The Watch - The 'Slow Horses' Season 4 Finale and 'The Franchise' Lacks Teeth

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Chris and Andy hit on some news from the week including the trailer for the Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown' and Christopher Nolan eyeing Matt Damon to star in his next movie (1:00). Then they talk about the season finale of 'Slow Horses' and why they felt more lukewarm on this season compared to past ones (12:23), before talking about the premiere of the latest Armando Iannucci comedy 'The Franchise' and how it may have worked better as a workplace drama (33:03). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me on the other line, one game from elimination.

It's Andy Greenwald. That is true. That actually is how I feel internally after, you know, multiple transatlantic trips. I think I'm ready to just for the offseason. Yeah, me too. Yeah, we're doing hotel to hotel again, Andy and I. We will be back together on Monday with probably a more robust show. Sorry for missing you on Monday to all of our watch listeners.

I was on Broadway, you know, no big deal. Let's talk about this. This is unbelievable. We weren't able to make our recording times work out, but I got to do the rewatchables live with Bill, Mal and Sean at the Music Box Theater on 45th Street, which like, I think for like a couple of weeks leading up to the show, I was like, right, the music box. And just sort of in my head was like,

it's a theater or it's like a club in New York and I wasn't really thinking about it. And then I looked at the address and I was like, 45th Street. That's where Hamilton is. But it's not the Hamilton theater. But we did Silence of the Lambs at the music box. The crowd was incredible.

And I got like legit goosebumps walking up to the stage door. And because I couldn't go, I didn't go through the main entrance. I went to the stage door hit the button, hit the doorbell and they were like, what do you want? And I said, I'm on stage tonight, my man. So we went in there, we were, the green room.

You were tempted to like have a bit of, as they would say here, a jape. You were tempted to be like, it's me, Tommy Toon, here for the music man, night one. And so then we went backstage to what was like the green room. And it was the room that Ben Platt used as his. dressing room for dear Evan Hansen. So obvious bucketless shit for me. I have to stop you there for a second. Because you texted me this and I was, I was, you know, I think I was appropriately impressed.

But like it was Ben Platt's, you said the room that he used. Was it his dressing room when he was acting in the show? Or did he have like a secret room that he marked in some way? No, it was just, it was like the room that I think the star of whatever show that was currently on. So it had been Ben Platt's. It had been Leslie Odoms. Now it's for the musical Sufts. It wasn't, oh, I see.

Yeah, it wasn't like there was a big picture of Ben Platt for Ben Platt to look at, you know. I also thought you were just low-key saying that you were given the leading man's dressing room and Bill Mal and Sean had to be with the company, the chorus. Greenwald today we're going to talk about the end of Slow Horses season four. We're also going to talk a little bit about the first episode of the franchise on the HBO Network. work. I did want to ask you, though, because I'm currently in New York, as I mentioned, and it doesn't matter where you are, whether you're at the folk music clubs in the West Village, whether you're right outside of the Chelsea Hotel, guys on city bikes coming to

skids causing massive traffic jams, saying, sir, sir, and I see one tier forming in their right eye, and they say, have you seen the full-length version of a complete unknown trailer? and we've been monitoring this situation for weeks here on the Watch podcast. In fact, one of the reasons why we've been so just erratic in our scheduling and our posting is just because Andy

and I have been doing the work. We've been pounding the pavement. And now the full-length trailer is here and I need to know, the people need to know, Andy, have you changed your opinion about Timothy Shalomey as Bob Dylan? I'm doubling down.

I'm out. I'm out. I want to just like, I just want to remind people it's a terrible example I'm going to use it anyway Chris do you remember the summer of 2000 in New York City absolutely

no I don't wait did I move there in 2000 you moved in 2000 okay that you moved you drove all night just to tell me that party of helicopters

had made the best record of the year and I needed to get that up on spin dot com stat do you remember it was a similar thing people were on razor scooters then but they were riding you know they were just riding around you know like

the rock and roll clubs, the nascent rock and roll scene in Williamsburg being like, sir, sir, Wolverine is too tall in this X-Men trailer. That's right. And that's how I feel

about Timothy Shalameh Dylan. My Dylan is short. Okay? That's my feeling. Yeah. No, genuinely, I remain perplexed by this. It appears to be of a high quality.

I wavered when I saw Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash. I don't know why we're, but yeah, he's cool. You wavered because, oh,

you wavered because you were like, maybe I'm in. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. He's just like, play electric big D. Yeah.

That's cool. Why are we covering this? Like, like this is, because honestly, there's not a lot of other entertainment-based news. There's like,

the Joker flopped. I don't even know, like, you tell me, what are the people in the streets of London talking about? Like, what is the cultural news?

I just, I think that it is, I think it's an interesting gamble because the hinge of this whole trailer is like Will America accept if Bob Folk Singer Bob Dylan goes electric? Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, they were cool. They were cool with it.

Like, we have the tail of the tape. It seems to be made of a very high quality. There are good actors in it. The production values look good. This isn't something that I'm dying to see on screen. And I'm just sort of curious about it. Like, it's being presented as the prestige picture of the year. But I do think it's just one of those things

when a passion project of a director aligns with the career trajectory of a star who wants to do it. And so we get it. Yeah. I mean, what do you feel about this? So I think it's interesting that it's being marketed so explicitly as a jukebox musical in the vein of Bohemian Rhapsody and whatever. And Joker, Foliad, do? And Rocket Man, where I think it's like real Wikipedia, Dylan and New York 101, you know, and this is somebody who has his own field of study.

Like there are dillinologists and somebody whose biography has been poured over, somebody who's every day of his career has been essentially accounted for. And there are so many stories within his story that telling the broadest one, a love triangle and his decision to go electric and then move to the country, which is what the trailer seems to be about, is like a fascinating kind of like big tent to play in. I think that you're right when you talk about

if the tension of this film is like will America accept Bob Dylan making some of the most memorable music in recording history I think that you're probably right the tension's not going to be there but this is something that we're dealing with in almost every single part of culture right now

where from Lord of the Rings to Bob Dylan we're like yeah I know what happens Soron gets the ring You know what I mean? Yeah, but it's funny to watch people play in those sandboxes where there's like an inevitability down the road. I think genuinely, my reaction to this is almost definitely unfair. Shalamay's just, I like him a lot as an actor,

and this casting just bumps me and bothers me for some reason. It just takes me out of it. But separate apart from that, I do think that one of the reasons why I react so strongly to things like this is because there's just such a paucity of major, major studio adult movies, that there's just unnecessary and frankly, I'm sure, unwanted amount of scrutiny on the ones that we get. And I think that's really where I'm at with it. Like, in terms of my relationship to this time period, which is now 60 years ago, I think inside

Lewin Davis gave me everything I want from this world. And I love that movie. And I actually, that's something that I rewatch. We're going to do that? We can do that on the RW show. Maybe we could do it a cafe wa. That's not how you say it. That would be an interesting pitch to Bill. Let us do Lou and Davis. He goes on vacation sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah, no, once a year, he doesn't, he's just like, you kids take the keys, but only drive to these three places. Yeah, I think that that's generally my response to these big budget trailers, which is unfair.

But then again, you know, sometimes fortune favors us. Like I saw that Christopher Nolan is making another movie, and he's, Matt Damon is going to star in it and nobody knows what it is. And that got, I just want you know that I can still feel things. Like, I can still feel alive. And you know what? The rumor is that there is a rumor that Nolan was working on an adaptation of the 1960s TV show The Prisoner. Although the rumors are that this is not it. This is the double rumor? Well, these might be the East Coast rumors, but you know, I'm five hours ahead of you.

And, you know, on the street here, all the posh lads with their brawleys out, they're talking about how it's not that. What are people talking about over there? Like, do you feel like you're in a different pop culture ecosystem over there? Everyone talks about reality TV shows and mass market candies that I've never heard of. Yeah. Yeah. They love reality television over there. Oh, my God.

They really love it. It's possible that they perfected it, although I didn't say this to you on last time we talked. One of the major differences between us, I think, and there aren't that many. I think there's not a lot of daylight between us. Which are nations or between the two of us? Between us. Okay. I think that you are on the record

as saying that you are a TV on in the hotel room guy. I feel like we've talked about this before. Love having Scott Van Pelt be my one friend in an American hotel room. I never turn the TVs on, ever. But I've been here for a very long time and also like in the spirit

of like cultural conversation. I turn it on occasionally. And the other night I turned it on like right on the hour. It's like eight o'clock or nine o'clock. And I was like, oh, I'm going to be getting, I'm going to be getting the best. You know, like this is prime time. And this TV in here only gets like, whether, it's as if it's still 1970.

There's BBC 1, 2, ITV, and Channel 4. And I think I don't remember which network it was on. But the show that was on was called The Yorkshire Vet. Did we talk about this in the pod or did you and I just talk about this? I don't think we're talking about this. It just began with a proud, I assume, Yorkshire woman, elbow deep inside of a destroy. stressed cow? I was like,

frankly, was the cow distress because a woman had his arm up in it? No, no, no. Well, I don't think it helped, but apparently the calf that was being birthed out of the cow

was positioned the wrong way. And I feel like viewers, regular viewers of the Yorkshire vet, get it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I have thrown on

the British Hotel TV and just had people be like any moment now a bird is going to fly out of this tree, but it's like a live, it's like they're really depending on quite a bit of stage management from from this bird's reps, you know, like. But they're willing to wait. I did turn the TV on the other night and I did find what I was looking for, which was just whatever Jamie Oliver show he's making this week.

Yeah. Which I find very, very pleasant. He's very good at television, even though he made something that just looked like, frankly, pretty gross. This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Prime, ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for, that's when Prime's same day delivery as you're back.

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Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. So where do you want to start here today? Because we've got two series to talk about, one the beginning, one the end of a season. I think we should probably get into slow horses first. Yeah, we took a week off.

Yeah, so we have the last two episodes to discuss of a season that about midway through, and like, look, you'll be hard-pressed to find two bigger fans of this show than us. we've been trumpeting it since it first came on. We've also talked about it not only as a delightful entertainment and as an amazing modern spy story, but as a model for how TV can work in 2024

or in the 2020s, the way that they're doing about two seasons every 15 months, 12 months, right? Wait, two seasons every 15 months? No, two seasons. within a 12-month period, right? Like, they do basically, like, these two books. It's season four, it's been on for two or three years.

Yeah, basically, they've been reliable. They've had a new season every year. I think the first two seasons were jammed up against each other. Yes. They were actually in the same calendar year, I believe. And now they have done season three and season four, and at the end of season four, they have a trailer for season five. Like, they are cooking.

Gary Oldman has said he will play the Jackson Lamb character for as long as he can. He just loves doing it, et cetera, et cetera. So, like, all of our, like, enthusiasm is there. And even in, I think, since the middle of this season, where we started being like, ha, that I don't, okay, well, okay. Even then, the dialogue is great. The settings are great. The action is reliable.

Like, it's still, like, so much better than 90% of what's on TV. But this season for me felt a little wonky and fell a little wonky at the end. end. Part of that might have been an expectations thing with me where, like, I think I had read Spook Street. I couldn't remember it. Then I was watching the series, and I was like, some of this stuff is familiar. I kind of went back and was like, oh, right, this is what happened. So, strangely, like, watching this season was about the adaptation of the book for Mick, of, of McHarran's book more than it was, like, the discovery of what was going to happen. Where did you wind up with this series?

And then we could kind of unpack these episodes one by one. I, for some reason, I'm really struggling. I feel like we need a new language to talk about the show because it is so special in multiple ways. It is unique in that it is just so effortlessly entertaining and such a pleasure to watch. And especially because of the very rare, sadly rare reliability of the show. There's just going to be more. And I almost want to say things out of order, which is to say that I have some weird, maybe ultimately unnecessary criticisms of this season

that I did not have in other seasons and I'm hard pressed to decide whether it was because of the specific story of this season or if it's because certain things are starting to play themselves out a little bit over time but I almost want to begin by saying the trailer for season five got me hype as fuck so I am going to keep running at this football

you know like I am I am super into it I thought that trailer was so expertly cut and it was so exciting and it looked like a great story. And also, there's just more. It is such an incredibly rare experience on TV at this moment. And I don't want to criticize that aspect of it in any way. But I do think I liked this season less than any other season. And I'm struggling with why that is. Now, again, very, very strong finale, very, very strong McBain vibes.

running throughout the finale for one character particular, but a, you know, well directed, well executed, lots of tension, and I think some actually, something I really appreciated, which was some earned emotion, which the show has generally been a little bit allergic to. But where do you

want to start with maybe these kind of wonky feelings specifically to the season? Because I think the broad categories are, the story itself that it chose to tell, the pacing of it, where River was isolated in France, discovering things at his own pace, that really didn't pay off until the very end for much of it. Or even maybe there's the larger

aspect of it, which is the show after these last two seasons has kind of revealed itself to be a lot more action and a lot more like gunplay than I expected it to be. When I heard the pitch for this season that, you know, Jonathan Price's characters failing memory would lead to secrets being revealed. Secrets. I was really excited because that feels very it's not, La Care didn't write that story, but it feels like in that tradition, especially of like a generation of spycraft giving way to another messier one. An elder spy in the wind is a is an espionage literature trope. Whether it's because he's in failing health or whether he is just like, we can't find this person. There's a another trope that stories go back to a lot is the elder spy decides to write his memoirs and causes like multiple countries to start basically a cold. war against one another. Check out the movie, Hopscotch if you haven't.

There's definitely, like, there's priors for this. Where do I want to start? I like that. But I was surprised that that wonderful seed turned into a flowering blossom of a CIA guy

making child soldiers and Rivers Parentage question, which I frankly hadn't been, that's not a question I've been asking. So it went in a place that I didn't expect. and frankly didn't love. So, okay, yeah, where do you want to start?

For me, you know, spy stories are essentially like my favorite kind of storytelling because you get all the stuff that was kind of in this season of slow horses, the questions of identity, the questions of, you know, who are you allegiant to what makes you what you are and all these things. And what are you good at? And what do you, you know, how do you apply what you're good at

to the benefit of a nation? your community or even to your partners in your brothers in arms or whatever you want to call the people of Slauhaus. But I do feel like a lot of the stuff that I love the most is still grounded in some kind of geopolitical reality. Yes. Right. And one of the reasons why the first book and the first series of slow horses, the first season of slow horses is so cool to me is the way it plays with headlines, the way it plays with British nationalism, the threat of, terrorism, British nationalists using the far right using terrorism as a, essentially like a false flag to do conduct their own kind of terror. And the ties it has to the current like rise of

right wing politics that we're experiencing across the Western world. And so there was like a real, you know, not ripped from the headlines and not overdoing it. But like I like my espionage stuff to be really rooted in something that is recognizable. And in some ways, this is why I often return to Cold War era stuff rather than more contemporary spy stories is because you can tell when someone is like, I just basically wrote Jason Bourne into the modern world and I'm going to have him kicking ass across Syria or whatever is going on. This story was like a little bit too close to like, by the end, I think Frank Hartt's,

was like, oh, slow horses has its specter now. Like, it has its blowfeld. And this is a little bit more bondy than I thought. I thought it was going to be more LeCarray, and instead it's a little bit more Ian Fleming. I'm sure that Will Smith would disagree. I'm sure McHarran would disagree. I'm sure if I can remember correctly what the next book is,

will prove me wrong. But it became a little bit more mythical and personal rather than political and realistic. I think that's such a fantastic observation. And as you're saying it, I think that's crystallizing something for me as well. And I think it's not helped. So the turn towards, like this, it's a difficult conceit, right? That, like, we, that there is MI5.

It exists. It's out in the world. It's doing its business. And then there's this subset of it that somehow keeps stumbling into major, major events. It is very smart, plotting and sustaining to almost cordon off the Slauhaus stories in a way that makes them feel, vibrant for entertainment, but detached from the real politic of the world, which would start to, like, beggar belief at a certain point. They would be promoted if they really were stopping global events or, you know, intervening in global events or terrorist attacks or what have you. The downside of that is that the villains become like the villains in Top Gun Maverick, which is just like action figures who are there to do whatever the plot needs them to do.

Yeah. And I think that that's challenging when the heroes, and by heroes, I mean, Jackson Lamb and River, and in the extent that she's not heroic, but Tavener to a degree, they are untouchables as well. So it just becomes kind of like a struggle between two monolithic forces. Now, within that very smart, again, sustaining for books and sustaining for multiple seasons of TV structure, there's so much fun to be had. So it is weird. I always feel a little churlish complaining about something that works so perfectly. But I do think that the point you're making has to do with our expectations and preferences for the genre. And also just the experience of maybe enjoying something thrilling to something, but not loving something to the degree that maybe we expected to or had in the past.

Yeah. You know, the season starts with an explosion at a shopping mall. London. Yeah, it seems like it's going to be... That would be the only thing people were talking about in the security business after that. And it's really difficult. It's a tight rope that they've walked really successfully over the course of a couple

of seasons now where something is a... There's this sort of catalystic event. There's a catalyst event within a season. But you can still maintain the like Jackson comes in, farts, is drunk, eats Chinese food. has got holes in his socks, but then at the end of the day, makes three phone calls and visits the one man who can tell him what's going on.

So you've got a situation where, like, obviously they have to have their comic elements and they have to have, like, the kind of like underdog part of this. But you're right. If slow horses had been involved in what they had been involved with for the three seasons so far, there probably would have been an adjusting of expectations

of what Slythouse was capable of. But my point was really, more that like after that explosion, I think Kristen Scott Thomas's Diana character is the only one who's like, my job is to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Yep. And everyone else is kind of like blithely going about their like, I'm going to sell a gun or I'm not talking or we've got to reply. I want to get back to the park. It's such a good point. Like the Tavener plot this season. And again, they do change season to season, which is a good thing. But it's interesting to reflect back on it. And the Taviner plot this season really was the A story in terms of stakes.

The fact that there was a half French Terminator ravaging through the ranks of six people or seven people and he ended up killing two of them. Like that's stakes wise. It's different. It's an emotional stakes as we know those seven people, but it did feel a little bit topsy-turvy in the telling of it. And yeah, I'm mixed about, I don't know whether the show needs a specter figure or if I was that concerned about. who Rivers' father is and thus what his loyalties are and et cetera. And I've enjoyed Hugo Weaving's work in the past, but I would have liked to have seen, and I'm sure they considered other actors or maybe, I don't know, maybe they didn't. I don't know why I would assume that. Hugo Weaving plays villainy pretty broadly, whether it's The Matrix or Captain America, and he seemed to be enjoying the Bond villain aspects of it.

But I guess I kind of would have liked to see a more interesting counterpart to Jackson as the potential father figure for River in the series going forward. Yeah, I was pretty confused about like the Frank Harkness. Like what was the business plan? Like he's got, he's bred a couple. It seems like in that picture, there's three or four guys. One of them does the West Acres.

Bombing. One is Patrice. One was Patrice. Yeah, one was Patrice. And then there's like two other guys. but by the time Patrice is making his way through London, but Frank says you're the last of us or you're the last soldier or whatever.

And there's an allusion to like he's offering his services to different nations or whatever. And it's essentially he's going to be an off the books kill squad. But I don't know whether it's the TV aspect of it or whether it's just a very thin story. I just was kind of like, do these guys operate out of France with the French government's tacit or president?

do these, you know, do all sort of Western nations know that these guys do their thing? And then very kind of offhandedly, Frank says that the Robert Winter's character did the West Acres bombing went rogue because he had basically been

broken by Frank. And I was like, that seems like it's a much bigger deal. It should be a much big, more significant plotline that this guy kind of went off on his own. I also think that you think... Sorry, I want to ask one question about you. you're confusion there with Frank.

Do you think that the implication is that Frank is just like, you can be a ass-kicking global black ops renegade by blood only? Or is he opening it up to like adoption or wards? Like, is this a CR business plan? Because I do think that you have spoken before about. You know, it's like. Because you've talked before about bringing on people with skills. If you technically live within this zip code, you can play third base for me.

And would you be mad at? about living in a beautiful country French estate that is just conveniently flammable at the end of the day? Like I feel like you'd be cool with that. You know what? I mean, this is the thing is like sometimes I feel bad being like what they should have done is this. Because what I'm talking about is a show that I really, really enjoyed watching every week. Although I will say that this was a season that I wish I had just watched the last three or four like bunched together. but if the entire season was river going to France to find out about this guy, like to chase the trail of this guy who did the West Acres bombing,

but also chase the trail of his own childhood, that's an interesting story. I think that there needs to be all this Marcus and Shirley's stuff over the course of the season to pay up, to set up Marcus's sacrifice, I guess, at the end of the season. but that stuff felt like a little bit of a distraction from what was like a really serious and what was a really like compelling storyline

but like I don't know. I feel like I am I'm really picking nits here. No, it's just look to go broad as possible again we spend 90% of our time on this podcast talking whether hopefully constructively, sometimes critically, sometimes with agitation, sometimes with longing

about how deeply fucked the TV industry is in regards to supposedly simple systems like development production, post production, and execution and airing, right? Like just the food chain is so disrupted. The supply chain is so messed up. We're talking about two-year delays

from shows we love or like even Netflix, which supposedly had this figured out. It's like, well, bad news, Night Agent, one of our best most watched shows, isn't coming back for now another year. But don't worry, you'll have more of it, because we've renewed it. Like, everybody's scrambling.

But we've canceled the Jeff Goldblum show. Yeah, right. Yes, chaos in the C-Sweets. We have the one show that is working, that is absolutely rolling. And for that reason, is the envy of everyone I would imagine behind the scenes in town.

And I would say is the number one show that when people are like, what should I watch that I haven't seen yet? I just always ask, have you watched slow horses? So maybe it's, maybe it's best to sort of like retrofit the criticism to that, which is to say, this, the system works and they roll from one season to the next, they make six episodes,

and they adapt well-plotted, well-received books. There are going to be not sacrifices, but compromises. And one of the compromises is it's up to Will Smith and his writers to find the most reasonable place possible for the Shirley and Marcus banter comedy to exist within the confines of world where a rogue terrorist just blew up a shopping mall in the heart of London. Considering how little, I think, most people bumped on that, I think it's a success. But it is a, but it is a, it's just what's going to happen. And I thought the Shirley, where this puts Shirley in her performance and the character

is exciting and great. And she's one of the low-key stars of the show. And I clearly she'll have more to do going forward. I enjoyed Marcus's character a lot. I felt that, again, maybe for the same rate, as part of just the nature of it when you constructed this way, it was a little McBaney.

Like, it was just so clear. And it does rub me the wrong way when like the advanced promotional stuff that Apple's putting out is just like, one of the Joe's is going to die tonight. And they're like, what? No way. Bonkers, mate, or whatever. That's how we talk here, by the way.

So, whatever. It's the nature of it. It seemed obvious, but we got incredible scenes from it. Like the assault on precinct whatever, precinct sloughhouse was pretty dope. The sloughhouse is all was great. I honestly thought the granary near Kings Cross chase of flight and river running after flight through. That was like really, really awesome. It was also well done with like river being like, you know, when you're being pursued standstill, you know, like and figuring out that he wouldn't be trying to get out of there.

Can I put on our spy nerd cap for a second, though, and just hope that in the next season, I just think that there are other ways to do espionage than chase someone through a train station, pull out a gun, or have Gary Oldman just show up with Jaffa Cakes. Most mysteries on the show are addressed in those three ways, and I would like to see other spy craft.

But they're working with what they got, and the books work. And I will say this for the books. The coolest thing that McHaron does is he's got this this constellation of characters and in different books different characters take a bigger stage. So like for instance,

the next season is you can probably tell from the trailer if you watched it, Roddy is a much bigger character and it's not just Roddy at a computer making some like in-cell joke and then somehow hacking into all CCTV cameras everywhere

and finding someone. I got to say, I know that England is a surveillance state and like they literally do have CCTV cameras. everywhere, but it does seem like spying is now like pull up the CCTV footage of this park. Yeah, I mean, that's the other reason why we prefer Cold War eras. Yeah, because you had to actually follow somebody. A little bit harder. The other thing, you know, a year from now, when we're doing the same kind

of like quibble about what we liked and we didn't like, you know, fool me five times, shame on me. But I did like the implication in the trailer that Tavernor is saying, Jackson Lamb is the best spy. We need to rely on him instead of... And so let's see that. Because I still want more from that. I mean, are we getting a lot of Gary Oldman? Yes, but I still want more.

I mean, he is the star of the show, and he behaves the way he behaves for a reason, and I'd like to see more of it. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it,

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Okay, why don't we move on to the franchise? Which has its own sort of, for me at least, its own issues with expectations. Not only because it's a Sunday to HBO shows, so you expect a certain level, of quality. But I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Armando Ionucci, who is the executive producer, crucially, not the creator of this series, but this is now the second series he's done since he left

V. He also made one of my favorite movies of the last 15 years, Death Stalin, another movie, the personal history of David Copperfield. By the way, when we're both in England in the weeks to come, are we going to go see... We're going to have our own personal history of David Copperfield? Are we going to see... I mean, Uchi's adaptation of Dr. Strangel starring Steve Guggen. Yeah,

which is on stage here. I'd love to. Okay, great. Ziyanuchi is one of the greatest television creators of our lifetime easily, you know, right?

Like, I mean, his contributions to the form, and I would say there is no succession without him, you know, like there, a lot of the comedy that we are getting now

is directly related to the stuff that he was doing with Thick of it. And I think that there is a quality to, the thick of it and Veep that has suggested itself in his last two series or the last two series that he has sort of broadly worked

on whether it's Avenue 5 or the franchise where you're like I feel like I'm almost there I'm almost touching the quick silver wit and satire and just absolutely black tar cynicism about the way the world works but ultimately there's something

missing there's something missing if Ian Uchie's name was not on the franchise, what would you think of this show? I think my feelings would be pretty much the same. I think it's two, for me, it's two conversations. It's a question about, in a way, it's not a criticism of Ionucci in any way. It's just a reminder that comedy is incredibly hard,

incredibly delicate, and there's just lightning in a bottle type chemistry sometimes that works, and it's a combination of situation cast and the comedy itself. and you can't just take any setting and throw a point of view and tone on it like an Instagram filter. It just doesn't always work.

Sometimes for reasons of stakes, you know, to regurgitate a term from the slow horses conversation. I think it's unfair. I mean, his name is on this, but he did not write, he did not create this.

I don't know what his level of writing involvement was. Avenue 5 was Ianucci's follow-up to Veep, and that was a struggle. This is created by John Brown. A story show that was sort of like space tourism set in the future and there's a disaster up in outer space and this. Essentially, it's like a cruise ship gone wrong, but it's in the future. This show is a series set during the making of a Marvel DC style blockbuster called Tecto, which is now in crisis. Because, you know, there's notes from the studio, there's fights among the actors.

There's a new executive played by IACASH who, comes in to sort of fix things. And it's basically told from the perspective of Hamesh Patel's character, the first assistant director, as he tries to keep everything going, put out fires, like keep the trains running on time. And, you know, that's the basic premise. And it looks to take a satirical viewpoint on modern blockbuster filmmaking. I think, I liked it.

I mean, broadly speaking, I like the show. I think that there's an interesting stress point, though, because one of the reasons I like the show is I adore the people in the show. I love Himish Patel, and it's great seeing him get to play a different type of role than he played on our screens most recently, which I guess was Station 11. We are day one OG Iya Cash fans, and she's always welcome on this podcast, and she's great on the show as she is in everything. Billy Magnuson, just super underrated, low-key, funny guy, Richard E. Grant, in a supporting role, perfectly used. And there's, especially in the pilot,

there's kind of a well-worn and well-earned world weariness to it that I really enjoyed. I watch a little bit ahead, and I'm not going to spoil things. But in the second episode, I think you do start to feel some of the growing pains that a lot of comedies have, which is just trying to modulate how big certain characters are at certain moments, you know, and that's normal. But, like, the one thing that I noticed going forward is, like,

Laliato Fopé, who plays Dag the third assistant director, who's almost like our POV character going into the first episode. Yeah, it's her first days on the set, yeah. By the second episode, she's acting like she's in chart. Like, she's saying things that you would never say to your boss in the second episode. But they're funny. But so, you know, all of that is just like normal comedy growing pains. I think the challenge is, is this,

type of comedy leveraged in the situation, shining a light on anything other than its own naval because it is super, super inside baseball. It is a show about the deep cynicism that exists within something that is broadly recognized as deeply cynical, the perpetuation of franchise IP movies to the point of, honestly, absurdity where there's just reshoots and posts and Daniel Bruehl as a visionary director who can't control his swamp people or whatever. In that, by the way, fish people, sorry. But in that, it kind of reminds me of another, of these more recent generation of second cousin British, brilliant British shows like the regime, which was created by, I think, did Sam Mendes? No, no, that was, Stephen Frears did that. Sam Mendes directed the first one of this. But by Succession Writer, this is by a Vip writer, where like, I get it and it's moving and I recognize the form and the shape and I love the jokes. But what?

What is this also saying about international diplomacy or Eastern European countries? And similarly this one. Now, what is a comedy saying? Who cares? Like, we didn't talk about it this week. English teacher is rocketing up my top 10 because I would just spend any amount of time in that world with those people as I could. Week to week, I adore everything about it. So this show, again, with the amount of brains involved and talent involved, can could find its footing in a way that privileges the quiet dignity of these goofs in the main.

midst of the superhero franchise stuff. So it just might be a question of tweaking it. But that question does linger, right? Which is like we're making fun of something that we all kind of agree as silly. Which when you use that kind of cutting humor to satirize politics, you know, and yes, VEP is ultimately a Hall of Fame comedy. But like the coverage of it when it came out, remember, was like, oh, because we had a lot of Americans hadn't seen thick of it.

So the idea of like, we are just saying that the people. people that we trust are just shitheads? Yeah, and it was also coming off of the... I mean, West Wing was not that far in the rearview mirror when Veep came out, you know? Yes, it was West Wing and at the same time, House of Cards. And, I mean, I wrote a column about this for Granland, being like, House of Cards is what Washington wishes it was, and VEP is what it probably actually is closer to.

That felt a little more cutting. But I don't know. I can stop monologuing. It just feels unfair after, for me, two or three episodes to compare something to VEP, but here we are. Here's the thing. I actually did like this thing almost more as a drama than I did at comedy. I think there were some really funny lines. I find the satire of, it's so hard to keep up with the ever-changing nature of what's funny about franchise storytelling and especially comic book movies that like there's something about the tecto thing where I'm like, this is pretty funny like on a surface level, but there's all it's almost funnier to imagine like if they could just do. this about the Flash?

You know, like, that would have been... Totally. Like, there's... The story of the making of the Flash is almost crazier than the story they're trying to tell with this Tecto movie. Now, they never would do that. But you're watching it, and if you're conversant in this stuff, which I'm really depressingly conversant, then you're like, oh, man, but this is nothing like what happened

where they had to do 90 reshoots and, like, bring back all these dead characters and revive them and have four Batman's because they're going to be. back in time. And, you know, like, I also have watched ahead. And I actually just really find this show. Like, it's definitely amusing. But I actually kind of like it as a workplace drama more than I do a comedy. Because I think it's an incredible portrait of what happens when these essentially creative endeavors, when you're like being idealistic about it or romantic about it. You're like, oh, we're making a movie. Like, I'm in the movie business. This is what I've always wanted. And then you're Hamish Patel's, character and you're essentially surviving off of vape juice and predamage sandwiches.

You've been home for like 90 minutes that week and nobody really knows. I feel triggered by this run here. I know. I'm being a little bit too cutting here. And nobody knows who's in charge. You know, the person who's in charge could be the toy man in this, in the context of, of the characters on the screen, but there's also allusions to even greater forces at play. Yeah.

And the idea that you're doing something and every. everybody there wants to kind of do a good job and no one will let them do it. Everybody there wants to do their best, but somehow, some way, they're just getting like screwed over by the way in which institutions eventually suck out individuality and suck out people's ability to do their best. And I think that's a, it's a really good example of that. It's just not VEP. And I guess like, that's the thing I was saying in the beginning with the Anuchi is that, you know, my reaction to VEP and my reaction to the thick of it is essentially the way that other dudes in the studio with Freeway reacted to Freeway

freestyling Hot 97. Like I was like literally like hold me back, hold me back. So this being kind of like veep humor but like cut with a little bit of you know like a little too much baby powder, you know?

I like everything you just said. And I think that the I mean that is the truth of if you go on a film set or a TV set. Like, people are so good at their jobs. Yeah. And they're so devoted to their jobs. And they're so devoted to making something good with their time with their collaborators and colleagues and lifting other people up. And it's, it's moving, frankly. And it's why some of us, you know, like chase it like a shout out to Freeway's product, like a drug. Like you just want to be around

that vibe regardless of what's, of what the end product is. You can't, you know, you often can't control that. The idea of these characters as like individual at least, being forced to hold up a world of shit while running on a treadmill that keeps changing speeds is a worthwhile one. Yeah. I think that, so I guess the short way of saying the long stuff that we were playing with is I would like to give this more runway because I think it's a question of calibration. Because I think that the world might be there.

And again, the jokes are there. Like the jokes per capita in here are really strong. but I kind of miss certain in the way that a pilot script is written to be noticed as a sales document I feel like a lot of the characters are introducing themselves on the page with their humor every time and I kind of want a, to make the VEP comparison overt,

I kind of want a Kevin Dunn, I want a Gary Cole, I want an old pro as opposed to like these very new to this world open-eyed, like maybe we can make something good here even though everything is going terribly. But it's a worthwhile show. But it's starting in a, I don't know, it's like it's, it's a, it's a little stuff between stations. But I think like you said, like we were once much more patient with shows letting them find their footing.

I think this is one of those shows that like maybe three, four episodes in. You're like, oh, I have the rhythm down and I have like what the stakes are. I also think it's worth just folding it into the larger conversation we're having, which is like, it's very, very rare. And it didn't used to be this rare. but like the slow horses model that we just talked about at great length but like the English teacher thing where it's just like oh holy shit they developed this so expertly that it's just awesome like there used to be more of those and so we might be

overly reactionary now because A we've been spoiled a little bit recently but also like we just kind of missed that there was a piece I think it was in the Atlantic that was just kind of talking about like the weird autourist detours that that prestige TV is taking in this kind of weird, not weird, but like this sort of odd speaking of in between stations era when it was referring to like some of the unexpected filmmaking flourishes in presumed innocent and it specifically went at length about Lady in the Lake. Yeah.

Basically expressing, we went away from that show for reasons that I was sort of struggling with and couldn't really express and this piece kind of expresses it, which is just like, I don't even know what it is other than Alma Horel's like she's just showcasing some stuff. and that's wonderful. I do morally support creative artists being funded by these enormously rich companies. But also, I just want to hit the ground running with some characters I like. Yeah, right. We can wrap it up there.

Andy and I obviously have to unpack why it is that like we're so deeply invested in the international spy community and franchise blockbuster filmmaking that two shows that are exactly. about that. We're like, ah, you know. Yeah, we don't know. Do you think this is like Why are Season 5 for us? A little bit. A little bit. When we come back on Monday, we'll be in the studio together. Andy will be jet lagged and we'll be talking about all sorts of TV, I'm sure. I'll give you a little bit of a longer episode.

Did you hear who's on Agatha? Do you hear who's emerging as a major character? I'm going to watch over the weekend and we can find out just what Mr. Sinister does to these witches. Thanks to Kaya for producing. Thanks to Andy and thanks to everybody for listening. We'll be back on Monday.