The Watch - 'The Last Jedi,' the End of 'Girls,' and the Final Season of 'The Leftovers' (Ep. 142)

Episode Date: April 17, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the trailer for ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ and Kendrick Lamar’s new album, ‘Damn.’ (4:20). Then they break down the final episode of ‘Girls’ and the series as a whole (29:55), as well as the premiere of ‘The Leftovers’ (48:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NBA playoffs are here, and we have you covered with the Ringer NBA show hosted by Chris Vernon. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays throughout the postseason, you can hear the Ringer's NBA experts, media members, coaches, and players breaking down all the action. Make sure to subscribe to the Ringer NBA show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. Hey, guys, thank you for listening to The Watch today. We just want to mention the Double Down Book Club is back. We recently did Zoo Station by David Downing. We are doing Annihilation by Jeff Vandemir.

So please go check that out as well. We'll be doing other book club apps. in about a month. So you have plenty of time to read it. And for the next couple of months, Andy and I will largely be discussing leftovers in Fargo in some capacity most weeks. Both shows just began their third seasons this week.

So Fargo comes on Wednesday. Leftovers happened on Sunday. Please check them out. It'll make the podcast that much more enjoyable to watch the shows that we're talking about. Make sure you show the podcast with a friend of viewers that likes TV, film, or pop culture. Today we're talking about Star Wars, Kendrick Lamar,

girls, and leftovers. Let's get going. I need sports to have to clear. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan and I am an editor at the Ringer.com and joining me in the studio. I got, I got Andy Greenwald! Woo!

It's good to be back. Hi, man. Hey, listen, a lot happened since I was here last week. Thanks to the entire staff The Ringer for filling in for me. I appreciate it. You got it. Nice episode there. Seems like it had a good time.

Yeah, very Father John Misty got me. mentioned. Yeah. You talk about all the stuff I hate. Yeah. I appreciate that. But another thing happened last week. We have a big show, so we got to get into it.

Yeah, let's real quick. Leftovers is back. Leftovers and girls. We'll be talking about the end of girls, but first we're going to talk about Star Wars and Kendrick. But let's hear your personal anecdote. While I was away, you revealed a new side of yourself to the internet. Did I?

You know, when we started at Granlin, we were writing, we were podcasting, people are like, is this all there is? Is there more you want to do? And, you know, it turns out I want to do a little scribbling for TV. proper and I started to work on that. What I think people didn't realize is you're on-camera talent. You're an actor. You guys

at Ringer Films. Yeah. Ringer Films studio. Ringer Pictures, actually. I don't go on the internet, but I've heard good things. Put together a trailer based on the trailer. Shot for shot remake of Moneyball.

Called Mori Ball. And starring as Daryl Morey. As Brad Pitt. As Brad Pitt. Excuse me, obviously. The Houston Rockets general manager is young Chris Ryan. Yeah. And I got to say, pathos in this performance.

Thanks, man. I really tried to put myself in the position of Brad Pitt as Daryl Morey. Like, really put myself in that headspace. The way you threw the chair, it's just, it's just. That chair actually is, like, used, so I didn't really want to destroy it. No, no, Ringer Pictures is working on it for sort of like a bloomhouse, right? Like kind of budget thing. It's like a small investment, but huge rewards.

I just want to know. And I think that people want to know, like, what's next from young Chris? Like, what, how do you want to use your ability? I was thinking that, you know, I liked silence, but there's a lot more to do in the 17th century Portuguese priest space, the Jesuit space. And I was thinking, yeah, there's a lot more for me to do. Like, I feel like I could step on the Jesus face stone. Yeah. Like silence.

A shot for shot remake of the silence trailer would be in all of the roles, including the rain and the droopy pine. trees. I think there's real potential here. I just want everyone to check this out. I do think it's fantastic. I love seeing this side of you. It's impassioned. Thank you. It's very exciting. Last question. Did you cast yourself? I did. Yeah. That's the thing that's cool about writing the thing is you can just be like starring. Do you have any other tips? Like any other things you want to like preview that you're going to be doing next? Any other roles? Like do you have a win at all type gambling movie that you're seeing yourself in? Oh God, I wish man. Did you watch what We've talked about it all.

There's a podcast on the Rear Podcast Network. I don't know if you listen to it. It's for kind of a long dead days. If I could cast myself in anything, I would probably cast myself in a Star Wars movie. Wow. First of all, bullshit. But second of all, great segue. And it proves you should cast yourself as the host of this podcast.

Andy, the last Jedi. I only know one truth. It's time for the Jedi. Yeah. That's the name of this Star Wars episode. And they've started, actually, I think they dropped the episode numerical title. No, this is episode eight. Okay, so they're going to say eight.

There's just recently news from the Star Wars Celebration Conference that they're going to probably make more than nine. George Lucas's original vision for this whole jam was going to be nine movies. Yeah. That's not a surprise. That they're going to make more? Yeah. No, they make a lot of money. Can you imagine if they got to the end of the Trevor one and they were just like, we're good?

Peace. Let's go out on a high note. How much respect would we have for them, though? I mean, not much because I'm just like, keep making Star Wars movies. Seriously. People do seem to like them. So this one is interesting. I think that I would say that from my perspective, this was greeted with, it's a teaser.

It didn't have the same impact as the Force Awakens teaser because the Force Awakens teaser was literally the first time we had seen this universe in years. Also, all our old chums were back in it. Exactly. But this time around, I feel like it's been greeted with like a little bit more like, cool, cool. Like, I can't wait for the real trailer and especially can't wait for Christmas. Well, I think that this is a... First of all, the trailer's great fun. It's exciting.

But it is a little worrisome that what Star Wars has is special and unique and obviously hugely profitable. They have decided they are going to give us a new Star Wars movie every year. Whether it is in the canon of the traditional trilogies or whatever goes on beyond that along the spine of these characters like we have coming with The Last Jedi, or if it's these offshoot movies like Rogue One and the upcoming Hun Solo movie. The worst thing that can happen is if they start to feel roped. If we start to greet them the way we greet Marvel trailers,

which is we're happy to see them. We're excited to see our pals and to see lightsabers, but we get this every year. What does it feel like when there's a Star Wars movie every year? The feeling especially of Force Awakens, but to a lesser degree with Rogue One because it was back in Darth Vader world again, or at least Darth Vader timeline,

was magic. I mean, we talked about this when we raved about the Force Awakens trailer was that it keyed in on what distinguished this franchise from all the other franchises,

which was a sense of grandeur and imagination. And I think if you start to leach that from it, it becomes worrisome for them, both creatively and financially. That said,

this is our man, Ryan Johnson, directing this movie. By far, I would say, the most interesting director in this trilogy. Visually interesting

and I'm very hopeful that he brings some flair to it and I will say that he did because here's the thing. Here's all I want from these blockbusters these days. Or the trailers. Show me something beautiful, man. Show me something big.

Show me something beautiful. Don't show me Manhattan getting destroyed again. Seen it. Yeah. Actually feel like I see it in my nightmares every night now. I'm glad that Star Wars hasn't done much with Manhattan. I really appreciate that.

So what I'm saying is that shot of the speeders with the red smoke on the sand. I don't know what that is. Maybe that's something you know about from the expanded universe novels that you like to read in your spare time. Don't look at me, Doug. I just thought that's a beautiful image.

I've not seen that image before. I have seen that image before, actually. It's in Godzilla. It's like the halo jumps smoke coming off the back of the guys who are jumping down out of the planes to fight Godzilla. Yeah.

Which is like not a knock, but also interesting because Gareth was also directed, Rogue One. Yeah. It's funny what some of the people have been talking about how the Last Jedi trailer is like literally beat for beat the same as the Force Awakens trailer. You can play next to each other.

I actually thought that the beginning of this trailer reminded me a lot of the master with the overhead shots of the water and also just the relationship between a student and a teacher. I think that what will be the most interesting thing for me come Christmas is how much, if Force Awakens was basically beat for beat, Star Wars, A New Hope, how much, how much as Last Jedi Hugh to the Empire Strikes Back Playbook. And we already have the Yoda training. Yeah, we have the training, but we also have the

could he be the father figure? No morey. You know, like, is, what is Luke Skywalker's relationships array, and is there a betrayal? Because they are definitely teasing the idea that Luke has... Luke has done with Jedi's. Yeah, like, well, he's done with Jedi's

to the extent that he might be about to do something about that. To do the Jedi. Yeah. So that's interesting. So I hope that this film is a lot like the master. Yeah. And I also do hope this film is a lot like Empire Strikes Back. The last thought I have about this is the poster for the movie, which was also released.

Yeah, super Last Starfighter John Carpenter. I think it's the single, I'll use the word beautiful again. I think it's the most beautiful thing affiliated with any of this rejuvenated Star Wars universe. I think it is gorgeous and exciting and understated and classy. And, you know, I know this sounds like I'm talking about, I know I sound like Ron Burgundy talking about San Diego, but I just want these movies to be classy. I think they'll be classy. I think there's also like even the aerial battle or the space battle that they show briefly in the teaser just looks like it's up a level. You're right, the smoke coming out of the back of the X-Wings as they kind of streak along the landscape.

That's really beautiful to look at. I just think it'll be really good. They have a lot of things to fit together here. This isn't unlike the sort of Avengers problem that they have where they're like, man, there's like 10 major roles here and two hours of screen time. Two and a half hours screen time. Let's remember they had, you know, basically almost, they had 30 years to get Force Awakens right. To get Force Awakens right.

And when the smoke cleared, you know, and you look at that movie, you're like, they kind of made it up as they went along. That's almost why having Rogue One come right after it and this come right after Rogue One, you don't have a lot of time to dwell on whether Force Awakens makes sense or not. But you also don't have a lot of time to sort of try and fix the core storytelling errors that maybe you've embarked upon. Yeah.

I mean, we just have agreed as a culture to be like, man, Force Awakens was fun and not worry about what happened with Digital Lupita, like that whole scene. Yeah. With the Skywalker lightsaber and the archives. I will be fascinated. I want to see, they still did books like this, and it's harder and harder for them to do it just because there's so much money on the line. But some kind of expose, like the one that was written about a Heaven's Gate or something,

Force Awakens was obviously not a disaster, but the fact that there was like pretty much fully a script of Force Awakens that was circulating, that was like Luke's hand drifting down from outer space and landing on the ground. All this stuff that was like, they redid that movie in a lot of ways. While they were making it.

While they were making it. They did plan. They had Michael Art writing the screenplay for a long time. And then within basically 18 months, JJ Abrams came on. Lawrence Kasen came on. They redid all of it. And it worked because, I mean,

it works as far as they, care about things working, which is the box office receipts. But the other thing I would keep an eye on in the Star Wars world going forward is speaks to a larger collision between a larger collision at the cinema in terms of what we want, right? Because do we want to have great movies that show us new exciting things? Or do we want to be fanboys and have fun? And I'm curious about the reaction to The Last Jedi and its ambitions and the reaction to the Han Solo movie. because I got to say,

I was pretty suckered in to that first photo from the Han Solo movie. Lord and Miller are incredibly clever. They are not like autours, but they're kind of brilliant in what they do. The cast is terrific. Alden Aaron Reich and Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller Bridge from Fleabag.

I mean, it's a great cast. And the picture of them, they all look like, look what we're doing. We're fucking making a Han Solo movie. Isn't that fun? Yeah. And that immediately lowers the state. but in some ways maybe raises the optimism.

Maybe that's an inescapable part of just movie blogs and just reading them. It is, but I'm just saying that one movie seems more likely to succeed because its ambitions are lower and because it seems to be aiming directly at pleasing the fan boys and girls that make up the movie-going audience these days. Whereas Last Jedi might be caught in this uncanny valley that Force Awakens was, which is, are we going to make a great new story

for a new era or are we just going to remake the old movie? Well, in retrospect, that might have been the issue with Rogue One too, right? because they had such a tight, no, I don't know if it was tight, but they had such a self-contained story that was like, there's no, there's no future ramifications, there's no way that like these characters

can really live on beyond the walls of the story. And then at the very end, they bring in, they do the on-ramp to Star Wars, but like almost 90% of the people who saw that movie would be like the best part of Rogue One is the last 15 minutes.

That's the part people loved. Yeah. So it'll be, I'll be curious to see the full trailer for this. I've huge, huge high hopes for Ryan Johnson making one of these movies. And the fact that there has been no, like, is there something wrong with Last Jedi? What's going on with Last Jedi? Like almost uniformly, everybody who's worked on it has just been like, it's going to be a great movie.

Well, let's also say, before we move on, Ryan Johnson is almost the last of an era because he's, he's our age, I think. And he made Brick, and he made The Brothers Bloom. And Looper, yeah. And he's clearly an incredibly talented filmmaker just on a purely... And some of the Best Breaking Bad episodes. Some of the Best Breaking Bad episodes. Very talented on a technical level. level, clearly very indebted to genre filmmaking.

If he made his debut movie, Brick, five years later, he would have been making... Antman. Antman, exactly. But instead, he sort of kept trying to make original ideas and force him through, and he got one through in Looper. So, J.J. Abrams is... We all know J.J. Abrams is... Trevor O got on-ramped to the system much quicker.

Yeah. Ryan Johnson has a track record, and he's sort of one of the last people that can slide in and have the experience and also be exactly suited to make this movement. I think he also is somebody who's going to understand that the thing that made Star Wars brilliant in the first place isn't the spectacle. It's the story. And it's the emotional attachment people had to the moments that were happening. And it's not, you know, an explosion. It's a one-liner.

You know, it's not some, it's the fact that nobody quotes back scenes where something explodes. People, unless it's like, let's blow this thing and get out of here, kid or whatever. it's lines that people exchange with one another while they're like playing a board game, you know, in Star Wars. And that, I think he is going to remember that. And I think he's going to have like, hopefully there will be like a lot of like moments like that rather than just like and then a planet blew up. But who got screenwriting? I mean, I guess they haven't announced officially. He wrote it.

He wrote this movie? Are we sure? Like there's no. Supposedly written and directed by Ryan Johnson. No secret Kazdin's got involved. I'm sure. Like Macquarie and Casson and all the usual characters. Yeah, that 100 people probably took a pass at different parts.

Kenberg and anyone else who passed through bad robot. But I think that he came on, and I think he's writing 10. Or 9, rather, yeah. It's interesting. I thought. I mean, I could be wrong. We'll Google it during the break. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the Kendrick record that came out on Friday.

Culture, Chris. Tons. This is prime time. tons, man. Good thing nothing's happening in sports for you, right? So, Kendrick Lamar released his fourth studio album, I believe. Yep. Damn.

On late Thursday night after like kind of like some delay. That wasn't even delayed. It was just people thought it was going to come out the prior Friday. There were even rumors that a second album was going to come out on Sunday for Easter. People are talking. Yeah. There was like Reddit threads speculating that like he had left clues to suggest that there was a second album coming. Why don't you go first on this one?

I love this record I love it I think it's terrific I gotta tell you Chris I'm tired of surprise album drops I'm tired of it's not that book of a surprise

it was coming from a week but what I'm saying is this in the scheme of things yeah it's overplayed now as a technique as a tactic it is a smokescreen often to make the event

like movies basically it's a smokescreen to make the box office receipts and the attention and the fear of missing out dominate the conversation and then weeks later when we actually analyze the work, we can discuss whether it's deserving of all that hype or not,

but by then we've moved on to something else. I'm tired of, you know, jamming, half-developed thoughts about records onto microphones, and then like with Frank Ocean and being like, forgetting that the record came out because I didn't really like it that much, it turned out. Do you think that that's because of the way the records are released or the way that we listen to records?

Well, it's both. It's both. And I'm saying that, well, it's a pre-rele. to say Kendrick is worth it. Kendrick is deserving of it. Kendrick is a generational artist. I feel like he is, everything he does is worthy of attention.

I feel like he grabs the steering wheel of certainly of music and maybe of culture as a whole every time he comes out and he appreciates the moment and he rises to it. And in the spirit of what I'm talking about, to Pimp a butterfly is probably a masterpiece

but it is a very not, intense, demanding album. It is not well served by a quick hot take or three listens and then discussing it. I still get lost in it, frankly, when I go back to it. This is the record that I really wanted him to make, I think, in a lot of ways, because I think it synthesizes his completely idiosyncratic approach to everything. I think the beats and the music could not be supported by any other artists. but it also knocks, and it also is insistent, and it isn't, it doesn't get lost in search of itself.

It is very focused, and I feel like you could see that in the record title, in the track titles, in the relative brevity of it, compared to a lot of records these days. I think it is really powerful, exciting, funny, moving, surprising record, and it's, it deserves it. I was just totally, totally taken with it, you know? And I say this, I was kind of prepared to be like, okay, listen number four, let's go. Yeah. Let's find these gems. I think that it's okay to say, like, Kendrick can sometimes feel a little bit like homework. Yeah.

Partially because of his records. Every time he approaches a microphone, you pay attention. Yes. And basically, like, he's, like, watching, like, Kendrick, like, every Kendrick flow is different in its own special way. And there is like a sheer, like, if you like rap music, every time Kendrick approaches a microphone, like you're saying, every time a song begins, I'm almost on pins and needles, not for what he's going to say, which is obviously revelatory and deep and psychologically probing and like emotionally honest. But I am on a formal level, just like super fascinated to hear his flow. Like the way that he is going to jump in and out of beats, the way he ends bars, the way he, like, uses bars to set up next bars. Like all the technical stuff that if you've been listening to rap for as long as you and I have,

like, you're just like, I didn't think that there were like new ways to do this or new ways to make me feel about rapping. And it's pretty cool that he has done that in a way that like I could give a shit about traditionalism. I mean, I love young thug as much as like I love any dude who's out here trying to like be Captain Von Bars. But it's cool that he is doing something so traditional and making it sound so breathtakingly. knew. Like, that is fucking hard right now. You and I have lived through enough rap fandom to experience the same

conversations and arguments in that genre that we have with rock where people... I remember, like, being a kid and people... There was always the kid, like, in high school or probably at camp. We're just like, yeah, like, I... REM is kind of cool, but Steve Vi, man. Like, Steve Vi can fucking shred.

Like, that dude can play the guitar. Yeah. fucking buck do that. I'm like no thanks. You know what I mean? Like music fandom and it's not, being good technically doesn't always matter. Yeah, I remember when I was like in the 80s, like when I first started getting into music

and the music to get into his hair metal. And like, so I would, like, it was like trying. So I bought like circus and I would like ask older metal kids like what they liked. And they were like, if you don't like Randy Rhodes, you're a bitch. And I was just like, oh man, this sucks. Like I hate this. Like I like poison

because the songs are fun. Do you remember? Do you remember the King was always like holding up a copy of Joe Satriani surfing with the alien? I didn't have that many. There's truth in this. I didn't have that many musos. I had like lots of dudes who were just like, I fucking shred, dog. So the point being, that exists in rap too. It always has.

And there were always the people who were like, enjoy your Jay-Z party rap, you know. But like for real though. Like these dudes, the dudes who have bars. Like that dude seems like the teacher from freaks and geeks now. But do you? I know. But like who would they be pushing? like freestyle fellowship or something?

I think that there was like a period of time where, and it was unfortunate for the guys on this label because they were so, like, just every time you ask them about this, they would just be like, I swear to God, that's not what we're about. But in the backpacker rap era of the early 2000s of like Deaf Jucks and you had like Aesop and Camu Tau and Cannibal Ox and LP, people were like, this is that real rap.

It's the real wrap. This is the real take it back to the base. fundamentals, like, rap. And then also, like, the production is, like, it's so cool because it's Ilbian. And it's, like, these guys were just making the music they wanted to make, and it happened to kind of fit together. And then they obviously, like, when you would go see LP live in the early 2000s, he would just rap over just blaze instrumentals.

Like, it's not like they were like, we don't like rock a fella. And it wasn't like LP rapping over or line them up was supposed to be like, I'm doing this better than freeway. Like, LP would be the first to tell you, like, no one was rapping better than freeway like that. So it's just like, it is, we're getting off a tangent, but it is useful to think about like, I don't know that there's that binary anymore. No, but what I mean is there's not always a great history in terms of rappers who are being presented as the next commercial or cultural thing who are also when it's really about their technical proficiency. Like, do you remember cannabis?

Sure. Like cannabis had like mixtape bars. Like he had some jokes and he was clever. But as soon as they tried to make him like a bigger artist, it's just like this is someone, why is he yelling at me? Yeah. You know, it's pedantic. Yeah. And I say this to say that maybe only Andre 3000, in addition to Kendrick, has been formally and technically otherworldly and a genius and also able to stunt and just ride on these beats and do things.

And like adopt the juvenile flow on one of the best tracks. I was talking about Kendrick with a friend this weekend. Do you ever get the feeling, though, and this is not my take, but, or this is, I shouldn't take credit for this take because I think it's a very smart one. But do you ever get the feeling with Kendrick like you've, like you're listening to Eminem? Like you're watching a dude lift weights. I completely understand what you mean and I have in the past. That's kind of why I didn't get into the untitled unmastered record. See, I actually like that record.

I know. Maybe more than this. I like on this one. I'm also in a weird zone right now where I think because of like a bunch of different factors, the sociopolitical climate, the just like whatever, I have more and more been looking to music to get obliterated. Like I want to just have my wig snatched off when I have listened, what is left of my wig. Sure.

And I like, so my favorite rap record, if not maybe my favorite record of the year is, is the self-titled future record. Yeah. And now this is particularly bullshit for me considering I just was here Thursday being like, Father John Misty's lyrics are so appropriate for this time period. I haven't listened. But I do feel like more often than not, like I want to get punched in the face when I listen to music. and that's sometimes Kendrick's like incisive like you turn it on and it's just like here's the thing about my dad and you're like fuck dude I just want to I just kind of want to get like punched but that's why I do think this I think this is a very punchy record I think that there's a track lust on here is really I see this is this is I start to sound like these like the backpacker dudes from the early 2000 so I was about to say this song is very powerful it's really important but it that's really reducing it because the When he does these narratives about people just trying to live their lives and the election comes into it, you know, and there's an empathy to what he's doing. And it's not like reportage, you know. He's just storytelling in people's lives. And it feels very of the moment and feels very personal. But then he talks about TED Talks, you know, and Great Poupon. And I feel like he found a synthesis for this record where Mike Will made it is on it. It doesn't really sound like other Mike Will made it tracks. There's definitely some jazzy stuff in there, but it's not just like Thundercat noodling. Yeah.

I mean, he just has this ability right now to understand what to do with people and with lyrics and with beats. He put Rihanna on here. And it's, by the way, it is Italian chef, fingers kiss. Is that your favorite emoji of the year? Yes, it is the, it is new Muso Rihanna because we know Rihanna is now in like her artist period. And he has Rihanna on here just rapping. Yeah. Which is the best use of Rihanna in 2017.

I love this new, like speaking of things that got fixed in post. The Rihanna album, Antai, which is great. Yeah. Like, everyone's like, oh, she's finally embracing, becoming an artist. You know, she's not chasing the charts. Bullshit. Like, that album was a disaster that actually worked. Yeah.

And that made it interesting. Yeah, those are the best kind of albums. She wasn't like, you know, I've done rumors. Now I'll make Tusk. Why are we doing so many voices? She's not. Who is this guy? I am trying to goad you into doing your Portuguese missionary voice again,

which you haven't done since December. It's there. Step on me. Have you ever seen silence? Do you know any of these jokes? I just enjoy your presence and your spirit of just, you know, it's infectious

when you get excited about a voice. I think this record is incredible and worthy of the hype and I can't wait to keep listening to it. Okay, let's take a quick break. Do you think if we could have just ended there? We probably could. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and then we'll be back to talk about

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I got a ride way now in front. You're driving. I'm driving that way. We are back and girls is gone. And what better way to market? Than with two white guys talking about it? Two guys chatting about girls. Look, you play the hand you're dealt.

Yep. In life. Let's play it. Let's play it. Extremely Jake Johnson win it all. Deal me in. Andy, you know, you're someone, you talked to Lena a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago, whenever American Bitch aired. Asterisk, little salty that we talked literally days before the pregnancy plotline was introduced.

Oh, yeah. So we never discussed any of that. I had no idea what was coming. Your list of grievances grows. She'll be hearing from me. So I guess let's talk specifically about the finale episode first, and then we could talk about girls as a series after that. Okay. I, like every episode of girls I've ever watched pretty much enjoyed myself.

I also cackled at least once. I've cracked up at Marnie's like I won friendship line. I'm sad to see the show go. I really, I mean like for as enraging as it apparently was and for sometimes to some people, I always enjoyed myself while watching this show. So I'm sad to see it go As it just as like a Sunday night south I thought that the very last episode

felt very Apatotian Or Apatovian And I know that he had a co-writing credit Judd Apatow to have a co-writing credit He popped up in the after sort of episode chat that Jenny Connor

What was the room they filmed that in? I never watched it. I don't know, but it was weird There was like a very upstream color water pitcher that nobody ever seemed to be touching nor had anyone seemed to drink anything from it, but they obviously shot all that stuff in one day. Yeah, I think they filmed it inside of Marnie's Pinterest board of the Union Square apartment she'd like to live in. Yeah, maybe.

You know, I don't, this is like, it's interesting because, like, I think that Lena Dunham gets way too much blame for, not blame, but she, we, we just really have, like, over the last few years mixed up whether or not it's a character. or her, whether she thinks things that the characters in her show are saying, and whether or not she is problematic or not based on those things in a way that we normally do not assign that kind of level of responsibility to primarily male. I was going to say, like, no one thinks that Deadwood is an accurate representation of David Milch's psyche, and then I realized, no, that probably is an accurate representation of his psyche. He probably does say cocksucker that much.

He might. I don't know. But generally, it's unfair. and far more often than not that is the sort of ownership ascribed to female creators. Yeah, I will say that I enjoy the works of Judd Apatow, but I have a issue personally, and this could have as much to do with my own personal life

than anything else, with the idea. Is it because you were a formula baby? I couldn't answer that question, to be completely honest. Should we call your mom live on that? And ask? That's definitely not. She probably wouldn't answer. It's interesting that, like,

He has, there's a tendency within Apatow's works that the only piece for a character comes out of the assumption of nuclear family responsibility, you know, or family responsibilities, if not nuclear family responsibilities. That basically your moment of clarity comes when you decide to shrug off the, um, the trappings of childhood or your youth. Selfishness to go along with it. And you just, you know, you have like a greater responsibility of this world. and that is to be a partner and a parent. And some of that comes true at the end of girls. And there was a line, I think, you know, they basically said that it was Judd's idea to make the latching. It's like the main sort of the through line through this episode.

That being said, I thought it was consistent thematically with what girls wound up being about, which was about understanding that your life eventually has consequences. And I thought that the Becky Ann Baker stuff in this episode was phenomenal. She was great. And she is also kind of like the secret MVP of the last few seasons of this show. People give a lot of credit to the Matthew Reese episode, the Patrick Wilson episode, the Panic and Needle Park episode. But I actually found like the mother stuff to be quite great, you know, over the years.

And to have kind of this multi-generational situation happening where you had a baby, you had Hannah, you had a friend, you know, and Marnie, who was sort of the other side of what Hannah could have had at the moment, and you had Hannah's mom, that there was this really good dialogue about how this stuff trickles down and trickles up in your life and how you're supposed to, you know, you eventually have to face the judge in your life, and that's how you make things matter. You can play act for a while, you can perform things for a while, but at a certain point, you're not in rehearsals anymore.

You can't walk away. Exactly. And that, like, even though when you watch it the first time, it just seems like a very odd use of the last 10 minutes of a show is to have Hannah walking around this town half naked without a real like you know it's funny because like they referred to it as like a journey she went I was like it wasn't really much of a journey she took a walk and and it was seemed then as she came back but it was the act of like the ultimate last act of child childishness childishness and immaturity and who knows I mean obviously like you could project forward that she

will be like shows over right can't. Right. I think, well, here's one of the, one of the downsides of not being a critic anymore is that I had a, had a whole thought last night, was excited to share it with you guys. And this morning, I was like, let's see what the, let's see what the old commentary it's saying. And I fired up our buddy Ellen Steppenwald, and the first line of his review is what I wanted to say.

So I give him credit, of course, because he's always ahead of this stuff. But I did think about how shows end and how shows have been ending now in an era where we pay attention to how shows end very keenly. And like Alan, this reminded me in a lot of ways of breaking bad. And this is something that we discussed a week or so ago anyway. Oh, like the two endings. Which is that there are two endings, that the penultimate episode kind of ends the series as we knew it. That was the end of these girls in New York City.

And we didn't talk about last week's episode, but I thought especially those last few moments were really affecting and kind of beautiful and a really appropriate ending to the show, to the show that I think a lot of us thought we were watching. And mirrored the earlier part of the series of the dance. They danced to Robin early in the series. Dancing alone and now dancing out. And I even think that like we're just doing our best was, you know, like it was basically like a very kind tagline for the entire series. Yes, exactly right.

And then the actual finale becomes almost a coda. It's like in the same way that traditionally TV pilots were almost filmed as mini movies and then months would pass and they would get a chance to do more. And then the series would more or less begin with the second episode. this felt like it almost felt like the 10 years later reunion movie that they made they wanted to make a short film

to put at the end of the sentence and with that in mind I thought they were a nice pair of episodes and I appreciated that they did that I am of two minds about it I am generally anti-babies on television shows because I think partly

I agree with what you're saying in terms of the apatovian nature of it I wish there were other ways to communicate this stuff but also because they they are so much about what they are and they dominate. You know, it's really, you can't introduce a baby

and then have room for much else. Right. And I'm sure you're watching and you're like, she just left her baby behind. Like you can't get out of that headspace, right? Yeah, especially where I am in my life at the moment. Yeah, exactly.

I, but I also am thinking about what Jenny Connor and Lena probably wanted to do here. And, you know, they had one last bite at the apple. And they were like, well, what more can we say about this character and how far into the forward can we reposition and basically rev her up and point her?

What is the biggest way we can do that? And with limited real estate left, when they decided to do it, adding the baby definitely hits fast forward on all the maturity buttons they wanted to press on the character. So I understand why they did that in terms of what they wanted to say, even though I took issue with sort of how it played out in a lot of ways during the season. I think it was actually, as a finale, it was kind of beautifully understated and very well put together, very well considered, very well shot. I think that what you pointed out about the idea of a journey, and they mentioned this in the after thing talked to, you sort of see the occasional divide between intention and then actual execution. I think Jenny Connor says, well, we knew she would go on a walk, and we had a lot of versions of what she would encounter on the walk.

It sounds like almost like maybe other characters. You know, because I almost wonder whether there's like a Jessa cameo or something where... Or at least in the room they had suggested it. And this was the best version they had come up with. And that sort of speaks to just how TV gets made in general. What I really admired about it, and this can sort of segue into a discussion about the show in general, is if you look at the last season and the last few episodes, what it did in terms of our expectations and in terms of TV history and TV shows ending, it's not exactly really. radical, but it is forceful and it is distinct and it is worthy of much more than respect, I think.

It actively resisted one true pairing. Yeah. It actively resisted the idea that sex in the city, like, this is a magical place where all their dreams are always going to come true. It fundamentally said something that TV just doesn't say, which is, no, this was a period in their lives and they're not actually friends anymore. And it's a particularly complicated line for them in the walk because I feel like, unlike almost any show that's been on since you and I started doing a podcast, this is something that, This is a show that a lot of people felt ownership over.

Yeah, they wanted, and not just ownership over. Well, they, because everyone, everyone, everyone, like us, I would say, a lot of people who lived in New York City. Our age, who lived in New York City in their 20s or 30s, wanted to see, we all wanted to see our city reflected in this show to some degree. Even though it was when the show came on, we were older and it wasn't necessarily our city anymore. It never really was going to be that show. I think, you know, finale's tell you what the show always was in the eyes of its creators. and this was a show about the journey of one, the bumpy journey of one young woman.

Yeah. It wasn't really about everyone else. She says, she says, I'm mentally ill. I isolate people and I'm a quitter. I mean, she's at the, even at the very end of this series, I think that they were still trying to write business cards for Hannah to, like, tell people, I mean, no, she's not Carrie Matheson, but you're watching someone who is not, you know,

I think that partially because so much of the story, series is told through her perspective and she's the person who kind of determines a lot of courses of action for a lot of other people, you kind of have this feeling that Hannah is the atore of the show, that Hannah is somehow like creating this world around her. But I think that they went to great pain sometimes to show just how flawed she was. And I think that that was always the thing because it was written and sometimes it was often written, sometimes directed by the person who is also the star of the show, that it is always going to be confused with an act of egotism.

Yes. And that's why I think people had such, there was so much confusion about, like, is this what Lena Dunham is saying about X? But I also think it's worth noting that the show is uniquely suited to receiving that kind of scrutiny and criticism because, as Lena herself would admit, she made the show in an act during a period of enormous transition and artistic development in her own life. So the show that she threw together at the beginning, which we've said many times over the last few years, sometimes seemed at war with itself over whether it even wanted to be a TV show.

By the time we got to the end of it, these last few episodes, what we saw glimpses of was what I believe to be the show that maybe she kind of wanted to be making all along, which is a show where Hannah and Elijah lived together, because they're the closest friends, and Hannah has some confidence, has some belief in her. abilities, has some ground under her feet. That show, and the people she would meet in that show and the adventures they would go on, I mean, that was, like, Shoshana

was basically not on this season of television, and I loved the way they had nodded to that in the penultimate episode. She's like, no, I have new friends now. That's where I've been. I'm living a life in the city, and I have new friends, and I have a fiance, and that's what I'm doing. I'm not on pause. That episode was also dominated

by just more Hannah and Elijah. I'm like, this guy's not a girl. This guy wasn't even the show in the beginning. And I think that the only time that actually bothered me was that in a way that's very much like because I really enjoy Jamima Kirk and Adam Driver as performers was the Adam and Jess's stuff and the fact that I felt like that was a very natural, enjoyable and interesting relationship that then got warped and wrapped around Hannah again and end of season policy end of series politics that

we needed like one last Adam and Hannah moment. And I actually think that it would have been fine if they had bumped into each other and had that day. And then Adam went home at the end of the day, but hadn't announced in the beginning of the day that he was going to go find Hannah and raise her baby. Girls was great when Girls was about how you could. I think Gia told me to wrote about this in New York and the New Yorker actually about how you disappear into the city and how you can just disappear into a day in New York. And there were great episodes where characters did that. the panic episode. And that would have been really cool.

The Staten Island episode, the Crackset in the episode. And I always loved the show best, I think, when it was at its most New York in terms of what's possible and the way the city can make you feel and can warp your relationship with everything that you thought you knew. I do think it's worth noting, too, that the show, this is a show, I think now that it's in the rearview mirror, I don't think you can hold this up as people aren't going to be like, put this on Mount Rushmore because it has X, Y, and Z seasons that are just perfect television. But what it gave us and some of the things that it confronted us with and chose to play with, and some of the Ls it caught,

some of the mistakes it made, are truly important for the development of TV as an artistic medium. I really believe that. Also, the mix of drama and comedy that I think we now take as comedy was pretty fresh for television when that came on. And I think that what it tried to do at the end in terms of the ideas, the ideas, and emotions that it gave voice to in terms of the limits of female friendship versus the importance of female friendship and relationships, mothering as an idea, you know, how you value yourself worth in how these female characters do is really is radical and still is.

And is and is noteworthy and shocking. I mean, and people can say like, oh, well, she was just trying to make us react when she has the scene where she yells at Marnie while wearing the Ghostbusters breastpom. But it's like, those things exist. That's real. That's a real thing. And she put it on TV and made it funny and made it actually something the character was doing. There is value in being a provocateur in that way, even when I think your goal is not just to provoke. But I think overall, I think it really speaks to who Lena Dunham is as a creator and artist, not as the Twitter headline bait person, that the show ended on such a gentle and intimate note.

That's kind of what the show always was, even as it veered wildly all around. It ended so gently. I always found the show pleasantly surprising. Yeah, I really appreciated that choice. I do have to say, very curious about her professorship salary that afforded this fucking Ethan Allen slash Ethan Frome mansion on a hill. I guess the bottom dropped out in the Tivoli housing market. That's a real nice house. And it was like, real renovated.

She also just, like, caught a dope job at Bard. Like, that's, do they hand them out? I mean, again, these are the things that, it's a TV show. These are the things where it's like, we got to get her from A to B, so let's just do it. Let's just own. It'll put Ann Dowd in some funny rings and I'll ever say some stuff and we'll move on. But I felt like, could they have gotten like an non-refirbed, you know, colonial? Yeah, maybe an apartment downtown.

That took me a little bit out of it. But let's also celebrate one last thing. She had this little moment of connection and latching. and peace and learn some stuff. But the show never pretended that things were going to get better or easier. And also, look at Marnie. Marnie's kind of in a low place at the end of the show, and they're fine with that. She can only go up from here.

The segue, because we're going to move into the leftovers. She's going to love Weehawken. I appreciated the show as like, maybe she's not a genius. Maybe she's just kind of trashy. Like, I like that. The speech that Becky Am Beaconian, Baker gives to Hannah that sets her off on this journey, where she's just like, emotional pain is what everyone has every day.

It doesn't get better. Is kind of the subtext, or just the text text of the leftovers too. And I think that those are both very interesting. The Segway Prince Who was promised just came through. But for real, though, that is a very grown-up idea. Yes. It is a very contemporary idea and one that we all have to struggle with and live within our own ways. and I think, I'll say, I use eye statements.

Like, I have often thought of life as like, well, if only you do X, Y, and Z thing, then we're going to get to the place where you're happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's not that. That's me just dropping knowledge at minute 47 or whatever of the podcast. That sort of emotional discomfort has traditionally played better in movies because then you leave in that weird kind of middle place, like the end of the graduate or Michael Clayton, and then you go home. Sure.

It's harder to play on TV, which people generally turn to for comfort and for lulls at the end of a day. We are now in an era where TV is waiting deep into those waters. Girls left us with that. The leftovers is that. And it's particularly impressive in the cases of these two shows that they manage to be entertaining and have lulls, considering they are treading on emotional minefields and making it, that's where they're setting up the stage. So the best thing about last night's first episode of the season three of the leftovers, and we'll have a mega leftovers pod next Monday for folks to listen to with Damon Lindeloff,

where we talked to him about the first two episodes. is how lived in it feels. And it's lucky to feel lived in because it would have been a pretty big deal if they had canceled it after one season. But there was no guarantee that the second season was going to so drastically improve from the first season. And in the third season, everything from the way that Mimi Letter directs the episode, which is very handheld, but also the acting feels very naturalistic. and even the gestures that I think people used to mock like Kevin smoking are all feel like of a piece of this character.

He smokes. You know what I mean? When he gets stressed out, he smokes. And the interactions between the characters all feel like not like an ensemble where they're like, we have 10 people and there's like a B-Pla. It's like, no, like he's going through a day and the life in this town going into different rooms

where there are different people, all of whom know him in different ways. and it all tracks. So outside of all the biblical stuff, outside of all the doomsday apocalypse stuff, outside of the rapture, all that, it's crazy how that this season begins not only with like another friggin flashback

into, you know, this sort of puritanical time of a cult, but then hits hard reset on the thing that had been bothering people the most about this show by hitting the guilty remnant with a drone strike. Now, I assume that there's a possibility that we could see them again in some capacity. Well, the one thing about the leftovers, his characters can reappear because the afterlife is a thing. But I do wish we could have just been fly on the wall on Damon's like between seasons, like hiatus phone call with Liv Tyler, where he's like, so good news.

I just need one close up of you inhaling a cigarette. You're coming in and peace. The white suit still fits, but then we are shooting a missile in your face, and that's it. A couple things here. I've never done a 180 on a show more than on this show. I hated the first season. My hatred of it is well documented on the website www.grandland.com. I stand by my reviews.

The first season upset me in a very deep way, made me angry, which is actually an emotion that's connected to love. So I did think it was playing with something that bothered me. I was overly upset about it. I didn't just say, nah. I mean, it wasn't like Iron Fist. Like this show got me, but it made me upset. I remain dazzled by what Damon and all of his collaborators did to basically just turn the knob and let the light in, let the weirdness in, and make the show feel like, make this funereal show feel like awake, basically. It is a wild, crazy, insane show about death and loss.

I mean, it just makes raspberries at the afterlife. That's what the show is now. And it's very, very emotional and very effective and pretty brilliant. to your point to go back into this world of like old friends all of a sudden whoever would have thought that the show would have felt welcoming

like you'd be happy to be around these lunatics again but then to see where they've gone where they've changed the completely coincidental things they've named their horses you know I found that very welcoming and exciting you mentioned the opening flashback

I do have to say and I don't think we got into this with Damon so we should say it now I was told I have it on good authority from Damon and from my buddy Patrick Somerville who worked on the show, they tried to get us again. Like, they're on record that they made partly, partly that Clan of the Cave Bear opening season two so that we would talk about how much we hated it.

They were trying to bait us. Yes. I hated it. I fell for it. The second one or the first season? Sorry, guys, I like this one. And I don't know whether that's because I like the show now or I'm just ready to go along the journey

or I like the soundtrack choice, which actually is, turns out to be they chose the song that's from the 70s, from basically a cult Christian folk band. But I loved the way the character literally rolled into our current situation. Like it felt more of a piece. Did you buy the opening of the season? Did you enjoy it? Yeah, I thought it was thematically.

It's talking about how eternal and timeless the questions of this show are. And I think you could make a lot of arguments about some of the plot mechanics of the show still being a little bit janky, you know what I mean? and whether or not it's okay to introduce something like the guilty remnant, and then sort of be like, that's, like the answer is, there is no answer about that. But the core ideas of the show, which is, is there a heaven? And would you feel better or worse knowing that there is and you didn't get in? Or would you rather that there is no heaven and that there is just this unexplainable void that all these people went to?

and actually nothing matters. And that is a question that I think is timely. And is, and they answer it in ways that are true to the characters on the show. So Nora and her obvious way of dealing with it. And then there is the surface way that you kind of deal with that in your everyday life. We talked about girls and we talked about like the consequences and responsibility of adulthood. And then you may be able to get through every moment of your day. as like the sheriff of a small town

where you're basically helping every other person and then you need to put a plastic bag over your head to feel anything. And that is still where this show is, for sure. This is a show where a woman put on a bulletproof vest and had a prostitute shoot her for kicks. It always has been that show. Yeah, and that's just going to be what this thing is.

What I think about the show, what I think is brilliant about the show is that you said it. I mean, this is a show, when you say this is a show where characters have to live with an unexplainable void at the heart of everything they do, that show is called reality. on planet Earth for all of us, whether Donald Trump is president or that's just true.

And it can be uncomfortable to embrace, but the show has found a way to basically dramatize a deeply personal, deeply internal psychological struggle that I think is universal and able to do it in a way that feels appropriately hopeful and appropriately sarcastic about whatever it is it's going to find. But I will say there may be people who are still listening to this podcast who were out on season one who just haven't watched it at all. And I would say, just, If you want to put on your TV 101 visor, go back to TV school, there's a reason to watch the show for that alone. I think, first of all, I don't think we hadn't officially said it, but I want to give the show the bell. I think it is the most essential and most important show on TV right now.

And purely from a technical perspective, I think what the show does that is truly remarkable is that it is big in scope, widescreen in scope, and painfully intimate and manages to speak to the, to the, the relationship between those two perspectives. And our colleague, Lindsay Zoles, has a brilliant profile of Mimi Leader, who's the director who is technically responsible for a lot of that. And so it's worth reading that piece and considering it purely from just how she frames shots and how the world exists on the leftovers in season two versus season one when she came on. But just watch the scene work. Yeah, man.

There are throwaway character beats on this show that would dominate it. It would be enough for an episode on other shows. Just from the season three. I totally agree. I completely agree. When you see John and what's their name? Lori? Yeah, John and Lori's racket, what they're doing, and the way they interact with each other,

and you remember the fortune telling and you see the money shredder. These are throwaway things on the show. These are just details that they crafted, because as we talked to Damon about, you'll hear next week, like just the way they work in the room. It is the goal, I think. Allison was saying in the office, like, this show's one of its greatest gifts is how little it insults the intelligence of its audience. This show is packed. I mean, I will continue to complain about 50, 55, 60 minute episodes of TV, but the leftovers packs them with details, with moments, with grace notes that can really only come from, I think, the idealized version of a writer's room where everyone is collaborating the best idea wins, but there's a sure hand on the wheel that's like, okay, but we've got to tell the story.

So watch it, guys, it has the bell. We'll talk Thursday about Fargo. Yeah, and Vee. Yeah, probably Fargo and Veep. And then I might squeeze a little billions, solo billions talking. on there. And then... Letter from the billions vault. Next Monday, we have a special with Damon Lindelaw

talking about the first two episodes of Leftover. So that's really exciting. Thanks for listening. Great job, Branski. Thanks again to Uber for sponsoring today's episode. Enjoy the power of earning extra money whenever you want. Get your side hustle on and drive with Uber. No one will tell you when to come in or ask you to work late.

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