The Watch - ‘The Last of Us’ Is More Than Just a Zombie Show. Plus, the ‘Poker Face’ Premiere.

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about a heartbreaking, almost stand-alone episode of ‘The Last of Us’ (1:00) and how all of the small details came together to make this an impactful episode of television (16:48). Then, they talk about the first episode of ‘Poker Face,’ a new mystery show created by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne (43:06). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the run. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. am an editor at the rigger.com and joining me in the studio the bojolet to my rabbit. It's Andy Greenwald. Oh, the bojolet tastes extra fine this morning. Oh, brother, we're going to be talking about a very special episode of The Last of Us, the third episode which aired last night. It was the perfect

digestif. After a glorious day of camaraderie from you and me. Yeah. Shout out to all the Phillyheads. Ruthie and Zach we watched with. Amanda, who sort of watched it. She's broadly supportive of us. And when I say watched it, I'm not talking about

poker face. I'm not talking about night court. I'm not talking about anything that's currently on the Peacock Network. It's not the last of us because really our Super Bowl journey is just beginning. Yes.

I'm talking about the Philadelphia Eagles triumph over the San Francisco 49ers. And a lot of people saying maybe we don't deserve it, Andy. Yep. People coming up to me on the street saying, sir. How can you go on to the Super Bowl, knowing that you defeated a fourth string quarterback?

There was no fourth string. We knocked out Purdy. We knocked out Josh Johnson. Then it was just like three quarters of Wildcat and a dude with nerve damage handing the ball off. Which weird about this argument that this was somehow an illegitimate victory is what happened to those quarterbacks? Yeah, we took them out. I'm sorry? Yeah, I'm sorry.

We were playing football. Yeah. Just like us, you know? Podcasting like football, contact sport. Full contact sport. Yeah, Kaya's here to make sure that, you know, we patch all concussion protocols. She just threw a flag. We're going to pick that flag back up.

Also, I want, speaking of concussion protocols, there's something I'd like to give as a gift before we get into our conversation about these big TV shows, which is a gift to our most vocal segment of our fan base, which is the CR heads, the Sea Army. Okay. And I feel like at this point, after many years of unpacking the sacred texts that come down off Spotify Mountain multiple times a week, they know you pretty well. Yeah, I guess so. They know some, they know maybe you used to smoke a cigarette or two, a lung dart, as they say, back in the day. What I don't think they know is that in addition to all your many obvious and celebrated skills, you are also really a crack diagnostician and armchair physician. To watch a sporting event with Chris is really like walking into the Princeton Teaching Hospital

at the peak of Dr. House's powers. Yeah, not when he was on his decline. No. Not when he was riddled with painkiller edition. No, the pills were there, but they were working for. Sure. You know that sweet spot where it's all lined up just the way you want it to be? Because to watch football with Chris is a player is impacted, is tackled,

and there's just a scoff from the couch and a voice says, that's a broken collarbone. I thought Fred Warner broke his collarbone. He was lying face down on the link field holding his collarbone area. So I was like, I bet he broke his collarbone. Yeah, and then you were telling us that's like five to six weeks, recovery. I didn't say that. You were like, anytime any player went down, though,

you're like, that's not barbecue sauce, that's blood. Nick Bosa was bleeding. So I knew we were going to talk. You didn't know we were going to talk about this, but I didn't expect the response would be, I was right. Like, I really, I'm shocked about that. I got, I misdiagnosed Fred Warner.

If I had been the doctor for the Niners, I probably would be like, brother, I don't even have to check. That's a collarbone. There were different times when Brock Purdy was on the sidelines. And you're like, Oh, he's fine. He's coming back in. Look at him, grip.

He did come back in. He just couldn't throw. Yeah, he said he couldn't throw more than five yards. So your takeaway from this, this is also legendary, is that you were basically right about all that. That you were inside the blue tent, just taping people up. Oh, my God, the blue tent. I wish there was a blue tent for podcasting. Like maybe midway through a pod when you're starting to run out of takes, they take you into the blue tent and they work on you a little bit.

Here's the thing. Going into this game, there's a lot of updates about our guy Jalen Hertz, who has my vote for president of the United States in 2024. It's not announced his candidacy, but I think he makes a compelling argument. And they're like, well, the thing about Jalen Hertz is he's not 100%. Chris, I haven't been 100% since 2003. Yeah.

Who is 100%? Yeah, I think after you turn like 34, you're at 100% days are numbered. I said the year I was 26, but okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm a special case. Incidentally. Yeah. So I have two bits of business.

One is President Hertz has a nice ring to it. It sounds amazing. Because not only do you feel like it would maybe frighten off any enemies of NATO. Yeah, because the president will hurt you. But also, like, kind of appeals to the American football segment of this. Like, oh, the president also hurts, you know, like. Yes. Yeah, I can be emotionally vulnerable with my president.

Shout out Michael Stipe. Yeah. What about Secretary of War, Hassan Reddick? We just rebrand the Pentagon. How would you feel about that? When did they get rid of a sec of war? There aren't enough temple grads in the cabinet. I'd be happy to join his office.

I did not graduate from temple. No, but you made your bones there. Yeah, that's right. You diagnosed a few broken bones there. Speaking of CR heads, can I do a little bit of admin? Of course. I'm going to be playing. It makes it sound like I'm going to be like, you know, solo guitar.

I'm going to be doing a live podcast next Friday. I just learned about this, and this is the watch. Yeah. It is the British version. version of you, which is my favorite version of you? No, it's, myself and James Lawrence Alcott are doing a live football podcast, soccer podcast. That'll be in Kings Cross in London. If you go to my Twitter, the information for the tickets are there, and we're also doing

shows essentially Thursday and Friday with Stadio, Ritey's House, Counter Press, the Rugby Pod, Fazcast. So it'll be a really good time. That's awesome. If you happen to live in London and want to come through. Are the details also on your Mastodon or no? No, they're on my post. Got it. Yeah, right?

Got it. That's exciting. Will you kind of push this through on Facebook? Because I know that's where you get a lot of your traction. It's weird. You know, I pivoted to video because I heard that's what Zuckerberg wanted, and I'm not getting the impressions that I thought I was. This is going to be a while time for you because you are returning to your home away from home.

Yeah. The UK. Yeah. At a moment of great stability over there. Things seem fine. Yeah. You're going to be switching footballs in midweek because we have a two-week window now before Super Bowl. Before Chief Seagulls, yeah.

Yeah. And is that going to be hard for you to sort of pivot between the sports? No, I think actually, like, I find it to be, while I appreciate like the fact that like hopefully some players will, you know, be able to mend everybody except from the homes, I want to see get healthy. But I find the two-week wait for the Super Bowl to be pretty interminable. Well, you've always been a big Pro Bowl guy. That's true. You just like a clean game. I love seeing the stars come out. Should we just get right into Last of Us?

Did you get a chance to see Pokerface at all? Of course. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about these two shows. This is... Where do you want to go first? Remember when you were like, March is going to be big for us? Yeah. It's still January. And we've got these two shows to talk about it.

Yeah. I want to hear what you... Let's do Last of Us. I think we should. Okay. This was an interesting situation where, you know, I believe HBO sent out a certain amount of episodes to critics, but in general, the word on Last of Us.

I try not to read any pre-season reviews because I like to try it and go in, like as week to week as possible, especially when a show is going to be as celebrated. Is that what the other NFC East defensive coordinators felt about the Eagles heading into September? That's right. Wink Martindale is like, I don't need to learn about this. Wink Martindale is like, I don't like watching tape, you know? Nope.

So I tried to like kind of keep a little bit of a suspension of, not suspension of disbelief, but I tried to stay in the dark about this. And then no matter what, though, you could tell that there was a drum beep coming for the third episode. Stick around to the third episode. I promise if you don't like it, still got to see the third episode. It's so amazing. So just to give people

like a little bit of context and break it down a little bit, the third episode is called Long Long Time. It's three quarters of a standalone episode. There's some Jol and Ellie stuff in the beginning and some Jol and Ellie stuff at the end, but for the most part is, it's not quite a bottle episode,

but it's like almost a message in a bottle episode, which features Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, two of the most accomplished character actors working in television or film, would imagine, as these two guys who come across one another and find love in a hopeless place. They are there living outside of Boston together. And Bill, who Nick Offerman plays, is a doomsday prepper living in a town called Lincoln in his mother's house. Seems very self-sufficient, but it's in fact a doomsday prepper. Those are not mutually exclusive. No. I do. What if you

were really needy doomsday prepper? That's the thing. It's like, I, I have a lot of guns and like duct tape, but I just love people too much. I'm a people person. My doomsday prepping is just getting chat GP to mimic you texting me back so I can be like, hey, what's popping today? Do you think chat GP could send you the dizzying array of Facebook movie posts that I send you? I don't think it would understand like the irony, but not really.

AI Andy is just like, where do you think about Zachary Levy? This guy hates Pfizer, huh? Zachary Levy hates Pfizer. Wow. That was a great blog post to come across last night. Anyway, this guy Bill, he's living outside of Boston, doomsday comes, he hits up the Home Depot, he starts up the generator, he's doing great. Like, this is what he's been waiting for, he doesn't like people, he's now alone.

And then one day, he finds in one of his defensive holes that he has built around his... Something the Eagles don't have. I'm going to be insufferable. I just want everyone to know that. It's going to be rough. He finds a guy named Frank, who is the lone survivor of a band of people who would be... been trying to make it to a quarantine zone. And Frank is stuck in this hole.

And Bill and Frank is like, I'm going to kill you. Frank's like, well, like, think about that. And that's the start of a beautiful friendship that evolves into a beautiful romance. And they wind up spending the better part of the next two decades together. We can get into a lot of the details. But essentially then comes to this really gorgeously rendered conclusion, the end of this story. What did you think of The Last of Us doing a very special episode of The Last of Us

just three episodes into its run? I have to say it's a funny double feature too with Pokerface where once again we have like road trip standalone episodes with interesting guest stars and a lot of stuff about like gnarly rest stops. You know, some real overlap in my viewing yesterday. Look, I thought this was great. And I thought it was great for a number of times. of reasons that we're going to get into. But first of all, I had to think it was great. We are now in

the second decade of me complaining about the walking dead being like, what about the walking living? Yeah. Wasn't there? I mean, you could, you could, you shouldn't, but you could go back into the Granlan archives. And I'm sure in one of the many, like, tortured 3,000 words about a show I clearly don't like pieces that I turned out for the website saying, like, come on, like, let's be more creative here in the zombie apocalypse. There must be someone whose life is better now. what would that even be? What would that look like? What could it look like?

If you have people watching anyway with zombies, you put one zombie kill in the episode, and then you can do whatever you want. Yeah. This has been a platform that I have been on from the beginning. That in charter schools. I'm going to get us in trouble today. Sorry.

So this is what I was asking for. Yeah. And I was thrilled. I was thrilled by it. And again, you start to see a pattern here, three episodes in, of a really interesting and delicate dance that I believe Craig Mason is doing

with the video game source material where he does seem to be, we are not the authorities on this, but he seems to be respecting it and translating it and adapting it. But he is also using every opportunity at his disposal to broaden it, to deepen it, to enrich it.

And I thought that it was a really beautifully told story and also not just beautifully told. this is going to come up again in our poker face conversation. But let's talk about the structure. Yeah. Because to introduce not one, but two characters and essentially an entirely new location and context and choose correctly the scenes to depict in order to give us the maximum amount of return for our eyeball time in terms of buying in, in terms of believing, understanding the context,

feeling the emotions, and earning where it inevitably was going to go, which, no, let me refaise. there was nothing inevitable other than people in this world of the show seemed to die. But spoiler, that's actually inevitable for all characters on all shows and all humans in life. So I was very, very impressed by it. And we could choose two tracks because we could talk about it creatively and what was specifically good about this. But also just this was a, for me, this was a big vote of confidence in the show. It made me feel a lot. I was enjoying it, but this made me feel a lot more exciting.

There's a version of this show that is like Joel and Ellie come across a challenge, meet someone, that person somehow helps them or stops them from this challenge, and then go on to the next one. And it could essentially function as like a, like you said, a road trip movie, but a really lightly serialized, like, you know, kung fu. Like, it could just be like they travel the land and get into adventures together. That's poker face. Yeah.

And which is actually what Ellie does in the basement of that 7-11. it's poke his face. Am I reaching too hard for this? No, I mean, I want to get to the Joel and L.A. stuff. But as far as what the Frank and Bill story means, and just for, I was looking at this, like, as we've said, neither of us have ever played the game. And I'm not really overly enthralled by, like,

what from the game it takes. Like, it's interesting, but it's not super important to me. I did think it was interesting that Bill is a character in the game, but is essentially a character that seems very agitated and you don't really know why or, I mean, there is this guy Frank. He and Frank have had a relationship where I think Frank takes his own life. And Bill is essentially there to like give them supplies, I think. Kind of like, and you know, when you come across someone, they're like, I have these things for you to take on

your journey. As an act of imagination, it's amazing. So Linda Ronstadt does not figure in the original game? That's a missed opportunity. And that's a really good segue though into like the thing that made this really sing was the details. And, you know, when you're essentially recreating society and, you know, you're building out a world from out of whole cloth, you can do things like what, you know, the way that they set up how Bill is living off the grid, but essentially like, you know, growing his own food and hunting his own food, but obviously has like developed a taste for some of the finer things in life.

He likes an Oki, California cab. Well, I thought that his presenting of that meal was like, can you imagine if you're frank and you're like, I'll probably never eat anything beyond what I need to sustain myself again. Yeah. And then you come across this situation in a house that seems to be frozen in time with the dust on the shelves. And this weird guy brings out like a Michelin-starred preparation of rabbit. He turns the plate on the serving plate, so it faces the diner correctly. And the fact that Frank recognizes the touches, you know, like that he's just like, oh, you know to pair this wine with this food. And there's such a great exchange there where like Bill is like you would have said this about anything.

You're starving. You know, and you're starving. And he's just like, no, like this is, it's not just starving. It's not just that you're feeding me. It's that you're loving me. Yes, exactly. And that there's elements of their courtship, which is essentially that one scene. that take advantage in a think in a very clever

and ultimately respectful way of the audience's unformed expectations at this point in the show where different versions of this show or different dystopian versions might have suggested that Frank isn't who he appears to be. Sure. That there's going to be a double cross or a killing or some sort of betrayal

that when Frank sort of grabs the wheel from Bill and grabs the Linda Ronset songbook and sits down at the piano, that his appetite in that moment or his presumed knowledge of Bill, he's probing, he's getting a sense, he feels that there's something unsaid here that proves to be true, that that emotion or want coming off of Frank is somehow unwelcome or is going to get a different response than it gets from Bill. But no, this is at this moment, the show is laying down a marker that it's going to be about people. Right. And it's going to be interested and respectful in the way human beings behave, regardless of the current state of mycology in the larger world.

And I found that remarkable and very touching. And I think, I mean, we can talk through their timeline, but I think we also just have to take a moment and be like, this is where the HBO of it and the Emmy-winning Craig Mason of it as well really sings, which is, hey, we have this essentially bottle episode. Who are we going to get? Who can we get? Who's going to come work and essentially make a short romantic film together for however many days they shot this.

Knowing HBO is probably more than most basic cable shows got to shoot something. And they get Nick Offerman and they get Murray Bartlett. And it's a beautiful pairing, not just two beautiful beards, but you said in the beginning, like two of certainly my favorite character actors working. And people who know what they're doing in so many different levels. Like take Offerman, how many parts does he get for people who can car. of their own canoes out of wood. Like, that's his career and his life.

Sure. But there are many more aspects to him. And recently, you know, with devs, with the resort, he has been making a lot of, I always flag it when I use this adjective, but for acting, but fuck it. Brave choices. It's not brave to fall in love with Murray Bartlett. America has fallen in love with Murray Bartlett. I mean, I think he could just be doing a Ron Swanson spin-off on Peacock right now if

you wanted to. He has been taking his instrument and being like, guess what, I play sad songs too. Yeah. I can play yearning. I can play romance. I can play grief. If people haven't seen him in the resort, they should. It's a really great performance.

No, I think he does a really good job. A lot of these character actors, a lot of my favorite character actors, are so in tune with their instrument. Like, they are so aware of, like, what people know them from and understand of them. But they're more, like, beyond that, but beyond, like, the perception of them, I think they understand how their faces work. I think they understand how they carry themselves in a way that that's free of, I need to be on the cover of variety, you know, or I'm going to be, you know, in two Leslie, you know? I mean, everybody wants their own two Leslie these days.

Yeah, but you know what I mean? Like, Nick Offerman knows what baggage we bring to a Nick Offerman part, but also our willingness to let Nick Offerman cook a little bit. And in this case, cook Rabbit. So I thought that all those little notes were great. And can we just say Marie Bartlett, too? I just, like, as someone who I don't usually brag about when I got in on crypto, you know, because that's for other podcast that I do that I talk to about.

So when did you seed invest in Marie Bartlett? Looking. Yeah. He was on this podcast. Yeah. He's a phenomenal actor and, like, such a charming actor and, like, Offerman, like, really comfortable in what he can do and what he can bring. And he got the White Lotus.

And, like, thank you, Mike White for, like, just amplifying him. and now this can be his career too. God, they were really great together. I mean, that's a really hard thing to create a lifetime, essentially, of love between characters in 36 minutes, 40 minutes. Yeah, like, they did about 12 minutes of the stuff in the beginning of them going to the convenience store,

and then there's about 10 minutes of them going into town. I thought also, you know, this echoed, I felt like there are parts of this that echoed Station 11, the idea that survival is not sufficient. I also was so glad that we did the Chernobyl watch as we were watching this because I thought that there was elements of what we were seeing on screen that reminded me of the choices the Lagasov and Shcherbina character make once they've kind of understood that they're condemned to death,

even if just in this figurative way, they don't literally know the moment, but they're like, these two guys who are in Lincoln, Massachusetts, you know, they're like, the world is never going to be the same. There's danger in every corner. Something could happen to one of us at any time. But what do we do? Do we hide out in the basement with guns?

Or do we plant flowers and start to reach out? And the way in which they help each other do that, the way in which Frank obviously gets built to connect with the outside world via Tess, especially, is really cool. And I thought that there's a version of this story that was literally a bottle episode with no connection to Joel and L. And the fact that you can take a lot from this and apply it to Joel and Ellie is I thought really good.

This was the teachable moment to buttress that relationship and make us understand it a different way and make us understand their choices. I thought that was really, really well done. Three things to respond to. One, the station 11 of it. I've already gotten a text this morning. This is not sir, sir, with tears in your eyes.

This is a legitimate text from someone being like, that episode was good. But... Philadelphia fans crying out on the street saying we don't deserve... this, we only beat Danny Dimes and Josh Johnson. You got to play the games in front of you. That Station

11 did this for a whole season. So what's the acclaim? And the acclaim for me is, this show isn't Station 11. This show isn't trying to be Station 11. This is a show that could coast into being Walking Dead, aka one of the most genre, like game-changing successful shows in

recent television history. It could do that. It's choosing to stretch and develop different muscles. And I think that is a reason for excitement here. In addition to almost anything else. I think that's awesome. I did the thing where I say three things to respond to, and I only remembered the first one.

Okay. Oh, the Joel and Ellie part. That was a pivot point. This is only two of the three, but I'm sure the third will pop back up. Not to... Oh, wait, no, I remember. Okay. So here's the other HBO of it that's amazing.

Okay. The other thing that HBO can do is say, like, oh, when Craig comes to them, Greg, we're friends now because we watch Chernobyl four years late and say, I want Anatoor for another episode. I know she's not cheap nor should she be, but she's going to be in this. That means she's going to get her episodic to be in this extra episode for one scene, basically, because it's going to be cool for backstory.

Maybe we'll do this again, even though she's off the show ostensibly in the current timeline. And it's not a thing. She's there because that makes sense. Not all shows have the budget to do that. And I thought that was, it's surprising. It weaves it in a way you didn't expect. And it tells us something more about that relationship that we thought was already done, which is all important and all leading to my other point, which is to say, I find Frank and Bill a lot more compelling than Joel and Ellie.

Well, as of now. We got to see the 20 years of their life together. We've gotten to see like four days of Joel and Ellie. Yeah. So I just want to throw that out there. I don't know whether that's steering into it and being like you're going to be with these guys for longer and look what we can do when we have more. I mean, there's intention to all of this, but did that, does that strike you in any way as noteworthy that them in a convenience store in the beginning isn't nearly as compelling as these strangers? Look, I think that they're doing the lone wolf and cub thing where there's going to be this protector figure and this child savior figure.

And I think that there are inherent expectations that come along with a relationship like that. And there's limits that come along with a relationship like that. I am starting to get kind of amused by Ellie's unfrozen caveman lawyer bit where she's just like, a plane! I have never seen one of these flying birds before. How do you move this vehicle forward on four wheels? I'm just an unfrozen caveman lawyer. She's like, this is magic.

It's like a spaceship. It's a shitty Ford or Toyota or whatever it is. So I find that pretty funny, but I think we'll get that. there. I think ultimately it's like, the idea that you're supposed to take from Frank and Bill is that, you know, you will find your, like, you can find this sort of replenishing of the fountain of human interaction in lots of different places. You can find a purpose. And I, and I think that. Yeah, to use the words he uses at the end. But also that it is a really smart comment on a character that was delivered to

Mason and his other collaborators from Neil Druckman and his collaborators in the video game, let's say rough clay. Right. The implication, and this is, I assume this is, I know this is fine for me if I was playing the game, and I imagine it was fine for people who inherited the game. The game starts when you power it up. Obviously, there's backstory, there's other things.

But what this steered into in a way that I think I admire and makes me eager to watch the show going forward is that it is explicitly acknowledging that Joel has not been alive for the last 20 years of his life. That he is, he did stop. Yeah. He shut down. And there's a great little throwaway line,

I'm sure Anna Torv will probably keep cash in checks because we're going to find out a little bit more about this. But when Tess is about to light herself and all the state house zombies on fire, she's like, I never asked you to feel the same way. Now you could take that as like, I never asked you to be like a nice guy, But I imagine that she loved him in a way that he did not her, you know,

and that we will find out more about that. But yeah, I thought that there's like the sort of the ways in which Joel and Ellie can grow as a relationship is really exciting. You know, and to see, I hopefully it won't just become now they love to banter. Like I think that like it will give him a sense. Obviously he's got this old wound from his own daughter passing away. And he's got to like open himself up to things. There are some things that are relatively predictable,

but we're kind of getting away from what I really wanted to ask you about. Don't forget it. I just want to say that the other smart thing. It's written down right in front of me. You write down things for this pod? I just thought you were checking your email again. You seriously think the whole time I'm looking at my computer, you think I'm looking at Twitter or something?

Yes. Or truth social. I mean, I don't know. You just got to check your Menchies. I figured. Just the very subtle and very smart. Did you see that Trump said that George Santos was telling a lot of whoppers? Here's Chris's

Fave that on truth social Chris's Zag as he's back in on 45 Just for the content This is the most wild Wild I'm not I'm not

I'm not Like but you're like You're back for the loles You know what I mean? Like it's 2015 all over again In your head And you're like Can you believe what this guy says

To Cruz Golden Escalator That's hilarious I don't even like that in 2015 You were You were loving it You were loving it that the show does a very subtle twinning of the two of the two couples,

even though we only have the one flashback. And that the implication is that Tess and Frank are alive and are seeking life and have some emotional joy or whatever still in them. And that Bill and Joel do not. I love that Bill and Joel do not like each other and never do. Yeah. But that Bill recognizes that both that Joel can survive and can help Frank, in that moment when he shot and he thinks that that's where things are going,

but that he, in the end, is like, there is a gift for you, you know, and it's not the truck. You could be alive because I was. And that's a very sweet thing. And it's, again, I came in wondering if that was an issue that I liked these two new characters more, but even just in talking about it with you briefly, like, that's what this episode was doing. Yeah. It was addressing that.

When Tess isn't, when Tess, when Joel's trying to get Tess to go back to Boston before he realizes that she's been bitten. And he's like, we got to go home. And she's like, this is not my home. You know, because she wants something more than just the QZ. She wants something that's like, like has echoes of like the life that used to be. She wants the camus cab. So two things. One, one question I had was, do you feel like the bag of crushed up pills at the end was taken from the industry prop department?

Prop closet? Yeah. They make a, send an email to HBO and they're like, does anyone have a bag of crushed up ketamine we can use. Well, when I think, yes and no, I don't think they took that directly because I think there's some import-export laws determining, like, the transport of fake drugs. I'm not sure if you've seen the amazing Andrea Reisbrose show, 0-000. It seems like it's... There are ways around that. We should have led her... Just get Gabriel Byrne in a boat. We should have led her Emmy campaign, by the way, for that. Just like... I did. I did. But Jen Garner refused to get on board.

Her silence was deadening on that. So I think what they did was they were like, Dear Prop Master of Last of Us, I think from what I know about Craig, he's very formal. He writes emails like Civil War documentary letters. Can I have a bag of a fatal dose of pills? And they gave him what to most eyes would be a correct amount. And then he realized that he needed to be more specific. And he was like, could I please have a Rob from industry on one bag, Avon and Knight? You know what I mean?

A Tuesday in Oxford. Harper spinning out. And then they got what they needed. they got what they needed. Next question. Yes. This is the big one. I would like to hear Kyah weigh in on this, actually,

because she's spent a lot of time with us, and recently a lot of a time with us in person. Kaya froze, but she's ready. She's always ready. Do you think, let's say there's a zombie apocalypse. A zombie pock. Yeah. You're on the run.

We've already established, I would not be, but yes. The 10 people you're traveling with one thing after another, and then you find yourself alone, you fall into a hole. It's like the 49ers' quarter, back room. Yeah. If you will. Who comes out but CR? CR, maybe my mustache has grown a little bit more, you know? Am I in the hole? And you come out of the house? We don't know each other. But where am I? In a hole. Great. I come out of a house and I'm just like, I'm going to kill you.

You're like, please don't. I'm like, all right, how about this? You come in, I'll make you some lunch. You come into my home. Yep. And, uh... Pictureing your mom's house for some reason. Yeah. Might as well. And I serve you a glorious wet chicken. I saw this. Yes. Okay. Lightly season. I love this. So, so lately. The season just washed off. The last few kernels of garlic powder that I

have. The water just... Do you say, man, thanks so much. I'm actually a vegetarian. And then take off, or are you like, what piano music do you have? I, I want to say something... Do you think you and I would be 20-year life homies? I want to say something honest. Yeah.

I think we could build a beautiful life together. Do you think that we would divide responsibilities? Well, I don't know. What I first I need to say is I gotta be me and I would be like This chicken needs work and you would put a bullet in my head I feel too bad that's the last chicken that was the last the last of us poultry division I think that I would not be able to pretend to be grateful enough and I would have to say something a little sideways And that would be the end of it What do you think would happen if I was like and I you know of course I wouldn't serve chicken by itself

And I was like I have this lovely mushroom for tat Like, what do you think is like the deal with serving any kind of fungi as food in this day and age? I mean, there's an element of it which is just like thrill-seeking. When people eat blowfish, you know, there's like a little bit of a risk involved. Oh, for sure, yeah. You know, I think it's fun. I don't think it's like a year one of our broie life together. I think maybe that's like a year seven.

Let's spice it up. You know, which is not what Frank and Bill were like because they did spend 20 years on what appears to be a twin mattress. Yeah. Which... I didn't get that. I mean, I understand people love each other, but it's like,

if you've got a couple other bedrooms... That's broken other couples. Yeah. Like, clearly lesser couples. Oh, my wife and I are like at each other's throats and we have like a queen-sized bed. I'm just like, if you fucking turn over one more time,

I swear to God. Kaya, do you think that Andy and I would be able to keep it together for two decades? Yeah. I think you guys would build a really beautiful life together. It's off of watching Eagles game. Reruns.

Yeah. I have a videotape of only... that game? Like, what if I was like, here's the part where we Shatter Brock's owner nerve. Just watch it again and again, like this is a Pruder film. Yeah. Kaya, do you think we could, I don't think we could do it without you, though.

Just like calling balls and strikes, you know, just like making sure that we don't get too high, too low. Am I the Joel or the tests in this situation? I don't know. You have to tell us. Do you feel like you're more of a Joel or a test? I think I'm more of a test. Okay.

That's what I think. Yeah. Maybe we're all too many tesses here. Too many tests. Yeah. Too needing of human connection. Yeah. I would be on the radio and just be like the CR heads that reach out.

They want to come hang out and Lincoln. I just feel like there was a really beautiful and natural division of labor. And by labor, I mean physical and emotional within Bill and Frank's household, such that. If I was awoken in the night to the sounds of Raiders being burned alive by flame throwers, I would be like, Frank. I would be like, Chris, Chris, the men are on fire. It's raining. Yeah. What do we do, Chris?

But would you be out there with a rifle being like, my plan is working perfectly? Yeah, I don't know why he felt the need to finish dudes off. It sounded like, it seemed like everyone was being lit on fire. Like, he exposed himself. It didn't seem, it seemed like it was well-hand. Or maybe get more of like a little bit of an eagle's nest to be doing the shooting from. You know what I mean? Like a slightly more guarded position.

Is that what you call Zach's living room at the eagle's nest? What else did I want to ask you about? Oh, so just in terms of watching the show. Yes. I know one of your old chestnuts is shows teach you how to watch them. You love it. You love when I break that one out. Look at us.

We are a 20-year-old couple. Do you go into the subsequent episodes of this show now, like, dazzle me, Craig Mason? You know, if you get a next episode and it's just Joel and Ellie driving, listening to tapes, bonding. I'm not going to know. I think that what this, looking at the body of work over three episodes, my main takeaway is this is a show made with intention that does not skip the details, that spends time in the margins, that spends time on the details. And in fact, has already earned so much trust from its audience that it can do something that I'm glad I had a moment to call out, which was a misdirect of its obsession with details. And that moment is when Ellie is like, oh, I think what you're afraid. of me seeing is gone, oh, here's the mass grave. And we get a little commentary about what happened.

These people were not sick. Something terrible happened. And then it comes to life. There was a government massacre of uninfected people who I assumed they were like, we can't actually bring these people into the QZ. We don't have supplies or whatever. And there was a moment, because this episode was different, it didn't begin with a flashback, unless I missed it. I really hope I didn't. And then it flashes back. And you would not be. out of bounds to believe that we were going to follow that mother and her child to their execution. Like I say, so all I had read was episode three, big episode, oh my God, episode three. And when it started with the mother and the baby, I'm like, if we're going to watch 40 minutes, building up to this mother and baby getting mowed down in a mass grave, like, I can think of more fun ways to spend my Sunday night.

Like rewatching the Hassan Reddick Sachs. Or just like episode four or five of Chernobyl. Exactly. like a much or four, frankly. I agree. And I think that that was also a sign that the people driving this magic truck, to use the Ellie metaphor, are respectful. Yeah. And know where our expectations are going and know what they need to communicate to get the tone right

of the show that they want to make. And I was very, very impressed by that. And that was evident in Chernobyl, which did show a lot of skin melting. But not too much, I would argue. I mean, it goes up to the line. and you understand the humanity of it. And that was a very, very smart misdirect. And yeah, it's just, I like the show more now.

I like the show already. And I'm not ever going to ding a series no matter what it is for taking the time to do a human story like this. It's only additive. The only way it could have been improved on is if, as they were driving away in that truck, Joel turns to Ellie and is like,

I'm going to play you the last rock album. And he puts on, turn on the bright lights by and full. and New York Cairs plays. Wait, what if he played that, was it the obstacle single that had like the specialist on it that wasn't on the album? Yeah.

And he's just like, this was the last CD single. Even Joe was an Interpol completest before. Yeah, I think he went by, man, what's an Austin record? I really, if I could pull out an Austin record store. He was like, I was down on 6th Street. Yeah.

And someone was like, with tears in his eyes was like, sir, sir, sir. Yeah, sound exchange. Yeah. It's like, please listen to the CD single. It's the last one. Anyone will ever. make. As cordyceps burst through his head. And Joel was like, but I just read on SonicNet that the new

pornographers have signed a Matador. What have they got to say? It's like, no time. No time. Anything else about, you know, I had like a little note here about like the worldview of the show in terms of its, you know, obviously we're getting like these little nuggets of how this happened and how the world reacted to it. I was not a fan of finding out that this was a food-borne illness. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Personally, I like cereal. Mm-hmm. You're a big grain guy.

I kind of do. I am. I got to say. You still like the old pyramid. I never backed away. Remember the old food pyramid where it was like 19 servings of American wheat every day? And then you could put like one broccoli stem on top. Frozen peas. Yes. There's like a fish wrapped around. A block of American cheese. A block of Swiss cheese.

Like who eats like, you know who eats like this? Chuck. I just like, like, Remember when they just used to be like, here's 64 grams of processed sugar in golden grams, part of a healthy daily breakfast? Yeah, and the healthy breakfast was you put blueberries in it, like fruit sugars on top of it. We were a great country once. I know, and then I was like wondering why I wanted to wrestle for four hours after that. Yeah, so not psyched about the foodborne element of this, although Joel,

not exactly Dr. Scott Gottlieb, he's just like, well, some people, say it came through the bread. I'm like, did they? Is this lab leak? What is going on here? Say Zachary Levy Levi's like, I thought you know, Chris, you love to get on the mic in this podcast and just make fun of the way I get my

information. But what I'm doing is I'm just the audience. I'm just getting my sources straight from meta, like the best adjudicator of what's fake and what's real news. And one thing that I get, in addition to things being like Adam Driver joins the Marvel universe is

these videos that people make pop up on the news feed of the old FB and it's just like a guy you know when you're green screening at home on Zoom and you see the edges around the person they put themselves in front of the thing and he's just like Joel almost got sick in the pilot look at all the times

he almost ate gluten it's just like pancakes for breakfast lucky you were sold out brother so I guess it was a thing in the pilot that we didn't notice that they are constantly being offered hammering breakfast food no like when Ali goes Not Ellie, when his daughter goes next door and they're like, would you like these cup biscuits?

Yeah. She's like, no thanks, no time. He's on Atkins. He's, yes. Well, he's not. I mean, I don't think he is, really. No, they didn't have that then. Did they not?

I don't know. They were too busy just rocking out to untitled number one. Stella was a diver. I don't have time for the sandwich. Stella was a diver. Oh, God. That's really hitting for the three people who know what we were talking about. But they love it.

That's why they subscribe. Yeah. No, but then this episode, Joel basically did. the in-game, in-show version of that dude's YouTube video. Yeah. Where he's like, people say that I dodged some bread bullets

20 years ago. Right. You know, and I never had the stomach for this stuff. And then we got the first real, I mean, aside from Fedra's neficistic ruling of Boston, which might have been better

for Boston at the end. But I'm sorry, wait. Are we going to, I'm sorry to interrupt, but like, are we to believe that the survivors are predominantly people who went to restaurants and were like, can I have a side salad?

Can I have to, yeah, I can't eat the bagel? You know what I mean? Like, I know this is a sandwich restaurant. I know. Can I just have it in the lettuce wrap? Like, they're the ones who survived? Death never heard a single person in my life say I'll pass on, I'm gluten intolerant until I was like, until I was like, nobody was doing this until 2017. This wasn't a thing.

Now, I respect the people. It was probably after the fourth Patriot Super Bowl that people were like, we got to stop eating bread. Because of Tom Brady. Yeah. They still eat nightshades. Yeah. What's up with that? I know. Better lobbying? Look. It's legit. But I kind of respect people more who are like,

I'm just not doing bread. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's fine. Well, I mean, I'm not doing lunch with you, but okay. That's fine. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime.

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Let's talk about poker face. Anything else on the QZ here? I feel like you had a couple more. No, that was it. I wanted to know what you thought about our life together. I wanted to know. I'd like to continue to revisit this idea. I think that there would be some good things about our life together, frankly, some rocky moments.

There would be. There would be some rocky moments. But we're seeing each other a lot more now than we were during the pandemic. You were getting a sense of it. Yeah. We're feeling each other out. I think that your newfound glasses routine would be a little bit of a problem for us. Routine.

Well, you're just like always taking them on and off. And I'm just like, when can you see? It's new. Yeah. It's new. When I podcast, it is like Luke going at the Death Star. This is the visor's down. I just trust it.

Let's talk about Pokerface. Yes. How many did you watch? Two. Okay. I watched three. Kaya? Did you check in on Poker Face?

Since you're the number one Peacock subscriber? I haven't watched Pogarface yet, but I did watch Sick on Peacock. Oh, you did? Yes, I did. My sister was visiting me this weekend, and she's a big horror movie person, so we checked it out. When will your sister come on the pod to talk horror? Anytime. Yeah.

What's incredible, and I kind of predicted this, what's incredible is that Kayet logged in to Peacock. Like, she was not missing it. PTV was happening for you. Hey, do you have, on Peacock, do you have your avatar? No, I don't. I just went with the standard peacock. Okay.

I have Mariska Haggarette. Oh, I didn't know that was an option. Yeah. Wow. No, I. What of all the characters in the NBC Universal Universe, Alf? Yeah. That was too easy.

100% Al. Not the new judge on night court. Oh, I heard her personal life took a turn in episode three. Yeah, episode three, she mentions she's in recovery. That is going to bring me back. Because I need America's truth to be reflected in its night courts. Night's court? Night courts, yeah.

Does it come up a lot? Because as we discussed, night crimes are often influenced by, you know, subsists. It explains her relationship to her father, Judge Harry Stone. It seems risky. Like, I hope that she's secure in her recovery because being up all night every night. Traditionally. Does Night Court just go to like 10, though? Go till 10.

I think it begins at 10. Have we ever nailed down the hours of night court? We didn't nail down anything about night court. Like, as to whether or not they were only prosecuting crimes at night, whatever, like, none of that stuff. I just had a vision. And, in fact, I always was under the impression that if you get busted, let's just say, if you get busted in New York City. you're really at the mercy of like if you get bussed on a Friday

you might not get seen until Monday so you have to spend the weekend in the tombs yeah well look first of all I just had a vision of Ryan Johnson with an old iPod being like they said they were going to talk about poker face and we're talking about night court I gotta hear what the guys have to say

do you like poker face I did just want to make one at last point my hope is in future in success in future seasons of the new night court we could have an episode on the weekend because I want to know if these guys how do they go to a day schedule on the weekends? Oh, right.

If they're up all night, their body clocks, the circadian rhythms. But they're in the right city. It's like if you were living in, if you were living literally almost anywhere else except for like Paris and Vegas, even London closes 11.

If they get out of the barristers get out of London night court. Chris, you ever been to Bangkok? Well, that's true. Get a little Macau Night court going. Night court, night market.

I feel like they can still get it on. You know what I mean? Like that John Bernthal's story. from the bear where they're just like we're at fucking series. We're putting down drinks. Bill Murray's there, the fucking Chicago Blackhaw. I think that's right. I just think there's a case to be made that these people have never met a day person in years.

Right. And their perception of life in Eric Adams, New York might be different. He's a nightmare from what I understand. So coming up, when I fly to England next week, I'm leaving at 10. Okay. I'm getting in at 4.30 the next day. Next morning? What's your...

The next p.m. You're leaving at 10? PM. Here. Yes. Getting in at 4 p.m. The next day in London. Head straight to night court.

No, but I'm going darkness for like, I think, 25 hours or something like that. I love that. That's going to be sick. Are Mickey and Conrad picking you up at the airport? Because I feel like they could get you through that. Probably. Okay. Poker face.

Is it exactly as good as people said it was. Yes. And is also one of those things where I'm like, it would have been enough just to be like, Natasha Leon, detective, that's a good idea. The level of execution in these first four episodes, I actually love the third one. I won't get too far into it, but it's got little rel in it.

But the really interesting ways in which it is kind of untethered to typical TV structure while also being the most TV thing on TV, rules. Like the fact that they have these sort of long languid openings to set up the case that she's going to be cracking. And also, and I know that this is the same for Colombo, but the fact that we know what happened,

it's about how she's going to figure it out, but they still maintain the same tension as a thriller is fantastic. I mean, the pilot is so dazzling and so, dare I say, important for people who work in this industry, who are fans of the medium, who are loyal peacock subscribers

at the premium tier, like our producer, Kaia McMullen. Above deck. That's the show she has access to. Need to watch this. It was astonishing. I've low-key bragged on this podcast for a while that I'd read this script,

and the script was incredible. It's one thing to read the script, and then it is another thing entirely to see it cast the way it's cast, to see the production designed the way it's designed, and most importantly, to see it directed the way it's directed. I mean, I know Sam S-Mail, Earmuffs,

Chris and I are big Cinephile We're always talking about direction on this podcast. We value it above anything else. It is dazzling. It was dazzling in the service of, to your point, like a Colombo case of the week show, the structure is so tight. It is so impressive the way it begins in the moment of the crime and then sort of does it's, like, oh, is it confusing?

Wait, we're back in time. She's alive again. Oh, but the visual language of the show is showing me where we are. We're seeing the hula dancer in the in the truck. So we know that it's the same truck. We're confident in that, but we're at a different time. All of the little, like, just little filigrees and camera movements and zooms. It's exhilarating to watch.

I mean, this is on such a high level, but it's treating something. Look, elevated genre is a thing, right? If you're like, oh, we're going to do the best case A-List prestige version of. Let's make this as slow and ponderous and oppressive as possible to make people feel like they're really watching, you know, broad church. Yes. This is taking something, the language, the visual language or the story beats. We know this.

I don't know if younger generations have spent time in shows like this, but this is in our bones. This is what TV was. And then seeing it treated with such love and expertise is wild. It's wild. I mean, this feels like a hit. It feels like a significant step. I don't want to say forward because it's, who knows what direction we're moving in,

but it's a significant step for what TV is going to become or could become. Yeah, I really hope people get a chance to see this. This is one of those things that, like, I kind of wish we still did really, like, creative programming ideas. Like, you know, we talked about this when Andor was on FX. And I think Andor actually played on linear television, didn't it? There was a moment around Thanksgiving when they played the first two episodes across the ABC Disney family of networks. It would have been sick

if they aired this after the most recent Sunday night football game. Like coming out of a Sunday night football game and then stay tuned for a special presentation of poker face available on Peacock. Like that would have we're old enough to remember when they did that with Homicide Life on the street when that was

like the show after the Super Bowl. I just think my mom would love this. People would love this everywhere. I think that it does a really good job of being set in a very creative realization of the

American Southwest right now so it doesn't it's not like another like New York or L.A. show. But it's like the vision of Vegas and New Mexico and you know, without getting too far into where she goes. She's just traveling east.

Like every week, I just feel like it's a very like cool setting that I just think people would really get into this if they had a chance to see it. So before, we should get into some of the specifics. But I'll say that I think that's not off the table.

I would not be surprised if the larger NBC Shineheart Whig Corporation uses the show showcases this show in as many ways as possible to get as many eyes on it as possible. But what they are doing does make corporate sense. Peacock, earmuffs, Kay up, Peacock needs eyeballs. She's already got headphones on. That's true. But I think that does the opposite.

But like putting earmuffs on top. It's kind of like when I thought Geiger counters were Richter scales. Are you ready to apologize for that? Look, I am nothing if not transparent. Let me tell you, I'm so in awe of your level of intellect. Wow. That I just assumed I was wrong. Thank you.

Yeah. I was wrong. Yeah. I was real, real wrong. And I, I'm just, I'm just very sorry. I dropped the Geiger counter music. I just, you know, just telling a lot of whoppers. Yeah.

Like freshman rep Santos. Peacock needs eyeballs and they need a hit and they need momentum and they need energy and Jews and people talking about it, this is what they need. And it seems like they've gotten what they need. And there's a world coming out of this weekend. Now, we do not have access to any numbers, and a lot of it has been anyway.

But there is a world where the executives in charge of this company can say, proof of concept, this is working. Because Peacock has tried from the beginning and got attention, got some credit for not coming out of the gate being like, we are a Netflix killer. they couldn't, are coming out of the gate being like, we are going to be all TV, we're going to be prestige, we're going to be HBO. Peacock's thing was always, we're going to be ad-supported,

we're going to be the TV that you already know and love with a similar tone in the NBC family. There's value in that. Like to be a bit more expensive. That person was fired, but then the rebranding came in. But, you know, I think anecdotally, or not even anecdotally, just from the outside, you could probably assume that the highest rated things on Peacock are the most watched sickiest things are all the Bravo shows that Kaya enjoys Yellowstone. Yellowstone, which they purchased

and would fit into this sort of old-style TV brand, the office reruns, Parks and Rec reruns, murder-she-wrote reruns. Law and order stuff, yeah. So their breakthrough hit was never going to be the 20-23 version of Breaking Bad, the most like, we're taking the biggest chance here, and this is going to work.

It needed to be this, and they found this, and they found a partner in Ryan Johnson who adds the patina of class and elevation, and honestly the talent and the incredible Rolodex. So there's a version of this where it's like, I don't know, I have too much NFL on my brain. I was about to be like the Chicago front office when Justin Fields threw twice and ran for 500 yards. We're like, look, it works. You know, it works.

Yeah. That's kind of cool. It's kind of cool. One of the things that's amazing about this is in the last five to seven years, especially since like Big Little Lies and True Detective and some of the big limited series on HBO that then turned into running series. or anthology series is you've just seen a tremendous influx of, I guess, big screen talent coming to the small screen

because this is where really good roles are and because this is where a lot of prestigious. The fact that they can get Adrian Brody, Benjamin Brat, Dasha Polanco to do a handful of scenes in the first episode, then get John Ratsonberger. Yes. From Cheers.

Oscar nominee Hong Chow. Oscar nominee Hong Chow. Oscar nominee Hong Chow for about two and a half minutes of screen time. Cold Ryan, who is great in Girl from Plainville. Yeah. And is awesome in this in the second episode. And just on and on and on, you'll see in subsequent episodes what they're doing, where they just are like, hey, come play.

It's going to be a one-off thing. Like, we don't need you for flashbacks. We don't need you for flash forwards. It's so brilliant. You know, and it's just so much fun watching Benjamin Brack Cook. I'm glad that he's going to be like the first. thread that goes through this, but I find this

to show deeply, deeply engaging. We can talk about Natasha if you want to. Yeah, I think it's worth noting. I mean, we did a version of this when Russian doll pop, but it really is one of the most surprising and kind of phenomenal pop culture events of the last 10 years that this actor who

got a lot of attention, a lot of acclaim, a lot of affection for her younger performances went through a period of personal challenges that were not private to the degree where people didn't know if they'd ever see her again alive, let alone on the screen, who has come back exactly as everyone wanted her to be, but better. And the thing that she does is unique to her and beloved. And she's such a clearly great collaborator in such a creative mind that all of these smart

people look to her to work with and to say, we're just going to let you do what you do. And we're going to build something really special around it. This show is, yeah, Ryan Johnson is going to deservedly get a lot of acclaim for the, I mean, the direction of the second episode is just almost dumb. It's an old school. It's like, it's a star vehicle. It's like I have decided, like this show would be fine with, I don't know, Paul Giamati as Charlie or, you know, whatever you wanted to come up with is like a replacement for this main character. For the purposes of this podcast is Paul Giumati, the replacement level player? No, but you know what I mean? mean, like he could take someone who is like beloved and has done a lot of good stuff.

Like Paul Giamatti. Like, America's sweetheart. Paul, pig face and private parts. Well, Paul Giamati is playing Albert Einstein in a Verizon commercial. So I'm sure that Paul Giamatti would have been totes of ails. He was to take of bail. But it's not that. This character is designed to be just like every time Jemati goes to the audition. And he's like, I think I got a shot at this. Who else is reading for the part? Natasha Leo.

Oh, God damn it. I lost another one. What if Natasha Leo was like, I should have been the guy in billions. I think that's the case to be made that shows better if she is. Anyway, I just think she's doing a great job. I mentioned the sort of the rendering of this imaginary American West from like Las Vegas outside of Albuquerque into Texas and stuff like that that they've done so far.

I thought I would also just briefly mention that, you know, we do a lot of rewatchables about thrillers largely from the next. 90s. And one of the things that I've sort of noticed about that is that these movies had a lot more inherent dramatic tension because technology had not gotten to the point where everything was, show me the security cameras or show me where they're phone pinged or show me whatever. Yet this show, so far, has done an excellent job incorporating technology without making it feel like we're watching the net. This is a very important point to make. The show has in small ways done things that other people have said are impossible.

Exactly what you said. Make a fun, detective-y show that doesn't deny the fact that everyone can get pinged all the time and we always know where each other. We always know where we are. It's steered into it in the first episode. Oh, and then the second episode, when she takes the money out of the ATM, she's like, beep four hours.

Yes. So it's also the intentionality behind something that I started to bump on in the pilot and then I realized was part of the intentional charm of the show was the heavy, heavy product placement and specificity of it, that she's drinking big, tallboys of Coors Light, that the second episode is built around Subway. Now, regardless of whether there was payment or advertising built into that, I'm going to look away from that and say that it's doing what you said. It is actually taking the challenge of saying this is an old-fashioned show in a modern world. Right. And that this is an old-fashioned protagonist kind of, you know, when she's just like smoking a vape outside, when she's vaping. It's not smoking a vape, but...

Hello, fellow kids. I like to smoke the vape. Are you here? Fire up a... Yes, I thought that was amazing. I think that... Just so you know, were we to have a long-term, you know, ambiguously romantic relationship in a zombie apocalypse?

It would be wholeheartedly romantic on my side. We're a smoking household because... Wow, this is going to tear us apart. Once the cordyceps come through the floor, your boy's going for the darts again. You just firing him up? You know what? I was really inspired by Baby Doll.

on Bill's podcast the other night. I'm not going back to smoking, but Jamie Dixon, Babydoll, Bill's agent, Sal's agent, Jimmy Kimmel's agent, was on the Bill Simmons podcast, and he was on Parent Corner, and he was drinking a large Coca-Cola

and smoking cigarettes at quite a late period in the evening in Florida, where he was. Yes. And I was just like, this guy gets it. This guy knows he's turned the corner. Yeah, it's fine now.

Yeah, it's fine again. It's free money from here on out. I mean, I have told you, and I won't say more about it on the podcast, but like of a night I spent with him and some of the other fellows involved in some of these dramas. And not only was he chain smoking and drinking,

he took his shirt off. This is Montreal. I mean, I guess you can do anything in Montreal. Yeah, Montreal, they let you get away a lot. But, yeah, so I think this is kind of splitting hairs, but like I was really interested to watch, and I will watch forward, but I really wanted to watch one and two

because one was so, this is true of any show, but even more so, I think, with this one. One is a A-list filmmaker has written this show, he sculpted it, his sense of dynamics and where he's going to move his camera within his script.

I mean, it's really, it is autore level. Yeah. His script is so bouncy and fun and bright and so well structured, and the camera movements and the cuts, it's all coming from one person, and then you have a second episode. Now, all shows struggle with a second episode.

I liked the second episode of Poker Face, But I was always going to be interested in what had to have been, at least to some degree, a relay race handoff between this being Ryan and Natasha's fun project. Well, he dressed the second one and then Ian McDonald directs this. I mean, to the Zuckerman sisters, Lila and Nora, who worked on agents of Shield and Haven on sci-fi, a bunch of other things. They took over as showrunners. And this was written by, I guess, someone credited to someone in the writer's room. Now, Ryan was clearly very involved in this entire series. and he did direct the second episode.

But doing the second episode always gets into trouble because essentially, you know, you've had a lifetime to do the first one, and then you have a very limited amount of time to do the next eight or whatever. And often what second episodes do is the pilot again. And to a degree, that is what happens. But also to a degree, that's the nature of this beast.

Yeah, I like also just like a little bit of the tension around, you'll find as you go along that, like, you don't need to closely study every episode to remember what's going to happen to Charlie in subsequent episodes in terms of like how is her character being built out but she takes little lessons you know so like Hong Chow tells her

she's going to need to make side hustle money in her stops because she's got to be a cash business otherwise people can track her she knows that and then goes forward in the next episode with like okay I got to get a job right in this town that I'm in so little things like that are like you can take her leave it's nice

when you notice it I've been watching it with my wife who is essentially is very into like mysteries as like almost like a brain teaser and is very fixated on the little clues that come out in the first 15 minutes when they do that opening act of each episode, which I think is going to be the structure going forward. It's like the 15 minutes of here's what happened, but they don't foreground all the clues that Natasha Leon's character Charlie will eventually come across. So Phoebe will be like, listen to that or like notice that or notice that.

And I was just like, God damn. I was like, this is a really fun watch. This engages you on a couple of different levels. Yeah, and I think that it's not resetting our brains, but it is. I was also like, I'm never going to commit a crime. My wife is going to figure it out. I would never commit a crime, Redfeb. I've always known that.

So you watch the second episode and the trope now that we're going to, they show us what happened. There was a moment watching the second episode where I was like, where is the tension coming from here? Is it that Benjamin Brad is incoming? Because we know everything that's happened and we know it's going to resolve. And I guess Charlie's thing is she just keeps walking up

to people who are murderers and saying, you're a murderer. And then like, how am I going to get out of it? That doesn't seem that smart. And then I'm like, wait, no, this is television. This is the show. Intentionally, the show is not trying to trick us or trying to be smarter than us. It's trying to entertain us

and have us fall for this character and enjoy the world. And when you think about it that way, you can just kind of relish in the elevation of it. Like there is a version of that second episode, just the bones of it. And I don't mean to disparage it because I think the Zuckerman's did a great job and I'm excited about everything to come.

But there's a version of it where it is pretty basic. Then you put that cast. Then you have that script, which is really clever and surprising. Then you have that production design. Yeah. It's so cool, like, where you're just like there are these two buildings essentially

that I'm like going back and forth between. And look, I don't want to say I've filmed an Albuquerque, but that looked great. That looked better than a lot of things in Helberg-Kirke, including things that I may or may not have made. And I loved it. And Ryan Johnson directed it. And he's having fun with it, you know, and that really matters.

And I think that that spirit of fun as opposed to like, oh, how is this going to outsmart Reddit? Yeah. Like, that's the feature, not a bug. Yeah. And it made me excited about the show. We can wrap it up there. We'll be back on Thursday.

Thank you to Kaya for producing us in person. Thank you to Andy. Oh, you're thank you. Thank you. Yeah. There was a moment, we don't do this on video anymore, so no one will ever know this. I want to share.

There was a moment about 26 minutes ago when I just started to have to choke down laughter because I realized that I had said that you were a de facto Trump supporter in this podcast. And yet at the end of it, you were, but then after that moment, you were both like, what would our 20 years of romantic cohabitation look like? And you were like, you're so smart sometimes

that I trust you. You know what it shows? What a kind co-host this guy is. We can reach across the aisle. Yes. We can do big things in this country. We could work together if we just put aside our differences. Some of us, you know.

I'm just happy you let me keep my seat on the oversight committee. I'm not a Trump sport. No, no. I had an Elizabeth Warren sticker on my laptop for like five years. And look well, all the good it did. Yeah, I know. Thank you for your service. There's a certain, does Kai have an AZ5 button?

We're going to shut down the podcast. I think it's time. You have to end it. You always say stay gold, Brandskiskees, or whatever you do. Sometimes I don't say it, but you look to me. No, you stopped doing it. I don't know why, but you've... I haven't stopped.

Yeah, you did. No, I just, I... You missed a few. I do. I sit a couple out because I want people to listen to this moment. I think Ryan Johnson turned it off. A political accountability. Guy's really uncomfortable.

Good job for Anskiy's, but great job. Guy McMullin. All right. Bye guys. Hey, Mama. Thanks for making all my favorite recipes. Hi, Ma. Thanks for your unfiltered advice.

Hi, Mom. Mom, thanks for always being by the phone. Hey, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost, exclusively at the UPS Store U.S. retail locations. Visit the UPS Store.com slash air shipping for full details. Terms and conditions apply. Send your Mother's Day gifts at the UPS store and we'll get your gratitude there on time.