The Watch - Wakanda Forever! Black Panther’s Big Moment, Plus Jonathan Abrams revisits ‘The Wire’ | The Watch (Ep. 228)

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald celebrate and discuss ‘Black Panther,’ including its cultural impact and the film itself (0:00). Later, Grantland alum Jonathan Abrams joins in to discuss the process of writing his his new best-selling book, ‘All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire’ (0:00). You can find more Black Panther coverage from The Ringer here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the new NBC comedy AP Bio from the executive producers Seth Myers and Lauren Michaels. Ford of those guys, AP Bio stars Glenn Howardton and Patton Oswald and critics call it a laugh, out loud, funny comedy. Don't miss AP Bio Thursday March 1st on NBC and streaming now on the NBC app. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the Ringer.com.

And joining me in the studio column Eric Podmonger. It's Andy Greenwald! You told me you had some nicknames. Good morning to Alex Shibutani and no one else. Do you want to talk about that? Go for it, man. We are so thrilled to discover, thanks to Entertainment Weekly, that we are the official culture pod of the Shipsibs,

that when these beautiful, talented athletes representing our nation so well at the Winter Olympics, when they want to unwind to a pop culture podcast, apparently... They have me screaming in your face about the Eagles. So let's go USA. Shout out to the Shibs. So happy to have them as listeners, Andy. Happy Black Panther Monday. We have a great show for you today.

For you listeners, not for you. It's tough one for you. I'm just going to sit back. Today on the podcast, Andy and I will break down Black Panther, obviously the most popular movie in America. Maybe ever. Which I will be talking about extensively. And then in the second half of the pod,

we are joined by our old friend Jonathan Abrams. We used to work with Abrams over at Grantland. He has an incredible book out right now that you should put in your cart, go to your local independent bookstore and support it. All the pieces matter. An oral history of the wire. It is awesome.

It is a fantastic book about... Can I just say it to the best show of all time? Yeah, probably. People arguing me, but whatever. It's the best show of all time. We talked to them already. We're doing this intro now. I hedged a little bit,

but it probably is the best show all that. I think when all the chips are down, you could make that statement. Okay. Andy, one of the most exciting things about this moment, this Black Panther moment, is that it is a moment. Yes, I agree. From the, like, just really high approval rating I have for everybody involved in this movie's media appearances. Delightful. To just an excellent soundtrack.

Maybe the best, like, inspired by the movie or soundtrack. You know, like, I'm just really, King's Dead is on a loop for me. The Black Panther soundtrack is great. It obviously is just propelling through box office records left and right. And what it really struck me as we were coming out of it, and the ringer has a ton of great content up about this movie. We got an exit survey, camera and a wonderful review. Micah wrote a great piece about the history.

Sean wrote an awesome piece about why it's different than all these other Marvel movies. There's also wonderful writing elsewhere on the web that you should check out, especially Jolani Cobb's piece in The New Yorker. Loved it. So I love that this, we have something that is making us think. I love that this is sparking so much actual conversation. And, you know, there is some trolley debate happening in other realms. But for the most part, I think that the conversations that people are having about this movie are really thought provoking, really stimulating.

And you and I spend so much time talking about television as this and its role in the monoculture, its role in the water cooler. and I feel like with Jedi, with a couple of other movies, I'm starting to feel the scale tip back towards movies. That this is something that we can all anticipate, we can all watch if we so choose, we can all go on the opening weekend and check it out. And yeah, maybe some people will be like, I just got a spoiled for me before I got a chance to see it.

But for the most part, and p.S., this will be a spoiler pod. Such as it is. Such as it is. And now it's Monday, and we're all talking about Black Panther. And I've had, I got text message threads with five or six other people talking about Black Panther all weekend. Me too. I bumped the soundtrack all weekend. I've been reading about it all weekend.

I traveled to Busan South Korea this weekend. You got your, what was the character named Stephanie, Sophia? Which one of the person outside of the stand? The one who's like shucking cockles like out there? Yeah. And it's just like you can go in the club. Look, I don't know. I wasn't at the Winter Olympics, but that's how South Korea works, I believe. This is to me, one of the stories of the many stories that people can say about Black Panther is it is movies

kind of muscling back in and like, no, we are. the central pop cultural conversation topic. I agree with you. I think that that's been trending that way recently, and I think it's kind of exciting, and I say that even obviously as a TV devotee. I think that we are not all watching the same shows, but every so often, we all go to the movies, and that's

really fun. And I think that folds really neatly into the opening point I really wanted to make, which is there is the movie Black Panther and there's the phenomenon Black Panther around it, and we're going to talk about both, but I think it's important to say that they are inextricably linked, and that's not a bad thing. No. I think

that here's where I wanted to start. Ryan Coogler directed this film. Good job by you. Good job by you. And of course, because this movie has been so successful and his previous movies were so successful, there's been a lot of talk

of comparing him, linking him to someone like Steven Spielberg in terms of his... Yeah, Sean was tweeting about today about, has there ever been a director who came out of the gates going three for three like this? Pop culture-wise and also, and ability-wise.

And just clearly showing a progression of ability to handle bigger and bigger stages. Yes. And that is even more crucial now, now that to be a successful filmmaker, you do need to negotiate with the world of franchises and the world of preexisting IP and et cetera. I think one of the most remarkable things to me about this and about what Coogler did is he made a Marvel movie that feels so much larger than the Marvel universe, that feels like, as you said, a phenomenon and an event, not just because we're reading all. all the takes and the tweets, but during the watching of the movie, this feels like something huge. And I remember, and I know you remember too, and people our age and people who were the stranger things kids, more or less, remember, even if you didn't read Entertainment Weekly didn't exist, even if you didn't read People Magazine or watch Entertainment Tonight, we knew who Steven Spielberg was. We knew when a Steven Spielberg movie arrived.

Steven Spielberg movies, and I think they still do to some degree, felt like events. They felt like they were coming in the culture. we saw the posters, we would go see them. His understanding of how to tug on our heartstrings, but also entertain us and dazzle us and bring in the sweeping scores, they were different than other movies. Obviously a different era in terms of what Blockbuster movies were. But Indiana Jones movies didn't feel like sequels.

They felt like events. And it's that DNA that I really wanted to begin with in terms of what Googleers have been able to do here. we saw that in Creed. I mean, you and I, being from Philadelphia, sorry, being Super Bowl champions from Philadelphia, will always point to that ATV scene. But think about what that does for the audience.

Think about the way it lights you on fire from the inside. Sure. I mean, so does the diner scene, so does, you know, so does the track, the one shot, so does him almost punching the wall in Tijuana, you know what you mean? Like, there's so many great moments. And so there are moments in Black Panther where, there were down moments.

I have criticisms of the film because it was, it's a Marvel movie on some level. But there were also moments when I felt overwhelmed with emotion and with joy and when I was just near tears because of what I was seeing and how exciting and exhilarating it was. And I think to be able to talk about a movie like that in 2018 within the structure of movies in 2018, it's Marvel, Disney, it's all the global concerns that went into it. I think that's a triumph. Yeah, I think there's also an it's worth saying in comparison. to Spielberg, especially with Jaws forward, he started to create the culture. You know, it wasn't a reactive piece of art. It was a great point. It was he was creating the Harrison Ford mythos, which informed a lot of male personalities. He was creating these ideas about heroism or these

ideas about family or these ideas of how to mix, you know, profane humor with deep sentimentalism and sphere with exhilaration. Yeah, Jurassic Park is at once a horror movie and kind of a goofy kids movie. Sure, and I think that you could look at you could look at Black Panther and you can see a James Bond movie in there and you can see an adventure movie in there

and you can see this royal court kind of Game of Thrones style political movie in there. And you can see obviously a film that I would have really like cut my own hand off to see, which is the 1992 Oakland movie. Yo. Good look for too short in this movie.

I'm a 40 year old guy. Like, it's not really up to me. It's like I get it. Sterling Brown put in work in that apartment set. Can we talk? I want to talk about all of the six men of this movie, but like, that was, that is the best origin story I've seen in a very long time.

I mean, you get so bored of these things of every movie. It's like, no. And then like my mom's pearls got taken and I became Batman. And it's like, no, man. This is wild. Like this, the spy story set. Oakland in 92 is great. Sean wrote about that a lot in his piece,

and it was just like, yes. I think that one of the things that you can say is that, you know, look, it doesn't reinvent the wheel because we are in a moment when wheels are very popular and wheels are superhero movies, right? So now we're getting these exhilarating other looks at wheels that we've never seen before,

which is why Wonder Woman was both good and successful. That is all really important. But I also, the movie really inspired me as a superhero and comic book fan, and this may be a small detour, but you mentioned Batman, I wanted to say that. I do think that we are coming to the end or we're really dealing with the dregs of the Batman generation. What I mean is, Batman, great character.

I am not here to slag on Batman. But Batman's origin story, so he is a privileged loner who's had a bad thing happen in his childhood and puts on a mask at night and beats people up. That's one strain of superheroism and it has resulted in obviously great stories and great movies. But I've also always been interested and drawn to, as many people have, the outsider storyline. It's always been part of comic books. Superman is an immigrant. Superman was created by two Jewish guys in their 20s about the state of the world. And Black Panther was created by two Jewish guys during a moment of civil rights struggle in this country.

And the opportunity of comic books and these types of stories to make us dream bigger, to connect our current world to mythology, to legends, to culture. Sometimes I can see a line between like fierce, protective. comic book, geek culture, fandom, and sort of a toxic culture online. Yeah, we just went through it with Last Jedi. We've been through this. There is another strain of this, too,

that has always been deeply inspiring to a lot of people, particularly people who felt like outsiders at some point in their life. And so to see Coogler and the people who made this movie pick up a thread here and connect Marvel movies, which we've liked and disliked,

and connect it to something cultural and optimistic, and utopian was truly thrilling. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Marvel movies aren't cool. You know, like, it's Chris Evans wearing a baseball hat with no logo.

It's Robert Downey Jr., dressed like a 1980s Hollywood agent with a slightly better-fitting pants. It's guys driving outies that are corporate sponsorships. Shep's to Lexus. Good sponsorship this time, around. I'm not saying, and there's plenty of that

in this movie, but there is an overall aesthetic to it, even though it's broken up into these disparate parts. and I think that the first 30 minutes are different than the middle 50 minutes that are way different than the last 60 minutes or whatever, however it breaks down. But I think that there is an overall aesthetic

to the movie with the music, the performances, and like I was saying about being a proactive contributor to the culture, I think that people are going to be talking about Kilmonger, and they're going to be talking about the King's Guard character for a long time. Those are like additions to the culture. They're not just like echoes of the culture. They're not just, oh, yeah, that was also cool how, like, he just kind of

reconed a couple of things. They are now, like, in our consciousness. You're going to be making jokes and references, and we're going to mention things like Wakanda Forever. Yeah. And going forward for years to come. And by the way, we should also note that while Black Panther was created by Stanley and Jack Kirby, characters like the Doree Malagetje, I don't know how to say that right, the all-female militia that guards him. Shuri, his sister, played so brilliantly by Letitia Wright. These characters were created by Black Comic Creators. by Christopher Priest and Reginald Hudland. So it's part of a continuum that is truly exciting.

And it feels fresh. But you're talking about things that are being added to the fictional culture. It was so smart and in retrospect, necessary. And kudos to the Marvel Entertainment Brain Trust for allowing this to happen to ground this movie in a different kind of reality. Wakanda certainly does not exist.

The technology in this movie doesn't exist. But Oakland exists. And more essentially, the argument that Kilmonger has with Tachala in the movie, I mean, that is fascinating. That is a vital conversation that has existed for long before pop culture commentators like us

jumped into to weigh in on it. Yeah, it's also like it goes across, it's across centuries, yeah. But it also, and this is why we like that Jolani Cobb piece in The New Yorker so much that I tweeted, this is a movie that puts a bullseye on the hyphen between African and American.

Would it have been cool to see 100 movies that do that? that don't also require, you know, action sequences in South Korea. Of course. But look what he did on the biggest stage. I also happened to really, I think that the action sequence in South Korea is my favorite set piece. Is it, does it need to be there? Yeah.

No. You know, do they need to, why did they go to Busan? I don't know. You know, but could they just have done something a little bit more adjaced to Wakanda or to London or wherever? You know, I don't know why the CIA buy of Vibranium had to happen in Buzan. Oh, tax credits, bro. That's true.

The movie's got to play in Asia. Let's talk a little bit about the Boozan sequence because I think that that's when you and I were talking about where it's like, why is this happening? But if you're going to get a movie like this, and if you get to make a Marvel movie, and Marvel, I think, are at once, they seem to be permissive when on director is like, here's the vibe I want to go for. Like James Gunn with Guardians of Galaxy. Yeah. And if Tyco Watiti wants to do a kind of buckaroo bonsai, like zany comedy and space, he can do it. just has to have Loki and Thor wind up on a spaceship floating through space at the end of it so that it connects to the next Avengers movie or whatever. So I think what they allow you to do is play within the sandbox.

And I think that Ryan Coogler did a really cool job of, I mean, there is a James Bond movie in the middle of this movie, where it's like, here's your cool shit, here's your cool car, go to a casino, have a fight in a casino. And I just wanted to kind of go over maybe a few of our favorite moments in that way. I also think that you're, I mean, I call that out only because I was less interested in the things that seem to be doing the typical Marvel stuff, like the punching at the end that it always ends up with. Although, just shout out to Andy Circus's SoundCloud joke. The strongest example of Kugler's untouched power on this movie is that there was no Dan Harmon on set throwing alts like he was in Dr. Strange. The jokes, they weren't great in this movie. The SoundCloud, you know, I'm a SoundCloud rapper thing.

that didn't really play so well, but that was clearly not effed with, which I respect. But to your point about the South Korea thing, we sort of not said this head on. It was so fucking awesome to see black actors get to play these parts

and do these things. To see whether it's the super heroic action scene, the rescue scene, the glamorous nightclub scene, these actors don't get to play these parts altogether. We don't get to see them. And this is a crime. This is 2018.

It was, if nothing else. And I say this intentionally. Like, I mean this with the weight that I'm putting behind it. The movie is worth it for these incredible, incredible opportunities for representation that it gave us. And brilliant performances by movie stars, by the way. Beautiful movie stars who look great playing these scenes and wearing these suits and throwing people over crap stables. Yeah, and I think the most important part of it is that it was written with depth. And it was written with different, like, really good characterizing.

where each character had a different take. I mean, Lupita Niyango's character was a spy. I love the fact that that comes up multiple times where they're like, you get to be a spy and go out into the world and not worry about it, and I serve the country. And Ocoyah has that conversation with her. I thought it was fascinating.

And it's impossible to watch the movie without bringing in everything we're bringing in from behind the scenes in the world where we live in. We remember that Lupita Njango is a Academy Award winner whose follow-up, and now no one knew she was going to win an Oscar for that, But her follow-up to that movie is she played a stewardess on a Gerard Butler, Passinger 57 knockoff, right? It was Liam Neeson.

Whatever. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry, Liam Neeson. You're better than Gerard Butler. But, like, okay, you know what she should be? She should be the star of a blockbuster film where she gets to be a glamorous spy also. Like, let's give us these things and let's give them those opportunities to.

Do you want a nitpick at all? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of punching. You know? I mean, there's a lot of punching. There's some narrative stuff that I'm like. Really? Okay, sure. But the overall feeling that I took out of it was this exhilaration and joy. And a lot of the nits that I want to pick were papered over, especially in the days since I saw it, by remembering the performances. Well, I want to talk about Kilmonger. Because I think that it's possibly the best Marvel character I've ever seen on screen.

Really interesting. Yep. I don't know that I'm 100% on board with the performance. And it's a really interesting performance. It's, I think, pitched at almost a theatrical, stagey kind of performance by Jordan. And I assume in collaboration with Google, because obviously they've worked together three times, and I'm sure we'll continue to do so. I wonder, the rest of the film feels like it has this mix of naturalism, and they get to have these human moments

and they get to have comedic moments and there was a report and obviously all first cuts are long because you're just like, here's the stuff I've put together and we can start cutting it down. But there was a report that Coogler had like a four-hour cut of the first cut of Black Panther. Now, that may have just been like,

here's all the stuff we're thinking about but probably we're going to focus on. Here's another hour of rhino training. Well, I wonder if there was another hour of Kilmonger. I wonder where they made the decision to joker him and make him off-screen, you know, because for the most part, in Dark Night Joker, especially in the,

is like an apparition that's existing around the movie. And it takes a while for him to show up. And, you know, I mean, obviously he's in the bank scene. But he's just around the edges of the film. And when you see him, you're like, I can't keep my eyes off him. And I felt the same way about Kilmonger, but it was very specifically about a character

and not necessarily about the performance. And I wonder whether, I mean, he's got a girlfriend. We don't really, and she just disappears at a certain point. Well, he shoots her. Yes, right. I mean, but like he has. a life outside of his singular mission in life. He's got those E-40 glasses that he wears to the museum.

And he's got a... I felt like that's another movie. I don't know. But Jordan, especially once he gets to Wakanda, feels a little stiff. Yeah, there's a moment when he's in the throne room and his performance and the choices he's made for the type of character he's playing

definitely clashes with not only the... And maybe that's the point. That's what I'm just going to say. not only the regal pomp of the scene, but also potentially the, what is the green screen, what isn't, we're in Atlanta,

what's going on here? You know, he was suddenly folded into the Marvel universe in a way where the character is not in the first part of the film. You could charitably say that's intentional,

that that's a, that's a collision that's meant to feel a little bit off. And we're never really going to get an answer to it. Look, the depth of feeling in the scene between him and Sterling K. Brown

and the flashback when they go to meet the ancestors is like, you know, like that doesn't happen in Marvel movies. The interesting thing about it is... Turns out Michael B. Jordan is just really good acting with like

dads. There's something there. Tachala as a character is many ways the least interesting character in the movie. That's a hallmark of a lot of superhero movies where the villains are generally more interesting. This movie succeeds because the supporting cast is really interesting. I was really struck watching Chadwick Bozeman's performance

and Michael B. Jordan's performance. Obviously there was some... Chadwick Bozeman was cast first years ago before Cougar came on to the project. Michael B. Jordan is his favorite actor to work with. There was some thought that, oh, if only we could have seen Michael B. Jordan play that part, this movie solves the problem because they both get to wear panther suits. But I was struck by watching them was just the completely divergent styles of their performances.

They are both movie stars. I love to watch them. The camera loves to watch them. It's exciting to think of all the movies they're still going to be making for years to come. But they're very different styles of stars, which may be why Jordan clash in those scenes. Because Bozeman, to me, is a little bit like Tom Cruise in that I don't. don't always know what he's doing, he's not, but he's holding the gravity of the movie together. Yeah, you never question, like, wait, maybe they should have made somebody else the person.

There's just his weight to his presence and his performance that anchors everything. Well, his Jordan is more like Jack Nicholson type in terms of like, my, my, my, my, my, go for it more. Okay. But do you know what I mean? Like, the style of movie star is like, this guy's a wild card. Yeah. He, what he is bringing isn't certainty.

What he's bringing is uncertainty and chaos. And so to see them play off each other was very cool. even if, yeah, I mean, look, you know me, audience and Alex Shubutani, you know that like when it's CGI characters punching in a mine, I'm like, I'm a little bit checked out. And I was in that part of the movie, too, to be totally honest with you. I really appreciated the lack of MCU extended universe weaving it had to do. I know there was the second post-credit sequence with Bucky. Shout out to Sebastian. but this is an example of how successful these movies can be if you don't make them also set up Ant Man 3. And I actually think Ant Man 1 was relatively a good example of that. It was a nice comedy, heist movie, had some great supporting characters.

Again, not a very good villain. But, you know, like, I thought this movie had the most interesting villain. Miles Surrey wrote about this character on our site. I just, I wonder if there was like a little bit left on the table for this performance. and basically how much time we spend with him as a character. Absolutely. I also think, though, the time with other characters, and I know you don't disagree with me, was incredibly well spent.

Because... Let's go through them. Talk about movies launching a stratosphere of stars. Let's go about Martin Freeman, MVP of the movie. Well, you know, this was a legendary flex for Tim from the Office. Like, if you... Seriously, though, like those of you out there like us who watched the original British office on DVDs that I bought when they went on sale at the Virgin

Megastore, like the Union Square in New York, to think that that dude, in just a decade's time, would be flying a virtual sand spaceship. Stopping arm shipments from leaving Wakanda. Great look for him. Great performance. By the way, circus brought it. He really seemed to be having a good time. Is circus juicing, or is that mocap?

I think that, first of all, those ping pongs they've been, ping pong balls. as they've been stapling to him for years, those aren't light. You know what I mean? Like, he just, he bears up under him. So you think he got swole off of all the mocap. I think he got super swole. Swole off the mocap is a good, uh,

that sounds like a mixtape. A good soundclad day. DJ Screw mixtape. Um, Latisha Wright, who plays Shuri. Oh, hi, there's a new star. Yeah. Like, this is just awesome. Talk about,

talk about having fun and having it just be so evident how much fun you're having. Not intimidated by the Creighton's Creed or all of the weight of the trappings of making this movie. You know, she's having a blast. She is so exciting to watch. Similarly, Winston Duke, this guy is terrific. What a great actor to be able to sell danger and menace and humor and also be a heavy. It's great. Like, it's exciting when these people are on the screen and super fun to watch.

Yeah, I mean, Sterling Brown, just in the brief amount of time that he's on screen, phenomenal. Angela Bassett, fantastic. Forrest Whitaker. Yeah. Forrest Whitaker didn't even have to change from Rogue One. Just is like still in Rogue One gear. Still just wearing his robes. The medicine man is still here.

All right, obviously we love this movie. I really, Marvel movies now sort of, I don't know if I would say they are post-criticism, but I would say that they exist in like they're, you only really can compare them to themselves. In that sense, it's probably one of the best, if not the best.

I don't know if I have a deeper affection for another one. I just really appreciate the way. like real, like how much I hold Iron Man 3 in high regard. Well, particularly the sequence with the kid in the middle. This movie rose to the challenge and rose to the occasion. And it gave us not just visions that we hadn't seen before, but it gave us visions of tech and culture and religion and spirituality in a way we have not seen before.

Yeah. The idea, from the very opening where there's the story is being told and it's all in sand and it's beautifully done. and then that sand becomes part of it, where she has the sand table and the sand virtual stuff. The idea of an, you know, the word Afrofuturism has been thrown around a lot in writing about the movie,

and that is a strain of culture that has been dormant for too long and is really ripe for re-exploration, and it's been done here. The vision of what Wakanda looks like, there is no cheese steak scene, but we do see some grilling meats, and you guys know I love any scene

that has local street food. But the vision of it, which is just this riot of culture and colors and collision of different strands of possibility. Yes, this is all fictional, but there's something that is wound together here that is inspiring. Yeah.

There was nothing was mailed in in terms of how it was going to be represented on the screen. This was not just another movie where there's tech and they yada yada at it are in the scripts, and then they're just touching buttons on a screen. Sean talked about this again. Sean's piece is really good.

You should read it. But the promise that some of these things, these comic book ideal, could hold for the real world. That's it. And that's really, in some ways, you know, it ends, and Wakanda has sort of revealed itself

and, and, and, uh, Tishala is at the UN talking about how they're ready to kind of come out into the world stage. And that will complicate, as will Avengers complicate, like,

the role of these characters in the greater world. Um, I'm, I hope that when they do a second film, it's like, they let Kugler or whoever make the, the one movie that they want to make. The James Bond movie, the whatever movie it is,

it's the challenge and not the, there's a meteor headed for Wakanda, and Iron Man has to fly through it and everything. Let them tell this, there was a lot. There was, luck, I actually think everyone should be grateful that Tichello was introduced in Civil War because there was some, there was just enough less origin stuff.

Yeah, if he, if they had to do that origin story in this movie with how, like, your origin story of Wakanda itself and the origin story of Kilmonger, that would have been the first 40 minutes of the movie. Yeah, that wouldn't have worked. So that was great that they did that. There was enough runway to play with.

I'm very curious going forward, and I'm curious your thoughts on this as well. What are the real-world implications here? Because if Wakanda is now investing, like, wholeheartedly in Oakland, would the Warriors stay? Would they, or will they still move to San Francisco? What does this mean for Paul George in the off-season? I just, what I really wanted, when that spaceship landed and the kids are like, is this yours, I wanted them to be like, this is Draymond Greens. And everyone would have been like, oh, okay, that makes sense to me. Yeah, what is Tachala going to do about the Oakland A's stadium situation?

All right, that's it for us on Black Panther. We're going to be back after a few words from our sponsors with the great Jonathan Abrams. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Microsoft Surface. When looking for a laptop, why not consider one with a powerful processor? The new Surface Pro is built for speed and has a battery that lasts all day, so you can watch up to 13 and a half hours of video without needing to charge. Say hello to getting more done and having a great time doing it. The Surface Pro is light enough to go anywhere you want with options for a removable keyboard in lots of new colors. It's

touchscreen display response to your fingertips with great resolution too. And it also works with your iPhone. The new Surface Pro is the lightest most powerful Surface Pro ever. Annie and I are now, we've had a lot of really great guests on this podcast before. You know, members of Franz Ferdinand. Why take shots in my interviews? Lori Metcalfe, nominated for an Oscar, but I've never been more excited for this next guest. I'll be completely honest. Yes. It's our Grantlin brother, Jonathan Abrams, with a best-selling new book, All the Pieces Matter, the Inside Story of the Wire. Jonathan, welcome to the watch. Thank you guys. It's an honor and a privilege. Now let's talk about Eminem for 45 minutes. We know Eminem is his favorite rapper. Wow. Wow. I feel outed

now, but yes. We're here to talk about. That was a Grantland secret, but yes. We invited you here. I thought that was open. Everybody seems to know that that's like the number one talking point about you. All right. You're the real slim shady. This is going to be the next hour long topic. Wow. I've never seen somebody more clever with rhymes than him. Wow. So, but you're just talking about like verbal dexterity or like the best records?

Just the way he uses words is incredible to me. So from a technical skills, you're talking like saying like someone is the best three-point shooting stroke. Like it's just, it's a perfect delivery, right? Not necessarily like the most recent album is your favorite rap album of the year. Because Slum Shady keeps spitting fire against Donald Trump. Nobody would ever say that somebody's ninth. album is their best ever, right? That's true. That's true. That's true. So we're here for two reasons. One, to roast you over your rap hot takes and two, to get you cast as an extra on how to get away

with murder. On Mike, I want to apologize. We invited Abrams to come onto our show weeks ago. He arrived early, just folded himself right into the Caval Call. He's a big get now, too. Yeah, he's kind of a get and so I don't know whether it was scandal or how to get away with murder, but you almost wound up on TV today. It was something Shauna Rhymes related. Yeah. They shoot right here. So yeah, I was waiting to join you guys and be a guest. And waiting and waiting. And I got looped into a herd of extras trying to

get into Shana Rhymes production. And I think I may have gotten it, guys. That's the way we choose our guests. We just have them all line up outside and then a casting director is like you. You can be on the podcast. Talk about streaming TV. Let's talk about, we're going to come back to that. So all the pieces matter published last week. Congratulations. This book is truly awesome.

It is an oral history of probably the greatest show of all time, The Wire. Let's go big picture. Let's talk about this because I remember you emailed me saying you were thinking about pursuing this. You've obviously at Grantland and in other places, you've written these terrific long-form pieces. You had written this book about the high school to pro phenomenon, Boys Among Men. Why the Wire and how did you find your way into a totally different genre for the next book? So this was so much fun to work on just because it wasn't sports. It was just something different and something that I had a passion for. So my agent, my literary agent, actually brought the idea up to me when we were trying to find another project after the basketball book.

And he said that and my eyes just completely lit up because I had already seen the wire four or five times. My sister had lived in Baltimore for a while. And it was something that I knew that immediately that I really, really wanted to do. And I remember we wrote this letter to David Simon telling him, like, I would be great to do this. And this is something I'm really, really passionate about. And it was probably some of the best shit I've ever written. Just that letter. Just that letter.

And his reply back was like, whatever. He can do whatever he wants. From David Simon, that is akin to being hugged. Like, that is the kindest response. I think he's ever sent anyone. I don't think I've ever jumped any higher. He's a curmudgeon. Did you guys actually send letters letters back to each other or was it emailing?

I wish it was like me going to the post office. And David's just like coffee stains and tear drops on the parchment. But it was an email. So he said yes. And then early on I interviewed Alexa Fogle, who was the casting director. I actually just had breakfast with her this morning. She's a casting director on Atlanta too, yeah. I didn't know that.

She told me that this morning. That's amazing. I was astounded. She's very good at her job. Yeah. And she opened so many doors to help me get these interviews because every time I would send an email or phone call to somebody, like the email will come back, C-Ced with like six or seven different people.

Yeah. That's how many publicists these people have. Oh, yeah, for sure. And there were so many layers to get through. And Alexa was like, she was just like, you want Idris? Here, I'll get them for you. Yeah, because that's the thing. With a book like this, you can have the best intentions and the best ability, but unless those

doors are open, you can't make a book like this. It's an oral history of the show. So you need to speak to everybody. It's right there in the title. All these pieces matter. So can you talk to us about who, you mentioned David Simon saying, okay, you mentioned Alexa Fogel. Who were the door openers? And then who were behind the tightest locked doors?

So Alex and David were definitely the door openers. And, you know, I kid around about David, but his assistant, her name is Rina. She was instrumental in opening doors to somebody like Ed Burns who, like, never does any type of publicity. and it's like this brilliant curmudgeon hidden away in Virginia. He was in the police and then he became a teacher and he was basically a lot of season four storyline came out of his career. The tightest ones was Webe is not in the book.

Hassan Johnson, I don't even know what the request got to him, but his publicist asked for $700 to be interviewed. Okay. Very specific numbers. Has Hass Hass Hass Hass Hass Hass Sassan been busy recently? Like, what's he been working on? I don't know.

I think he's auditioning downstairs. I think there's a chance. He's actually on the watch. I'm sorry. I think I got that extra job over. That would be the cruelest thing. This book comes out as a bestseller. He's not in it.

And you stole his acting part. Okay, so he's not in it. And Clark Johnson, who he played Gus Haynes in season five. But more importantly, he directed the first episode. Yeah. And the finale. So for whatever reason, he didn't want to be interviewed. But, you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of people involved with the wire that I knew I wasn't going to get a couple.

Clark's an interesting guy because he's on homicide as well. Yeah, I'm surprised he didn't want to talk. Well, surprise and disappointed for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was there ever a feeling like, so I mean, I guess one of my main questions is, was there anybody whose relationship to the show you were surprised by? Like, obviously, this is one of the most uniformly praised works of popular culture in the last 20 or 30 years. It's widely regarded as one of the two or three best television shows ever. Was there anybody who had a complicated relationship to either the legacy of the show or their place in the show that you were surprised to talk to and see that they had kind of like mixed emotions about everything?

So I think everybody I taught to appreciated the show, right? They can all see that they were doing something different. I think where some of the mixed emotions come in is that there's some people who after the show maybe weren't able to use that opportunity. Like had the wire been popular in real time, they would have been able to use that opportunity to catapult to something else where it's almost like television kind of left them by. And they were only universally praised for that show years after they had already moved on and been struggling. Or people only think about them as those characters in some ways. Exactly. I want to ask you about some specific cast members and your experiences talking to them.

But one of my favorite things about The Wire, and I know Chris and I, we share this, is the brain trust, the writer's room, because David Simon attracted such brilliant writers in their own right, like Richard Price and Dennis Lehane and George Pelicanos. And the chapters that you have in here about how they work together are some of my favorites and the dynamic between them. There's this great anecdote about how Lahane talks about. He was just trying to break something where McNulty is looking for bubbles. And it took like a day, just one of those dead ends that you can't crack. And he says, how about they just run into another CI who says, oh, he's at the soup kitchen. And all of a sudden from the corner, Ed Burns just wakes up. And it's just like, I was a Baltimore police for 20 years and no CI ever fucking knew where another CI was.

And who was he, Huggy Bear? And then started calling Dennis Lehane Huggy Bear because of how lame that idea was. These are all alphas in this room. And yet they somehow created this work. what was your insight into their personalities and how they were able to sort of subsume each of their own egos into this larger project? So that was really fun, right?

Because these guys are all super acclaimed novelists when you talk about Pelicanos and Price and Lahane. And when you're writing a novel, it's you and an editor, right? It's basically just one-on-one feedback. You put these guys in a group with five, six, seven of them, and they're all trying to hustle in and get their ideas in.

Not a lot of them have written for television before. And they argued a lot. I mean, I don't think there's any way to get around it. They argued a lot. And Ed Burns was a arguer. David Simon was an arguer. So they would argue for hours on minute details until, you know, at some point, they used Pelicanos as a tiebreaker, right? Ed Burns and David Simon, where Pelicanos was kind of the adult in the room saying, hey, we got to move along and get going.

And I know that Pelicanos is a front of the. podcast, but he was definitely a, he's a smart guy. He's good to talk to you. He has a good perspective. Yeah, and it's interesting because he's gone on, obviously, to produce other television shows since then. It's interesting to think about him probably, like, finding his role as a TV producer in that writer's room by being the de facto lifeguard, you know? Because the rest are just tearing at each other. The other thing that I, that stood out to me, just from the early pages of the book, is that this, the show is serious. I mean, the show is super funny sometimes, but obviously the subject matter at dealt with was heavy. But these

dudes like to go out. This cast like to party. These dudes add a little bit of thirst for adult beverages. Can you talk about some of your favorite anecdotes that you got from these guys? And maybe how many times there were just like, you could tell there were earmuffs? They're a Hednessy drinking competition? Yeah. Or just like things that there were like ellipsies left that they wouldn't tell you where you could draw in the, you could fill in the blanks yourself. Yeah, I mean, Doug O'Lear, who played Fitz, the FBI specialist in the show was like, there were a lot of things we did that we could have got arrested for.

they would be going out all the time. And I mean, I think some of my, some of the funniest parts was, you know, them taking underage Michael B. Jordan, the strip clubs for, for drinking contest between Idris Elba and Jondi Williams, a actor who played Bodie where, where Williams ends up just like under a table

and he doesn't remember like how he got there and his clothes are off of him. Yeah, and Idris is like 50 pounds bigger than him and he's still like, I got you. I can take you out. Yeah. Idris is going to those like, UK garage parties, man. You can't out-drink that guy.

Idris could handle Baltimore. I feel like he came in. How about those two? How about the just interest and Dominic West just surprising people with their real accents? Although, frankly, McNulty's accent was pretty... It was not a surprise. That was not a surprise.

I know. Well, the funnier thing is with Idris, like, people would be disappointed when they met him in person, because they're expecting, like, you know, Stringerbel, like, this, like, urban guy to be representing the streets. And when he's walking around Baltimore,

and he's like, you know, I'm not going to try to do a British accent because I'll just embarrass him. myself, but when he does it, like, people were disappointed. And that, like, weighed on him. How about Michael Kenneth Williams, just your experience talking to him? Because obviously, there are few people whose lives were as transformed as much as his was from playing Omar.

And then also, he struggled with the fame and has now come back to continue a terrific career. And he also was somebody who was maybe not going to play that big of a role on the show initially. Yeah, I just feel like in many ways, Omar is the breakout character. He won our Wire Character Pool on Granlin all those years ago. but his journey through the show, I think is so emblematic of the show's role in our culture, just coming out of nowhere and then surprising people

and then disappearing and then coming back. Yeah, I mean, well, just think about the beginning of that journey for him where Alexa Fogel just remembered that he had addition for her in Oz, and he didn't get the part, but she remembered that he had this scar. So she's looking through all of her photos

for this guy who had a scar. So that's how, I guess, underthought of he was when the wire first started. and he was pretty sure that Omar was supposed to be killed off the first season, even though David Simon argues that point, but Michael Kay is adamant about this. So you go from that to where all of a sudden you're President Obama's favorite TV character ever, and that can play some tricks on the mind.

I mean, he was going out where people knew him as Omar, and I think he kind of felt like he lost Michael Kay there for a little while. But I also don't think that a lot of people know that, so Michael Kay was the one who discovered Snoop and got some. Snoop onto the show. What was the story of that? They met at a bar where where they were just both looking at each other and then Michael just felt that she was like

pure Baltimore and he started talking to her and told her to come by set. Have you talked to her for the book? Where is she in her life right now? I think she's still acting. I want to say she's still I mean like how do you go on after that role?

Yeah. Yeah. It's been fascinating to see the trajectory of some of the people coming out of that show I don't know that I would have thought Michael B. Jordan was going to be the most successful person to come out of the wire. Did anyone think that? Did people talk about him being like, we knew this kid was special? I thought it was going to be Wood Harris in the first season. I was like, oh, that guy is a movie star.

That guy is this kid is like absolutely magnetic, you know? So the funny thing with him is that he was crying after his character. I don't want to spoil any. It's okay. Time of limitations. Is it okay? It sets of limitations on season one of the wire. Also, I think that if you've been listening to the watch for however long, you've probably gotten around to the wire.

Let's just say he's not in season two. Yeah. Okay. So Wallace doesn't make it to season two. And on his last day of filming, he's crying his eyes out. And people, like, the thing about the wire is that when your character is written off, all of your castmates come to that final scene and they all kind of send the character off. So André Royo, who played Bubbles is, like, confiding in him. Like, you're going to be fine.

You're going to be fine. You're going to go on. And Michael, Michael B. Jordan is saying that this is going to be it for him in television. That he's never going to get another role that he loved playing Wallace. And he's falling in love with acting now. And he's worried that this is going to be it. So, yeah, they're very proud of his career progression and where he's gone on since. I was actually talking to Alexa Fogle this morning.

And she said she had taught to Michael a couple days ago. And she was like, I can't believe that you got cast in something with this many black people. And I wasn't involved. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the later seasons of the show. There's a really interesting bit in the book about Dominic West asking basically to be not used very heavily in the fourth season because he wanted to spend more time with his children in England on the contingency that he could come back also and do direct some of the fifth season

and that he then had regrets, it seemed like, about missing out on the fourth season a little bit. Did you feel like this show? the show in a lot of ways comes to a conclusion in some ways in the third season. You know, the first three seasons of the show can be read as... The Marksdale arc. Yeah, I think, and even with the second season, I think it does a lot to expand the world of how things are coming in and out of the city. But how do you feel about the fourth season? And could you talk a little bit about Dominic's relationship to it, since he's ostensibly the star of the show that then disappears for an entire season of it? I mean, the fourth season to me is, I'm not the television

expert here you guys are but that's the best season of television i've ever seen and the reason why it seems like the book is closed after those first three seasons is because HBO was set on canceling the show basically so just the thought of not getting that fourth season just is enough to keep me up at night because i think that fourth season is so big and kind of explaining why it's so hard for a lot of kids in urban cities to just lift themselves up by their bootstraves uh but yeah i mean i think dominantly Like West saw that season, he was like, damn. That was good. Because I wonder, I don't know who he would have played.

I don't, would they have made him the Prez arc? Yeah, like, you know, I wonder what, because I was always curious about if HBO had said to Simon, either A, you have as many seasons as you want, or B, let's do this in five, or you tell us when you want to end it, would three have been different? You know, and I can't imagine it because, like, to your point where you're saying, Four, I think three is thematically, dramatically, and just in terms of just pure creative act is an absolutely perfect piece of television, the third season. The way in which it introduces ideas at the beginning of the season that destroy some

characters and lift other characters up is just mind-blowing to me in a way that I've never seen before. And I don't, it's very strange to look back and be like, and then the show should have ended on that season because the fourth season was so great. Yeah. But I'm curious as to whether Simon would have adjusted the, whether the Stringer Avon's story would have ended or if the Marlowe season or if Marlowe would have been different had he known he was going to get a fourth and fifth season. That's a great question. A good reporter should have asked that. You do a sequel?

What do you think in talking to these guys, especially Simon, who has thoughts about everything and reflections on everything, how does he particularly feel about the legacy of the show? I mean, I'm sure that if you were. had told anyone involved with it during production that you'd be writing, that anyone would be writing a book, you know, cataloging the highs and lows and the details of it, they would have laughed because no one was watching the show. We're now X number of years on, and the legacy of the show is certainly secure and only growing as more people discover it. What does Simon think about that legacy? Does he, does it, because I think there's always something that bothers him. He's never satisfied. It's what makes him a great artist and a great follow on Twitter, frankly. what gets under his skin still about whether the way the show is received or not received?

So, I mean, it's not an entertainment show for him. It's a show about arguments. It's a show about how institutions are failing the individual people. And I think that's the most disappointing part of it to him is that a lot of the argument is, oh, Stringer is cool, oh, Omar is cool, where people aren't really taking his arguments into focus. But it's tough viewing, right? You have to watch it more than once to kind of realize the arguments that he is trying to make. And I remember the first time I watched that show,

I was looking at how cool Omar was or these characters I had never seen before. And it wasn't until I watched it multiple times where these type of themes you pick up. Yeah. I got to say, this is something that I feel strongly about. I mean, I think the show is a masterpiece because it was also entertaining. You know, if it was just purely polemical, it would be important viewing, but it wouldn't necessarily be entertaining viewing. And the fact that they were able to pull this off the way that they did, that we can care so much about those kids, but also laugh when it's appropriate to laugh. And, you know, I'm thinking of like the big wake scenes or just, you know, the any bunk scene involving a bathrobe.

There was so much joy and life in the show, and they never got away from that. And I think that's something that Simon has struggled with in later shows, although I think he's found that balance again in the deuce. It's also interesting to think back, you know, especially with the third season. You know, there's this Lynn Manwell Miranda profile in The Times this weekend that was about Hamilton as this kind of artifact of like the Obama era and like the some of the wonder and optimism and idealism that was created out of that and the way in which people were reckoning with America in a way that was, you know, obviously like inspired some sort of romanticism. And I was curious about what it felt like kind of assembling this book, probably. what, in the last two years, right? And the country, you know, the Obama era comes to an end, the country is changing. In a way, when you watch the wire, the themes of it, you know, especially in the fourth season where it's like these institutions that are negligent, but I don't know

if they're openly hostile. There's a lot of you get to see a lot of people in these institutions that wish they could do the right thing, but their hands are tied behind their back by bureaucracy or red tape or whatever. And now I think we're starting to have this attitude about a lot of the institutions in America where there's like, are these actually like enemies of the state? Are these actually, you know, are these something like, yeah. To piggyback on that, we seem to be talking about systemic failures. It seemed to be words we use now in this country. Whereas when the wire was showing us what systemic failure looked like, we weren't maybe

nationally having that conversation. Yeah. And I think one of David Simon's big things was he was having a conversation with Lance Reddick, who played Cedric Daniels, where David, told Lance that institutions can't be changed, but individuals can. And that was one of the big arguments that he was trying to make. In the life of the show? Yeah.

Since writing it, and now you're out promoting it, and you're talking to people like us about it, and you're probably going to be doing events, what has surprised you the most about the feedback you've gotten from viewers of the show, readers of the book, people who are either involved with the show or just fans of it? I think just how passionate people are about the show and how many people have seen it multiple times. And on the other flip side of that coin, I'm still astonished by how many people

haven't seen the show. I've had a lot of people come up to me and say they've never seen the wire that maybe they watch the first two episodes and couldn't go on. Once you get through those first, I'd say, four episodes and see how they're building up the world, then it just ticks off and you can't stop watching it. There's so many things that people say they love now about television,

the way television is constructed, the types of shows we're getting. the DNA for it, not politically, not thematically, but the structural DNA is in the wire. I mean, I still think about how Bunny Colvin shows up at the end of season two, and you're like, who's this guy? Oh, yeah, yeah. And then, oh, this guy in the background is going to become a major and beloved character

in what's to come, the sense of planning and that there's worlds behind worlds. I mean, this is what we all look for in TV shows. I mean, you know, everyone listens to the show knows I think Westworld is a failure, but it's chasing a similar idea. idea, even though I think... It's that sensation that if you pan the camera a little to the left, there would be a whole other

part of the world that you would get to see and that they've actually thought about what's off camera. And that bit that we excerpted on The Ringer from the book about the mayoral race and Glenn Turman coming from the Sahara set and being like, I can't get rid of the goatee. And Simon's like, it's okay. Next season when you're running for mayor will have you shave so that you'll look younger because you're going to be running against this younger candidate. And I was like, how did they think of that? That's wild, man.

They didn't even know if the show was coming back. That's when Glenn was like, who the hell am I working with? Yeah, yeah. Who, after your time with the cast and crew, who would you like to personally champion to get back on the pop cultural radar? Who do you think was, deserves better from the world? Oh, that's easy. Andre Royo, the actor who played Bubbles.

He was just amazing in that role. And the depths to which he went and tore himself up to be able to play Bubbles is amazing. I mean, to me, he was the heart of that show and he's the heart of this book. I mean, he was one of the best interviews I think I've ever had just because of how open and honest he was and how his memory was as sharp as ever. And when you're playing an addict like that on television, it's hard to get another role. I think his point was like, for somebody like Stringer Bell, there's always going to be another leader position for Idris to play. There's always going to be another cop for Dominic West to play. But where does that somebody who portrayed an addict for self?

of years ago. And I think now his career is starting to bounce back, but it was a struggle for him for a little while. I just wanted to ask you about the fifth season, because I know that from some of our ex-you know, our Grant-Lead co-workers that we used to have, and then also even just to today, I mean, like, if I talk about this with Fantasy or whoever, there's a lot of debate about the fifth season, because I think some people found the serial killer air quotes plot line to be a little bit, I don't, like, heavy-handed. Heavy-handed, but also, like, not of the show. It was something that they found, like, a little bit.

And then there were some questions about, like, some of the journalism storylines where it was, like, before, when you're watching something about drug jail or cops and you're not a drug dealer or a cop, you're like, oh, yeah, that's, I'm like, I'm going to take this at face value. But when you see certain journalism things, they're like, I don't know, would that really have happened that way? And you're a journalist. You've worked in newsrooms.

Like, what did you think of the fifth season? Yeah, so I think I was at the last. Angeles Times or New York Times when the fifth season aired watching it real time. I couldn't believe how much stuff was accurate and on point and how much stuff he had gotten right in the newsroom as far as how a newsroom feels and a newsroom that's going through layoffs while this show is watching. So it was almost emotional to be watching it while it was on air at the time. The thing you have to remember about season five is that David Simon got squeezed for episodes. Oh, right. So he wasn't able to build out. say a character like Scott Templeton, who should have been built out more. He felt very one-sided, which is not one of the wire's traits, right? Yep. And David admitted if he had more episodes, he would have been able to show Scott Templeton

doing better journalism to kind of round out that character. To Butcher's it, yeah. What I will say is that the finale and the way they closed that series was just simply amazing. Because I remember going into the finale, wondering how in the world he was going to close off so many storylines and just the way the finale played off. played out, I thought he did it perfectly. Yeah, the final montage is the masterpiece. Yeah, that's incredible.

So to wrap up, you're season four. You ride for season four. Can you rank them? I will. And it's funny because it keeps changing in my head. I was not a big season two guy. But after doing this book and after seeing the series multiple times, I'm very appreciative of how it rounds out the whole landscape and builds out the universe.

So to wrap up, you're season four. You ride for season four. Can you rank them all five? I will. And it's funny because it keeps changing in my head. I was not a big season two guy. Yeah. But after doing this book and after seeing the series multiple times, I'm very appreciative of how it rounds out the whole landscape and builds out the universe. So I will go four, three, one, two, five. Okay. I am with you except I swap three and four. I'm with Chris. Like I think that the kid's storyline in four is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen on television. And that alone puts. it close to if not at the top,

but I think there was something that was just electrifying about three. And any season that has that Stringer Barksdale conversation on the balcony that the Pelicanos wrote, that has to be number one. It's also got, I mean, so many amazing moments from three, the brown bag scene that I think Price wrote that, right?

Just Bunny's Brown Bag speech. I go three, one, two, four, five. Because you just love the barksdale's. I just think that one, two, and three, In a way, and especially obviously one in three, but that is, that's like the Godfather trilogy. I mean, like, that's one of the great American crime stories ever told. That is the lowest I've ever heard for. Really?

I cannot separate how agonizing it was to watch. Like, it doesn't, it never felt I dreaded watching every week because I was so nervous for those kids. Did you know Chris put sneaky Pete on his top 10 list of TV from last year? So I'm just saying, there's some, there's some takes going on. No, but look, this is arguing over, like, children. I agree with you. Five was problematic and difficult, but I think that you really hit the nail on the head. It was not a traditional wire season. Yeah. It probably could have been better. And of course, Simon being Simon admits that. But look, this is a fun debate to have. This is, if not the best, one of the top two or three shows in history. And you've written a book that is worthy of that mantle, too. This book is awesome. If you love how TV is made, if you love the wire, if you love hearing Jonathan Abrams talk about his aborted television acting career, which started and ended this morning. Pick up all the pieces. matter. And please buy the real Slim Shady.

Support struggling rappers. Maybe Amazon could do like a package, right? Goldbox deal. Marshall Mathers. No, but not Marshall Mathers. By like revival. Like by like late period, you know, walking on water at Marshall. Get at me, Slim. Wow. Thanks, Abrams.

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