The Watch - The Merit of ‘Mountainhead’ and ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ Season 1 Finale

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Chris and Andy discuss Jesse Armstrong’s recent HBO movie 'Mountainhead,' chatting about why they found it so enjoyable despite some mixed reviews and how exactly the film's message suited our current cultural moment (8:01). Then they discuss the Season 1 finale of Apple TV+’s 'Your Friends and Neighbors,' the show’s back-end turn to a crime show, and where it can improve in Season 2 (54:22). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Devon Baroldi Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. I need supports 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 in the studio, my favorite fungible human asset, it's Andy Greenwald. Great to be here with you, just alone in a room, the end of the world.

What's up, brother? How are you? Great. I'm great. How are you? Today on the pod, a little news at the top, Mountain Head in the middle. And the end of your friends and neighbors at. at the end of the pod.

So a nice little run through television. Later in the week, we'll be hitting Department Q, I hope. Oh, for sure. Yes. Scott Franks, Department Q. Let's see if any new programming reminders or housekeeping. Obviously, you can always hit us up at The Watch at Spotify. com.

Follow us on Instagram, The Watch Pod underscore. And you can watch us on YouTube. Ringer-Dash TV is the channel. Please watch us on Spotify, where you listen to us, the watch feed. You're the best. Do you wake up ready to podcast? Like, how much time do you think you honestly would need from the moment your eyes open to being here in front of a mic. I went to bed thinking about

Mountainhead, woke up thinking about Mountain Head. Nice. So I think I could probably just start talking about Mountain Head after my second cup of coffee. Okay. You know, you know me. It's all one conversation. It's all one hang. How are you doing? I'm great. I'm a little, you know, I'm a little melancholy today because, you know, my other favorite long-term podcaster with a serious in addiction is hanging up, hanging up the spurs. I woke up this morning. excited to see John Malaney on Mark Marin, a clash of two of my favorite Titans, only to learn the WTF is ending.

I know, man. That cuts my pod intake by half. So he's 16 years? 16 years in the game. And we're 13? Yeah. So you think we can make it? Do you want to try an outlast Marin?

I don't think we'll ever catch Bill. Bill's like 20, almost 20. Does he count eye of the sports guy as like the same show? Was that a pod? Or that was a cartoon, I think. Okay. Yeah, no. I don't think so.

Okay. But I'll keep doing this with you for as long as you want. And you know what? For as long as TV is so great. That's right. That's right. He was like, you know, there's something to be said about ending on your own terms. Yeah.

Yeah. I love Marin. I think it makes sense to me that he goes out. I bet like for him when it's an interview-based show, he's like, if I had to guess, like, talk to a lot of these people, some of them several times. You know, like I do these 10-minute monologues. It was funny. When I listened to him Talk to Scott Frank

a couple weeks ago He was like, I like writing the monologues because it's like therapeutic and it keeps the muscle tight to just get some long form pros down and then perform it. But yeah,

he's got a lot of acting gigs coming up. He's in the Bruce Springsteen movie. He's in the Owen Wilson show. Which comes out this week, I believe. Does it? Yeah. Okay. Is that on your list?

You know what? It combines both of our interests, golf and Mark Marin. Yeah. It's on my list, and a huge fan of Tin Cup, which this reminds me a lot of. That's a good movie. If there's a lot of lone wolf and cubbing it around the golf course of him... Because there's a kid.

Yeah. Oh, you don't like the kid. I like kids, but I think we're overdoing it. They're a little overrepresented. Do you often find young boys on the course? Yeah, they're often way better than I am at golf. For sure. Because if you learn your golf stroke at a young age, it's like learning French, you know, you're a sponge.

Wow. Try teaching yourself golf at 35. It's not easy. If you could do it all again, would you just be a young French-speaking lynxman? No, because neither of those things were cool when we were in high school. It was like, I speak French and play golf. I would not have ever gotten late.

You know, like, this was not, it wasn't like this in 1994. I appreciate your honesty here about just like. Nothing I'm into now was cool back then. Smoking. I didn't start smoking until I was 20. No, I know. Who's listening to cops? You said they're real fast.

I know. My parents. I'm just saying, that was something that you're into that, oh, you're saying you weren't into it when you were 14. Yeah, I was into Wu-Tang Clan. Yeah. Okay, well, same. You know, thinking about getting my own car. I don't know.

I was just like, I had a quotidian childlike interests. Mm-hmm. There's no shame in it. Look at you now. I want to talk to you a little bit about other childlike interests. Okay. Which is Stranger Things. I wanted to ask you a little bit about this release strategy that Netflix is unveiled.

Did you watch the... To Dumb? No, I was busy this weekend. But I did... Savage. I hope your parents don't hear that. Sorry. Go on.

Netflix Season 5 is going to release across three dates. this holiday season. Talk to me about it. You're dropping this news on me. I did not know any of this. Thanksgiving Eve. There will be several episodes. Okay.

Four episodes on November 26th. Three episodes on Christmas and the finale episode on New Year's Eve. Each volume releases at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, according to Netflix. Now, I note the last thing with interest. Because in the seemingly endless amount of years since season four. How many? Has it been?

I think it's been three. Wow. Perhaps four. I can't remember. But in the amount of time since then, Netflix has dialed in a little bit more of an appointment viewing strategy, whether it's with their wrestling, whether it's with comedy specials or, you know, the Tyson fight. Or the to-dum gala, which they made a live event out of on Saturday.

We've been talking about Mullaney over the course of the last couple of weeks. So clearly something that they are toying around with where it's like, Maybe we won't do episodic releases of television shows, but I think eventizing the release of things and picking a pretty normal, frankly, prime time time to drop this stuff because that's 8 p.m. on the East Coast, that's, you know, people are going to be captive audiences with their families of the holidays. This is a show that appeals to multiple generations of people. You know, they've done this before with Stranger Things where they've released it on a July 4th weekend or, you know,

Halloween weekend or whatever. They pick these points, but I think this is, while not groundbreaking and genius by them. I think it's really smart, and I think it's adaptive also, right? I think that there's an enormous chance to own a weekend. People are home. People are with their families. As you said, this is a rare thing that people do seem to watch with their families

or across age groups. I appreciate it, not just from like a podcast, brain or someone who doesn't have enough time to watch stuff as it is brain. But I appreciate when they show flexibility with their mandate of how to deliver their content that does at least seem to be considering how people might actually consume it as opposed to just saying, well, the algorithm says it's ultimately better if we just dump it. I just think it's, I think it's, it's better when they are more flexible, responsive, and fluid in what they do. Yeah. And I think that kind of having an intuitive idea about what people will be doing during the time

that they release it is, I mean, primetime is prime time for a reason. It's after dinner. You know what I mean? People are kind of like ready to watch television and then wind down for the evening. Not in Spain. No, you know, and not when I was in high school, you know. Oh, when you're doing all that cool stuff like not eating until a way? When did you have dinner in high school?

No, actually, I ate dinner at like 7.30 at high school. Okay. Which now I have dinner at like 515. Yeah, exactly. That's just the only time I can get reservations. It's fair. That's fair. It's fair.

Let's get into Mountainhead. Great. By the way, my one transition into Mountainhead. Yeah. I'm so excited to talk about this film with you. I really, really, really, really enjoyed it. Because we just talked to a little industry, release stuff with Netflix.

Sure. I just want to, this is just a small little pre-note about why maybe it's good that Max is becoming HBO Max again, because maybe it's an opportunity to re-examine their UI. Oh. Because Mountain. You know I'm a UI guy. So I thought you'd appreciate this.

I just wanted to note this. I don't know if you had a similar experience. Maybe it's just my personal algorithm. But I did fire up Max to watch Mountain Head. Oh, you watched it official? Yes, I did not watch the screener. Okay. And so I was, you know, excited to watch the latest project from the creator of succession, Jesse Armstrong.

Fired up, there it is on the screen. There's the four boys. And I actually brought some visual evidence because I want to get this right. So I have photos that I'm going to refer to you. You may also like. First row. The Superman trailer. The Brutalist. Brett Goldstein's comedy special. Okay. I'm sure Succession is on the next page.

No. The franchise. Seth Meyer's comedy special. Something called User Zero. The film Barbie. And I was like, certainly will recommend Succession, which I truly believe you may also like on the third page. And that's where I found the zone of interest. Quick Q, though. Yes. maybe it knows you've already watched Succession. That's the question I'm putting out into the universe. Now, it probably also knows that I've seen the Superman trailer.

And that you haven't watched Zone of Interest. I watched Zone of Interest where it belongs on a plane. Okay? That's much more normal. Anyway, I just feel like... Did you like it? They should do better. Zone of interest?

Yeah. I mean, I laughed a lot, but, you know, I was looking for something a little more, you know? No? Too soon? Not for me. Great. Yeah. Okay, so Mountain Head. Mountain Head. This is Jesse Armstrong's feature directorial debut. Had he directed any succession before? I'm not familiar with it. This might be his directorial debut. Another classic CR and Andy fact check came, it was coming two years after the end of succession. This is the kind of project that gets me really jazzed because I like productivity. I like. I like. grabbing the moment. This is something where I almost wonder, I'd love to ask Jessica about this if we get a chance to talk to him, whether or not this is almost a nod to

or inspired by or a product of him coming up through the British TV system. And I would describe, for me at least, it's kind of fascinating. The British TV system can be much more responsive and quick turn. Something will happen in England and there will be a mini series about it

like nine months later. somehow, 15 months later. So this feels very much of the moment. We'll discuss why in a second. It was born out of Jesse Armstrong doing a book review for the Times Literary Sublimit about Michael Lewis's most recent book on Sam Bankman Freed. And I recommend anybody who's listening to check out Katie Baker's article on The Ringer about the Genesis for this project because I thought it was really thoughtful.

And Katie, who was at the Sam Bankman-Fried trial and did a lot of work on it, is probably the smartest person to be talking about this. Mountainhead is about four tech Titans of Industry having a summit in Utah at a mountain retreat called Mountain Head, ironically, or not ironically, funnily enough. Intentionally. Intentionally. Steve Carell stars as Randall,

who's sort of the Peter Thiel Papa Bear character. The money guy. Jason Swordsman, it's his house. He's referred to as Soups or Super Bowl. He is kind of the low man on the totem pole financially and possibly also power-wise. And then you have these two central performances of Corey Michael Smith as a guy named Venice, who is the richest man in the world and running a Twitter-esque social media company that is now also utilizing AI tools as content creation tools.

And Rami Youssef plays Jeff, who has made an AI, a super AI that, you know, is able to, If were they to merge their two companies, his AI would be able to edit out some of the nightmares being broadcast on tram, the social media company. The word they uses guardrails. Yeah. So it's basically like, yeah, Venice has built the egg and Jeff has built the shell. Yes. But they're not working together. Any longer, they had work together.

As they are holed up in this Utah Mountain Escape, their technological achievements and economic engineering bring about a societal collapse. both in the U.S. and around the world, and as more and more countries experience financial crisis and rioting, they'll force them consider whether their first principles and self-serving tech futurist ideology can actually be the cure

as well as the cause. What do they say about coup? Coo-coo! Coo-out the U.S. Coo-out the U.S. What did you think? I loved it. I loved that we had it.

I loved that we had it now. I was thrilled and delighted by it. And I'm happy to talk. I mean, I'm very happy to talk about this film. I'd like to ask you, do you want to talk about, like, the creative choices,

how pleasurable it is to have Jesse's writing back in our life, the pluses and minuses of having new performers doing it, doing his language, doing his thing, the differences, which I think are quite apparent and quite intentional

between television and film. or we could just talk big picture conceptually why this movie made me super fucking jazz which is almost less to do with any of that and more to do with what it said even more than its plot. You mean the sort of political, social viewpoints of it? Yeah.

Because do you want to do that first? I kind of just want to say watching this movie two days after learning that Elon Musk is tripping his balls off on a mixture, a potent cocktail I can only imagine of ketamine, Adderall, and MDMA while slashing

all the protections that once actually did make this country great. A feeling that I had sort of crystallized a little bit within me, and I think that the film really helped solidify it, which is all these people are fucking losers. And I love that this movie

is absolutely feral about ripping them to shreds. I do think, and people are like, oh, you know, keyboard warriors, whether you're on tram or Twitter or, you know, in your home that your overall deal at HBO bought you might say, like, well, what does it really matter? Somehow, without us really realizing it, and this is a much bigger conversation that I think we sometimes have in like an aggregate, and I would like to have in a larger sense, everything

shifted. And it's funny that you said what used to be cool in the 90s. Nothing is cool anymore. Everyone just has sort of this inbuilt obedience to money and power and this assumption that, well, people must know what they're doing. Yeah. No, they don't. And these guys are fucking dorks.

And they shouldn't be allowed to have any of this. Right. Billions, the access, the ideas, the fucking philosophy books that they don't understand. And this idea that like, oh, well, maybe there's some humanity in there due to their elevated stature and society. Fuck that. Yeah, well, I think that the last couple of months have really put a lot of that. Yeah. But I do want to talk about this in terms of the craft.

I do have some criticisms or quibbles and things, but I think broadly the ferocity of the project and of the tone and of the absolute evisceration of what shouldn't be sacred cows on display by taking these four very recognizable types, both in our lives, on our screens, in our offices of power, and just laughing at them, I think was cathartic for me. I really, really appreciated that. Now, that is not necessarily a sign that it's good art. We could talk about it. I think it was. But I did have kind of a primal yop response to this that filled me with joy, honestly. I have a similar but slightly different response. Okay. Which had nothing to do really with Mountain Head, but if you want to just talk about our current

moment, I find myself kind of weirdly hesitant to join in with your, like, enthusiastic, like, yes, double fingers up. Like, these guys are fucking idiots and we should call them that. And, you know, it's not because... Oh, because of Tim Walls. No, it has nothing to do with that. I think that...

And this movie kind of, it suggests this a couple of times in a couple of different moments, especially the introduction to the Venice character when he's sitting in the SUV, launching a new version of tram. And he's like,

how should I... How many U's should I put in... Fuck. And... a lot of these guys are engagement farming and they are trying to stir up the very kind of liberal tears that we're having right now

I'm not I'm not crying though I know you're not crying you're actually laughing yes I promise all my friends are with me too they're just out of frame I always just feel like the most powerful thing we could do is just like not have our phones with us all the time you know like and I know that that I don't mean like ignore it or ignore what the consequences

of these technologies are. But I'm starting to almost be like, I don't know short of like an actual revolution in this country, like how much like this is not normal or like these guys are weird, does anything, I guess. Oh, okay, well, let's unpack that. I don't know what this does other than fill me with a very strong emotion. It didn't make me think, I don't think anything that the mountain head will accomplish during its life streaming next to the zone of interest on HBO Max,

will do anything at all to shift public. This has nothing to do with Mount Net. It's more just about like... Oh, I agree. I do think, though, what's missing... And look, this goes back... Remember Poptimism? Mm-hmm.

Like, I... This seems like a digression. I don't mean it. But I am thinking about these things all the time. And by the way, the headline thing that I was thinking about after I felt those things watching this movie was, you know what an honorable life would be?

Just finding a nice town by the water somewhere and living there. You know what I mean? You don't want to do that. Don't I though? I don't know. You don't. I don't know.

But, okay, so the pop-timism thing was like 20 years ago, a guy we were friendly with Kelofa Sanna wrote this piece from the New York Times that kind of encapsulated a lot of thinking, this sounds ridiculous when I say it, but thinking, controversial thinking within the pop critic, rock critic establishment, that pop music is good, actually, because there had been a big swing. Yes. And that the sort of. rock criticism tendency towards rewarding

traditional rock band. And musicianship and whatever. You know, had their songwriting authorship was on their sleeve and everything. It was actually like pop music and the pop music that was on the radio at the time had just as much artistic depth as what we ascribed to radiohead or whatever. Yeah. And I think, look, I was listening to a great Ariana Grande song today that my daughter put me on. So I'm not saying that pop music is bad actually, but I'm saying that there is a There's a movement over the last 20 years from saying, like, well, pop music is actually, all things are good.

Kind of like the line about the Venice is just like, it's all funny, right? Comic book culture taking over everything. Now, I'm someone who was like worriedly clicking on like the rumors of the test screening of Fantastic Four that it's not going great. You know what I mean? So I am also the problem. I'm not saying I'm removing myself from society. But this larger sweep towards, we don't have.

cool isn't a thing anymore. And pointing and laughing like Nelson and the Simpsons at these fucking dorks tweaking on drugs, ripping away social services, doesn't seem like a thing that people even think to do anymore. There's an obeisance. There's like a, oh, well, they have money, they have power, they have yachts,

and people seem to want that, and it's all geared in that direction. And I wish more art, whether it's pop music or rock music or American TV shows, actually had the balls to be like, actually, no. Actually, these are clowns.

Actually, let's use the power of the pen, which is not nearly as powerful as the power of the tweet or whatever else, the truth social post. But let's actually use these things in this direction. I found it to be... It's invigorating.

It's the same... It found the movie to be invigorating and clarifying. And I wish more art was like that. And this is an unfair, not exactly straw man, but an unfair comparison. We're going to be talking about your friends and neighbors later. And your friends and neighbors starting place,

Not all things should be the same. Yes. But it's interesting to be talking about them the same show. The starting point seems to be, you know those Titans of Industry who live in these giant houses? They're more interesting than they seem, and they're more worthy of our empathy. And I'm not sure that they are. I don't know if the show makes the case that they are. I think that there's no accident that the four shows that we've reacted to the most strongly this year, not shows, but things that we've talked about, you know, whether it's Mountain Head, Adolescence, the pit and and or all are.

The language of revolution, brother? No, no, they're just, they're in their own ways, whether they're speculative, like, Star Wars fiction or docudrama are kind of meeting the moment head on in some ways. Like, in the little ways that pop culture and entertainment paid for by technology companies can, they are doing that. And I think that without it being sounding too corny, I think that it's obviously something that we're responding to on a variety of levels. It doesn't hurt that those are also the four best made things I've seen this year. Yeah, I just think that anything that can do, we're inundated by screens and images all the time, and all of it is narrative, even if it's, you know, a demois post or something. All of it is sculpted. It's all content that is considered and presented to us. And one thing that I don't think we do enough of is like, oh, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez look great coming out of this restaurant. It seems like sitting together with those two people would be fucking boring. You know, like I think that would be a boring dinner to be in, you know, in the same way. But do you want to like tweet that at the pop? No, I don't give a shit.

I'm just saying why are we constantly buying that this is somehow compelling content? And similarly, what I like... Because modern life is pretty empty. Another thing I like about Mountainhead is these supposed people who have everything are in this hideous house wearing stupid clothes with nothing to talk about except themselves eating bullshit. Like they have no taste. They have no humanity.

And I am super, super. into that. Like, this is a zombie show to me. Yeah. In a very, very compelling way. So how do you feel when they get midway into this film? And obviously spoilers for what happens in Mountain Head if you haven't seen yet, but midway into this movie and they start planning a coup of the United States.

How do I feel about it? Well, I mean, like, you're like, they're characters that I encourage your mockery, but like, does it terrify you to watch a very plausible scenario play out? Of course. And I think that one of the things that is, you know, again, I appreciate anything that

understands the medium it chooses. And, you know, what I mean is succession, remember when succession started? I'm worried that I hope it's okay that we're talking about this coming out from different angles. But when succession started, I was among the people who was like, okay, I'm not sure. I was on the fence until I think episode four or five. And one of the larger complaints about the show,

And look, we say this week to week. Shows take a minute to find their voice, to find their footing, not just comedies, all shows generally, except for the very, very special and very, very rare. But one of the complaints that was kind of in the ether about the show was, where's my POV here? Where's my safe spot? Who do I like? Who do I care about in these people? They're all monsters, right?

They're all bad people. That was actually, that was both true and untrue. Succession was about monsters, but what it was about was the sort of raging, needy, squalling humanity located inside of these people, that they kind of wanted love and approval. And over time, we couldn't help but love them and feel for them because we were embedded with them. And we lived with their struggles. The likability of those characters was probably the dominant conversation over the course of the run of succession. And so when Roman blows up a satellite, what we remember from that is his face. You know what I mean? It's like,

oh, yi, yi. The outside world was kind of like what Venice says. Is it even real? We're embedded with these people over time, and their very, very human foibles kept them a little bit softer and a little bit more, not relatable, but a little bit more worthy of empathy. And then also they were up until the very end when it started to get a little political in an interesting way, they were kind of clownish, right? A movie does not have to do that emotional handholding and labor over time. A movie can make its point very almost didactically and directly in a relatively compact amount of time. And this suited these characters, this suited this idea, and I feel like it suits the moment.

I'm not interested in whatever humanity exists in these four people because I don't think there is any. Yeah, well, that's a really good point. I did not feel at all, I mean, I never really felt this with Succession. I don't actually, I don't actually need people who I'm watching on television to be loved. or for me to like them or anything like that. No, but we were saying the other day, I mean, it is an empathy machine, though. Like, just the more time you spend with them, you get a little soft towards them. Sure, yeah.

It doesn't, but there's a difference between being soft and being interested and liking them and thinking they're good people actually, you know. Yeah, defending them, sure, sure. And this is an interesting side way. So I think what happens is the language of talking on social media and the kind of the way we reduce everything to, the way things can be reduced to, I'm rooting for Roman or I'm rooting for Kendall or Kendall's my guy, which I engaged in plenty of that, like, just in shorthand. I think it kind of simplifies our relationship to art.

So the thing I wanted to bring up about that really leapt out, I watched this movie twice, so once like about a week or so ago and then once the last night when I got home. And I love the fact that two things happen in it. These guys have created tools that distort reality for the rest of the world. And over the course of a day, their own reality becomes distorted as it gets reflected back to them as they start to get worried about the incurring, the incursion of societal collapse, of rioting of, you know, at one point, they turn on the water to boil an egg and the water, nothing comes out of the tap. And they start, you know, becoming paranoid that the Iranian National Republican Guard are coming outside the windows. Yeah. And they want to get away from the glass.

So they have to go down into a. windowless part of the house and the way in which paranoia that they allowed to run amok has now come back to them even though because all they do in this movie is look at their phones and go are you guys seeing this?

And so I love that. And then the other thing that I really loved is obviously Armstrong has now kind of moved into like the high art phase of his language. He is using the jargon of technology. and the tech industry

and is deploying it at like his usual level of incredible, profane comedy. But what I really picked up on in this one was these guys using, and I think if you listen to some of the podcasts that I think Jesse was listening to,

these guys use language to distance themselves from the consequences of their actions. A million, million percent. The weakest thing you can do, right, there's a line in the movie. He was in big trouble when he tried to take it human.

That's weakness. Yeah. Yeah. So those were the two things that leapt out at me outside from like a lot of the hilarious lines or incredible performances. But also that everything always, and I appreciate this about about everything Jesse does, there really is only, they really are only like one or two stories. And one of the stories is nothing matters until it becomes about you. And in terms of just the clever construction of it, there's the extra little decisions that make it more rich and more resonant. Steve Carell's character can spend the movie quoting Plato and giving historical precedent and browning out Belgium

but every single thing he does is because he doesn't want to die. Yes. And he is willing to burn down the world if it means that he could upload his brain into Venice's body cloud. That was the only part of the film that I tripped over

because I was like the problem is that the guy who are doing this not because they're about to die. You know what I mean? The real problem isn't people who are actually like worried about whether they're going to live forever, whether they're going to live before they get to see transhumanism or get on Mars or something. It's the guys who are like in their mid-40s and are fine. And are fine with it.

Well, no, but they're the ones who want to leave Earth. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, there's so many things about this that rang, that were resonant, that rang true, and that are so profoundly existentially horrifying to me that it's almost impossible to put into words. But the biggest one is the, you know, the Elon and Bezos, ethos, which Venice says,

which is just like we're going to get off this planet anyway. Yeah. There's got to be a better place. I mean, it's, I was joking about this recently, that like the way that when I rewatched the good place, I don't know if you remember this part of the show at all, but like when they're challenged again to try to, make people who are bound for hell better

and they can't with like this toxic dude, they realize the only way to do it is to whisper that there's a better place. That like people will ultimately do anything for an upgrade. You know? Yeah. And that that's the my approach to flying delta

is the same approach that these monsters have for living on the only planet that could support human life. Like the beauty of it. And I do think, and I mean this sincerely, I think this is. That was a tacit endorsement of Delta, I understand. It was.

Yeah. Although they did just, do we discuss this? They just, now there's no longer like cabins. You buy experiences. Oh, really? The basic experience, your seat doesn't recline, but you've bought an experience. That's pretty, actually. I'm pretty anti-seat reclining.

Okay. As like a, as like, if they're going to make the rows that small, I'm pretty anti-seat reclining. See, I'm anti-everyone else doing it, but I would like to do it. Yes. Well, that's the problem. Is it no, it's not true. I just mean that like, what else can they squeeze? Sure.

From us past our dignity. You got to read about Ryanair. Like, Delta is still like the love boat compared to like some Europeans are like standing. Is that you're, like, fly to Obitha? Are you willing to admit now that that's your biggest, your biggest ownership group? That my mother's maiden name was Aquafina. Aquafina Ryanair? That's, the family fortune is in good hands.

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big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. No, the thing I want to say that I think is Jesse's great, great, great,

great attribute other than his super funny dialogue. He is able to, I mean, I'm going to say this. This is going to sound like ultra glazing, but there's a tradition of this, right? Of like humanizing Titans, monsters. Like, it is, and it is Shakespeare does this, right? Like, there's a play called, of course, there's a play called Julius Caesar ever heard of it? But, like, it takes someone who was already, like, the most famous legend in, you know, thousands of years of worldly empire building and made it human, made it a human story.

And I think that I appreciate that in this. You know, for what it's worth, I think I keep talking about how the knives are out and the teeth are sharp in this. But he, and again, I think we'll talk to him about this. But I don't think he can write this if he hates these people. I think he finds them fascinating. I think he definitely thinks that they can do things that he can't do. I mean, he's talked about that.

With Bloomberg, he's talked about that. I mean, like, that he is, it's not, regardless, I think he's trying to avoid having the same, like, is Kendall a good guy conversation again? Yeah, I don't care about that. But I think he's like, yes, like, I can't, Tesla and Starlink could be good things. You know, like electric cars and internet service for millions of people, it could be good things. If they're being used as cudgels against, like, cultural diversity and humanity, it's pretty, it's pretty ugly. It's just such an, I just found it to be such like an amazing and again, horrifying, but very, very, I think, accurate depiction of what happens when the idea of galaxy braining becomes normalized.

Like, anything can be, anything is game theory. Anything can be wriggled out of. Oh, yeah, you could just be like, you can be happy about all the people who aren't killing each other. You know, which is a line in the movie. You're more impressed by the people who aren't killing each other? What did you make of the tonal shifts that happened throughout the film? So, okay, so what you're talking about is the guys show up and there's this like unpleasant backdrop. Then they're looking at their phones and I think at one point, soups is like, can you mute that, please?

And they're arguing whether their heads actually explode like that or not. Then there is kind of a dark night of the soul. And I think that where some people, certainly people who weren't aware that they filmed this movie in 10 days two months ago might think, like, oh, is the outside world going to physically be. breach the borders. Is it going to crash? Is the world going to end? And the, you know, the, the barbarians will be at the gate. What happens instead is much more subtle and I think much more clever, which is the toxicity that they're putting out into the world is rooted within them and metastasizes into this, you know, weirdly bloodless, attempt to have a bloodless coup that is actually murder. Yeah. So Jeff, who, and I want to talk specifically about Rami's performance and

also the role that character plays throughout, because it's more complicated, I think, than I realized at first pass, confesses to Randall that he's not really going to... He's no intention of selling his AI... To Venice. And in fact, he maybe thinks this is...

This has reached a point where morals might come into play and he might give this software to the government, right? To actually just de-accelerate, right? By the way, desel was new to me. Also, I think... in order to make things active,

what was the phrase he uses? Like, D-intermediate? Yeah, I liked when he talked about, I'm completely bifurcated right now. I'm either spending time on work or on my son, but I need to give him space. I need to give him space right now. The shot of the baby with the chest pieces

on the dirty ground was phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah, I think people who are like, we couldn't possibly make up a new pronoun. Language is fixed. Need to watch Jesse Armstrong shows for a while and realize how beautiful language still can be. Yeah. Anyway, so he confesses this to Randall, and he's gone soft.

And so Randall then starts to float the idea of de-accelerating Jeff's heartbeat in terms of flatlining him into death. And they go through all these different sort of, you know, like effective altruist-esque reasoning games of why it would be best for the world if Jeff were removed from the world. Yeah. I found it, see, I didn't find it to be a tonal shift. I didn't find it to be a comp in which there is more of a shift might be like and Mark Milit as a producer of this

as a longtime collaborator with Jesse Mark Milott's film The Menu which has a okay what's going on okay we're making fun of fine dining oh okay we're doing this now what happens in Mountain Head isn't that to me it's just kind of more of the same and the stakes are just getting noisier

I was laughing more than I was feeling dread because I didn't think, and I think this is also part of the purpose, that these physically inept clowns could figure out how to kill someone. Like I didn't think that was going to happen, but I was kind of thrilled

that it was pushing us towards that place. Yeah, and it's also, there is an element of like, this is the inevitability of, like, if you are playing a zero-sum game where at the end of the day, only so many people can hold, hold money, hold power, hold whatever,

then even within that circle, it's like survivor, right? Somebody's got to get voted off before you get to final three, you know? And it's in its own way. It's a nice little reminder about how far we've, quote the wire, how far we've done fell

from actually doing things in the world and thus understanding the consequence of our actions. There's plenty of studies and also tons of lived experience that, you know, people say absolutely heinous shit to each other just routinely through the shield of their screens and phones, that even people with whom you would have profound disagreements with would never say to your face.

Yes. And that has, what's the word? Ruin the world. But I love the subtlety. And look, I don't think this movie isn't necessarily subtle. That might not be the right word for it. So that you're disavowing all your tweets. at Dak Prescott then?

This is, that's what you're doing. That, look, that, that account has never, never, ever been tied to me. Find a new slant. Find a new slant.

That, yeah, I don't think there's anything particularly subtle about this movie, but I do think there's something, there's something elegant about the way

that these profound truths about our broken world found physical form in the movie in ways that aren't even, it's not even, that isn't even what the movie was necessarily.

they're like quote unquote about. Yes. But the wild, wild, wild distinction and disassociation from being able to, you know, co-conspire with revolutionaries in Argentina over FaceTime. Yeah. But then also maybe you can't push your friend over a balcony. But, like, I mean, even when they try to do the Argentina coup and they send soups down there to be president via Zoom and he can't stop pitching his.

his wellness deck, you know, like that he has sloso. The total shifts I was talking about were like my experience with this film was almost like an experience of succession in miniature. When it first started, you're like, oh, okay, like I have to get back in this kind of fighting weight. Like, this is how people talk. This is how people react to the way people talk. I think there are moments where I felt like the Corel character was not quite geolocated.

Like, in the beginning, it's almost like he talks with like a Brahman act. accent, and it seems like he's kind of like this very elegant guy, but then it starts to like devolve over the course of the movie. You know, I think that Armstrong's dialogue is one that is like learned over time rather than immediately grasp. And the rhythms too, yeah. Yeah, maybe Kieran Culkin is this preeminent sayer of those words because they are the closest to the way he seems to actually talk.

Yeah. The middle of this film, like the middle hour or so, absolutely saying. Like the four of them moving from room to room as the world falls apart trying to decide like who is going to take what role and whether or not like Jeff's going to sell but just the interpersonal relationships are so fascinating. And then the last 30 minutes or so is kind of a slapstick, you know, fully black comedy like, well, what if this happened? I loved it all. I'm just saying I think that that might be how the tone it's the tonal shifts are are, are, are, um, difficult to pull off, I would say. And I think he does do it.

I'm interested in where you're... I guess I see what you're saying that there is a journey through the night. I found the tone pretty consistent, but I do agree with you about Randall, and I also wonder if that has to do with Correll baggage. Sure. He...

You know, there's a shorthand that we have with certain actors, particularly TV actors. And recently we talked... about how some creators have smartly taken advantage of that. The best example being Noah Wiley in the pit, we didn't need to learn anything really about Dr. Robbie. We already had deep wells of empathy for him and believe that he was doing his best

and on the right side of things. A different example of that might be the pluses and minuses of John Hamm and your friends and neighbors with what we carry over from Don Draper. With Corell, we're pretty used to just believing that he means well despite being socially awkward. Or despite making a bad first impression,

despite maybe not being suited to a leadership role. He is a good actor and a good performer and has done a lot to try and combat that. But there are some things that you can't fight. So I do think that maybe more than the other... With Rami, I think you also have empathy for him because also, you know, if viewers have seen him at all, it's being comedic for the last part.

Or even in poor things, he's sweet-natured and you kind of feel for him. So Corel shows up and you're like, okay, well, there's a voice of reason here at least. Or there's a buffoon. And the fact that he is in some ways the darkest character is probably what drew him to it. But I can see that that may have been a bumpier path

through the movie. I just wanted to say, I think Cory Michael Smith's incredible. He has done a couple of Todd Haynes movies. He kind of, I think a lot of people saw him. You may have seen him in Gotham. I think he played The Riddler. But he really kind of came to like, during Jason Wrighton's probably underseen Saturday Night movie.

He's a revelation in this movie. He obviously knows this dialogue inside and out, but it's the physical performance. It's the constant, like, kind of power breathing and exploding. And this guy who's, you know, probably doing, like, full-body blood transfusions and everything else. And, like, he had the edge that I was really looking for in this film, and I thought he was incredible in it.

I think he's the breakout. of it. I think his performance is the best, and it's the most crucial because basically he's the villain, but he's also in some ways the protagonist. Yes. He's also the court jester in some ways, even though I know that soups is there to kind of be the comic. Well, I think it's an interesting thing. Like, you can feel part of, this is also part of it. And I think as we talk about the direction of it, this will come up more. creators don't want to just do the same thing. And so it's almost possible to mind-read, maybe not fairly, Jesse being like, I want to do,

I want to find similar synergy that I found with my cast in succession. And I just feel like Corey Michael Smith, like if he was making succession today, Corey Michael Smith would be in it. Like he would be someone that he would cast in it. He would be in the running to play Kendall. You know, like he would be in the mix. Maybe he already was and he remembered him.

Similarly, Jason Schwartzman can do this. You know, the thing that Jason Schwartzman does, and I really, as someone who likes him and has liked him for a long time, I've really enjoyed filmmakers kind of figuring him out and knowing how and when to deploy him. And there's certain filmmakers like Alex Ross Perry or Wes Anderson that just know what to do with him, and he's exceptional in those things. He exists in a Jesse Armstrong Succession universe.

Like, and there's another version of this where he gets... of, you know, in Earth 615, he's cast as Roman. Yeah. Or Fisher Stevens. Or we could play that. Exactly. Yeah. So those fit, whereas I think Rami and Steve Carell were more outside of the Armstrong box. And I think there were advantages to that,

and then maybe some, I don't know. I'm not saying it's a disadvantage, but I do think that some people's bumping, if they exist with this movie, might come from those performances more. Anything else you wanted to hit on with this? Yeah, so much. It's so good. I'll say that I found the direction at times to be slightly, not lacking, but... I thought it's practical. Practical. Yeah. Again, not all writers need to direct, not all things need to be super directed. I think that this was well chosen to be a debut because it is essentially a stage.

play across a large set. There were a couple moments, and I'm rarely this guy, but there were a couple moments when I felt like cuts didn't really match or didn't really, they were kind of broke momentum. And I don't say that to like criticize the editors. That also might be that there certainly were no reshoots. They did this so fast, they had to make do with what they got. So I believe like three of the actors signed on before

there was even really a script. They just signed on to the idea. And then because of the moment Jesse Armstrong decided it would be great if we could just shoot this and then get it up. And this is one of the you hear about things going into the HBO pipeline of like, yep, it's on the It's a slow development pipeline.

It's in line, you know, like it'll come out when it comes out. And this obviously went from Greenlight to uploaded to the servers in a record time. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think, well, game it out. If this had been more stylishly directed, and I say that intentionally,

like with a more established or more or a noisier directorial point of view, do you think there would have been pluses to that, minuses to that? Did you notice the direction at all? I guess I didn't. And I guess I didn't in the way that you wouldn't maybe notice, I don't know. I mean, I guess one of the great things about Sydney Lumet is that you don't notice the direction. You know, if there's a huge school directing that's like, Like, if I don't notice what's happening, it means it's doing the right thing.

That's generally my preferred style. Jesse writes his stuff. I think he probably is emphasizing what these people are doing, making it coherent where they're sitting in relationship to one another. And then, yes, like, I guess if I went back and looked at it from a visual standpoint, I think one thing that he's talked about that I think is useful is that outside of the windows are these giant mountains. So there's like, there is an inherent, like, pleasing visual landscape.

but it's kind of funny because, you know, you walk into this house and it's kind of great to have the characters be like, this is a piece of shit. You know what I mean? Yes. I hate this house. And no one looks at anything anymore.

They're only looking at their phones and no one believes what they see. Yeah. The scene where they go on, what are those, you know, the snow cats or whatever, snowmobiles, and then they rip their shirts and yell. And put their net worth on their skin. That was visually more dynamic.

Yeah. Both the colors and the outfits and the sports and the popping and it was visual. That's also the one time, you know, it happened in Succession all the time where we'd be like, this is written by a British person. Like, I don't, I believe that there is this kind of like,

you know, I'm smarter than you because I have read Hegel kind of thinking within this class, but I don't know if they would say diadem and refer to a poor person as soups because of the soup ladle that felt a little like public school.

Yeah. But I did think it was interesting. I think it suited the material, but I did think it was interesting that Jesse himself isn't necessarily picking up Mark Milad's succession style, which is not Mark Milad's style. It's the style he found for succession, which is very, very handheld, kind of moving

with the dialogue and around the people, giving it a different sort of dynamism. Again, I think there's an intention there, and hopefully we'll talk to him about it. I just want to be, there were moments when I felt it seemed a little inert or flat, but I'm watching watching it as a TV show, honestly, even though it is a movie.

Zillarsight wrote an article for Vulture where he visited and I think he visited the set. And Jesse mentioned to him that at one point he considered having the guys watching ATN. Oh, to put it in the same universe. But that he felt like that would be too cute. I think even if Mila had directed this and it had been successioned out, I probably would have bumped against that. Yeah, I think it was intentional. I think it's also, as in our conversation about showrunners and what they do next last week, like, this is part of his growth and his career growth. This isn't his next definitive statement. He plans to make other statements. I think there's something that I'm trying to articulate that I think we can table because I'm just looking for it, which is how you use the space and how you comment on the, what did you refer to modern life as, existentially empty? Empty, yeah. There's a scene in the, there are a few of these, unfortunately, but in the your friends and neighbors finale when, and you don't, this is not. a spoiler, for people who haven't watched that show,

or are still hoping to watch the finale, where John Hamm meets with an attorney in the attorney's office, and it is a glass box, and the attorney is wearing a, like, double-breasted suit with gold buttons, and the table is strewn with papers. Yeah. And the papers are like, law case papers. And I'm watching this, as I have a couple other times

when I'm watching that show, where I'm like, who's making the decisions here? This doesn't seem like a real law office. It seems like a room with windows with papers on the table. conversely in Mountainhead everything is intentionally kind of shitty but that's a very fine line to walk right

and so maybe that's the role of the mountains themselves or the natural landscape and everything to counterbalance with the like the perfect little slices of fruit but like one of the hardest laughs in Mountainhead is when you know they're talking about murder and then it cuts to a it cuts to the characters sitting at a table and there's just a tray of

little sliders on pretzel buns no I mean I can't believe you you skip the actual funniest part of Mountainhead which is when soups is like I got this turbot and they're like Why haven't we talked about the turbot? They're like we're going to eat chicken buckets or whatever he's like

Say it It's like it's a picking fish It's a picking fish I'm going to put this bottom feeder On the steamer I don't really like turbit I mean I feel often with like light

fish Yeah It's less your opinions on the fish And more of the preparation You know? Like you've just had you maybe you've been burned by turbot I mean I've never seen a piece of burned turbit but maybe it's been You've been tormented by turbit? Yeah

Yeah So any other thoughts on this like I I'm very fired up on it I was very excited about it But it is a different experience because this is a this is a one shot I was just thrilled I was thrilled to feel like TV was alive and TV was reactive and TV was present in a moment and that a great writer was like, this is really interesting to me. I'm going to try and do this quickly.

That is like, to me, a dream situation. If we got three of these a year or four of these a year, we're a really interesting filmmaker or writer. I was like, I read something. I'm really, that just got my engine going. And I put together a small cast and we did like a fun little thing. Like independent cinema is dying or is being swallowed up and regurgitated as like prestige franchise movies and stuff.

Like we need stuff like this. where, yeah, I'm sure this probably cost several million dollars to make, and it's not cheap. But the way that they made it, the way that it feels, and the fact that it was able to get to screens now, although I would say probably was not a ton of fanfare, I think is awesome. And I love to see more of it. But people watching Barbie on Max will be like, you may also like this. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that the people who made this film are brave, but I am saying that they're not scared.

Yes. Which I love. I love. Or maybe they're really scared, and that's why they made it. Exactly. They're not scared to say how they're feeling about things. And they ran right at it. And people who listened to me on this mic for weeks or months know that, like, I'm just kind of over the back patting certainty that, yes, we're doomed, but it's going to be mushroom fungus and heroes will emerge in the darkness.

Like, actually, we're probably already fucked in 10,000 ways we don't realize because we're all complicit in it. And there's nothing we can do. and it's going to be stupid. Because if there's one thing the last 10 years have taught us is that there is no bottom for stupid. And the fact that this movie walks us to the brink, and then at the end, nothing is really fixed.

It's not like it's better. They've just decided they're going to go behind Randall's back, cut him out, do the AI, and presumably life will go on, but much worse. And presumably then somewhere along the line, thanks to this gift they've given the world, a Palestinian kid will see something in Israeli kid made. Some sick content and say, do you want to say the quote and say, what's you going to say?

Hey, okay. Hey, okay. Let's talk a little bit about your friends and neighbors. I'm sorry, I have to rush us a little bit on this one. So we hadn't really talked about this for the second half of the season. And I would say during that second half of the season, friends and neighbors made a relatively unexpected turn for me into being more of a crime show. I think it had all the all the stuff about suburban life and malaise

and perhaps I wanted to put it to you this way Okay We've talked a little bit about the Coupe characters Voiceover is monologuing And the pluses and minuses of that Is there a world in which this show Could have shown us rather than telling us all that stuff Over the course of a season

and kind of depicted the inner life of this protagonist, but it turns out almost everybody he comes into contact with in his life is feeling this sense of displacement, is feeling the sense of sort of malaise. And even I think for as ridiculous as the Agatha Christie-esque ending of this season was, the whole idea is like the Olivia Munn character is having a parallel experience to Coup.

Yes. Sam has got her own monologue has her own analysis and Coop is like you have no idea like I also do long voiceovers of my

of my empty life but there was a way in which I was kind of like oh like maybe this was the show now maybe it's not as exciting as who framed Coop you know and and is Elena going to get her brother out of

Hawk to the to the gangster yeah but this shows a strong argument for only children because the siblings are dragging the show down but go on yes that is I

think if you did the no sibling cut of this show, it probably is like 42 minutes an episode and much fleeter of foot. But what I got to, that's what I arrived at. It was that at the end, one of the main selling points of the show was this acerbic, you know,

interior monologue that this guy had, which actually, I thought, gave the game up way too early. I completely agree with you. Instead of answering by doubling down a negative, I want to respond with the positive that I think proves that you're, I think you're, supposition is correct. And that also, on a positive note,

proves that there's room to grow. Yeah. Because as we've said from the beginning, the show got a second season before this even premiered. They're filming it now. There is a sequence in the penultimate episode, the eighth episode,

when did we become these people, where, you know, modeling behavior that I don't think I would do while facing lifelong incarceration for a murder he didn't commit, John Ham's character, Coop, grabs his best friend slash accountant, Barney, and his cuckolding, basketball playing neighbor, Nick, and they go clubbing. And the sequence is directed and shot with real verve and lift and light.

Stephanie Lang directed the episode. And Ham dances. And it's funny and it's fun. And the entire, and then they go to a golf. course, to sort of work on the beginnings of their hangover together, and there's a little bit of like heart to heart briefly before Barney passes out. That sequence showed us. That sequence did not have any voiceover. That sequence showed boy men struggling with their roles in themselves and friendship and letting go and holding back and what they're holding in a way that felt,

I'm not going to say it felt like exhilarating or groundbreaking, but it felt entertaining and it felt compelling and it was just blessedly free of the show telling us about the importance of these moments. I think through the first season, what I struggled with was the show was pitched or appeared to be pitched as, what if this guy broke a little bit bad? And there's a lot of fun in that, a devilish fun of the idea of John Hamm stealing from pricks and doing it in stylish ways. The degree to which the show turned into presumed innocent really surprised me. And it really disappointed me because it felt like there's a lot more fun still to be had. And again, there's a second season coming.

But one of the things that I think the show founded on was the idea of behind the facades of these mansions, people are more interesting than you think. And so far it hasn't made that case. Right. So far, no one is very interesting or more interesting, I think. They all have, like, complex emotional lives. Maybe.

And they have good actors performing them, and there's potential there. But if you pull back, not 10,000 feet, 500 feet, the people that Coop is dunking on in the last two episodes for their pettiness and their vindictiveness and their vindictiveness and their backstabbingness and their judgment really aren't any different from him. He just has a voiceover. Yeah. So, and yet the show carries with it a very heavy moral compass that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Like you should still be in love with your ex-wife this way.

You should take advantage of your friends and neighbors this way. It's okay to steal from them. Just don't steal the SATs at the expense of your daughter getting in. to an Ivy League college. The morality meter for a show like this, I think, should be thrown out the window because everybody is shoveling the same shit. But with it, it kind of has this metronomic like, but, you know, your crazy sister still should sing whole songs and not be shamed by her ex.

It's like, sure. I don't think anyone's arguing that. Yeah. I'm just sort of struggling to understand why that's there to make me feel a certain way about something else that it has nothing to do with. The sister stuff, I just wanted to throw out one other observation. Oh, just stop there. I wanted to throw it out too. I had this weird sensation as I was watching this season, especially later in the run,

knowing that it had been renewed, knowing that there was a lot of enthusiasm for it, that it felt like at once they were wrapping up the series. And also on season five, where we're like, oh, yeah, now the sister's got a plot, huh? You know, and like, Elena's got a plot. And we've got this whole thing with Barney and whether or not his wife is spending too much, much money and yeah like we were if you were going to try and recap everything that happened on this season we would be here for like 20 minutes we're like oh yeah and then there's also this like lawsuit that may or may not happen between coop and Corbin bernson's fucking him over and all this

stuff and you're like oh yeah and then also like there's this whole thing with alley and bruce and his bruce's his wife gonna find out of it kids have relationships and they're get their their first love that's deep i mean like that's i guess good writing in the sense that all these people are really well thought out there's nobody in the background but like there was a strange rush to get everybody's five minutes of court time. And it dilutes things. Because one of the things, again, the show has an opportunity to continue, so I think things can be addressed. One season of a large ensemble show later, is there any character or pairing that you're excited to spend time with?

And I honestly, for me, the answer from one season is no, which is surprising. Usually there's, like, I think Hoon Lee's performances, Barney is maybe the most, it's, pops the most. It was the most excited about that. I'd like to see more about that. I'd like them together. That works. So you can write towards that. I love Amanda Pete. I like when she's on the show, but I'm not finding her particularly compelling enough on her own or when she's paired with other people. Do you know what I mean? Sure. Certain things kind of, even in the early going of a show, you start to see the roots that are going to come together. And also, it is sort of surprising. I think the end of the season suggests, right, that he's not ready to go back to his

life, he's going to continue to rob and steal things. Yes. I have some questions about that, just in terms of, like, I guess he's going to still have income in the second season, and how is he going to explain it? Does he get his back pay? It's just a couple things where it's like, it casts a very, very wide net. And I think maybe, as Keith McNally writes in this memoir, which I love him, by the way. Please, let's wrap on this.

He says that, you know, now that he's in his 70s, he really wishes he had spent his entire life learning about one thing instead of being a dilettante at many things. Jack of All Trade's Master of None kind of thing. And, you know, for the show to be like, okay, here's how he's going to become a thief is one thing. For then the show to be like, also, here's how police work works. Also, now it's a legal drama. A rich hedge fund guy is accused of killing the husband of the hot neighbor he was having an affair with. But the press seems wildly uninterested in this. You know? And then he just, walks back into his job and then rejects it and all the spotlight.

It means life would be changed forever. Yes. Right. Now, I'm not saying all shows need to be documentaries, but I'm saying I would rather that the show was... Pick a reality. Yeah, and sew your patch. Sure. But everything that we're saying, and I'm not just saying this to like end on a positive note,

genuinely, the beauty of television, why I like it for ongoing shows, everything we said is fixable. They get another at that. They get another at bat. Yes. And as far as we know, maybe it all has been fixed. These could be old conversations that Apple and Jonathan Trapper and his team have had. And there's something else to build on. I'm glad we finished the season. But I was surprised and confounded by some of it. But then there's the moment in the club. And it's like, okay, the lesson is go to more clubs. We can wrap it up there. We'll be back later in the week. Thursday. We'll talk a little bit about Department Q. It's great to see you. It's great to see you. And thanks to Devin and John for producing today. We'll be back on Thursday. Do you like our new revolutionary tone?

I think it's going to be good for us in the coming months, brother.