The Watch - The Writers Strike Is Over: Now What? Plus, ‘The Gold’ Episodes 1-3

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Chris and Andy talk about the news that the WGA has reached a deal with the AMPTP to end the writers strike (1:00) and what the TV landscape might look like in the wake of this agreement (21:50). Then, they talk about the first three episodes of ‘The Gold,’ a heist show so well done that it transcends the limits of its genre (37:15). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Note: This episode was recorded prior to details of the WGA agreement being released. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about the albums you love would dissect, a music analysis podcast hosted by me, Cole Kushna, a lifelong musician. Each season of Dysect dives deep into one album, examining the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. We've covered albums by Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the creator, Frank Ocean, just to name a few, and our brand new season just launched all about Radiohead's 2007 masterpiece in rainbows. Listen to Dissect on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, because a great art deserves more than a swipe. 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? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, guselcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. Running connects us to a rush of energy that flows through our world.

The cheers of friends that unlock a new gear within us, the intersection of interest that inspires a run crew, the support that gets you over the finish line. Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. I need supports to have to clear the 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. He's here to smelt gold and strike against Hollywood. And he's all out of striking. It's Andy Greenwald. That's amazing. How'd you do that?

I don't know. Andy, what's up, man? It's beautiful to see your face virtually. We're going remote today because I just got back from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was for an event with my colleague and buddy Tyler Parker for his debut novel, A Little Blood and Dancing. we were in Tulsa to do an event with Magic City books and Circle Cinemas. I'll give you a little travelogue, Rosillo style a little later today.

Fantastic to see you, though. How are you doing, man? I'm great. First of all, I wish we could be together. I guess I thought you were still going to be in Oklahoma, which is why we were remote, but I realize, in fact, you're just sort of like, you're quarantining, right? You just sort of... No, I mean, I've just been up since like four PST, and I had to drive back from LAX,

so I didn't think I could make it into the office to see your beautiful face. I thought your ideas would just be too goddamn dangerous after your time in the heartland. It's great to see you. Thank you for showing up, being here for this podcast. It's a great day. I was ready to rock yesterday,

but I didn't want to make you do long toss on the Jewish New Year. Not the New Year, but thank you. David Tonement. That's right. David Tonement. That's my bad. That's something you could atone for next year.

Do you just walk up to a lot of people who hadn't eaten in 24 hours and you're like, Happy New Year, bud! All the Jews of Tulsa. Thank you. Yeah. No, it was good to take off yesterday for two reasons. One, for the holiday.

But also, I kind of thought that we would have more details about this wonderful, fantastic, I'm not being sarcastic. I think it's going to be good, tentative deal between the Writers Guild of America and the AMPTP. We do not have many details now at record time. but that's never stopped podcasters before. And I think we can still get into it.

Well, we got a little bit of juice from the Hollywood Reporter who did a little bit of a behind-the-scenes story about the late game negotiations that went on between the studios and the Writers Guild. And people we listen to on podcasts, like Matt Bellany and Lucas Shaw, have been just very confident saying that there were gains in certain areas.

And people seem to have a pretty definitive sense of the shape of the deal. We'll see how accurate that is. Okay, so let's talk a little. little bit about, I think it's interesting because I know that you're, you're wearing two hats here. You're both a podcaster about popular culture and the entertainment industry and a member of said industry. You make the widgets and then you critique them. And it puts you in a complicated space sometimes. No notes. That's the way to do it. But I think everybody would, you know,

love to hear your insight about like how you heard about this on Sunday. Did it basically break on Twitter for you? So here's the way, here's the way it went. And by the way, I should say for people who are less industry-minded, we are going to talk about our current favorite show, the gold, right? Hell yeah. Through the third episode a little bit later in the show. So here's basically the state of play as I saw it.

And I think that I felt pretty calm and relatively optimistic for at least a week now. Last Wednesday was the first day that the AMPTP and the Writers Guild sat down for negotiations in weeks, not since the now infamous meeting in which I'm referring to as the TED Talk, where apparently this is not confirmed, but this has been reported or suggested by numerous people

that in a room full of the WGA negotiating committee and the four executives who have involved themselves in the proceedings, Ted Sarando's from Netflix, Donald Langley from Universal, David Zazelav from WBD and Bob Iger from Disney, Ted lectured the writers about how this deal was the best and final and how they should really take it. I'll tell you how they took it. Not great.

There had been no conversation since then. But on Wednesday, they sat down and talked again with those four executives in the room. They talked late into the night, and then at the end of the night, they said they were going to talk again the next day. And I'm no expert, but that seemed like a sign that we were going to wrap this thing up one way or not. Yeah. Yeah. You have a tendency sometimes to see the glasses half empty a little bit or a little bit. You get a little worried. But you were very chill this weekend. I had to say that. I think there were a couple things. You were less chill during the 74 texts you sent about Jalen Hertz's first half performance against Tampa 8 bucks.

I'm still a little bit shaky. And what's funny about that, nothing was funny about it. But what was a little bit funny is I was getting texts from other friends being like, your QB looks great. This team's going to win it all. I guess perspective matters in all things. Yeah. So there was a clear sense that this needed to end. This needed to come to a resolution. And I'm not saying that because of, you know, shareholder fourth quarter reports. I'm not saying that because of rumors of showrunner or mutinies.

I'm just saying because it was fucking time to get back to work. I think that was really clear. And once it was clear that the two sides were actively working it out, in a room negotiating towards good faith negotiating towards a result, I got real calm. Because at that point, they're in the room, they're going to figure it out, there's going to be a deal, it's going to be brought to the membership. Chances are if it's good enough to bring to the membership, the membership will vote for it. That is still TBD. There hasn't even been a vote set. And you haven't even seen deal points yet. No. Like you haven't seen any bullets of like what this is.

I think that may be coming as soon as this evening. From what I understand, the leadership of the guild has to vote. before it is brought to us, and then we then as a membership vote on it. There's still a chance that could all happen as quickly as this week. Once it starts to happen, it could happen really fast. But, you know, part of the reason why this got really, really intense and hard and supercharged, especially among more high-profile showrunners, is that, like, there's just no control here at a certain point. Like, we're not in the room. We are not members of the negotiating committee.

We are not living and dying by this. we cannot affect what's happening at a certain point. And so I just was choosing to be like there's going to be a deal to look at. And until then, I'm going to live my life and celebrate this, you know, this wonderful Jewish New Year. Yeah. It's like, it happened a week ago. How often do you get to just let it pop off at midnight like this, right? That's not how Jewish New Year works.

No. Is that, can you imagine like for years you were having some wild blowout at midnight? You're like, happy Jewish New Year. Just some slang. Anyway, yeah, so there was no way of knowing what or when it was going to happen. But when they kept working and they kept working into the weekend, it seemed clear that something was coming. I was not glued to my phone. I found out when my friend Allison, who's a writer, said, texted me simply deal question mark.

That's cool. That seemed to be the case. And I don't know. I could be wrong about this. but I feel pretty optimistic because of the conditions in which this was negotiated and the spirit which was negotiated. I think it seems pretty solid. So I don't want to get too deep into the like watching the watchman thing where it's like now we're going to like kind of basically oversee how people are reacting to this, right?

But I think there's a couple of themes that have come out of the reporting, whether it's been in industry newsletters or on Twitter or whatever, that I'd like to just. kind of like myth bust with you a little bit, right? So if I, if you don't mind me asking, so I think one thing that is definitely arisen out of this is this idea that like, why did it have to come to this? And do you think that that is something that has a simple answer? And I don't, I mean, I think that obviously there's an implication that the studios thought that the writers would cave earlier, right? And that they would be like, actually, never mind about AI, you guys can have it or something like that. Or we don't need minimum staffing and

rooms, but that this this protracted or even just this long labor stoppage was somehow unnecessary. I think, I mean, there's a couple ways to consider the question. I think, I think one is that there was a fundamental misread of the cultural and political moment by the members of the AMPTP. And you can see that in practice with the way that they handled themselves in the weeks leading up to and after the strike with the usually completely smooth and reading the room Bob Eiger's comments at Sun Valley, that there was a real misunderstanding, not just of the mood within the Writers Guild, but just sort of the mood of the labor force in America writ large. And we're seeing it play out in other industries, including the auto industry.

And I think I said this on the podcast last week, is a protracted labor stoppage and strike the best avenue with which to articulate all of the grievances we feel as American citizens in the Year of Our Lord, 2023, might not be, but if you're lucky enough to be in a union, it is one of the few levers available to pull. And so it got pulled and it got pulled hard. I think the other cultural and political misread was just the unionizing, unifying power, I think in this case, in a good way of social media and texts and, you know, just the way that people could be communicating, which really aligned people and kept people in line to a degree that hadn't happened in the

past. Now, I want to be careful when I say that because I've seen some reporting and conversations suggesting that this was a, like, a Twitter shaming situation, right, where if anyone dared question the guild leadership, they didn't do so because they were afraid of just getting canceled. I don't think that's necessarily the case. I do think that broadly, there was quite a bit of unity in the necessity of this action. And I think that, again, the avenues of communication that were open allowed people to communicate and even vent or disagree out of the public eye, which allowed the union to stay strong public. Now, why it took this long? I think that the things that are usually negotiated in three-year-long MBAs, which is what we're going to be ratifying

again, meaning this could all happen again in 26. I think the basic financial stuff, I have no way of knowing, but I would imagine it is not too dissimilar from what was offered in April and May. I bet we got some bumps, some boosts in terms of just floors for script fees and et cetera, et cetera. But that wasn't what the last three months were about. The normal raises cost of doing business were baked in, I think, early on. The stuff that the studio said they were just not even going to, not even move significantly on, but not willing to engage in at all are the things that you mentioned.

AI, minimum staffing, success-based metrics for residual payments in the streaming era. They weren't willing to do that at all. And as recently as August, their best and final was, yeah, you can find out how successful shows are. We'll let two members of the guild

into a dark room and share data with them every so often that you can negotiate on in three years. So when they said they weren't going to do those things, and then three months later, they have apparently done those things. Again, not a total win because these deals always have to have some measure of compromise, but the fact that they did some of them means that's what it was for,

that we, you know, unionized and unified and demonstrated force and got what was necessary, hopefully. So one of the things that I was really curious to hear your thoughts on was, obviously the phrase that's gone along with the strike has been Pennsdown. No work to it being done. In the interim, since the writers went on strike, the actors also went on strike. So does that mean that the Writers Guild and members are essentially waiting out this actor strike as well?

Or will there be some sort of wheels of motion starting to turn in terms of like things getting sold, shows being written for this season, people going back to work, finishing X movie or Y series? Judging by the voicemails that I got from producers that I'm working with during the non-Jewish New Year yesterday, I get the sense that people are itching to get back to is any level of work that you can get back to. But you're right, production can't really get back going again. Things like talk shows can get started again. But production, this dependent on actors, cannot. Again, I have no unique or special insight into this.

But what has been communicated to me is, we don't know, but there, well, one step back before I even say what's been communicated to me. The actors and the AMPTP have had no formal communication or negotiation since the actors walked out in July. None. That said, every successful negotiation with the AMPTP sets a floor and a pattern for the next negotiation. One of the things that the actors and writers were aligned on was success-based metrics and a

change in how you consider residuals and also some AI language, obviously with different specifics. Any gains we made in those areas that are relevant set a floor for the next negotiations, including the actors. So once that door has been opened, they could potentially walk through it and get more of what they want, which is a great, great thing. There's no way of knowing this. People seem to be assuming this is just going to be an easy one-two thing. It might not be. But it could be. It could be that with the spirit of good faith, like we can get things done and we're willing to talk about formerly taboo things, the AMPTP could reach out to Fran Dresher, and Duncan Crabtree Ireland next week

and say let's sit down and let's not leave the room until we figured out. And in that scenario, everyone could be back to work by Thanksgiving, a traditional time of great busyness in Hollywood. That was the thing is that it seems like the calendar had so much of a role to play in how things have worked out over the last couple of months

because summer too is also a traditionally somewhat sleepy time in terms of deal-making and production, am I right? I mean, I think that there's some that goes on. It's now a 12-month-a-year business not so much of spring fall one, but it was this idea that like, oh, when everybody gets back from Labor Day, we'll, we'll fix this and we'll get going. And then it was like, well, this is now dragging on until close to October. And we're getting to the point where if we wanted get, I think I saw Warren Light who did SVU for a while, had a thread about like, if this happens in the next week, we can still get like 13 episode seasons done for network. Like, and just like these ideas that like, like, Like, maybe, you know, and that doesn't account for the fine print, the actors, and everything else that needs to happen. Yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty, and like with everything, there's a huge desire now

to just fill this blank space with assumptions that we're going to, everything's going to get back rolling again. It is true that there's a ton of work that was just like left idling on the runway. Yeah. Shows that could be post that could be finished. Dust is settling on the stranger thing sets, you know? Like somebody's got to go. that blow the mites off of the table, you know?

And if someone does, let's thank them. Or they could just be like, this is the upside down now. So we can just build it. I was going to say, whoever is undusting or dusting. Dusting sounds like putting dust on, but that's actually taking dust away. Take it off. Yeah. Whoever that person is, he or she is definitely Ayatzi, and we owe them a debt of gratitude and thank you for their service.

Yeah. Duster's local. I think the thing that some people may continue to harp on, just to go back to your question, is like, why did it take so long? Do you remember some of the conversation in the summer? There was a lot of, like, hand-wringing of, like, where are the grown-ups? Like, who are the adults? Who are the wise old lions of Hollywood that are going to come in and settle everyone down? I think it was the idea that in 2007, during the 2007 strike, that Peter Chernin played a huge role of, like, bringing the families to the table, right?

I think he's remembered that way. People still admire him for that, and I'm sure that. This was a moment that needed someone to say, like, we, for the sake of this industry, need to come together and talk, right? The other narrative that that lingers from 2007, 2008 is that the WGA cracked and fractured, that there was referred to internally as the dirty 30 of showrunners who are just like, enough already. Oh, we're going to go back to working.

I don't think I ever heard of that. I mean, by this point in that strike, not by this point, sorry, because now we may have reached a deal, but do you remember the screenwriter John Ridley? threw his hands up at the guild and went, it's called FICOR, where he's like, I will abide by these principles, but I'm no longer a member of this union. It was a lot more contentious in ways that I think,

I wasn't part of that, of the union that I was not part of the strike. And we also weren't really on Twitter to be like, John Ridley, like, come get your band, you know? He was not, yes, it was very, it was very different. I think what was interesting to see, and again, we were just live tweeting Knicks games back then,

you know, like, goddamn Jeremy Lynn. It was a simpler time in so many ways. I thought it was interesting to see that at least as much as the reporting that's, you know, that's very, it's source, but it's not credited can be believed, like, or the Hollywood reporter story you're talking about, like the calls of maturity were actually coming from within the house that it seems like. Yeah, it was a Kim Masters and Leslie Goldberg story in the Hollywood Reporter. Who are both deeply respected, deeply source writers who have the respect to people on both sides

of this particular divide that Bob Eiger and Chris Kaiser, who people might not know, but is a central figure in this. He's a former president of the Writers Guild West, key member of the negotiating committee, and the co-creator of Party of Five, he got on the phone with Eiger and sort of said, like, let's get back in the room. Yeah, because it sounded like there was some ambiguity

about who was supposed to call who. Isn't that silly, though? Like, I didn't believe that, but that really is what froze things for a while. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's something interesting about the manners of it, like, you know, where it's like who's supposed to call, who's going to take the lead, who's going to be the person who's like the talent whisperer, which is according to the Hollywood reporter, that was Donna Langley. It's all really fascinating. I think that you and I have definitely felt, you know, obviously I have a lot of just personal sympathy for you in the situation and everything. And I think you and I have felt like over the last couple of weeks as we've been podcasting where it does feel. like we can't separate the situation from the art, you know, like where you're thinking about

Sterling Harjo ending this run of reservation dogs and not getting a chance to really talk about it. The performers on that show, not really talking about it. It seems like a real sad kind of outcome to have done this third season of this revered show

and not been able to celebrate it properly. I'm sure that they will privately, but it doesn't seem like, you know, super fair. And I think that that's, you know, you could be said for all. a lot of stuff that's come out over the last couple of months that's kind of either been overshadowed by the narrative about the strike or just because people haven't really been

able to promote their work and talk about it. I think we've seen pretty firsthand, like, how important it is that like if you're, if you've got so-and-so in a show, so-and-so's got to like get out there and, and sell their wares because there's so much stuff at the market. Like, people need, need reasons to check things out beyond Chris and Andy being like, that was dope. Yeah, I think this is a moment. of hopefully of celebration and I hopefully the same can be said of the actors soon I think everybody in the writers go hopes that to be the case separate and apart from you know getting movies back on time but like these guys need to get back to work and they need to get a figure out too phase five gets going you know

I know I can't I mean how mad is this multiverse you know what I mean like I don't feel like we've only scratched the surface on that I was like stuck in quantum mania just like god damn it what happens. But do you know what I was able to do since I had more free time is I was able to really read The Darkhold. You know, I feel like I've only seen adaptations of it. I've heard people talk about it. But like when you get into the text, it's, it's pretty racy. Well, I mean, are you, but is that the government's version of the Darkhold? Like, is that what they wanted you to see? Yeah, I think that's the question. I got the Robert Kennedy Jr. version of the Darkold. He's just asking the questions. Some of my homies have been Tulsa hooked me up. Did they? Yeah, there was a reading room. They let me

Really, for the protocols of Darkhold? You had to read, wear some gloves. We were just celebrating the new year together. I think that's the question. I mean, this is a moment of celebration, and I hope that the gains are significant, and I hope that they are able to, like, sustain people and sustain careers and sort of change the trajectory of all of this. But that set, and also, I do think it's really good, even just on a human level, that

people were able to sit back down at the table in good faith, because I do believe, and or maybe I just want to believe that the intensity of the rhetoric didn't really permeate that room once they were actually in the room. Like, we will ding David Zazlov for many things. And I think he's made some very strange choices, both in terms of his half-zip wardrobe, but also in terms of his business dealings. But from everything that we've heard or everything that he's even reported in this, he wanted to get the deal done and was in the room to facilitate getting the deal done.

Now, is that self-interest? Yes. But also people were, I hope, giving it their best shot in there to steer the industry back on course, which is what they should be doing. That said, there's an enormous incalculable cost of this labor stoppage that it still is not resolved. Talent drain, brain drain, people just priced out, not just writers and actors, but people who work on crews who are just giving up, leaving town or leaving the towns where the production usually is, like Albuquerque or Atlanta, Vancouver, people just not coming back to this industry, feeling abandoned by it. That's a huge loss.

And then the industry, when it comes back, we don't know what it was. will look like. Yeah, I was going to... Despite the gains made for writers, there are going to be fewer shows. I was going to say... This great contraction is coming. Yeah, I would almost be fascinated.

This would be a really incredible time to talk to Landgraf. John Landgraf who runs FX, who usually gives a kind of state of the union about TV and has been, you know, at the forefront of talking about this idea of prestige TV into peak TV, into the TV bubble. And now we've had this sort of like almost force majeure thing happen. And you wonder what? whether it's going to be changing the way that things get made

so that they are made specifically for ad tiers of streaming services and they need to be sort of supported by like the ad dollars in the almost old school cable or network television way or whether we're just going to see straight up just like fewer shows being made. I think we're going to see straight up fewer shows being made. That seems like an almost an inevitability. And whether it was intentionally provocative or it was just the way the calendar shook out, it was bracing to see that as soon as the news about a deal being made broke,

almost as soon. Within 24 hours, Stars was like, yeah, we're canceling four shows. Yeah. Heels, the wrestling show, run the world, blind spotting, which had real fans that I regret that I never got the chance to check it out. And then another show. Yeah, Venerie of Samantha Bird. Which I can think was maybe even shot, or they started production and they're just not going to continue it. Yeah, it was in production on its first season. I think the other thing that people have no idea about is how has this, the effects of the strike and the larger industry trends that were in motion before the strike. I think the Hollywood Reporter story says this really well, that like people might be tempted to say before strikes, after strikes, but really prestige, this is just part of the story of a change in how we make and process and produce TV. What are the appetites going to be?

What is the marketplace? both because like with the easing of some COVID protocols, there was just a ton of stuff on the runway and a ton of stuff already sold that hadn't gotten, you know, that's going to be sucking up resources and keeping things, keeping other things on ice until there's more opportunity for them to get into prep

and into production. But also like, what do people, what do audiences want? What do the streamers think they want and what's their risk tolerance? And I've heard two different versions of that. talking to some producers and people, the word I got was a little bit sobering. That definitely risk-taking is out. And that doesn't necessarily mean all IP again because that no longer seems

necessarily risk-averse to do IP because when you do IP, you end up spending a billion dollars on Hobbits and not everyone has the ability to do that or eat that. Right. What it means is, and I feel partly responsible for that, people want hijack. Now, you and I would be happy with more hijack or shows like hijack. I think that there has been a disconnect in terms of like giving audiences cheeseburgers, let alone gourmet cheeseburgers, because, you know, I like to eat high-end food, but I also like cheeseburgers.

But if it's give me a hijack instead of taking a flyer on, this is totally arbitrary, but like Michaela Cole's next show, whatever. Sure. Or hijack instead of how to with John Wilson or something. right like it's like the kinds of things that I think people started to characterize as uh benefits of the sort of freewheeling

nature of of streamers where it was like we have to fill this infinite library with stuff like let's try let's just get things that then try them yeah like you could make that argument i think that i have a larger thing i'd like to discuss with you in in relationship to the gold about quality television and making things that like actually function as whether it's a three episode, six episode, 10 episode, whatever television show, like actually reward viewers for watching the entire episode and then starting the next one and not just kind of teasing one big plot thing that could just be

wrapped up in 40 minutes and it takes four hours. I agree. And it obviously it suits both my interests and my other career to say this. But I have to believe that they, there is an appetite for ambition and quality. And that, you know, regardless of the market forces that are nipping at their heels, like, HBO knows what HBO does and what it does well. And if you look at what's been successful for them in terms of, like, people talking about it or in terms of winning Emmys and being seen, like, succession is still succession. Yeah.

Succession is not risk averse and was not an obvious win and was not IP based, you know. and it wasn't star-packed or packaged from the beginning. That's what works for them. Is that hard to do? Yes, but I think they understand that that's still what works. And I've said this before on the podcast. I'll keep saying it in hopes that, you know, whatever development executives and people in the town listen, hear me say it.

Like, one of the exciting things about being on the picket lines with other writers and other actors was just a shared excitement to do good stuff. And I know that sounds kind of trite, but like, I keep mentioning that article that I'm sorry for getting the author's name wrote in GQ about like let's bring back 90s legal thrillers. Like, yeah, let's do that. I think the person who gets a really good script and casts good actors in it and then does a theatrical release is going to be rewarded with good box office. Sure. I just, I know that sounds simple.

I would like to think that. Yeah. I do think so. I don't want to, I just, I don't, I feel like there's a lot of, remember like a couple months ago and everyone's like there's going to be a recession and everyone started firing people and laying people off as if there was going to be a recession because they wanted to be like 4D galaxy chess. Like I'm going to be in front of this thing. Sure. And then there wasn't a recession and everyone got laid off anyway. I feel like there is a tendency particularly in creative fields to be like, well, coming out of this, you know, we're just

going to have to just to shovel meat and potatoes into the audience's mouth again until they say, mm-mm, give me more. Yeah. I don't think that's necessarily true. And not take three more dollars of my money a month Amazon. I don't want to have to watch. Because that's the other thing. Yeah. Even Amazon is just like, guess what, it's all ads now unless you pay even more money to us. This is a side reference to the fact that any of one of us who has free shipping or Prime Service has gotten the TV service for free as well. Now you will have to, you will still have access to Prime Video, but unless you pay more, like $3 more a month, I guess, you will also have ads every time you turn up the service. It's not just my small sample size of like, oh, chatting with Tim Simons on the line.

literally like all the movie houses that are in LA and I imagine it's similar in other cities where they are showing good movies from the 80s and from the 90s are packed with people who are a lot younger than us seeing good movies. I don't know if there is if there was like a podcast where people watched old movies and talked about them in a joking way and they did live versions of that podcast, I bet it would do really well. You know, Sean and Amanda have been talking about this a lot about the, I mean, honestly, energy that they feel when when they've done introductions for reps, theater, screenings of movies. Manda did Talented Mr. Ripley recently.

Obviously, I was over there in London with them when we did Phantom Thread. Sean's done a bunch of stuff recently over at Vidyots and Eagle Rock. I just did kind of this with Raising Arizona in Oklahoma. And in Tulsa, we were like, yo, like, so we were kind of keeping it a little secret about what we were going to show, I think just to kind of add a little mystery to it. And then when we were like, we're showing Raising Arizona, I don't know, there was like 80 people there and and I said how many people have seen it and they were all

probably younger than I am and they all raised their hands and then they were all psyched to go see Raising Arizona again. And I think one thing that has been interesting to see over the last couple of years since COVID as these theaters seem to get more and more momentum and like letterbox becomes more of a thing driving people to check out old movies is there is a sense of event and community around this. Like when you see Manhunter is playing this week in Santa Monica and Michael Mann is going to be there, I would love to be there too. You know,

and we kind of fed off of that energy for a long time off of Sunday nights of like the feeling that everybody was going to be home on Sunday night watching one of these two shows. And when I say everybody, I mean, my people listen to the watch, not necessarily everybody in America. But, you know, that's, I only ever feel that energy now when, I go see a rep screening of something, or I'm watching Sunday night football

and the bar is full. I completely agree with you, and I don't think, I know small sample size theater is a thing when we're like, yeah, I looked out my window here in coastal Los Angeles and saw people enjoying something.

I'm not trying to write the Thomas Friedman version of this podcast. Yeah. But I was having a great talk with our buddy. Sir, what if the greens were sweet and in a bowl? This is a billion-dollar idea,

sharks. I was having a great talk with our buddy, Brian Raftery, who hosts great podcasts for The Ringer, including the new podcast about Vietnam movies. We get to win this time. People should check that out. And he was saying the same thing about rep theater screenings

being packed with younger people. And his point, which I'm sorry to borrow, but I think it was a great one, which is they're loving this because they know they're not getting this from movies. Now, we mostly talk about TV, but I think this is relevant too, which is there's a very cynical group thing

that can dominate within, this industry, which is like, well, young people don't want to watch this because they've got the TikTokers on their phones and they just want quibbys and they want something shorter and dumber all the time. They don't. They did not want quibby. The thing is that they can do, instead of having their phone and iPad and Nintendo Switch open at the same time as this episode of House the Dragon, is they can spend money and go out and see a good movie that warrants warmth and interaction and response and maybe is a little bit ambiguous or artistic or interesting or bizarre. You can still get that now and they're going to get it. So they're going to go out and find it.

And remember that too in the TV space where people are just rewatching the West Wing or they're just rewatching Breaking Bad or whatever the example is, hopefully just zero zero zero, you know, stuff that's more relevant to our podcast's interest. But like TV industry coming out of this work stoppages. When we get out of both of them, I think legitimately has an opportunity to say, we're going to get you back. We're going to do something. We're going to try to tap into that audience, as opposed to saying, well, it's already gone for cynical reasons. I hope it's not like, you know, what's great is centrism, you know? I love that Mitt Romney story. But you know what I mean? Like, it, I hope it's nothing, it hasn't fractured so much that the most, because I feel like we've

done a lot of like the sky is falling talk about the decay of uh appointment television and the idea that like you know we have all gathered around this like dumb light box in our room to watch this thing and then feel something about it and reality 98% of the country is busy with their jobs and their kids and their fantasy leagues and whatever else and they fucking cannot watch gold at the same time as everybody else nor do they really feel like paying for paramount plus other than for Taylor Sheridan shows. And I don't mean that as like, that honestly same,

you know, like if it was me. But I think we can still like strive for that. And I think we can still like, I just wonder whether or not like there are certain things that have been broken beyond repair. And one of them is making a television show that feels like it's at the center of culture for eight weeks.

I agree. I just want to, I guess what I want to try and separate for the purposes of this totally speculative conversation we're having is, um, is process versus reception. Sure. You know, I don't think you can ever program for all of America

and have something be good anyway. I mean, the best shows of the last few years sounded a little wonky on paper. Even Game of Thrones was a not, you know, was a little bit, people were quite skeptical of it. Yeah. You know, of combining these things into one show for this audience on this network.

I think what I'm hoping to do, the reason I'm feeling more passionate at this particular moment is this is a moment of restarting. Yes. And my worry is that people will restart with the same anxieties and fears and catastrophizing that they entered into the strike and thinking, well, it's all going to hell anyway, so we might as well just grease the skids and try and keep my job for as long as I can. When I think that there are anecdotal evidence and yet rep screenings in big cities is a little bit of a,

I don't know what I would pass the Nate Silver test. But yes, exactly. People want to watch stuff. And they are willing to be challenged a little bit more than I think people who make television and make movies have realized or anticipated. And even assuming the worst in people, one of the worst things you can assume or the broadest brushes you can paint with is that human beings are just generally reactive and just going to swing one way or swing the opposite way. I don't know what would make you think that. Exactly. But if the way things have swung has led us to the marvels coming out in theaters in a month,

why don't we just try nudging it swinging it the other way? You know, like, let's just see. Like, what if you did try a big movie that wasn't that? Oppenheimer is going to make a billion dollars. And I think the entirety of that lesson shouldn't be Christopher Nolan makes popular movies because he did Batman three times. I don't think that's the answer. Right. I also realize I want to just, like, I realize that we're, I'm picky, I'm cherry-picking examples in a lot of them

movies and we're trying to talk about TV. It's a, it's a complicated thing to try to get your arms around. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandual Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predicted from the couch. 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. 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. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sideline. same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. 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, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game

or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day. Don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your beds and come on through. Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. Comfort in. It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song. Book direct at storeshiltails.com.

All right. Well, I think one thing that I've learned over these last few months, especially as we've kind of been starting a lot of things, it feels like, for better or for worse, is that I think almost anything can be good, if done well. And I know that that is, I don't mean to make that sound opaque,

but I think the gold is an example of a show that is so expertly done that it transcends any limitations of genre and also of translatability. Because I was just really laughing to myself watching this third episode and being like, didn't know I needed an associate's degree in Freemasonry to understand like basically how this series hinges. Andy, so the goal is a show that you and I are pretty much adore. it's not that surprising because it's very much in our wheelhouse. It's set in the early 80s in England. It follows the fallout from a huge gold bullion heist in London. And what happens in both the crime and criminal side of things after they kind of decide that they need to liquidate this huge hall that's been stolen from a safe house or a safe in London. It's written and created by Neil Forsyth.

It's been directed by a couple of people, but Neil Caria, Neil Caria. I directed the first and third episodes. And it's got this really cool, you know, obviously self-consciously vintage, like film stock kind of look, but also a little bit of like a Michael Mann sort of meditative tonality to it that I really like, that I'm obviously very, very much in the bag for that kind of thing. It starts Jack Loudon, who people might remember from Dunkirk as one of the pilots with Tom Hardy and who's obviously in our beloved slow horses along with Gary Oldman. It's got this thing that it's been doing, though, in every episode is like, you've talked

a lot about like, oh, you know, writers, TV writers, they like to clear the whiteboard. Like, whatever ideas you have in a season, you want to get them out and, like, worry about the next season and the next season. And they're doing something like that, but in a different way with the gold. Every episode ends in a different place than I would have thought it would. So the first episode of the gold is pretty much your traditional heist. You see the heist, you see people reacting to the heist having happened. The people who did the heist need to figure out a way to get away with it.

And then it turns out that this show is not going to be about the robbers. It's going to be about the fences. And it's going to be about the money men. And it's not going to be about the two detectives who caught the case. It's going to be about the guy who comes in over the top of them to take over the case. and they pull this trick now three times pretty much where the episode ends at a place where I'm like, isn't that the end of the season?

Yes. And it reorients what kind of show it is at the end of every hour, but never loses its propulsiveness, its tension, the feeling like you're watching great genre fiction come to life. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, well, the show doesn't settle. That's what I really love about it. it obviously didn't settle with its casting. I mean, you were mentioning some of the characters in Jack Loudon, but also Tom Cullen, who's a great actor himself, playing kind of against type. I think he was on, like, Vikings or something, and here he is playing an illiterate smelter.

So maybe not that far from a Viking. That's a great point. I'm like, he went from being one kind of a brute to another. I guess he's just less buff as a day-drinking smelter. That's pretty much, let me rephrase. What a brave actor to eat carbs in preparation for this role, but he's really good. But Hugh Bonneville playing definitely against type from Downabby and Paddington as the sort of incredibly immaculate, the top cop who comes in to run the investigation.

But what I, and it's certainly not lacking in ambition in its visuals. You were pointing, we've been talking about how the show just looks interesting always. But what I really want to highlight is exactly what you were getting at, which is this show refuses to only be about. the thing that would have been enough. We were in the bag for a British heist show that had new order on the soundtrack. Yeah. We were already going to watch. If it had just been Mickey McAvoy and Ken, Kenny are trying to get away with it. I would have been like, this is cool. Is Dominic Cooper their lawyer? That's cool too. Like. And that would have been, and I say this with great respect for both ends of it, that's the hijack version of the show. And we liked hijack. We spent six episodes having

great time with it. But the other thing that motivated Neil Forsyce to tell the story was he was interested in some essential concepts of being British or being English in this case. And the class divide. So are all his characters. Yeah. They sure are. And they love to talk about it. The class divide that predates this, this job and also clearly continues on to this day. And so the larger, he's using the initial crime and all of the great genre storytelling that he's not shying away from. in the service of a larger, more even to, I think genuinely intellectual project. And that's causing us to be engaged on two levels, which is all I'm asking for entertainment going forward, if possible, when possible.

But it's also keeping us on our toes. And I absolutely did a, there should be, if we ever do this thing we've talked about sometimes, like a cobbling together, like a new glossary for how to watch TV these days, there has to be a word, and we haven't come up with it yet, for when you have to, frantically check your phone or IMDB to see how many episodes are there? Yes. Because you were right that at the end of one, it pivoted into being a different thing. But I was like, okay, pilot sometimes do that, a bait and switch. You think it's this, but it's that. Rarely do you get to the end of the third episode as we did and think, but isn't that the show? Yeah. What else is there? And then you realize,

oh, you're actually, you've bought a ticket for a much longer ride, and that makes me pretty, I find that pretty compelling. So in the specifics, and if you guys haven't watched the gold yet, we highly encourage you to, we're going to spoil it to some extent, but this is still very much unfolding so that you can probably hear some of what we say and still enjoy it. The second episode is very forensic. So it's both how Kenny, who's the Jack Loudon character and John, are going to set up this, it reminded me of the honorable schoolboy, like the money seam thing, where they're just going to basically wash this money through South London real estate and various bank accounts.

They start by taking pure gold. They mix it with costume jewelry, essentially, like people's gold from around their house that they're buying at West Country Fares. And they put it together in a smelter in this guy, John's backyard, and come up with basically less good-looking gold to sell in various places, but to these primary buyers that they've got. on the other side of the coin,

Boyce, who's the Hugh Bonneville character and is this sort of legendary detective inspector, is put together this team, and he's had them start looking into all these different places where these guys could possibly be foulable. You know, where along the chain of these decisions could we get at these guys? They've already captured the robbers,

but they still are having issues finding the gold, and in that sense, they're larger criminals. And there's a really interesting moment in the second episode where you realize that for Boyce, who has made his name and made his bones in Northern Ireland and doing almost like a wartime general, cops and robbers is not interesting to him. And the moment when it seems like they could catch the robbers and collect the gold is almost dull. As soon as the gold is gone as it's gone at the end of the first episode. But when I say gone, it's like the cops don't have the easy we got the robbers we can find it. He's suddenly more interested because all of a sudden he, almost as if he's a character in a television show like the gold, realizes what happens to it. And the way you can watch it move through the body of a society like barium on an x-ray is ultimately more revealing and potentially more dangerous because it could extend almost anywhere.

I mean, in that, it takes some of the DNA of the wire, which was always about the larger story. even though it didn't skimp on, to use your word, the forensic details. Yeah, and I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but the wire is exactly the show that I was thinking about, but it's very much the way that TV has changed over the last 15 years or whatever since the wire's been off, 20 years since the wire's been off at 15,

where the wire took 25 episodes to get where the gold got in three. Is one better than the other? If it's going to be the wire, it's the wire. you know, like, if it's good. There are other shows where I'm like, you guys could really get to the point a lot faster here. Like, I know Marty Bird, you're driving around the Lake of the Ozarks again to have a conversation about how you need to get out, but you're not going to.

But like, the way that the gold is moving through this story keeps it very electrifying for the viewer, especially at a time when like your eyes are being competed for by so many other places. I also just think it's really cool to see even if it's a little bit on the nose, like all these characters just being like, I want to arrest someone who doesn't speak like me. You know, I'd like for once to like bust somebody who's actually making money off of these crimes rather than just the people committing them in the in the physical sense. So that part is incredible.

Charlotte Spencer, I think it is. She who plays Detective Jennings, Nick? Charlotte Spencer. Yeah. She's really good. Like, she could be like a thing soon. Like that was, I've been kind of blown away by the. way that she's moving through this world. I agree. I feel the same way about Emineli,

who plays her partner, is a Scottish actor. Also, just the through lines. Like, again, they're playing with, it's a loose canvas, because we don't know this story. And some of it is historically accurate, and then a lot of liberties are being taken. Was there actually a male and female partnership from a local fly-in squad that basically got promoted onto the task force and then went to Sierra Leone and excelled and did all these things? We don't know. But that's just smart storytelling and smart story construction. I don't want to let one point you made go, which I thought was really good and relevant

to our larger discussion from the beginning of the podcast, which is, you know, you're pointing out how TV has changed and like the wire took all this time to get to a point that the show kind of begins at or assumes. I think the goal for whatever comes next in TV

shouldn't be raising the ceiling because there's no ceiling anymore. Because Amazon or Apple can spend half a billion dollars on something and make it look as good as most movies if they want to. And on a more interesting to me level, I may destroy you exists. The English exists.

Top of the lake existed. Like we are getting artistic leaps in the medium, even flea bag, that we never could have believed. And we don't need to spend our time trying to improve on those. Those are idiosyncratic bursts of genius and they will come and hopefully there will be a receptive audience for them. The goal isn't to raise the ceiling. The goal should be to raise the floor. Yeah. I want cop shows and heist shows to think about these things and to consider these questions.

and to want to be better and to be empowered to be better and have the correct budget. Doesn't mean the unlimited budget, but have the correct budget to be as gripping and interesting as this. To draw from CBS procedural, sure, but also the wire. I have a couple of notes here about the most recent episode. So the most recent episode, which sort of breathtakingly opens in Sierra Leone, and then that setting comes back when, again, breathtakingly,

these two sort of hard-scrabble detectives from the Fly-in Squad are sent to C. Sierra Leone to investigate this mine? Do you think they filmed that on the volume? Was that Manhattan Beach? I don't know where they shot that. Like, where do you think they... How far south do you think they got? I genuinely don't know, but I very seriously think

that they filmed it in Europe's Atlanta, aka Spain. Okay. Which is also where the... I just mentioned the English, but that was... Spain also was like Montana and... And Spain has served as a great backdrop for many ways. Western vistas in the past. I noted with interest that Sierra Leone is limited to one set. Yes. Yes. And for as much as I'm like, you know, the budget should be reasonable. I don't think there was someone at the

BBC acting like Boyce does in the show and being like, sorry, we have to do it. We're going to, yeah, take the budget away from the Irish struggles. Like we're going to Sierra Leone. We're going to free town. Awesome sequence. Just like a great payoff to that later in the episode. But, you know, This episode is essentially like Boyce closing the trap on all of our kind of main criminals, with the exception of the ones who are actually making real money off of this, namely Edwin Cooper, who's Dominic Cooper's lawyer character and Sean Harris's sort of nefarious South London gangster, who we haven't really learned a ton about. It's pretty amazing seeing it play out the way, I mean, again, I'm sort of appreciating it now.

We're halfway through the series, right? I believe at six episodes. And the way the noose tightens is from the bottom up. And you realize how often the appetite for more news squeezing, terrible analogy, I apologize, ends after the beginning. You know, you get the day-to-day people on the bottom who are never going to profit anyway, but the money is already gone. And the rich are only going to get richer.

And I guess the premise of the show is, what if one time they didn't? What if we kept chasing? Right. And now I have to say that for as, you know, dense as this show can be with like all the sort of references to the way that gold moves through the economy. Like, there's just, like, a lot of, like, very funny bits in this. That older woman, Jeannie, who's just, like, this really, like, panicked widow, who's acting as a career for the sort of criminal syndicate with the gold is hilarious.

And her dropping 10,000 pounds on the ground is a really good bit. And then telling the police that she lost 10,000 pounds? And I love the customs accountant who's basically like, ooh, it's all gone a bit Tinker Taylor, hasn't it? The show needed that guy, right? Yeah. I really appreciate anytime there's a character in a work of fiction who has seen fiction before. There are some things that I'm like, this is a little bit of like, we got to go back to trope school here.

Namely, so you mentioned Tom Collins' character who spends all day drinking and smelting and smoking and inhaling smelt smoke while also. inhaling cigarette smoke and inhaling beer. And his wife is basically in on it. She's like, oh, we're going to get a bit rich, shall we? And then like in the middle of this whole thing, she's like, the most important thing is that we go to Tenner Reef. Look, Chris, Canary Islands, the wine, the viticulture there is fascinating because it's volcanic soil.

That guy has no taste buds. That guy is where COVID started. Okay? He is the fucking wet market. I mean, I do have some questions there about like just her vacation timing. I mean, at least give me some more details. Like, are the kids off of school for a fortnight? And, you know, you don't want them like wandering around the shelter.

He's not a big reader. So maybe he just like, do it. Also, in his defense, if he's going to remain illiterate, what's he going to do on holiday? You know what I mean? Like, there's not many movies. But we know. We know that our cousins. love to take a bank holiday

and squeeze a year's worth of ease and whiz into 72 hours. You know what I mean? But I think your point is that he's just been huffing pure, unadulterated gold whiz for months. I'm a little unclear. I'm glad at like the minute 50 of this podcast we're going to get real into the important stuff,

which is what does smelting feel like? Yeah. But like, just temperature-wise, our guy is wearing a thick bathrobe. and coming face to face with like 5,000 degree heat. So do you think that that is to protect his skin from flame or because he's got like a sick Sergio Tuccini sweatsuit on underneath that he doesn't want like his mates at the pub to be like,

oh, you have nice tracky bottoms, but they smell a bit of smelting. I mean, he looks like this is a deep cut. He looks like he's auditioning for the role of Arthur Dent and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Like that is his vibe. My takeaway, especially when you just starts lighting up cigarettes, but weirdly not lighting them off of the flame that's melting gold bars. That would be God mode to do that. Is that, I know, that's next level.

Is that it seems like it's not actually that hot in the shed, that somehow the flames are contained to the core of the earth that he alone has an express elevator to? Well, maybe that it's like, it's playing off of the wet bone temperature, like outside of his, in his Kent house, you know? Do you think one of the main things in the third? episode is that the Scottish police officer does not do well in the, I would hope, and what I hope is a dry heat of Sierra Leone. Yes, he seems to almost combust when he gets out of the vehicle. Do you think John, Tom Cullen Smelter, would get there and like put on a jumper? In Tenerife or in Sierra Leone. Yeah. In Sierra Leone. Is he just built different because of it? Unclear. Yeah. Unclear. Like,

Also, I just find it fascinating, like with all well done and well research, or at least I presume well research shows, that like smelting as a hobby, it's just never crossed my mind. I just didn't think there were amateur smelters. Well, I had to imagine that, like, there is just like a whole, I mean, like, gold is advertised. I watch a lot of cable, you know. Okay, that's true.

The gold standard is still strong in this country. and among the many people who watch the 1230 a.m. Sports Center, you know? It's also, it's also, I know that to be true because not many items get their own verb to describe them. Like, because you know what I mean? Like, it's not melting. Yeah, it's melting. It's smelting. So it's a little bit classier. By the way, speaking of you watching cable, one of my favorite moments of the last few weeks is when I sent you just a friendly text being like, hey, bud, like, do you get all these? these ads when you watch the gold on Paramount Plus? Or are you on like the elite subscriber tier? And the disdain dripping off of your reply. I believe you said that you, and this is a quote,

built this network. You, Taylor Sheridan, Bob Bakish, got in a room once and smelted down the idea. I don't pay for ads on Paramount Plus, man. Like, like, you paid a Nazi. I got, I got Taylor tier, if you know what I'm saying. I got the comptroller of Kingstown tier. But don't you think it says more, like, this is how dedicated I am to the show. I'm here seeing these commercials. Yeah, you're hilarious. You're hilarious.

I was like, I was joking with you about like, you know, his wife being like, let's go to Abitha. But it is interesting how they've kind of set these sort of main three criminals up, Kenny, Edwin, and John, as guys who's, like ambition, or at least their desire to transcend their station in the English cast system, like, that's their weakness. It's like they're just not going to be able to stop because they want to be the people that they see like on the other side of the table at the Freemason meeting.

They also have very, very cool communicative relationships with their spouses. Yeah, they do see. I don't think they've had a lot of couples therapy at this point. Built on just like real mutual respect. Do you think John, because John gets a drawing by his. daughter of the family on holiday in Tenerife. And he's like, get the fuck away from me. Yeah. But then he hangs

the picture in the smeltering room. Sure, he's got a heart of gold even. Does he get, that's nice. Does he get dad points for that? Like, you're a neutral observer. Do you think that means that his heart's in the right place? No, I mean, that's how dads used to get down, right? Like, it was all behind closed doors. It was all in the smelting pit.

It was like, my dad probably, like, cared a lot about my baseball career, but you wouldn't know it based on his attendance. Well, I'll do respect to him, you know? Here's how you know. And honestly, it made me a happier person, not having him be like, yeah, I don't fucking want my dad being like, I think Chris should have had third, you know? Do you want a hug?

Because I don't know if you, we've been talking as Philadelphians about the debut of this kid pitcher, Orion Kirkering. Yeah. And it's been a big story because when the guy did, he kid debuted an awesome slider, one, two, three inning, stadium erupts. And then his fucking dad reenacted interstellar. His dad, who's a former Navy SEAL, is. is weeping in the crowd.

And then all these sports writers are like, hey, fellas, is it cool to cry when your son strikes out the side? I'm like, what year is it? And there are all these little like caveats being like, I was getting a lot of texts from my Navy SEAL buddies. And they were all like, hey, man, we saw you. It's okay that you did this.

Because it was your kid in sports. Like, I don't think we're as far away from smelting it out with dad as we would like. But like, what's it, what is it not okay? If, like, Orion Kirkinger's dad sees afterson, he's not allowed to, like, that's what I'm saying? Fucking cry it out. Or if Orion Kirkland, instead of throwing a devastating slider, starred in after son? You know what I mean?

Or, like, chose a career in the arts. Like, what if he was really into smelting? Would his dad weep? Do you think we've done a sufficient job talking about gold? I think we've gone above and beyond. I think that genuinely right now, we know that people are- my favorite thing on television right now. Me too.

And I think also, I hope. people listen because I think it's relevant to the larger conversation you were having. We also have learned in drips and drabs that like marketing departments of networks sometimes listen to us. And do you think right now there's a meeting at Paramount Plus HQ where they're like, how much time do they talk about it? And he watched how many episodes of Lioness talking about me? Yeah. And they're also going to be like, can he he watch that's too? He watched the end. This guy is. And how much money is he going to spend on Paw Patrol opening weekend? Look, I'm a friend. I'm a corporate friend. I do love this show, too. I think it's the best thing on

right now. And it's a weird time. But we have res dogs too, right? We're going to get to that on We're going to do that on Thursday. So two shows this week, even though they're a little compressed. It was actually really cool in Tulsa, meeting people who had been extras on res dogs. Like, it's very much a point of pride in that town. So that was really, that was really sick. Can we also say, I think we should say it again on Thursday show, but you and I have, have upcoming event. We each have an event upcoming. Yes. That we should tell listeners about. Now, I'm not saying which event you listeners go to proves you like one of us more. Well, I think my event sold out any already. So it's not, we're not going to get into the

details, but I'm just saying, like, I don't want you to think that like, and it's not a vote. Yeah. It's not a, whichever event you show up, it's not a vote as like who's really hosting the podcast and who's the guest. Like, it's not really about that time. Look, you did a great job. I, for our listeners, I have been up since 4 a.m. PST. so I'm a little bit hard scrabble. Today, as I was, I took two legs of my, my trip back from Tulsa. Tulsa, DFW, DFW, LAX. Shoutouts to my guys at American for getting me there.

And as I was walking down like this long corridor to get to Terminal 4 exit because I was landed in Terminal 5, no big deal. I was walking down this hallway and I'm pretty tired at this point. and I just see your usual mix of images and words that are up on a hallway in a major airport. And just every once in a while, I would see a fact. And one was New York to London in three hours, courtesy of British Airways. And I was like, we did it. Oh my God.

Like, I can fucking be at the Emirates for kickoff and back in New York for like a Knicks game. Like, we're going to do it. Just like, Elon, you came through. And then I realized it was just like a commemorating. the Concord. Which we no longer have. But it was like a kind of timeline and I was going down the timeline. But I deaf thought that was where they were announcing.

Like guess what guys? We can do the Atlantic in three hours. So for a minute, you thought it was 1985 and you had sight? No, I just thought that like they were like, guess what? Like anybody who's interested, New York to London is possible now, three hours. We're in and out. I want to live in your brain for those few seconds where you thought anything was possible. get up in four in the morning and get your ass to Tulsa, yeah. So on Monday, but it's sold out. Do you even

want to talk about this event since it's sold out? Your event? Yeah, no, I mean, I'll say that we were doing a rewatchables live at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles. We're doing, they live, the John Carpenter's, they live. Great. Yeah. Have you seen that movie? I have seen that movie. It'll be a rewatch for me. Yeah. That's just checking. This Monday, and I'll say this again on the Thursday pod, and I'll put it on up on Instagram too, a good buddy of ours, Sean Howe, who's He's been on this podcast talking about his history of Marvel Comics that was published a couple years ago. Has a new book out from Hachette Publishing. It's called Agents of Chaos.

It's a very cool deep dive into a subject I knew nothing about. It's about a guy named Tom Forsad who was deeply involved in a lot of the civil and societal unrest of the 70s. If you saw the trial of Chicago 7, Abby Hoffman, like Tom Forsad was kind of an ally slash nemesis of these guys and underground press. and then went on to you found High Times Magazine, a magazine that I know is near and dear to your heart. For sure. And anyway, Sean is coming out to L.A., I'm hosting an event with him.

We're going to be in conversation at Stories Bookshop in Echo Park, a great store on Monday, October 2nd at 7 p.m. I'm not saying it's sticking a thumb in big media's eye to come to this event, you know, like in the spirit of the underground provocateurs of agents of chaos. But I'm saying it would be cool to see you guys there. It breaks my heart that I cannot be. at this Sean Howe event.

He's a buddy and I'm so excited about his book. So check out his book, Agents of Chaos by Sean Howe. Come check us out live next Monday. But you can't go big CR hunting because he'll be busy. Yeah, that's right. Have people ever seen us? When's the last time we did? We haven't done anything since Game of Thrones together.

Oh no. Do we do something at Largo? Like kind of, that was a long time ago. And that was Game of Thrones. Yeah. That's right. That's right. One day, man. I was just saying to Kaya that we should do a watch in New York so Kaya can make her maiden trip to New York City.

Kai's never been to New York. I know. Can you imagine any two better guys to hang out with than you and me in New York? Especially at this stage of our lives. And then, Kaya, guess what? At the end of our hang in New York, three hours later, we could be in London. Isn't that amazing? You could just come with us to London. Like, I feel like Chris could show us around. I think it would be great. Thanks for listening. Thanks for bearing with me. could we do live events?

Do you remember when, who was it that Phil Collins played both eggs of LIBade, right? Yeah, well, didn't you two try to like do a concert in seven continents in 24 hours or something? Somebody tried to do that. But we're not going to do that.

I just felt like Phil Collins started Live Aid in London and then closed it in Philly. Yes. And we, as the cultural heirs to Phil Collins, we could do that in reverse. And I guess we're kidnapping Kaya in this version. We're grateful for whatever we get.

Yeah. I hope the people at the Concord reach out. You want to be on the main voyage of the reboot? We were produced by Kaia McMullen. We'll be talking to you Thursday about the finale of Reservation Dogs. This was an especially great job for Inskes. I really feel it.