad stuff. Some people think I wouldn't know, but I do. Like, I'm going to put Cooper in prison. And I'm like, ma'am, you are not. a state or federal prosecutor. You're just like... She's fundamentally bad at her job,

and yet everyone is just like, she's a killer. Exactly. Who knows nothing and just screams profanities. Sounds good. And then the finale is just basically like crying about fracking, as Tommy tells her, like, too bad, you're now the VP of...

Your great-grandfather's built this world, and it's up to you to clean it up, Missy. It's like, and if you don't like... Get rid of your phone and get off the grid. This sucked, and I just don't want to... I need Taylor to have a by himself meeting or whatever or talk to some women and figure out a person that this character is. You have a binder of women.

You can share with him. I want to talk briefly about the role of telecommunications on this show about oil. Is that you don't have any Rebecca comments? Or you feel like you're on the record? I think I'm on the record I believe I believe I ended my argument last week when I said one of the top five

worst characters on television this century It's hard to come back from that Or to find Wiggle Room Yeah You know a lot has been made Of how the cell phone Has changed storytelling

Yeah In the sense that This is why like they say like PTA doesn't want to make contemporary films Just because it doesn't want to shoot people Looking at their phones all the time Or like spy movies Like it's no longer like

Chalk Marking Deadrops and like being, you know, archly British and talking to your... Yeah, kind of peeped with Nokia core, you know? Nokia wave. For real, though. Can't do that anymore. When you watch Seinfeld reruns,

like everyone just walking into each other's apartments because how else could you communicate? So, on the one hand, I respect Taylor's, like, commitment to the world as it is, not how we would want it to be. Not the world our grandfather's had. Well, in a sense, though, not really because, I mean, you and I like a phone call.

Sure. that's about the only person I talk to on the phone other than my wife and my mother This is what I'm saying That like A Juliet It's tip to anyone else Anyone else who like dad to the list?

Jeff Chow calls Jeff Chow likes a phone call Okay, that's nice That's about it though, yeah So it's five or six people But honestly, us discovering relatively recently that we still like phone calls Was like a beautiful moment

Well, it's the foundation of our relationship I used to leave you those messages from Vermont 45 minutes away in Boston Where I'd be like, hey brother I've got some CD singles. Go to see Joan of Arc tonight. Karate's opening. I think I think I'll stay in for the heavenly reunion

when they hit the grad center. Good times. No, so so much of this show is conducted over telephone and FaceTime that it is absurd. But also, the way that he does phone calls is beyond absurd at this point. I just want to call attention to one thing that happened early in the episode

that I cannot get out of my mind, which is we have the whole run with that phenomenal guest performance by the cardiac surgeon and, you know, Cammy's thinking about stuff and the girls who don't have lines but they're crying.

And Billy Bob gets the call from the really a little too shook army major. Oh, yeah. And he's just like, well, I got people with their lawyering up. Yeah. What are we going to do? It's all fucking gone.

These guys are accounting some plovers. And Billy Bob's like, God damn it, not today. And he's like, know what, I'll fucking call you back. So he then leaves. We see him leaving the hospital. I'm like, oh, he's really got one on.

Is he going to be spied upon again by the cartel? He lights a cigarette, and I'm like, oh, he had to go outside to light the cigarette because he's respectful. Can't do that in the ICU. You can't do that. You can do it when you're literally swimming in gasoline, but you can't do it in a waiting room in a Texas hospital. And I'm like, he's clearly going to call the cartel again, or he's going to move this

story forward to, as he has done often, mollify someone. what he does instead is he called the guy back, repeats all of his points about how this is not really a fucking problem. Yes. And the guy's like, okay, you're right. This second phone call really put in my mind at ease, sir. You cheered me up. And he hangs up.

Now, again, this is not me being like snobby or judgmental, but I do feel like it could be like, Taylor, you know what's better than an hour and 20 minutes? Hour 18. You know what I mean? Like, that wasn't necessary. Do you wish I talked to you more like Billy Bob talks to people, like, where it's just like, here's how it is? I wish everyone talked to me like that.

Are you kidding me? The greatest lack in my life is clarity and declarative conversations. Okay. That's my, that's my New Year's resolution. It would be so great. Truly, one of my happiest resources on the planet is the text chain with you and Kaya where you just say, 10 a.m. tomorrow, studio six. And I'm like, thumbs up. Thank you.

Thank you, work mom and dad. Thank you. I don't know if I have anything else other than trying to unpack why I react so warmly towards the love story between Cooper and Arizona. Before we go there, can I ask you one other question? Did you think that the field trip to the strip club... Do you have nothing on Cooper and Adriana? No, I want to go...

Because we actually care about that. I want to do one more silly thing. Okay. I have to completely admit to you that I skisks. I more or less like zoned out during the strip club thing. Like I thought it was a funny joke that then took two and a half episodes? Yes. And it's not just that.

It's to your original point. I was like, well, it's going to be slightly complicating for, for mom and daughter, when one of these old people dies because they get so excited. Yeah, yeah. Reader, that did not happen. They had an amazing time and they made it. back in time for nap and they'd like to do it again. That was the story.

Yeah. That was the story. And the lesson learned is they're good people and they're going to do it again. That was the story. Do you think let's like sort of tease this out though. Like is he? Who's he? Taylor. By breaking all these rules. Like creating a new kind of storytelling. Like is this like playlist storytelling where it's like or skip the next song storytelling where it's like, hey, yeah, like, that. Wouldn't it be funny of a bunch of old people went to a strip club? Why? Just because...

Yeah, I mean, no one's like... Like, you're just going to do that as like a five second thing, right? Like, no, it's going to take two episodes to plan it and execute it. And it's really funny, right? Like, it's funny. Old people getting boners, that's funny, right?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, boss. That's funny. Keep going. This is better than Napargatsy hour I watched last night. That's hilarious. Okay, so you don't think he's... He's breaking the wheel.

He's the one. He's changing history. First of his name. No, I think that you are on to something that there is, again, I don't, I mean this in a positive way. I think that he is, I don't think there's a lot of forethought in this, but I think he is remarkably good at fracking five decades of television storytelling and emerging with things that people like. Yeah.

You know, I don't think it's actually complicated and needs to be studied under a microscope. Like, what is the alchemy of this? We spend a lot of time on this podcast over the years being like, ah, but television is many things to many people. You know, you can watch lioness and you can also watch... Landman, yeah. That's it. From one to the other. Well, if you listen to this podcast over the last couple of months.

It's pretty much all you can listen to. No, but I mean, I think that, I think a lot of our listeners will watch Abbott Elementary, Some of them will watch Bluey because of the children in their household, and others will, and they might watch, they may have watched the, like me, they may have been among the six people who watched Irma VEP on HBO, and they watch this. Like, there's a lot of stuff. Yeah.

So it actually, the rule breaking, the wheel breaking may be that we do not need to keep these flavors separate anymore, that everybody is watching everything and it's all kind of smeary. So we do not need to protect the very cleanly delineated sensibility of some model viewer. Yeah. So maybe that. And I do think we see that reflected in the people in our lives

or just anecdotally feedback who are watching this show, which does seem to be a healthy mix of snobs and basics in terms of what they want out of stuff. I've gotten so many great text message and I have to shout him out from Jason Gallagher and his wife, Kelly,

who have been watching this show from Oklahoma. Jason, obviously, has Texas roots. Was Jason like, there have been earthquakes here before there was fractal? Can I actually just tell you a couple of things Jason shared with me. I love Jason, of course.

This is from last night. Jason hit me up and said, my favorite LOL moment was from earlier in the season during the college track meet scene. It opens with a guy from KU doing the high jump and the height was clearly displayed. He successfully jumped four feet five inches,

which is literally what our girls' middle school team could jump. And Kelly has like all these observations about how close pickup trucks drive to one another on gravel roads. great. She's like, you would never follow a car that closely because the gravel and the rocks that would kick up by the first car would hit your windshield. And so it's just like little things like that that people are noticing, it's bringing a community together. Of Snopes subscribers to debunk and nitpick. All of this said, here's where I'll bring it back to the point you wanted to make.

The scene where Cooper is talking to this week's weathered farmer who's mistrustful of people wanting to put solar panels on his land was so beautifully shot. Stephen Kay is the guy who directed these last run of episodes. They both looked fantastic. And it was like, I can use this word too much today

for other reasons, but it was mythological storytelling. These were archetypal Texas images that speak to the soul and being honest and direct with each other and the promise of building something. And maybe that appealed to me not only because I like those,

character and I like that performance and I like that storyline. But it suggests a future and places for it to go that won't necessarily be resolved. There's something kind of, I don't mean to sound overbearing about this, but there's something kind of precious about his performance, and it's telling that his performance takes place largely in a vacuum. Yes. One true family scene in the dinner. But has no connection on a character or even performance level with other people in his family.

He's like almost in a coma when Angela comes in and immediately needs to take his Xanax and disappears. And for the rest of the time is on this other side of the story that almost aesthetically takes place in a different world than the rest of Landman. Right? Like, he doesn't use his phone. He doesn't, he's talking to people in person. Like, it's an old way of doing things that I think suits the show and it obviously

speaks to us, but is, I don't know if Landman was about Jacob Loughlin and his dad on opposite sides of the oil industry, but was shot with that vibe, I don't know if it would have been as successful. No, it wouldn't. I mean, there is a version of this where Jason Cadems is working with the same Texas monthly article. No, he's working with the same outline

that Taylor shared and delivered to Paramount, but then he got too busy and stepped away. And frankly, it is exciting to think about that. That sounds like a much richer, much smarter in a lot of ways shows. And I don't mean, like, intellectual. I mean, in terms of its decision-making. Sure, sure.

I don't think it would be as popular. I just don't think it would because Taylor and his storytelling is shameless. And again, I'm using language that sounds huge, but I mean, he goes for it. He does the biggest version of everything. The cartel guy takes Tommy out and Sheridan's like, we are going to blow up a well.

Yeah. That is what we were going to do again because we are budgeted for it or because I want it. You know what I mean? Like, he goes all the way. And I think that big, big, big swings do resonate with people. But there are these glimpses of the type of storytelling that I think he wants to be telling it. That Cooper storyline has elements of the Yellowstone flashback shows at their best.

And I've engaged with them in limited ways. Sure. That's sort of like sturdy. Not just sturdy, but sweeping, right? Like the lonesome dovishness that we like. This is about the beginnings not just of a family or of a family fortune, but about a land.

Yeah, passage of time. About a way of living. He loves that shit. And I am very susceptible to that. And it's just increasingly hard to find that in the midst of all of the noise. But I think the thing that you're suggesting, which is not wrong,

is that the noise is crucial to the popularity or to the resonance. I never expected to talk about every single episode of a Taylor Sheridan show with you. It's been really, really, really. fun. What do I get for this? We didn't discuss this. But that being said, I don't think it was homework for you. I can sense from you when you're like, I have to do this for the good of the pot or whatever. And I can tell sometimes when you're like, no, I keep things pretty buttoned up. But I can tell when you're like,

all right, another one of the, like, yes, another episode of this. You were not like that with this. Well, first of all, I enjoy my time with you. I know. But I think the, I think my thing with this is a, these little, what are they, crumbs of hope, as the episode was called. Which is an insane phrase that I don't think is a phrase, but I suddenly found myself searching for a way to describe what the show gives me and the show gave me even that. See? So that's what I'm saying. There are these little bits. He speaks in your voice, American.

These little teasing bits where I'm like, that's the vague shadow of something I would like to watch. Yeah. And then there is an element of it that is like he's not really going to build up stripping for old people. As a two-episode arc. That is not just the, that is the crescendo of some characters. I can't believe he's going to do that. And again, this is like the, you mixed up my peanut butter and my chocolate, like these things that go to, like, it speaks to something about the way people do engage with TV now, which is like, that's what I'm trying to get at. To keep your attention, you have to.

to be that kind that it's like he's making a bet with the audience that's separate and apart from his Tommy going to survive it's like am I actually going to do this like are we really going to put the show in this place and he definitely does yes and I there's something about that that I think I respond to I think I responded to it with early first couple seasons of Ozark of that accelerated plot what's next like that the the speed limit break breaking of the plot of most shows would end here, this would be at the end of the first season at the end of the first episode.

Most shows would never do this and bring this character in out of nowhere to be this massive sea change of a character. It's like, well, what if we did it every other week? We just brought somebody on who's just going to fuck shit up, you know?

And that's kind of what happened over this season in Landman. I think that explains somewhat what Rebecca turned into. It explains the consistent presence of the cartel and then now bringing in Andy Garcia. Yeah.

So I don't know. I mean, I really, I enjoyed myself watching it. I think I thought the first few episodes were like truly great. And then it just became like a crazy fun thing to experience. You know, I do think, I agree with you. I know that you feel this way. That I think that trying to ascribe political motivations

or read tea leaves in the show is facile. I don't think that's really relevant. No. But I do think that the one thing about Taylor shared and that people respond to and that is in tune with the times is very, he is unapologetic. And he cares about mental. health. He cares deeply, and he's suspicious of green technology. But also, no, in the sense that he

never backtracks, right? He puts everything in and then just as like, well, now there's a new character to worry about, or now she's going to be in charge of this, or she's behaved this way, and she was introduced to do this, but fuck it, we're going this way instead. There is never any equivocating or any doubt. Yeah. And I do think there is something appealing about that when you are asking someone to drive your stories bus for a few weeks or a few weeks. years. Greenwald, it was great to see you. Hopefully we will have a show on Thursday. Yes, I would like that as well. And we'll talk about the pit. We'll talk about the agency. We'll get ready for Severance, which is coming on Friday. Thank you to Kyya for producing us. Thank you to CT for filming us today. And I hope everybody in

Los Angeles listening to us, stay safe. Yeah, just lots of love to the entire city, region, community, and to all of our listeners. Thanks for sticking with us.