The Watch - True Detective’ Is Coming Back and ‘Sharp Objects’ Wraps, Plus Catching Up on ‘Castle Rock’ and ‘Lodge 49’ | The Watch (Ep. 285)

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the recent trailer and forthcoming season of 'True Detective' (4:00) and finale of 'Sharp Objects' (11:00). Later, they catch up on ‘Castle Rock��� and ‘Lodge 49’ (24:00). 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'm editor at the ringer.com, and joining me on the other line, you can take the boy out of wind gap, but you can't take the wind gap out of the boy.

It's Andy Greenwald. Can you take the teeth out of the boy? Is that where you were going? Somebody read a recap. No spoilers. No spoilers. What's up, Christmas, Chili's?

Listen, man. I eat a lot of chilies. Greenwald called me on Sunday. This is the new normal. So Andy and I live probably 15 minutes away from each other. We see each other twice a week. We are in constant text message communication. But I would put our last social phone call.

This is a great point you're making. I support this. I'm going to say like mid-Obama admin. Maybe like around 12, something like that. I've gotten two of them. So far, since Andy is relocated to the New Mexico desert, yesterday just driving back from Santa Fe with 45 minutes to kill and no podcasts to listen to. Listen, your boy woke up and drove to Santa Fe to have breakfast.

So that's a good insight into his mind state. But, you know, my friends at the Ringer Podcast Network have been really comforting to me, and I've been enjoying them a lot. I really love listening to you and Sean talk about summer movies. Yes, that was a. Big picture production that did wind up running on the watch. So if you get a chance to listen to that, Sean and I ran down some summer movie awards. Highly recommend it. I love listening to my spirit animals, Dave Chang and JJ Reddick, talk about L.A. versus Brooklyn restaurants and enrolling children into kindergarten. I just feel like that was right down the middle for me. But you are right that our relationship is mostly through those other medium. So the talking is new. Are you, did it go well for you? Were you okay with it?

Oh, yeah, for sure. I've actually always been kind of a phone guy. It's true. But I think that over the last couple of years, my attention span is kind of shrinking, so sometimes I'm like, I now I'm on the phone and I kind of want to get off. I do that to my mom all the time. I feel terrible. Listen, I think the most important takeaway from this conversation is that I called you theoretically to tell you some news that I wanted to share with you, only to be reminded that I had texted you the news 12 hours previous. That's right. So that's what the chilies are doing to my head right now. I want to report back to our listeners that, yes, I was in search of a roast leg of lamb burrito, which I discovered and ingested. It was the right move for a powerful sunda.

Leg of lamb burrito. Yeah, man. But I failed in my other mission to Santa Fe, which was to locate and secure American treasure Gene Hackman and to bring him back to the stream. Because I feel like this is an underreported aspect of cultural. life in America, that one of the greatest actors of all time appeared in Welcome to Mooseport or Moosewood or whatever with Ray Romano, like 13 years ago, and then just dused out of the profession. And not because he was unwell or couldn't do it anymore, but because he just wanted to retire

to Santa Fe to live in the sunshine and, like, maybe write mystery novels. And if you've seen pictures of him recently, he looks great. He looks terrific. Santa Fe has often, it's long been a kind of welcome refuge for aging Thespians. Like Sam Shepard lived there for a while, I think. Did he really? Yeah. Well, it's a great place where Hackman is 88 years young, by the way, and he looks great.

And, you know, I kind of wish, look, this is neither here nor there. We're obviously going to talk about a lot of TV. We're going to talk about the true detective trailer. We're going to talk about the Sharp Objects finale. Sharp Objects finale. But, man, I wish we could get one more Gene Hackman performance. Maybe just watch him react to me eating a leg of a lamb burrito in the morning. Like, that would have been enough for me.

I could have put it on Instagram stories and been done with it. But we don't have actors like that anymore, man. I've been going through the casting process. I say, get me Gene Hackman. There are no Gene Hackman. That would be super annoying if you were just like, I want Hackman. Greenwald, let's start, let's go through it like this. Let's do True Detective Trailer, Sharp Objects finale, Castle Rock, and then we can chat a little bit about Lodge.

I'm on episode three. Did you watch three? I watched three and four airs tonight, right? we're recording this on Monday. I thought four was on Sundays. Or did they put it on with Better Call Saul on Mondays? Yeah, it's with Saul. It's a Monday night show.

Oh, okay. All right, so we can talk about episode three at Lodge. So let's start with the true detective trailer. Obviously, my feelings about this series are well known. I adore the first season. I think it's one of the best things that got made this decade. I was probably one of the more vocal defenders of season two. But sometimes you just have to, like, dig in and protect the alamo.

even if you get overrun. I acknowledge that it is nowhere near as good as the first season, but there are certain things about it that I really liked. Now, finally, after the ding that the second season took, although I don't think it ever really dipped, it dipped a little bit in ratings, but I still think it was compared to a lot of television fairly well-watched. A few years later, we finally have True Detective Season 3,

starring Mahershala Ali, Oscar Award winner from Moonlight, Steven Dorf, Scoot McNary, got a gummer. So a lot is happening in this, and it's set in the Ozarks, which obviously is a special place for me and Andy. And it will take place over multiple timelines over multiple decades. And if you saw the trailer, you can see Mahershalla,

obviously aging and battling with ghosts of his past in the trailer. Andy. Let me say, with true, true respect, Nikki the P knows how to cast, right? Yep. You know what I mean? Like, this is a great cast.

It looks, it's a great trailer. I am very excited for a cop show starring Mahershal Ali. I think he's just one of the most magnetic actors working, and it's very exciting. I think long-time listeners, no, I do not share your ardor for season one. It is a take I do not back down from. Today, our friend Zach Barron has a profile of the director of season one, Carrie Fukunaga. It's online.

It's in GQ, I guess, on newsstand soon because Carrie directed the entire season of my friend Patrick Somerville show Maniac, which is excited to debut next month on Netflix. And I think, you know, I don't know if it's been reported, but certainly not the best blood has been insinuated between Carrie and. and Nick Pinsolado. I have no insight into the matter, only to say that in this piece, Carrie Fukenaga refers to season one as basically a formulae cop show.

That's not the exact quote, but that I feel comfortable presenting that. Can I just push back a little bit on that? Also, Carmen Ojogo is in this, is in True Detective Season 3, too. But I just want to push back a slight amount because I read that. I saw people saying, like,

oh, Carrie's dragging True Detective. But I think he was saying, it's just a cop show. Let's have some fun with it. don't think he was saying that the final product was? No, but he is referring to the scripts, you know, that he elevated in his own, I think, in his own mind with the direction, which I think is true. And I think that's what we were left with in season two.

I have a complicated relationship to that whole, the whole thing now, quite honestly, because now I am, you know, sitting here in a production office trying to make TV. And I think that I am, and I think I was at the time too, but I think I am definitely more fond of and sympathetic to season two in a way because, you know, again, by all accounts and also reading the tea leaves and just experiencing it, it was an example of a writer resting ownership of something and going for broke, right? And now I think he broke. I think that that season did not work on many, many, many, many levels. But the ambition behind it and the desire to do something great, I do feel is worthy of applause. But even more than that, I appreciate the fact

that due to circumstance, due to career movements, or whatever else happened in the interim, that HBO granted a creator in whom they've invested quite a bit, time to, if not get it right, feel comfortable doing it. So I'm, I'm, the deck is cleared. I'm optimistic for it. And aside from this amazing cast, the other. reason to be optimistic about this season is the presence, at least for the first few episodes, and he was supposed to direct more, I think, but wound up leaving, I mean, for timing reasons, I think, but also I think you could make an argument that maybe Nick Pizzolato is a notoriously prickly character when it comes to, obviously, we've talked about with these first two seasons,

and there was about creative control, but Jeremy Solnier, who's a director that I really like a lot who directed a movie called Blue Ruin and a movie called Green Room and has a Netflix film called hold the dark coming in the fall, directed the first few episodes of season three. And there is also the kind of unknown how much. I know he's got script credit on at least one of the episodes this season is David Milch, who we haven't seen have a TV thing in a minute. So I'm pretty fired up to see this.

And it's coming in January of 2019, which is a nice thing to look forward to. I don't know. I'm never going to say no to this show. I guess, and this might be a good segue into the other HBO property, we're going to discuss sharp objects. I guess to track my feelings about the show through the seasons and to go back to Carrie Fukunaga's quote, you know, I've actually always enjoyed the show most when it felt

comfortable being a cop show because I don't think there's anything wrong with being a murder mystery show or a cop show. I think that you can enhance it and elevate it in the way you tell the story and performances and direction and dialogue and, you know, and everything. But I think that for me, the moments of True Detective that worked best, And, you know, and I got grief for it then, and I'll get it again now. It's fine. But my favorite episode of that first season was the penultimate one, which was basically Woody and McConaughey just work in the case. Yeah. You know, and so I agree with you that it's interesting that's

that's only a fell off this project. That doesn't worry me so much because he was replaced by Daniel Sackheim, who is a veteran television director with great credits to his name. And honestly, sometimes I think that the, you know, everyone quote me on this when I become a monster in five to six months or minutes depending. But I don't think it's a bad thing when the logistics and reality of making a television show are forced to collide with the ambition of the artist. I think that the best things come from those collisions. So I'm very curious to see what happens with this show. Well, let's talk about sharp objects because I thought that there was an interesting, it wasn't a tension that was at all on the surface or really anything that you would say, like, oh, there was

trouble behind the scenes of sharp objects, not in the least. But I thought it was really interesting. I read an interview with Gillian Flynn on Vulture this morning after watching the finale last night. And we'll talk about spoilers. So if you haven't gotten a chance to finish Sharp Objects yet and don't want it spoiled, feel free to skip ahead. But last night's episode ended in a way that was a very interesting example of competing creative viewpoints of a show.

So Gillian Flynn, with no shade, they ask her about the twist ending. And the twist ending is essentially that, you know, Patricia Clarkson's matriarch figure, Adora, has been put in prison for poisoning her children, Munchausen by proxy syndrome. And why are we all expected to know what that is? They explain it pretty, they explain it pretty significantly in the show. It's basically like when you make people sick because you want to take care of them. What's that? Phantom threat alert. Yeah.

And so she goes to prison and she's convicted of killing the two girls whose murders are the sort of central mystery of the show in the beginning. But then, and Amy Adams is Camille takes her sister, Amma, to St. Louis with her and live happily ever after. And then in the last couple of minutes, it seems like something's off with Amma and her friend May. and then at the very last shot of the episode, we find out that it's in fact Amma, who killed the girls and has killed her new friend May and frankly torn their teeth out to make a ivory floor in her dollhouse.

And then in a Marvel-esque edit credit sequence, we see Amma killing those girls, and then we see her as the woman in white, who is this sort of mythical figure in the show of appearing out of the woods and luring kids to her and killing them. And they asked Gillian Flynn about the specific handling of the scene

and the reveal. And she was like, that's a Jean-Marc question in reference to Jean-Marc valet. And I thought that that was very telling, even if it wasn't supposed to be, because it's just like, there's so many cooks in the kitchen on these things. This is a Gillian Flynn novel.

She worked on the screenplay, but Marty Knoxon was the showrunner, and they collaborated. on the final teleplay, and Jean-Marc Valet directed every episode. And he's got a lot of Kwan right now from HBO after Big Little Lies. So you've got these different things,

and Jean-Marc and the post-show kind of chat was like, yeah, like that was like a, that was really cool. You're like, what? He was very into that. And I thought for a show that was as meditative as sharp objects was, almost to a fault, you know, where it's like almost wallowing in the consequences

and wallowing in the aftermaths of traumatic events, to have it be sixth-sensed at the end, I didn't care one way or the other, but it just didn't feel consistent with the rest of the show. Do you think that there was any thought behind those, do you think anything behind that decision-making to do that is related to the possibility of making a second season? Well, that was another question that Gillian Flum was asked,

which was, is there a second season or is there a possibility? And she didn't say no. She just said, like, it was always supposed to be one season. This is what it's supposed to be. But obviously, that's not going to be. That's not necessarily the case if everybody involved wants to do more. Now, there was never a Sharp Object season two or another Sharp Object sequel, although in the book, apparently, they get more into Amma's trial and some explanations

about the how and the why. But, yeah. And more, from what I understand, more about the subsequent caring and, you know, maybe potentially, like, life rehabilitation of Camille, right? Sure, but that doesn't, I mean, ultimately, and I, you know, you,

ultimately, the point of the show is to plunge Camille in further into darkness and have her come out into light only to find out that the light is actually fire. You know, like, it's, it's, it's, it's the journey. going home. I mean,

everything about this show is one season. And this is, I actually am quite looking forward to Big Little Lies season two. I can't believe Andrea Arnold is making it.

It's going to be really exciting. But the inability, this is the sort of consequence of these limited series where you get movie stars to be in them and everybody gets kind of excited about it and then wants more

is they're not written as such. They're not written to be multi-season arcs. So I'll be curious to see how they they figure that out or whether or not

they look at sharp objects the way they look at true detective, which is an umbrella under which to tell maybe women's crime stories. I don't know. Yeah, it's all interesting to me.

And, you know, I'm not going to come back on the mic and pretend that I reembrace the show or enjoyed it or even watched the bulk of it. I was out. I remain out

for the aesthetic reasons that we laid out before, but I have to say I am impressed from revisiting it for the very end. and seeing how it affected people and people enjoyed it, by the way that, again, regardless of Jean-Marc Valet's decision-making at the end,

they did go ahead and make a show that, from what I can gather, is true to Gillian Flynn's rather subversive points about how we overlook female agency, female capacity for violence, and what actually could be going on in the minds of daughters and mothers, as opposed to just being daughters and mothers. It's a thread that's well worth exploring in literature and on our screens. Megan Abbott, who's been a great friend of us on the pod and is a great writer, has a wonderful new novel out and is also making a pilot for USA called Dareme that, you know, in the broadest of strokes, I think is interested in similar things. I think that's all fantastic.

I also just want to highlight Alison Herman's piece on The Ringer about how the show is a mood. I really liked the piece. I thought it was a really smart investigation. of why some people liked it and some people didn't. I think I thought it had a very smart perspective on why this might be a show that actually would have benefited from binging as opposed to the way that HBO rolled it out, which is a way that you and I, Chris, usually prefer. But I also just wanted to say, like, this idea of TV shows as moods is a very worthwhile

one. And it's something that I think has been around for a while, but I still think in the way that, we collectively cover stuff or process stuff, both as fans and as critics, it hasn't totally baked in. What I mean is it's well understood, I think, by consumers of culture that there are movies out there that we just might not vibe to. Some people don't like Sorrentino movies, like The Great Beauty, because they just can't spend three hours in someone's head, or some people are just, their blood runs cold

to the thought of watching a Wes Anderson movie. From everything I've gathered, Jeremy Sonier, who you mentioned a minute ago, is a really fascinating and exciting filmmaker to watch, but I'm too afraid. to check out his movies because you've told me personally what they would do to me. That's fine. Those are moods. And we can pick and choose the moods we want to engage with. But I just realized in thinking about this and thinking about sharp objects and thinking about Allison's piece, look, the young Pope, speaking of Sorrentina, that is a great A mood. And I get that some people weren't willing to go on that journey. You know, I think about that show all the time and I

wish I could still be watching it right now. It's not for everyone. Twin Peaks is a mood. it's just a different way to consider TV shows, one that might not necessarily track with HBO's, you know, overall strategy of competing with Netflix and gaining viewers. There's probably a reason why Netflix is no longer really overtly investing in moods and instead investing in Tony Danza procedurals and baking competitions. Although by that same token, they're investing in Carrie Fukunaga making apparently a complete fucking head trip of a show

and whether or not it's successful aesthetically or critically or commercially, remains to be seen. But it's not like they're not taking chances. I think they just need to have some assurances that there are going to be some topline talent that's going to at least give them a baseline of attention if they do it. True. But I have to say also, again, without any knowledge of the people in the rooms when they make these decisions, but when the property of Maniac became available, it was loosely adapted from a European format. Carrie Fuganaga attaches, anonymous content attaches Emma Stone and Jonah Hill attach without any script. This is a lot of it. This is a lot of before Patrick got involved.

There was no sense of what it would be. They went around, you know, they pitched it. I wonder if they were pitching it now in like, you know, going into fourth Q 2018, would Netflix outbid everyone else? Or would they not? I don't know. They certainly have the money,

but I wonder if their strategy has shifted in the intervening years, which doesn't mean they're not supportive of the show. I think it's going to be dope. But it's an interesting thought experiment. Let me go back to the mood thing for a second because I think that that, I mean, I obviously loved Allison's piece.

And I thought that... The finale was a pretty good example of what she's talking about. This is an episode that has a lot of information to convey and a lot of actually a lot of plot to get through. I mean, you have to have, you know, Camille has to go home. She has to save Amma. They have to arrest Adora.

There has to be some sort of resolution with that. There has to be resolution with Camille's relationship with the Christmas scene of character, Richard. But I would say at least feel-wise. I mean, if you actually broke down the running time, I'm not sure what this would come out to. But I would say most of the episode is Amy Adams' dry heaving and Matt Craven's smoking in the heat. And that's how you make a mood. That's how you make a mood show is when you're just like, I just really like the look of Matt Craven standing against this bush smoking and sweating.

And I really like the look of Amy Adams writhing in this bathtub, you know? And that's a choice you make because it creates this vibe. But then when you have to slam a ton of plot and also this, albeit somewhat broadcast by the fact that they had kind of tied up the show with 20 minutes to go and you're like, well, there's got to be something else. If you do that, then it's like, oh, well, like, can you communicate plot effectively while still having mood. That's the thing that I think is the hardest part. Well, let's take that same point to the next logical step, which is the shows that we're

describing as moods are director-driven shows. Twin Peaks is David Lynch. Young Pope is Sorrentino. This is, you know, going back to when we first started talking about this a few minutes ago, you were talking about Jean-Marc Valet's choices of how to communicate crucial information at the end of the show. You mentioned his Kwan. It was in full effect when the making of the show. the things that he does, the cutaways, the sort of stitches in time, his trademark shots that have been there going back to Dallas Byers Club were so dominant in this that it personally took me out of it. The question is for TV, which has generally historically been a writer's driven medium, can a writer-driven show be a mood or not? And I think that's kind of what we're getting at

when you talk about just the delivery of plot, which is the writer's job and is what TV used to do primarily versus everything else around it. Yeah, for sure. All right. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. And then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about Castle Rock and Lodge 49, which have their own moods to work with. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by

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All right, man. Let's talk a little Castle Rock. It's the Hulu show based on the like loosely based on the Stephen King universe. Then Andy and I watched a couple episodes we talked about a couple weeks ago, I think the first two. And then we hadn't really touched on in a while, but this seventh episode, The Queen,

kind of lit up the internet for a day and a half last week, which is quite impressive when you consider what the internet's like. That's considerable. Yeah. It's pretty much a showcase episode for Sissy SpaceX character. And I kind of wanted to see how you were feeling about this because I think that it was clearly positioned as like this marquee episode. And you probably knew that going into it, didn't you?

Like that this was what you were supposed to think about it. So did the expectations of it change how you were feeling about it? probably i think it would be unfair to suggest otherwise um you know especially because the the message went out the flare went up in the air to people who maybe like us had been on the fence about the show that oh no come back this one's worth it and to me that raises a larger question that i'd love to talk about once we're done talking about the specifics of the episode which is in this streaming highly serialized era can album oriented series or a serialized still have a hit single, meaning can one episode be pulled out?

Now, obviously, you should still know the characters. You should watch the whole season. I'm not arguing otherwise. But can the magnificence of a single episode carry it separate and apart from everything else? My feeling, after having watched this episode, is not, probably not, although I wish it could. Let me begin by saying, I was truly dazzled by the production values by the, the aesthetics behind this episode, Greg Yatenis, is one of my favorite television directors. He directed the bulk of the episodes of Banshee, a show I dearly loved, and of every episode

of Quarry, one of the best new series of the last few years, and a show that I am still frustrated over the way it was treated by Cinemax. It should still be going. The delicacy with which he told this story visually and the confidence with which he did it was truly impressive. Equally impressive is Sissy Spacex performance. I mean, let's just, we should maybe just pause to say, like, what a treat in 2018 to see such a, such a legendary actress just still bringing the high heat. And I'm excited to see her on Sam's new show, Homecoming. I'm thrilled that she's finding stuff to sink her teeth into. She's great in this episode.

Scott Glenn is great in this episode, too. But I have to say that as someone who is not invested in the emotional stakes of this show, I was only able to admire it from a technical perspective, which is a shame, you know, because I think TV and all visual medium work best when everything is in concert. I admired this show, this episode, The Queen, but I was almost unmoved by it, which was not how I wanted to feel or how I expected to feel.

I felt about this episode the way I feel about a lot of Stephen King stuff, which is that it sounds great, and I get pretty into it going in the first sort of opening movements. So the premises usually really appeal to me and the settings usually really appeal to me and even the opening kind of inciting incidents really appeal to me and whatever is the galvanizing event. But as you get deeper and deeper into it and then you're forced to demand an explanation as to what the hell is going on, I find myself pretty let down.

Now, for people who don't know, I don't really want to get too far into it because, like, I don't want to spoil what happens in this episode. But also, I don't know that I can totally explain what happens in this episode because it's essentially talking about dementia or Alzheimer's as a portal to time travel. And also, it features everything from ghosts to, you know, these kinds of, you know, these kinds of, constant style inception spinning top markers that she's leaving all around to kind of give herself reminders of what happened in certain rooms in her house.

And at the end, you're not really sure where or when the show leaves off. And that actually is quite daring, you know, to do such an acrobatic mid-season move. Did you feel that at the end, no? I actually, I thought that for all my complaints about it, I thought that it landed the punch.

Meaning throughout the episode, every time we see a chess piece, that's both Sissy Spacex character and the audience's way of understanding that this isn't really happening now. This is the past. And for almost every time that happens, we're glad and grateful for it because we're seeing, you know, unpleasant memories related to her now deceased husband and his treatment of their child and so on and so forth. at the very end, when Scott Glenn appears, despite having died moments earlier by her hand, it's a beautiful moment to leave us on. And we understand the emotional connection between them. And then we pull back and the gut punches, oh, this isn't, this isn't. Right.

But I mean, like, so I guess in the sense that everything feels real to her. So it's just if she's able to do this, quote unquote, able to do this, does that necessarily prevent her from doing it again or whatever? But yeah, I think that your point is a really good one. When you're trying to make a state, I think that this is another, when you're trying to make a single out of this album, how does it, how do you have to do to the season itself to do it?

And I think that this is a show that is trying to go somewhere that I'm not really sure is on the map right now. Yes, I think that's well said. I think that, you know, again, I'm just keeping using, That's the kind of thing with the king, though. It's like the king thing is like there is an evil out there. And I don't necessarily know that in a serialized television show, you can kind of keep moving the goalposts as much. I don't know. Well, I also think that, and I say this, I don't mean for this to sound like faint praise when I say I admire it. But I really do admire that the showrunner Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason are taking, trying to wrap their arms.

And they have forearms, which they need to wrap it to get just the circumference to get around all of the stuff at play here. They're trying to wrap their arms around the King thing, as you just put it, and do fan service and et cetera, et cetera, Easter eggs. But it seems that what motivates them is a much more personal and smaller scale story. The type of story that certainly exists in King's short stories, but is generally not the first thing we think of when we think about him. You know, for all the places this show has gone, it has stayed in some ways emotionally tied to this family and this home. So I admire that. I think that's a great, I think that's a direction TV, particularly branded TV, should always try to do because you can't tell the big, vague picture. You've got to tell the small, relatable picture first, story first.

But, you know, again, maybe we're asking too much of it. Because in the context of the season, what this episode was doing was just illuminating something that they were tracking behind the scenes, right? Because we've seen Sissy Space SAC interact with every character. Sure. And she's acted in a bizarre, surprising fashion. And now we see where she was in those scenes. So in that sense, it's a, you know, it's a remarkable act of story juggling and consideration and perspective changing. But, and that is its own goal, I think.

But I think, but I also, we should cop to the fact that coming off of the ringer's list a few weeks ago about the best episodes of the century, when we heard the word the constant, when we hear the idea of people, you know, trying to, trying to stick themselves in time. time, like, we go to that place. And the thing about the constant is that it was a love story, which helped, not a tragedy, but also it had just for me the right amount of just what the fuckness. Like, they went for it. Whereas this is tethered to not just the aesthetic reality of Castle Rock and of Stephen King's stories, but also it's about a woman with Alzheimer's. Or as they say in the episode, something that can't be diagnosed, but clearly she's like, why don't we just call it that? and yeah. Right.

And that's not a fun place to live, but then again, this is in no way a fun show. Yeah, of course. There's a dog in a suitcase, man. So why don't we talk a little bit about Lodge before we get out of here? I would like to because, you know,

keep it, these are all, you were right to say. These are all moods. But this is a mood I'm happy to be in. And that still goes a long way. You know, this is a show that is proud to amble when other shows like Ozark, for example,

sprint, that alone makes it worthy of our attention and makes me like it. But I've got to say, even watching this episode, there are moments when I'm like, is this just frittering away into nothingness? Are we all just licking the marijuana-laced lollipop together? And then it surprises me. Then suddenly it snaps back into focus and you realize that Jim Gavin and the other, there are many producers and Peter Aco is the showrunner, they do know what they're doing. You know, they can, they can tighten the leash when they want to. And it's surprisingly effective. So what actually happens in this episode, just for people who don't know? I mean, when you say it out loud, you sound like a crazy person.

Liz, who's played really well by Sonia Cassidy, gets stoned on a THC lollipop and eats a burrito in church, and gets convinced to have a memorial service for their dead father who died in the ocean a year ago and his body never washed up. And she agrees to do it basically in order to steal the money from the collection plate, I think. And then Dudd gets a temp job. and then the lonely woman who's running him at the temp job as they fire everyone from the town business clings to him and asks him to come help clean her pool and he fishes a dead rat out of the tank

and then she hugs him and then the rat comes back to life and he gets a boner and then he claims at the ceremony that he's an alchemist and no one's really dead also he falls he crashes into a murphy bed and crashes into a murphy bed into a secret chamber yeah like a mausoleum yeah that's part of like it's part of the, like a suite at the, at the links. Also, also, also, my dudes, don't forget about the lady who gets a migraine. That also happens. I mean, look, this is, this is, I love the way this show is so low stakes that you all think I'm crazy or just been looking at lollipot myself.

But it's low stakes in a way that I really appreciate because they're just kicking around talking about stuff, drinking beer at a pewter mugs, but they're also talking about the nature of life and time and regret and family. and loneliness. And, you know, it's charming. It's weird. It's like there's low-key mystery box stuff in this show, but it seriously makes togetherness seem like breaking bad

in terms of it's like the intensity level. Totally. I guess what I want to say about it, though, and this is almost a useless comment, but I wish this show didn't feel set up to fail. And what I mean by that is, yes, it's low stakes. Yes, it's charming. There aren't really any big stars in it yet.

why Russell is not yet a big star, although we both think he will be. But, you know, it's, it's, it should, it needs to be in California. That's the vibe of the show, but they filmed in Atlanta for tax breaks. It's on AMC, AMC, you know, pushed the whole thing out on their over-the-top service. The vibe does not seem to be hugely supportive of it, and the rating seemed to bear that out. And it's a bummer to me because I wish a show like this had been given a budget that maybe a more, you know, a more ambitious IP-based show could have merited to see that this can work on a larger scale. Do you know what I mean? I guess what I'm trying to criticize is the way we're talking about the show because it

already almost feels like a beloved cult lost cult favorite. And I think it deserves more than that. Nobody wants to be the cult favorite that's for God. Nobody wants that. I mean, there are worse things to be than Terriers because I still talk about it every chance I get. But Terriers should have had seven years, you know? It's, I feel pre-bumbed, if that's a thing to say.

Yeah, I'll be curious to see how far this show takes the mysticism that's kind of baked into it. And I use baked specifically because it has a kind of stoner mysticism. And not unlike Castle Rock, I don't know necessarily that X marks the spot with this. So you really are, it's your mileage varies based on how much you enjoy the path you take to get there. But in that same way where it's like Stephen King writes about evil, but like when you finally get to the confrontation of the evil, it's all kind of confusing and stupid. Lot 49 has a kind of searching, uh, stoned, sunburnt, like, probing at its heart.

But, you know, whether you really have to be into the characters and the minutia of their lives to really appreciate where it's going. I guess that's kind of what we're saying about all these shows today. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that's what I want to bring it full circle to this idea of a vibe. If we're arguing you can watch a show for a vibe and then the plot or everything else can come secondarily, I wish that Lodge 49 had a chance to live and die on those merits, meaning I wish there were palm trees everywhere they went. I wish we had shots of an impossible blue ocean to contrast with the drabness of the squire suite or whatever it was they found upstairs that smelled of mold and had the secret mausoleum attached to it.

You know, there's a reason why a show like Burn Notice that we have never covered on this podcast and maybe we never will, but that show is about Florida. It was about Miami, and it filmed there. And you kind of knew that if you turned it on, regardless of how you felt about Jeffrey Donovan or Bruce Campbell or whatever they were solving that week, you could sink into it. You could slip it on like a pair of shades, you know. And I think Lodge 49 is, it doesn't have that half of the equation, which it should. It deserves that so we can get the full picture of its intention. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. It's a great way of putting it. All right, man. So you're going to be off for the next few. shows. Yes. Like this is, this is crazy for people who were interested in the way these things go. Like, we are coming up, we're 48 hours away from the Tech Scout. Do you know about that, Chris? No, you tell me. That's, we get a bus. And then everyone involved in the production, including all the network and studio executives, who I'm sure have better things to do than

listen to me podcast, get on a bus, and we drive to every location and we talk about it. It takes like 12 hours. And then the cast is getting here on Thursday. And I know there's only been one announced cast member, but we've got some others, I promise, and they're really cool, and I'm very excited about it. Gene Hackman! I'm working on it. I got another drive plan. I know he loves lamb burritos. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do a table read and hear the words, and then the week of September 10th, we're going to start filming this thing. So I can't join you twice a week. I hope you'll still consider me a part of the family. We'll have like, it's just going to be a little while. Nobody needs

to tear up over it. And I, you know, if you ask me, me what a tech scout was. I thought it would be like a guy watching like a Latvian basketball game with an iPad. But, you know, that's why I'm here and you're there. We've got probably, I'm going to try, we're going to, we have a special show on Thursday because we have a great band called the Alton's coming in to play, much like Rolling Blackouts, Coastal Fever did a few months back. And then we'll probably do, I will grab somebody and do some Ozark preview on Thursday. And then we're off Monday. And we'll be, I'm out next Thursday. So no shows next week, probably unless we pre-record something.

And then we'll have, like, a bunch of special guests. And Andy will call in from time to time when he can. And then Andy will be back in the fall. Yeah, I mean, there may be low moments on set where I just start, I just bring this microphone and I just ask people to comment on Ozark S2 or whatever else the issues the day are. But I'm your boy in the field. I'm not going anywhere.

Thanks everybody for listening. And thank you for holding it down. Oh, my pleasure. Do you mind if I call you again on the phone in the next few weeks? You can call me this afternoon if you want. Are you sure? I wasn't like a very public shot across the bow there? No, not at all.

Just make sure you have your chest pieces so you know like what era I'm calling you. I'm going to give you a special ringtone. I'm going to go back to ringtone rap so that you can have it. I love it. Luffy taffy. Talk to you later. Can't wait. Great job, Ranske's talk to you soon.

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