The Watch - The Return of ‘Better Call Saul’ and the Season Finales of ‘Severance’ and ‘The Dropout’

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Chris is joined by Sean Fennessey to talk about the poor box office numbers for Michael Bay’s ‘Ambulance’ and what it means for action movies (1:03). Then they talk about the imminent return of ‘Better Call Saul’ after a two-year hiatus (11:08), the ‘Severance’ season finale and what it means for Season 2 (18:43), and the season finale of ‘The Dropout’ (37:01). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Sean Fennessey Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Nora Princeati. And I'm Nathan Hubbard. And we're back with another season of every single album. This time, we're talking about one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, One Direction. There's stories a fascinating look at both the commercial and human sides of being a young artist. We'll be breaking down every single One Direction album and then exploring the careers of Harry Styles, Nile Horan, and the rest of the band after their 2015 split, leading up to the release of Harry's new album on May 20th. We've got some fun new categories, Nora.

Including the most swoon-inducing lyrics. And the suckiest ones. The peak moments for each band member and who won the album. We even got a brand new game. So, calling all directioners, Harris, and more, join us on the every single album feed starting April 11th, every Monday and Thursday. On Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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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 run. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line,

live from Hollywood Boulevard, where he is begging people not to see Sonic the head Hitchhawk 2 and give Michael Bay a chance. It's Sean Fennacy. Wow, CR, so happy to be back. My favorite pod to watch. What's up? This is the Michael Bay Men's Recovery Project. Thanks for everybody for joining us. We're going to talk about severance today. We're going to talk a little bit about dropout. We'll see what else we get to. But I wanted to have Sean on. We have a podcast that's up on the big picture fee. We're doing a little home at home today where we just extoll the virtues of this amazing action movie that is in theaters now, albeit I'm sure, brief. briefly. And on that podcast, Sean and I talked a little bit about Michael Bay's ambulance,

which is the most fun I've had in a movie theater in years and a delightful action movie. We were like, gosh, you see some of the projections for this in the box office? It doesn't look like it's going to make a lot of money. And, you know, it seems like we were in a zone where it was like Lost City was doing pretty well. Some movies are dog did okay. You know, people are putting up numbers in the box office. And then that fucking hedgehog came through and ate all the money. Is that what Sonic does? No, he grabs golden rings.

But unfortunately, he grabbed the brass ring this weekend from Michael Bay and Jake Gyllenha, and Yaya Abdul Matin I second. Tough beat, really a tough beat for our guys. So you're one of the most level-headed people I know. So do you look at this and say action movies are dead at the theater unless they're attached to a major franchise? Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's probably a variety of factors here. I think calling your movie ambulance is just not a good idea. And you know what people think of when they think of ambulances is people in pain, hurting, or dead. Yeah. And so that's not ideal. I think also Michael Bay, while he is a very important person to you and I, does not have the same brand name recognition that say Christopher Nolan does. People will not show up just because Michael Bay made a movie.

In fact, they did not show up to movies like The Island. And so there's no guarantee that you're getting a great movie. movie, I think that this is weirdly a word of mouth movie and will very quickly become known as an action classic. I have not encountered a single person who saw this, who thought this sucked. Now, does it make sense? It does not make sense. But it is absolutely thrilling.

And it won't be as good at home, but it's a movie that, I mean, when is this going to be on peacock? Like, in 10 days? How quickly will it be available to the public? I thought first, I saw one place where it was like, it'll be on peacock in 17 days, but I guess that was a joke. I think it goes on Peacock in May. So it'll be a couple of weeks.

Here's just a quick proposal. You and I move to a small town together. We leave our wives. So far so good. And we buy a theater, movie theater, and all we play is ambulance. And when people are like, do you guys think that you could play the new David Fincher film or, you know, do you guys think you could maybe do like a PTA retrospective? It was like, nope, this is the ambulance theater. You guys didn't recognize its greatness when it was out the first time.

So now you're stuck with this being the only movie. Does this culminate in like a murder-suicide plot? What is the, why would we do that? What we do is over the course of like 10 years, we see ambulance's box office incrementally grow up, go up and up and up. I would like to interrogate your premise a little bit. If we move to a small town, there's not a lot of people. Why would they keep coming back?

They keep coming. It's like we take it back to the 80s where people go to back to the future like, five times. Okay, yes, I'm in. You didn't see this part in the Build Back Better Bill? This is right there. Let's get movie podcasters buying small theaters together in small towns

and getting repeat business going for Hollywood. Hollywood needs it, America needs it. Isn't it extraordinary that Michael Bay, who has long considered the whore of the multiplex, the person who would do anything to get you to show up and spend money at the box office? Who threw Optimus Prime against a skyscraper, was just like,

peace out, that's a billion dollars. And he literally can't get people to come to one of his best movies. It's a real shame. I mean, Sonic the Hedgehog, too, haven't seen it.

Could be good. I'll be honest. First one, not bad. Wasn't that. Jim Carrey's in that? Jim Carrey, yeah. Yeah,

he plays Dr. Robotnik. You remember Robotnik from the Sonic game? I really don't have any strong memories of playing Sonic, honestly. Sonic was a delightful game. It was. It was a terrific game.

I played some of the sequels as well. I think Knuckles makes an appearance in this film. He's voiced by Idris Elba. That's a true story. Oh, I saw him being, Idris being like, when they said Sonic, I was like, stop talking, I'm in. Because he was like, I'm such a big gamer. I was like, I don't know if that's the same thing as

Eldon Ring, man. It's so funny because that was my exact reaction when you texted me late on Sunday night and said, The Watch? Are you in? And you're like, I'm a gamer. I have a couple of other news items to go through. We'll stay We'll stay in the world of cinema and talk about this.

You and I are two of the most renowned experts when it comes to the lore of Jurassic Park. Is that true? Many people come up to me with tears in their eyes and they say, you and Sean, nobody understands the world that doctor. What was his name? What was Richard Abrose character's name? Dr. Grant? Dr. Grant. No, that's Sam Neal.

I don't know the man's name. We're starting exactly where we belong. This is exactly the problem. When I hear you guys talk, it's like I'm in Costa Rica. Like I'm on and I'm seeing T-Rex-I-Ly-Ly Blar? Yes. So over the weekend, there's another Jurassic Park movie coming. And I don't think, I think this is a new level of director bullshit.

So I wanted to throw a Colin Trevor-Roe quote at you. Wait, before you do that, can I just point out that literally in the outline of this episode, you provided the wrong title of the new Jurassic Park movie? Is it not Dominion? It's Dominion. you wrote Jurassic Park colon, fallen dominion. How can it, can a Dominion fall? I guess it can.

We really, it's remarkable how little we know about the Jurassic Park films. Remarkable. There's been 23 of them. I don't know what do you guys want for me? So, Sean and I and Andy, we love director bullshit. We love it when somebody is directing Sonic the Hedgehog and is referencing Elaine May movies or whatever. But Trevor O, who's had one of the most amazing careers

in recent Hollywood history. And maybe very emblematic of, you know, indie filmmaker immediately jumps up a level and does Jurassic Park. And from there, levels up again and gets a Star Wars movie, which then gets taken away from him. And then not unlike Michael Bay,

just as like, I guess I just make Jurassic Park movies. And somewhere in there, he made one of the worst movies of all time, right? What was that? He made the movie, The Book of Henry in 2017, immediately after Jurassic World.

This was a personal film for him, and everyone told him it's one of the worst movies ever made. So Colin has been totally Jurassic-pilled and is now giving comments such as this to the Hollywood Reporter. He was talking about the new villain of this film, a dinosaur called a gigantosaurus, which may have existed, may not. And when asked about what sort of characteristics this dinosaur has, he says, quote, I wanted something that felt like the Joker. It just wants to watch the world burn. And I just wanted to see if you had any comment.

I do. I have a comment. I can already see the meme. The meme is a picture of the gigantosaurus, a definitely real dinosaur. And underneath it, it says, I am going to become the Joker. That's it. It doesn't say that's the meme. It's got like, gigantosaurus has Laura Dern and its paw.

And it's like, why so serious? Yeah, I mean, we're through the, the looking glass, right? I think the Jurassic films in particular have felt like an entertaining but active joke on itself for 10 years and the more that they go on, the more

ridiculous they seem. They actually have a lot in common more so with like the Fast and Furious movies. Yeah. Whereas like every time we need to ramp it up. They're so like, we have to go back and fix like they're like so deep into the B.D. Wong like genetic engineering part of it now, right? How many times

can they just go back to the place where there are terrible monsters. I don't think they can go back at all because the volcano erupted there. Didn't it just... See, now we're doing the thing where you're trying to get me to talk about the plot of the movie

and I won't do it with you because I don't know what happened. I don't remember what happened. I will see this movie in movie theaters. Of course, I'll go see this movie in movie theaters too. After ambulance, I'm like, I'm back in on theaters. I'm back in on movies

and I'm back in on movie theaters. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's really exciting. Once again, we have Michael Beta Thank. in some ways we have Michael Beta to thank for the state of the Jurassic Park franchise. I mean, I think the success of movies like Transformers is really what

pushed a lot of this stuff to the forefront. The gigantosaurus, I don't really, I don't know what to say. I mean, that's, I feel like the origins of dinosaur names didn't have anything to do with literal terms in our world. So the idea of just saying like, gigantic dinosaur is a gigantic osaurus. Yeah, that's what my three-year-old nephew does. You know, he's like, Dad, is this a gigantosaurus? You know, like that's a geontosaurus. Yeah, so I don't know. That's pretty corny, but I will watch the film. Okay.

How excited are you for Better Call Saul coming back next week, two episodes? It's crazy. I mean, my two favorite shows other than Succession over the last five years, I think have been Better Call Saul and Barry. And so the fact that they're both coming back right now is pretty shocking. I guess there's news trickling out about Better Call Saul, though. Are you fired up? I am, I couldn't be more fired up.

I mean, I do find it a little bit sad that Barry saw, we own the city, Outer Range, Tokyo Vice, you know, all of these things are like all bunched together. On one hand, you could make the argument that you never don't have a night where you could watch, not watch something. On the other hand, I think it's just much more fun if there's like a little bit more of like everybody tucks in on Sunday night for Barry or for winning time or for whatever. and it kind of feels a little bit more, I don't know, I guess I'm just old, like,

I'm just old school that way. I just think that there was like a fun to that part. Whereas like now I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot Atlanta's up. I guess I'll go watch Atlanta now. Like, I have a very similar feeling. I don't have as much responsibility to this stuff as you do hosting this show. But it does feel homework is not the right word,

but I do have assignments, you know, and I have to kind of like fulfill my assignments and I find myself enjoying them less than I would like to. Although, you know, like I just watched the finale of Super Pump last night. a show that I think, you know, I think I enjoyed in the exact same way that you did, right? I thought it was like a little bit goofy at times,

but had that compliment and Levine tonality that I think is a lot of fun. And then I think actually weirdly rounded itself into kind of a great finale. And I really loved the Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance, but I thought as I was watching it last night, I was like, this actually has moved on from something I feel like I have to finish

to something I am actively enjoying and thought ended kind of impressively and elegantly, which we don't always get that with our shows. Better Calls Aldo is in a different stratosphere. That's like legitimately one of the best TV shows of the last decade. So it's pretty amazing that it's coming back for, this is the end, right? This is the last season?

Yeah, but they're splitting it. So there will be, I think it's seven and seven or something like that. So there's a run now. And then I believe the rest of the episodes come up this year, maybe later in the year. This is something that's pretty common. Ozarks doing it right now, where Ozarks last first, the first seven episodes

or six episodes of Ozarks final season were a couple of months ago and now they're about to come out at the end of this month. Again, another show where it's just like, okay, multi-em-a-a-award winning Ozark is just coming to an end while all these other things are on.

With Saul, I wanted to ask you a little bit, so there was a Paley Center panel talk with a lot of the people behind Saul with John Carlos Posito and Peter Gold and Odenkirk and Seahorn and everybody. And at that Paley Center talk, Peter Gold was asked whether or not Walt and Jesse would make an appearance and better call Saul. Pretty straightforward. And he was like, I'm going to say yes. Now, I mean, I guess people might be like,

don't spoil that for me, but I'm sorry, he said it in a place knowing that it was going to be aggregated into high heaven. And this could be something as simple as in the background of a shot, like waiting outside of Saul's office are Walt and Jesse to go in or something like that. but I thought it was an interesting way of handling kind of like the sort of the Benedict Cumberbatch, is he or is he not con, a conundrum that sometimes affects movies or shows

that are trying to obscure a big twist that's coming up. So obviously Andrew Garfield is a recent example of him having to go on the tick-tick-boom promo trail and every single night somebody being like, so are you in Spider-Man? I guess Peter Gold was like, we're just going to get asked this, in every single interview,

so we might as well just say, yes, they are. And then we can be cheeky about it or it can be an incredibly significant, dramatic moment. I was a little bit disappointed, though, just because part of what I love about Saul is its distance between the breaking bat.

Like, it is very much it's part of its world. But I think part of the achievement is that it would be a great show, even if you had no idea what was coming for this character in a lot of ways. Well, I think that there's some strategy, involved here, though. I think it is, you know, the ratings for Saul over the first five seasons have gone down every season. I think the adulation for the show has gone up every season, but it feels somewhat

similar to, it could be somewhat similar to what happened with Breaking Bad, which is that the show took a long break between its final season, which I think was also bifurcated. And the amount of people who caught up with it on streaming basically elevated the show to a, different kind of stratosphere in terms of the kind of cultural awareness and the amount of people that watched it. And this is a show that basically ended right at the beginning, the last season ended right at the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah. So it's been two full years since we've seen it. And I feel like Peter Gould is making a very tactical decision here to be like, Jesse and Walt are coming or, you know, and like they may only be a small part of it. They may be exactly what you said.

They may be just figures in the background of an episode. But it's like, hey, you have to watch this. Sure. If you're a Breaking Bad completist, you're going to want to see where this fits in, you know, how that, whether or not that that's like too cynical for its own good, I don't really have an opinion about it. Like I think people should watch Better Call Saul. I think it's really, really good. It's honestly, it's surpassed Breaking Bad for me. I don't know if that's sacrilegious. I don't think so. I think that both shows have struggles early on with like getting you to the point. Like Breaking Bad, I think starts quicker. It has, you know, a pretty iconic opening a pilot episode.

Saul, I think with the earlier Michael McKeehan based seasons is like a different show than it is now that it's basically about Gus and Saul. But yeah, it's I think the highs of Breaking Bad are higher than the highs of Better Call Saul, but the kind of like the flow of Saul I have personally enjoyed more.

Although I was much more into, I think, those early seasons when I know you and Andy felt like there was a lot of like legalese kind of bogging the show down. Yeah, Doc Review, yeah. Yeah. talk review, right. But I mean, I hope more people are watching it. I'll be fascinated to see if it gets a spike.

Yeah. And especially, but this will be this Barry Saul moment is like a real, despite the fact that we'll never know because nobody really like understands like what ratings are anymore. Like I think that it was pretty clear to say euphoria was a huge hit. Succession did very well, whatever. But like it'll be very interesting to see whether this Netflix bump for Saul, people rewatching it, people being like, okay, we're going to, we're here for it. The fact that they're putting up two episodes is interesting.

I've noticed that pretty much every show does that now. Why do you think that is? Well, so many shows are new. So I think that they are trying to engage audiences as much as possible. So I say Tokyo Vice put up three episodes, three hours of episodes. That to me is like a, we're going to put these here. We're not assuming people are going to watch it the night it's released or the day it's released. what we hope is that people catch up with it

over the course of a week or that people find it and then when they find it they've got three episodes to watch. I wonder what the advantage is between I mean three is a lot to put up. For Saul, I'm kind of like you have built six years of behavior

around like every episode is perfect. It's going to be strange to watch a Saul episode and then start another Saul episode immediately. But maybe they're acknowledging the way that a lot of people have watched Saul, which is like binging it on Netflix. So it seems like the first season is only seven episodes too, which means we're only getting six weeks of Saul

and then it's going off the air for a period of time. Yeah, but I think only a couple of months. Like, I think it's like a spring and a fall. I think maybe it won't be on during the summer. I'm not sure when that second half is coming up. Let's talk about a relatively like a show that kind of has some of the buzz around it that I think a lot of these shows that we're discussing now.

Like this is one of the new shows that I think has really made. It's really broken through, but that's Severance, which ended on Friday, and Mal and Joe did a really great deep dive into it on the Prestige TV podcast that you can listen to that one up on Sunday, I believe. But I wanted to talk to a little bit about it because I know you admired it a lot. I did. I think that there was a ton of energy around this show throughout the season, but there was some looky-loos who were like, oh, that was really cool. It was a great first episode. And then maybe like it kind of fell off a little bit as it got weirder and

took its time getting to various plot reveals. And I think I thought was really cool about the finale was two things. Very, very often, especially in a like

kind of post, I would say like House of Cards, like Ozark world. Like in the, ever since like Netflix kind of came in and was like,

you can do a prestige drama that people will binge in real time, basically. I feel like there's a tendency to empty the notebook every season, if not every episode. So basically any idea that you had for this show, it all just gets crammed in there because we're trying to make people's heads

spin so fast that they're so addled, they want to start the next episode. And this finale of Severance was probably the best season finale that I've seen in a long time because it was a season finale. Because it was like, we've wrapped up some things here. We haven't even wrapped it up. We've actually just like put our characters in a completely new, dangerous position, and it's like a legitimate cliffhanger. And it's been a while since I feel like I've seen something like that. The cliffhangers come, but a lot of the times I think you're almost like, is this kind of like a shadow series finale? Like, and they didn't know if they were going to get renewed. And this felt like a lot of

confidence that like we have kind of like an idea of where we're going. Yeah, we don't know necessarily if they had a kind of a back pocket season two renewal. that's something that is fairly common in the industry is that you get all assurances that you'll be back for season two without it being publicly announced. So it's possible that, you know, Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller when they were putting the show together

were operating with a level of confidence that other showrunners can't operate with. That being said, incredible season finale. When I watched it last week, my wife, who doesn't really watch TV this way, not with the same kind of like analytical strategy mind, turn to me and said, the pacing of this episode is incredible.

Right. It's amazing how locked in I am right now on the show. And that's a testament to craft. I mean, it's like it was just a really, really well-made show all the way through. I think it's reasonable if people felt like it lulled a little bit in the center. Most of these shows lull a little bit. But it was only eight episodes. So you didn't have to work that hard to get to the end of it.

You know, I was always less interested in it as a puzzle box show and more so as like an execution of style and theme. Like I really loved the theme of the show and the concept of the show and I really loved how it looked from second one. It was in that kind of like Gattaca polished sci-fi style that I love. So I was not like,

I wasn't doing the thing that I thought Mal and Joe spoke so smartly about which is like theories and diving deep on what does it all mean? Yeah, right. I don't have that kind of brain. I'm not really good at that stuff.

I was just much more immersed in the world and I really like the characters. And that being said, I found myself getting wrapped up in all of that. Where is it going? Where is it going in that episode? Because that episode hurdles you forward into the hope of discovery. And then ultimately, whether we get any true discovery, I think, is part of what makes it a great cliffhanger. But I loved it.

I thought it was a superb series. I'm fascinated to see how long it goes on for because it feels like a show that is made for three seasons. And I just wish that they would do three seasons and get away. Yeah. Anytime there's like a vaguely sci-fi mystery show like this, I think you have a little bit of like the Orphan Black danger. I don't know if you were a fan of Orphan Black's first season. But it was really cool. And then and then as soon as the second and third seasons or like later

seasons kicked in, it was like, oh, you guys are going to get really lost in the self-created mythology of this show and lose some of the sort of energy that it had. And I think that that's like something that Severn's really balanced well. is like the 70s conspiracy thriller slash human drama stuff that I think Stiller obviously was very attracted to. And you can hear that even in the lonely piano score that plays, but it's very reminiscent of the conversation and stuff like that versus the mechanics of what's happening at Lumen, what these macro data refiners are, what are these numbers going to boxes mean? What's the result of these things?

I think that the questions I wound up asking were much more character-based than they were world-building-based, and that was exciting. So I was like, why are Mark, Helley, Irv, and Dylan so important? You know, is it this is the only group that's important? Or, you know, obviously Helly infiltrated this group. Why is that significant? Could it have been any group of macro data refiners, or was it something about Mark? Why is Cobol following Mark around and essentially shadowing him. Like, there is, like, a lot of mystery still there, but it's almost like character to character mystery,

whereas you can also go in and Apple put up a book that's kind of like a tell-all about Lumen that you can, like, read about some previous whistleblowers on Lumen and how they were dealt with and some stuff like that, which is really cool, kind of reminds me of the way people used to kind of spin additional stuff off of Lost, and that was really neat. but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Stiller.

We mentioned the style of it. And he was talking in a couple of the interviews he did after the finale where he was like, you know, everything for the first group of episodes for most of the season is pretty, the camera's locked down. And if it moves at all, it's very, very deliberate. And he's like, that's why in the finale, it's all handheld. It's manically cross-cutting with like those blips happening as the cut goes between these people, kind of almost sort of trying to replicate

what it's like to have your severed chip come back on. And you're right. I mean, it was a 40-minute episode. It's relentlessly paced and sneakily doesn't reveal that much. Yeah, we didn't learn anything, really, except for a pretty significant reveal about Hellie. Yeah.

Which they had been kind of withholding from us in a very specific way that they were not withholding anything else. Stiller, what a fascinating guy. What a fascinating career he's having. You know, this, this, this, next month, I think, is the 10-year anniversary of this extraordinary Tad Friend profile of Stiller and the New Yorker,

which came out synced to the Secret Life of Walter Middy. I can't believe the Secret Life of Walter Middy was 10 years ago. I know. We are truly dying slowly. And, you know, The Secret Life of Walter Middy was a movie that I think was highly anticipated a kind of, you know, literary adaptation of a fantastical story.

I think it's a Thurber story. And I would say it, landed quietly. It was not a huge hit. It was not dissed or dismissed, but it was just kind of like, okay, that was interesting,

but kind of a miss. And it's a movie that I think has gained pretty significantly in reputation, the more that people revisit it. And I think if you look at that movie and you look at Severance, you can see,

like, kind of the beginning of something for him. He's always been a really interesting filmmaker and kind of comic creator. And I think when people say his name, they think of Zoolander, you know, they think of Dodgeball or something like that.

But he's a very, very smart guy. He's a very meticulous person that you find that in every piece about him is that he is like obsessive about getting things right and this is a show that is obsessive about getting things right

its characters need to get everything right the company that is at the center of the story needs to get everything right. It feels like a perfect match for his idiosyncrasies as a creative person. I just, I kind of didn't really see it coming. Him kind of turning into one of the great directors of his time. I mean, you guys talked to him

for Escape from Dan Amora when it was on Showtime, which was just a terrific show. I just talked to Ty West on the pod on the big picture a couple weeks ago and he cited Escape from Danamora too and he was just like, Ben Stiller is super underrated, man. Yeah, Danamore seems like that was also, Sam Esmail loved that.

Like, I feel like a lot of people who make TV look at Danamora as like a really significant achievement. Which I like the show quite a bit, but I think it's like some of its like drabness kind of got to me after a while. But yeah, like people rock with him. pretty heavily. I feel like you can also feel stiller recognizing in real time. And this is, this is kind of the conceit of the Tad friend piece, but kind of realizing that I can't be Derek

Zoolander like in my 60s. And so what is going to speak to me creatively? And so I need to find better and different kind of work to do. And I don't, I don't, I mean, this is a really, really, really good show. And it's a really unique show. And it's a little bit of a tough sell, I think, if you're not a fan of science fiction or you're not a fan of this kind of like stripped down storytelling, but I thought it was a really successful finale. I'd be happy to wait a year to get it back. I know a lot of people felt differently.

I know a lot of people were like, I want it now. I need to find out more stuff now. But I'm kind of the opposite with these sorts of stories. Like, I'd like to forget how much I liked it and then be reminded when it comes back. That being said, if I'm watching Severance in 2028 in like season six, I'm going to be annoyed.

I think that there's probably a happy medium where they do give us, a year. Just as long as it's not like the two-year wait, which obviously was COVID created, but like this two-year wait with like Barry, Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, where I'm like, shit, do I have to re-watch this series to remember what happened to these people? There's a couple of severance things I wanted to talk about, specifically like just like little plot points. I will say, I think the second season has the potential to be even better. Because part of what, I thought that the early opening episodes were wonderful, but had a certain deliberate,

this is what it's like for Mark to go from his home to work, and here's five shots of him driving and walking from the parking lot and sliding his ID card. And it creates that rhythm. But after a while, I was like, okay, got it. Like, I've established that it's cold there and that this is what happens every day. And I think that if you get into that second season,

and if the second season essentially starts the second, Heli wakes up on stage from or her Audi takes back over and the first episode of the second season is like what Helena is like that's going to be awesome and just to have that I hope they keep some of the momentum going out of the finale rather than going back to like

two months later and this is what's happening and now there's like a mystery of what happened in the interceding two months I wanted to ask you some of the like plot point things sure I have no literally no insight and I don't understand but I guess I'm kind of curious about whether some of these plot points intrigue you more, turn you off more, or whatever. I think one of the big reveals towards the end of the season was this idea

that Mark's wife, who he was mourning, he thought he was mourning, who died in a car crash and that was why he had opted for severance in the first place was in fact, I don't know if alive is the right word, but at least there is a clone of her seemingly working at Lumen, but she's not quite like the other people working at Lumen in that she seems to be getting returned to some floor. My idea about this is that they are experimenting, obviously, with, like, regenerating people.

That would make sense also given the regard they hold Keir Egan in, you know, and like this idea that there are these like sort of totemic figures in the Egan family and that the idea would be like bringing them back in some capacity. Did you find that part? I guess what it does is essentially gives Mark like a different mission than before because now it's like, well, his wife is alive. So will his iny and Audi both recognize the fact that this woman is Gemma? But what did you think of that sort of curveball thrown in there?

It had me thinking differently about what Lumen is, which is that through the first three quarters of the season, I believed that Lumen actually did. make something or produced something or it was responsible to something. And then by the time we got the reveal about Ms. Casey, it had me thinking that this is just the terrarium, that this is just a place where they're kind of actively experimenting, not just in regeneration, but in psychological experimentation on a regular basis. And the idea of putting someone who has been severed in the same space as either his wife or a clone of his wife, who is also severed and has no recognition,

is like basically like a test of wills. It's like a test of psychological wills. And that is interesting. It's probably like a little bit less exciting because then ultimately what Lumen's motivations are or like how they make money is maybe like less world conquering. But the fact that they have politicians in their back pocket, the fact that severance is expanding clearly outside of the world of Lumen

that, you know, the politician's wife, you know, is clearly part of. the part of the experience at this point. I find really interesting. I guess I don't really know what you're saying about where they can pick up is interesting, right? Because they could just pick up exactly where they left off, but they could also go back like 10 years into the past.

Sure. And just, or 50 years into the past and show us like where Egan started, you know, and where Hellie's grandfather, how he revolved or whatever the hell they're doing with. You know, like there is a lot of potential mythology there. so I'm curious to see where it shakes out. The politician thing is notable because Petey and the politician

and his wife and Mark's sister and brother-in-law who obviously the brother-in-law is essentially writes like the New Testament as far as Mark's concerned and this guy is just like, you know, an idiot. They're the

sort of band of the real world that's outside of Lumen and I thought that the show was just as careful about how much of the real world they showed us as they were about what they showed us inside of Lumen. So it's notable that, like, we kind of get a sense that it's like, it's like our world, but not so much that it's like people are talking about the Mets,

you know, or people are talking about like, you know, Olivia Rodriguez. There's no, like, pop cultural or chronological references to what's going on in that world. It's just that there are people outside of it. I keep kind of going back to this the similarities I saw in some of the stuff that like they're doing in this show

with this Philip K. Dick novel called Time Out of Joint. Did you ever happen to read that? I've never read it. So I only ever picked it up because it was LP from Company Flow named a song after this novel on his record fantastic damage, which still goes really hard. And it's essentially...

This is important that you get into your sci-fi-influenced abstract... Jeff Jucks back wrap. Yeah. Anyway, this novel is about a guy whose life, he's living in 1959, and every day he just gets up and he does a puzzle

called Find the Little Green Men in the newspaper. And he, like, wins this quiz, this puzzle game and wins, like, a prize, like, every week. And he has a pretty idyllic life in this small town, but there's, like, a couple of things different about this small town or this 1959 from the one that we know. Like, in this 1959, there's no Marilyn Monroe.

and there are no radios. And there's just like these little differences. And it just becomes apparent over the course of the book that things are not what they seem. And the big twist, spoiler alert for anybody who wanted to read this novel, you can skip 10 seconds, is that this guy is in fact predicting attacks by a rebel lunar colony on the moon

who are dropping missiles on Earth. And it's 1998. It's 1998. And it's like Truman Show meets total recall kind of thing. Awesome book. really reminds me of kind of like, what are they putting in these boxes in macro data refining? Like, are they doing something that has like real world implications? Or is there actually just like, is it behavioral coaching?

Like, well, can we get this person to do this for six years? It's possible. It's like those are the two extremes, right? Yeah, right. Like what I'm suggesting is that everything that they're doing is meaningless. And what you're suggesting is that everything that they're doing is utterly critical. And either answer is good. Yeah.

I like, I would be consent with it. It's so funny, though. like, I just don't... That's not how you think of these things. I'd never be a good TV podcast. You know what I mean? Like, I most appreciate things that end. And I'm not good at theories.

And perhaps it's because I'm not inherently creative. But I love the idea of a show like this washing over me and turning myself over to the creators and not willing an outcome onto a creator. I have no vested interest in how this winds up. I know. I was way more like that with True Detective. You know what I mean? Like, I think there's definitely.

been shows where I was like, we need to have a spaghetti bearded demon emerge out of Carcosa at the end of this? You know, honestly, it makes me think that because I have endured so much losing and rooting for my sports teams, that I could not possibly conceptualized. Invested it is. Like, correctly pushing for the right narrative to turn out. Like, I just don't, I can't see it that way. But hey, look, I'm, I'm in.

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So you mentioned this. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the drive. drop out, which also ended last week, I believe. And I think was my favorite of the ripped from the headlines, ripped from the podcast shows. And one thing that all of these shows sort of share is a kind of like, you already know this story. We're just going to put like gray actors or, you know, maybe you don't know this story, but you've already read or listened to a version of these events that is pretty, you know, pretty straightforward, but also pretty all-encompassing. So what we're here to do is put the most interesting actors in these roles and maybe find some moments of human drama that you could only experience on TV.

For some reason, like, I don't really care about Elizabeth Holmes, but found Cyford absolutely like gangbusters amazing. What a run she's on between Mank and this. I hope that this is the beginning of her having like a 10-year run of like just give her the Merrill Streep roles, like give her the money roles. what did you what did you think of the finale I thought it was really good that it didn't give up the ghost on Elizabeth Holmes's

psychological state of mind the show never let you think for a second that she felt like she was grifting anyone and she wasn't scamming people that she had convinced herself in this almost like overwhelmingly all-encompassing

psychosis, that she was doing something good, that her company was doing something good, and that she taught herself this at the age of 19 when she came up with this concept, and that she never let herself believe anything otherwise. Now, obviously, Cyford's performance betrays something without saying the opposite, and that's part of what makes it such a good performance. But we've never heard Elizabeth Holmes say, I was wrong, and I got way in over my head or any, she's never spoken about this in that way. And so it was this fascinating journey into like the mind of a sociopath. I mean, she really was.

Yeah. She inflicted a lot of fascinating damage on people. There was obviously some severe medical consequences for people which that end card kind of notes. The people who basically got their day in court were actually the investors. Those are the people who got retribution for Holmes's and Balwani's actions. The story itself was never very interesting to me either. I have watched a couple of documentaries about it. I was familiar with it going in.

So it's kind of the inverse of the severance conversation we were just having. But I just was fully invested in where Seifred took the character, which is to say like to the bottom. I mean, that primal scream that she lets out when she's waiting for a car to pick her up in that final episode is like somebody who just truly lost it all. I did think that that sequence where she's walking

through the empty office with her lawyer was like, a little bit of a stretch, a little bit of like an overwritten. I'm just going to hammer home this theme for you in case you didn't realize what they were doing here because we knew, you know, we spent enough time in that world. But I was consistently impressed with the show throughout.

I think it held its tone. And when it needed to be funny, it was funny. And when it needed to be really kind of scary and gripping, it was really scary and gripping. And I think the other thing is that like she is, maybe I'd be ripping this concept off from you and the conversation that you had with Joanna. know, but like, the stakes were a little higher on the show, I thought, than say on we crashed.

Right. And what they were sought out to do was a bigger swing. And there was something kind of like more, it wasn't as culturally profound because it didn't touch as many people, but it was biologically and humanistically more profound. And so that's why I felt like worthy of this kind of a story. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is really like a, this show more than. than more than almost anything I've seen this year is kind of a masterpiece in tone. Because I was very, very skeptical about whether or not you could bring any of like

Liz Maryweather's sensibilities together with Liz Hanna's and Michael Schoelwaters and have this very, like, would it Seifred be able to do something that wasn't like a really long S&L sketch, you know, and would you be able to kind of get over the voice and the turtleneck and that element of it? And I thought exactly what you said. an old white man with Ruck and everybody. It's got these incredible comic moments. There is like a psychological terrorism to the codependency between Sunny and Elizabeth throughout this series

where it's like creepy, it's domineering. It's, that's like a very, very sophisticated relationship dramatically in terms of the way they write those two characters and the ways in which those two characters keep each other tethered, but also punish one another

throughout. And, you know, like, the bench of the show is almost absurd. Like, Anne Archer just saying, let him finish George five times. It seemed, I'm just like, where's Ann Archer been? And is that really all we have? But, like, when you have Ann Archer and Sam Waterston doing old person one and two with Dylan Manette, it's going to, it just has like a different resonance than if, I don't know. I thought it was just an excellently conceived and executed show.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it's, it's kind of the ideal for what you want from these kinds of shows. It's still so bizarre how they all rolled out simultaneously. And whether or not, like, the engagement is lower on those shows is kind of fascinating to me. Yeah. You know, I think you guys might have talked about, say, like, Andy made reference, I think, to the two pre-Fontaine movies that came out once upon a time. There was usually, like, a winner when that was something like that would happen or like Armageddon and Deep Impact, like, Deep Impact did good business. But Armageddon is the one that everybody loves and the one that did better at the box office.

The dropout feels like the one that everybody. critically agrees is, you know, the very best. I'd love to know, actually, what was the most watched? We'll never find out. But it is, it also just feels like it will probably do pretty well at the Emmys. Yes. Well, I think that's also the answer for why all this stuff came out at the same time is just crashing it into the Emmys and getting Ann Hathaway and Amanda Seifred their Emmy nominations and getting Leto and Emmy nomination and all this stuff where it's just like, I can't believe this is like all happening at once. I think that they all want the awards run.

But we'll see. Sifred is such a fascinating figure too because, you know, you mentioned Mank and she really has transformed herself into one of the best actresses of her generation. And, you know, in 2004, she was in Mean Girls

and she was Lily Kane on Veronica Mars. And I always thought she was very striking. You know, she has those big kind of like cartoon eyes and this willowy voice. And she was always playing like kind of dumb, but maybe secretly smart. That was kind of her, her metier.

And she looks almost exactly the same. Yes. Like 20 years later, like she has not really aged that much. So it's not about her presentation. But she's just so skilled now as an actor. You know, she's a way more subtle performer.

And I'm so curious to see like what kind of a career she wants to have. Because it feels like if you're an Oscar nominated actor and you win an Emmy, you can kind of write your ticket now. Yeah. And I'm, I'm interested. There's, you know, when this, when you first started seeing movie, stars coming into TV. I guess it really started with, with Trudy, and those guys kind of like arriving.

And then, you know, Nicole Kidman and the big little eyes crew doing it and sharp objects. And you see Amy Adams doing it. And I think that there was something where it was a little bit of like a late middle age actors retirement fund. You know, like where it was like, did you, because you can't really. do franchises anymore. Maybe you can't open a movie, but you're a big star, but like, it's really cool. But, like, ultimately, I think that they started taking, like, these very

meaty roles in TV. And the thing that's cool about the Cyford role, or the Cyford performance is, like, this is, like, a really good argument for why TV like this should exist is because they just don't have, there's not a movie where

she could do this right now. Like, and if there is, there's, like, one a year. And so everybody in Hollywood, would go for the role, you know? She was in a movie in 2020 called You Should Have Left, which was kind of like horror psychological thriller. David Keb wrote and directed. And then she was in a movie on Netflix in 2021

called Things Heard and Seen, which was written and directed by Sherry Springer Bergman and Robert Polcini, who made American American Splendor. And those are some really talented people who all made those movies. I think both of those movies are considered kind of misses

or people haven't really heard of them. And so she's like, she's obviously out there questing to make good stuff and to work with talented people. people. But like you say, movies are actually not really where it's at for the most part for an actor like her. And the fact that she would have surprised you at all if she just took on another miniseries immediately after that. I wouldn't, you know, it seems like that could be where she goes.

The Merrill Streep comp that you made before is kind of funny, right? Because Merrill Street began as this deeply serious actress. And then she pivoted over time to a kind of like a serious comedy and then a kind of light comedy. Yeah. And it feels like Amanda Slyphid has made. maybe doing the inverse. You know, like her work is getting more and more serious as she gets older

and becomes more skilled. But, you know, she's also in Mamma Mia. I mean, she's like, sure. She's a really successful comic actress.

So, world is her oyster, I guess. I'm like Elizabeth Holmes, who's, who, she's, she's not in a good spot. Yeah,

she doesn't have any oysters. All right. Would you, would you, wait, wait, wait, before you wrap up.

I have two really important questions. Would I test my blood and the drop out of severance? Would you have invested in Theranos? If you were a part of that an initial round. I'm not entirely positive. I'm not invested in Theranos.

Like, do you know what I mean? Sometimes do you ever like make a contribution to various like finance? Like you're like, okay, here's like my, here's my money. And then they're like, we got you. I'm tremendously thorough in all my deal. So you have like a Bloomberg terminal off right now. Is that why you look distracted? Okay.

I'm just worried. Like sometimes I'm like, I hope I'm not. Like I hope I don't have like a ton of Lockheed Martin stock, you know? You should look into that. is something mutual fun. Doesn't that mean like you're kind of

all over the place, right? Well, are you just like deeply invested in defense contracts? Is that the fun that you're? It's emerging markets. I'm just kidding.

Okay, wait, one more question. Blood testing is something where I'm like, it seems like we do that pretty well. Okay. I don't think we needed to like,

like, optimize it. I'm sure I'm wrong, but like that was one of those things where I'm like, did we need to like, I understand getting it faster, but it's like, That was like, we could have seen this was a scam from the beginning.

Second question, would you sever? Here's the thing. I talked about this a while back with Andy and I was like, I was like, I'm down to do it. I think it would be interesting. I thought it was fascinating that with the Mark character, he's trying to escape pain in his personal life by going to work. You're trying to escape the pain of movie drafts with me. of no but I wonder like I wonder where the like it is the inverse of what most people think

where it's like man my work is really hard I'd love to forget about my work and go home and enjoy my life but most of these people by the the depiction of Irv and Mark at least seem very sad and lonely in their personal lives you know what I mean so it's like I'm I'm just wondering about like the the flow of of severed energy right You wouldn't sever, though. You love your work and you love your home life. You wanted to just inform itself. That's true.

I do actually. I like that. But what you're saying to me right now is that you have a deep and satisfying home life. But your work kind of blows. And so you want to be able to check out. Here's the thing. I know you're trying to bust my chops. You and I've been working closely together for 10 years.

So this is a reflection of me. Is if you severed and when you got out of severance, like you were just like, I guess I'll go to a movie. What's the size? Sonic the Hedgehog looks pretty good. There's nothing wrong with seeing Sonic the Hedgehog. I know, but like, if you were like, and you were like, what are all these Blu-Rays doing here?

Maybe I should sever. I'll look into it. I'll look into it. I would never do that. You should sever, and then when you come, like, your severed self should be, like, get super into TV theories and solving mystery box shows. That should be your new thing. Sean, I'm going to let you go.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for talking about severance. Everybody can hear us on the big picture, and they can hear Sean. on the big picture twice a week as well as the rewatchables and the Prestiust TV podcast and I'm sure elseward

getting in there with Justrimski talking about DeGrom's elbow is that happening? Can you not bring up the Mets? Mets, Phillies this week. They're mashing. Let's go. You ready?

Yeah. Let's sever and become fans of the opposite team. Maybe you can be a Phillies fan for the weekend. I wish I could do that for Christ's sake. Chris, thanks for having me on.

You know, I think this is a great pod. Thanks, man. I think Kaya does amazing work on this show. She does. And I love to handy. I miss Andy. I ever miss Andy too.

When's Andy coming back? I'm worried that he just likes England too much. Wow. Tough beat for you. All right. Thanks, buddy. Later, man.