The Watch - ‘The Lowdown’ Is That Show. Plus, ‘Heat 2’ Hype Meter and ‘House of Guinness.’

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Chris and Andy talk about the modern-day hype cycles around film releases and why it feels like television drops don’t get that same level of attention in the wake of more ‘Heat 2’ news (5:38). Then, they make the case for why ‘The Lowdown’ is one of the best shows of the year and what they've been asking for from this era of auteur-driven television (27:51). Finally, they talk about Netflix’s ‘House of Guinness,’ from creator Steven Knight, and why, even though Knight is aiming high, the show misses the mark (43:55). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Video Producer: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me on the other line from the House of Guinness, it's Andy Greenwald. I'm not, though. I'm one of the, what are they called? The fenies?

The fiends. The fiendens. Yes. No disrespect. My guy. Yeah. Feen. Yeah.

Which are the ones that are like pro-England? Because that's where I am. That's what I am. But that's where I am. Greenwald is in London. I am in Philadelphia. It's an East Coast America Old World podcast today. Andy, it's great to see you.

We're going to talk a little bit about the last couple episodes of the lowdown that we've seen, episodes three and four. We're going to talk a little bit about House of Guinness. I have some other stuff for you today. It's great to see your face. How's England treating you? You're muted. Well, I was going to say it's a country and experience of highs and lows. One of the lows being my brand new travel microphone that has a mute button right on the soft spot where I like to touch the microphone.

So that's going to be fun. I'm going to be like Stephen Miller when I say my opinions about House of Guinness. I'm like, be there? Wait, when does Stephen Miller ever cut out? You didn't see this clip?

No. See, that's the thing. I've been awake for hours. So, they were interviewing him on CNN, and he was like, we declare plenary freedoms,

plenary authority to deploy troops. And then he just stopped talking because he realized he'd given the game away. He was committing an act of treason. Sure. Anyway, I was going to say, allegedly. I can do that now, by the way, because I'm in a different country. It would be funny if the watch was Stephen Miller's way of getting away from it all.

She was like, God, it's been tough. I've been invading multiple cities. Why won't these guys weigh in on English teachers as to? I would say that my experience has had some wonderful highs, like this morning when I was strolling down the lane, schlepping this new microphone and recording rig. a very kind Englishman said that hi and he said he loved the pod. I would say

the lows include there is a washer dryer in this flat that I've now run a small load of clothes on the dry cycle twice. Each cycle is two hours and 50 minutes. They don't have electricity over there.

It really does make you wonder like I definitely want to save the planet. I worry about my carbon footprint. I do think that America is going to be a giant data setter soon. Yeah. But it is cool to be able to dry your clothes. I'm like 20 minutes.

I mean, to dry my boxers and my sweatshirt is equivalent to how many gen mojis? Like, just put it to me, give you the numbers. I would also say the other tell that I'm far away and that the jet lag is roaring is, like when you were deep, deep sleep last night, I was definitely weeping to the live performance of Golden by the real actresses who play Huntricks in K-pop Demon Hunters on the Jimmy Thound program. It was a series of words.

Where you're breaking from reality with me. Listen, this might be a vulnerable pod. It might be. I wanted to kind of keep it pretty loose today. Thursdays are chaotic episodes. There are a couple of news things that I wanted to bounce off. So I'm on the East Coast. because I was here to do a big picture live show

with Sean and Amanda. It went great. It was really, really fun. It was at 92 Y, 92 Wye, 92nd Street Y. It was with David and Griffin from Blank Check, which is an awesome movie podcast that people should be listening to if they don't already. And we were drafting New York movies.

It was very fun. The spirit of cinema was in the air in New York City because the New York Film Festival is currently underway. And, you know, Sean was hitting up a couple of movies from there. And like the night after our show, no, Monday night. So our show is Saturday. Monday night, Marty Supreme, the new Timothy Shalameh, movie that's coming

on Christmas came, did a surprise screening on Monday night for NYFF. And it was like pandemonium cold, you know, like in terms of like the word of mouth. Did you see it? I did not see it. But Sean saw it. Did you see Sean fired off an all-time tweet? Yeah. We might need to read it on this podcast.

Great tweet, Sean. But my kind of observation about it was just that there really is, I think between that, between one battle after another, a lot of stuff. Like, we are moving into award season with movies, but we are definitely in like a state of like peak hype for movies where I think that because of how vibrant online cinnophilia, I guess, or how whatever you want to call it, like film fandom and, film criticism is. There's like an ecosystem to promote and hype up and at times knock down films. And, you know, I think, you know, they did a big picture did a conversation with Van over the weekend about one battle after another. It was basically like an expanded conversation and expanded in-depth kind of look at it

that I felt like it was just really a cool thing to listen to after many, many rounds of of Hosanna's being thrown at one battle after. Totally. So I was thinking about all this, and I noted with real interest yesterday that the Heat 2 casting news and studio news just exploded. It's moved from Warner Brothers to Amazon, MGM, Jerry Bruckheimer and Scott Stuber,

two incredibly heavy hitters are attached to produce it. And Leonardo DiCaprio is apparently circling the Chris Scherlis, the Val Kilmer role rather than the Neil McCauley role. So this is crazy amount of news. It does seem like this is happening. I still wake up every day and I'm like, this is, this can't be real, but it really, really, really does seem real.

The reason why I'm telling you about these two things is as I kind of was getting ready for today's pod, for pods in the future for the two of us, I was like, why doesn't TV have this kind of hype around it? You know, I was thinking about Pluribus, the new Vince Gilligan show that's coming on Apple, which is from the creator of Breaking Bad. and it's been releasing these very small teasers that I think are doing a great job of hyping up creating a sort of interest

around the show but it doesn't have like when's the last show that's come out that you feel like had what one battle after another or Marty Supreme is getting in terms of like

people running out of a room and be like I have to tell everyone I suppose the closest thing I can think of his adolescence. And that weekend of just like breathless, have you seen this? I think, first of all, it's a good question. It's a complicated question.

I think the only equivalent we have to wide release in television at this point is Netflix. So you can see phenomenons build almost in a classic box office sense. We saw with baby reindeer. We saw it with adolescents. Beyond that, the similarities to cinema continue because you're not really, going to get giant premiere numbers for something that isn't a sequel. And by sequel, I mean either the second season of something that did very well or something that is directly based on prominent IP. That's pretty much the only way to get eye-popping numbers.

Which doesn't mean those are the only things that are considered hits. It's just that the language that TV executives use internally is still a lot more growth-oriented with things developing over time. Like I think, for example, and we're going to, you know, we've been talking about it every Monday. The sense I get from HBO is that they're extremely happy with task, not just because it's extremely good. That's the sense I get from the people in Philadelphia as well. Are they? Well, there's not a lot to be happy about much these days. But the reason that they are excited is not just the quality, of course, but it's because the numbers apparently have gone up week to week have ultimately outperformed mayor of Easttown, which isn't to say the first episode outperform the first episode of

mayor. What they're looking at is retention over time. I guess I would turn the question back to you and say there definitely is a hype cycle with movies that understands very well now how to manipulate to strong word, how to interface with burgeoning the letterboxed army and get people fired up about format mania and all of that. There was an interesting article about the Warner Brothers, not just their success at the box office this year, but about the marketing team and all of them being under 30 and like being engaged with online life in a way that other movie studios aren't. All of that said, smashing machine tanked. Right. Again, that's not a value judgment. It might be a great film. I would like to see it, I think. But you're,

you know, you love UFC. I love smashing. We're headed towards an arrow of machines. What's not to like the but like that had everything that had the full head full of steam in terms of like the standing ovation the press tour the narrative like everyone seemed to understand like joe popcorn understood that like the rock was going for an oscar this time and and the letterbox loonies were like which saffty is the best who knows and then it was released with an absolute thud right so the success of one battle after another um i think belies that but all of which is to say like I'm excited to see Marty Supreme and I'm really hype off of it. Literally because of Sean's tweet,

I think he thinks I'm making fun of his tweet. I am not. Our Phillies are down 02 right now. So I'm not a position to make fun of Sean. I want to be very careful. But that's no guarantee that it's going to be successful. You're right. I mean, maybe it's this weird thing where it's like the hype is disconnected from the actual

success of the film. And maybe all these TV shows that when I am anecdotally asked, if somebody has seen the lowdown and they're like, I don't know what you're talking about, doesn't actually indicate whether or not people are actually watching it. They're just maybe not participating in a hype cycle around it. Obviously, you and I kind of came of age professionally in this particular part of our careers at a time when, like, Sunday nights ruled

the pop culture week seemingly, the television Sunday night, and the recaps of those shows would kind of drive conversation around them, the idea of a water cooler show. But this is just something I've been thinking about. I mean, he too probably won't roll. I would imagine until late next year, let's just say if everything went really, really well, and they nailed all the casting,

and they get Bradley Cooper, Leonard DiCaprio, and Adam Driver to be in this movie. And it's going to be a globetrotting, mega production run by an older man and Michael Mann. First of all, international intrigue plus older men is the story of Earth for the last 10 years. So I don't really see a problem. But my point is that this is like,

I'm going to be anticipating this movie for multiple years, the same way I am for the Odyssey, and there's nothing like that in television. But then on the flip side, I don't even know if that really matters. I guess I'm just like, why isn't there more like? Well, clearly you haven't been following my Reddit posts demanding top of the lake season three.

You know, I'm just like one of these days, it's going to come true. Mr. Spade S2, let's go. I hear you about that, and I do want to add, I do want to do one more like heat check with you, like specifically about this news. But I feel like in a way this conversation goes back to something that we've said before, which is that like we are all in a Damon Lindelof show right now because we are all existing in multiple timelines at the same time. We are, we have never been more now. Trails across the ocean once. Seriously.

Well, did better than oceanic, but you know. Yeah. You know, there's always the return. Because we've never been more now, like more clued into release dates, towards box office openings, towards things needing to, and also just the industry needing immediate return on these extravagant investments. Everything is geared towards the first week numbers, towards awards, towards box office, etc.

But we've also never been so immersed in everything else that's come before. Yeah. So, and I think that our sense, like me currently with the actual Earth clock, I think our sense of what is happening gets a little bit blurred. Like, we are living in a reality where these letterbox loonies are like lining up to see Marty Supreme. They're already buying their format tickets or whatever, making sure they can see it in the best seats. And they are also, you know, going to see once upon a time in Hollywood every other week at the Vista and also going to see Big Lebowski, which I think, in the collective consciousness now. I'm just pulling that movie out of the air. But like, that movie was not quote unquote successful. No. It was, it's a masterpiece. It's a cult

classic, but it's a cult classic that I think has sort of sort of merged into just being a classic. And I think the perception of it is that that's a success, even though it made like 30 million bucks and was decidedly not the biggest movie of 1998 or whatever. And you could pull a hundred other examples of that, right? Just to say that like there are right now on Netflix, there are out of the box hits like adolescence, you know, which are critical darlings and commercial darlings and certainly cleaned up at the Emmys. But the other big story on Netflix this week is Halo is airing on Netflix. The really not that awesome. And I think originally Showtime and then Paramount Plus series that was just, I think it was just unwieldy if nothing else. And it's doing well because

you put something on Netflix. And so now everyone's like season three. So, both of those things are happening at once. And it's hard to square those into one easy narrative, I think. Yeah, I guess this is the tradeoff, right? Like, when you have something like smashing machine and it comes out and there's all this, like, push around it and then it doesn't do well in one metric, the one the metric that really matters for new releases, which is box office, it winds up seeming like a complete failure. When you have something like the lowdown, which we're going to talk about in a second,

which I think you and I adore will be in our top tens. we will push that boulder up the hill. I have no idea whether it's doing well. I have no idea whether people are watching it, whether they're saving five episodes to kind of get into it, whether the act of watching something week to week that isn't hugely twisty and cliffhangery has basically been abandoned.

And now people are like, yeah, I'll catch up like when I have a flight, I'll watch four of those or something like that. But on the flip side of that, you're not aware of failure either. I'm not aware that this quote unquote flopped. I wouldn't even know. Well, a network would never tell us if it did, you know? Well, I want to, I need a second to like put on my full lowdown cape. So we will talk about that.

But I think the other thing is that there are just many different. Shout out to another Lindelof show. There's a lot of narratives happening at once, meaning the smashing machine is a box office failure. It is a, I still think it's a huge win for the rock who has success. successfully presented himself as a series actor and people who make decisions about casting and awards will consider it and remember it. I think it's a failure for A24 in the sense that A24 is trying to pivot to becoming everybody's darling, not just an indie darling, and their budgets have gone way, way up. And I think they have real skin in the game now and can actually, you know,

those are not insubstantial losses when they invest a lot of money to projects like that. It's not just, yeah. To balance it out, exactly. So, it's a lot of different stories all at once. Before we get to the lowdown, you can't say this big heat news and not just like give your, give me your 30 second stump speech because when I last was sort of, this is not my story to tell, but I will say that the last time I was kind of aware of it,

the rumors were Apple was picking it up and Apple was picking it up and that was dependent on Leo starring in the movie. Yes. And Leo was assumed to be taking on the role. of Neil. Is that right? That was what I said because he had a goatee. Okay, I see your method. Seymour Hersch over here.

I just said that it looked like he looked like young Robert De Niro in the one battle after another promo run that he did. Now that is a basically cleaned up version of Bob Ferguson from one battle after another, so it's not that strange that he had the goatee. But I think that most people looked at him and we're like, Okay, this is young Neil or younger Neil in the pre-heat narrative. For people who don't know, Heat 2, written by Michael Mann and Meg Gardner, it came out like 2022.

This is the book, not the film. Yes, it was the book. And it's a novelization of an idea, or it's a novel that man wrote with an acclaimed crime writer and a Meg Gardner that basically does a prequel to heat, cutting back and forth between a prequel to heat and a sequel to Heat. That's like Godfather, too. Yeah, and the sequel to Heat follows the continuing adventures of Chris Scherlis, the Val Kilmer character in the original film as he goes into South America and becomes security for a Chinese triad,

which is basically, that's just fan fiction, Doug. We can stop to watch when I introduced you as doing that. Do you understand that you, I think you told me that dream in Good Luck Bar in 2015? Like, this is so wild. What do you think Charlotte is now? And the pre-heed stuff happens in Chicago and is a younger Vincent and a younger Neil kind of just missing each other in Chicago

and there is a Wayne-Row-esque character. I won't get into spoilers and stuff like that, but there are some incredible sequences in the novel in both the pre-impose. And I imagine if they are undertaking it and if it has a $200 million price tag, which it seems to, that he is doing, he's shooting the whole boat.

He's doing the sequel and the prequel. Look, it's all I ever want in life is to see this. But I want this to be good. I don't want this to be a strange kind of like, like inadvertent roast of heat where it's like everybody's getting on stage and doing heat bits. You know, and that like I want it to live up to what the original was. And because it's made so far from the like from when man's. shot heat, which is now in the 90s.

30 years ago. It feels a little bit like I'm just nervous for it to be like two years of waiting for it and then people be like, oh, that was all right. Well, that's how I felt about Twin Peaks, the return. And that worked out for me. So I believe in you. That's true. That's true.

I mean, it worked out for me by being absolutely confounding and doing almost nothing of what the normies wanted. Yeah. But so I don't know if Scott Stuber and Jerry Brockheimer are like confound us, Michael. No, I think that they're like, we're going to make sure this actually gets finished on time and that you are able to pull off the sequences that you need to pull off to make this like a huge box office. And to make it a plausible action movie that's released in theaters.

Yes. Yeah. Not an art piece. A lot of my nervousness comes from despite the fact, it's easy for me to like Ferrari and be like, actually, you guys don't get it, Ferrari's good or you guys don't get it, black hat's good. It is very easy for you to do that. Or Tokyo Vice Pilot is a podcast to do that. awesome and no

everyone's like okay chrystal you just would like if michael man shot like a bird landing in a nest and i'd be like that would be on task i believe i know that's true that's a beautiful sequence bird man is task um i i it's it's that's like underdog stuff

it's just you know what you mean that's like cheering for that's like cheering for the six seed is when you're a big black hat guy this is the one seed man there this is this is a an undefeated team going into the tournament. So it's a little bit more nerve-wracking. And I think from everything that I have read,

everything that I've heard, everything between the lines, all of this is contingent on DiCaprio's participation. And DiCaprio has a pretty full dance card. He's supposed to be doing this Martin Scorsese movie that I believe he kind of blight, like obliquely referenced to Sean in their conversation about how he had been watching,

re-watching Vertigo for something he's doing in Scorsese. Yeah. Then he was supposedly going to do this evil-con-eval movie for Damian Chazelle, but it seems like Glenn Powell might do that now. And yeah, like there's also this Hawaii gangster movie that Scorsese was going to make with The Rock. So as somebody's like things in production start, you know, as their as their dance card fills up, you just worry about like being able to hold all the actors, hold all the locations, hold all the money and will this happen? But I think Amazon MGM getting involved in this is really interesting because in some ways it's more significant even than the casting rumors.

It's like producer rumors being confirmed and studio rumors being confirmed. Can I ask you the one other thing that we still have on our plates to worry about? Yeah, sure. In regards to he too, I worry about Austin Butler because he did a lot of weapons training, possibly for nothing. Yeah, but he could be getting ready for Miami Vice. Like, do we have no idea? Do you think that there's only one?

one role out there that requires weapons trade. Yes, I watch three movies a year. Yes, I do think that. That is 100% what I think. Oh, my God. Can we talk about the other, the big TV thing? I just thought it was interesting. Yeah, please.

Of course, I'm not prepared to talk about it, but I do want to talk about it. You're talking about the Dakota Fanning, sorry, the L Fanning and Nicole Kidman showed discretion. Yes, it's a show called Discretion. And the reason I bring it up is not necessarily because we have an opinion about the show or know anything about it, although it is relevant because it's an A24 TV production. An A24 is part of their like glow up and build up is getting into TV production. This is a like a hot package in town.

And by the way, just the fact that there's a hot package again is pretty significant considering how dire things have been for the last few months and years. This is a project that was apparently subject to a big bidding war. and it was snapped up straight to series by the new players in town. The Barry Weiss boys ponied up to the table and Paramount has bought this show. And it's a legal thriller is all we know. Nicole Kidman loves doing television shows, so does El Fanning. They're both very reliable. Also, Nicole Kidman has some free time now, I guess.

Sure. Although not much since Lyonis is coming back. That's a good point. That's a good point. Her dance card is still full, professionally speaking. I just thought it was worth noting. A few weeks ago, we talked about how really all it takes to shift the industry is one new whale showing up at the table. And that's what David Ellison and his dad have done.

I'd be very curious what the path of this show would have been in a pre-Skydance takeover era. It seems like it would have been Apple took it off the board. The implication that there was a quote-unquote bidding, war. I'll put it this way. Like, I don't think AMC was just, you know, throwing in an ante and asking to, like, see everyone's cards. Right. A bidding war to me in 2025 implies that Paramount outbid Netflix and Apple, which is significant, um, and which is something to watch going forward, in addition to maybe watching the show at some point in 2026. Yeah, I'm, I'm an idiot because, you know, when all of the Paramount stuff was happening last year, or eight minutes, over the course

the last couple of years, and I was sort of reading about it and the trades of reading about it in Bellany's column. And it was like, is Ellison going to get this from Shari Redstone? And is he going to buy the mountain? And it almost seemed like he had to like scrape together money. This is just my, like he was shaking couch cushions to find like the last million to get it over the line. And now that he has Paramount, it seems like he's like, oh no,

like now the vault opens. and now I'm going to buy Warner Brothers and buy the show by the Duffers and buy and now he's like giving Mangold James Mangold overall like it seems like you're right like Paramount's a rival

but they're a willingness to spend it's like they may cut CBS News down to basically being like three hot take artists but it does seem like they are spending a ton of money on on actual shows and movies which I think is a good thing for for what

left of Hollywood. Is 60 Minutes going to be like that OZY.com? Where was that dude being like, I've talked to Lisa Ling or whatever. And everyone's like, this is a success, clearly. Anyway, Trump pardoned him. The fun thing is about the Paramount deal is maybe he really was just scraping things together a year and a half ago. But then all these weird coincidences happened. Like his dad just got permission to buy TikTok. So it seems like, I don't know, like fortune favors the bold, I guess. Why are we more like that? I don't know. We should have thrown in just like a cheeky offer for this Nicole Kinman show.

What was the show that we were bidding? Our listeners will remember. Oh, no, we wanted to be heads of AMC. I still think that that's a legitimate thing. I do think that they're, honestly, my pitch is, why not? The Anne Rice universe manages itself. God bless. We will retain the leadership structure behind the vampire shows.

Like, that is my first order of business. Everything else, just let us. What's the first AMC? a catalog show that you would want to reboot. Remember when. Yeah. Their first ever show before Mad Men. No, well, like, I think that we could get a little cheeky in the international marketplace like AMC has been doing with like spy shows and things and co-pros.

I think that there might be some opportunities to do the versions of like mid-AMC shows like Lodge 49 or the one that I'd never remember the name of the Bob Odenkirk lucky Hank. I don't think either of those shows were complete successes, but I also don't think they were failures, and I think they scratched a niche that does exist in TV and can be done at a price point. It's that kind of middle of the road thinking that's going to get us to the top. I think 100%. The other thing is, though, I would greenlight the Sally Draper in the downtown 81.

This is why we've been put on this planet. It's to see He, too, come out and to put Sally Draper in the mud club. Yep, let's just do it. We'll make that show. Yeah. Vote for us. Or we'll cut the government in on a sweetheart deal. That's right.

Whatever it takes. Mario, let's take a quick break and we'll go talk about the lowdown and House of Guinness. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

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Let's talk about episodes three and four of the lowdown. Four was especially lovely to me, directed by Macon Blair and written by Duffy Boudreau. Macon Blair is a frequent collaborator with Jeremy Sal Ney. He also plays the lawyer in this series in The Lowdown. And Duffy Bidreau is a name you may remember from especially the written by credit in Barry. He is a frequent collaborator with Bill Hader, Bill Hader and Duffy Bidro, also from Tulsa. much like Sterling Harjo. So kind of a family affair here.

And I was thinking about how one term we used to use during the era of truly peak prestige television was the idea of long-form series television being novelistic, you know? And I think we referred frequently people called The Wire, like novelistic in its storytelling. Even its creator David Simon did that. Even his creator of David Simon. The lowdown really does feel novelistic for all the good reasons and even some of the reasons where it's like sometimes I have a hard time settling down enough to read a novel. And there are times when I turn the lowdown on and I'm like, oh, okay, like we are moving at a slower pace and we are moving at a different pace than like most of my consumption. is moving at over the course of my day

when I have my phone in my hand for 11 hours of it. And it takes a second to get to get into the water, you know, and to like let it wash over you. And this is a really good example, this episode four, which is called Short on Cowboys.

It kind of starts three times. You know, it's got this sort of fantastical Tim Blake Nelson narration. It's got a kind of lazy, awesome, 10-minute scene at a diner between a father, a daughter, and a mother. And then it really gets going and you get like basically a half-hour short film about

a trist between Gene Triple Horns Betty Joe character and Ethan Hawks Lee character. You could call it before hangover. That's right, because they do drink more tequila that I think most people east of Tulsa can handle. I felt quite ill, honestly watching and I felt concerned. What did you think of this episode? How are you feeling about the show in general? I want to talk specifically about this episode and also last weeks, which we didn't really touch on,

about the Baluga Brothers. But I want to say something broader. I want to give my campaign speech here, which is to say, if you listen to this podcast and if you've listened to it for a while, chances are you like television a certain way. It doesn't mean we all, we may not all agree,

unlike that brewery owner in Maine. Like, I'm just bringing people together here. We're one country. We may not agree on all of the shows that we love or what we want to see week to week on television. And I think there are people who are indulging our love of task and they think we only like it because we're from Philadelphia, which is only maybe 10% true. I actually think it's approaching like masterpiece status and we'll talk about that on Monday. But I do think that one common thread that unites all of us is that we want television to be good and interesting and for lack of a better word, brave. And brave could mean something like adolescence, which is both aesthetically brave and also.

I think creatively brave and certainly thematically brave. Or it could just mean purely aesthetically brave like the lowdown is. And so what I want to ask everyone in this great big, beautiful country of ours is a simple thing. And I feel like we don't use this as a bully pulpit enough. I want all of you to watch the lowdown. I want you to record it on your download it from your Hulu app or put it on your TV or watch it on television. I don't even know what matters. Spank a new max out cassette, put it in the VHS.

Because this is what we are always talking about. It is absolutely idiosyncratic. It is unique. It is funny. It is heartfelt. It is steaksy. It is exciting. It is surprising.

It gives actors great opportunities to work and to bring joy. Like Kyle McLaughlin, Keith David, Tim Blake Nelson, Michael Hitchcock, like an all-star team of those guys doing. elite work, Gene Triplehorn in this episode especially. Scott Shepard, just people who are a friend of the pod, Tracy Letts, just people willing to show up and work because they know that they're working with a creator in Sterling who's going to take care of them and showcase them and give them stuff to do. And also, you know, I've been railing for years against the autour theory of television,

but I do think that Sterlin, Sterling Harjo is the kind of autour that we need and that we want. Because there are elements in the show that, like you said, that kind of just don't make sense if you watch Normie TV all the time. Like Tim Blake Nelson narrating from the afterlife and then sitting next to Ethan Hawkin's daughter and they both look at him. Or the way it becomes like double indemnity briefly

when it's already been something else for a long time and then it cuts to, you know, like the security guard dudes doing a rap on YouTube in front of a car that's on fire. There are moments on the show where I'm like, oh, yeah, I mean, obviously Sterling likes Twin Peaks. Like the moment in episode four when Betty, what's her name Betty? She's the second name.

Betty Joe. Gene Triplehorn's character, Betty Joe, opens the door to the room where Tim Blake Nelson's character supposedly or probably killed himself. And I'm like, oh, this is a Twin Peaks moment, the way this room is lit, the way the sound design is. Do you know what else is a Twin Peaks moment? Ethan Hawke's character introducing himself as Agent Cooper in the third episode. I was about to say that. Exactly.

But also, you can tell that Sterling love Twin Peaks, and he also loved Twin Peaks to the return, because Kyle is giving some Mr. C energy when he gets furious. in this episode or this face. I say that not because it's cool that a guy who makes a TV show likes the same stuff that I do. I'm saying it because it's not fucking pastiche. This is a guy who knows

how to make films, knows how to tell a story, lives in a place, knows things, and is generous enough to share them with us and has been given a platform to just fucking leave it all out there. And I, like you're saying, I have no idea if it's succeeding or failing on commercial terms, but I think so far it is

100% succeeding in artistic terms. And sometimes we've got to show up. and support that shit. Yeah, and I think that the payoff for this show, at the end of every episode that I have watched that I would imagine at the end of this season itself is going to be like that of finishing a great novel where it's unlike anything else legal

you can really do with your brain. It is really the most enriching, beautiful, three-dimensional experience and imaginative experience you can have. And this show feels different than weekly mystery box puzzle shows. And it's really lovely to have this and task on at the same time because I think it shows the huge spectrum of not only enjoyment,

but intellectual stimulation and emotional kind of fulfillment you can get from crime shows and from crime fiction. Because you're putting these characters, many of whom are pretty normal people in broken situations and putting them in extraordinary circumstances. and asking them to make these incredibly complex and consequential moral decisions about what to do next

and what to do to fix things that have happened in the past, to fix things that will happen in the future. And they bring out really amazing performances. And you talked about the incredible murderers' row of supporting actors, but this is among Ethan Hawks' best performances. I wanted to say that too. And the reason why I think that is

it is both a fucking movie star Paul Newman performance, and it is also like a freak, like used bookstore guy performance. And he's able to have both an incredibly cool, charismatic, attractive quality to him, while also being the kind of guy you find flipping through records, you know, or through used books at a store in Tulsa.

And it's kind of remarkable to watch him cook, like on this level. I mean, obviously you and I were fans of Good Lord Bird. We've been fans of his work for such a long time, but this is such a Titanic undertaking. He has to do so much shit in every scene. He has to be a lover. He has to be a fighter.

He has to be a fighting. He has to be a convincing writer. And he has to be a comedian. And he does it all so well. He's like, he's such an interesting performer and we love him for a long time. But like he never quite fits, right? Because he's a freak.

Like he's too weird. and too obsessed with the little, like, you know, the, he's like, speaking of crime novels, like there's always a scene, like, in a classic George Pelicanos novel where someone drops the cocaine and then they're, like, going through the carpet fibers. Like, that's how Ethan Hawk approaches a script. And often movies that aren't directed by Richard Linklater don't know what to do with that. You know, like, it's too much and it's also diffuse. And yet he's handsome and charismatic and famous enough to lead a television show in the prestige era

Sirlin knows how to work with him, which I think means to collaborate with him, because he fits the frame on the show in a way that suits everyone involved. And it's really exciting to watch. Now, I'm not saying the show is perfect, which is one of the reasons why I like it. The third episode, and again, this might have been the jet lag talking,

but the third episode is challenging. And I think it would be challenging for, again, for normies who want to pick up this flag and carry it for a little while. The setup is essentially that in order to pursue this reckless investigation of a potential suicide of the a strange brother of the gubernatorial candidate. They must drive to Ethan Hawke's character, Lee, his daughter, and his frenemy,

Michael Hitchcock's character, who is a rival antiques dealer, must drive to a lake somewhere outside of Tulsa and Oklahoma and somehow either woo or confuse or distract a scary or like aggressive Mexican-American antiques dealer who has come into the possession of a box of the dead brothers Jim Thompson novels. Yes, which include letters that the guy has been writing or diary entries that the guy has been writing that will then help him elliptically piece together a massive conspiracy. And if you think this sounds like, and I feel like it's okay to spoil it, because I'm either convincing you or you've already seen it, if you think that sounds complicated. What if I told you

that what actually happens is Michael Hitchcock's character just drinks whiskey and alone in a diner while the daughter meets the scary antique stealer and steals the books while Ethan Hawke steals a park ranger jacket and then gets in enveloped

in a violent backwoods caviar theft but also it's also a love story about poetry. Dude, that's fucking nuts. And I think that everyone involved is like I guess John Landgraf was on set on alien earth that day when we greenlit this. You know what I mean?

But God bless them for greenlighting it and giving in the space to do this. It's worth it when you have a chance to invest in something like this, both as a network and as a viewer. Usually with a mystery show like this, I think you and I would spend a fair amount of time talking about the narrative. I'm more here for Ethan Hawk walking down the street and someone asks him what his favorite Michael Curtain? movie is.

I know. And when something like that is happening, and the way that even making Blair films that and the way that they sound design it, where it's kind of happening in an alt-many way, a conversation is happening as Ethan Hawke is walking by, but Ethan Hawk is being asked to weigh in on this debate between a used record store guy and his customer.

And, like, what's your favorite Michael Curtis movie? He's like, what are you talking about? And he's just like, oh, I thought you were. going to say boy from Oklahoma and he's like, no, Captain Blood. And it's just a second, but I'm like, I can't fucking believe this is happening. Like, you know, this is the dream of the 90s is back, you know? Life goes on. Well, pavement's more popular than ever. Like maybe, maybe we're coming, maybe these clothes we like are finally coming back into fashion. But I mean, the sort of recurring bit that this used record store proprietor has is that he is getting rid of

loiterers, that there are all these people at this strip in Tulsa where, um, Lee's bookstore and this record store and a diner and a law officer that this guy is like, somebody was loitering outside your store, so I told him no loitering. And this show is loitering. This show is just fucking hanging out. And you may have to like adjust your brain a little bit when you do that because I don't know that we hang out with television as much anymore, especially 55 minutes. mystery dromedes, we're more like, oh yeah, I like to hang out with my sitcom buddies for 22 minutes

and then get the fuck out. Or white knuckle it with my pals in the pit. Yes. Like I love these people, so it's worth it. I want an extremity of emotion. I don't want to have to think. I don't want to have to like feel. I don't want to have to pay attention. I want to be able to kind of either this is a like I want a drug experience. I either want an upper or a downer. It's also to go back to the novelistic example, it's okay to love disliking something. Like, these emotions are closely related. And like, there are a lot of books. Like, I talked about on the pod the other week. Like, I had, because you, you just, the way that you casually just reveal things about yourself only on this podcast,

that you've read every Robert Stone novel. And I was like, excuse me, I'm right here on the other end of this text thread. So I went and I got this Robert Stone novel called Children of Light. and I'm here to tell you, as I told you of her text, it's awful. Yeah. But I loved it. Yeah. And I'm not saying the lowdown is awful. I'm just saying it's cool to engage with art that inflames you one way or the other.

And my guess is, and I don't have anything to back this up, I'd be curious if people would write to our email address or whatever and say. I'm curious if there is a percentage of people who are like, I love the lowdown one. I love the lowdown two. And I was out on lowdown three. I'm curious about that. I think maybe it would be people who were like, I've got. to low down three and it's just too sleepy or it's too. I, you know, I maybe, maybe they don't give a shit about Michael Curtis and Jr. Kimbrough and they're just like watching people drink

coffee for 11 minutes and read letters to each other is, you know, I've got, I've got like a, I've got to keep on a schedule here. As someone with a 12 year old who's recently very coffee curious, I really felt seen by that. So what do you do with that? Do you know what she loves right now is decaf. Yeah. But there is a trace amount of caffeine in that, right? Yeah. And she likes macho lattes.

Those are really big with the kids. So I try to cut the, I let that happen, but usually like pre 1 PM, you know? I used to just drink the sweetest possible, but the largest possible Dunkin' Donuts. So it would just be like French vanilla with French vanilla creamer and sugar. Yeah. I mean, the thing is when I say she's choosing to. I understand that they made the coffee itself taste like French vanilla. You added extra.

I want to be clear when I say that she likes coffee, what she likes is a warm mug, giant mug of milk with like some light decapped coffee flavoring. Yes. Last thing, I feel like we've set our piece, but you mentioned Duffy Boudreau. I won't spoil the end of four since we're kind of like

hopefully getting people to watch it, but there is a sequence, a violent sequence at the end of four that is very berry core. It really reminded me a berry. And it's a mix of like the macabre and the intense and the outrageous and funny. That's a great shot. A much different animal is House of Guinness, which we haven't talked about, came out a couple of weeks ago on Netflix. It's the new show from Stephen Knight, which I think I will sort of generally tar with this brush of it's Stephen Knight's succession.

You know, effort. Do you want to give background to Stephen Knight because he, when you say the new Stephen Knight show, there's often two a year? Seven of them, yeah. Stephen Knight is one of the most prolific and successful TV. creators that we have right now. He is essentially like England's answer to Taylor Sheridan in some ways. He frequently writes these rather muscular, historically minded, often period piece TV shows. I love him. He is the creator of Rogue Heroes, which is my favorite series by him. But obviously, I also am very, very into Peaky Blinders. And evidently so is everybody else because there is not only a

Peaky Blinders movie, but a new Peaky Blinders spin-off series in the making that should arrive at some time in the next couple of years. And that is set in the aftermath of World War II, which is pretty exciting because Peeky Blinders is really good and it's an interesting historical time period. He also, like just last year, put out a show that I never got a chance to see

because I don't think it came out here called This Town, which was about like the two-tone... Oh, yeah, that never did come out here. officially, yeah. But he also did a thousand blows, didn't he? Yeah, and a thousand blows. And he's a prolific screenwriter in films, writing, you know, he was working on a Star Wars movie.

He's, you know, just always, always, always raining. So House of Guinness is a show which I think you could be uncharitable and be like, oh, he saw a succession and was like, I can do that. And it is about the death of the patriarch of the Guinness family, as I believe it's sort of in the early 20th century. and the efforts of his children to keep his alcohol empire together, as Guinness is sort of becoming a global brand. And Ireland is facing a moment of revolution and also a temperance movement

and also the kids themselves are at each other's throats. Would you, if you had the ability, would you travel back in time to the Guinness Patriarch's deathbed? and as he's passing Whisper in his year, a full explanation of dickhead splitting the G at the Devonshire just on Instagram? Like, would you just let him know? See, I can tell you're getting like a little bit too crabby

because like a year and a half ago, you were like, I can't wait to be a dickhead splitting the G of Devincher. We are the problem. Like, I think we're self-aware. I'm just saying like, it's funny watching a show and maybe this is why Guinness allowed their trademark and their name to be in it because it is based on historical fact, but it's very salacious and out there.

But like they won, like Guinness has never, ever, ever been trendier or more popular. So congratulations. Slancho. Historically minded, but historically loose with tone, I would call this show. And I, I, you know, in rogue heroes,

I enjoy the rock and roll approach to a World War II movie and kind of imagining the dirty dozen, but with the white stripes playing in the background is essentially how Rogue Heroes kind of presents things. The House of Guinness is really chaotic to start with. You know, there's a lot going on. You are introduced to about 15 to 16 people instantaneously, and they are only on screen for like, you know, 10 seconds at a time.

And they're all beating the shit out of each other. And they're all beating the shit out of each other. or doing drugs or drinking or having hangovers or they're related. And even though it's the early 20th century, the Fontaine's DC are playing. Many times. Yeah, a lot of needle drops. But there's also a lot of like animations or animatics like explaining things and saying like power, intrigue.

Also, this is the history of Ireland at this period. It's a very noisy, noisy, noisy show. We were talking about whether or not like TV needs a better hype machine. And I almost wonder whether Stephen Knight backed in. to some weird thing, which it feels like you're watching, the first episode especially, and I've watched two, and I think I will

keep watching it because it is definitely the kind of thing that I like to throw on at 10 p.m. and just veg out and watch. I thought it very stressful, but go on. The first episode, though, is like a pitch deck for the show. Yes, that's well said. And it almost feels like a proof of concept

that he made for Netflix, and Netflix was like, that's the first episode. And maybe that, maybe that works. that's a good idea. I mean, it feels like an interesting collision between the rock and roll history, sensibility that you're talking about, A, a kind of British television aesthetic that I want to ask you about, because I feel like you watch a lot more of this than I do generally, and Netflix's global domination strategy.

Like, the way this show starts, it's clearly a Netflix show. It yells at you about what it is so quickly. that you're almost held captive by it. That didn't really work for me. I'll say that, like, Stephen Knight is a very clever writer, and he's incredibly accomplished and just, like, in his bones, knows how to build story, almost out of anything, it seems like. He's like a savant.

And there's so many good actors in it, as there tend to be in Stephen Knight productions. Like Anthony Boyle, who is one of the best young actors. James Norton. Yeah. Working. Oh, that's James Norton, right? I knew I recognized him. he, we saw Anthony Boyle in, say nothing recently.

Yeah, and master's a different role. And the Lincoln, the Lincoln Assassination Show. That's right. And Lewis Partridge is one of the stars. And Louis Partridge is famous for being the male boyfriend in the Annola Holmes movies, which get a lot of burn in my household. Yeah. And also dating Olivia Rodrigo.

Just a steaming hot cup of decaf in an Anola Holmes movie? It sounds like a Saturday night. Don't make me more homesick than I already am. And then also like a couple other fun things on the margins like Jack Leeson, who famously retired from acting or took a step back from acting after Game of Thrones, returning to the screen in this in a fun way. I have no hate in my heart for this, but I have to say, like, there's a certain aesthetic. And it's not so much the needle drops, although they do feel really glib, especially when it's just like, things are about to get serious lads. And then Fontaine's drops and people knock each other's teeth out. Like it's like what are the actual this is violence.

Do you know what I mean? And after watching like two men grapple with their sins and task on Sunday nights, like it's sort of hard to see this kind of like savagery without any reflection whatsoever. But there's an aesthetic. Maybe this is the Stephen Knight Rock and Roll history aesthetic. But the show, it used to be like 20, 30 years ago, British imports like BBC one original or things that ended up on masterpiece theater or mystery, they all looked a certain way. Whether it was the lighting or the camera, it just did.

didn't look like American television. Now that's just a global television aesthetic. But this is the particularly British flavor of it. And it's leached into shows that we've loved. I think there was a little bit of it in the pursuit of, oh God, I'm blank. Pursuit of Love for the Emily Mortimer series, which I adored. But there's also a ton of it in, you have better recall than I do, and I'm jet lag.

But like other shows like this, Thousand Blows, for example, or other non-Steven night shows. Yeah. And it's just honestly feel significantly different than Mon. land. You know, like there is a kind of... Yeah. It's a certain recognizable aesthetic that I'm just not... It's serviceable and it works, but it does seem like a mass market export product right now,

like Guinness itself. And I'm not viving with it. So there is just something really interesting. I called it Succession, Stephen Knight's Succession, and there's obvious reasons for that because of the plot set up. But there is also a few quiet moments in the opening episodes of any... family banter that I think it doesn't necessarily reach Jesse Armstrong levels

of symphonic put downs, but it's kind of a different show. It's a different show than the one of that seems to be taking place in the same sound stages that they shot Peaky Blinders and is a lot of rock and roll while people are throwing Molotov cocktails around. This stuff that I'm here for

is the family stuff. So I'll continue to check it out. but I'm glad you at least gave a look, and I do think that there's something to the universal British export aesthetic that we're arriving at. Yeah, I mean, it's just, and maybe that's a more natural segue from the thing we're saying about the lowdown, because certainly a lot of the homogenization of global television

and global television made for Netflix is because of Netflix, and it's also because of an American aesthetic that has crept around the world. I think that the ultimate test is like the lowdown dares you to be bored. Like they're like, you need, if you may think that this scene is going on too long, but this is actually how people talk. And House of Guinness is like, you will never get bored because the scene changes every 37 seconds. The other thing that I think that differentiates, I mean, a lot of things differentiate the lowdown from House of Guinness. I mean, the only thing that they have in common is, I think, alcohol. But the other thing about the lowdown that feels really refreshing at this moment is that it doesn't have to do anything.

Right. And so much of the way we talk about contemporary television is, we talk about it in terms of, yes, sticking the landing or, you know, answering the questions or servicing X, Y, or Z thing. And it does become this weird, like, exam structure where we're like, okay, well, what does Alien Earth have to do to keep us interested or make us feel like it was worth it? What does it have to, what did Noah Hawley have to do to please the, like, the deep xenomorph heads like yourself and then also bring in nubes? Like, that's a lot of have-toes. and it's such a privilege to watch a show

that absolutely didn't have to do anything except just march to the beat of its own twangy drummer. Drummer, drummers aren't twangy. Let's wrap it up there. The guitars are twangy. Thanks to Kai. I'm fading, but I'm good, I'm good.

And Kai, we'll be back on Monday. Greenwald will be with me to talk about task online, but we may have some extra stuff on Monday. So everybody have a great weekend. Enjoy task on Sunday night, and we'll see you on Monday.