The Watch - The Watch Goes French: ‘Call My Agent!’ and ‘Lupin’

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

Chris and Andy break down the news that Chris Evans might be reprising his role as Captain America (1:14) and that Noah Baumbach is adapting the Don DeLillo novel ‘White Noise’ (18:41). Then they get into two French shows they’ve been enjoying, ‘Lupin’ (25:31) and ‘Call My Agent!’ (37:10). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Rigger.com and joining me on the other line. The co-host of an English language podcast about French language TV. It's Andy Greenwald. A bonjour mon ami.

What's up, man? What a special episode of The Watch we have today? Because Andy and I are going to be, we're going international. It's the international house of television. television, we're going to be talking about two French language shows that you can watch on Netflak. NetFlux? That's how you say it in French. I've been having a lot of flax seats, actually, with my green shakes that I make myself. What's wrong with flak seeds? Get to the brakes, so we can, I can dunk on you more. Oh, okay. Well, we're going to talk about

Lupin, Lupin, Lupin, and call my agent, but we have a bunch of news we want to get to in the beginning with Chris Evans and Dondolillo, two of our main dudes. So we'll be talking about both of those guys. It's the watch. One second. We'll be right back. This is, as the French would say, niche. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trim Faya. Tap this ad to learn. Learn more about Tramphia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world. The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interests that inspires a run crew,

the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. All right, we're back, man. What's going on? We have established that Kai McMullen is not in Q&N, so it's a great Thursday already. It was dicey for a second there.

She took a second to respond. Andy, I hope you're having a lovely week as best as it possibly could be. Oh, oh, yeah. And I know you've had a busy one because you're doing a lot of podcasts, Chris. We're doing this podcast. We had the rewatchables up. The Royal Tenen bombs. That's right.

And we also have a rewatchables. I'm on a couple coming up that are pretty fun. So Bill is weird about not saying what they are, but they're coming. But you also had some, a lot of basketball stuff going on. Yeah, pretty pregnant afternoon for your boy yesterday. I thought I was going to be doing some emergency podcasting about the Philadelphia 76ers, but it turned out James Harden was traded to the Nets. So bless up to all my Brooklyn guys.

It's just great when a team with such a serious devoted fan base gets a, get to double you like that. This is a strange development for you is where you're like real. prickly about Brooklyn's basketball fan base? Like, who cares? Well, I don't care. It's just weird to me. I mean, I love Brooklyn. I lived there for 17 years.

Yeah. Hate the arena, but love the area. You know what I mean? Do you hate the arena because of what it did to the area? Well, yeah, because shout out Freddy's bar and all the nice places that got displaced. But also, there was that time a couple years ago, right when it opened,

when you and I went to a game with our friends, Sean Fennessey and Zach Barron. And like the seat, it's not just that they were in the nosebleeds. They were in like the Matterhorn. That place sucks. Yeah. It's like,

the thing about it for people who don't know is that it's like, it's not, they built an arena to fit a standard number of fans, but they built it, I believe, more vertically than they did horizontally. It's like an Argentinian soccer stadium, but not like in a cool way.

No, I felt very, very close to do a vertigious. as death as I climbed higher and higher. But on the plus side, you know, the public announcement guy played a lot of biggie. So it's fine. I'm very happy. I think James Harden will love being near Bergen bagels. I think that carving up is important before every,

every game. But we should get to our Rolodeck of news, right? Before we put on our berets and twirl our mustaches and do the French stuff we really want to do. Yeah. I just wanted to talk about a couple of pop culture news items before we got

shows that we wanted to discuss today. So today we're talking about Lupin and call my agent to French shows on Netflix. We'll get to that in the second half. Yeah. I mean, honestly you did. You nailed it. It's going to be a fun conversation. First, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Chris Evans, returning to the Marvel

Cinematic Universe in some capacity as Captain America after having benefiting from one of the great send-offs to a superhero character that we've gotten. You know, I'd say it's up there with, I guess, Hugh Jackman's exit as Logan, you know, which I'm sure will be desecrated at some point in the near or distant future.

But it's very rare that these franchise characters get to go out on the right note, you know? And I thought that regardless of what you thought of endgame, the Captain America plotline was really handled well and that his moment at the end as an old man getting to kind of like fix the one, the one, his broken heart basically. You got to have a life. Yeah, it was beautiful. It was great moment. And now today on deadline, and across the internet,

it was announced that it sounds like Evans is going to be coming back as CAP in some capacity, not in a Captain America movie, but appearing in another film. So the suggestion in the deadline piece is that this will be like the way Robert Downey Jr. brought Iron Man into Captain America Civil War and the Spider-Man, what was that far from home? The first one? Homecoming. Homecoming, Spider-Man Homecoming,

where he was essentially like a ringer off the bench. You know what I mean? And he came in and gave him a couple of innings, brought a lot of eyeballs to the project, but essentially it was like, he was there for shits and giggles. You know, it wasn't like, it had a huge impact. Quick sidebar.

First, Tom Holland Spider-Man Homecoming. Second, far from home. He's in Europe. Third one, which is all multiverse, right, with like 100 Spider-Men. Do we know the name of it? Is it so many homes? Is it vacation homes?

Is it Spider-Man house hunters interdimensional? Like, has this been named yet? So you're assuming that he's going to have something to do with the Spider-Man movie? No, no. I was just sidebarring. Oh, okay. I have, I'd like to say something about this Chris Evans news. Sure.

Before I do, do you remember a sketch comedy program from the 90s called The State? I do, of course. It's on MTV. I mean, I moved the state. Yeah. I'm going to dip my balls in it. Yeah. Classic, classic catchphrase.

Yeah. Now, all those people went on to many other projects. Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, and Marino, Thomas Lennon. Thrilled to see so many of them at elementary school drop off back when we had school. Oh, yeah? Because that's where people end up here in Los Angeles. But one of the sketches I think about all the time was a split screen of a highbrow and a lowbrow joke. Right? And I believe the highbrow was like someone in a English manner sipping tea and the lowbrow was Ken Marino in a barn sitting on a whoopee cushion.

Which version of my Chris Evans take would you like to hear first? The English manner or the whoopee cushion? Andy, get you a pod that can do both. Okay. The English manner take is what a shame because not only did he have, as you said, a gentleman's exit. A wonderful exit that came to an end and one of those rare things where you hear that the star kind of is done with it and then gets the send off. But also, it did create an interesting road

going forward for the Marvel Cinematic Universe that would help redefine what it would mean to be the exemplar of American heroism does not have to be an Aryan time traveling or time surviving white man. It could be anyone. Maybe Falcon gets the...

So that was kind of interesting. who else could be a captain, a captain's America. That's kind of interesting, and it's a shame if that's not where the storyline is going. Okay. Whoopie cushion is, who cares, man, it's fun. He's great. Plays the part well, has a good time. I truly don't understand why anyone would ever say, from a professional standpoint,

that they are quote unquote done with Marvel. Who would say that? Who is somebody said that? No. I'm saying nor should that. I thought you were talking about some guy on Twitter. was like, I am done with these movies if they bring back Captain America.

I'm saying, first of all, I'm sure someone has. But what I mean is, that show we talked about last week that we both really like that I'm still watching and hope my wife and I'm still watching the Pretend It to City, the Fran Leibowitz show and like every episode, she walks to the National Arts Club and they have a, has a nice ice coffee

with pool tables and a leather bound bar. It's like, that's what being in a Marvel movie is like. Every so often you drop by a cool club, hang out with your friends, and get a million dollar check for it. So I don't understand why anyone would not be part of it. Here's the argument against that, is that if Fran Leibowitz went to the National Arts Club, finished her drip and was just like, that's the last coffee I'm ever having at the National Arts Club.

I think we all can agree that I did a great job being a patron at this place. I've become something of an institution. I'm iconic. I said one last great joke, one great quip, and I'm fucking out. I'm Fran. Duce's. And then she came back. three weeks later and was like,

it's me. It's your buddy, Fran. I'm back. I think people would be like, okay, like, that's, we're happy to have you. We're glad to see you, Fran Leibowitz. But I think that ultimately, like, you went out on a high note. You could only go down from here.

It would surprise no listeners to this podcast to know that if you were to intercept the concept of Captain America from my mind, it would be Fran Leibowitz, probably. So I think this is a really great, example. I hear the counterpoint, but the other thing that is worth saying is that as Marvel is expanding its storytelling reach and also in terms of TV and movies, but also the types of stories it's telling, which is to say that they're telling stories at different moments in time and also the multiverse. I think that they are, what they are setting us up for here is a way to have

cake and eat it, American flagged shape and design cake, I imagine. Which is to say, maybe in like the next Avengers movie, whatever that is or looks like, old Steve Rogers is around to give advice. So break out the latex. But it also means that as Ant Man or Moon Knight or whatever the fuck is zipping through

the different possibilities of the world, they might encounter primetime cap and then chat. Wouldn't the logical destination for his character be the Falcon and Winter Soldier show? That would suck. Not to say that the show's going to be bad. Let me really like it.

Let me be clear. If they put him in his old man latex back in this fucking cinematic universe, he better be standing with Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jones doing old man stunts from Jackass. He better be like wandering around at a gas station accidentally pouring gas on his car. I don't care what it is, but like,

I can't, I don't want any more dressing up like an old man from him. There is precedent. I know you keep me around because I occasionally have read comic books and have a lap subscription to Marvel Unlimited. There is precedent for Steve Rogers being old A.F. Yeah, right. I saw Conceuant tweeted out a picture, like a panel from a comic book. So what's that, what's that story?

Well, that was a story where that this happened. I don't know if it didn't happen the way it happens in endgame, but he ends up being the age that he should be. but is called back into service for his tactical mind and his limitless supply of Ben Gay products, I suppose. Because the United States Senate shows us that old men are incredibly tactically cute. I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe should mimic our highest offices and be a gerontocracy.

I don't see why people get aged out of parts anymore. And Hugh Jackman, by the way, he should run for Diane Feinstein's seat. Steve Rogers. Huge Hackman, by the way, has said that he can't do Wolverine anymore because his bone density could not handle putting on that weight, the weight. Or the weight training.

Like, he can physically no longer do it. Yeah. Like, I watch this. It was a great, great cook, Peter Serpico, used to work with Dave Chang at Momofuku. He is a restaurant in Philadelphia called Serpico, that he's like, people should check it out. if they're there. He's turned it into like a kind of Korean takeout thing called Pete's Place,

support him. Point being on Instagram, he showed how he's stretching family meals at home with like a series of videos he posted about buying some oxtails that were more expensive than he thought and then using them to make broth and this other Korean dish. And by the end of it, he showed that he had successfully extracted all the vitamins and et cetera out of the bones because he held an oxtail bone in his hand and crushed it like plaster of Paris. And that is what Hugh Jackman's spine probably looks like right now after doing that fucking like keto paleo-yo-yoing that he's done for years. It's not like Hugh Jackman ordinarily looks like Martin Star though. You know what I mean? Like it's like I understand he has to pack some

muscle on, but that's not it's not exactly like he's the dude in the back of the comic book who's like tired of getting sand kicked in your face. How do you know? Use these resistance bands. One thing that we learn as we get older, listeners, and Kaya, is that the body, there's a level that the body wants to be, right? And so we're either giving into it, making it worse, or working to make it better. And so we don't know if Hugh Jackman's, like, a certain, like, there's a moment when he was just like, Broadway star Hugh Jackman. And then Laura Donner calls and was like, can you be in Toronto in 12 hours? and how do you feel about claws in your hand? And he was like, great, mate.

And then for the rest, since then, those last 20 years, he's just been getting yoked and not yoke, right? Like, we don't know. Yeah, yeah. So pour a little out. And so all this is to say, maybe Chris Evans is secretly an old.

Maybe he wants to be an old guy. Yeah. He's tired of being super foxy in cable knit sweaters in overrated movies. Right? Maybe this is the right path for him. But in general... Was that just a knives out drive-by you just pulled?

I don't remember. I don't remember. My point being, I look forward. Now is the time for unity. Okay. What may have happened in the past, that's not how we move forward as a country or as a podcast.

One thing that... My point being, Marvel Cinematic Universe is Marvel Comics. Yeah. It's Marvel Comics. So, shout out to Farrell. No one ever really dies. I think that's...

That's one of the tenets of this podcast. Is that... Just don't get to... to unattached to anyone. But the, I love getting unattached, by the way. This has been hard for me. I think that the biggest change, I'm just going to throw this out there. It's a new year.

So we can take new, we have new, new takes. The biggest contribution to the entertainment order that Marvel has done is the idea that people just hang out. You don't have to be the star. It doesn't have to be all about you. You can just hang out. Mark Ruffalo is going to be in the She-Hulk legal comedy show. Sure.

Why not? As long as the checks are good, they like going to Atlanta. So it was silly to think that it would last longer than this. The one to watch is Downey, who definitely shouldn't come back. But Downey's doing like, for your consideration panels with the Rousseau's and Tom Holland being like, can we do a like maybe pictonary on Zoom? Like, he clearly misses them. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think that I really want Downey to just try a little. Like, just do something cool. Like, please. So you, as people on this podcast and people who read Grantlin know, like you once had an audience with the great man. Yeah, I mean, we don't have to make it sound like it was, it wasn't Frost Nixon. Like it was at a junket in a basement of hotel in Santa Monica. Do you think that you, if you had that window again, do you think you could look him in the eye and be like? Well, I'll be completely honest.

I think I was talking to him for Iron Man 3. Three? Iron Man 3. Recently named by you is one of the best films of the decade. That was not true. in my movie draft in the in the big picture and I I have admitted that that was perhaps a little bit aggressive on my part but but I just like to watch the world burn I don't even think that he hasn't made anything aside from uh Dr. Doolittle outside of the MCU since then I don't think well but after Dr. Doolittle why why right exactly more I mean you know I want to move through a couple other things here um one is just that I saw that insecure is ending after its fifth and final this fifth season will be its final one. I just want to say a very big fan of that show. And I'll be interested to see.

They said in the release, Issa was kind of like Issa Ray was saying that she was like, I always wanted to end it after five. So, I mean, I know you would normally say that. People tend to say this was exactly the plan. That's what I said about this podcast. Right, exactly.

Here we are. But I think the where that show is, did you watch the last season at all? Did you watch season four at all? I haven't watched the last season. Everyone loved it. I believe I'm caught up. to that season. And I don't know why I never, thanks for the reminder.

My feeling about that, I really enjoyed it. I think that this makes sense because you could theoretically like add three or four more episodes onto that last season and I could see a very natural endpoint for this story, which would essentially be without any spoilers like Issa leaving Los Angeles perhaps, or just maybe having her own life there. But I think that a lot of the sort of central tensions of the show have started to clean themselves, like unwind a little bit. So I'm excited for that. I hope it comes back this year. Really, with all the announcements of all these movies,

they're moving into late 2021. I kind of starting to wonder a little bit about some of the shows that still needed to do some production, whether they're going to arrive in a timely fashion. The last thing I wanted to talk about with you before we get into our French TV bonanza, or buffet, as they say,

is the announcement that Noah Baumbach's next movie is going to be an adaptation of Dondalolo's white noise. Now, I feel like this is, when this movie drops, I think we could make this the last watch. I know. It basically is where we've been going. Yeah, I think that it combines so many of our interests and also, like, once it finally arrives.

So like 20, mid-22, whatever. I hate to put an endpoint on our show, you know, like... Yeah. Well, that would be our 10-year anniversary. I don't know if we're getting off the island. But... The really interesting thing is if people want to take bets now, who's going out like Tony Stark and who's going out like Steve Rogers.

Oh, I'm definitely saying. Steve Rogers. I'm going to be podcasting from fucking West Palm Beach. You know, like, I'm going to save the world and then just peace out on the battlefield. I'll be wondering if the Sixers are trading for LeBron's son. No, I was just why, I just

look, before the months of McMurtry, there were the days of DeLolo for me. I went back and re-read a bunch of down to Lilibooks. I think that Americana, the names Underworld and Libra are still my favorites. I know that White Noise is one of his most decorated books.

It's cool to see Bomback take another swing at the prestige literary adaptation attempt. He tried to do that with the corrections in it. I think he shot a pilot, but it never went to series at HBO. This will star Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig as Jack and Babette, you know, living on campus in an unnamed college town, and he is a professor of Hitler studies. And there is a... Aren't we all these days, though, really?

Yeah. An airborne toxic event happens in this book, and it sort of deals with paranoia and fear of death and infatuation with death and the apocalypse and also the Academy. Are you excited? Yeah. I mean, I was right around the time this news broke, I think I was seeing a people correctly dunking on certain fanboy and fan girl online personalities who are the people that get the first looks at things because they know what those responses are going to be. Right? And they're the ones who are like, you saw the tweet probably in December and they're like, Wonder Woman 1984 hits it out of the park.

It left me weeping at the end with a perfect blend. And now they're like, Wanda Vision. We need right now. Yeah. Wanda Vision is, you know, another success for Marvel, but also like David Litt. It's like, all right, everybody sit down. My point being, if studios and distributors and filmmakers know who to seed projects to to get the reaction, then I think the group text that has you, me, and Sean Fentasy on it

will be where all white noise information should be debut. Yeah. We definitely will be like the movie we need right now. Sean tweeted that he's had numerous dream castings. for the professor of Hitler studies for years. Yeah. I mean, I sometimes, you know, speaking of highbrow lowbrow, sometimes we get on this podcast and we're talking like,

can Star Wars saga move on from the Skywalker's? But it's really like Ted Cruz wearing a North Face jacket, you know, and standing on a truck. Because people know the truth about your boy over here. Did I write an AP English final essay about Dondalilla's Americana? Oh yes. Yes, I did. So I love this. This is thrilling and exciting. But particularly, I think, it's exciting because it's Bombok, because we did the kicking and screaming rewatchables a couple weeks ago. And kind of doing that, didn't just remind me how much I love that movie because I've always loved that movie. But low-key, one of our best and most consistently interesting filmmakers, never as flashy or splashy as, you know, like the Andersons, as West. or PT in terms of like contemporaries. And in many ways, people like him whose project is always kind of like writing about the same

kind of people in similar situations, but finding new nuance in it as I get older and do it again. That is, I mean, I don't want to nod to what we're going to do, Apre le break, but like, that's kind of the French filmmaker model. Like most people do that on TV now. They don't do it in cinema. But after, it kind of seems like he's used up what he's got going on emotionally over the last few years and these last few movies.

You think he's fully interrogated marriage and divorce now? It seems like it's been a point of interest to him. And maybe now he needs a break from that, which is healthy and good. The last time he took a break from his own psychotherapy. And when he met Greta Gerwig, he made two of his, I think, best movies, Francis Ha and Mistress America. So I like this idea. Sure.

Working with Greta Gerwig again, I like the idea just in terms of it being his next movie. But do you love this stuff? Do you think that Noah Baumbach is making a period piece or do you think he's updating white noise for our contemporary moment. Great question. What would you do? What would you do? Thank you.

And he's in the director's chair. Scott Rudden turns to you and says, do you want me to order the fleet of 85 Volvos? Or are we updating it for our contemporary moment? I've never met Scott Rudin personally. We have a fan in one of his most trusted colleagues and producers Eli Bush, who listens to the show. Maybe can give us some intel on this.

he's always struck me as the kind of person who tells you if the volvos are coming I don't think you ask him you know what I mean sure second I want to know before I answer am I on location because if so I'll keep on this North Face jacket

if not I'll take it off and I have a tuxedo on underneath you tell me I think that you gotta you gotta shoot this in a leafy college town right? Yes I just mean in terms of like we're going to Poughkeepsie baby

or we're going to Providence or someplace you know we got to find maybe Western Mass? I don't know. I'd like to go anywhere. That all sounds wonderful. I think that it's very hard to imagine updating it. But I also haven't read this.

You've read this book recently. You know, these Delillo books for me in their mix of like, they're so cerebral and a little bit chilly and so brilliant and yet somehow masculine and spare. Like they are the epitome for me of books you read between the ages of 18 and 25 and then you, you feel very smart about them. They're also great, but I don't know how they age.

You could speak more to that and whether they are rich with ideas to be mined as opposed to something to be kind of put on screen and celebrated. Right. Okay. If I had to guess, I think it'll be a period piece. I think that you can do that and you can be like, it has a lot to say about our present as well. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, Andy and I will talk about Lupin and call my agent. Lupin.

Are you saying that I'm saying it wrong or are you just saying that? It's actually Scott Rudin. It's not Scott Rudin. We'll be right back. 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,

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and book your next trip today. Okay, we're back. Andy, we're going to talk about two shows on Netflix. Abo. One, you have been name-dropping for quite a long time and became something of my nemesis because I felt like while I was trying to find the most urgent and important television

for us to talk about, you were like, I'm watching this French show called Call My Agent, kiss my ass. And so I think I had like a little bit of... Bezman cool, I believe it's said in French. Built up resentment towards it. But in the... Because LuPin came out this week,

and it immediately went into the top, I think two or three. It might even be top, but it was definitely top two the other day when I checked on Netflix's top ten. I was like, well, you know what? Why not? Let's check out call my Asian as well.

And I'm fucking smitten. I'm smitten with both shows. I'm really, really loving them. I think there's something that connects the two of them. I feel like we should probably... Should we talk about LuPants at first? Yes. We should.

And there's only one word to describe this turn of events. And that word is, Frommie daub. Yes. Fremie daub. I'm so, I'm happy that these shows are now your ami, if you will. No longer your nemesis. I thought you took Spanish in school. I did, but I took...

I did take one semester of French that I'm really almost... I've almost used it all up already in this podcast. I mean, you're just... I took like three years of French and you're already kicking my ass in it. Well, also, I've been watching these shows for months. Sure. I've only been watching French films on Criterion. So I'm basically fluent.

You know what I mean? And, you know, I watch a lot of shows about restaurants in Montreal. So I know French Canadian, as little Canadian French is different. Anyway, I wish I could show people Chris's face right now. The, okay, so the thing about Lupin, here's the broad strokes. international production, obviously French show, Netflix debuted it all around the world, and I think probably surprised even people at Netflix

how immediately it took off in every country, which is great, first of all, that's exciting, and I think that's good news, obviously, for their business model, but good news for fans of interesting international productions. The backstory here is also kind of interesting. For people who know, I was not really among them. Arsené Lupin is a fictional French character, almost like a Sherlock Holmes-ish character.

right from a 19th century novels about a gentleman burglar who is in society but mysterious and helps people and just kind of an iconic piece of dare I say it IP. Yep. And what's thrilling about this is it shows a way to do this. And by this, I mean the thing that everyone wants to do. Take something in the public domain that people already know and put a modern spin on it. And the show does this so effortlessly and with so much charm and style that it feels like a blueprint for a lot of things going forward, which I know is something we agree on.

So just again, for people haven't checked it out yet, no spoilers. But in the world of the show, said in modern day Paris, the fictional character of Lupin is well known and as known as it is in France today. Our character, our main character, Asan Jop, played by Omar Sae, a wonderful actor. Who you may have seen Bradley Cooper's burnt, I believe. Yes, yes. And no, he was in Intouchables, which was a huge hit. a while back. He's been around for about 20 minutes. He was in Jurassic World. So yeah, you, you will recognize him. But this is his star turn. It is. And he plays this guy who is a little bit mysterious when we first meet him, so we won't step on it. But it's suffice to say that he is deeply, deeply inspired by an influence by the character of Lupin. It is basically behaving and performing similar acts in the service of his own tortured, not too tortured. That word shouldn't even mean anywhere near the show. Fraught backstory.

Yeah. Right. So it is Louis Littier, who Louis, excuse me, excuse me, who did that with the transporter films, right, and one of the Hulk movies directed the pilot. It is extremely glossy, beautiful vision of contemporary Paris, very slick, very fun, a lot of heist, twists and turns. And it's totally winning. Yeah. Anchored by a wonderful charming lead performance that I can't get enough of. and just effervescent in a way that I think you and I both wish more programs were. When we talk about star making performances, I think that there are a couple different kinds. Sometimes you just see somebody on screen and you immediately, it could be somebody like, you know, like the first time you notice Lucas Hedges and you're just like,

this guy just can act his ass off. This is really amazing. Like I notice him. Then there are people who you may have seen in the background of other stuff. or noticed a couple of times, but hadn't really thought about. And then they get a role, like Omar's side did with Lupin. And it takes advantage of every single thing he can do well. He can move.

He can smile. He can be really tender and thoughtful. And when he looks at his ex-wife or looks at his son or thinks about his father, you really believe it. And he can wear a suit. And he can wear an Uber Eats delivery uniform. And he can be a chameleon, which is what this character needs to be. He can be a chameleon and he can also stand out,

which is just this amazing quality. And I know that this is going to sound weird, but it's like, you know, when you see somebody like The Rock, you know what I mean? And you're just like, well, I don't really care about wrestling, but this guy is just definitely like a star, you know,

or Jamie Fox. And you're just like, I am, this guy has a magnetism, you know, that is just undeniable. I feel that way about this, about Omar Sinai and his performance here. The thing I wanted to talk to you about was watching the show,

which by no means is like it's definitely engaging but I would not call it like overly challenging in any ways or it's definitely not a hard watch it's like really really really fun it's got a lot of humor I'm just like what what happened to American TV like Frank Sabacca I'm like we used to make shit here you know like why can't we why don't we see stuff like this especially like on network television because there's not a lot I think there might be some profanity in this

but if there is, it doesn't need to be in the show. The violence is not bloody. There's no reason why a show like this couldn't be on ABC or CBS. And I think that to some extent, there's some DNA in some of the stuff that like Robert and Michelle King make, like evil or the good wife in this show, Lupin. But when I watch this, I'm just like, have we really, like, forgotten how to make meat and potatoes TV

to the extent that like we're getting our fucking asses handed to us by the French now? I don't mean that in a jingoistic way. I just mean like it's just kind of amazing. I totally agree with you. I feel like so many of the wrong lessons were taken from the last 10, now almost 20 years of television, and they're still filtering down in very confusing ways. And one of the biggest ones was, and I used to write about this, a bunch of Grantland,

was that the success of dark, heavy, often expensive, but emotionally challenging serialized dramas on cable led. the broadcast networks to be like, well, we'll do all that too, but we'll just take the swear words out, you know, and you end up with these nothing burgers of shows, you know, not even need to list them because almost all of them have been canceled by now, right? And instead, you kind of end up, so you end up with these like big swings that are often misses and then the steady drumbeat of procedurals, the Chicago shows your grace anatomies, which are good. They do what they are meant to do, and they do it well and with style and with economy, and people like them, and they write.

forever. But there's this middle space that doesn't make sense to be unattended to. And the lesson of Lupin, I think, for me is if you have higher budgets and viewers' expectations have risen along with those budgets for quality, it doesn't have to be tortured darkness or you don't have to show people things they've never seen before. Use your budget and your higher expectations more intelligently. Cast charming people in roles that they have. gotten before and bus, you know, take all the, if I'm looking at like the production board

in the studio and some of them say snare and high hat, but other ones say like pleasure centers, just push them all the way up. Yeah. People love heist movies, you know, and what's delightful about the show is I was thrilled and happy watching it. My wife was thrilled and happy watching it. At lunch yesterday, after Zoom school, my

older daughter asked about what I've been watching because it was on Netflix when they turned on TV to watch a cartoon in the morning. I told her the story of it, and she was in Chanted. Yeah. She wants to watch it because how exciting. The guy's a father and he's a thief and he did all these, you know, this is bedrock

storytelling stuff. And it's, and you know what it reminded me of in a way, one of your favorites from the past decade. You remember House MD? Sure, I do. Yeah. The thing about House, and obviously that's been imitated many times and imitated poorly, but the thing about House is that it was just Sherlock Holmes in a hospital built on a star making

performance. It was not a procedure. in the same way Gray's Anatomy was because it wasn't really, although it became more of on a soap opera, about these people. It was just someone, you know, stunting, basically and being the smartest person in the room. And that can be very, very compelling and appealing. And LuPan, you know, does it have a few too many flashbacks for my taste? Is it too much wedded to maybe his backstory and every, so far in the early going? All the things he does are connected to his own sense of self and his late father's guilt. And that's all kind of prestige TV stuff.

but at the heart of it, it's just a goof, man. He breaks into jail and he breaks out again and you love watching it. Right. No, I think it's also crucial for me. And we've talked about this a little bit about in our conversation with Sam S-Mail and we were talking about zero-hundred and some of the shows

from overseas that we had loved this year and basically getting to vicariously travel in a time when that's disallowed. To see this show, and I guess this is as good as segue as any to get to call my agent. And to see a thriving Paris and to be able to go somewhere else. And obviously, I'm sure they shoot some stuff on stages.

And I'm sure that there's like some stand-ins for different parts of Paris or whatever. But it feels like they don't necessarily have the same like hang-ups about going to the place that they're shooting. You know, like when you like and I think in American television a lot, like you have a lot of like, it's supposed to be this, but it's Louisiana. It's supposed to be this, but it's Atlanta, or it's supposed to be this, and it's Alberta or whatever. It just feels like Paris. It just looks like Paris.

People seem to be acting like they're in Paris. The people who are in the background seem to be Parisians, and it gives it a kind of sense of place and feel that I don't know if you always get with American TV these days. Yeah, and I think pivoting to call my agent, which if people have heard me say before it, another just delightful fun watch. It's about a talent agency.

in Paris and the various people who work there. And each episode is blessed with the cameo participation of someone who is impossibly famous in France. And maybe 87% of them are completely unknown to most Americans, which makes it even more fun. The guest star of the, so Call My Agent is about a film agency in Paris called S-K-A, right? A-S-K. A-S-K. A-S-G-G-L-J-S-N-W-S-N-N-E-N-N-S. Samuel Kerr, right?

and the first episode that I watched, the first episode of the first season, is about a woman named Cecil de France. And I was like, that's a little on the nose. You know, if you're going to come up with a big actress from France, you're going to call her Cecil de France. And she's a real person. And I did not know that.

We do you get to the episode where they're all raving about Joey Starr. Joey Starr is like, I guess, like the LL Cool J of France and that he was a rapper and now he's an actor. Yeah. And it's all playing on his bad boy reputation, which is non-existent, of course, to us. But I'll say, Chris, and I know you're very passionately invested

in my engagement with the Criterion Channel and classic French films. One of the funny things is, we watch on Criterion, this great-to-Vernier film A Weeks Vacation that I mentioned the other week, starring like this effervescently beautiful young Natalie, Natalie Bay. And then she's in season one with her daughter,

with Donnie Halliday. Yeah. Like, this show is actually getting legends. I mean, Juliet Beno. Monica Balucci, but also like these older titans of the French New Wave all show up to make fun of themselves. But I think the point you're making, I want to circle back. It's really, it's a fun romp, and it's there for you. The fourth season is premiering in a week. Yeah, so there, it's worth it. Lupin is five episodes, and then there will be another five episodes imminently. Call My Agent is 24 episodes in

total, and it's the first three seasons are up on Netflix. The last season is coming, and it's each six episodes per season. And I do want to just agree with what you're saying about the specificity of place. If call my agent, which is called di% or 10% in French, if that existed in America, it would be entourage. It would be terrible. It could be. It is so deeply French in the ways that make it good, just in terms of who these people are, how they relate to each other, when they stop for a quick coffee. It's just a different city and a different culture that makes it charming. And I wonder if it feels like banal or whatever to actual Parisians. I don't know how much of this is just aesthetic tourism for us. But underneath all of that,

there are some really good and charming performances. I know you particularly want to shout out our new queen, Andrea Martel. Yeah, she's great. What's the actress's name? I don't have in front of me. It's like Camille Coton, I think. Yeah. And she apparently was in, like a long time ago was in a Wes Anderson directed commercial for a Japanese phone with Brad Pitt. Speaking of things that were incepted from my brain. Seriously. And, but she's,

she's like, she plays Andrea. She's one of the agents and she's, she's my favorite. Yeah, she's, she is a power lesbian who just wrecks shop and also parties hard and is the star of the show,

basically. Yeah. Are you finding this, before we wrap up, I think we hit the idea of like the tourism of it traveling to France. Both of these shows and people, I know people are recommending the Bureau and other French show, almost like a French homeland that I embarrassingly started watching

and fell asleep during, but I will try again. We're not in any way suggesting that this is the totality of French television. Yes, right. But it is interesting and worth noting, since they are fueling our conversation today, that they are both really chill, feel good kind of shows. And I'm wondering where that's on a, on a chill, feel-good, easy-to-use service that just serves these things up to you sometimes. And if you

see it enough times, you might be like, I mean, I have to admit, the Lupin thing was also like, it just kept rising in the rankings. And usually if it's not an animated snowman or 7,000 bad dates, you know, or something like that, like, I will check out something that seems to be popping off on Netflix just because I'm fairly certain a lot of people are watching it. The wisdom of crowds. Listen to you. Well, both of these shows, though, are, crowd pleasers. I think both of these shows, I mean, I guess I could see you coming. Look, I don't know who a lot of the people who are the guest stars of Call My Agent R, but it does, I'm not even watching for those people. I'm watching for the agents. So it's really, it's been kind of cool. It's a lovely

workplace. But I'm sure in Paris people are watching and they're like, I can't believe Julia Pinoche is going to be on, you know, like, I'm sure that's more the way it is. Well, that's also in my house. That's also in your house. We can wrap it up there, so we highly recommend those two shows. Andy and I will be back on Monday. We know it's a holiday, but we wanted do Wanda Vision, and so we'll be back on Monday to discuss the newest Marvel TV show. Maybe I don't think Captain America will be in it, so, you know. I can't believe you stepped on it. I heard it's like a David Lynch show, and I imagine that means that either old Steve Rogers

or Elephant Man Steve Rogers will be in this. That's right. Great to see you, man. I hope we have a good weekend. Have a great long holiday.