The Watch - ‘The Office’ Spinoff, ‘Sympathizer’ Episode 2, and ‘Top Chef’ Episode 6.

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Chris and Andy discuss the success of ‘Shogun,’ then dig into the latest news, including Tina Fey and Steve Carell teaming up for a new Netflix comedy series, as well as the latest casting news for the new ‘Office’ spinoff (04:45). Then, they discuss Episode 2 of ‘The Sympathizer’ and whether the show's flair is both a benefit and detriment (27:47). They end with a recap of ‘Top Chef’ Episode 6 and decide if the show is delivering an undercooked product (50:13). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Eduardo Ocampo and Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Maskman David Shoemaker. It's a new era in professional wrestling, and that means a new era here at the Ringer Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my guys' shoes on the Masked Man show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringer Wrestling worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of Maskedmans and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out. Tap in to the Ringer Wrestling show feed now on Spotify. or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling?

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My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, mourning his bluey TikToks. It's Andy Greenwald. How, finger on the pulse, Ryan. You're saying that because both those things are going away? Is Bluey for sure going?

Let's start a third show talking about Bluey. I love it. It's such a great look for us. I had nothing more to say. No, it's not definitely going away. I just think it's getting under your skin a little bit. I think you have a little bit of a canine allergy. I do think that we maybe, like, I wonder if we're over-indexed on Bluey on this show, you know?

I don't think so. What haven't we talked about? What are the topics that we're running away from and hiding in Bluey's doghouse? It's really good. It's really funny. Makes people cry. Like, just general stuff. It's great to see you.

You can't handle it. I think you don't like to be left out of things. And so you're lashing out because you feel like the Bluey train. left the station without you. And so much is like, I don't have a child. So much that dogs can pilot trains. Because as I said to you last week, they're the people of that world. That's right.

Yeah. I thought there was like, yeah. Anyway. What you need to know is that in the flash forward of the last episode, there's a bingo is visiting Easter Island, but the statues are dogs also. You get it? So everything is dog. But there is an Easter Island?

Yeah. Okay. Because it's the world, but with dogs. Okay. Good. That sounds great. Jesus Christ. Wow. Andy, it's great to see you.

I have a little bit of news for you from the TV and entertainment world. And then I thought we could talk about the sympathizer and maybe a little bit of top chef. Maybe a lot of top chef. I also just want to say, I want to reiterate something. I want to, you know, sometimes people, I'm sure many, many bluey fans have parosocial relationships to us. And so I want them to know. Only to one of us. That's fair.

So I want to pull the- One thing I don't have is bluey fans in my DMs. I want to pull the curtain back a little bit just to say that your latest medal draft is out now. Yeah, it is. And we're recording this. Shout to Corey McConnell and Jack Sanders and obviously Danny Kelly, who's my partner in crime. And we're recording this the day of the actual NFL draft. And we'll get to that.

We'll get to that. Yeah. And I just want to let the listeners know that I watched this and I texted you that I was proud to call you, my friend. It's really elite what you're doing. And I'm impressed that like... Do you feel like as a writer? Okay, thank you.

As a man who knows story, do you feel like you can track the narrative arc of the six episodes of metal draft? Well, that was interesting to me because I've always... I, you know, I'm a big fan of the episode as an episode. So I watched this and I was like, this is contained.

This is funny. There's a couple, like, within it, there's an internal logic. When you kind of leave Earth at the end and then appear as yourself. No spoilers. I was like, this work. for me. But yet you, for your own

podcast, YouTube funnies, are taking a page from the David Simon playbook where you're like, these are chapters in one novel. It's DeKendzeon. It's episodic. I did not realize this. So, largely, I think it's consistent, but are there like callbacks that I'm not getting?

Well, sometimes when we convene the writer's room for another season of metal draft, it's like is there ground that we've already tried? Is there a writer's room? Well, no. We talk about like the six guys, we're going to talk about and then I and then you take your three cigarettes of the year let them rip yeah and then say roll tape and I go on to a few heavy metal message boards to see if there's any new terminology I need to employ okay uh no it they you can find that on the ringer

NFL YouTube page and in socials and it's really great thank you man um where should we start today you want to do some you want to do some news yeah let's do some news man because I have this whole thing here. Really, the biggest TV thing of the week, aside from the Shogun Victory lap, which I think has been great. And I would recommend, I know that we are now releasing episodes back-to-back days, which we usually don't do. But there was an embargo for our Rachel Condo and Justin Mark's interview, and we discussed the finale there. It's been awesome to see that show do so well. You know, it really is the success story of the television year so far, I would imagine. Yeah, I was thinking about this.

We've loved a lot of shows this year, and we've been talking about how it's been a surprisingly really good year. Sometimes things that, this will come as a surprise to no one, sometimes things that we love are not necessarily indicative of larger trends. They're just our personal trends that are pointing in our direction. I think what's both interesting about Shogun and potentially exciting is that I do think it's had a seismic effect on how people think about what's possible or what they should be developing toward.

Yeah. Now, again, we repeat this constantly. Like, the arc of development in Hollywood is runs years ahead, or conversely, years behind. But I do think it is worth celebrating the fact that FX stuck to this. There were a lot of, there's a lot of skepticism in 2018, I think, when it was announced they were going to be pursuing this. There was skepticism on this podcast as recently as last year from one of us.

Again, who can tell who says what. but it is undeniably a massive success, and it is the kind of massive success you cannot be like twitchy, reactive, and fearful about in order to replicate. And maybe, you know, the problem is the lesson might be, what else did James Clavel write? Or like, can we get the Thornbirds IP?

That's not the lesson. The lesson is have a vision and execute it and stick to it and put the best people that you can get in the best position to succeed. Yeah, this shows that I think. think I'm really responding to this year. I talked at Nautium about the sort of

joy of having Ripley, Shogun, and Sympathizer at the same time are all there's no one lesson that you could learn from all of those shows. I think that there's one's directed, half of it is directed by an acclaimed

filmmaker. One has an acclaimed screenwriter directing all of it. You know what I mean? Like there's nothing one thing that runs through those three shows that I would recommend. Other than the fact that they have an incredibly unique points of view, and they are obviously something that the creative people, who were behind the shows, spent an enormous amount of time dialing it in.

But I think that if you were going to put the lens on it that is relevant to today, the NFL draft, which begins today, not last night, as I may or may not have thought, just fired up, just fired up to see who I'm going to be making excuses for in six months. I think that in the spirit of like the sports analogy and the drafting, like Shogun is a testament to a successful process. I think Sympathizer, which we're going to talk about today and Ripley, to varying degrees, but largely they are successes.

They are, to me, are they are more of the boom and bust strategy that a lot of streamers deployed over the last few years. Like, it's a, like, Sympathizer is a very strong. starry collection of talent. And, well, I think A-24 gets you in the door. I think a Pulitzer Prize winning book. I think Park Chan Wook, I think Team Downey. Like, I'm not saying that works in 2024, but when this deal was made, those are the

types of deals that were getting made, right? And the Ripley thing, you know, years and years in the making, but it's Steve's alien being like, I was just imagining, like, you know, those pieces where they're like in this Pennsylvania diner, like these men. These potential voters are wondering whether or not Trump really means it this time. Yeah. And I'm like, you imagine in this Pennsylvania diner, they're talking about what team Downey is doing? Is Team Downey using its cultural capital correctly?

If you'll allow it, the bigger point about like FX having a team and Gina Ballion coming in and being like, what about this book? And what are the other big players not looking at? And how can we do it? And they had the patience to one, I think the guy who does Top Boy was originally attached to this. then Justin Markson, who had done counterpart and is a screenwriter and his wife, Rachel, who's a short story writer. I don't know if they were already under an overall or he was at FX, but they got a crack at it, and they built it. It's just a very different approach to team building that I am partial to, not because I'm not even saying whether Ripley or Shogun or something else is my number one. I'm not saying that at the end of the year. I love them both.

You're not saying that at the end of the year? No, at the end of the year, I will say it. Not that people are waiting. What I'm trying to say is I'm taking my subjective view of what's good out of it and saying I'm a fan of the process of one. I agree with you. As opposed to, I mean, also it's just the lift, the lift of an Oscar winning filmmaker, getting this package together, getting the rights, making it all in black and white, airlifting it from a dying network, quite frankly, in Showtime and putting it on Netflix.

I mean, that is a Herkulean lift and that doesn't happen easily. Shogun doesn't happen easily either, but when you look at it, it feels more rational and patient. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows if that can be replicated? Because, you know, I've been listening to a lot of Benjamin Solek content. And one of the things that he's been talking about across multiple podcasts is teams draft differently if the GM has job security. Yes, I've heard him saying. And FX, hopefully for a long time to come, has had the most stable leadership of any of these places. But the Giants guy might not be there in two years. So he's not greenlighting a risky... No, he should greenlight a risky move

because it's like, that's the next guy's problem. Right. I'm going to draft J.J. McCarthy. And if he works, then we're... I get it in five years. If it doesn't, it's not my problem anyway. But the flip side of it is FX, in this case, is Howie Roseman. Tom Telesco is right?

But drafting... But having draft job security. We have Lane Johnson on the offensive line now, but we're going to draft his replacement three years early. Like, that's the Shogun strategy. Is this getting... This is... basically I'm just downloading my brain right now.

I also like that you're name-dropping. Only Eagles. Lane Johnson and now we're talking about Joe Shone or whatever the hell runs Giants. But yesterday you did send a text to me and Zai Baron on our Philly Sports thread. And you were like, fellas, who you got tonight. First of all, you both ran. No, we didn't. You ran from the question.

I don't know who you want our team to draft tonight. I don't understand your question. I have, we have no control over like, who do you want? I want Browell's. I want to have the double tight end, like, mean, green team. Yeah, I want to run 12. Big boys. This is why, this is why they can't trust you.

And I just like, let's just continue the Georgia to Philadelphia pipeline. I. Who do you want? Some context from my, for my, for my text yesterday. I didn't want it to be last night. This is, this is the part that I feel like was lost. First of all, I am just, I'm draft-pilled. There's just too much content.

And I'm never going to care about any of these people again in 48 hours, except for three of them. But I had a busy day yesterday, and I was like, I guess I'm going to have to take a shuffle and carve out three hours to watch this nonsense. And when you told me that, did you, you know, did you dunk on me a little? Yes. No, I didn't. I just said it's tomorrow night. A little. There was a little.

But I think that was Zach going, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh, yeah, that guy's dead to me. No, it was freeing. Yeah. It was freeing. Yeah. Okay. But now I have my must-see TV all set up.

Are you excited for tonight, though? You are. Did you, now do you have, like, the couch, the popcorn? Do I have ESPN again? Yes, I've managed to. I've reacquired the entertainment sports. What is it? I think it's the everything sports network.

No, is entertainment and sports. Oh, okay. We worked there. We didn't drill it into you. I mean, we were the rebels. We were the upstarts. We were all Disney. cast members. We understand it. I am excited to be excited at, you know, 455 p.m. Pacific.

And then realize how boring this is going to be for the next three hours until the Eagles pick. The Sixers are also playing during that time. I have complicated emotional feelings about this. In the sense that you're not watching. Well, I didn't have ESPN. This is, Bluey is more interesting than talking about my cable package or lack of there of. I think that that translates to lots of people as they decide how to navigate. this complicated, you know, this complicated media landscape. I will say that the most difficult thing

that I've attempted to do this year was somehow disassemble and then reformulate my subscriptions into the Disney bundle. I was not successful doing it. I am not totally sure that I'm not being charged for three different Disney plus packages. I was on the phone with someone

who I am not sure what zip code He was located in. Mr. Peltz, is that? Is that you? And I was, he was like, you, you know, you kept saying about my Hulu subscription and my Disney Plus subscription. And I was like, but I can cancel Hulu because it says Shogun on Disney Plus. There was a long pause. And he's like, yes.

And I was like, so I have it. And he's like, because you're subscribed to it. And I was like, right. But if I'm not subscribed to one, I'm still subscribed to the other, right? And he was like, I'm not sure if that's true, sir. But what he wanted me to do His ultimate solution was to call Apple

Which is not something that That's not done You know what I mean? I don't have their phone number. He wanted me to call them and tell them That though I have subscribed to Disney through them I would like to no longer do that And then go with the direct-to-consumer bundle

And I was like, sir, sir, sir, sir. did have tears in my eyes, but for a different reason. Mostly because the draft content was coming my way. I was like, but I have paid for Disney through November. Yeah. He was like, perhaps they will refund you that money. Apple. I was like, let me tell you a couple things about our friends in Cooper Tino.

That's not what they're going to do. Greenwald, I did have one piece of news for you that was sincerely, like all banter aside, which is that Steve Correll and Tina Faye are reuniting for the first time. since 2010's date night. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek because this is the lead for every article about this story. Ah, date night again.

Ah, date night. Yes. Well, finally. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are getting back together. No, date night, and they're making a series for Netflix called The Four Seasons, which is an update or a remake of an Alan Alda directed feature from 1980?

Something around there. Something like that. The original starred Alda and Carol Burnett. This one, For as much as you may love or whatever for Steve Carel and Tina Faye as performers, grab my attention because Tina Faye, Tracy Wigfield, and Langfisher are working on this. And I feel like the world is craving a great Tina Faye and co-com comedy. I've enjoyed Girls 5Eva a ton, but it would be great to get another sort of 30 Rock, Kenny Schmidt.

And Tracy and Lange. are from that tree. They're from the Tina Fey coaching tree. They've spent a lot of time working with Mindy. Never have I ever. A Mindy Project and Tracy Wickfield worked on, well, she did great news, and then she also worked on Mindy Project

and huge in 30 Rock World. Yeah, and I love this. I have no notes. This is what we should be doing. This is, this is, this is why you have a Netflix with the cultural capital and clout to pay for these stars

to be doing something funny and charming together. And like, just, I've not seen this film. I would like to see this movie. But, like, if you're updating people with the curating and comic ability from 1981 to now, and you're talking about Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, this is who you're casting. It's Corel and Fay. I love it.

I'm thrilled by it. I have a question about Steve Carell. Okay. You're going to see Uncle Vanya in New York? I'm dying. I'm not. I am going to see the cherry orchard in London. Wow.

Chekhov's gun right there. I mentioned Chekhov and four seconds later. Are you trying to see some Vanya? I would love to see that. It's a hot ticket in New York. Karel on stage. I want to see Rachel McAdams in Mother. Okay.

Is it called Mother? She's on stage two in New York right now. Could you adapt your metal voice to do the Danzig voice to say the name of that play for me? Or do you want to wait for? Mother. Hey, and I also, as other New York theater note, wait, you're like, oh, you're going to talk about the kid show again? That's the most popular thing in the world.

Why don't we do what the show does best? Is we going to break us up? Cable bundles and New York Theater. You are steering the show into a ditch. Okay? Then you drive. No, no. Go on.

What's your other note about New York Theater? I want to see that musical Stereophonic. I don't know anything about it. It's basically Daisy Jones but a musical. Am. Okay. But it's like a very Fleetwood Mac-esque band making their like essentially rumors and it's on stage. I'd like to see it.

Where's that? New York? Let's go. You know that Uncle Vanya is William Jackson Harper, too? He's in that, yeah. Apparently incredible in it. All of our Thursday night, friends. Can I tell you something? And, yeah. I don't really know if I've ever actually read any check off. How many times have you talked about his gun on this podcast?

I just wanted to be honest. Okay. I wanted to be honest. I don't, I don't, he's a, he's not one of my guys. It's just not. Who are your guys? It's just like the Marin. Like, my guys are, who are your theater guys?

Bluey? James Clavel. Well, you need to understand that it is in the blue universe, there is a checkoff. He just also was a dog. Does he write about dog people? Yeah, but they have melancholy.

Like Vanya, you know. Have you read a lot of checkoff? Yes, and seen it. Like, if you can't, this is the most basic comment ever, but like, you have a chance to see a Shakespeare or Chekhov play, you should do it. But like, yeah, generally.

Yeah. Because my barrier for entry with theater is, it's expensive as hell and takes a long time. And if it's bad and you know early on, you're like, let's see this new play. I support, I want to support theater. Yeah. But I also don't want to spend $400 for it to be real bad. Yes.

On a night in New York. Haven't you also had that experience, though, respectfully at a lot of theater that might be geared towards your children? You're really coming for them today. Uncle Chris is like, like, okay, what do you mean? But like, is cursed child good? I didn't have to see it. Oh, okay. I did not see that.

Did not see it. Lion King? Lion King was amazing. Oh, okay. I stay corrected. Julie Tameor, she deserves those flowers. She's still, you dining off of flowers? Lion King was truly really a great experience.

My larger point was really more... You want my wicked takes now, or should we save him from me? Oh, that was what it was. It was wicked. You were like... It's okay. Do you wait for the film? Steve Karel has had such a really weird and interesting post-office career.

The only thing that gives me pause about this is the last time Steve Karell was back doing comedy on Netflix. Space Force? Space Force, which was not that good to me. And I was thinking about him because I saw a video of him and Krasinski, like meeting up for the first time

when they were making this movie that Krasinski's got coming out called If. And, you know, they were making a big, hamming it up about, like, we haven't seen each other in a really long time, and they almost made it seem like it was like a little bit of Michael Scott and Jim reunion or whatever. But I was like,

this guy has had so many, like, interesting turns, I mean, from an obvious desire to do a lot more dramatic work, which is not uncommon from sitcom actors, to some dalliances with, like, okay, like, I get that, like, there is, like, a comic sensibility that people expect for me, but I don't, maybe it's just Michael Scott's such a uniquely iconic character. I feel like it's actually kind of, like, gotten in the way of me seeing Steve Carell in your,

in some of the other work that he's done. Do you think he should have gotten really buff for Jack Ryan? Do you think that would have changed things? I think that he's... I think he should remake 13 hours, the secret soldiers of Benghazi. You just wish that about anyone. That's my check-off.

There's more secrets? Amazing. You're right to use the word uniquely, though, because I think that he is a uniquely beloved and also uniquely versatile performer and actor. He's getting raves on Broadway. He was very, very good in the, I think, little scene, The Patient Show on FX

that the guys who did the Americans did a few years ago. Oh, that was the one where he's in the basement, right? With Donald Gleeson. He's a half-hour drama. Fun fact, Donald Gleeson cast in the parent office. It all comes full circle, which we, let's talk about that. Doing an office thing.

I think that Steve Carell has approached his post-Megrofts, of fame correctly, picking and choosing what he wants to do, seeming to work with people he wants to work with. His work, also, he hit a high watermark that I recently revisited with his Between Two Ferns, which is one of the, maybe the top three. By the way, if you ever want to have one of those, like, first episode of the Wire moments where we used to make things in this country. Between Two Ferns.

Watch Between Two Ferns. What's your favorite between two ferns? And if you say Obama, I'm walking out. No. The one that I, the Oscar specials, or, you know, the Oscar specials, are really, really good, because that, I think, features Jennifer Lawrence when he's like,

she says, like, the Hunger Games, like, was that your life story? Yeah, because you're fat. And then he says, that's extremely off-putting. And she says, you should be off-putting. You should stop eating pudding. Mine are basically the Bradley Cooper ones. The Bradley Cooper ones. Because I think that everything that

we, I think, we truly know about Bradley Cooper's psychology comes from between two ferns. Yeah. Yeah, where he's just like, hey, man, I worked really hard on this. Those are really, really good. I really am not trying to concern to this, what sounds like a delightful Tina Fey and Steve Karel collaboration. I was just more like, he's had such an...

I mean, like, he was on the morning show for a few years. I've tried to pretend that didn't have personally. So, yeah, let's talk a little... Did you want to say the Greg Daniels thing? Like this weird spin-off news? No, it's not about this office thing. I honestly, I gotta say, I thought this was going to be one of those things

that was like in development for five years. and that they were kicking around and that it was almost like a rights retention play where it was like, yeah, we're developing Lord of the Rings, but like it's really more to be like, you know, so we don't lose the rights or so that this doesn't get away

from us somehow. So all this stuff about like, yeah, like we're kicking around ideas for the office, we're kicking around ideas for the office. This is casting news, which is Dominole Gleason and who from the White Lotus? Sabrina and Patchetore. who played the sort of hotel manager.

The hotel manager, that's the right. She's wonderful. She's funny. Is this show going to be set in Brussels? Oh, we joked about this, right? Like, it was a continental, like, did I make that joke on the pod? We kind of did, talked about the Hague. Oh, no, it was just our pod?

Do we just do this over text? I think we just said that over time. Look at our lives. You sent me a heater. You were like, what was it, like, Stanley? Can you get the Balkan War Crimes files? I was like, where would you get? If Domaglinson and Sabrina

Impatiotr are doing American accents, I don't think that this is going to be set in script. But apparently it's like adjacent to and within the same universe where there is a Dunder Mifflin? It's very unclear because the thing is, we know this for a fact anyway about Hollywood, but certainly from the last 10 or 15 years,

is that if anyone has ever like fancasted something or fan ficked an idea or wished there was more of something, there's been a meeting. There's been a spec script. They've explored steps. As Bill would say, you take the call. For sure.

Now, when you hear that Greg Daniels is in touch of the Universal about maybe revisiting or whatever, everybody, you understand that. That is the smart. You take the call. That's the smart thing from a corporate level for Universal to do because if you really, like, if there was a way to lay out the Universal Television Comcast, Shineheart Whig company product, just across on one spreadsheet and you could see which was actually being watched, it would just be law and order in the office still.

Like, it is still 19, well, that would have been 1997, but it is still like the past is still present for those guys. So that makes sense. I am surprised not just by the international flavor of the casting, but that it has gotten to the point where it's real enough for these things to be in the press, which isn't to say that they leaked this or announced it, but this is being reported. Yeah. And the other piece that I don't know if we've talked about is that the writer's room that Great Daniels opened to explore the possibility is being co-headed by much. Michael Komen, who worked on Nathan for you. So there is like a generational, which is another smart play.

Yes. Like Greg Daniels, all due respect to a legend, also did Space Force, which was fine, but also a little stale, right? So the idea of bringing in new blood, if not international blood,

is interesting. I have no comment other than to say it's surprising. Yeah, I will be fascinated to see whether or not this is set, like in the States, if this is like a European, I mean, is it going to be about paper? It could just be about like an office somewhere.

So it'll be really interesting. Like an empty office? Circa like 2020? Like a boiler room where they're doing like fake. Yeah, big penny stocks. What if you, so I like this new character you're playing on this pot where it's just like the only lens through which you consider things, whether it's the office, Steve Karel's career or Broadway is movies about Benghazi. You know, it's just like, or boiler room remakes? What if everything was CR content?

Well, I think as you get older, you become a little bit more selfish, you know? This is like your version of the dad who only reads Civil War narratives. Yes, this is my Roman Empire. Got it. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike, or an outdoor movie? movie night you didn't plan for.

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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. Anything else you wanted to get into? We could just get right into sympathize our episode two if you'd like to. I'm trying to think, I'm looking through our text to see if there's any other, like,

good content that we should mine for the show. No, we should talk about television shows for a change. Okay. Sympathizer episode two dropped on Sunday night. Another one of the director Park episodes, so he is doing the first three. I read a fascinating interview or profile of him in the New Yorker by Gia Tolentino. I can't tell if we are the podcast that she refers to hearing Casey Blaze on talking about Buzz Awards and viewers. It's probably us, but I've got to see Casey dialing that one up on another podcast. I'd like to think that we are the New Yorker of podcasts other than the New Yorker podcast.

I just want to be referenced in lots of different New Yorker stories. I want John Lee Anderson to be like on the streets of Bolivia. Yeah. And then he hears two men kind of arguing about B. Bluey coming out of a cafe. Or John Lee Anderson being like, I grew up shoeless on the wharfs of Spain because I lived in an itinerant childhood. One day I imagined I could listen to two dorks talk about boiler rooms. It's just too much New Yorker content we're doing.

This is my fault. Anyway, it's a great profile. And Gia writes about the storytelling style, especially present in the early episodes of the season, that I would say some people might say is very narratively dense, very quick-footed in terms of

like how it's moving through information. But this idea that the director park really basically cares more about the overall sensation that someone comes away from his work with rather than, hey, I can tell you beat for beat every single thing that transpired in that episode or in that film. And it's also very interesting because, you know, other actors who have worked with Park, including Nicole Kidman and Florence Pew, speak very much the way, I, I think actors sometimes talk about working with Fincher, which is typically they talk or slash complain about the amount of takes. But they also speak about how they are only 10% of the frame.

When you're in a shot directed by this person, they're thinking about the totality of what somebody is seeing and eventually hearing. But, you know, an actor tends to like think of themselves as the sun that the frame is revolving around. And so they get a lot of attention. And they, you know, it's making sure that they're sort of feeling comfortable. But in these shows or in these movies. Like, Park is like doing so much that you're like, I am a, I am a stroke and this. I thought

those were two really interesting anecdotes to kind of approach the second episode, because I could honestly see people being like, I find this a little bit confusing. And I am... And noisy. And noisy. Visually noisy. I think for me, it's like, for some reason, it's playing at my

frequency, especially in terms of my A, likely shredded attention span, but B, in terms of the references and the things that it's concerned with, I think I'm very, like, dialed in on, you know, even just being in, like, a refugee camp in Arkansas, like, where the second episode takes place some of the action takes place there. It's also very, like, over the top, which I sometimes don't like, but in this show, I've really responded to some of the behavioral stuff being on the higher end of, like, Daffy kind of Cohen Brothers style stuff. How have you been

feeling about the show in the second episode? I'm of two minds about it. I appreciate the context you're putting it into because I think across the first two weeks of it, purely from like filmmaking, I'm dazzled by it, I'm blown away by it. It's electric. You know, the camera movements, but also the cutting, the inner cutting, the sort of, you know, the, when the spinning wheel becomes the hubcap becomes the window. It's just, it's beautiful. It is kinetic and electric all at the same time, and I love it, that aspect of it. I think that my slight hesitation, and I want to be careful about delivering it, because this feels like the kind of point that I'm sort of hedging because we have one more Director Park episode, and then we have Fernando Morellis, who's also very visual and high style, and Mark Mundin, who is less known, but also quite good, quite good and pushes, at least in our first.

limited experience with that show the third day that he did like pushes it visually. That's all great. But the calibration of it all, at least through two episodes, feels slightly off to me. And I think there's two reasons for it. One is what you're alluding

to, right? That like the filmmaking is so loud. Downey is so turned and so loud, especially in this second choice that he's made, which is quite a choice for the Asian American Studies professor, although that

professor does not like that name, that it sometimes pummels the more traditional TV engagement that I'm looking for in a story like this. It feels, at my most critical, I'm like, are they hiding the star of this show? Now, I don't mean, and I say that because I don't think that they should. I think Washvande is like, is really good. Yeah. It's really charismatic and funny. And I am interested in him. He is our point of view character.

But there are moments in the narrative when his energy is 10% of the frame, you know. And I, I'm having trouble calibrating to that, considering all the emotional places that the story is taking us. Even with the beginning of this episode with like the intensity and the death of Bun's family. The second thing I have that I definitely want to get your response to is, I think it's really hard, and you rarely see this in movies or TV, stories that begin at the noisiest part and get quieter. So to start at the war? Not just the war, at the absolute bat-shut-craziest moment,

the last three days before the fall of Saigon, leading to that sequence that we talked a lot about last week, whether we were buying it all, whether there was too much CG or whatever. But regardless of how you felt about it, is visceral as fuck and really engaging. and when it came back at the beginning of this episode, my heart was back in my throat, even though I know that he's made it to America.

To start from that, and I felt like that energy and that scene and the tension built within that historical moment matched the directorial decisions to then suddenly ratchet it way quiet, but still be filming it with the same intensity. I know that I am the captain of the ship of like, let's make stories about quiet people

and quiet lives and quiet places. So I like the story, and obviously the story won the Pulitzer, surprise. I'm not criticizing that. But just again, it feels jagged to me, the one episode, then the two episodes separated by a week with such a difference, with the, with the energy moving in what you might say is the wrong direction. It's very interesting to hear you say that. I would probably say that Captain, without having read the book, so I sound like an asshole, is a Augie March type narrator. Where like a lot of stuff is happening to, and he's got a great

voice in the novel, but as an on-screen presence is sometimes the least, he may have the most going on in behind the eyes, you know, and thinking about like, okay, I'm pretending to be, I'm at once American and I'm Vietnamese and I'm from the, and I'm North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese or ideological like aligned with X, Y, or Z and, you know, what am I doing here in the States now and what, like, how am I engaging with the sort of luxury, of capitalism versus the sort of maybe like my personality or my actual true nature as a Vietnamese person. There's all these ideas being thrown at you.

But I think that in each and any given individual scene, you're like, there's Sandra O. Yeah. There's Robert Downey Jr. The general is such an outsized figure. He's great. Even people who are playing at low, like his friend Bonn, is in this sort of depressive cycle from the deaths of his family members in the exit from Saigon

and he is actually like, well, what's going on with him? He makes his 10% felt. It's a great performance. So I wonder whether or not it is. I think Gia actually kind of talks about this in her New Yorker profile is like the quality of captain

as a fiction protagonist versus a TV protagonist. And what do we need from those two different things? For me, it's like I still think there's just, I guess I guess like for as much as I understand what you're saying, I think for me it's like I can't believe something like this is on screen. And I'm so dazzled by like the story and the storytelling that yeah, I can see what you mean where it's like you guys really led with like a grand slam

and now hit a single to write for the second episode. It's like a real, it's a sort of energy shift. I agree with you though. I don't want to be ungrateful because I think it's dazzling. And I think not. just from a visual perspective, the story that it's telling and the internal dynamics, like the intramural conflicts between North and South, between people who made it to America, you know, and the crumbling line of authority and who's to blame and corruption is fascinating.

I'm grateful to be seeing these things on my screen on a number of levels. I wonder if part of my hesitation comes from the fact that, you know, other podcasts aside, I am not an ending guy, but I am a complete package guy when it comes to a limited series. And I am wondering, this just strikes me as exhibit A of the type of show that is difficult to gauge week to week because it is so invested in one story and is, you know, there's not going to be a sympathizer season two, although I believe there is a sequel. There is a novel. But I feel unsure of the pace that's been established and where it will be heading. I don't know if that's a healthy way to be engaging with this, but for some reason, it is, I am noticing, well, I noticed in the second episode that I was keeping one foot out. Just in my viewing experience.

When you talk about it or when I'm sitting here thinking about the actual scene to scene, just like the funny smoking cigarettes flirting scene with Sandra O, where he's talking about squid fucking. Yeah. Like, this is, I mean, subject matter aside, or because the subject matter, like, this is good stuff. Yeah, I mean, even like the general's trajectory from this sort of secret police super villain in Saigon to this guy who's getting food thrown at him at a refugee camp in Arkansas

to now a liquor store proprietor in Los Angeles, to get from that guy's journey in the course of 100 minutes is astonishing. Yeah. And I think that's novelistic and more than it is TV. You might have a different beat chart for that guy if it was a pure television character. One thing I wanted to throw at you was, I think that one of the reasons why I'm up of responding to this is so many period pieces I can, sometimes I'm like, why did you make this period piece? You know, is it just because you like the music from that era? Or is it just because you wanted to give?

a gestural acknowledgement to the way TV or film looked at that time or do you just like Mad Men and you think cars are cool and suits are cool? Or do you just not want to have cell phones because mysteries got worse once we started having smartphones, you know, and it's harder to maintain things like

nobody's seen this person when you don't have to find my iPhone. But this period piece, I think, screams to our contemporary moment in a lot of different ways, both in terms of the amount of conflict that's going on around the world, but also I think the increasingly fluid concept of identity

and especially national identity, I found myself quite moved and quite stimulated by like the subject matter, I think, right now. What way, like, do you think in terms of the importance of the performance of identity that he's asked to do? Yeah, but also just like, what defines who you are, where you live or what you believe in? Or who your father was. You know what I mean?

and this is a person who has a mixture of everything going on inside of them. He's got European lineage. He's got an American education. He is superficially part of South Vietnam is ideologically and secretly part of North Vietnam, you know, like, or the armies from those places. And I think that it's like, obviously it's just been such like a tumultuous time in the world right now. but I was thinking about how, if I was younger especially,

like how I would go about, like, identifying myself. Like, what would I look to to be like, this is what I am? This is like my... Boiler rim. I would be like, Ouch, bonny would be so. Yeah.

No, but, like, you would get your influence from so many different places, you know? It's like, think about, like, if you were 22 and going through 2024, like, you wouldn't necessarily be like, I'm an American and I believe in America. like the way like... Speak for yourself, Connie.

No, I take your point. I think people identify themselves that sometimes it's by their parents, sometimes it's by what their friend group does. Sometimes it's by their religion. It's like, I think that this show is kind of asking questions or presenting a character that makes me ask questions. Yeah, and I think they're in it,

and it condenses everything you're saying into some very beautiful filmic moments, right? Like when Captain is trying to find rice starch, for his spy letters. And his position, as we learned in the previous episode, is so precarious because, as we've been saying, he's on it so many, he's balanced across multiple tight ropes that are absolutely existential life and death for himself and for the culture and country that he has come from. And the men in Texas are like, go back to Japan. Or whatever. It's not even, it's not just that they're not aware of his fraught.

identity, they don't care. Yeah. You know, I think these moments are interesting. They're powerful. They also make me think this probably really is an incredible book that I look forward to reading. Yeah. As soon as I knock out Uncle Vanya, I'm going to get right on it.

But I think that it's, but you, but talking about it has put me in an interesting place, one that I didn't really expect, which is how am I processing these, um, autourish, even though there are multiple filmmakers on this, ultimately. Park was going to do all of it and then didn't. How am I processing them in the moment? And what do I want from them? Are my expectations out of whack?

Because am I expecting a considered composed, finished circle statement from this in order to judge it? Or am I, like, just going to sit here and get, just take in all the flashing lights and all the different things and come out of this being like, I'm so grateful for X, Y, and Z and less grateful maybe by, um, Downey's choices as Professor Hammer. I'm trying to learn the lesson of Tokyo that Tokyo Vice taught me, which is not necessarily that you need to give something 20 hours to get fully comfortable with it.

But I think I had such a hard time getting over the Michael Man pilot to the rest of the first season of Tokyo Vice because I went into it with an expectation that it was going to be a Michael Man joint, that it was going to have echoes of earlier Michael Man material

and dive deep into the rituals and atmosphere of the Tokyo underworld. And it did do that. It just did it in a much more straightforward, like, here's an A, B, and C plot as we move forward, like, solving this mystery in the first season and this mystery in the second season. And I think coming into the sympathizer,

I was like, this is going to be a virtuistic Park Chan Wook, six, seven-hour film, you know, event. And it probably will wind up being something closer to the first season of Tokyo Vice once it all levels out. Yeah, and that's not nothing. Yeah. But I do think we've reached a point where we have the data, right? And the complete statements work best in a different category, almost, from what we're talking about, when they are complete statements.

And that's true whether it's Park's Little Drummer Girl or whether it's the English made by what's our guy's name. Hugo Blick. Hugo Blick's the English. I mean, it's what Ripley has. It's Zaly. And that is a perfect paragraph. It's Zalien's Ripley. It's Scott, our guy, Scott Frank's,

Queens Gambit or Monsieur Spade. There aren't that many people who want to do that. We talked about this last week. But we do have the evidence now that when you go in for a complete statement and you get the whole thing, you're also just receiving it differently, especially in a week-to-week-week world.

And I think that maybe I'm tensing against whatever tonal shift is to come in week four with the show. It could be excellent. You know, the show, as you're saying, it could have found itself once Mark Mundin came in and writeed the shit. And that's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. But you know what I mean?

But, like, that might be a more compelling week-to-week marriage of script, performance, and director. We don't know. I'm talking it out. I'm surprised at my hesitancy. Because usually I fall in love too quick. Do you think Downey is bothering you? Yeah. He's bothered.

Because I, because I, you haven't said like, wow, great Downey episode yet in the first two episodes. I like, he makes sense to me as Claude, who comes back. I mean, I wasn't even sure what this setup was for, I don't think anyone's listening who's not watching the show. But it can see this is that Downey's basically playing all of the white American men figures in the, in the show. And I think that ends up being who act as kind of, uh, tempters and also like interlocutors and people who assume they know best. It's at least four characters. Claude, when he comes back, worked for me. I'm like, okay, this guy's back, this energy, this fits the piece.

And I thought that last scene with him and the candy and stuff, that was a great scene. The Hammer thing, it's just like he's doing a lot. He's doing a lot. And I don't think anyone else on set that day was huffing the same vibes. And it kind of swallows it all up. I'm not saying that they were bad choices per se. I think if you're going to play multiple roles, you kind of have to go big. There isn't a lot of examples of, like, Peter Sellers.

I mean, yes, like, one of his strange love characters is probably, like, a little bit more minimalistically played. But for the most part, very big. You know what I mean? Very big on Mike Myers. Coming to America is different. Coming to America. I feel like Eddie Murphy lost himself. And, you know, there was more of a distinction.

I don't know. I think ultimately, the more we talk about it, I am sounding more critical than I am. And I find your point of view on it very compelling because I'm enjoying it. Well, yeah, and you know what? The thing is is that there's tradeoffs here where it's like there are certain things that you're watching that I'm not watching or that I didn't say its name. We're getting to sugar next week, baby. And then there are certain things that I'm watching. And maybe I'm just like a little bit more like I locked in on this.

I don't know why. Well, it's in your CR content wheelhouse. It is. There's no question about that. It is. Like, wow, this show about the fall of Vietnam is really doing it for me. Nice. Should we talk?

I wanted to just mention something. I don't even know where to put this. Okay. It's a safe space for it. Yesterday I was sitting around. I had a little bit of time to kill. I was waiting for some stuff to happen, but I was working from home.

You're waiting for the draft to start. And I started doing something out of nowhere. I saw a tweet that was the trailer for the third season of a show called Shorzie. Uh-huh. Shorzie is a spinoff of the long-running Canadian comedy, Letterkenny. Right. And Shorzzi is about a character from Letterkenny.

I've watched like three episodes of Letterkenny, like, late at night, maybe. This is Manzuka comes in and talks about this stuff to us, right? Yeah. And then, so Shorzy is like basically Slapshot. It's about a guy who's playing in like a senior league in, I don't even know where he's playing in. What part of Canada is playing in? and he, you know, is like, got to save the team by, like, getting butts and seats.

It's essentially, like, a very, very similar setup to Slav Shot, or the team will fold. The trailer for the third season is essentially cuts between slow motion shots of these guys coming out on the ice to, like, the sickest, most beautiful, like, UK Garage song. Oh. Or UK Grime, like, soul song. Yeah.

And a scene of this guy Like absolutely lambasting an opponent And just being like Hey, what the fuck, 98? You're one away from the great one there, huh? And I was like so mesmerized by this trailer That I started Shorzzy. Good for you.

It worked. Yeah. You can still try new things. Yeah. And you like it. I think it's pretty funny. It's really good. Sell me.

It's very, it's very like, it's 21 minute episodes. Yeah. And it is like two dudes and two dudes talking and doing like, very repetitive dialogue. It's like, it's a very flat effect. It's very funny. The hockey stuff is so fucking funny to me, though.

I really do find Canadian hockey players to be pretty hilarious. That's how I feel about... Speaking of things that are in my wheelhouse. That's how I feel about talking dogs. I feel like I hurt your feelings that I'm going to watch a lot of blueie while we are on our trip. You definitely won't, but, and you didn't hurt my feelings. I just don't like it when my best friend denies himself pleasure. You know, I want you to live your happiest life.

I'm kind of a Calvinist in that way. Should we wrap up with a little bit of Top Chef chat? I want to talk Top Chef really badly. You have the floor. Okay, we're going to talk about Top Chef with spoilers through this week's episode, which was the Maddie Matheson, chaos cuisine episode.

Chris, is it too early to say this show is in crisis? Well, did we say that last week? We started to say, like, I think we were being generally supportive of structural things, and I will continue to, I'll reiterate the positives. I still think the Tom and Gail are at the top of their games. I think Kristen has fit in wonderfully and is doing a very good job.

I think the show continues, the producers like design good challenges. I think they take advantage of the place, wherever that place may be. I loved the setup of last week's episode, which was the supper club concept, and it made Harvey House and the guest judges. look like looks fantastic. It was, they effortlessly do things that I think are actually incredibly difficult, which is communicate food, taste, presentation,

and overall vibe just through the screen. So like when they were showing, when the chefs went to the supper club and they were served these like beautiful, but very simple, essentially, plates of like prime rib and schnitzel with gravy. They've done it like an alila. Beautifully played it and stuff.

But I'm like, oh, I get this. And this is really fun. And they had the other guest chef who's like, oh, we celebrate our anniversary at the tornado club or whatever. I'm like, maybe we all have to move to Wisconsin now. This all seemed good. And then we get into the competition.

And these guys suck. Like, I'm just going to say, like, this is the weakest group in years and years and years. And I don't mean in any way about their personalities. They all seem like smart, nice, compelling, empathetic, sympathetic figures. They're probably all very good in their lives and careers, but we are watching a television show and a competition.

And this is some of the most boneheaded, uncreative thinking I've seen in this show in quite some time. It is as if they have not watched Top Chef. Interesting. And I'm losing my mind about it. So I'm going to interview you as if I don't really have an opinion about this, but I'm curious how you determine. Now, are you basically keying off of the judges?

Are you saying, like, the judges are clearly unimpressed by what the food they're doing? There's two things. One is they clearly are, and again, I'm speaking generally. There are some people who are excelling and some people who are crashing and burning, and as happened this week, which we should talk about. But, like, fundamentally, not just not understanding the challenges, but fighting the challenges. They sat down and they were like, ah, I'm drinking a delicious Manhattan cocktail and eating a piece of fried meat.

and then they come back with like fussy chefy stuff, A. And then B, they serve raw steak. They serve fish that was fried 30 minutes before it goes on to the table. It's like they fundamentally are failing on both sides, on the creative and the like, let's just expedite this and get this done. The kind of like tensions that they always draw out were like, they intentionally gave them too little money for that challenge. And then when Laura and.

And Laura's spent $250 for a bad dessert. Yeah. And our guy, Dan, he's just like, how dare you? I wanted to bring up the Laura part. We're going to get into the weeds on Top Chef. Let's do it. Yeah. In that supper club episode, there were two moments.

I think one was in the quick fire where Laura, everybody has to go up and pick a recipe. And Laura goes up and goes through a bunch of the recipes to find one that she liked. It was supposed to be like, grab a recipe. It doesn't matter. It's a weird. It's not a weird. It's an old-fashioned sauce. But it was basically like,

it would have made more sense if they were like, stick your hand in the bag and pull one out. Or it'll be written on a knife. But instead, Laura goes around and she basically goes through

until she finds a recipe that she immediately sort of gravitates towards. And Dan calls her out for it. It's like, oh, hey, Laura, like, way to like kind of, basically go against this sort of premise of the challenge by like, instead of challenging yourself,

like, finding something that you were comfortable with. They drop it immediately. It never comes back. back up again. Then, later in the episode, Laura overspends on her dessert. There's like a flaw in the communication chain there and everybody is like, I guess I have to like get rid of all these essential components for like my meal. I won't have vegetables to pickle for my pickled because she's got six bottles of rum for like a quad, a four leches cake or whatever.

And it doesn't really come up again either. And I think that this was sort of my worry, which is that is this show running away from drama? Oh. And I don't know whether or not, like, maybe that those were two instances that were completely forgotten after they happened. But honestly, if you're talking about $250,000 prize or going home or having to go to Last Chance Kitchen and Laura screws you twice, I would just think somebody would make a bigger deal out of it or a producer would be like, make a bigger deal. I have an absolute, it's a great observation. And this bleeds into a conversation that I know you want to have at least a one-sided one about Survivor. But I'll say this. my impression of Top Chef during its second decade, the last few years,

is that the quality of the cooking and the competition, solely because of what's on the plate and what happens in the kitchen, was so high and elevated that with good reason, I think the producers began to believe their own smoke that they were making something a little bit bigger than a reality competition. It had a mission. It elevated cooks and humble line cooks into, stars, what they were communicating was, as many people who were in the restaurant field,

genuinely with good faith, believe that they are like storytellers and that they are communicating cultural history and signifiers in a way to a larger public. And it was working. The show didn't need the drama. There was a famous moment in like the second season when people were trying, like one night in the chef house, they tried to shave Marcel's head and it was like scandalous. People were kicked out. And I think, you know, Tom was disgusted about the behavior.

And they constantly have said, like, we wouldn't have Tom Colicchio. We wouldn't have Eric Repair showing up if we were, you know, with their looking down their snooty spectacles, if we were a reality show. Yeah, if we were like somebody stole someone else's knives, you know. But when the cooking isn't very good and you're used to running away from drama that might make the show more entertaining, what you're left with is an undercooked product, which is what we have in these middle episodes. and it's a bummer.

This is the first time I've ever been kind of bored with the show because there's not enough drama in the cooking to get us through. Well, I mean, that's what was so crazy about Last Chance's Kitchen. Well, that's exactly what I was going. So for folks who are still listening, last chance kitchen this year introduced the idea, the 16th chef, which is essentially someone who started in Last Chance Kitchen

and to get back into the competition had to go on essentially like a five game one. Yeah. by the point, and I was very sweet that Tom kept being like, I can't make up my mind, I can't make up my mind. So, like, we kept adding competitions onto this guy, Sue's plate. But by the time that they finished Last Chance Kitchen, which Sue and... So Last Chance Kitchen, the finale of Last Chance Kitchen began as the finale's often do as a two-parter. Beginning with three chefs. It was Kalina, Charlie, who was just eliminated for cooking fish 40 minutes too early, and Sue. And then Charlie got eliminated in the first cook.

Charlie got eliminated in the first cook, and they did a second. Now, I don't know if it was always supposed to be a two-parter, but Charlie was eliminated, and then it was Kalina versus Sue for a chance to win the competition. And there's funny business here, because Tom sends them both back. Both back, yeah. One of the things that's kind of cool about Last Chance Kitchen is that it's purely subjective in Tom's deciding stuff. one of the things that I'll never understand about Last Chance Kitchen is Tom is eating wildly disparate dishes and he has no visible glass of water to like rinse the palate between them, but that's my own thing. I would also say, well, go ahead. You finish what your statement was.

I wanted Sue in the competition because Sue is one of the few people who seems capable of winning the show in the manner that someone should be winning this show. The thumb was on the scale so hard for him that it almost invalidated the whole thing because he lost that first. when he made the giant, like, I put a pork cutlet inside of like a... Right, so wait, we're getting the details wrong. It was always going to be a two-part thing. And usually what happens is it's three chefs, then it goes to two chefs, and then one person goes back in the competition. So the final test was to make a breakfast club sandwich,

which, parentheses, barf, but whatever. That's the plan. Oh, that was when Charlie made the bananas, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. No one was eliminated, even though Sue lost. Sue so clearly lost that one.

But Tom, again, because I think he's probably thinking of the... I don't mean there's like nefarious stuff happening. But I bet Tom's like, this guy's better than everyone else. Yeah. If it's really up to me, I don't want him to go off of a stupid sandwich with Mornay sauce poured over it. So he says everyone can compete in the second competition. Right.

Charlie bones that one by making pasta for the first time maybe in his life and it's not good. Even though the dish was good. And everyone did a good job on this dish. And it was well done, well executed. And then he decides he's going to send Sue Anguie. Kalina. Both back to the competition. Which is kind of bullshit.

It is bullshit, but I did think that that was the most dramatic thing that happened on the season so far. Watching Sue be like, I can't believe, I've been standing for like two hours now cooking. So what were you going to say? Well, the most interesting thing that happened until this week when they have Maddie Matheson, whom I love, America loves because of his work on the bear. and chefs also clearly love and respect. The mission is totally obscure.

He's like chaos cuisine and no one understands it. And this also speaks to the problem with these contestants right now. Every time they get a challenge, very few of them think of it as an opportunity. They're all completely flummox and they retreat back to their corners where they can't make pasta and can't cook meat correctly. Or they make like a tiny little composed dish.

This entire challenge is also kind of bullshit because Danny wins it for something, that you would see at 11 Madison Park, which does not seem chaotic to me. So they were all judging it on very different standards and ultimately the best dish wins. But, and Sue does great. Because he should be doing great,

because he's born to be a top chef. He's now probably the clubhouse favorite because at the end of this episode, Raska gets sent home. Rosica is the only other person who has been good. Good. Yeah. So it's weird because I'm like,

how dare they do something that seems bullshit? And then do the thing that bullshit shows don't do, which is send the leader home, or at least to Last Chance Kitchen round two. But they have now robbed the show of what could have been the season saving. Now, Rosica could probably, will probably cleave through Last Chance Kitchen and come back to the competition and maybe be in the finals. But I don't know. The mechanism still works. Kailina was bad. Yeah. And then being in Last Chance

Kitchen where you can't get in your own way has made her better. That's what happened to Kristen Kish 10 years ago. But tell me as a relatively new convert to this show who watches other reality shows, what's the problem here if it's not just me saying they're not good enough? I don't know. I think there's... So I often will kind of like

watch reality shows in the beginning of the season with one eye because it's just like, it's not really real until we get down to X number of people. And there are too many people still. So in Survivor often, it's the merge. But like, you know, I'm interested enough in the tribes, but like I often like lock in when they merge because I feel like that's when gameplay gets real.

that's when it's really interesting for me. I just feel like there's still too many chefs somehow. Like I'm having a hard... Because two came back and they said, now we're going to do a double elimination when we don't tell you we're going to do a double elimination. Yeah. And I guess I'm just also having a hard time just like, I feel like in past seasons there's just been like,

that chef does this. And this chef does that. And those two things are colliding. And there's actually an argument about kinds of food and kinds of preparation and cultural traditions and culinary traditions. And in this season, I just can't get my, I can't get my arms around it. I just don't know who cooks what, you know, and I don't know.

Obviously, I think Buddha fucked the curve up a little bit. And like, well, he did, but also we have had other, maybe whether they're more charismatic or maybe they're more TV ready, which again, I'm not trying to speak about these people's personal lives or their ability as a cook because I don't know any of them. But Gregory Gorday, who is an all-time top chef contestant, although I don't think you ever actually won a season, brought. Haitian flavors onto the show in a way that was revelatory. Yeah. Right? And so when Charlie comes on and Charlie seems like the best hang. And by the way, if they gave an Emmy for Best Reality Show interview, he's narrating himself

like he is Steve Sable and NFL films. He's unbelievable at it. But when he does like, I'm doing Pickleys again, I learned about, I'm ignorant. I learned about that from Gregory. But he's not doing it, according to the judges, particularly well. It's like when you're blessed it. Either too hot or not enough he or yeah. Or he's responding because he gets shaken up and he's not listening to the judges saying,

do your own thing. Like when the show is blessed to have contestants, not just like Buddha, but like Eric Adjapong, who's just like bringing, or Kwame, who are like, I'm going to show you how I use traditionally African ingredients

on a show where they haven't even had them in the pantry. It's like, I mean, it's riveting. It's, you know, it's like a sport having a unicorn. It's like women's basketball having Caitlin Clark.

It's like, oh my God. All of this makes sense because of what we're lucky enough to be watching right now. And then we're sort of living in a more watered down post those people. It could also just be culinary stuff. I mean, I was thinking back to like Kentucky and how vibrant Sarah was, you know, as like a personality. As a personality, but also as somebody who had a real point of view with their cooking. It's the point of view thing. These guys are like, and I guess like, I don't really know what Dan's point of view is.

You know what I mean? Dan's point of view. I think he has a Chinese or an Asian-inspired restaurant. He's been winning for a few weeks or been in the top because he under understands the Wisconsin assignments because he lives there. That's interesting, but you're making a really good point where it's like, it's not that chefs who go on top chef have to be the avatar of their entire background country and history. It just have a point of view and then use it to push through the nonsense, challenge to challenge. I think that's what the judges have been crying out for.

I think that when they're like, do your thing, cook your food, blah, blah, blah. I just don't think it's really crossing over. Here's my question. Yeah. Is that also low key an indictment of where we are with food and food culture in the internet and social media where you have someone like Kevin, who's like, I was on top chef France, I've been in the brigade system, I know how to do everything very French and very proper, but you know what? Fuck it. I want to move to America and have a pastry shop in Austin, Texas.

Good for him. He seems like a happy, healthy person rather than just getting rat fucked every day in a miserable kitchen. But, but a chef being like, it's not enough for me to do the one thing. I'm just going to be like, I'm just going to chase opportunity and then like be known for a thing. that's how you make a career these days. That's what Kristen has done, even though she has a stake in some restaurants. So it's a different, it's a very, very different thing.

The arc that, like, I keep going back to Kwame has, is really unique where he's like, on the show doesn't do amazingly, but is clearly like a prodigal chef, and then becomes well-known in media, comes back as a judge on top chef, and then opens Tatiana in New York

where I haven't been, but is now, you, across the board, judged as the best restaurant in the city, which is a not a traditional top-shelf. Nobody can get into it for the next six years. It's, yeah, correct. Yeah. It's at Lincoln Center.

Oh, right. That was in the New York article about how it's impossible to your reservations. The guy that people were selling them. Yeah, the dude from Brown who sells it. Oh, okay. Did you see that? You're going to tar me with that brush? I did see that.

All I was going to say about Survivor, I don't want to keep you too long, was just that it has the opposite problem of Top Chef, whereas the Top Chef people seem like they've not watched Top Chef before. The Survivor people have watched way too much Survivor. And now they're overthinking it, and these guys are all, like, if they were NFL GMs, they'd be trade down merchants. I cannot tell you how many people have essentially,

I don't know if this is going to make any, if you're going to recognize this, they have gone home with idols, which is essentially they go into a tribal council with an idol that would protect them from elimination. But they're like, I don't want to play it in case I need it later, and I think I'm good.

And they are uniformly always fucking not good and get, they're like, I can't believe I went home. So they galaxy brain it. Yeah. Everybody is galaxy braining. everything. They're like, they're trying to think 16 steps ahead and it's just kind of like sapping a little bit at the gameplay. But I don't want to get too far into it because we don't talk

about it. But you're disappointed. Like Bluey for me, that shows a source of pleasure for you. I threatened last night during last night's tribal council that if something happened, I would tear my clothes off and go running down the street and it actually did happen and I had to walk it back. You mean you had to walk down the street with your clothes off or you? I'm actually not doing that, but I got very upset. I'm disappointed and you should do it. You live in a very quiet neighborhood. It would be fine. There's a lot of coyotes out there, though. That's your concern? Andy, it was great to see you.

Should we do some housekeeping for the next week? So Monday, everybody... Buckle up. Bucle up. Greenwald and Joe are going to talk about sugar on Monday. I will be out. Next Thursday, a special episode where we have an episode long interview with one of our favorite guests, Scott Frank,

who obviously just came off of Mr. Spade, but is also responsible for Queen's Gambit and Godless, as well as countless credits in the films. film business movies, including Logan, out of sight, dead again, and lots of script doctoring. And I would actually recommend folks if they haven't had a chance yet to read the profile of Scott by Patrick Raddenkief in the New York. New Yorker content. Well, we're just here to serve Big Daddy Dave Remnick.

We are also, the two of us, the watch podcast, will be in Bergen, Norway next week for the Nordic Media Days Festival, which I'm excited about. Would it be funny if we were there independent of one another? Oh, you're going to be there, too? Yeah, so we're going to be in Norway and other parts next week. That's why we're traveling. Yeah. So there will not be, this is too much information, but a week from Monday, there will not be a show.

And then I think we'll be back next Friday. A week from. The following Friday, yeah. Thanks to Eduardo for producing us today. Hope Kai is having a good one. If you look on IG, she's having a great one. We'll talk to everybody. Andy, we'll talk to you guys next week.