The Watch - The Magic of a Live Instagram Beats Battle, Plus ‘Run’ and ‘Devs’ | The Watch

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

On Saturday night DJ Premier and RZA faced off on Instagram Live for a two-hour beats battle. It might be the most fun we’ve had in a long time and shows how content has evolved during this time of social distancing (1:59). HBO’s newest show ‘Run’ is a Merritt Wever showcase (26:03), and we’ve finally figured out the key to enjoying ‘Devs’ (35:35). Plus, a conversation with Scott Teems, whose Western-thriller movie ‘The Quarry’ comes to VOD this Friday (52:12). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Scott Teems Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. Their relief team is working across America to safely distribute individually packaged fresh meals and communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily in some of our biggest cities like New York and Los Angeles, and they're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting out on the front lines while keeping local restaurants in business as well. You can directly help the heroes in hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us and you can help your local restaurants stay alive. Go to the ringer.com slash WCK to donate, please. We're trying to raise $250,000. And if you have the means, it's an unbelievably great and useful cause

that helps our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can the money goes directly to World Central Kitchen and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. Hey guys, thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch on today's show. Andy and I talked about devs and run the new HBO show. We also talked a lot about the Instagram live beat battle between DJ Premier and Rizza that happened on Saturday night and also Saturday Night, which also obviously aired on Saturday night. And the reconfiguring of live slash monocultural events that we're all tuning in for more or less at the same time and how being home is kind of revived that need for

connection through pop culture. Also at the end of this podcast, I did an interview with Scott Teams, who's a really interesting screenwriter and director. He has worked on Rectify. He worked on Narcos, and he has a new film coming out this week called The Quarry, which stars Shea Wiggum and Michael Shannon, and is a really cool movie about a stranger who shows up in a small town in West Texas

and causes a lot of chaos. I'll talk a little bit more about that movie as we get to my interview with Scott. Let's get into our show today with Andy. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line. He's only living for beat battles and Paw Patrol, and he's all out of beat battles. It's Andy Greenwald. Wow, that really hit home. What's up, man? It's Monday. Sometimes you get a little fanciful in the intros,

but that one, like, that's really my life. That's right. I mean, we got a lot to talk about today, Andy. It's Monday. We're still doing this from home. We're hoping everybody is safe at home. I just want to do a little bit of housekeeping up atop. If you go to the ringer.com, you'll see a post up on the site right now

where the ringer is supporting World Central Kitchen in some fundraising efforts. And you can find the link there to the GoFundMe. Andy and I had Josh Phelps on last week from World Central Kitchen and talk to him about the work that he and obviously chef Jose Andres are doing, getting food to the front lines as people battle the coronavirus in hospitals, first responders, etc., people who are in need of hot meals, and they're doing just such amazing work. And we really encourage everybody listening to donate if they are able. Yeah, please give what you can.

It's an amazing organization in good times and in bad. As Chris was saying, it's not just the people who are sick with the virus. it's the many thousands, if not millions of people who are affected financially or even just in terms of their basic ability to get food in this time of crisis. So we're excited to contribute and to support the organization and we hope all our listeners will do the same. Yeah, absolutely. So today on the pod, we're going to talk a little bit about Run, which is the new show on HBO on Sunday night, starring Merritt Weaver and Don McGleason, executive produced by Phoebe Waller Bridge. And that one is on, it's just like a 30-minute show on Sunday. So Andy and I will talk about the first episode of that, which aired last night. We're also going to talk a little bit about devs, the penultimate episode of devs, aired last Thursday, and the finale is coming this Thursday.

But first, we're going to talk about something that has nothing to do with TV, as it were, but it might be the most fun I have had looking at a screen in a month, right? Basically, it's been a month since we've been home. I think longer. I mean, this was in the darkest of times, this was the brightest of light. There was an event that happened on Saturday night that filled me with joy like helium into a balloon. I'm still a little bit levitating off the ground and it made me believe again in goodness, humanity, art culture, and especially music. Chris, tell them what we're talking about. We're talking about the DJ Premier versus RZA producer battle that was hosted live on Instagram Live that went on for about two and a half, three hours.

these battles have been popping up recently. They come courtesy of Swiss Beats, who's basically organizing these Swiss and Timbalin are organizing these Instagram live experiences where, you know, I don't know if they're exactly battles, you know, while people are trying to keep score, this was more like the most amazing director's commentary, but for 50 of our favorite songs straight up ever made.

and it was DJ Premier who you obviously probably know from Gangstar but has also done amazing work with Biggie and Jay-Z and Knaz and countless other rappers and Rizzo who is obviously the producer behind most of the great Wu-Tang Clan songs of the last 30 years. So basically the setup is this. Like on Saturday, I'm hanging out. It's the afternoon.

I've had a really busy day of walking from one room in my apartment to the other. every once in a while I'll go into my wife's room and say, who you're texting with? And that pretty much is the highlight. I'd like to stress, Chris, at this moment. I have offered you at least one child just on a rental basis. The weird part is it wasn't yours. I didn't specify, but I just want you to know that offer still stands.

Yeah, so just kind of doing the laps, you know, checking in on my people. and me and a couple of friends, Zach and Shaw, we watched the final round of the 2005 masters together. I just want to jump in and say some childless friends. Please continue. So we just, we killed some time, talked about the election,

just kind of like, you know, vibed out, watch Tiger Woods beat Chris DeMarco 15 years ago. This is, I know that you're setting this up, Chris, as like, I was doing nothing before this great thing happened, but this is like erotic to me.

This is like, ASMR. You're like, I don't know, we chatted and did nothing. Like, I am, I am really aroused right now. I don't know how else to put it. Go on. So at the end of this, fantasy says to me, he's like, are you going to watch the premiere thing tonight, the DJ premiere thing tonight? And I was kind of like, I had seen when Dean Nice did his DJ set a couple of weeks ago. And everybody seemed to get really excited about it. I think it was trending on Twitter. Not that that matters because it's on Instagram. And there was lots of famous people in the comments and like Joe Biden, and Elizabeth Warren were in there.

Like, go off King. You know, like, I'm sure that was really Joe Biden. And so I was just kind of like, yeah, I mean, obviously DJ Premier and Rizzo are two of my favorite musicians of all times. So I'm the target audience for that. But it was at, you know, it was at 6 o'clock. I wasn't really sure. So I had myself a little bit of dinner and I'm hanging out.

And I see people starting to tweet about it. So I dial it in. You dialed it in. And pretty soon for about an. hour and a half, it actually felt like being out. Obviously, it wasn't. You know, obviously it was completely different. But I had a couple pops. And I had like the phone kind of propped up watching these guys go. And I'm watching the comment section. We're going to get to the comment section. And essentially what it was was about 45 minutes of technical difficulties on the part of Rizza,

who was just like at various points, his sound wasn't working. He couldn't see comments. He seemed to be in a wreck room somewhere in suburban New Jersey, although I think he was in Los Angeles, but I just imagined it being New Jersey, standing in front of like a 2004 flat screen television that had an anime DVD playing in the background. So essentially every bar in New York for the first 10 years of the 21st century. Exactly right.

You were just like walking at any bar and it would just be like, why is this kung fu movie on? And then like any other situation like that, it would just be on the DVD menu screen for like 35 minutes. So Riza is standing there wearing like batting gloves or fingerless gloves. Premier has got like a more pro setup going and is just trying his hardest. Host to host, I recognized it, to keep it going, to keep the momentum going to keep

mentioning what they were doing, the concept and trying to give some context to what they were talking about. But seriously, once this roller coaster took off, it never came back down. The thing that I have to stress is the jankiness of it. is one of the reasons why it was so endearing. It was so endearing. These guys are in their 50s. They've been doing it a long time.

They've not been doing it like this ever. It was so unpolished as to be almost DIY. Like they didn't know how to translate the sounds they were making to this medium. Maybe there is no appropriate way because it's coming through a phone anyway. But also, we cannot stress enough how much this was not in any way a DJ battle. This was two guys playing records at each other. It was two guys grabbing the ox cord. And the other guy loved the record the other guy was playing just unquestionably.

And there was something that was alive in this. Now, obviously, as Chris said, these were, they were just playing the best songs of our adult lives. And it was exhilarating for that reason, if nothing else. but the joy that each of them took in the music the other was playing was the kind of thing that I don't know how many experiences I've had with with the music of my not youth but being a little bit younger I guess high school through 20s for the most part because as with every music made by young people and appreciated by young people it often is first emerges with this chrysalis of attitude or armor

which makes sense, right? Like part of the appeal of Wu Tang was the total fucking obscure mystery of it. Who were these guys? They were wearing masks on the first album cover. You know,

everything about it was curated legend. So the idea of saying, this song is great and makes me happy. That really wasn't on the agenda in 1993 or 1994, right? It came with all the attitude and all the pose of younger music.

But now, this is classic rock. This is better than classic rock. And so they were just brimming with joy and pride over their creations. And then you get to the best part of these things, which I cannot stress enough. Every major hip-hop figure from the last 30 years plus was wilding out in the comments. That's what I meant about. It felt like it was being out. Not that I hang out with like Static Selecta and Jada kiss on a regular basis,

although I'm available if you guys want to Zoom. People from, but also spanning generations from like De La Sol to Gris. Rizelda, right? Talib Kali and Denzel Curry. The rappers whose tracks are being played, whether it's Royce the 5-9 or Jadakis are there being like, this is fantastic. Ghostface is clowning on Rizza for talking too much. Little Seas is there. He sees little Kim is there, and he's like, what's up Kim? I mean, this was for those of us, and there are a lot of people in our demo, but hopefully some in Denzel Curry's demo too, who grew up with these figures as their heroes, as their Titans, as their rock stars, to be just kind of treading water in the same

lap pool for two hours, united only by the fact that boom by Royce is still one of the greatest records of the last 20 years? Come on! Come on, Riz's children appeared to jump out behind him when he played Wutang and nothing to fuck with. Children, it was always for the children. That was very Dattington. There was a couple other comments moments I wanted to point out. One was when Rizzo, I think, was talking about the kind of inception and release of Only Built for Cuba Links, Rayquan's first solo record. Jadikis came in the comments and said the tape was purple, L.O.L. in all lowercase. And there was something about it being lowercase that really cracked me up. Also, routine and regular appearances from Adrian Brody, sometimes just jumping in to go bong, bong when Rizzo was talking.

this led our buddy Sam Donsky to text me that Adrian Brody apparently has a running Instagram gag called hashtag Brody Beats where he just does a selfie video of him playing a track he's working on and it says hashtag co-vive 19 wow what a legend that's all our Getty was in the comments I mean people were just like hanging out and that was the thing is like I guess what I was really missing you know we have a couple of shit we have we're we're not in any, we're not starving for good TV right now. There's a lot of really great stuff on Survivor's great. Top Chef is great. Saul is great Briar Patch is great. People of Westworld, it seems like, you know, there's like a community around these shows. But what do we and I always

talk about? We talk about the, the great gathering place, the great bonfires of culture that we can kind of all stand around and be like, holy shit, see this fire? And this was fire. This was just like everybody, one of the coolest things was being on 10 text message threads that night. And then also seeing on Twitter a bunch of my buddies in other like Zoom chats and their text message threads and how everybody like Donnie who used to work here at the ring or Donnie Kwok had like a screenshot of a group hang that he was in where he was like, we're watching this like the Super Bowl. Yeah. You know, and it was just kind of like this amazing moment. And what happened was you just wound up seeing how these tracks like I just pulled up a playlist of.

all of them. I'll put it in the Twitter when we put out in the tweet for the, for the pod. But somebody put together a Spotify playlist of the actual track listing. And my favorite moments are when unintentionally these songs started talking to each other. So when Premier played Dwick by Gangstar Nice and Smooth, and he was like, this is our summertime joint. And then a track or two later, Rizzo was like, you know, you were talking about summertime joints. I didn't really make summertime joints, but here's, you're all I need to get by. I'll be there for you by Method Man and Mary J. Blige, which is like the song of all summers.

Yeah, it was, I think the only song in my experience living on the East Coast in summertime that matched it in terms of pure numbers of cars with window down driving past you on the street playing it per visit outdoors was hated or love it. in what was that summer of 03. But yeah. Yeah, I just can't, I don't know, I'm still just like a little bit vibrating from it because like, Premier would just be like, oh yeah, so then remember this. And then he played represent of Illmatic. And then Nas is in the comments, you know? Or is it just casually reminding everyone that, yeah, he produced dark fantasy, the first

track on the Karnia record, even though, of course, anything on a comedy. Kanye record becomes subsumed into whether Kanye did it. Of course, Kanye curated it or whatever. But, oh, yeah, low-key, he made one of the two best tracks on that record. I don't know. He also did so appalled, right? Like, the clarity and purity of their musical visions. Premier playing kick in the door and then Riza playing Long Kiss Good Night from various

biggie records. I mean, it was just so, so, like, ecstatic. It felt legitimately celebratory. and I think almost like I realized, oh, it's been a month really since I've celebrated anything. And also just purely on a musical level, I think that one thing that has happened that I think we've struggled as critics, as fans, as people in the world to sort of wrap our arms around and communicate, is that as things have gotten more and more niche, as things have gotten more and more, you know, individually curated or possible to individually curate, it sometimes doesn't feel like things are talking to each other anymore. And I know it's obviously a big point that in our broken discourse and, you know, crumbling democracy, we're not talking to each other anymore. But it sometimes feels like music, let's just keep it in that realm for now, isn't really talking to itself anymore.

And part of that is because hip-hop like punk is always, you know, edibly killing the father and starting new and rejecting what came before, blah, blah, blah. And that's fine. And I'm not here to shit on Xanax rap in any capacity. but what was thrilling was to see younger people and older people at paying homage. That's not even right because that suggests that these were like these are old, you know, spirituals or hymns or something. These are vibrant crackling musical, musically electric records that still felt relevant.

And so to see people from all ages celebrating that felt communal in the best possible sense. And I still feel great about it. I don't know. There was something about it that really lingered in a beautiful way. Everyone was just so happy about it. It was also just the way in which these guys were playing their music was almost a perfect representation of their music itself. Like, Premiere was on top of his shit,

and it's just like the way he used samples where they were really inventive, but they were so almost staccato and controlled. Like, you think about the faucet drip on Come Clean by J.Rue, the Damager, or the like horn stabs and kicking the door or the way he's so proficient at cutting up vocal lines like he does on So Ghetto by Jay-Z and then with Rizza, it was like a mess.

But it was a beautiful mess. It's like, this is the guy who thought it would be a good idea to start Liquid Swords with like 90 seconds of a child from a samurai movie talking about his father getting like of being the decapitator of the shogun. Like he and his whole thing was like, yo, like my, music's not working. I can't tell what the energy is out there because I can't see anybody,

but here's cream. I mean, we should move on, but we're obviously still just vibrating from this. Other than when Premier casually dropped, So Ghetto, which is the greatest song ever recorded. You tweeted that. You're correct. I've run the numbers. He did that like two hours, 15 minutes into it. I have to say I did really like at the end when they were so clearly losing steam, like heavyweight boxers who, you know, just fighting for the decision. And Rizza started shouting out his European fans and played gravel pit, which is arguably the worst Wu-Tang song of all time. Yes.

And there were two comments immediately. One said, Europeans can keep this. And two was DJ Snake just living his best life, just blasting the French flag emoji that he was finally seen. And then when Premier started playing tracks from the Christina Aguilera record that he produced. And someone, and someone jumped in to say, co-check music.

Co-checked. So, God, it was good. Oh, man. Yeah, you can find this on YouTube. I'm not sure if these things live on, on Instagram themselves, although I would highly recommend it if you can see it with the comments.

I'll send out a YouTube link, but we'll also put up the playlist that somebody made of all these songs. And by the way, to our listeners, I dare you. I dare you to find another TV-centric podcast that burns 20 minutes on an Instagram

We're doing the best weekend. You want to talk about Merit Weaver? I don't think we burned anything. This is the happiest I felt in weeks. Pivot, since we're talking, you know, live, weird, janky footage, I do want to talk about run, which, by the way, as a by way of segue,

I cannot think of the show's title without hearing Ghostface say the word. I know. Run. And I wish that's something that we should do if we, you know, for the segments, we should try to just drop that little line there. Did you, I feel like the answer is no, but did you check out any of Saturday Night Live at home?

I did. I watched a couple of the clips, which is usually how I watched Saturday Night Live. So it was not a appointment viewing thing for me. I'm currently watching three separate seasons of Top Chef. So that is, that's my guy. That is kind of taking up a lot of time. But yeah, I watched like the RBG skit. Kate McKinnon did. And I saw the Tom Hanks monologue. And I watched the Hal Wulner tribute. I got a amazing text from your wife this weekend that said, thank you for the Charleston season. Oh, yeah.

So I feel like I'm giving. Yeah, I just wanted to check in on about that because I thought it was really interesting. Obviously, like all Saturday Night Lives, it was hit or miss, but there was something extremely sweet. As I think Tom Hanks said in his intro. Yeah, which I didn't think was the SNL brand. You know what I mean? There are a lot of shows, like, trying to think that was part of John Stewart's sort of self-deprecating thing.

John Oliver does it. But I don't know how much of the SNL brand is to be like, we're pretty mediocre most of the time. But I kind of appreciated that they steered into it. I thought the RBG thing was Hall of Fameworthy and Kate McKinnon is a genius. But that aside, I really enjoyed it. And I think this is the kind of conversation that we have every five years or or so, but maybe culturally in the country, we have, I guess I would say more and more, that of all the things, institutions that sort of to turn into these kind of collective places of

worship and healing, Saturday Night Live is such an odd one, but it's been around for so long, and now clearly it will always be around. You know, I remember the first show after 9-11, which was obviously in some ways a template for this, in some ways, but in so many other ways not, that one, you know, there were all those articles about like, will comedy ever happen again? Yeah, right. Is irony dead? And it started with, you know, with songs and the sort of very serious reflection about what had happened.

This wasn't that. But there was such an element of warmth and empathy that it allowed me to watch Pete Davidson's Drake thing and be like, well, this is objectively terrible. But it's very sweet that he did this, you know? And approach all of it that way. and then actually have a lot of affection for the little details, like the little interstitials, the bumpers, where they sort of recreated the stage with things people had in their homes

and the way all the cast just filmed themselves. I found it, I think it did what it set out to do. I found it very, very heartening. Yeah, I think that if something is interesting and the people are interesting and the concept is, I mean, like, I was kind of struck watching the S&L stuff and I was thinking about the Bonapitie videos that they've been making where everybody is kind of in their home kitchen.

And, you know, they're doing things like here's a 15-minute thing on pantry pasta. And everybody is kind of making their version of whatever they've got kind of left in their cupboard to do a pasta. And ultimately, like, whether they're in the BA test kitchen or in a kitchen that looks like yours or mine in an apartment in Brooklyn, it's still kind of engaging because of the people who are doing it. So the same thing went for S&L. I mean, like, I like Kate McKinnon.

So it's kind of inevitable that I would like Kate McKinan, even if she's in quarantine, kind of doing her own set dressing. It's pretty impressive, I gotta say. Yeah. It's pretty impressive. There is something to be said. I mean, Tom Hanks says at the beginning,

said at the beginning in his monologue, you know, that one of the things that will be missing is the, you know, thousands of dollars of sets and all these things. At some level, there's an opportunity for the comedy to be a little bit better because I do think that some of the best stuff ever to come out of S&L from the 70s, 80s, 90s,

2000s, whatever, is pretty juvenile. You know, and that's what makes it kind of wonderful and endearing. In the same way, if you go to see UCB in a black box theater, the lack of stuff helps you love it more. It's not, doesn't feel mismatched with its surroundings. And so the fact that it didn't have to have a set built for it, probably allowed for some of the weird or more marginal ideas to come out. And I mean, it seems they'll be doing this for the foreseeable future.

And I actually think it makes the show for me, a lot more interesting to check out. Yeah, I mean, it is, it is interesting how the, the circumstances that we find ourselves in probably have us a little bit more open to these kind of more live communal experiences. You can watch Saturday Night Live on a bunch, as a bunch of YouTube clips if you want to, but I wonder whether or not there will be more opportunities for stuff like this going forward. I think my personal preference is to see things that have a little bit more of an institutional track record doing them rather than, you know, telethons or whatever that that might be, that they might try to stand up in a quick, fast, in a hurry to be like, hey, here's Chris Martin

playing piano while, you know, Bill Hader does impressions somewhere else. Is this why you rejected my idea that we do a duet of Imagine on today's show? I just felt like we can't top greatness. Let's talk a little bit about run. Yes, ghost face voice. Okay. pretty horny show. Yeah. Okay. That's where you want to go. Okay. Let's set the scene. That's my review.

I guess I noticed that because there's just not a lot of horny TV. Maybe my mind is there because I just did the basic instinct rewatchables last week with Bill, and that's coming out tonight with Bill and Mallory. So I've been thinking about representations of human sexuality on screen. But this is a show where it's like the, you know, it is somewhat high concept to set it up. Run is written by Vicki Jones, who's sort of one. She's essentially Phoebe Waller Bridges creative partner. She worked on the stage production of Fleabag and has been kind of in the Phoebe Waller Bridge orbit for a while. And this is her first show that she's writing on her own. Phoebe Wallerbridge is acting as executive producer. And I think Kate Dennis directed most of the episodes, if I remember correctly.

I've watched a few, but the pilot went up on Sunday. And it stars Dominal Gleason and Merit Weaver. I would say it seems to be more a Merit Weaver vehicle. And Domino Gleeson is almost the femme fatal in this show. And it's essentially about two people who find themselves approaching middle age, if not already well in there. And they've got levels of dissatisfaction. in the lives that they're leading.

But they have a promise to each other that if one person texts the other one run, they meet on a train in Chicago. They meet in New York and they take the train across the country. And take the train across the country. Sorry, so they meet in New York and they take the train across the country. That's the basic premise.

Great premise for a show. It's great elevator pitch. Two people who've knew each other a long time ago make this promise and they actually fulfill it to one another. Let's talk a little bit about the execution go? What did you think of this show? Well, I agree with you. I love the premise. It's so clean. It's so simple. And it's executed at a really high level in the first 10 minutes of the pilot, you know, which is no small thing. You have to create, you have to not just introduce the premise,

but you have to introduce character, in this case, Merritt Weaver's character Ruby, and convince us by showing almost nothing of her life why she would be making the insolice. decision to leave that life. And whether it's that first top-down overhead crane shot of the parking lot to the fact that she's trapped in her car, literally, due to the parking choices that she and others have made, the show does it with style. And I really enjoyed it. I mean, you know, everyone who's listening to this podcast will know how I feel about the show's

runtime. It was thrilling that it was only 30 minutes. But it felt packed. just, you know, you have to get characters across the country or even across an ocean. You have to get them on a train. You have to get them near each other. There is a high level of horniness in this show. I wasn't going to lead with it, but I appreciate it.

And I think that that is also relatively unfamiliar on TV and pretty exciting to watch. It's very electric because the thing about Merritt Weaver's character and Donald Gleason's character is you don't know much about them. don't know how you feel about them yet, but you know that they really want to bang each other a lot from the minute they see each other. Yeah, it's a really sensory show. Like the characters are checking how they smell. They're checking how they look, plying lipstick,

you know, going to the bathroom, masturbating. Like there's like a lot of that kind of stuff happening in the show. And it's interesting because in some ways it feels almost like the characters themselves as people feel a little bit generic. like it's like a suburban mom and wife and a slick urban like a self-help guy basically as a guy who does TED talks and life coaching.

And so they don't really feel like super grounded in a set of references or behaviors that are necessarily like unique. But I think that that is going to come as episodes go along. The one thing I'll say is that it's interesting with that. this going 30 minutes and being a week-to-week show, I weirdly almost felt like I wanted more right away. I wonder whether it would have benefited from dropping two episodes on the first night. Like a couple of other HBO shows have.

They did outsider that way. And I kind of was like, oh, I would watch another run right now. And I think it also would have helped other people get the rhythm of the show. I think that it's something that, especially if they had had time to adjust their, and I guess they did have time, and maybe they even floated it, their marketing plan for the show, considering everyone's circumstances right now, multiple episode drop would have made a lot of sense. My wife, who is not a binger, turned to me and said, let's watch another.

And, you know, that was actually the first, one of the first times that the dominant way of thinking about TV that, you know, we discuss and that I'm trying to combat with Briar Patch and everything took hold in our home, you know, where it was just this. immediate assumption that there should be another one of those. I agree with you. And I also agree with your point. And I think that it's not a feature, not a bug that these seem like, and I've only seen the one, but I feel confident saying, that they seem like archetypes. And what sets them apart is the point of view of the show itself, but more specifically, the carnality. You know, what would it take to get someone out of their lives? And

I think it would be hunger, right? And it would be sort of a perhaps an even self-damaging hunger. And that comes across as sexuality or sexual desire in the first episode. Maybe there's something deeper still to come. But I really appreciate that about the show. It made it stand out. It made it feel different. And then finally, I think the thing to note is that just Merritt Weaver is, she is as advertised. I mean, she is someone that has no shortage of fans in the critical community. She's won two Emmys, despite not being famous. I don't think by any stretch. And if you read interviews with her press for that, that she's done for the show, she's clearly quite comfortable with that. She is very press-a-verse, press-shy. She did an interview with Vulture where she spent the whole time

being like, should we really be talking about this? There's a global pandemic. And yet, she is just a transformative, like, magnetic performer. You know, and you cannot take your eyes off her. And you understand in that moment. And I think this is probably something that Ficky Jones intended with the casting. The first time when you spend more than, you spend five minutes with these characters. And within those five minutes, despite seeing Ruby, you know, being super normcore and basic with her yoga mat and her Hyundai or whatever, you, once she gets on that train and she has this devilish spark in her eye that Merit Weaver brings to the role, you understand why someone would. fly across the country to be around that. Yeah, sure.

What you maybe don't is that Donald Gleason is, he's a handsome guy, he's a sharp guy, he's got a cool accent, a good actor, but the character itself feels a little more flatter. And I also think that's intentional because I think that what she wants from him, the show clearly has a point of view, and I believe the point of view ultimately, unless it totally surprises me, is that she probably is worth doing this for and he might not be. well I don't even know if I mean like I think that as you I can't speak to that because I don't want to give anything away I think that the way that they kind of dole out information about these characters is really important to the show while I wouldn't necessarily call it a mystery box show at all I do think that the cool thing about it is that as we learn more about these people we learn a little bit more about their motivations so that maybe whether or not one or the other is worth it is kind of besides the point right right so it's pretty cool to see that. Only thing I'll add to the Merritt Weaver thing, which I thought you were,

you'd said everything I wanted to say about it, is that the run she is on right now with godless and unbelievable, and now this is, she's got to be considered one of the best performers working in this kind of era of television right now. And I think

to the performance she gives and run, it's almost disarming because it's so unlike the last couple of times people have seen her like unbreakable and godless, but she's kind of approaching that level where she could do anything right now. I mean, in Godless, she plays this kind of butch, gunslinger character and in Unbreakable, she plays this deeply, deeply empathetic human detective.

And now in Run, I think she plays a very character at sea, someone who's really finding themselves at a crucial pivot turning point in their life, and is a little bit selfish and also a little bit searching. And it's just such a fantastic tapestry of characters to watch one actress play. So should we pivot? Should we pivot to devs? Should we pivot from the hyper-real

to the hypothetical? Okay. Once I gave up on devs, devs came back to me. Yes. It's like true love. I couldn't agree more. And I don't know if we were

as explicit as you just were because we were clearly critical of the sixth episode. More so than we happened. Oh, I just mean once... Yeah, we were critical of that. But I think once I gave up on understanding it, once I let go, because you let go a long time ago. You were always Zen and the art of watching streaming TV.

You were like, I'm not trying to be the doctor determinism here. I don't know anything about quantum physics. I don't know anything about quantum computing. I'm not going to read Ted Chang short stories. Like, you were already there. I wanted, I was on the boards, man. Like, I was logging on. And I wanted to be a part of it.

And I think I just don't have that part of my brain that works on that level. And I think ultimately what we were kind of, I think when we get to the end of this show, I have not watched the finale yet. The finale comes on Thursday. We'll realize that that is probably the right way to watch this show. Okay, right. I agree with that. I hope so.

I mean, that's how I've been enjoying it. I feel like you're being polite because for me, the black hole at the bottom of the show wasn't a literal black hole that is spinning our existence into multiverses. it was the main character. And I was very concerned after the sixth episode that, you know, we had this circumstance where, like with many shows or stories in the genre, a lead character has to, like a superhero, rise to the occasion and save the universe or play some pivotal role. And Sonoye Mizuno is a fascinating performer.

I don't think she was carrying necessarily. And I don't even say this is her on her. I think it's also in a situation like this. This actually falls to the writers and directors about the situations you put your players in on the field. But she did not feel to me capable of carrying that part of the storytelling to a degree that would have been satisfying to me. And then we get this episode, which minimized Lily, I would say,

to a degree that actually made the show stronger again. And I take no pleasure in saying that part of it, the critical part. I would rather pivot and say, this episode pulled me back in. You know, when all is said and done, I wonder if we're going to look at this and actually chalk a lot of this up to Alex Garland, brilliant writer of books, brilliant writer of film, has turned into a remarkable director. At this point, maybe even a more interesting director than writer.

And I say that as someone who's a fan of both of his fields of study, was learning as he went about how to tell a multi-part TV story, because it's feeling to me, again, having not seen the finale that airs on Thursday, that the first two and the last two might be the most interesting and strongest, and that it had kind of a soggy middle. Which would kind of suggest this was a movie. Now, I'm not saying that he ever wrote this as a movie, but if the first two and the last two are the best things he's got

and the middle section feels very much like, I would never say like only a half interrogated, but a little bit of a weaker crime throw. to some extent, and a lot of kicking the can down the road with what devs is and what's going on. I think that the less I understand this show, it's the moments when Stewart is on the screen. And when he's like, there's a box inside the box inside the box. And he's just getting really out there with it. And, you know, he's when Lily comes in and he was like, I don't know you. Like, that's the shit I want. I almost want to be more confused and more overwhelmed with random cuts to cave art than I do.

want to spend Jamie putting slices of citrus and beverages? For what it's worth, the watch superfan, Damon Lindelof texted and said that he appreciated that this episode of, and I don't think I'm betraying a confidence here, that this episode of Devs, which he's watching religiously, featured Forrest, Nick Offerman's character, he could watch anything in recorded or unrecorded history and time, and he chooses to watch the season two premiere of the leftovers.

which I thought was bold, and I agree, and I also felt a little bit triggered by that. But I love the box in the box stuff. I mean, the idea being there's a computer that can show you the future, and in that future, there's a computer that can show you the future, and in that future there's a computer that can show you the future, so which is the real one, is a trip,

and kind of exciting. Let's all enjoy ourselves and go see a planet, laser light show kind of way. And I welcome that. But I also loved that this episode in many ways felt like a return to what appealed to us in the beginning, which is taking that same ethos of like, I'm going to blow your mind, man, and folding it into the aesthetic storytelling as well. So that the sound design in the opening seconds of this episode was really radical to the point where I wondered if my speakers were glitching out. The Steve Reich stuff, yeah. It was really haunting, really cool and

worth doing. If you're doing something on this level, do it. Push it all the way in all put all the little. Don't just have one weird shot. Have like a five minute opening of like what the fuck is happening. Push it all up to 11 because why not? And then similarly

like the scene with Lyndon and Katie. At the damn, yeah. Everything about that is so highly stylized from Allison Pill's performance to the setting, the vista, her just sort of patient, barely disguised exasperation with having to go through this, which is, of course, she's only that way because she watched herself be this way. And so,

you know, it's a chicken and egg thing. Is there any other version of it? But also just that was conceived, staged and shot pretty brilliantly because I think we all knew what was going to happen. and we also, as an audience, needed to be shown how free will worked in this because the other half, the weaker half of the episode was going to be about Lily choosing not to go where she has to go.

So all of it had to kind of be sold in the Katie and Lyndon scene and I'll be damned if it didn't work. Oh, for sure. In 20 seconds of dialogue to go from why would this person kill themselves to I see what's happening here. And, you know, some of that was foregrounded with Lyndon's devotion to this project and to the work and how it's more important. Getting back in there is more important than money or even staying alive. But also, I was just pleased to see someone with a greater commitment to the multiverse than Marvel Comics legend Jack Kirby.

You know, like this was a level, I just feel like Kevin Feigy was like, that's what I expect from my audience for the next 10 years. Yeah. Strap on the feedback, guys. It's good to see it. It's good to see it in action. It was stylish and it was compelling. And that's the sweet spot where the show really thrives. Yeah, I mean, I've always admired it. Sometimes I think I've fallen out of love with this show. But this last episode I thought was really impressive in a lot of different ways. I think we have to pour out a little citrusy filtered water for the god Jamie, who does. died as he lived. Getting beverages. Slicing lemons for an ex

who cuckolded him and didn't even ask for the lemon. Wow. Profiles encourage. She also, do Lily and Sergei seem like the kind of couple who make commemorative mugs to their relationship? Like those two guys don't see, like,

I don't know what they do on weekends aside from like code and play Red Dead Red Dead redemption. So basically what I do. But I don't like the idea of those two being like you know what would be really cool is if we got coffee mugs with our faces on them You know there's just there's just some things there We talked from the beginning about how the way Garland shoots San Francisco is that it looks hyper real And it's so fake that it's real again and I it's in this uncanny valley of Cognition and I love that

It's problematic when it's our main emotional characters and I'm like you were serious about that? Like, like, that's, I don't, you know, and so that leads us to that, that whole sequence where, again, like, I, I, I, whether it was a directorial choice or, uh, an actor's, uh, range, I, I did not really buy that Lily was watching her second boyfriend get murdered in front of her in his many days and was herself about to be murdered before the remarkably clean, toothed homeless guy who we've all been waiting to reveal himself,

revealed himself, and murdered Kenton. And then, to add insult to injury, is like, I was not meant to do this. I have risked my own career, but your courage has inspired me.

Like, what is it? Shout out, the Russian security service is known for their method acting. That guy really was into it. He was hippie dancing in the park. He was like Daniel Day Lewis

and Last the Mohicans, making his own moccasins. Do you think Mike Ermentrout, Sirka better call Saul, watched this episode? Saw what happened to Kenton and was like, I better watch my back. As it turns out, old people are not completely indestructible.

Before we go, we should say, obviously, Thursday, we're going to talk about the second to last episode of Saul this season. We'll be talking about the Briar Patch finale, which airs tonight. You want to say a little bit about that? Oh, my God.

I kind of can't believe it. Yeah, man. This is the end of the run. for this season of the show. Hopefully we get to make more. But I'm really proud of the show. I'm proud of this episode. Written by me, directed by Stephen Piot.

Written by me. It was. What can I say? I love it. In Albuquerque, under great duress. And it, you know, people have been hearing me say for eight years or more how hard it is to end things. and this felt it was challenging but also exciting. And I think a lot of our actors do some of their best work.

I think a lot of things that people were hoping for pay off. And the last scene of the episode is the scene I'm most proud of. It's probably, I think it's probably the best scene in the series in terms of the way it was shot, the way it was lit, the way it was performed. And, you know, I think I said this about the end of seven, but the one thing that I learned during this process, and I think I'd like to think everyone would nod their head at this, whether they're like masters of the forum like Vince Gilligan or Peter Gould or visitors from other medium like Alex Garland, like you put the stuff out there and so many

people touch it and shape it and improve it and manipulate it, that it's not a sign of your own success or failure if the end result doesn't look like what you thought or doesn't feel, like vibrate on the frequency that you were feeling inside of your head. But the few moments, when you get that, feel really good. And the very end of the show are that for me. And I'm really, really excited and proud for people to see it. I'm so excited to watch it tonight. I actually haven't seen the finale.

So I'm very excited to watch it. Oh, well, you can just, you can also, that means on Thursday, you can finally take off your glasses, Jonas Arestyle, and just let me have it. Did it have to be a briar patch? I love it. Okay, so we're going to talk about briar patch and Better Call Saul and Mrs. America on Thursday. Mrs. America airs on FX on Hulu on the 15th,

so that's on Wednesday. And I watched the first episode to that. That fucking show is good, man. I'm excited. That is Crackerjack, high level. Kate Blanchett is like on fire in this show. It's great, great stuff.

I've got a question for you. One I think a lot of watch fans are asking, is TV back? TV never left. It's just it's all we have. TV and rap battles. I didn't watch it for a year. But look, seems great to me.

I'm having a good time. TV is back. So we'll keep talking about all the shows that we've talked about today going forward, keeping an eye on run. I think we'll probably hit what we do in the shadows going forward.

We'll hit, there's a bunch of stuff to talk about. So Greenwald and I will be here with you. We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to get into my interview with Scott Teams. Thanks so much for listening. Greenwald, we can't wait to watch

barry patch tonight. Thanks, buddy. Great job, Baranskies. Talk to you Thursday. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by WOOP. At Home Fitness is more popular than ever right now. People are trying all kinds of new activities like online fitness classes, running outside, and more. But more importantly, how do you know if your body is staying healthy and adapting to your new training routines?

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Enter watch at checkout and save 15%. Sleep better, recover faster, and train smarter. Optimize your performance with Whoop. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to today's watch. So coming up next is my interview with Scott Teams. I was hoping to meet Scott Teams at the South by Southwest Film Festival this year, where his new feature, the Quarry, was going to be premiering. Obviously, unfortunately, the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Southwest Festival was canceled due to the outbreak of coronavirus, but I was happy to talk with Scott, and I was really glad to hear that the quarry is going to get a VOD release this week on April 17th. You can find the quarry on Friday, wherever you find your online movies, Apple, Amazon, etc. Scott's a really interesting writer who's worked on some of my favorite shows, including Narcos Mexico and Rectify. He had a feature that came out about 10 years ago that he directed with Hal Holbrook and Ray McKinnon called That Evening Sun that I thought was a really special movie. and the Quarry is a super, super watch-friendly movie, I would say.

It's set in West Texas. It's this great Texas noir, and it stars Michael Shannon and Shea Wiggum, and the setup is pretty simple. A stranger arrives in town claiming to be a preacher in a small West Texas hamlet. Michael Shannon plays the sheriff,

the chief of police in that town, and Shea Wiggum is the stranger, and things kind of go wrong from there. It's a great morality play. It's got incredible landscape, photography, in West Texas, and I think you'll really enjoy the movie. So check out my interview with Scott Teams.

There's no spoilers in there, so you can listen to the interview and then check out the movie at the end of the week. Thanks for listening to The Watch today. Well, now I want to welcome to the Watch, Scott Team. Scott is a guy who I was hoping to have met by now

because I was hoping that Scott and I would have maybe hooked up in Texas for the South by Southwest Film Festival where his new movie The Quarry is playing. Scott, thanks so much for joining the Watch. I'm sorry it's not under easier going circumstances. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I'm a longtime fan of the show.

And you guys have always been really kind to a couple of things I worked on, namely rectify and narcos. Those are two of the pillars of our podcast. But yeah, it's been interesting, obviously, for all of us. And in the grand scheme of things, you know, my movie not having a premiere at South by is small. but it's still, you know, it hurt, it stung, but the silver lining is I think that, you know, it's still coming out and folks are going to see it now. And maybe, honestly, maybe more folks will see it now than would have if we had this competition of other major releases. It's weird to think that. But I am glad that people are going to get a chance to see it while they're sitting around figuring out what life's going to be like. Yeah, I mean, so you had this film that was supposed to premiere at South by Sondy. Southwest, correct? Yeah. Yeah. And then now, did the release date or like, were you guys planning on a theatrical release in some limited capacity after South By, or was it always going to probably go VOD?

No, it was, there was a theatrical plan. Lionsgate Grindstone was putting a movie out. And yeah, we had a South By premiere and then a theatrical. And both of those things went away. But we all talked about it and decided to put the movie out anyways straight to VOD, which was always going to be part of the plan too. But, you know, you make your movie for the big screen and you want people to see it that way. But at the end of the day, I just want people to see it. And I'll take it whenever I can get. Can you tell me, like, I want to get into the, to actually talking about the quarry in a second. And we'll put this up this week. So I don't want to get too deep into any like second or third Act plot details because I don't want to spoil it for folks. But for people who might not be as

familiar with your career as I am, I was wondering if we could just talk a little bit about your sort of life in the storytelling industrial complex if you don't mind. Like you mentioned you worked on rectify and narcos. But you've been kind of at it for about what, like 15 years now? Something like that. Yeah, I made a film called That Evening Sun. I was my first real project. That was awesome. And that premiered at South By as well back in 2009, so whatever that is, 11 years. And that's where I met Ray McKinnon, who was in that movie and also produced it along with Walt Goggins. And so Ray's been a crucial part of my career. He gave me a film career, gave me a TV career. And, you know, he was the first guy.

Ray and Walt were the first people to really, to take a real vested interest in my work. People that, you know, had already done things, people that were established careers and could help me get my stories told. And when they got involved, it just changed my life. It really did. And so I've always, and I gravitated toward Ray and Walt because they were both from Georgia. I'm from Georgia. They were southern storytellers and I desired to tell southern stories. So, and they were doing it with great authenticity. and they took me under their wing and helped me figure it all out. Can you tell me a little bit about specifically the life cycle of this movie? Because it's interesting, you talk about your first feature of that even Sun being partially the product of your relationship with Walton Gagons and Ray McKinnon.

But it seems like this film, too, was the product of a relationship with two actors with Michael Shannon and Shea Wiggum, who were two of my favorites. Tell me a little bit about, because did you come across this, novel as a reader, or was it something that you were looking to develop? It's a novel by a South African writer named Damon Galgut, right? Yeah. Yeah, I actually read the book about 10 years ago right after that evening, son, I was looking for my next project, and I saw the synopsis or the blurb or something of this story online, bought the book. It sort of had everything that interests me as a writer and a storyteller, namely it was about men, violence, religion, and where those things

intersect or collide, as it were. But yeah, it was South African, and it said in post-apartheid South Africa, it was about racial injustice in that country. But it just felt very, we had this central premise, which is the stranger rolls into town claiming to be someone he's not, which is set up for lots of classic stories. And that idea can be easily transposed to different locations and milieus. And that felt really good to me.

I wanted to take this story and set it in America and tell sort of my spin on it. Unfortunately, racial injustice and racial conflict is not relegated only to South Africa, of course. And it's only become all the more relevant as the years have passed. But yeah, I've been working on it for about 10 years. It took a long time to bring it to the screen. And it wasn't until Shea and Mike really got involved that we were able to really get this thing across the finish line.

I've been working with Laura Smith, my longtime producer, and Kristen Mann, the producer, and we've been trying to make this movie for a long time. And their relationships with Shay and Mike brought them to this story, and we finally got it done. I think that if you only know those two guys through their screen performances, it's hard to even imagine them in a more kind of curatorial capacity or working in the development of a script. What do they like as creative partners? When you have great actors, they don't have to like flaunt their power. They don't have to try to assert anything.

They just want to, they're just vessels, you know. They just come in, they bring their talent, they bring their presence. You know, this is a story where a lot of it's told through the eyes, through the silences. And I don't know two guys who hold silences better than those two, you know. and they just got so much going on, and they got gravitas, and they can hold the frame. And when you are trying to tell a quiet, sort of meticulously-paced kind of story,

a slow-burn, if you will, you need great actors. And across the board, I was very fortunate with this movie. And I think what's really great is that because Shea and Mike have this long-term friendship in real life, they respect the hell out of each other. And they, so each one of them comes to work really wanting to show up for the other guy.

They just really like each other and they respect each other. And so they both bring their A game. And then that raises everyone else and the cast and the crew up, you know, and we all have to bring our A game when those two guys are there because they've been doing it for a long time and they're two of the best. I almost feel like I would love to see the, you know how there's been a couple of productions of Sam Shepard's True West where the actors swap roles. I would love to see the quarry and just run it back with Michael Shannon and Shave's part. I mean, at certain points, was Michael kind of, I think I remember an interview you did about this piece. You said that Michael at one point had been involved way earlier in the development. Was he ever up for the role of the man or the David character?

No, actually. I sent him the script 10 years ago when I first wrote it. And I got it to him through my friend Barlow Jacobs, who's in Shotgun Stories with Mike. Oh, yeah. And Mike read it back then. But I'd wanted him for Chief Moore, even back then. And I've always been drawn to Mike. My favorite Mike performances are the ones where he shows that warmth, that charm. I think that Jeff Nichols was one of the first guys. I really understood that about Mike, I think, and brought that warmth out of him.

And that charm that I really feel is one of his great talents and powers as an actor. And so I always saw Chief Moore as a guy, both these guys. You don't, you know, you want to like him. You want to be on the edge. You don't want to know, you're not sure who you're supposed to be pulling for. And I love that ambiguity. And I need great actors.

people that you care about who have empathy, even when they're doing terrible things, you know, you still are struggling to understand them and you feel like you want to find out why they're doing what they're doing because they seem to be, they have depth, you know, and they have, and that's what an actor just brings inherently to the role, and that has to be in the person. And Mike's a very deep thinker and Shay as well, and just the real joy to be able to watch them. But yeah, I've joked people before about the true West thing. It would be awesome. It would be a lot of fun.

And they could both be incredible in those other roles. And that adds, I think, to the interesting ambiguity of the film. Is it kind of duplicity or a duality, I guess, in the nature of these characters? For sure. You know, I was curious about the transmission, if you will, like how your gears shift from thinking about things in terms of multi-episode arcs and terms of a TV season, like in terms of like rectify which you run quite a bit.

And Narcos, I think was Narcos Mexico season one you worked on. To you doing a feature because this movie to me is like what you're saying. It's like a lot of this is about silence and space and patience. And TV tends to be a lot more jammed with turning over story, turning over plot points. For you, is it really easy to go back and forth from those two brains? Or is it really the same brain and I'm just thinking about it in the wrong way? No, I think it is a little different. And I feel really fortunate that I'm able to do both because I enjoy aspects of both.

But film has always been in sort of my first love. It's in the same way that I love short. I love novels, but I really love short stories, you know. And that's my passion as a reader. And I love to get caught up. I think you have an opportunity when you're making a film or writing a short story. because it's contained piece, you can, you know, you can try things. You can push a little bit more.

And I think film, especially independent film, is an opportunity to try a more artful approach, you know, and to tell a story. Because my hero is Flannery O'Connor, and she always said it's not just the story you tell us, the way you tell the story. And it's the form, you know, and I think in a film you have an opportunity to play with a form more than you might in T. But what happens, I love in film, I'm drawn to stories that have this great hook, which then sets you on a path toward a destination that you know you're going to. For example, that evening's son is by an old man who breaks out of a nursing home, comes back to his farm, somebody's living there. And he vows to fight for his farm. So you know from that setup, he's going to get it back or he's not.

You're going toward a destination. The quarry, stranger rolls into town claiming to be someone he's not. He's going to get caught or he's not. toward a known point, a destination. So that creates inside of that tension. And when you have tension baked into the whole thing, you don't have to manufacture that tension artificially inside every scene, you know. And so it's already there from the outside, the pressure.

And I like that sort of ticking clock that comes when you know you're headed toward a confrontation of some kind. And that creates, that allows you the space, I think, to have the slow burn, to have the scenes, where you were able to pace them out and have silence and have everything transpire and looks and, you know, and that's what excites me. And then at the same time, I love nothing more than getting Teddy Talbot, Teddy and Toney in a room and having a six-page dialogue scene. Sure. That was some of my most fun stuff as a writer.

So they both have their real intrigues to me. I must confess that I was woefully disappointed to see the, best TV characters of the century bracket and not see Teddy Talbot on there on the ringer or Daniel Scott have you not learned to not trust democracy anymore? Go on, man. You can't count on people to vote right. It's yeah, I wanted to ask you because you're talking about where all this space to play kind of happens and it seems like in the last 15 years especially like with no country

and there will be blood and nocturnal animals. This, like, West Texas, this idea of West Texas as, like, a sort of cinematic landscape has really evolved. And, you know, I'm sure you're fans of those movies. What did you want out of that landscape? What drew you there? Well, anytime you make a Texas noir, as you might call this,

in the last decade, you stand in the shadow of no country especially. You know, especially when we're talking about crime, thrillers of a kind. And there's something about, and even though this movie sort of begins in West Texas, but moves quickly to the east where it's a little more green and lush, but it's still rural and it's still small town, and it still has that Texas, the wide canvas of Texas. And when I like, when I was drawn to is this is a movie that is trying to wrestle with big ideas. You know, racism, God, life and death, forgiveness, murder, all these big ideas.

And our motto was always, big ideas need a big canvas. And there's no bigger canvas really than Texas. And I think it's something about the marriage of the epic and the intimate, you know, the big, wide landscape with this personal story about the weight of guilt. And the marriage of those two ideas was what I was really looking. for. And that's what drew me to this story. And to set this, because, you know, it allows you to, it has a heightened feel. Texas just feels bigger than life anyways in a lot of ways. And so you can tell these sort of stories that are striving for bigger ideas or grand visions, you know, and, and have the

topography and the landscape to do it. And it feels like one of those places left in America where you could still disappear, like where you could still try to kind of become invisible to some extent or start over. I was curious before I let you go, you know, this film and the story obviously plays on the sort of stranger in town trope. You mentioned it before. And that's a huge staple of everything from picnic to Night of the Hunter to Red Harvest. And were these stories that you've always been drawn to?

And if so, what do you think it is about the stranger arriving in town that, immediately everybody's the hair on their arm stands up. The hair on the back of their neck stands up. They're like, what is going to happen next? Yeah, I don't know that I've, I mean, I like them as much as other stories. I haven't been particularly drawn to them more so than others, but I, there is something intriguing about mystery. However, one thing I liked about the quarry, even in the book, was that it actually

took that idea. Most of those stories began with the stranger rolls into town. And then the question is, who is he and what is he done? And that's the mystery to be revealed. What I was drawn to about the quarry is that you see out of the gate what he's done. And then, so there's no mystery as to who he is. And that's pretty fascinating because then it changes the thrust of the story, not about who is he, what did he do, but what's the cost of what he has done?

You know, what's it going to, how is he going to, can he outrun it? Can he persevere or what's, you know, what's it going to happen? And because of that. And that was a unique, I felt like it was a unique take on it, on that kind of story. It just shifted the focus and it allowed you to experience, I think, the sort of, the weight of guilt and conscience. And it sort of felt like crime and punishment in West Texas sort of, you know. It was in a way. And I liked that spin on it, for sure.

I think crime and punishment in West Texas is definitely the line for the poster, man. Scott, I want to thank you so much for joining me today on The Watch, and I encourage people to check out the Quarry, which is available wherever. I'm sure wherever people get their movies on demand, whether it's iTunes. Is it on Amazon as well, you think? I believe, yeah. Okay, awesome. Scott, thanks so much, man. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it.