The Watch - ‘The Pitt’ Is Back! Plus, Our Most Anticipated Shows of the Year.

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Chris and Andy talk about the news that the Television Academy is rolling out the Legacy Award, a brand-new Emmy meant to spotlight long-running (snubbed) shows of years past (5:48). Then they react to Kate Winslet revealing that ‘Mare of Easttown’ Season 2 will go into production starting in 2027 (18:24). Later, they discuss the Season 2 premiere of ‘The Pitt’ (27:22) and their most anticipated shows of the year (50:57). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us,

the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. 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. and I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio scrubbing in again. It's Andy Greenwald! Do they ever show, like, shouldn't there be one hour of the pit where they're just lotioning? Yeah. All that. Lociening? Well, the alcohol, like the cleaning solvent, the stuff they're scouring their hands to stay clean.

That would be at the end of their shift. The end of the shifts. So maybe the last, like, you know how like there's this conspiracy theory that there's a secret last episode of Stranger Things? I'm very excited about this. Yes, let's talk about this. I do know about this. Conformity gate. I want to talk about this and I want to pitch not off the dome, but at the secret last

episode of many shows. Okay. We could do that. Conformity gate for everything. So you're saying, and I love this. So there should be a secret last episode of the pit that's just about them doing self-care routines at the end of the night. Hour 16 being like, I heard magnesium helps you sleep.

Those guys have better stuff than magnesium, I assure you. Yeah, but then you end up like Dr. Langdon back at work with seemingly. consequences. Of course, Andy and I are talking about the return of the pit on HBO Max. We are also going to talk a little bit about some of our most anticipated shows of 2026. We got a little bit of news at the top. Greenwald, it's great to see you. The inbox still watch the watch at Spotify.com on Instagram is the watchpod underscore. How's the email box going? Chris Gate keeps it, just FYI. You're welcome to get access to it. Don't want to see it. That is the inbox is the most pure Andy fandom. And it's

is the most, like, really thoughtful, like, people writing in nice, long notes about what we mean to them and their thoughts on what we've said. So while you spend all of your time reading the comments. No, no. A fair amount of time. 30%. If you just had access to the inbox, I think you'd be satiated. You know, my new preferred way of interacting with the fans is Kaya screen-grabbing celebrity likes. Speak on it, man.

Go ahead. No, it was exciting because potentially soon to be retired Kansas City Chief's great Travis Kelsey smash the like button on one of our reels. And I think that what was most exciting is that I think you and I both thought it was a reel in which I just explain landman. Landman. With no, by the way, I just want to commend Kai and Kai for that too. I wondered how you were going to chop that up.

And I was like, maybe they'll put in some commentary or a couple gags or maybe we made each other laugh. it's just me explaining the plot. Yep. Which earned the biggest laugh record from you since 2006. It was very funny. So I'll take that. But anyway, yeah, so as it turned out,

at Kilotrav was just watching the clip where we're like, well, in order DiCaprio, it was a good actor. Maybe he was just like all of us, disassociating. You know, it was just like flipping through sprails. I don't blame him. And for what it's worth,

that screen grab, that Kai sent me, got the biggest response from my daughter that anything related to my professional life or my personal life or me has ever gotten. Because of the potential just like Taylor adjacentness of it. Like maybe she had fallen asleep early

and he was just sort of scrolling. It's your version of me thinking Helen Mirren has listened to the rewatchables because of the proof of life rewatchables and proof of life is directed by Taylor Hackford. You don't think she has? I think... I don't think Helen Mirren has ever listened to a podcast.

podcast. Not intentionally, but I do think that we have household penetration sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. People who have, maybe don't really engage in like the Bluetooth speakers, you know, and just maybe play the thing, like the older listeners. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Just playing in the house, playing in the car.

Not an issue for us in the Patrick J. Adams household who remains an incredibly good sport and probably should come on the podcast sometime. Well, he's got the opportunity. You got to do Taylor Sheridan. I got the Madison coming. I can imagine a world where Taylor's like. Travis, what are you looking at so intently on your phone? What are you so engaged in?

And he says, well, these two really smart guys are breaking down Leo performances. Kai, that was so nice. That is 100% not how Travis Kelsey would describe us. Just like off the rip, just like looking at us, that's not how it would go. For a second, I thought you were talking about Taylor Sheridan and Travis Kelsey hanging out because I forgot who Travis Kelsey was with. Or Taylor Hackford. Helen.

So you and I ship Travis and Taylor, but it's Taylor, Hackford, the director of Ray, and Travis Morrison late of the dismemberment plan. That's right. There's never been a more watch statement made. Nice job. Where should we start today? A little bit of news? Yes. And then I do want to leave time to the Golden Globes of this weekend.

So just so you'm clear, you do not believe that there is a secret episode of Stranger Things coming. You're on the record saying that? No, there's not. There's 100% not. You can't do that. No, there is three years to make a season. But did you know, like the idea that the, like a group of, I guess, fans, I mean, they're fans. Psychically are willing this to happen and are like piecing together like the clues in the final episodes of the show to construct an alternative ending is.

So are you asking if I find it in any way plausible that large groups of Americans are denying reality? and if they dislike something that they see on their screens, they think that they can will into existence an alternate version of those facts. That's what I'm asking. I think that's possible. Andy, there was a little bit of news in the TV biz this week that we wanted to talk about,

which was the announcement that there is going to be a new Emmy added to the Emmy. Rossum. That's the Emmy buffet when we get to the awards season. And this was an interesting one because, you know, I think I have been critical of the Emmys. I mean, I've also been told that my criticisms hold no water,

but that the, like, or have no sense of logic, but that the Emmys somehow miss the zeitgeist of television. That they, like, because of the sort of way that they're organized in terms of their calendar, where it's like, you've been critical, do you think? I think I am a critical

of the Emmys, yes. And, you know, this new Emmy that they're introducing, the Legacy Emmy, I believe, is called... This was announced this morning. Yeah. Which is going to be, something of a lifetime achievement award, but for shows. For a show.

And is essentially, like explicitly in the interview that the president of the television academy did with the Hollywood Reporter. By the way, shout out to Hollywood Reporter, guy who got the Emmy person on the phone. And the first thing he said was, first off, congratulations on this new award.

Which is really stretching. What's the name of the president of the academy? I don't know. I'm in front of me. It's more like, it's just more like he's congratulating him on creating an award. Right. Which is beautiful. Go on. Please. So it's Mori McIntyre is the president. Mori Supreme. Do you think I'm wrong? What? They're both scrappy kids. Do you think it would be better or worse if

Marty Supreme was the president of the United States? I think it would be so much. What are you talking about? It would be so much better. I think we would be involved in even more bad deals. Do you think he's a little bit more reactive? He also would have been very much centering ping pong during these last several years. That's fine with me. Anyway, Mori is introducing this new award, and in the interview with Scott Feinberg at the Hollywood Reporter, it's explicitly kind of referred to as the Wire Award,

not quote the Wire Award, but the idea is that it's going back to correct Emmy wrongs, to recognize shows that were criminally unrecognized during their time. And Mori McIntyre quote says, are we trying to correct the wire? He says that unprompted. Yeah, is that what you're asking? That was not necessarily the intent,

but it is obviously something that we see as an opportunity. So the idea here is that every year they're going to give out this award to a show that had a profound impact on television. Now, I would imagine that that means that they will not be additionally like, you know, throwing Hosanas on modern family and Mad Men, right? Like, I don't think that a show that has been. recognized already is going to get an lifetime achievement award. So I'm very interested in this, and I'm kind of excited by it because I think that every year,

no matter which field you cover, people who work in the various arts industries are always fan casting, wishcasting, new categories to try to make, whether it's the Oscars, the Grammy, trying to make it a little more relevant, trying to spice it up a little bit. Rarely does it happen in one of the more established awards. Like I think the Golden Globes has like the box office achievement, right, or something. but like the good the most money-making award which feels very American. This is like a fan. Oh, yeah, yes.

But so I like that the Emmys were talking to people about this. This guy, Mori credits Perlinaig-Bocque, who's the chairwoman of Universal Studios as suggesting it. And I think it is a testament to how much the medium has changed because even the suggestion of an award like this 10 or 20 years ago would have been absurd. primarily because TV was still considered to be an immediate medium or an almost a disposable medium. It did not have a long tail. People maybe had DVD sets or watch reruns, but there wasn't the sense

that work that was made in the past could endure or reenter the conversation like, say, a suit, the way that it can now. So I think that's good for the self-respect of an industry, that it's willing to say we didn't appreciate these shows in their time to the degree we should have but clearly the influence is such that we want to rectify that. I think that's good.

I was surprised that it is not a individual award because, for example, David Simon is more than deserving of a lifetime Emmy award because the Wire is the best of his many completely ignored television shows.

Right. So if you give him an award, you're also maybe giving it to homicide or the Duce or Generation Killed or all of the things he did that were kind of ignored. Show me a hero. Me on the city. That said, I came around in the, what, 75 minutes since I learned about this. Because I do think it's cool that we could celebrate a show after its initial window has passed. But it's a very wide net. And I'm, I don't, because he says, is this the Wire Award? Yes. But also we could give it to Gunsmoke for. really making Westerns important on TV,

which I'm like, I can't tell if Kai is laughing, coughing, or crying. Should we just digress and talk to Kai about why Westerns are important to television? You could make that argument. Yeah, you could definitely be like, we're not for Columbo. We wouldn't have the chance of poker face

returning with Peter Dinklage at some point in the future. Do you just top of mind have any other shows that you think would qualify for this because a lot of the things... Can I just say what I think of this first? Yeah, sure. I hate it. Whoa! Yeah, I hate it. Take the Elle with dignity.

You didn't recognize the wire. You continue to not recognize great television. You're not correcting a historical record. You're just bummed out because now people have become so much more in touch with the last 20 years of television, 25 years of television history because of the streaming services. So people are constantly rewatching these shows and being like, damn, this is the best thing I ever saw.

How come it doesn't have any Emmys? So I appreciate the fact that we would maybe get an opportunity, especially, as honestly, like, we've had so many tragic losses from the wire cast, especially recently, that there would be some sort of recognition of the wire. I don't know necessarily how that would play without giving it this kind of award and this kind of recognition. But to me, I feel like this is, it's kind of, I feel like it's kind of bullshit. To be clear, the award, he makes it clear in this interview that the award will be given to the same. eligible people who would have been eligible had at one best drama series. It would not be Idriselba. Executive producers

and the showrunner slash producers as determined by the people who make the show. Yes. Yes. So Idriselba would not be, he maybe would come to the award ceremony. Sure, yeah. If his plane doesn't get hijacked. Perhaps he would be there for hijacker Luther as well. Yes. You think he's going to be at the Emmys for hijack? I think that they might want...

Quite bullish on that. At the show to boost it, yeah. Side note, just, you know, a little bit like talking about the talk about a thing. I just continue to watch with real admiration how you manage to correctly choose your targets because I'm sitting here singling out working day actors in Texas for their bad haircuts and just putting them on blast. And you're like, the television academy writ large is fraudulent. It's like, no victimless crime. It's impressive. I just think that this is like, you can't have it both ways. Like, you know what you should be worrying about and thinking about is

tweaking the way the Emmys work. So that shows like and or do not get like completely overlooked. Now I don't know how to do that. That's not my job. My job is podcasting. But I'm just saying, going back and being like, you know, who should have won the Super Bowl in 1998, this team. You know?

That's bullshit. Was that the year that Gary Anderson of the Vikings missed the field goal? It probably was. I got to say, I've been doing like a fair amount of podcasting with Bill and the amount of random football games that get referenced where I'm like, uh-huh. I just want to say that I've been listening to you. The only person in this world who I listen to is Shiel Capadia who is just doing God's work regularly

and now I just listen to the NFL show every day too and he was like, I'm not sure if it was the 2022 NFC championship game or the 2023 championship game I believe the Eagles were involved in at least one of those games I have no memory but 1998 Gary Anderson Maybe there's no way of us checking Mal and him were talking about like a Ravens Broncos game that they were referring to as if it would have been like you were there when the man landed on the moon right? You know, like I was like for sure that was crazy when Flacco did that.

Yeah, they were talking about like the time Tim Tebow won a playoff game and I was like I'm going to need 45 minutes to remember all of the players. But then there's like a whole swath of NFL history that I feel like I was kind of partying for, you know? Do you know what I mean? Sunday mornings he just weren't. Well, it was a long Saturday. A bit of a blank spot for me. That's fair. That's fair. Okay, well, I hear you.

I think that it, like with many things, it comes down to execution. Like, are they going to do this as, like, is this going to carve out six minutes from an otherwise overstuffed or weirdly nostalgic broadcast to say 25 years ago this show premiered and it was really important and we're giving them a trophy? Or is it going to be, like, you know, another award? Is it going to be part of it? the broadcast like a retrospective. We are giving, we are, everybody knows this is happening so that the castes show up to stand and applaud, that there will be some sort of like Michael B. Jordan comes out and gives it to the wire. We get Michael B. Jordan at the head again. He only plays two parts. And, uh, yeah,

and that, that would be, that would be the deal. I don't think it would be like you're in competition. I hear you, I, I, I'm, I'm open to your cynicism here. But for some reason, the fact that it is a show award, which is just acknowledging something that is great, which is relatively to me non-controversial being in the same way, I'm like, this 1950s German novel is great. Like, that seems different to me than how inevitably at some point in the next one to five years Tom Cruise is going to get an Oscar that's a lifetime achievement Oscar. I mean, he just got the governor's, like, I mean, it wasn't the lifetime achievement one, but he got a governor's ball Oscar that was like essentially his career capping speech. Governor's ball, like the concert in New York. Or whatever it was. The

Troke's headlines, Tom Cruise's receipt of the Gov Ball Award. That's right, MGMT. Childish Gambino. Yeah, I, I, that, I mean, I think people deserve to be celebrated, but the one where it's just like, yeah, we'll give them one. Fix the comedy section of your awards show before you worry about, like, making sure the wire got its dab. You didn't give it to it. You fucked up.

You fucked up. That's the clip. You blew it. Do it. Wow. Okay. One other... I like that you had no suggestions for this dog shit award.

My suggestion is like, feel free to honor television history and do a better job telling that story. Right. But don't be like, here, we can just like kind of skate on the fact that one of the most groundbreaking, incredible, timeless television shows ever got zero fucking attention from us while it was on and needed it. It needed those nominations when it was on, not now. Yeah, but is this like... Would you, I feel like this is the same attitude you would have if the Grammys were like, ah, but like Palace Music's 1994 record in retrospect, you know, like there is no one what will take care of you.

That's right. That's right. Is the defining indie country statement of the 90s? No, because, you know, honestly, I bet, I bet ultimately David Simon has long since gotten over this. Yes. He got his Peabody. I think everybody, I think David Simon, if I had to guess, is like, I feel like I'm a maid man. You know, do people respect my shit.

This is, and we can let it go with this, and we'll see how they actually do this in practice. But that's why I think it is good that it is not a David Simon award. It is a The Wire Award because of the community of people who made that show, both the cast and crew and just Baltimore. But they're not going up on stage to go to Emmy. They just lost John Harbaugh. Like, let these people get something.

Yeah. You know? They got Pete Lonzo, though. Did they? Yeah. Is Mal happy about that? I don't think she's very happy right now. Sorry. I love my

I have no comment. I want her to be happy. The only other news I had for you is that there's a column on Deadline.com by a British journalist named Baz and his column is called Breaking Baz and he'll sometimes get tidbits of information from any number of luminaries in the British cultural

sort of scene. Is he legit or is he like Jackie Harvey in The Onion? He's kind of a little bit of like a throwback. Like it kind of gives me like sweet smell of success vibes sometimes. like his column where he's just like, I'm here at the West End debut and Claire Foy is Radiant.

You know? He checks out. H is for Hawk. H is for Hot. Is that what it says? Anyway, he talked to Kate Winslet. And Kate Winslet was like... So he's like us.

Yeah. And he was like, what's up with Mayor of East Town? And she was like, I think we're going to shoot season two in 2027. Okay. Paraphrasing. But that is basically what she said.

This would be the first I'm hearing of it. I mean, we have heard of rumblings of, did they ever have an idea for season two? How would it work? Brad Inglesby obviously now working on task season two, which seems to be going full steam ahead. It is. I think, here's my question.

Let's just say this is true, that they are going to do mayor, that they found a spot to do it in 2027. Do you want Meritask crossover? Do you want this to be the larger Delco crime universe? Let me give you two answers. One, I would love for there to be more mayor. I would love for Kate Winslet to play this part again.

And for there to be a larger Ingallsverse, I don't really have a problem with that at all. I think that sounds awesome. I think that we would have a lot of fun podcasting about it, discussing it, and also wondering what other Philadelphia set shows might be incorporated. Like, is Tires also in this world? I hope so. See?

Yeah. Look how I catered to you. Tire Season 2 was awesome. And it's in the Ingallsverse potentially. All of that being said, I find this extremely, extremely surprising and a little bit more than a little bit unlikely.

I think Kate would like to be doing that. She's just casting. She's like, hey, Brad. I think Mare 2 is more likely than the regime season 2. And I think that but just in the reality of these things, Brad Inglesby, friend of the pod, famously works. He works alone. Like Mary, he's kind of a loner. He is not one of the writers and creators

of whom there are many, and this works for people who have multiple projects going. It doesn't seem like it. He doesn't use a room. He writes these shows. He is writing task season two. HBO is invested in task as an ongoing plank of, as an important ongoing plank of their larger, I don't know if it's going to be year to year, but every 18 months strategy. So, I think it would be very, very surprising if they're investing in Brad and in task as a show that matters to them, they would foreshorten or just actively cut off the chance of a season three in a timely fashion by telling him, now go do this other thing. Right.

I don't think it makes sense. It would be cool. It would be cool. Yeah. Look, it was a great show, and I'm open to it coming back. I think that it would probably need to be a different kind of series. Mare going back through her back pages quite literally in terms of her yearbook, but in terms of her childhood experiences, her youth and her lifelong friends and what transpires

among them, that story's been told. So whatever the deal is, I think it needs to be something that's a little bit more like outward facing for her. And I'd be curious to see where the character is now, though. It's also interesting to think about task as a response to mayor in its creation because, you know, mayor was commissioned, written, and filmed, and released into a world where big stars coming to TV

for event series or miniseries was the norm. Yes. It was released then, it was received into a world where, well, why don't we just run this back, started to become the norm as well. You should say that in Nicole Kidman's accent. Because that's, who did it? She was like, I'll keep doing it.

What? Do you think that's what she sounds like? No, fucking Paul Hogan. She sounds like in here. She stories matter. She shaved the Byron Bay off that accent. You know what I mean? She did.

She's sort of like international class now. Heartbreak. I think everyone involved with mayor was hoping to go. Hot break feels good in a place like this. Well, yeah, that's South African. My bad. Diplomatic community in a place like this. It's good.

Good stuff. I think that there was a moment when Mare was rocking at the Emmys that everyone involved was like, let's keep this going, but the logistics of it were quite challenging. And TASC was designed to be anthology-esque, but I think like the Mark Ruffalo character and his backstory and how he can step forward or step back on a show that is built to welcome in new casts around him every year is just a different, it's just a different scaffolding. Well, let's be honest. I hope it's not a new cast every year because that would be a high turnover rate for that. Well, I mean, I just mean that, like,

who's going to be on this year's task force remains TBD? There are clearly players in the wind that could come back or not. But from what we've learned so far, Mark Ruffalo is returning. And anything else is up in the air. Yes. I wanted to just take your temperature on something, which is one of the favorite shows of our podcast industry is returning this weekend.

We're very excited about it. And I noted with interest, everyone else in the world is also very excited about this, which is really good for the show, for all the talented people who work so hard on it, for Mickey Down and Conrad Kay and everybody who bet big on the show. I just have to say, I don't know how you feel about this, but in reading all of the five stars and Hosanas, I do want to say, I have only read, like, headlines. I have not read a reviews.

Yeah. No, Mickey and Conrad are screenshoting the five stars as they should. so I'm seeing the response, which is great. I just want to quote, disgraced Canadian rapper, Aubrey Drey Graham, when I say, you wasn't with us shooting in the gym. Oh, to all the other critics? I'm just saying. Yeah.

Where were you guys? Are you gatekeeping? No. Are you club-lissing? No. Am I sailing towards something and claimed I discovered it? No. Who's the Viking who really did discover it?

No, no, no one discovered it. People were here first. That was a test. You failed. You failed. You are not recognizing whose land we are sitting on. I don't know what your question is.

Do I feel weird about the fact that other people like industry now? Like, do I feel a little bit like you guys didn't, you weren't there in season one, right? Right. I mean, it was a weird time, right? Didn't that show come out during COVID?

Or like right around it? Yes. What was 2020? And like... 20-21? I still... I think I like season one of industry more than Conrad K.

and Mickey Down to. I think that's fair. I think that I still find that to be like this wild punk rock kind of finding our footing situation and very strange and idiosyncratic. But you also like the first

Modest Mouse record better than the one with Floodon on it. Yeah. See? Look at your face. What are you talking about? I'm just saying. Are you saying about... This is activating our indie heads. Yeah. But like I think that... But I have... Eventually was like, yes, everybody should love this.

You know what I mean? Is that famously what you were saying when you were partying? Chuck was like, you want to watch football tomorrow? And you were like, no, I must spread the gospel of Isaac Brock. Interstate 8 is good. It is good. It is better than... Good news for people, but bad news is fine, too.

That was you. We had a lot of fun, Kai. You missed it. It was great stuff. I had to stop down because I had to do five-factor authentication to get back into my own computer. But let me just say, I did watch the first. industry episode and without giving anything away. Let's go.

They're fucking... Yeah, we're so back. I'm not pouring water on that. It's habachi time. Let's go. Let's throw it. Let's make an onion volcano. You know what I mean?

Oh, got it. Like, it's steaming. You know what I'm saying? It's really good. It's really good. No, you're steaming. Talk about Benihana. No, I get it now.

But then you said volcano. And I was like, the people of Pompeii were like, be careful. There's steam emerging. Got a lot of historical references today. Well, I'm trying to take the long view of what's going on in our world. That's true. Industry will obviously be hitting that really. 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

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Let's talk about the pit, which we delayed the release of this episode today to catch the premiere of Pitt season two. the Pitt season two. Pitt to its friends, though. You know what I mean? Well, if you've been down as long as us, you can just call it pit.

We can call it pit, but our new attending wants to change that. Right. Let's talk a little bit about some new faces. But first, let's talk about the old faces.

Robbie's back. Langdon's there. He's making amends. I'd like to know a little bit more about that process. Dana is trying to quit smoking, but she is still working at the hospital.

She's still working at it. Do you think she should not be allowed because she's still working on quitting smoking? You said that in a way that was like Despite her personal foibles Given the way the pit usually goes I bet by the end of the day

She's going to have a couple heaters Hell yeah She's earned them Santos is trying to get promoted Mel seems a little Wistful She's worried about Mel practice That's right

She's worried about Mel practice And Whitaker is trying to teach the new Whitaker's As far as patience We got a guy with a busted wrist With some cognitive problems There's a young girl with a lot of bruises. There is an abandoned baby

and a coterie of older people. You weren't moved by the old lady who eats 12 weed cookies a day? I thought that was cute. And I recognized that actress, but I couldn't find the name. It looked like, was it Lois Smith? It might have been, actually.

I think it was Lois Smith, she's still acting at 95. She should have all the cookies she wants. I'm not sure if that was her. It's great to be back. It is great to be back. I think that the very thing that I thought was very smart about this episode is the only thing that anyone will have to say where it's like, huh, which is that they took the temperature down. Last season ended in such a sort of absolutely, like, viscerally ragged place after a mass casualty event in Pittsburgh where the hospital becomes the, like, the main hub of treatment.

And there's now a memorial to that. And there was a memorial to that. So to start, what is it now, I guess? It's about 10 months later. 10 months later. And to start at a much more calm, much more like, hey. At 7 a.m. Punching in, 7 a.m.

There's nothing. It was a quiet night last night. There's nothing big going on. Because remember, the show started with an outrageous subway accident. Oh, the woman with a debraided. Do you want to talk about that? You seem like you don't. I don't like the term debriefing at all.

Do you? No, but I live in a household where I'm constantly mocked for not being able to braid hair. Oh. So I know it's not the same thing. But I always think fondly of my children. When I'm watching the pit season one. Yeah. What did you think of this first episode?

We talked about it at length during season one. We talked about it during the brief off season. What a gift it was to have A, have the show in our lives generally, but B, have a show that was back to. back to the way things used to be and on a yearly schedule. And I gotta say, my internal clock was off.

Because when I fired up episode 201, I was like, seems fast, seems sudden to be back here. Right. At first. I also felt in a real way, and again, I don't mean this necessarily critically, but when the season

opened with Dr. Robbie riding a motorcycle helmet list through the streets of Pittsburgh while sort of like an anonymous sludgy rock song played, I was like, broadcast,

we are so back, baby. And we would be ripping this. Like, this was corny as fuck as an opening. Well, it was. I mean, he's a guy riding a motorcycle to work. What do you want? I want him to wear a helmet,

first of all. No, I think it's telling us something about this. You want modest mouths to be playing? Yes. But like the early shit. You had your chance to watch you to rivalry with Wolf Parade's revival.

And you, and you know, I had to beg you to do that. Well, I'm capricious. You can't tell what I'm going to do. Okay. I'm guessing. No, I just mean it was a reminder of the strong, I don't mean to use a medical analogy, but the strong bones of this show are definitely from a different era.

And the people who are so good at doing this show are also from a different era. Like, this is not a show made by young guns trying to change things, nor should it be. Sure. That opening with that song was corny, which was okay for what the show is. Then going back into it, it did take me a few minutes to remember just the unique alchemy of the old with this slightly juiced up prestige pacing and opportunities to tell deeper stories. So it took me a minute, is all I'm saying. Once the show kind of, once everyone was reintroduced and everybody found their rhythm again,

I was all the way back, and then when the episode ended on a... A little bit of a cliffhanger. Cliffhanger note of note passing, I was desperate for more. And I was curious about that because I wonder if the pit was very popular when it started airing last year. It has grown in popularity exponentially. It is an award's favorite. It's going to win this weekend, I think, at the Golden Globes. I don't know the numbers, HBO does.

What percentage of the Pitt fans watched it initially? and how many have binged it since. Sure. And if it's going to take some adjustment for people to be like to slow down again. It definitely took me an adjustment. So in the last few minutes, basically like, you know,

for, if you've watched this show the episode and you're listening to us, you know that there is a plot point where this is Robbie's last day before he goes on a sabbatical to the Badlands. Yeah, that sounded like a very CR-coded sabbatical. Well, I've actually been thinking about how

I'm running out of time to drive across America. something I've never done before. Running out of time because we're not going to be free to move in the country anymore? I don't really feel like my body. I'm sure I could do it, but like I feel like both in terms of like my energy levels and my like physical fitness

and like my ability to be in a car for six to ten days, I just haven't, you know, I haven't done a significant road trip since high school. That's interesting. Yeah, I did drive across the country once about 20 years ago, but that was like pretty,

Free podcast. Did you like it? Imagine. I liked the places that I saw and like the connective tissue of like, oh man, it just looks like this for seven hours and then there's Salt Lake City or whatever. But even 20 years ago, I was like, well, we could stop at this subway or we could drive 15 more miles to another subway and get a sandwich. Like I didn't really get the-

But you didn't have eater back then. Like you could find the Max and Hellens of North Dakota. No, no. And there was road food and there was Chowhound.com. I was on the boards, homie. I'm just saying it was just like, do you want to get scrapple here or eggs? It was not that feeling. You're like, Buttermilk Channel does it again.

That was fucking you, dude. I have like, you mean the restaurant downstairs from your apartment? You're like, can't hope if I'm lucky. Proximity is king. No, I liked the places, but the in between. It wasn't exactly like the road trips of like James Crumbling novels. that we like to read. Like Carowac.

You weren't like, Ah, a trip in the light fantastic here. Yeah, or like, you know, going into bars

called the slum gullion and being like, oh, what's the fried, chicken fried blank of the day, you know? It didn't have that same romance. You were read on the road?

Yes. Really? And I read like Dharma bums and like all the other ones. Yeah. Didn't seem like it. It doesn't seem like I read that book. You don't seem like the kind of guy

who's read on the road. I seem like the guy who was like, I'm interested. And then read it and it was like, Not for me. Not for me. I'd like to stay off the road.

Robbie read on the road. Let me put it that way. Dr. Robbie is Red Carowac, and he's on his way to the Badlands to a UNESCO site, hang out, and he's got a replacement. The replacement is Dr. Al Hashimi, and she's played by...

Sepedamewaffe. From the Deuce. And she's got some ideas about integrating AI into the ER. Love it. Let's get more limited. getting some efficiencies handled, upping those patient scores. Changing the name.

She's a real big first hundred days person, you know, because she's shadowing Robbie. She's there before him. She's a disruptor. Calling meetings, and she's implementing all of these new philosophies, all these new, you know. She learned about AI from her time at the VA, and she wants to bring it to the ER.

That's right. And Robbie's like, N-O. clip that cowards come on say your next thing let's go I just get with your relationship to being clipped it's just the funniest thing it's just like this thing that you hate so much

but you clearly want it to happen five times per show I don't want to happen I want to control it I want to happen not at all so you want to sit with Kai after this and go through the flage and be like clip that I look amazing there

For hours Yeah Like broadcast news Yeah Go on I don't even remember where I was going You were talking about Dr. Alashimi's arrival This is part of Andy's strategy

Because I don't want to go for the obvious one So every time he says clip that I'm like all right I'm not going to clip that Yeah exactly So then it's just you on a podcast And there's somebody who's blissfully still listening to us On audio somewhere There's like why is this show suck now

That's fine I'm willing to get at risk This is light work for me Come on I've completely forgot my point. You had a point about Dr. Al Hashimi's radical ideas about the first hundred days and how it's being received by the rank and file.

She winds up being, you know, so she's mildly frustrating to the folks in the ER because she's got like this new stuff going on. But then they bring her into the fold by putting her square in the middle of this cliffhanger at the end of the episode. And I just wanted to ask you your read on that. So there's a baby is abandoned

in the bathroom of the waiting room. they bring said child back into the ER to do some examinations. It's her, it's Johnny. Is that the guy, the nurse's name? No. What's the nurse's name? I don't know, but it's not that.

There's two nurses. It's a tall guy with the earring. Love that guy. Yeah, and then the other guy who's also got a new newborn. Yeah. And they're like, we'll get their names by episode nine, I promise.

This baby seems okay. And then there's like a piece of paper. They get a quick, like it's the initial... Results. Of some scan, I guess. Like it's a little bit confusing and she's just like, oh shit. But then it's unexplained like what's wrong with the baby, why Hashimi's having this reaction more so than the,

her corresponding doctors or counterparts. And that is the fucking magic of this show. But I agree with you. I want to smash the next episode button. You know what I mean? I did. You did. You did do that?

No, I wanted to. And I resisted because we do have screeners, but we're trying to watch it along. Because I want to create the experience that viewers are having and understand the frustrations and or elation that you would have if you were waiting a week to watch this show. So I don't want to go ahead and find out that baby's a robot, you know? Like, in a way, it was maybe. But if the baby was a robot, I bet Al Hashimi would be like, that's dope AI. That's great.

Do you think that she made a fake baby? She made a Blade Runner? Yeah. She flooded the ER with replicants and the challenges to determine. I think that is where ID. Blade Runner. Yeah. I think that that is where everything's going.

That would be all right. I think that we're harping on it because in contemporary television, there's a choice to be made. Do you do a super dramatic cliffhanger, which is part of the algorithmic strategy of the more dedicated binge-drop streamers like Netflix? Like, that's what you do. Like, if and when you get notes from those places, they are almost entirely about the first few minutes in the last minute. Yes. Or you see a show, like, I mean, like Task had big moments at the end of the episodes,

but they are contoured in a way that doesn't, I don't, I almost don't know how to describe it, but they feel more sculpted and more considered, so it is not a drop you off of, it's not, you're not dropped off the cliff and you're hanging. Yeah. You are perched on the precipice of something. It's a classier kind of cliffhanger. This one felt a little bit either or.

Well, I wonder whether or not, because traditionally, that's not how medical procedural necessarily have worked historically. No, Dr. House would be like it's lupus, and then they all hug. Those last five minutes are, well, we've made it through another crazy day here. And instead, this is just the beginning.

So for as traditional as the pit might be, and for as much as it might be playing from sheet music, that's 20, 30, 40 years old at this point, I think it actually does have that little bit of that, like we want people to stay engaged with this and want to watch the next, feel desperate to watch the next episode. Yeah, well, let's talk about that.

I think that's an interesting framing for this episode in the show in general, which is what's new and what's tried and true. I definitely, and I texted you this when I was watching it, like, I was wondering how many musical notes are there in the hymn book? Because it's like, okay, well, some of these cases feel familiar.

The new lost lamb nurse as opposed to a resident this season, the new hard ass coming in and shadowing and disrupting how Robbie likes to do things. Like these are not, this is not reinventing any kind of wheel. But the creators and showrunners of the show, which include Noah Wiley and R. Scott Gemmell, and they are very nimble, I think, in subtle ways. like bringing in starting in the morning so we can have that little aftertaste of the night shift

my guy Dr. Shen, the other charge nurse who works with Dana, whose name I'm blanking on as well. But you continue to build this larger sense of a world, of a community, of a cast. The other thing that shows, and tell me if I'm wrong, if you remember any big examples of this, but the other thing that I don't really remember how MD or ER these shows being able to do

would be have recurring patients on the rhythm of like a Louis. Like Louis, it was a memorable character. I think ER did have some stuff like that. If I remember correctly, I can't think of an example. But for the most part, in my, I haven't watched Grays in a while. But like, Grays would typically wrap up. Unless it was a special, like, it's that Jeffrey Dean Morgan guy who's on for like six weeks or whatever, Denny.

He made a big impact. Yeah. But, like, otherwise, it would be. be like, didn't they get married in heaven or something? I think she marries, she has sex with his ghost. There you go.

Doesn't she? Hell yeah. Stare me until I believe you. That's like, that's, she's in cars, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. She has, she has sex with his ghost. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then she has a mental break. Yeah. Kaya was quick to jump in on the question,

did she have sex with a ghost? Well, because it's a face. But last week, I'm like, what's etiquette in the room service, I have faith in Shonda Rhimes. I don't have faith in Taylor Sheridan.

It's fair. I just feel like a double standard. Yeah, to your point, though, yes. I do think that one of it, the idea of rolling slowly out, like, and this is like, look, I didn't rewatch the Pitt season one, but one of the sort of great miracles of that show was the prolonged exposure to the brother and sister who were working through saying goodbye to their older father, you know what I mean? And not knowing which case will linger and which one won't.

Yes. And if you want to do that in one episode of VR, I think you would have a 60% as effective of feeling at the end of that storyline. If you stretch it across four hours, which is probably like, you know, as far as you can take that without really punishing people, it just hits much harder.

And it winds up being a much more effective storytelling device. So I still think, I understand what you're saying where you're like, you're getting back into it and you're like, okay, like I'm feeling my way through it, but they've got to lay the groundwork. for at episode five when something happens significantly. Sure. I also think that I'll say we,

but really I'll just say that I need to do this, is recalibrate. This is, for all the things we're saying about how familiar the pit is in its delivery system and the pleasure that it gives us, it is unique because the first season was so thrilling and the experience of watching it was so thrilling. But the charge of the show is we're just going to do it again in a different day.

Yes, and I think that that's what you... That's what you're also responding to is that, like, I think they did a really good job of subtle differences in the characters who were returning after 10 months. Santos is not as annoying, you know, like she's not. No, she, she, the banter is, is kind. It's the kind of banter you would have where she's like, this is my personality, but we've obviously spent we've been through it. more time together. And so I'm not going to absolutely bust your balls. Whitaker is now something of a leader within the ER.

Mel is now no longer like, maybe. be perfect every single day and completely focused on the task at hand. She's got things that are distracting her. So I thought it was really nice. It obviously ramps up a level in the last five minutes. And we're completely sold on this show. So it's just, we're just waiting a week to find out what's going on with this baby. I thought it was interesting that they didn't, they held back the Sean Hattesee card, Dr. Jack Abbott. He won, he won an Emmy for his brief appearance in the show. I think he is main cast second season. so curious about how he'll fit into it. I noted with interest

that apparently it is a known medical description that a heart in distress is a quivering bag of worms. I didn't know that. Did you learn from the show, or were you? I have to admit, I watched this show in the morning and over breakfast. Interesting. So you had a quivering bag of worms in your bowl. Well, I usually don't get queasy at that stuff.

Yeah. And I think it's more of like maybe a nighttime show for me now that I think about it. Just fall asleep thinking about how they were like move his lungs horizontally to see if his heart's like, you'll tear the lung off and he's like, do it slowly. Do it more slowly. But also like they have cut, you know, I'm no thoracic surgeon, but they have cut the long way. You know how like when you watch how to properly cook a steak videos and they're all like be sure to cut, you know, the right way with the grain? I still don't understand what cutting against grain means. Well, they showed you last night.

They're like, you can see the grain. I'm like, I don't see the grain. Well, they cut against the grain on that man. They went against the grain on that man. Are you supposed to cut with the grain or against the grain? Steak. What are you doing with the steak? I mean, I honestly don't really make steak.

It doesn't matter. My point is, my point is, they have cut against the grain of this man's body cavity. They have turned his lungs sideways. They have been physically massaging and then electric paddling his heart. At what point is? And then they send him upstairs.

Can you... The secret episode of the pit should be the team upstairs being like, what the fuck did you just get us? And what am I supposed to do with this? That guy's health journey begins now. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

That guy's in shambles. Shambles. Any other notes? I hope that no one ever asked to drain my torso. I'm not saying it won't happen, but that doesn't sound weird. Yeah, I cannot believe. believe that the guy who is like, this is bleeding so much, we can't even suction this, is alive.

Oh, I don't mean that guy. Oh. I mean Louis. Oh, Louis. Yeah, right. Getting tapped. I hate that. I hate that for him and I hate that. The concept of being tapped, I don't like it. No. You pot all day. You have nothing more to give. Bill taps you all the time. Langdon. Langdon. What about what about him? How you feeling about him? Uh, that's obviously Patrick Ball, very good actor and sort of a, I believe a fanfave to some extent. In terms of his character, I do believe that there is a road

back for people who maybe have those experiences in the ER, so I'm sure it's true to life. I thought it was effective to have somebody who was such a hard-charging, smart-ass the first season be a little bit humbled, but also not being psyched about being humbled, you know?

Like, you can tell he's, like, a little bit frustrated that Robbie's not giving him the time of day. Can I give you my one note about him? Because I've come, I think he's clearly a very talented actor. Yeah. It's a good character arc and the dynamic, the change in dynamic from the way he was with Robbie in season. Yeah, we're like, Bucin Sundance to now we're like, eh.

It's good. Yeah. Not sure you should be here. I've got to rough him up a little bit. He's too pretty. No, he's been out of the ER. He's been getting some sun. He's been getting well.

He looks the same. He looks great. He looks very clean and handsome and fine and well-rested, as he did in season one. Right. I'm not saying he should have been like long night of the souling, you know, but... We had the Penguins hat.

He did have the Penguins hat. So do you think... Maybe he spent his entire rehab getting super into Penguins. Is he Columbusing hockey because heated rivalry hasn't dropped yet? How does those words work in that? That's a really good question.

There is a world. These are both HBO Max properties. You know. Oh, but the Penguins play, they don't... The Penguins don't play in major league hockey. No. I'm sure there's a Pittsburgh team in Major League hockey,

but I don't know what they're called, and I don't think... Well, first of all, we all know they're the Pittsburgh puffins. Like, they'll love... No, it's the New York Admirals. I mean, they would have a cool names. They would have a... Look, I am not denigrating heated rivalry or its achievement. I'm saying of all the hundred things that Jacob Tierney is the man's name,

what he had to do, coming up with plausible wink, wink, we all know what team this is names was not... I'm guessing it wasn't number one in the list. So usually it's just like... Well, I have Jacob Tierney right here. Jacob Tierney is listening in the car with Patrick J. Adams right now being like, this son of a bitch gets it wrong again. I'm just saying the names in alt versions where they don't get the rights are usually like one degree removed.

Yeah, right, right. You know? Okay, I'm just saying... The Philadelphia Falcons. Yeah, Langdon got super into the Penguins while he was away. Or maybe his character has always been a big hockey fan. I don't know. You want to comment on it?

I'm such a hockey dilatant, you know? No, you're, you're, 20% of your entertainment now is hockey-based. Stanley Cup playoffs is where I fully check in. Flyers have been hot this year, though. Rick. Rick, Tocket. Remember him? Mm-hmm.

From the playing days? No, I remember him from the headlines of the articles I didn't read in the Inquirer days. I was too busy reading Jack Kerouac to get into hockey. Should we run through some shows that we're looking forward to in 2026? Sure. What a fun episode. I think so. Of this pod.

Do you think? Yeah. This is how I like to pod. Are we going to air this one? Well, I don't know how much of it, but I organize this list by scraping from a bunch of very useful articles on the internet, including websites like the playlist, Roger Ebert.com, the trades variety, Hollywood reporter, all of whom have done their most anticipated lists. Here's the thing with TV is the first quarter of this year, maybe the first half of this year is relatively firmly scheduled. But more and more now I am scheduling to be fluent. when it comes to our streaming networks.

Many of these shows, or several of them at least, were filmed more than a year ago. It's been really interesting to kind of read about the productions of some of these and find like, oh, this has been on the shelf for a hot minute, and I don't know whether that signals like a return to full content coffers

for some of these places, whether or not people are trying to be more careful about when they drop stuff and building it up. I mean, I could speak a little, little bit to it. I think there are a number of reasons why. I think that there is, as with movies, there are examples of TV shows that are in the can and are quote unquote troubled and have a longer post-production process or they may order reshoots or they might not be confident about them and they want to move them out of certain high volume or high attention parts of the season. That's certainly

true. The other thing, and I don't know how relevant it is for a bunch of the shows that we're talking about, but also like movies, certain shows and certain genres have incredibly long post-production periods due to Viz Effects. Like a show that I worked on last fall

which won't be on TV for another year. Yes. And then the third part of it is, I think, you're bang on, which is like there is fine, the coffers are more full.

Yes. And there can be some thought about, or more intention, about where we want to debut things. how we're going to handle the marketing, where we want it to fall in the run-up to awards or whatever the case may be.

And then the last beast being, all of these streamers in their offices have their entire schedules as they want them through the end of 27. Plus what they would like to see in 28, but it gets kind of wonky. They control when they announce them. I will say to the things that have been most mystifying to me

is when shows are chosen to be released. You know, like how they decide, like, that Night of the Seven Kingdom's industry and the Pit will all be on at the same time, rather than spread out over the first three to four months of the year or whatever it is. And also, like, how Netflix goes about deciding, like, what's a June show versus what's a February show

just because of the amount of stuff that they're putting out. Netflix is the streaming service behind the first show I wanted to talk to you about. And that is All Centers Bleed, which I grabbed this morning. I did not know that this was planned to be a 26 release. But this is the nine-episode adaptation of a writer that you and I both love a lot, a crime writer named S.A. Cosby. And this one stars an actor that we're very into, Soap Deer-Soo. I'm very excited.

I didn't even, I don't know about this. Yeah. And it's the, it's All-Centers Bleeds. is a great noir from Cosby, and it's about a character named Titus Crown. Have you read this one? I've not read this one. I have read this one. This is really cool. And he is the first black sheriff in a like a southern, small southern town.

And it comes from Joe Robert Cole, who had a lot to do with Black Panther, with the first Black Panther movie. So very pumped on that, don't have a release date for it, but it is Netflix. And it's the kind of thing that gets me just like fired up to do this podcast, is the prospect of talking about this show. I think this one is further down the line. This was filming in the fall. So I think if it is 26, it'll be late 26,

but it's definitely one to flag because that's very exciting. Yeah. Why don't you grab one off the list that you want to talk about? I want to talk about criminal, which I think was on your list too. It is an Amazon Prime series.

And for those interested in... For people who read comics, they're familiar with this, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips long-running anthology series, which has stand-alone stories. I'm not going to pretend I've read all of them, but I've read the first two, I think.

And Ed Brubaker is just a master of comic writing, but also this is the shit he loves. I think if he was a guest in this podcast, we would have a lot of fun talking about books that we love together. And it's essentially anthology. You could read each of them on their own, but there is a unifying conceit that some of these criminals hang out at the same bar

live in the same city, know each other, have other connections. And what's exciting about the series is not just that Amazon hired Ed Brubaker to adapt it and show run. They also brought on another low-key watch MVP, author Jordan Harper, who wrote the book Everybody Knows that we flipped out about last year as the co-show runner. Charlie Hunnam, Richard Jenkins, Adria Hohanna, Ryan Bowden, and Anna Fleck. directing. Yeah. This is

this exciting. Is this exciting? Is this totally, in terms of the comics, would you compare it to Sin City? Would you say it's more like a comic version of like dime store Jim Thompson

kind of stuff? Like what is it sort of, okay. It's like, it's contemporary like urban, you know, I think Sin City is correct, but I think that Ed Brubaker's

love of this form is very different than Frank Miller's. Yes. Frank Miller's is very Catholic, like, good and evil. And almost like mythological level. Like, he mythologizes archetypes within, like, noir stories. Ed Brubaker knows a good yarn in a different way. So I'm, I don't know.

I mean, I can't speak to, like, how they adapted it or what they took from, but I just think it sounds like a cool series we're going to like. I will shout out the terror, devil and silver. Another the Terror. Yeah. So this is going to be on AMC, starring Dan Stevens, Maren. Ireland, who's one of my favorite performers, Judith Light, CCH Pounder, and Stephen Root.

And I think you could make an argument that this is one of the more reliable anthology series of the last, what's had been 15 years since the first terror came out. There's only been a couple of them, so it's not like there's a ton. But this one is set in a psych hospital and is based, it's an adaptation of a Victor Lavelle novel. I'm very excited by this not only because of the cast not because of the setting

and not only because of the pedigree of this series in the first place Christopher Cantwell who did uh um half he was when he was he and his then writing partner did Halton Catch Fire right he is a sort of show running this

and uh Corinne Kusama is doing the uh is directing a bunch of the episodes and she's an incredible horror director director full stop so very excited for this uh AMC largely in the vampire business right now, but it's cool to see, like, a show like this pop up. Speaking of books we read in high school, do you want to talk about East of Eden? Let's talk about East of Eden. I didn't read that in high school. I read that last year.

Did you really? 24. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. So it's more front of mind for you. I guess, yeah. I mean, I had never read Steinbeck. It was just a blank spot for me. So I decided to I would have, I wrote a lot. I like, travels with Charlie. I was like, oh, I'm going to discover America, Tortilla Flats. The Interstate 8 of John Steinbeck. Listen, if there's one thing I love doing, it's reading about traveling through the heartland of America. If there's one thing I don't like doing,

it's that. It's that. Zoe Kazan adapted this for Netflix. A friend of the pod, Tracy Letts is in this, as well as Florence Pugh. Christopher Abbott. Christopher Abbott. The big role, the James Dean role, Cal-Trask,

is played by. a newcomer, right? Joseph Zarda. Zada? And I am thrilled that this is happening.

I think I'll be curious to see whether or not the expansive nature of Steinbeck's novel, the epic and very biblically tinged story

of these two brothers in the Central Valley translates to some of the Netflix-y, next episode, bingey, I can't wait to hit another one.

Now look, like, they've put up really, really, really, really good shit every year,

adolescence, Ripley, like shows that are routinely at the top. East of Eden is a different beast. Yes, and I think that

this is what makes it so interesting to me. It's not everything about this feels like such an odd bet because I think Zoe Kazan, it was shopped,

it was developed, it was moving around, Apple for a while? It's been, it's moved. I think it, I think it did, I don't know if it was Apple, but I know that it moved homes. They shot this over a year ago in New Zealand. Okay. It's a big, big, big swing. And, you know, with something like Netflix, like, can they use their platform to be like, we are showing you greatness because we can fund it and we can put it in front of a lot of people? Or are they like, we took it, we took a swing and we're not really going to promote it that much and maybe it didn't work well. Or the third.

version is, you know, is it, is it Netflix-ized? Right. Are they, are they- I don't think that, there's not really, I mean, there's a couple of gasp moments in East of Eden. Yeah. But I don't know if there's nine of them. No, but like probably midway through when Professor X and Magneto play chess one last time.

Yeah. Cal-Trask will return. And Cyclops' glasses. In Dune's day. We haven't talked about those. I can tell you're getting high, you're back. I'm not. You're back.

Yeah. I can tell. You are fucking living for the MCU. That's you. I think they might be fumbling the bag a little bit. I think they may, like, they showed that X-Men trailer. Everyone was like, that's sick, that's my Cyclops. And then the next trailer was like, the thing meets Namor.

Everyone's like, that's nice. I was familiar with their game. Anyway. It's so confusing how you switch back and forth between what you, you think and what everyone thinks. That's how you can't pin me down. I know, but you're like, everybody's like Namor. Like, I don't know.

It sounds like you have a Namor problem. Wow. Well, you think that's not my Namor? But that is my Cyclops. He's named Namor because no Amor. Remember that? No, I don't. What's that in?

World of Wakanda or whatever. Black Panther, too. Okay. I forgot. I know. Yeah. And Google is like, I am this generation's true artist.

I have made a movie on my own terms, and I will win Oscars, and I've made so much money, and now I shall return to Black Panther 3. All right. But I want to double down on your point about what Netflix's big miniseries strategy is, because this year will have, it's not just East of Eden from our high school,

sorry, my high school curriculum, but also Pride and Prejudice. Yes. Which is... With Emma Corrin, right? The cast is wild. This is Dali Alderton adapted a version of the novel, And it's going to be a miniseries.

I'm extremely hyped. I want to talk. Okay. So, Kyah from the back row. Let me name some names here. And then let's bring Kai in on this. Because the cast is sick.

Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennett, Jack Loudon, as Darcy, Olivia Coleman as Mrs. Bennett. A fan favorite of my house, Lewis Partridge as George Wickham. Hell yeah.

But here's the thing. That dude's Daniel Olivia Rodriguez, right? Well. Not anymore. Fuck. Come on it. Kai, I'm bringing you in a house. one second. This is big in my house. The thing about this is, so Pride and Prejudice, the 2005 version

with Cure Knightley is my daughter's favorite movie of all time. Okay. Like once a week we're watching this movie. Not me. Once a week she's watching this movie. I have tried to, in my continuing attempts to engage her in things that don't involve Kill a Trev accidentally liking one of our reels. Been like, look, there's a new one coming. Isn't that interesting? And also I like these actors. And there's a lot of skepticism in my house because the bar is really high. because of the previous movie. But also she doesn't think Jack Loudon is, quote, hot enough. So, Kaya, we're going to see, tell us about your interest level in this.

Is it, is it, are we looking for a TV series? I just love Dolly Alderton. I love all of her books. And so I'm really, I think this is her first foray into television writing. And so I'm very intrigued. And I love Olivia Coleman in all things. And Emma Corrin. And Jack Loudon, he's cute.

I think we can get him there. For Darcy? Yeah. I mean, because he's not supposed, like, because Matthew McFadden isn't like, he's a handsome man and a good actor, but like that's part of, that's Darcy. It's supposed to be a slow burn.

Yeah. It's like the Pitt season two. A slow burn. Slowly building up. I just also want to say, I am pro this series, and I am pro-Dolly Alderton, English writer who I've never read any of her works,

but I am now especially a fan because on her Wikipedia page, can I just share with you her personal life? This is a personal life entry of an established and successful British writer. Food is one of her principal interests. She has named spaghetti vongolet as her preferred last meal. Wow, really? And is passionate about pickling and vinegar.

Do you like spaghetti vongole? Yes. We went out to, am I passionate about it? We went out to our buddy Tyler's birthday dinner. Uh-huh. And that's what I ordered. And you did not like that dish. It was awful.

What I don't like doing is order. What is your attitude about ordering meals at restaurants that you know have a high variance in quality? I figured we were at a beloved and established Los Angeles Italian restaurant. Trotaria. Nope. Spaghetti House, let's say. And I was like, I feel safe here because of the volume, like how many people come here that like the classics, including like the classic that you got. I think you got the chicken parm.

I was like, you can get, like, I'm ordering the same dish that I would get, like, at the Italian restaurant at Wuxbury, PA when I visited my grandparents. I felt like I was in the Italian version of Deadwood. There was, like, whatever that protein was, there was not very much of it, and it felt like I got, like, the last cut. You know what I mean? It was tough. But I like, at restaurants, you know, some people are like, don't order the chicken,

you know, that's boring. I find chicken actually quite reliable at restaurants and interesting, because I think there's so many different preparations. For spaghetti vongolet, like, honestly, sometimes I'm just like, I'm not rolling the dice tonight. With the clams. Yeah. I also don't think, and kind of, again, feel free to jump in here about your girl, Dali Alderton's choice. I, that's a, to me, when done well, it's a perfect dish.

But I don't know if that's my last meal, because there's a little, you got to get the, you got the shells and you just, I don't know. Do you have a last meal? I think I just, I probably had it this morning at this rate. I hate the yogurt that Amanda gave us. Did you really? Yeah. No wonder you feel so jacked on protein right now. Strong.

I am also looking forward to Pride and Prejudice. I'm also looking forward to, you know what I'm going to open a little space in my heart for? Blade Runner 2099. Wow. From Amazon. You're willing to give this a shot. Yeah, you know what?

I fucking love Blade Runner. I think I didn't really think about this that much about my relationship to that world. Yeah. But those are two awesome movies. Okay. Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. I agree. There's been some really interesting animated stuff done around it, I believe.

But this is, the first real effort to expand the universe on TV. Scott Free is involved, so that means there's some tangential Ridley Scott relationship, but for me it's the cast. It's Michelle Yo, Hunter

Schaefer, and our boy Tom Burke. Tom Burke is... And Tom Burke was like, this show is way more first Blade Runner vibes than 2049, and I'm curious. Tom Burke is low-key British him.

That guy's a really good. good actor who hasn't really had the part. It's actually spelled T-H-O-M-Berk and the H is for him. And it's not only silent, it's invisible, it's not in there. You know what I mean? I love that for him. I do want to take an opportunity to call maximum bullshit on you, though. Because everything you just said is verbatim why you didn't like Alien Earth. You were like, I care about this movie franchise. The movies have been pretty good. This is the first opportunity to expand it on TV. And it can go fuck itself. War or less what you said.

No, I was like, it could go fuck itself because it's fucking around with the chronology and the timeline and it's like attitudeally, like it's just like... So you are willing to take a gamble on the Blade Runner TV show? What are we doing here? Because chronologically, it is clear

that it is 50 years later. Yeah. So not sleepless in Seattle, 18 months later. A full 50 years, the slate is wiped clean. I don't really care about like how things move forward

in the Blade Runner reality. I mean, I'm sure we will experience the Blade Runner reality like any day now. But the alien thing was way more about, first of all, I liked some episodes of alien. But it made me mad as shit that no one really got torn to pieces by aliens other than red shirts in that show. And then also that they were like, oh yeah, aliens crash landed on Earth way before these other movies. Like that's not cool. I agree with that.

That's really Scott did that work, bro. He put David in space looking for them. Who directed this Blade Runner television show? I think it's got a couple of different helmers. A couple of different helmers. I don't know. They could mess up the things that you liked about it. You know what?

This is the spice of life, is that you and I just sometimes we don't go to thumbs up at the same time. All right. Ciscoll and Ciskel wouldn't have been, it's been a good of a show. I'm excited about beef coming back on Netflix. This one is like now

it's become kind of an anthology series. Would they announce April for this? Yeah, and it's Oscar, Isaac, Carrie Mulligan, Charles Melton, and Kaylee Spaney. I'm fucking in Kaya nodding. Do you see Fickner? Your boy, Bill Fickner involved. Song Kong is a young couple witnessing an alarming fight between their boss and his wife, triggering chess moves of favors and coercion in the elitist world of a country club

and its Korean billionaire owner. That is literally what would have happened if Kaya and Nick had gone to the Spotify party tonight that you told me not to go to. Do you want to talk it out? No, but everyone should know that's what's simmering underneath this podcast. No, let's talk it out. It's fine. We're having a goofy little show here.

You want to talk it out? You asked me if I was going about six weeks ago. I'm also eager to watch Beef Season 2, and now we're about to take Beef Season 3. I said, no, I'm not going. And then yesterday, some of my superiors implored me to attend. And I said, who am I to deny them?

You listen to the superiors, but not your blood brother here. they cut the checks. That's right. You know what I'm saying? What I didn't appreciate at the time was that this party, and I might not have the specifics correct, I believe Spotify is throwing it to celebrate Golden Globe nominee Kaya.

Yes, essentially. The awards. But Kaya, you know, and I wonder when Kaya was like, you should come, I don't have anybody to talk to it, this thing. I wonder if that's how all celebrities feel. You know, do you think Shalame is like Guy? I wish somebody would just come up to drafting me about the Nix at the Critics Choice Awards.

Well, I was just reading about how he met Josh Safdi where they were both at the same after hours like bluefin tuna serving speakeasy and Josh Safty went over to him and he went Timothy Shalemate. It was kind of like actually how we met where Shalemay and his buddy were like, that's cool man, we're on mushrooms right now.

So I feel like he's open to conversation. Probably right. A couple more. You want to knock him out or should I? I'll do it. Go for it. Okay. I am in the same way of hurt me again

like Blade Runner, I want to see what happens with this Cape Fear on Apple. Yeah, I couldn't go there. Javier Bardem playing Max Cady, Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as the couple he terrorizes. I don't know how you can improve

on the first two iterations of this relatively straightforward story that I don't really know how many different angles there were. And the promise of Cape Fear, not the promise, but the part of the attraction to Cape Fear is the compression

and the nerve-wracking thriller aspect, we doubted that they could do it with Presumed Innocent. And for one hour, they made us feel like perhaps they had cracked the code. Presumed Innocent S2, not on your list, but I'm checking for it. There you go. So I am curious about Cape Fear. That'll be on Apple TV. You obviously are into...

But they're claiming for Cape Fear that, and this is Nick Antoska, who is very good at Channel Zero, a bunch of other shows, yeah. that the inspiration is drawn more from the John D. McDonald's book. Yes. The Executioners. Yes. I'm here for more faithful John D. McDonald adaptations. That is my political platform and I stand by it.

Yeah. I don't know if you could find a more vanilla piece of couples casting than Patrick Wilson and Amy Adams, who I look forward to discovering our longtime watch listeners and whose hearts are breaking right now. but I'm I'm pretty good on... I guarantee they're not listening to us. That is like, if... Because sometimes you could be like,

okay, we'll have like a... We'll use some spicy mortadella, but we'll put it on white bread to tame things. But like, this is a mayonnaise sandwich. Yeah, but they've got the mortadello with Pavier. Yeah, I guess... He's gonna be cooking. That's an Italian sausage, so, you know, he's a Spaniard.

A couple other things, just to shout out. Obviously, there's going to be a bunch of returning, big shows among them the one I am the most excited for and I look over to Kyya for verification here is Euphoria season three. I'm fucking back. We're fucking back. Shot in VistaVision.

I think Sharon Stone's in it. Everybody who's in it is like, I don't really know what this show is about and I just know that I shot my parts. So that's like Gwyneth Paltrow talking about the Spider-Man movies. It kind of is like a Lorty and Sweeney are like, yep, I'm done. Like, I don't know what the deal is here

but it's, you know. I mean, look. This show is fucking good. When you give Sam Levinson Carplanche to do whatever he wants. When you give him old cameras? What could go wrong? Yeah.

Is it like stranger things where they're like these 35-year-old adults are still in high school? No, they've aged them up. It's like, there's going to be a time jump. Is there going to be a missing episode, a secret last episode?

Simi-Sweeney has an only fans now, I think? In the show. Yeah, in the show. Don't do Bill like that. Come on. You're going to kill him. today. Euphoria is coming back. House of the Dragon is coming back. Do you know presumed innocent cast? Do you know that? Brosnahan. It's Brosnan. It's Brosnan and Matthew Reese, the hardest working man in television.

Matthew Reese has like three shows this year. It's incredible. It's wild. But he's ready, by the way, to come back on the pod because up until last week, our guy Matthew Reese's Instagram and social media presence was still just his boat tour company. Oh yeah. Moveable Feast to NY. And he'd be like, here I am at the premiere and be like, dude, you're not a boat. You're actor Matthew Reese. Last week, he became Matthew Reese. I'm proud of him. Good for him, man. He's promoting this shit. He's going to come back on the pod. He is? Oh, you won't be here.

I just assume he will. He's a great guy. Anything else? Anything else? Oh, the show that I'm... Oh, I'm really excited about these two new shows. We mentioned a couple of the returning things. Euphoria and House the Dragon, beef's coming back, and the two other new shows that I'm really pumped about. Lanterns. Got to talk about lanterns. You talk about lanterns. Tell me what's coming here

because it's obviously this is a DC. I don't understand how this works anymore. Is it a DC Universe show? It is. I don't know the degree to which it was created as one. But it's been connected. It has been connected. Because I think the genesis of this project predates the gunnissance.

Yes. And it was pitched and greenlit as a very grounded. more, I guess, in the spirit of Penguin, show about Green Lanterns. And in the comic books, one of the more interesting angles on a character that can often be cartoonish is that they are space cops.

Who doesn't love cops? So the pitch for the story, and I think the thing that drew such an impressive, creative Troika behind it. It's Chris Mundy off of Ozark. It's Tom King, who is one of the god-tiered genius comic book writers of our time and our friend Damon Lindelof,

was that it was going to take these, you know, galaxy-powered superheroes and put them on Earth investigating a crime. Yeah. And it's combining two canonical characters. Hal Jordan played by one of our favorites, one of television's favorites. Kyle Chandler. And John Stewart, another canonical Green Lantern, in this case, played by up-and-coming star. Fucking Aaron Pierre, man.

Also, what's his name? Guy. what's his face? Nathan Philean. Nathan Philean is wedged in there as another Green Lantern Guy Gardner who is, which he played in the movie. So tonally, very curious

how that performance, which was very funny, plays in this universe. But this is an attempt to broaden the tent of James Gunn's DCU. But they were actively saying, like this is true detective, but with power rings.

I'm very excited for that. And the last one I was going to shout out was Scarpetta. Oh. Just because your parents definitely have Patricia Cornwall novels. So many of them. Scarpetta.

Aren't they all A is for, B is for... Is that her? I think so. I think so. No, maybe I'm wrong. Scarpetta, K. Scarpetta, is her fictional forensic pathologist. Mary something?

God, those are the books that were just lining the radiator. There was also like a bunch of mysteries with cats that my mom had. I remember those. Yeah. The stacks of... It's a shame our mothers never spoke

None of them are. Because as Philadelphia City school teachers who loved mass market paperbacks They would have a lot to chat about. And had sons who had jobs they don't understand. I think like they really could have bonded. Well, I'm very happy if you're happy.

Are you still doing your radio show? Kay Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist and she's going to be played by fucking Nicole Kidman who just can't stop working. Addicted to the grind. Yes. And Liz Sarnoff, who worked on Barry and worked on... Lost and many great things.

So I'm excited because of the pedigree, because Nicole Kidman, and because I love a... I love a forensic pathologist. Can I throw one out here? In fact, it would be cool if they had a forensic pathologist on the pit. Oh, well, that would be the after show. That would be the missing episode where someone comes in and it's like, who the fuck moved this guy's one?

Why is this shit sideways? This guy had a cold. Come on. Relax. No, I wanted to ask about the show Vladimir, which I've never heard of until I was doing my thimbleful of research for this podcast. It's apparently adapted by a book called Vladimir by Julia May Jonas. Also hyped for this one. Oh, okay, so maybe you can explain this to us.

A fucking librarian over here. I thought this is like the true story of the birth of Putin, and I was like, I'm going to watch it. And then I looked at the credits, and it's Rachel Weiss, Leo Woodall, John Slattery. And it's directed by Berman and Pulcini, who did American Pastor. So what is this? I read this book a couple years ago, so I might be missing some plot details, but essentially it's a man and a wife

who are living on a college campus. They're both college professors. The husband gets into a little something with the student. She decides to stay with him. And then as sort of like, not so much like an act of revenge, but kind of like, well, I'm going to get mine. she starts kind of obsessing over another younger professor on the campus.

Rachel Weiss or the younger professor. Look, we love campus shenanigans. This seems fun. This seems fun. Sharon Horgan, one of the EPs, my old classmate Miriam Silverman, who I now shout out on this podcast in the cast. She, not to spoil anything, makes a return to Landman this coming weekend. Does she? Yes.

I got to tell. I'm glad because I definitely was like way in front being, like, look who's joined this show. Yeah. And then a gas leak happened. And I was like, well, I guess that's what's happening. No, they brought her back. Great.

Yeah. I've been wondering how Ainsley's doing in her studies. We'll find out this weekend. You clearly already found out. I'll be honest with you. I almost fired up this week's landman last night. But the thing is, my obligation to the listeners of this podcast is so great that I didn't want that many days to elapse.

I want the freshness of my dakes to be captured. The fresh crude. I want to create. I want to create the absolute worst-case scenario for me this weekend in which I watch the Eagles lose on a last second fumble or something to the 49ers and then realize as the light fades in the sky at 3.30 p.m. or whatever it is, that I have to watch Landman. Like, let's really line up the Nightmare Sunday.

Oh, God. All right, go birds. Go birds. You want to talk about that? No, just go birds. Thanks to Kaya. Thanks to Kai. Thanks to Andy.

And thanks to the listeners. who remembered that we said right before New Year's that we would spend all this week talking about the pluribus finale. Did we? We did. We sure did. I don't remember 2025.

We've turned the page. Yeah. Do you guys get ready for beef season two, dog? Get ready for our favorite show, Vladimir. Get ready for industry. We'll be back on Monday to talk about industry and land man. And everybody have a great weekend.

Go birds.