The Watch - What Can ‘Game of Thrones’ Learn From Other Universe-Expanding Sequels? Plus, ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Episode 1.

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

How does Zach Snyder’s ‘The Justice League’ affect HBO Max’s business model (2:53)? Three additional ‘Game of Thrones’ spinoffs were announced last week, bringing the total number of projects in the works up to six. Chris and Andy talk about that (14:50) and then break down the first episode of ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ (29:48). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandu Predict. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a 20,000. $25 bonus. Offered by Fandul prediction markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant

risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fanduel.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. I ain't sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the and joining me on the other line. Had he known that being a superhero therapist was an occupation, he may have rethought his professional life. It's Andy Greenwald!

I thought you meant I would have changed therapists. Oh, yeah, right. Did the therapist from Falcon and the Winter Soldier seem like she would have been like your vibe as a shrink? I was very curious what school of therapy she subscribes to. I think it might be closer to the Zero Dark 30 school than, like Freudian. It's definitely aggressive. It's definitely an aggressive therapy. Oh, Andy, it's Monday. Today on the show, we're going to talk obviously about Falcon and Winter Soldier episode one.

We're going to talk a little bit about some newly announced Game of Thrones spinoffs, some other headlines from the entertainment world. But I just wanted to check in with you, see how you're doing, see how you're holding up. How many times have you watched the Snyder cut? Well, so I'm great. And I think I'm great because some people know this, but maybe not everyone. So I'll share that, you know, I have a contract with the ringer to do this podcast, which I'm very grateful for. And within that contract, like with any document, you know, there are a number of clauses and participles and carveouts. And a carve out, for example, in Hollywood is like you are exclusive to this one place unless this happens. Yeah, right, right.

So we actually used that term when we were like, Donald Glover is now under an overall at Amazon, but maybe we don't know this. This is pure hypothesis. But maybe there's a carve out for him to play Lando again. is a carve-out for him to do Atlanta, for example. In my contract, there are a couple of carve-outs that I don't want you to know about because they haven't come up yet, and I don't want to upset you in advance about the many things that I could choose to do instead of this. But the one that is relevant now is that I am free from ever watching Zach Snyder stuff.

Like, I just don't have to do it. You negotiated that. I negotiated. Well, my people did it. I caved immediately. Like, I was ready to sign something that said I only watched Zach Snyder stuff. That's how bad I am at business. But so I didn't have to watch it.

So all of this is to say, that's why I'm great, but that's why I am legitimately worried about you and how you are. Because speaking of therapies, I mean, do you have motherbox issues now? You not only watched the Snyder Cut, you watched it with a microphone in front of you. I did. Yeah. Yeah. So Sean and Amanda and I did a four-hour episode of The Big Picture where we did the podcast

as like a director's commentary for the director. director's cut for the Snyder cut. And I will say this. It's probably the most fun I could have had watching the Snyder cut. Oh, okay. I get that. And there was some initial, like, real optimism and hope in the first, like, 15,

20 minutes of that movie, 30 minutes of that movie, we were like, man, maybe this is like pretty good, you know, because I think that it got generally pretty good reviews or better than expected reviews. And so for the first half hour or so, I think we were like, this least seems a lot more cohesive of a

vision. And that's really all you want from your filmmakers is a cohesive vision. You know what I mean? Like, give me anything, but as long as that vision is, it's just binding together. But then that fell apart. And I do recognize that by like hour three, I was seeing stars a little bit. By the way, yeah, you're seeing stars. Jason Mamoa. Gal Gadot. First of all, your point is well taken. It's the reason why that last Pirates, the Caribbean movie has been memory hold because it doesn't, it's not the Verbinski cut. No, you know what I mean? Right. Like, you need the visionary to execute the vision. I'm clearly, I'm being facetious.

I'm bordering on obnoxious because clearly people were thrilled for this and people who were excited about it loved it. And that's great. I'm very happy for that. And the reason I didn't watch is because I didn't, it's just not my thing. It's not for me. That's fine.

But I am curious, since watching the material has never been a barrier to entry in terms of the spirited debate of this podcast, what do you think this means? Like, big picture, why was something that was a Twitter campaign, a trending topic, upstreamed into a major media event that was covered. And maybe this is just a fault in how we cover stuff.

And maybe it's not actually any more popular or less popular than it would have been had it remained a trending topic. But this whole thing seems to have become something that we are collectively, those of us who are interested in culture, are talking about. And I wonder why that is. Do you have any insight? Is it more in your mind, and we can start from these larger questions, is it the man or the moment?

More specifically, are we at a moment where we're still just hungry to talk about big stuff? And so people are going to jump in and weigh in and, you know, have fun with that. Or is there something very specific about Zach Snyder and the frustrated experience he had and finally getting to see the light with these characters in this way? you know, one of the things that we talked about during that very long conversation on Thursday, on the big picture, was the old divide that used to be there between nerd culture and mainstream culture. And that, you know, nerd culture and what we kind of look at now and what we talk about a lot of the time at the top of these shows, comic books, sort of fantasy, hard genre stuff

used to be on the outer rim, to borrow a term from hard sci-fi, on the outer rim of culture. It was not like cool to like a lot of this stuff. And so one of the things that I kept coming back to as I watched the Snyder cut was how much for the real heads this was. How this was for guys who, you know,

and gals who spend a lot of time in the stacks, flipping through pages, arguing about the supremacy of one character or another, getting chronology and timeline and canon straight arguing about that stuff. So yeah, I think that there was a degree to which this was the triumph of what had been kind of erased by the assimilation of nerd culture into mainstream culture. It's like, oh yeah, well, we like this stuff.

But it's important to put like some entertaining sheen on it and make it a little funny and like make sure that everybody kind of feels comfortable here so that the normies enjoy it too. and this is like fuck the normies. This whole endeavor is like the normies are what's wrong with these kinds of movies. Now I think I found out over the course of four hours

that I am in fact a normie, you know? But so there's that element. There's also the huge, huge sort of media business side of this which is, cometh the streaming service, cometh the man. You know, like I think that HBO Max

has obviously, they, in a weird way, spun the pandemic and the closing of movie theaters into the, we are your home for big blockbusters on streaming services. They've kind of like eclipsed, I would say even Apple and Netflix, at least in terms of the magnitude of stardom that they're playing with and like Denzel Washington movies and King Kong versus Godzilla is coming in a couple weeks. They have Batman. They have the Snyder cut. But I don't know that this would have necessarily happened if it was just Warner Brothers. And he was like, it turns out Twitter really wants me to release my cut of this movie.

Oh, sure. You guys should give me an extra $100 million to finish it and do some reshoots. And also, it's going to be four hours long, and you're only going to be able to turn theaters three and a half times a day. I think you're absolutely right, particularly about the industry model. And, you know, we don't need to have a big streaming wars digression here. But I do think that the more we talk about anything, especially this, and Joe Adelian at his buffering column and Vulture had a point about this too, which was HBO Max already won. This won. This was a winner, a win for them. And he said it before it even debuted, I think. Which is, you know, if you're entering a very expensive and crowded field, if you can't be first, you got to be loud. You have to, you have to have an identity and you've got to grab an identity as quickly as you can because it's a crowded field. You know, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, knock, knock, going anywhere and established. HBO Max has done that. You know, they, Warner Media was just like,

so this is what we're going to do. We're going to be, and yes, the HBO stuff has enormous value, and we're not discounting that. But in terms of getting noticed in a crowded marketplace being like, we're movies now. This is the place where we're going to have these movies. So that was obviously a huge win. And it's something that Paramount Plus and Peacock are clearly looking at and wondering what their play is. And meanwhile, in the background, Apple just keeps buying incredibly expensive TV shows and it's just just going to keep making them I guess which is good for them. They can afford it.

Well, Apple's the only one of these services that's also like by the way we also sell $2,200 laptops. Yeah, no, I mean, it's funny anytime we or anyone like concern trolls Apple's TV business because it's just simply not operating in the same gravitational sphere. Like when they launch with like four shows and the only thing really good about

them was Billy Grudeup's performance in parts of one of them. We were like, oh, maybe they're in over their heads. Maybe they're not going to stick with it. Maybe they're just dabbling in TV. But it's like, no, they're just going to keep making stuff and spending money and some of it's going to end. Anyway, but specifically to this, I guess my only points are, and again, these are firmly outsider opinions. I texted you and our buddy Sean Fantasy last night because Ezra Klein, a leading public intellectual who I really have a lot of time for, took time from his really impressive schedule of like talking to the people who know what's happening with COVID to be like, guys, educate me about Darkside's philosophies.

And I was like, there's something broken here. There's something broken here. This shouldn't reach him. We should protect him and other people like him so they could be thinking about important stuff. And Sean, I hope he doesn't mind me blowing him up here, I thought he made a really interesting point, was that all of our fevered mind swamps have vacancy at the moment. The part of our brains that have just been scared and anxious for four years, I mean, obviously there's much to be worried about still.

The world is hardly a fixed place. I mean, there's horrific things happening all the time. But Trump's not there, right? And so maybe Darkside fills that gap to some degree. Or the Snyder cutter. Like, okay, this is a thing I have to have a strong opinion about because I'm just so used to that kind of polarized argumentational sphere. Yeah.

And if not about like. you know, a vaccine rollout that I can get in on this dark side situation. The only other point I would make, and maybe it's kind of a split point, is one, I hear what you're saying about this being like servicey

for nerd culture, but I think one of the reasons why I still bump up against it is I don't know. And again, I'm not a DC guy, so I could be very wrong about a lot of this. Sure.

But my outsider perspective on it seems to be that this is absolutely in all these movies that he's made have been Zach Snyder's vision of what these characters are a vision in which Superman is a killer, right? And Wonder Woman decapitates villains.

And it's just a much more, you know, Sparta kind of Anne Rand, Fountainhead vision, which isn't necessarily a comic book vision, but it is an appealing or consistent vision to people who really jibe on that. And maybe ultimately it is probably worth considering this, and this is a good as segue as any into our Game of Thrones talk, as success because what, it's tapping into it's not just a comic book thing, but the comic book thing that has become what TV is. Because it's not so much, whether you loved, liked, or whatever, large segments of the

movie, it's that the movie's terrain was so vast. It's pockmarked with Easter eggs and surprises and nuggets and twists and, you know, setups for potential spin-offs or sequels and an expanded universe all into itself. And I think that that is what a lot of people look to TV to provide. must have been the gamut. Because otherwise, I mean, I've seen Zach Snyder obviously has said like he's done, like he's done with DC stuff. But if you watch this movie, there's just absolutely no way they did this

without an intention of expanding upon it. I mean, it literally ends with a cliffhanger. You know, I'm not a cliffhanger, but it ends with introduction of an alternative timeline and also we got, Darkside gets like 10 minutes. Like Darkside is not in this movie, really. And so like the whole idea of him,

being like the Thanos of this of this cinematic universe is just kind of like left left as like a see you in two years when dark side comes can i add one post script to this like just pure not twitter-rotted take sure which i think is the most optimistic version of this which is the narrative and again listen i just use the word narrative i don't even mean to be pejorative i mean genuinely the one thing about this that made me feel warmly towards it is zach snyder a person who i don't know and I have no ill will towards, had a horrific loss in his family and that informed one of his decision

to step away from the original. The movie is dedicated to his daughter who took her own life. And then came back and felt very embraced and loved by his fans for that. And that's very sweet. I think that's great. And I would be surprised

if he was done with this or if they're done with him because this, you know, DC's whole strategy, Warner Strategy, you know, that we've talked about quite a bit is multiverses and multiple versions and there can be six jokers, and we're just going to make content, right?

We're just going to fill it. But within that, there can be dedicated universes within the multiverse, right? And so it doesn't matter. It's not, this doesn't go against canon to say that Zach Snyder has a key

to a private little pocket universe that he can dip back into whenever he wants or whenever they want to give him a couple hundred million dollars, right? It doesn't preclude development of the next Batman movie. They are the anti-marvel in that. I think that they're just like,

let's just throw the kitchen sink at this. and if people want three jokers, they can have them. You brought up Game of Thrones, and we've been talking about HBO, so let's talk about this. So over, like on Friday, I believe,

maybe late Thursday, early Friday, there was an announcement that there are now three. It was while we were recording. Oh, was it? I thought, I thought, Casey, come on. There were three more Game of Thrones spinoffs in development,

and that brings the total up to six. There's House of the Dragon, which is the Patty Considy, Matt Smith show. There's Duncan Egg, which is based on, like, sort of these spinoffs from the Martin's novels, but then he wrote also these sort of spinoffs. And then there's an animated show. And then they just announced a couple more. So let's just run through those really quickly.

The ones that they announced... To be clear, were these announced officially by HBO or kind of leaked to the trades as being in more advanced stages of development? Some of them have, like, showrunners attached to them. So they're in development. They're in some point of development. element. The one is called Nymeria, which is a Dorn show set a thousand years before Game of Thrones. Incredible. Then there's Sea Snake, which is from Bruno Heller who did Rome and Gotham,

and that is basically a pirate show with Steve Toussaint, who he was in Small Axe. And it will be basically a spinoff of House of the Dragon and then Flea Bottom, which according, not as like an official tagline or a log line, but James Hibbert from Hoth. would reporter at least imagine this as a peeky blinders set set in flea bottom. So there's a bunch of those. Only two of them were directly sourced from your Small Trade Humble podcast, The Watch. We were absolutely just free pitching a flea bottom series like seven years ago. I'm a little disappointed that so far my Moss Isley show has not come to fruition,

But like, that's fine. Like, I think that that would be my number one pick of all shows that we've joked about on this podcast getting made. And to be fair, Chris, when I, the show that I pitched as the Dorn show was actually developed and aired as the Wine Show with Matthew Reese and Matthew Good. That's all. So you just wanted them going through vintages in Dorn? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Just swirling and sipping. No stabbing. Okay. So do you want to talk about these? Yeah, here's my, my first question was, do you think Casey Bloyz owes this money for Flea Bottom? That is between you and Casey and your agents. Like, I would love to get like a piece of profit participation in that, but that was largely from the Andy Greenwald Brain Factory. All I will say to you, to Casey, and the good people standing by at the United Talent Agency,

if the over-under of heavily spice-laden wheelbarrows getting tipped over by urchins running through a market, if the over-under of those wheelbarrows is three in the pilot, I get points on the back end. That's it. That's my negotiation. So, Bollies has been on the record saying he wants to expand this world. He wants to have spinoffs.

He wants to sort of play around in this sandbox. But he doesn't want like 10 shows going at once or whatever. like in the case of Marvel or Star Wars. I have a question, though. Are we sure that Game of Thrones isn't more Hunger Games than it is Marvel or Star Wars? And that it wasn't a discreet moment in time that was all in all incredibly well done,

but is not actually the platform from which to build out half a dozen shows. and I wonder that I think part of that is part I think because the the last sort of stretch of that show and everything that I kind of think went into it on our end

in terms of like covering it was not I mean in any way disappointing but I think a little bit exhausting so I think in retrospect I think back to it and I'm like huh

I wonder whether or not the appetite is there for to start over with this stuff and I think when you look at Marvel and and Star Wars particularly, even though they've both had issues at various points with their quality,

one thing that you can say is that it has been constant. You know, you can ding Star Wars for going too fast and pumping out that first trilogy too quickly. And I think even folks at Lucasfilm were like, maybe we put the cart before the horse to get everything out the door.

But I think they're in a really good place now. And I think obviously there has been basically like, what, eight years? now of pretty much nonstop Star Wars or seven years of nonstop Star Wars and same thing goes for Marvel. It's been more than a decade.

I think it's only been six. Has it really? But it's six and a... Yeah, yeah, you're about right. Six, seven years. It's more than a decade of pretty much a Marvel thing every four or five months. It's been a couple of years since we had Thrones.

And, you know, I wonder whether or not the appetite and attention is still there. That is a concern trial for sure. But I don't think that every single piece of IP is a generation spanning platform from which to build from? Well, I think it's TBD. I think it's a genuinely important question to ask about the property, and I'm sure it's

been asked. I mean, it's all been greenlit, and then the questions are being asked, and it's up to some hopefully very smart people to make those decisions. Execution is everything, of course. To start your first point, which is, was the Game of Thrones phenomenon contextual? Like, was it era dependent? I think it's a pretty interesting question. It's not possible to prove it definitively one way or another now, but I think it's

worth asking. Among the things in the favor of that argument are it was absolutely a handholding over Era's program in that it, at its start, people were like, oh, well, this is like the Sopranos, but with Dragons. Yes. And by the end of it, everyone's like, why are all these people talking around all the dragons? Give me more dragons. It bridged the gap where we understood prestige television that we were excited about to be one thing,

and then it came out the other end as the other thing, for good or for ill. I also think it has the benefit of being first in a lot of ways in terms of we're going to put swear words and sex in your genre entertainment. We are going to definitively make it clear. I mean, obviously the people going to superhero movies for 10 years plus before Game of Thrones premiered established that there was an adult audience for this stuff, but this was absolutely saying, no, this is going to be an adult show that also has all the genre trappings. And that's a more crowded field now. And it will continue to be a more crowded field. I don't know what the audience-friendly MPA rating for the upcoming Lord of the Rings stuff on Amazon is.

But, you know, that's going to be swords and bows and arrows and mystical creatures too. And that's more competition. It also, as we have often set up at Game of Thrones, entered into a marketplace with a lot of, quote-unquote, monoculture shows and then ended the decade as the only one. So all of that is in play. That said, it's a smart bet to make because what you can say with a world this vast

and with time periods, this limitless, that whatever shows you make in the Game of Thrones world, they don't have to have the same tone as the flagship show, which is clearly what they're searing into, which I think is a smart thing. And then the last step, I would say, and we have no knowledge of this because we don't know what any of these shows specifically are going to be or which ones will even make it to air. Or what the tone will be and how much they'll resemble made period thrones. You know, yeah.

But one thing that does appear to be emerging is get the right people attached to the story they want to tell within the universe and you'll likely have a better outcome. You know, what's the House of the Dragon show? I mean, that feels, remember, it was originally the first spinoff was going to be something quite different. It was going to be the long night or whatever. And I think it was the first, yeah, it was basically the beginnings of those families. You know, like the families that wound up being in Game of Thrones, you would see this sort of origins of it. Let me put in terms that our contemporary pod listener will understand. Broad, broad strokes, we didn't actually ever see the Naomi Watts pilot that was shot for this proposed spinoff.

but it does sound like in the broadest possible strokes, they greenlit a Wanda vision, change their mind and said, no, no, give me a falcon and winter soldier first. I'll be so interested to see if you're right when we get housing. But you know what I mean? It sounds like they were like,

we got to preserve the brand as we know it, and then we can get freaky. And going down the line, how freaky are they willing to get with it? It's an open question, you know? And I'm reading, just to fold in some other news. Like today it was announced Emerald Fennell, Oscar-nominated filmmaker now,

an actress in her own right, but she made promising young woman. She's just signed on to do a Zatanna movie for D.C. and Warner Brothers. Zatana is one of those characters that is, to me anyway, cool and interesting. Not a great, not an A-list character,

but she's an interesting magician who hangs out with superheroes. I'm at Max magician right now. I just got to tell you that. Fair. But that's the kind of thing that interests me, and that's the kind of deal

where they, having those characters in your arsenal is what allows these, other than enormous, quantities of money. It's what allows these mega corporations to grab major league talents, you know? And so I think that it'll be interesting to see if Game of Thrones subscribes to this theory as well, because you could say there's going to be 100 Star Wars shows, fine. But then you also say, well, Justin Simeon from Dear White People is doing the Lando show. Oh, now I'm interested. Similarly, I don't really mess of the DCU, but Emerald Fennell making a Zatanna movie. Oh, okay,

what will that be? That's interesting. Yeah, for sure. The degree to which, I mean, we were talking at HBO Max's kind of advantage and being noisy about movies, the other advantage that they have that they haven't fully weaponized yet is in addition to the luxury of being like, I wonder when industry season two is going to start filming or I wonder what Michaela Cole wants to do next. Casey Blois also has probably a big, literally a bat phone like Bruce Wayne has in his office where on one line goes to the room where people are just all day taking Game of Thrones spin-off meetings. The next line is where people are taking DCU spin-off meetings. And the third one, which hasn't even really broken through yet, is a million percent there's a Harry Potter line for all the Harry Potter TV shows that they're trying to develop and make.

And that's not even official, but of course they are. So that's the business. Yeah. And this will probably actually go right into our Falcon and Winter Soldier conversation. I do think it's worth noting how unique Marvel is in this situation. Because part of the reason why those Star Wars sequels, the Daisy Ridley movies, I think not suffered or at least were kind of, it wound up coming up a little short or however you want to put it,

was, I think that there is a huge amount of people out there who their heart is open to any Star Wars story. And they're just so excited to spend time in that universe and that's like, this is just manna from heaven that they get to do it. And I think I found myself in that position during the first season of Mandalorian being one of those people. There's another part of my brain, though,

that's like, this story's done. You know, the story ended with Return of the Jedi. It was expanded upon if you want it with the prequels. But for the most part, this is a story about Skywalker's, and that story is over, and I got it. Play the yub-yub song. Get them off stage. I think that you could make the same argument about Game of Thrones. I know that there's a lot of other shit in that book, but part of the reason why I found the histories, both within the text, which I did not read, or alluded to in the shows and sometimes flashbacked

upon, especially when it came to John's parentage, is it was history. It was like this was the past of some central character, or this was the lineage of some central character. It wasn't, this is a spinoff and will then become the central aspect of this show. So do you know what I mean, though? It's like, it's like, that was history. Yes. And, you know, there's a, I think you could make a similar argument. It wouldn't be a financially wise one, but you could say that Marvel is done. Marvel pulled it off. I wouldn't.

I would say that they told a story, but I think part of it is like, I don't look at endgame as being like, okay, now I'm done with Marvel. They got to the end of it. I look at end game and I'm like, boy, there's a lot of other Marvel stories I'd be really curious about. Yeah. Well, I agree. I don't actually think it's done, but they did a good job giving a, even if momentary

or fleeting sense of finality because it had stakes and things meant something. Yeah, yeah. If you wanted to tap out of the ride, you could. But also, you know, those were created differently. I mean, the thing that Star Wars is always laboring against, even though it's gone so far past its origins, is that it was one dude who was like, I'm going to tell the story of a family, right?

Like, I make it sound like George Lucas was Steinbeck or something. But, you know, but he was like, Luke Star Kilder or whatever he was that he wrote in his notebook in the 60s. And then that's what it was. And then from that, the fandom, you know, lifted it and blossomed it. And now they're trying to say, Well, it was always just about this galaxy that happens to be far, far away a long, long time ago. That's more challenging, and we've seen the growing pains.

The Marvel universe is enormous, you're right. And they're trying to do in this next phase, what makes it creatively interesting, I think, for us, even though we have our ups and downs with it, is they are simultaneously introducing new planks. And we're going to see more of those probably beginning with Eternals at some point this year. But they're also now doing the aftermath, right? The degree to which they are hewing to their own continuity and basically saying everything post-endgame is our version of the leftovers,

I respect it. Yeah. I respect it. But to your point about Game of Thrones, it's going to be interesting to see what direction they go in because the bad taste that the finale left in a lot of people's mouths, I don't think there's a vast audience for, or vast hunger to see King Brand's reign.

You know what I mean? So the immediate sequel. I don't even know if brand is interested in the kid who played brand is probably like I'm good, man. But you know what I mean? So like they don't have the obvious next story. What they have, you're right, is the adjacent sideways stories. And then you fall into the trap that we've sketched out previously, which is when you're telling prequels, even if they're, you know, from a distance of thousands of years. Yeah, right.

You know how the story ends. And so what you're doing is filling in gap. not creating new world. So that's what it can feel like, and that's the challenge. Let's take a quick break, and we'll start talking about life after the blip with Falcon and Winter Soldier. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last-minute beach day, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for,

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Okay, man, we're back. Episode 1, Falcon Winter Soldier. I'm really curious to hear what your sort of initial reactions were after you finish the episode. Well, I want to start with broad positives. Yeah, for sure. I want to start in a good,

I want to start in a healthy place for the discourse. Yeah, let's wait for episode three for us to completely have nervous breakdowns. Sure, I think that's probably wise. The main thing that I wanted to focus on to start with is what separates Marvel from the pack of franchise storytelling. And you can credit the original source material, Stanley and Jack Kirby, or Kevin Feigey or whomever. Every character has a, and every story they tell has a very easy to identify. problem. You know what I mean? And it goes back to the thing we would

always talk about with Peter Parker. It's equally hard being in high school as it is being a superhero, right? Like that, you get it. And we're good. Similarly, with a show like Falcon and Winter Soldier, which you could be cobbling together to characters who have either limited backstory

in terms of Falcon and the pilot does some yeoman-like work trying to give a bigger picture or in terms of Winter Soldier, a character that frankly has too much backstory of like 50 years being an international assassin. Yeah. And now, you know, is trying to make good at, by having

sushi lunches, which, by the way, that is how I do redemption. Also, in that case, then I'm good. I'm going to heaven. The central thing that they smartly steered this show into is a truly great story. Every so often with Marvel, they'll be like, we have been telling these characters, telling stories of these characters

for 50, 60 years, but like, here's one huge thing that you just left up on the clothesline. and we're just going to take it down and do it. And the question here is, can Captain America be black? That is a fantastic question for comic books, for storytelling, for this moment in America, frankly. And I'm very impressed and glad that the Brain Trust and Malcolm Spellman, who created this for TV and his show running it, seems to be steering toward it. The flip side of that, and again, we don't know, because this was, as other people have said before,

a very movie consistent first hour, you know, of the types of stories we're generally used to seeing in the Marvel universe, but with this extra piece that's sort of more introduced at the end. Like, could Sam even be Captain America? Would he be accepted as Captain America? What does it mean to be Captain America? Great. The question that we cannot answer after one hour, and maybe we won't be able to answer after six, is they have the appetite to tell a story like this, but do they have the stomach?

for it. And I think that in many ways, it's a kind of similar question to what we were asking about Wanda Vision, which is... Do you say that because you have a sense of what story they're going to tell based on your knowledge of the comics? No, I think more so because of my understanding of how they tell the stories. And the better analogy for that is this is a TV show or a version of the Marvel universe where there's violence where people get shot, but they get shot in a very Marvel on Disney-Ploose way, which is the gun goes off and someone falls in the background,

then we move on. It is literally, quote-unquote, comic book violence, but being told at a bigger scale, and my concern is that when you, even though they have the desire and the momentum to steer into more socially interesting questions

and thornier ground, will it be slightly PG-13? Will it be, will they flinch and pull away from the shot? It definitely will be. I think it will, too. And that's what I meant as a similar question to Wanda,

which is it faints towards these bigger issues of grief, and we will all want to give them credit for trying and pushing the boundaries, but ultimately does it end up there? And we can't tell yet, but this is where my headspace is in watching this. And we should save some room in our conversation to just for the other half of this,

which is, it's pretty wild that they're just making Marvel movies for TV now, and Carrie Scoglin is just directing the F out of it, and these actors are in it, and like, this is just what we get. Yes. I am going to hold, what is the thing? new way of office speak. I will hold space for that in our conversation and we'll return. But I want to give it to you that bigger picture point about one really compelling story and whether this is the vehicle for it.

The show checks every box I could ask it to. And I mean that as both in praise and also kind of just to be like you don't really say that about things you love, right? Like you don't really say it checks all the boxes about something that you are very passionate about. And so far, I don't think I am passionate about it. And I really don't want to sound like a broken record where like I think I said the same thing about Wanda where I was like, it's good, but I don't love it. You know, it's good. But I'm not connecting to it. I think I, the potential is there for me to connect to it. This is not a pilot. This is the first 20 minutes of a movie. Except it's 50 minutes. Expanded to 50 minutes. Absolutely. Down from like the opening set piece to hear all the little

nuanced ways in which our characters are being driven towards one another. At the end of the first act, they meet and find out what their new mission is, but they haven't done that yet. All that stuff is there, and it feels way more like movie storytelling than TV storytelling. But, you know, it has, does it engage with the sociopolitical realities of a fantastical world it creates? Yes. Does it have action and international espionage and detailed drama with like the tiger beer and the soccer on TV and all that? Yes. Did it miss the magnetic force at the center? Which is, I guess, Chris Evans? Absolutely. Is the show largely about what do you do when that magnetic force is not there? Yes. And that's cool.

Did it remind you of the time in 2019 when I was making a show and I was not on the watch? Was that why it was a particularly challenging watch for you? Talk about going to therapy. Yeah. Like I think that this show is actually like was really cool and interesting. I don't think it's like going to convert anyone who is skeptical about it necessarily. if there were anybody that got there and you know in comparison to Wanda

it is a real like there's two ways of doing making an album right you put your best song at first and get everybody engaged

and then the second track is a little weirder or you do the weird track first to be like new album weird shit happening and then the hit

goes second I think that that's what they're doing here they did Wanda first and then the more traditional like this is a

if you like Winter Soldier, if you liked Civil War, if you like these guys wearing anonymous bomber jackets and having like serious conversations about responsibility and then fighting for 12 minutes, here you go. And so I like those movies. I'm happy to see this show. I thought it was like a little drab in the way that I find a lot of Marvel stuff that's set in the quote unquote real world to be somewhat drab. Yes. But that's okay. You know what I mean? Like I've made my piece with that. Yeah, there's little things that I don't want to overlook because I I'm trying to regulate. I'm trying to my response without getting too high or too low, obviously, but also I don't want to miss

certain things, such as, and someone put this on our Facebook group, and I think it's worth noting, was just like referring specifically to the scene where Don Cheatel and Anthony Mackey are talking and in the shadow of the now departed Aryan Captain America and just basically being like, this shit matters. This is really fascinating and could be seen through a certain light is almost radical representational superhero storytelling. And I don't want to overlook that. Similarly, we went from a place of being like there are only six dudes who can direct big budget movies to Carrie Scoglin who has done great work on TV and worked on the handmade

tale. She's worked out pretty much every show that you could think of. She doesn't, in the old guard, old version of Hollywood, which isn't over, but maybe started to crumble in, I don't know, three years ago. she doesn't get this. If you are a woman in this industry and you get to be a journey woman filmmaker, like Dainu, like that's it.

You know, she's not super young. And she got to do this whole series and she could do it. It looks great. Action stuff is a Marvel movie. You know what I mean? So that is important. Those are issues that I think Marvel deserves credit for

because they, with their paycheck and outsized presence, do set a tone for how the industry is moving, for how the industry moves, and I think that's really important. I will say that the familiarity of this that you're alluding to did make me want to take back some of the things I said about Wanda Vision for not being weird or good enough. Because compared to Falcon and Winter Soldier, it's in Shenando lu.

You know what I mean? Like Wanda Vision is like pure 60s art house. Like I am curious yellow. Yeah. And that made it seem more impressive, honestly, in my mind for that reason. So how do you help me work through this then? I think that the reason why I like this show better is just because I'm more interested in these two guys than I was in Wanda and Vision. You know, like, I think the reason why I was just like, whether it's the performers or not, I don't know. But like, I was always like, I don't think that there's a there with Wanda and Vision for me. You know, I know that if you do a lot of research into. like into the characters and you've mentioned some of the great runs that especially vision had in the comics. And I don't even know if there is like incredible Sam stuff or Bucky stuff that I should be reading. But within the context of the MCU, I was like,

I actually do want to see how these guys come together and work out their feelings about whether it's feeling like imposters or inadequate or not quite there yet to be Captain America and everything that that entails and all the the reasons like whether it's Bucky being like I'm a fucking murderer so I probably shouldn't be Captain America and Sam being like I don't know if I want to be Captain America if America won't give my family alone you know which is pretty awesome moment in the first episode of this show is just like that that's just real stuff I think I just I just

maybe there's just like a base level of curiosity it's higher than it was for the other ones well I also think that it is both of these shows are not I don't think there's a barrier to entry I don't think they're challenging but I do think that if you are even nominally invested in the larger storytelling

project of the MCU this is an easier truck to skitch onto for a while because it's just continuing that larger story that you've already been a part of where Wanda Vision was kind of veering in a couple directions that were relatively new to it and obviously it was also leading to Dr. Strange 2 or whatever but in terms of the

larger Avengers project this is more familiar territory. To your point about, like, important runs, I did want to shout out the great comic writer, Ed Brubaker, and with the artist Steve Epting, kind of invented this shit. Like they, there were a couple, you know, I think there's a joke now that, like,

the only characters who you can't resurrect in comic books are Aunt May and Bruce Wayne's parents. Everyone else has been killed and brought back multiple, multiple times. But for a while, at least when I was a comic fan, Bruce Wayne's parents just get killed all the time. Yes. It's like, imagine their life if there was a season of Russian doll about Thomas and Martha Wayne. Just no matter what they do, they get gunned down in the street every episode.

Anyway, when I was more of a comic fan in the 90s, the other person on that Mount Rushmore, if you can't bring him back, is Bucky Barnes, who also, at least from that perspective, was why would you bring back Captain America's teen sidekick, Bucky? It was almost a joke. talking about those opportunities that are there to take a good story off the clothesline, Ed Brubaker was like, no, no, we're going to do it. And we're going to say he was alive all along and he was actually a Russian agent and what does that mean? All part of this long game to eventually have him replace Steve and Captain America had a handgun when he was bucking.

And what does that mean? Blah, blah, blah. Great story. Really interesting stuff. And probably also worth noting that, you know, Ed Brubaker invented this and gets like a thanks at the end of these movies. and that's that. But that's the state of work for hire. That's a larger issue.

That's what happens to you. We'll talk about. When they make the watch C. Yeah. Ed Brubaker and I both just, we give and we give. And does anyone say thank you? That's right.

I'll be in my stark tower. That stuff is worth reading the Winter Soldier run that those two guys did. One thing that's happening also in the series, to your point of like, what does it mean for these guys who aren't the guy? it's worth considering this episode and this show as coming into a world where the boys is very successful.

Because some could say, well, Sam Wilson seems like a pretty stand-up guy. Like he could at least maybe leverage his Stark tech. Like now his bird robot has a name. Like he's probably good for a reno on the dock. You know what I mean? Sure. But I kind of appreciated them putting. down those walls, not just because of what it means for the systemic bias in the Marvel

universe, which hopefully the show will become at least, you know, aware of or interested in. But to say that this isn't the boys, that this is still, everyone to some degree is still a little bit Peter Parker. There is no government control of superheroes, people that's not monetized. It's just like, well, we saved the universe from a guy with a big purple chin, but now what? And I think that now what moments are really fun and interesting, and it's always what made the Marvel universe compelling. So I think that's smart.

And maybe, sometimes I do hear us, and when we pitch our spinoffs, it does seem like we pitch the moments like, okay, but once the house is built, who spackles that hole in the guest room? But if this show also, in addition to all the other things that are being asked of it, advance that ball a little bit further down court, which is, okay, so really what's going on now?

Like, are there Avengers without the guy who paid for it and the guy who was the figurehead? What does that even mean? That's kind of interesting. Yeah, and they've got, now that I think the blip is a much more interesting cataclysmic event that people are grappling with to me than the Socovia Accords, you know,

which was sort of like the underlying, like global political moment that I think that the Avengers were sort of grappling with for a while, but you were kind of like, I just want to see you guys fight. This is actually like, what would you do if you were just vanished for five years and then came back? And what would your credit rating be? You know, I wanted to ask you a little bit, just some sort of lifestyle questions about

this show. What do you think the Winter Soldier's sushi order is? Great question. The fact that he goes out of his way to order a Malaysian beer is interesting. Big fan, by the way. Tiger's great. Yeah. Tigers are great beer.

We're available. He drinks a lot of them. I thought that was interesting. I feel like because he is very flirty with the woman, that he might just be like Omicasse, you know what I mean? Just like, bring me what's fresh today. But the other version... You can never go wrong saying that today on a date.

No, but the other version of it, and this is, I'm glad you brought this up, because the thing that I like most about the show, full stop, was that Malcolm Spelman, steered the character of Bucky, who mostly has just been brooding in the movies, and now we're past that, right, into the reality that he is 106 years old or whatever,

and is most comfortable hanging out with fellow extremely old people, which I love, is very old-fashioned. And if that's the case, I mean, I know he's traveled the world as an assassin, but my dude just might be straight California rolling it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, if he's anything like the way my grandparents were,

when we were like I was like I like eating sushi and they were like here's more matzabal soup this conversation is over terriaki chicken bowl yeah yeah like like I really like that do you think that he is really guy is his heart

open to therapy do you think you think he's really like participating in the process well obviously no but like the agro like world wrestling federation presents the new season of in-treatment that this therapy was?

Because I get him being like, I'm not participating, I'm going to lie to your face. But with she's like, you suck, you're a liar. I've killed stronger men than you in combat, basically? Yes. What was that about? Yeah. I don't, I'm very curious which, yeah, which field of psychotherapy encourages abuse of patients?

And could I sign up? And is it covered by my health plan? You know, I think a lot of the success of this show is going to probably hinge on Wyatt Russell, which I have a ton of stock in that guy. And I'll be curious to see what happens when they bring Brul back, you know, which is obviously like that's for a later episode. But I don't know. I think this show has a lot of potential.

And I think I've learned my lesson. Well, remember, guys, Brul was like, finally I can wear my iconic purple mask, right? like, Brul had just been twiddling his thumbs in Bavaria waiting. And not only that, he was like, I'll go anywhere as long as the purple mask is waiting. And they were like, can you come to Prague? And he's just sitting in Berlin being like, yeah, I think I can do that. You're making this very easy for me. We can wrap it up there.

We'll be back on Thursday. And then next week, I think you're off on Monday. I will be here with a special guest. And we just wanted to let people know. We'll kind of like do a little bit more housekeeping as things become more clear, but we are going to be moving our Thursday show, I think, to Fridays for about six weeks or so, uh, or longer, because we're going to cover Top Chef this season. And we wanted to be able to do that, uh, the day after Top Chef airs on Thursday nights. So we'll have, you know, I'm sure we'll

have some general entertainment industry and TV show talk as needed on those Friday shows. But for the most part, I think we're going to cover Top Chef this season as it goes to Portland. And, um, yeah, And we'll have a special guest joining us for that. Also, guys, I think people have heard us begin to express our enthusiasm for the French series, Le Piero. Yes, this is important. Chris is now caught up with me. We are now both in the second season. Unless we get, like, wild pushback on Sosh, I think, Chris, that we should talk about the first season on Thursday.

How do you feel about that? Or should we give people more time? I'm happy to do that. I don't think, because we didn't really. tell anybody that we were doing this, so I don't know how many people will have time to watch 10 hours of French spy show by Thursday. But I'm open to it. How about this? Guys, we want you to watch the show with us. We love the show. We are, I know we've over-promised. A lonesome dove-style conversation, though, where we're not going to make it the bulk of episodes.

How about this? I know we've over-promised and under-delivered before. So why don't we do this? That's not happening. No spoilers on Thursday. What we will. do is try to get any doubters fully on board on Thursday. And then in a week or so, or not in two weeks, we will do a season one talk. And then at that point, we'll also set expectations for when you should finish season two. There are five seasons in total. If you tweet spoilers at me, I'm sending dark side to your house. I say that just to everybody who I know and love out there who sends me encouraging messages on social. If you send me like a season four spoiler, like it's a wrap for you. we are really into the show and 90% of our text messages are just about Matthew Cassiv.

It's journaling shirtless. I'm losing it for this show. Like this show is like, I'm like, you could tell me this show might be as good as Mad Men. Like I'm so overwhelmed by how much I love it. So great. It's great to love things. Yes. So we're going to be doing some bureau talk.

We're going to be doing a lot of Top Chef talk. We're very excited for Bear of Easttown, which is coming on HBO soon. And so a bunch of shows outside of just like the superhero stuff that we've been talking about. Plus, we'll continue talking about Falcon Winter Soldier. Free advice for Casey Boyes, if you've listened to the whole episode. It's not too late to retitle Mayor of East Town, Marethown. And then you could go from Beartown to Mertown, make it a double feature. You're welcome.

That's points on the package after Flea Bottom. You better start TMing this stuff. You better start copywriting this stuff. I'll talk to you on Thursday. Good job, Franckis.