The Watch - What Do Showrunners Do After Their Great Show Ends? Plus, ‘Sirens’ and ‘Adults.’

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Chris and Andy talk about the finale of ‘Everybody’s Live’ (8:06) and a couple of recent releases, including ‘Sirens’ (14:29) and ‘Adults’ (23:59). Then, ahead of the premiere of Jesse Armstrong’s first post-‘Succession’ project, ‘Mountainhead,’ they talk about what the careers of other great showrunners like Matthew Weiner and Michael Schur have looked like after their most famous shows ended (34:14). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Video Production and Editing: Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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, he just fought three 14-year-old boys. It's Andy Greenwald. I feel like it. You look like it.

Thank you. In a good way, in a way that feels like you triumphed. Or that I tried. Yeah. Greenwald, today on the pod, a good one. We are going to be talking about Sirens. The first couple episodes of that new-ish Netflix show

came out last week. We're going to talk about this season. finale of everybody's live with John Malaney, which was aired last night. A little bit about adults, the new FX series that just dropped its entire season on Hulu and Disney Plus and all the places you get that stuff.

Today, it's a new comedy. And then we have like a larger conversation that will probably turn into essentially a two-part discussion about this weekend's upcoming HBO release Mountain Head, which is the first big work from Jesse Armstrong since Succession ended two years ago,

almost to the day. Today we're going to be talking about the role of the showrunner in our contemporary moment of television. Hopefully a fun conversation for folks. And then on Monday, we're going to talk a little bit more in depth about Mountain Head itself. Do you think we should lean heavily on the thoughts of our own showrunner of the watch, Kaya? I think she's noddingly. She has a lot to say. I bet she does. We should also say, I think, well, actually two things. One, I said this to you on the phone, but I want to put it on Mike.

We are talking about Jesse Armstrong's new project two years, like you said, to the weekend? Like almost exactly, since succession ended. Would you like to go on record with your thoughts on the succession finale now? I thought it was okay. I thought it was masterful. I thought it was great. Okay, that's number one.

Number two, you made the joke about fighting 14-year-olds. I do think it's worth mentioning to our listeners that we are both struggling with some physical ailments today. Yeah, I mean, I'm on a wellness journey. And I can't lift my arms. arms over my head, but like, you know, got to get strong, baby. Are there moments during today's podcast when you would ordinarily throw your arms up in a touchdown gesture that I will...

It's honestly, it's holding a steering wheel, which I find challenging, which also other Los Angeles drivers. Clearly. And this is my thing, which is I've done something to my lower back and, you know, it doesn't feel good? Sitting during a podcast, I'll say, but the worst thing is sitting and driving. That's the worst thing. I also do, this is also part of my quiet attempt to steer this into just an aging podcast, which it already loki is. It's a loud attempt. It's very loud.

No, but like our old pal, Adam Pally has a new podcast, just about like health journeys. Does he? Yeah. So if they covered 10% more prestige television and then we took 10% back of like, hmm, this new Japanese Lytocane patch really latens the load. Do you have Japanese Lidacane patches? I make it sound fancy. They sell them at Walgreens. Okay.

Yeah. No free ads, but I've got six on my body right now. Is Walgreens is still cranking them out? Oh, no, it's right aid is filing. Right aid's done. Walgreens and CVS are cranking them out in the sense that cranking them, cranking the security windows in front of all of the items.

You know what I mean? So you can't actually get anything. When I go into my right aid, still there. But if it's the only one. It's the closest I'll ever get to once upon a time in the west where you walk in and like a tumbleweed blows across the aisle and the security guard is like looking at you with a church. root in his mouth. I had a similar experience

when I took the girls to a movie theater. They were like, oh, are we going to and they named like the three movie theaters we often go to. And I was like, no, no, no, it's near them, but a little bit further down. A little bit like east of Pasadena. And they were immediately like, we don't want to do this. And I was like, I'm the one taking you to the Minecraft movie. I don't want to do this. I found a movie theater that has cheap matinees.

Is there a reason why it's cheap? Cheap matinees. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, okay. Was it a little off the beaten path? Yeah. Did they Was it a print of Minecraft? Basically. But we got there and then I needed to, this part of the story is important, but we had to go to a drugstore. No, now it sounds worse. There was parking.

I needed to pay cash for parking. There was an ATM at the, so I walked into it, appeared to be a normal, maybe now I'm realizing it, right aid. And I walked in and immediately it was uncanny valley. It was just way too clean, way too empty, two people working here, the size of an airplane hangar. everything else looked like it was lit like the fake plastic trees video. Yeah. You know? And they just had a lot, a lot, a lot of like six items of like one kind of detergent.

Let me tell you something. One kind of hot talkies. Honestly, we can cut this whole part. No. We're going to promote this. Kai is already clipping this for social. I have an issue where I might be addicted to Aquafina. Like no other water actually makes me feel hydrated.

Did I ever tell you that? I don't know if you want to brag about this, but let's hear about it. So recently, and I'm not disparaging the Aquafina Corporation or whatever, you know, like arms dealer owns it. Pepsi? Yeah. Go on. I can't find it at most supermarkets. And then I walked into my right aid and half of the store was Aquafina.

So do you think the algorithm did the entity did this for you? No, I just think it's like they got the last Aquafina. You know what I mean? And what are the odds? It's right in your backyard. You understand that like Desani and Aquafina are just Coke and Pepsi. buying galaxy-sized Brita filters and just running tap water. Whatever it is, I just don't feel right drinking other water.

Any other water. Not morally. I mean, physically, I don't feel like it quenches my thirst. I think it's the plastics. Probably. I think your body's like, here's where we're at, though. Yeah.

We're talking about our wellness journeys where we are in our lives. You're much further behind than I thought. My boat sail, dog. I'm playing with house money now. Talk about it. Well, no, I'm just saying, like, I don't want to destroy the world. but I think I'm pretty low on the list of people who are doing it. Okay.

And like with microplastic bottles, like single-use bottles. Oh, you sweet baby. And I'm not worried about the plastics for the world. I'm saying every bottle of aquafina is adding a little bit to your own personal supply. But I did four pods this week. You know what I mean? Like, what do people want for me? The aquafita is what's keeping me going.

You think? It's the only thing that makes you feel, quote, hydrated? Yeah. You could tell the difference. If we did a water taste test on this podcast, I certainly could taste certain textures and flavors. Textures and flavors.

Yeah. Of different brands. But I don't know what our advertising opportunities are going forward. Certainly, if Aquafina is interested in a spokesperson. It's you. It's literally me. You understand there is no cohort of Aquafina advocates. Like, I don't think anyone is like, that's the shit.

I don't see any, like, Jenners or Kardashians sporting it in their burkins. You know what I mean? You are. It's high standards. Yeah. I'm just saying, I don't, I, you always think I'm coming to attack you. I'm actually saying there is no. Oh, like it's a, I've cornered the market.

What the Lorax is for the trees, you could be for Aquafina, killed her of trees. That could be you. Well. You both have mustache. Yeah, I need a second act in this American life, you know? God, this really is fascinating. Let's talk about some... To me.

Some Netflix shows. Now, also on Monday, we're probably discussed Department Q, which is the new show from, among other people, Scott Frank. And it is a Scotland set

murder mystery... Mystery show. I'll put it that way. Detective Cop show. It's like a Scandine noir, but it has been moved to Glasgow. It is based on, I believe,

a Danish series. Yes, and stars Matthew Good and is quite good. I enjoyed what I've watched of it so far. Me too. We're going to talk about that on Monday. Also on Netflix right now

is Sirens. So why don't... You want to do Sirens before Malaney? Okay. No, that's a good point. I just don't want to do. Like, what do you want to say about Malaney? Nothing other than, I loved it.

I loved the experience. He fought the boys. Now, here's good old parochial me. I was clock watching. I was like, he's throwing to Slaterkney at like 756. Slaterkenna was the musical guest, yes. And I was like, he's going to say we ran out of time to fight the boys. He's dodging.

and then I realized it's Netflix and time slots are artificial construction and of course it ran over and he did fight the boys. You know who else is playing with House Money with their lungs is Sean Petten. I feel like he's like, I'm on third base, I can keep smoking. You know what I mean?

Oh yeah, I got him here. Yeah. I feel like he smoked on Mullaney, which I thought was... At least three darts went down while he was on the couch. Don't you think though, like there are very few of those stories

of like, well, you know, they got me this far. Yes. And awesome, you know? Sure. I think they, I think when these things take a turn, you know, there is that, ah, I didn't think the leopards would eat my face. I think that this, God bless him, one of our great artists. David Lynch is a good example of us.

That's who I'm thinking. Right? Like smoked American spirits right up to the, not quite very end, but like at the end was like, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Due to the emphysema. Yes. I think Harry Dean Stanton was the only one maybe who just floated away at. a Marlboro cloud, like in his 90s.

Yeah. It's just smoking to the end. So, you know, I guess you're all, he's the pace car. And if you can do your best to keep up. Sean Penn. Sean Penn out here curing disease, but inhaling disease. It's kind of interesting. Yeah.

So Sean Penn's presence was ultimately an example of why, like in the, first of all, the show found its footing. We talked about it at length last week. I love the show. It was one more, it felt a little bit like one more, fuck you, I do what I want, because you know, it opened with Sandler as the guest and a teen

named Zephyrene, I believe. And they were delightful couch guests. Sandler, by the way, just takes such palpable pleasure in other people being funny that he is awesome to have a race. Adding, and then you add the younger comedian Joe Mandu to you as a funny special that just went up, and then you add Sean Penn, which feels a little willfully obtuse.

Talking about the rules of of beaches in street fighting. Street fighting, yeah. Which it was relevant, I guess, but he wasn't. I don't know if he knew precisely the type of show that he was on. In fact, maybe no one knew. But they really, I just felt like they really were in the driver's seat for this finale. How did you feel about the actual boy fight you heard at the end?

Yeah, it was good. I mean, I'm glad, in some ways it was like, I'm so glad that they played it straight. Yeah, there was no secret bit. It really was they were trying to get him down. And it was also sort of sweet that they were just kids and he's a... What did he say that he used to talk about his girlish hips? So there wasn't... It's not like anyone was taking headshots or swinging.

They were just really just trying to bring him down, which he did and was relatively gracious about it. And then we were all rewarded because then bone thugs and harmony came out. That's right. He did get bone thugs to show up for... He had tried earlier in the season to bring them together. and finally they came back. Do you know what's the ultimate heat check, or is it the opposite of he check?

Because I don't actually know how to use that phrase correctly. All rappers who were famous when we were kids or in high school, you Google them to be like, oh, what's, I wonder how lazy bone is doing or whatever, which I did. And unrelated to Mlani, I did this two months ago. Okay. They're all 50. They're like two years older than us.

When they were famous, they were 17 or 18 or 19. That's, that's, that's, that's wild. Are you saying that they, they peaked too early? And that life must be complicated for them now? No, would you like to have that conversation? No, no. I feel like there's, there's a robust, you know, legacy act touring market that probably keeps the, right? And there always has been.

There always has been like a secret. Like, I remember, I think I've told this story. And it's not really like much of an anecdote. But when I moved to New York City and I looked in the back of the village voice, this is in 2000. Yeah. you see Big Daddy Kane and Rock Em are playing SOBs, and you're like, did I just arrive on the most perfect weekend ever? Oh, my God.

And then you look in the Village Voice next week, and they're like, Big Daddy Kane and Rock Em are playing SOPs. No, they're playing wetlands, probably. Yeah, but it's like, oh, so this is, even in 2000, when those guys were only eight years, whatever, removed from the peaks of their fame. My thing is Ice Cube has been famous since we were 11. He's only 55. And he's on the studio.

Yeah, like he was on the studio the season. I'm just saying it's a long life. Yeah. If you get famous when you're teenager. Like those boys on Malaney last night. That's right. Anyway, I thought it was excellent. I really hope they bring it back.

There's just, like we said last week, it is just a mix of highbrow and lowbrow and convention and unconventional that we don't get. Have you spoken to your parliamentary team about how you're going to finagle this in the top ten at the end of the year? Oh, I thought you meant how I was going to make it part of the big. beautiful bill to fund it. When you said Parliament, I forgot what country we lived in. What a pleasant fantasy it was to think we were in a different one. No, but, you know, no, but the committee is meeting. The subcommittee is meeting about it.

It is interesting to note that, like, if they want more of this, I hope that they, in the spirit of everyone kind of being like, okay, let's get these shows on a clock. Yeah. That like they decide soon and not like in December when it will take six more months to get the everyone and then they'll be that far. out of rhythm. Yes, I think it would be cool if this became an annual 12-week run. That's, I think that it would have been neat if he had taken six weeks or a month or whatever and come back later in the summer and been like, we've done this, this, and this differently.

Obviously, Malaney is really busy, but I did think it was a really cool thing to have as like a background marker of each week over the last few weeks. And that's just what TV is supposed to be, which we are going to kind of talk a little bit about the way TV's changing it a little bit. Sirens, we can kind of run through these a little bit more briefly. Can you tell me a little bit about the background for Sirens? Yeah, Sirens is created by Molly Smith Metzler, who is someone that I know in real life, and it is based on a play that she wrote back in 2011 called L MNOP, and it is the next offering of her Netflix overall deal that she signed after creating an executive producing made with, oh my God, what's your name?

Margaret Qualey. Thank you. Yes. And it is, so five episodes dropped this week. I was really taken with the show. And the reason why I was taken with the show is because it has the trappings of what, you know, put this in quotes, put a trademark emoji after it, what everybody wants. Right?

There is a robust, not running dry market in upscale inside the homes of, rich and successful people with dark secrets genre. I mean, I think... Big Little Lies. Nine Perfect Strangers back this week, your silence on it has been deafening, by the way. White Lotus, I wonder, is it going to be delayed at all? Because Mike White's going on Survivor 50.

I wondered if you had a take on that. I don't, I mean, I think it's amazing. And I can't imagine going through the physical and emotional turmoil of White Lotus. And then be like, I would like to go on Survivor now. What's crazy is it probably won't. if everything that we have come to understand about him and his writing is true, it may have been baked in. Maybe he's already filmed it, right?

Like when they're announcing stuff, haven't they already done something? Well, they just announced the cast. I don't know if they've left yet. I'm not sure. This is something I can't speak to. Anyway, Sirens. But anyway, so there's a robust market for this, and it's clearly reflected in, like,

I think it's number two on Netflix's top 10 already. What I like about the show is that it is not that. Now, the framework is not a familiar one, but you could slot it easily into a description of something like White Lotus. The conceit is Megan Fahey from White Lotus, plays a young woman named Devin, who's taken care of her ailing father in Buffalo, New York. Played by the God Bill Camp. Bill Camp, phenomenal, as always, and is infuriated by the absence of her younger sister, Simone, played by Millie Alcock, who was on first season of House of the Dragon. She was fantastic on House the Dragon. and she will be Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow

in a film coming out next summer. And so in order to exact revenge for the receipt of a thoughtless, edible arrangement, Devin grabs the fruit and goes to, what appears to be like... Montauk? Yeah, Hampton's, the fancy part of Long Island, to confront her sister who is working

as a tireless 24-7 personal assistant to an incredibly impossibly rich woman who also enjoys falconry, played by Julianne Moore. And the show is weirder than its conceit. It's consistently funnier than its conceit. There are elements of supernatural

or something extra going on, and then there's just elements of satire that I really appreciate. Like Felix Solis plays the head of the house staff, and all of one has to do is say his name and he appears like a genie. there's also undercutting oh and Kevin Bacon is in the show

as Julian Moore's husband and Glenn Howard's from your show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is pretty funny How many episodes of that have you seen in real life? How many have there been? Hundreds. Three.

No, I've seen the Chase Utley won three times. But doesn't that count for something? Sure, it does, man. Any effort is an effort. Anyway, what I really liked about the show is, and this is sort of a difficult thing to parse, and maybe it does come from knowing Molly a little bit, but like, there is

always been a healthy lifeline of playwrights to TV. Yes. And, my God, I'm having trouble with names today. I think I'm going to blame my lower back ailment. Is that possible? Is there her...

Is anyone listening? William Shakespeare? Is that you're trying thinking of? No, orange is the new black. The woman who created Genji Cohen? Thank you. Is that right? Yeah. She, she's, I think, personally responsible for bringing out lots of playwrights, including Liz and Carly, who created Glow.

And there's a certain cadence and a certain interest in internal lives that playwrights just naturally bring, because that's the medium that they were trained in. And so when you have scenes between Megan Fahey and Millie Alcaca in this, the directions that they take, like actually if you were doing a Kirk Goldsbury-style of the shots, they come from surprising places that immediately, jolts you and make, at least for me, makes me lean in. Similarly, like, the falcon stuff,

it's just like not exactly what you would expect in a show like this. And then the other piece of it that I really enjoy is at a time, like this time, that the show has a deeply skeptical point of view and particularly a grounded point of view character in Devon that is looking askance at the enormous wealth. I see what you're saying. I really appreciate it. I just think it is coming at all of this, and I'm talking about the mansion and the spa treatments and the treatment of staff and all of it, not from a place of, boy, wouldn't it be nice, even if I then had a frosty relationship with my rich husband, but from a what the fuck? I kind of like that undercurrent. That is really speaking to me at the moment. So I found it to be, it's frothy, which I think is

exciting to Netflix. It's fun, which I think is exciting to hopefully a larger audience, but I think it's thoughtful in a way that is making me lean in. Yeah, it's an interesting package of a season, just five episodes. I actually don't know much about the end and whether it's conceived of as a limited series or whether it's an ongoing project. But really, really perfectly

cast is the thing I came away with. Bacon as the kind of mysterious aloof husband who arrives from the business trip. Fahey's fantastic and kind of fun that she gets to now play, like you're saying. She was the guest at one of these places

and now she's the outsider. Who keeps getting. kicked off the ground. She's like a real force of nature and I always got time for Julia Moore. It's a cool show. I'll definitely keep watching it. It's interesting. The other, the last thing I'll say about it, I want to finish it, maybe we'll get another chance to talk about it. But whenever we use, there's a phrase we overuse, and in fact I made a joke

about it the other week that I then didn't explain like, all good jokes need to be explained to people. And the look you gave me is still seared into my eye when I was I was like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm living inside of a wooden horse. And you were just like, is that why your back hurts? I was basically saying that so much of professional screenwriting is Trojan horse. And I was saying that I do that too. When will we get to the point where the Trojan horse is actually just to do a drama?

That's what I'm saying. When we use it, it's essentially saying, boy, we wish there were more straight up and down like detective crime shows. But in order to do one, you have to make it in the Marvel universe. or whatever. I think maybe we're being limited with our view of what the Trojans could do with wood and horses. I don't know much about it, honestly. Only to say that...

I've been saying it for 11 years. This is an interesting... This show, at least through two episodes that I've watched, is a very interesting drama about sisters, about family obligations, and about class. And it is... And it's tacked onto a show.

about, look at all the pretty dresses and canopays and... And the dresses are pretty. And they are on a beach and they filmed in New York in the summertime. So... Did they? They did. Oh. I thought it might have been Toronto, you know?

No, you... By the way, you were the one that was like, for the studio finale, you were like, well, did they green screen this entire casino? That was not my experience of a Las Vegas hotel room. I understand that, but there are still people out there. And I, you know, I love being on video. I think it's awesome. And I was for it from the beginning.

But the one thing... that I thought that it could do would be finally root out the subsection of people who think that our voices are coming out of the wrong mouths from their experience listening to the podcast.

And yet it still happens to the point where... I'm not in a Philip K. Dick's story. I don't know how to process that information where people are like, I thought that your body was Andy's body or something. Sometimes we forget whose body is whose man.

We've been friends a long time. You can have my working arms and I'll take your trunk despite all the... Maybe it's the plastic that's accumulated there like that big trash island in the Pacific

that keeps you buoyant. All gotten in between my spurtig. That's why you're up. Yeah. Anyway, all of this was to say that someone was just like, I can't believe Greenwald thought that they didn't film

on location of the studio. Oh, and that was me. And it was you. Yeah, you got to own it. I didn't say, I didn't think they shot in location. It's a very expensive show. I was just like,

I haven't seen the Zoe Kravitz suite at Sears. That's all I'm saying. Like the Apple's marketing team and the studio gang released what seems to be endless footage of them making the show. Just like Brian Crenston's standing over a fake canal in Vegas with six THR cameras capturing every minute. And Matt Bellany doing a podcast in the boat. Let's move to another new release, which would be adults. That's on FX.

This one is courtesy of two creators Ben Kronigold and Rebecca Shaw. and is very much in the tradition of friends, how I met your mother, you know, group of pals living, young pals living together and living all over each other. I want to say this. This is one where the first couple of episodes, I couldn't tell if I was feeling old

or if I was just, or if the show was like pitched at a frequency that wasn't quite where I was, I wanted it to be or what I thought it should be. And I admired, but also didn't particularly, like, care for how forcefully provocative it was, which is very funny because, like, when it comes to gun violence apparently on screen, I'll be like, that's something I haven't seen before. Well done, you know?

By the way, 90% of people who begin that sentence wouldn't end where you went to that sentence. When it comes to gun violence on screen, how much is too much? Not in CR's plastic beach That's an example of it I started a sentence And I really didn't know I finished it That's the story of podcasting

I love it I'm here for you Aquafuna brain To the max So anyway This series starts off And I think it Goes to great lengths

To Just show like How out of touch I am You know That's not what the purpose Of the show was The third episode though Is where

I felt like Maybe more traditional sitcom bones kicked in. Right. And some of this, it really just leapt out at me how great it was. And I really wanted to... That's the episode called Have You Seen This Man?

Yes. And I wanted to shout out one performer in particular from this, which is Owen Thiel, which I thought he plays a guy named Anton on the show, and is hysterical in this third episode. He's really good. And we could talk about it a little bit more since it just dropped. I don't want to get too into like this happens and then this happens. and I'm going to probably finish it

because I love episodes like this generally. I just find them very comforting to watch. What did you think? Yeah, I mean, I felt, well, first of all, what you're saying about like traditional sitcom things taking over, I want to shout out again, based on, this is just from the results, we actually have no insight into the process,

but FX's half-hour development is pretty unimpeachable at this moment. And one of the secret things that they do that is absolutely, by the way, not a secret. Like, they're very clear about this. And we talked to Brian Jordan Alvarez about this when we were talking to him about an English teacher is that in the half-hour space, they can do things at a, what they call, at a price point,

which I think we all know what that means. There are no restaurants in Los Angeles that are currently at a price point, for example, just so you understand what I mean when I say that. I spent $20 under turkey sandwich yesterday. That's so depressing. And they can, so they can take chances on different ideas, younger creators, and then what they do is they take people who are passionate about the world

that they've created, whether it's for themselves to star in or for others, and then they bring in some veterans who have been there before. Stephanie Robinson worked on adults, right? Stephanie Robinson from Atlanta and from what we do in the shadows is an EP on adults. Jonathan Chrysle, who's directed tons of great comedy, is one of the... Coles on this, too, right? He's one of executive producers and directors. Nick Kroll is an executive producer of the whole series and directed an episode.

Jason Wallner, who's done all the crazy stuff. A bunch of modern family and stuff, yeah. But also, I think he's done like, you know, Borat type stuff. And he started on Human Giant. So there are people who have the experience in trenches. And that really did influence my watch. I kind of at this point know when I'm firing up a brand new sitcom, particularly one from brand new creators,

that what to look for. You know, it's kind of like when Keith Law goes to check out, like a AAA team or something, you know, he's just like the way he's, His gait. You can teach this, but you can't teach, you know, bat speed or whatever. So there were things in the pilot. Incredible key flaw. I've been on the athletic a bunch recently because Andrew Painter's coming.

So I'm just a full disclosure. So there were things in the pilot that I felt were noisy in the ways that a written pilot to get the job might be. That's kind of what I was saying. It's not that I was scandalized by it as much as I was like, I think I'm supposed to be like dazzled here. Yeah. But also, you know who is supposed to be dazzled there is Nick Brad at FX, reading it on the page. It's eventually what this will live or die on being a hang and a good hang. And I think people understand that.

And it's cast that way. I mean, we can talk about the cast chemistry is pretty excellent right from jump. In the pilot, there's a scene where Issa, who's kind of the most out there of the roommates, is just is claiming her right to be in a protected place. And so she pulls out a woman card. Then she pulls out an immigrant card and they're literal cards. And I was like, that's the thing, that's a thing that was in the pilot that is never going to happen again. You know, like that is, like, what level of reality we're in?

Yeah, that's why I think I reacted to three so well. Yeah, and by the time. And so if you look at it from one to three, getting to a place where like, oh, I know these people, I know their interactions, and I know what's going to happen when it's kind of heightened. And you get to three and credit to the, to Croningold and Shaw and their vision for the show, because there are aspects of it that are familiar. like misunderstandings or one group goes to do this thing and we try different pairings or groupings of characters. But the opening scene that Anton that you're talking about that is so, that is funny where he is basically, he can't stop befriending people. Yes. He is, he creates intimacy with people.

Immediately. He's airplaying his 4,000 texts, all of whom are undernames like, you know, kneel with the leash or nice straight flight attendant or whatever. And like that is what the show, that's the argument for the show. Not that we are like button pushing and the show. was originally called Snowflakes, what we're doing is like, comedy is comedy, and then how can we update the context? So I appreciated that. Yeah, they become, instead of like keywords, they become characters in the third episode. Yeah, exactly. And so it's funny, like, all this is to say, I'm still okay with it. Like, I'm not so fired up in making the case that this is the next hot shit, you know? because shows like this take a minute to find themselves and to sort of ease into it.

And there were moments like in the second episode, I mean, the tenor of the show is loud. Like all these people... The bathroom scene in the second episode is like... They are all yelling a lot. And I don't know, are you familiar with Ben Croningold and Rebecca Shaw prior to their creation of the show?

They became semi-famous for their speech at the Yale commencement in 2018. Didn't have that in my YouTube save for later's yet. Oh, I was there. That's weird. I got an honorary doctorate from Yale from my contributions to this podcast. Okay. And...

You should check with the federal government. Make sure it's still valid. Hasn't come up in my algorithm so weirdly. You're a fucking weird guy. You know that, right? I reject that. I reject that. You're like, I reject the internet, but I read Keith Law updates about Andrew Painter and Yale commencement speeches.

I read Keith Law for the cultural takes. Yeah. The baseball stuff just comes secondary. The recipes. For those recipes and, like, his opinions on television. Does anybody even listen to the spot know who Keith Law is? Okay, by the way, yes. And they will text us.

Tim Simons probably firing up a text right now. No, I thought we would, like, this is a thing that, okay, should we do a little behind the curtain here? Yeah. I've never heard of these guys either, but then like a red review. Oh, you Googled them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

You made it sound like you watched this. Because that's what we do. Sometimes to like fake authority. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Don't you do that sometimes for clout? Like when you pretend to do baseball when you were a kid? What do you pretend to do baseball?

What are you talking about? I thought that was just a story to make yourself look stronger. I'm about to flip the fucking table over. Except you can't because you hurt yourself and you drink too much plastic. So, Mark's safe today. Yeah. From Lou Farragno over here. Anyway, I know you did trouble baseball.

All right, man. You were good at it. You blocked the plate. I'm going to take it. this personally in about three seconds. The point is they did a bit as like 22 year olds in front of Hillary Clinton

about how they were giving a speech and then they broke up during the speech and it was very like to the rafters with this comedy and that's that's the voice is all I'm saying and I'll say that as someone who watch these three episodes at different moments of the day with different levels of lower back pain

there were moments where I was like really like the pilot was not as into the second Really like the third. And it was more about me than about the show. Sure. The show is finding its rhythm and it's finding its voice. And generally, I find like very, very strident criticisms of new comedies based on the first few episodes or even the first eight episodes, which is what the season is to be not really that useful in terms of what things are going to become. You're so level-headed today.

I love this. Maybe your back injury has really brought you into a new critical space. I'm on a lot of medication. Okay. Can you tell? The playoffs are here. And you can predict the action. All the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts.

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signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. What do we talk, do this broader conversation. So adults, you should check it out. Sirens like we mentioned, we're fans of Department Q, I would recommend. Yeah, we'll, we'll hit that next week. Yeah, let's take a step back and and have like a broader conversation about the role of the showrunner in 2025 and this contemporary moment in television. and I think it's worth mentioning that, again, that Jesse Armstrong is returning to our screens on Sunday night with Mountain Head from HBO.

It's about four tech Titans of Industry having a sort of reunion gathering at a mountain estate in Utah as the world literally is falling apart. To reiterate, we're not spoiling it. Not spoiling, that's all in the trailer. If you like Succession, I think you'll like this movie. That's nice.

And what I wanted to talk about was how interesting I thought it was that Jesse Armstrong chose to make a film, make a film that wound up being on HBO, make a film that wound up being on HBO, at least in terms of the credits, with basically the gang from Succession. Nicholas Pertel does the music for Mountainhead, Tony Roche, Lucy Preble, all these people, Mark Milaud is an executive producer. A lot of the greatest hitters from the writer's room get producers credit. suggesting that they were involved at some level in the creative process for a movie that ultimately is written and directed by Jesse. Correct. And I thought this was a fascinating decision on Jesse's part. I hope we get to ask him about it. And I wanted to talk to you about the showrunners that we've talked about consistently over the course of podcasting together. So going back to 2012 when we were doing Hollywood Prospectus with Grantland and now with the watch since 2015, 15? You know, we've obviously gone through a bunch of different phases of television when we first started.

There was this great creative flowering and I think is widely regarded as the golden age of television, this Sopranos Wire Mad Men era. And then you basically had at that point networks doing provocative cutting-edge comedies like, you know, 30 Rock. You had premium cable networks changing the performance. changing the paradigm of what scripted dramas could be. You had shows doing quite well ratings-wise or not doing quite well ratings-wise, but everybody who watched them

insisted on talking about them. So you had this like storm of conversation surrounding shows. And over the years, obviously, we've had the streaming revolution. We've had the IP explosion, the intellectual property explosion, the franchiseification of a lot of TV shows.

we've had COVID and we've had strikes. So over the course of these 10 years or 11 years that we've been talking, we've had all these different phases, stages of the role of the showrunner. And I wanted to use Jesse as kind of a way to get into talking about a bunch of the people that we, I don't know, maybe the shows that they were best known for ended during our run. Yeah. And what I really appreciate about that, very nice introduction you just did, was really making it clear that these careers are existing, because they are still existing,

they are still ongoing, in a time of just profound existential industry-wide change. It's like, it actually, in a weird way, it is a test case for those sort of hypotheticals that you see on websites like The Athletic where Keith Law works, which is basically like, sorry, if a player existed in multiple eras, would they be able to recreate those stats?

cross-eras of a sport. Because when you look at, and we'll get into some specifics in a minute, but if you look at the touchdown points of certain creators existing in the boom times, then leaving for a few years, whether it's to develop things or to just muse or to count the residuals, and then returning, the earth shifted under that person's feet, and they're returning to a different landscape. So it is more interesting, I think, to consider it, because whatever version we used to have of a storied, successful, maybe even legendary television career, it's kind of all out the window. You know, you can't really be Stephen Botchko anymore if that was ever the goal. Well, and I think it's worth mentioning with people like Botchko and David E. Kelly and...

Even David E. Kelly can't be David E. Kelly anymore. He's completely changed his career. Yes, and he's become a purveyor of limited series in some ways and has, like, really found a lane and is still prolific, but, you know, there are plenty of people that we're not going to discuss today that probably will hear this discussion or, you know, if they heard this discussion, they would be like, well, like, what about Greg Burlanti or what about this person or what about this person? And I completely understand it's really this is about the people that kind of Andy and I were really focused on when we were first podcasting. Or their shows, particularly. And I think we thought in our minds, maybe subconsciously, this is how it's always going to be.

we're always going to be drawn to a work because of the name that we associate with it as an author. Now, I just wanted to ask you briefly, if you could tell me succinctly, I guess, just for the sake of the pod, like, what would you describe for people who are like, I have no idea what you guys are talking about? What is a showrunner in 2025? Jeez. It's a good question, one that I am not fully prepared for. Give me a couple of different versions of it. Well, I mean, not in a, I didn't mean like you caught me off guard, but that it is, essentially, and people have heard some version of this spiel before, but like showrunner is not an official title.

Yes. It is essentially the title bestowed upon the, often in this case, the creator of the show, and not when I don't mean this case, but I mean often in contemporary terms, it means the creator of the show or the head writer of the show, who is also an executive producer, who the buck stops with that person. ultimately has final cut, has decision-making power over every aspect of the production, and thus is the person who, and in, you know, I'll put it this way. The thing that I liked about the job when I was able to do it was that I was the first person with my laptop, with the script, you know, blinking, writing interior, whatever, and a whole lot of stuff happened in between. New groups of people would come in, producers would come in, and then writers came in, and then writers left and then actors came in and then, you know, cinematographer and wardrobe people and lighting

people. And then we were in production and location people. And then they all left. And then, and then the editors came in and the post-production team and then the sound artists and mixers and Foley. And then they leave. And then color correction comes in and then press and all those people come in. And I was in every one of those rooms. Sure. And that was awesome and fascinating and interesting. And that, I think, ultimately, is what a showrunner is in this day and age. The person who is there from sunup to sundown in charge of basically everything. And nothing, you know, we,

and it'll come up here. I think Autour theory is kind of hackneyed and not really accurate because anything successful is a testament to a collaboration at an enormously complicated scale. And almost every single one of these people, the ones that we've spoken with,

if you read interviews with them, they'll say like, well, this was down to this, this was down to this collaboration. And even, I know we, I'm still struck by it. I know you were too, when Tony Gilroy was on the other week talking about Andor, I mean, this is someone who does not come from the world of show running, comes from

movies, and has written and directed an Oscar-winning film in Michael Clayton. And the degree of collaboration that he experienced as the showrunner of Andor and then his gratitude for it was palpable. So it's an incredible opportunity. That's exemplified by making his production designer

an executive producer. It's an incredible responsibility. But ultimately, anything successful, the creative buck has to stop somewhere. And that's essentially what we're talking about. So one of the things I wanted to do was take some of the showrunners whose series ended during, whose sort of most notable series has ended during me and Andy's history of podcasting. Talk a little bit about their apprenticeship or how they came up, what they're best known for,

and what they've done since then as a way of talking about how interesting it is, specifically about Jesse Armstrong, but where maybe this more recent generation, or more recent iteration of the showrunner is going. Because I also think the framing is, Jesse Armstrong is back a lot quicker than most people. Almost outrageously quickly, because we'll talk more about it on Monday, if the Mountainhead was filmed two months ago

and is debuting this weekend. Yes. That's wild. That is incredible. And I have a lot of questions about how they were able to pull that off. But let's start with someone who I think you could associate with that Golden Age, who's got a show that is on a lot of people's Mount Rushmore

of television series. from the century, if not all time. That's Vince Gilligan, who's best known for Breaking Bad. Now, Gilligan came up through network writers' rooms and worked on X-Files, and famously with a bunch of really talented writers who came out of that X-Files room. He was best known for Breaking Bad,

which ended in 2013, and since then, we just run down Vince Gilligan's post-breakingback career. Battle Creek was a network kind of week-to-week procedural that he was based on an old script that he wrote, like 10 years prior, but David Shore, who did Howes Swinded of actually running Battle Creek,

but that got made. He wrote and directed El Camino, which was the Breaking Bad sequel film on Netflix. He worked extensively on Better Call Saul, but Peter Gold was the showrunner. He apparently had an unrealized or an unproduced Jim Jones series. Coolate.

Wait, Kool-Aid, not... No, I mean, this is... And he was maybe going to start. He was developing it with Octavia Spencer. Cool. And that never happened. And up next, officially he has a

untitled Apple series that he has described as sci-fi-leaning mild sci-fi I heard of the phrase And that got a two-season order Which is kind of part for the course from Apple

So but I I think Apple gives out a lot of soft wink-wink It would be hard for us to cancel you But rarely do shows get two seasons Out the gate Yes and obviously Gilligan making his move He had been with AMC

He's done stuff with Netflix Netflix, he was largely responsible for, I wouldn't say largely responsible, but had a huge role in the popularization of Breaking Bad because of people being able to catch up with it on Netflix, binge it on Netflix. Not to be that guy. Like, he's still with Sony. He's always been with Sony. Correct me where I'm wrong. So his deal has always been with Sony TV. Sony made the show for AMC, but because it was an independent studio, then there were some licensing and Netflix-y stuff that got involved.

And then his former bosses or colloquies. collaborators honestly, because he's been doing it for so long at Sony. Zach and Jamie are the ones who run Apple TV. Right. So that felt like, I'm not saying it was collusion, but that was a natural home for his next project. Now, Gilligan's an interesting person just to talk about, because I think you've obviously had this experience working on Harry Potter, if you don't mind me saying so, with Francesco Gardner, who worked on Succession.

I don't mind. Gilligan's interesting because he's created his own kind of coaching tree in the Greg Popovich sense of the word. Like, people have come out of Breaking Bad, whether they've stayed in the, Breaking Bad universe to some extent with Better Call Saul like Peter Gold, or they've gone on to do other things like Morro Wally Beckett, like Thomas Schnaws, like Sam Catlin, like Jennifer Hutchison, and Jennifer Hutchison, who've gone on to run their own shows, write on other shows, produce on other shows. Any larger thoughts that jump out about where Gilligan has gone over the course of his post-breaking

bad career? I mean, all of it is going to be pretty 10,000 foot because we've never crossed paths to them. the chance to interview him. I think what's notable about him and the next person we're going to speak about is that they are bridge creators in the sense that they worked on TV 1.0, essentially.

Vince Gilligan was himself part of Chris Carter's coaching tree on the X-Files. He spent time as like the hot young movie writer. Remember he wrote that movie Home Fries with Luke Wilson and Drew Barrymore in the early part of his career. He did a lot of kind of like work-a-day scripted stuff.

Often when you approach we have the opportunity to create TV. Having created TV, it also means you have experience how you would like this to go. And by all accounts, he is a very genial guy and a good boss and a good collaborator,

and he's kept his collaborators close. You know, given them opportunities to have their own, run their own thing like Peter Gould, but, you know, kept one foot in it. And it has, I think the real test is forthcoming. Like, big picture, by the way,

I want to be clear, and we're going to talk about this and we talk about We're talking about Weiner too. You weren't doing this, but it's not like when we talk about television creators and their work, it's not like we would talk about musicians being like, well, they had two good albums, then they had a bad album, you know, or then they never lived up to the albums. Breaking Bad and its attendant shows is almost two decades

of professional work, and it's exceptional and enormous, and even getting to make a show half as good at that is incredibly, incredibly rare. So when we talk about the Vince Gilligan sci-fi show that's coming up we're going to take it

on its own merits but it's also it's like we're not going to be mad at Paul McCartney for being in wings. Well this is why I wanted to bring up Gilligan first not only chronologically

but also because of the idea that you can do two things if you've got this some people will call it an albatross some people will call it a trophy but when you have a trophy show that you probably will be in the first line, first paragraph of your obituary

you can either run away from it and say, I'm going to do something completely different. It's completely divorced from that. Or you can kind of lean into it. And I think Gilligan is very, very expertly leaned into it by not only supporting other people as they played around in the sandbox and Better Call Saul at times and maybe with history, we'll look back and say it might even be better than Breaking Bad in some ways.

It's a different show, but it is like a huge accomplishment. He also did El Camino. So obviously there is an attachment to this story and these characters that it took him a while to kind of flush out of the system. There's also something to be said. And I just said, let's not use music analogies, but now I'm going to. There are artists who are some of our favorite artists who only make one kind of music. Absolutely. And they do it their entire career.

And so I don't know why this is coming. Like when Kurt Vile makes a new record, I'm not checking it for trip hop beats. I'm like, he made another Kurt Vile record and no one makes them as good as he does. And I do think that there's something. I love reading Maguire reviews and pitchfork because it's like everyone is 7.6. Yeah, because they know what they do and they mine the same furrow. And I do think that there is an element of self-knowledge and humility within great artistry to know what you're good at and know what you enjoy doing. And continuing to work within that rather than saying, because you can then stumble into mistakes and we'll get to a few from you can do it two ways.

You can you can stumble into a mistake from ambition. an ego, or you can stumble into it from just testing your limits. Yes. You know, and there's a very different spirit and flavor to those kinds of missteps, I think. Well, but Gilligan, uh, Gilligan is one of the greats, I think, for his consistency. Yeah, and I think what Armstrong does with Mountain Head you'll see is, um, right within the language of succession without writing about, without writing an episode of succession or succession movie.

Because it's the way he writes, you know, I, you don't, I think, I think, I think, often we overpraise diversity of ability rather than like exceptionalism or specialization. Sure. Yeah. I mean,

like I kind of feel that way about Sorkin is when people are like, well, he's written that scene a hundred times or he's written that line in different ways 50 times. I'm like, it's a pretty good line.

It's pretty good. Let's talk a little bit about Matthew Weiner. Mm-hmm. So he came up also through network writer rooms, worked on Becker, worked on The Naked Truth,

Theealione, smash. obviously is best known for Madman. It ended in 2015, and it's worth noting... It's just the 10-year anniversary. Yeah, that's right. I feel like during COVID and post-COVID there was another batch of I've rewatched Mad Men,

and it, in fact, is the best show ever made. There's an argument. Since then, he wrote a feature film towards the end of Mad Men and directed it called Are You Here, which was roundly rejected. He did the Romanoffs, which was an anthology series for Amazon Prime during their, we just give people money to do whatever they want.

And that was also more or less roundly rejected. Yes. He also had some problems off, like extra professional problems or problems related to alleged professional behavior. And then he has pretty much been out of the mix. I mean, there was an FX thing maybe that we heard about. Yes. There was some...

A dromedy with a tinge of mystery. that was being developed in 2020-something. Went away. And I cannot confirm this, but I read that he was being paid to develop a series based on the Nicole Kidman Thriller Deadcom. So I don't know if that's true.

One safe rule of thumb in this town, all caps of this town, everyone on this list is being paid handsomely to develop something right now. No one is taken a few to find themselves. Everyone's working. It's just a question. of what stage of work it is.

I didn't have any, like, lessons from Matthew Weiner's career other than treat people decently. But, like, yeah. You know, I mean, he obviously is chiefly responsible for one of the greatest shows that ever be on screen. And also, you know, I think God a little lost in his own sauce on Romanoffs. And for sure. I don't know what, putting aside, like, his personal issues, I don't know what, like, what do

you think, I guess he's also older because he'd been working in television for a while. But I don't know what really to take from him. I just thought it was noteworthy that this is someone who was arguably at the sort of the pinnacle

of the medium is now no longer really working. I mean, he's two years older than Vince Gillian. Oh, okay. I thought he was older. He's 59. He it's funny. Like, most people don't even get to make a masterpiece. Most people don't even get to make something that is good or beloved.

He made something that is in the conversation for the greatest show of all time. Yeah. He's good, you know, in terms of like legacy. And again, I don't fault people for maybe not being able to do it again or have a second incredibly brilliant, profound thing to say. I think it's interesting to compare him to David Chase,

his mentor and sometimes like, you know, Bette Noir in terms of like the way he, that's what the money is for scene is famously inspired by his, in that scene in, in Winer's psychology, he's Peggy and David Chase's, is Don Draper. David Chase made the Sopranos and will be remembered forever for it.

He also made it closer to the end of his career. He was in his 50s, I think, when that actually happened. And he had spent a career being very, very, very successful by all television at that time standards and by any financial metric that anyone would want to use in America. But he was miserable. He made his masterpiece and it's treated differently from Winer's masterpiece because of where it fell in his life cycle and in his CV. Yeah. So I think the only other thing to take away from this is one, 59 is, you know, as long as he's not drinking aquafina, I think he's going to be fine for a long time. And he still could

come back. He still could have more to say. TV is not an easy medium to be like, You know, I got a crazy little notion here. I'm just going to rip it off. Like, if he was writing books in a solitary conceit, he could write a weird book to short stories, get it out of his system, and then write another novel over 10 years. A lot of things have to fall into place to give him the opportunity to drive the car again to get onto the road. But that said, it is noteworthy, and maybe it speaks to some of the interpersonal stuff, that some of the people we're going to talk about have found ways to continue to feel, to spark joy by collaborating. once they've said their mission, you know, they've made their master's. And Mad Men is arguably the most complete

and colorful and deep television experience I've ever had. So it's kind of like being like, hey, Chuck Yeager, like what else did you do besides Break the Sound Barrier? And by the way, just to reiterate the conceit here, we're not talking about Chase because we didn't cover the Sopranos on the podcast. This isn't like, we're the best showrunners ever.

No, we're not talking about the wire because that ended before we started podcasting. Next up I have Mike Scher He's been on the podcast He has been on the podcast And he came up through SNL, the office As a comedy writer He worked with Greg Daniels

So he was under All these people kind of apprenticed Under someone else And then kind of graduated Mike Scher is best known As the co-creator and writer Of Parks and Recreation And then the creator and showrunner

of The Good Place Both of which ended Over the last 10 years Since then he's co-created Brooklyn 9-9. co-wrote an episode of Black Bear, co-created Rutherford Falls, worked on a scrapped field of dream series

for Peacock, which I still want to see. He still wants to make it. He's still bitter about it. Help produce hacks, helped produce our buddy Shays Serrano's Primo, produced or worked as a producer on Aziz and Surrey's Master of Nunn. And he now works on a man on the inside, which he created for Netflix.

And he's doing a new Amy Polar show called Dig, news broken on the Good Hang with Kai McMullen podcast. I believe. And what's, do we know what digs about? I believe archaeologists. It's based on a conceit.

I don't know. I don't want to speak to it. I could. I think it's about a group of female archaeologists doing a dig in Greece. Oh, wow. How fun is that? Mike, so Mike is a great guy. He's also a great example of a different conception of the role.

And maybe it's partly because it's comedy. But he has a really, really robust coaching tree. people seem to come out of the experience working for him, feeling empowered and excited, and then he often helps people achieve what they're doing next, whether it's Zez Ansari, who is on the cast of Parks and Rec, who wants to make a show and does it through Mike's banner. Jen Statsky, one of the co-creators of Hacks, worked on Good Place.

You know, there are a lot of other great veterans of this shows. Oh, I mean, like a lot of, you know, Stepinski and... Well, they were on the office. Yeah, no, I'm just saying like, they just like the, the, the surrounding word cloud of all the people. We already said Joe Mandy, he was on the staff of Parks and Rec. And I think in that sense, it is a both old fashioned that he just keeps working and giving people opportunities. And whether it's not his passion project, he makes space for other people to have their passion projects.

And look, a lot of people, those of us who've done a lot of therapy know that a lot of what your identity and ultimately ends up being is parental monitoring. And I think that maybe there's a professional corollary here too. He came on, he went from S&L, which is a fierce but deeply collaborative kind of place to the office where, you know, we heard Mike talk about this on Amy Poller's podcast about what kind of collaborator Greg Daniels was and who he invited into his circle to be to have a stake in the show they were making, people like Mindy Kaling, B.J. Novak. And so he has tried to pay that forward with co-creation and executive producing and that's a very, I think, psychologically and professionally healthy way to be. Yeah, the reason why I threw Mike in here,

aside from the fact that I wanted to have someone who's largely known for comedies is where I feel like Jesse Armstrong looks into the human heart and sees cobwebs. Mike sure ultimately sees like a tender, beating organ. Very sweet.

I think even at this point his shows have gotten, I wouldn't say saccharin increasingly sweeter. You know, the Ted Danson show is almost too sweet for the way I'd like my coffee. But I admire how he takes a sensibility and a worldview and translates it into these different stories.

And he seems like he is very good at balancing ideas with real nuts and bolts. Like, here's how you make an episode of TV. how you make a season of TV. And I think he was uniquely qualified to to shepherd television comedy into this current, more serialized era.

It really struck me when rewatching Parks and Iraq and rewatching The Good Place with my daughters that, like, these shows really relate to younger audiences, not just because they're incredibly sweet and incredibly funny, but because they move. Yeah. And as someone who grew up, I mean, he says his favorite show of all time is Cheers. Cheers did not move.

There was a fight with Gary's Bar every year, was, and Carla was married to someone else. Otherwise, that was basically the show for eight or nine years, right? Those shows were really, really relished in changing the status quo and moving forward in a, it's not a rhythm that matches serialized dramas, but at least can be considered in the same breath as. And I think that, I think he deserves a lot of credit for that. Should we do Damon? Yeah, Damon is interesting too. Do you want to run through it? Let's do Damon Lindeloff, who came up also through network television, working on a variety of shows like Nash Bridges. He is obviously best known for Lost, but for the purposes of me and Andy's

relationship to his work, I think almost, even though you started out recapping Lost for Vulture, right? No, I never did Lost. Oh, you never did Lost? I think it was done. Maybe I did the end. I don't remember. Oh, I thought that you wrote, I thought that was like one of your like... No, I would just call you and read you Jeff Jensen's recaps in a really excited way. But for our purposes, we're talking a little bit about his work on the leftovers, which ended in 2017. And since then, He has created The Watchman, which is also one of the great shows that we've gotten the privilege to talk about over the last decade and a half. He wrote a horror movie called The Hunt, which was famously the, I can't remember what it was like the last movie before COVID or the movie that I can't remember. Yeah, it fell apart because of COVID, right?

No, I mean, it was released in theaters, I mean, right, but then it was held. Yeah, it was, yes, yeah, it was held. He wrote an unproduced Star Horse movie. He sure did. It was going to be awesome. And he is the executive producer and a writer. on the upcoming Lantern series, which we're both very excited about on HBO,

and executive produced and co-created and wrote on the Peacock series Mrs. Davis, but he did not showrun that. So the way you just described the Hunt and COVID is often, I think, the way that Damon feels internally about his role as showrunner, because he, along with his partner on Lost Carlton Q's, were kind of the first celebrity showrunners.

They maybe more than anyone else helped popularize the term, not by anything they did, but because it was thrown around a lot when they were on being interviewed on Jimmy Kimmel and people were waiting with bated breath for their next comments on who is in the hatch or whatever. So he, you know, in ways that I think have were

and continue to be deeply uncomfortable for him, he became the face of an amorphous being known as the story of a show in its relationship with its fans. So he really rode that roller coaster for a long time. He's also been quite upfront with us personally, with us on the podcast with many others when he does interviews, about how the job is fucking hard

and takes up so much of your life and how much of your energy, how much of your life, how much of your stress do you want to give over to it? So, you know, it's no surprise that I think we both feel this way that I'm like, you're good.

Your Cooperstown plaque is already made. To have made not just lost, but also the leftovers and Watchman. You're good. I think it's really interesting and maybe has some harmony with Mike Scher, and I know those two know each other and are friendly, that Damon seems excited about a phase of his career

where he can pay it forward and work with people. Mrs. Davis was a series that was very intentionally he was a co-creator of. The Star Wars movie was very intentionally a co-write with the great Justin Bridson. And his MO now seems to be like, I want to work with people. And by the way, on a personal level,

I think it's great for him, I also think it's a very smart and savvy way to be alive in the industry as it is now, because it's not just that, like, we reject the Autour theory. The model of every three years I shall move heaven and earth to make my vision is really, really hard to do in a lot of ways, not just, like, stressful. Like, it's incredibly hard. Well, I mean, part of the reason why this is such a fascinating list is how few people are actually doing this anymore.

Yeah. Now, Damon, it's too punishing maybe. I think it's really... Boulder up the hill. One of the things that I didn't really mention when I was sort of setting up a brief history of show running over the last 15 years was the moment where we thought all the great film directors in the world were just going to make six to ten hour series all the time. And so you had Carrie Fukenaga and David Fincher and Steven Soderberg making these

kind of masterful, beautiful, visually provocative series. And that's fucking hard, dog. Like, it's hard for them to do that. You know, I think Soderberg would have kept doing the Nick if he could do anything he wanted with the Nick. Sure. he was also in talks to give the nick to anyone else like who he, you know, possibly Barry Jenkins where he was like, we're going to try and think of a new way of doing this show. But I do find it interesting that Damon famously does not go to set, correct? And Tony Gilroy did not go to set.

He's like, I'd just be a pain in the ass there. I think he was like, we get everything so ready. And then we say that the directors, you guys do the coverage you want to do. And then you give me the pieces, and I'll put it together. So it's interesting to see Jesse Armstrong directing Mountainhead. Now, one of the fascinating elements of it is that it does have aspects of succession visual language. And Mark Milot is an executive producer on the show, but it's very curious to me. I would love to ask Jesse about, like, how much of succession is visually also Jesse's idea?

Well, I think that's a good question to ask him. I think that one thing you do see about showrunners and their relationship to the job is it does make them have a different kind of reckoning with what level of control they need or want. There is 100% a successful avenue for showrunners who are like, I run everything. Then I get to set and someone else is nominally in charge, even though I can tell them to do another, you know, to do it again to get more. And that's a silly barrier because I know everything about this and I want to get involved in it. And, you know, Vince Gilligan started directing on Breaking Bad and then directed the El Camino movie and is, you know, and is a director now. There are a bunch of people on this list who have gone down that. Yeah, we're going to get into some people who have come from the world of director-writer and become more maybe writers.

And Jesse, too. Jesse's like, I know what this is, so I'm going to do it. Yeah. And, you know, and I want to be clear, that is not necessarily an ego, an active ego. Like, usually people who are good collaborators remain good collaborators, even when they're, directors, they say to their director of photography, you know, let's talk about this. And, and there's plenty of good examples of that. But there is another school of people who are just like, that's just not for me. Like let the people who are trained to do that, do that. And then I'll pick up the pieces. Can I ask you a question that you don't have to answer if you don't want to? But is there, is it hard being in the middle? No. See, I mean, yeah. Is it hard being the person who's like,

this is, like, I'm running the show and I wrote a lot of this and this is my idea, but I'm also okay with this director here telling, say, like, let's do it this way? There are many different types of directors and there are many different types of experiences. I have no desire on any level of my body to direct anything ever, ever.

And I know you, like, you did student film stuff. Like, I think you like direction and there are people who like that. I don't think visually in that way and it's a lot of work, like with the scouting and everything. And I would rather leave that to the professionals if anyone would even ask me to do it,

which for the record, I'm not saying that they had. I'm not interested. Thank you. We should definitely clip that. No, I'm always trying to be careful that I'm not acting as if that this is some like noble decision that I'm making here. I found it in the same way that I found it just truly inspiring to work with writers who have a completely different brain than I have, or customers or gaffers who do things that I could never do, working with collaborative directors who make it a conversation, who help me see things their way, and then you work together in a really interesting symbiotic way. is beautiful. And then there are times when there are directors who are like, this is how I do it.

And you're like, you've given me ashes. Only in the sense that you're making it hard, you are being so decisive and distinctive, but you're not thinking about, and this is the challenge for episodic directors generally, how do we fit this into a diorama that you don't even see the whole picture? And that is something, and again, to be fair, any director of any ability or ambition who works in episodic TV finds this maddening. that they come in with a style already established and then have to do a relay race handoff

to someone that they may never even meet, that's asking a lot. And so it's hard for them to find their voice within that structure. The next person coming up is I wanted to talk about because this was sort of, she embodies the larger-than-life showrunner to me in some ways. And the showrunner as avatar for everything that people feel about their work,

they project under her. And that's Lena Dunham. So she obviously came up through independent cinema, part of like the, you know, unofficially mumble core scene in New York City, like hipster art world of that. You were in that world, weren't you? I absolutely was. I still mumble. And is best known for girls, which also ended in 2017. And since then, she split with her creative partner on girls Jenny Connor, but camping was sort of the last thing to come out that had both their names, I believe.

Camping was not a success. She appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood directed the first episode of Industry Which I love. It features still one of my favorite moments in the series Is the End of Industry, Episode 1. And she also directed the film's Sharp Stick And Catherine Called Birdie.

I bring her up not only because She ran shit for a while there. And basically lived rent-free in everyone's head for five years, but also because she has a new Netflix series coming out this summer called Too Much, which is her first series basically since girls.

This was a weird time where everybody was like Lena Dunham, I want to be you, but I also hate you. And obviously that level of passion, I think she would say did a number on her

and she spent a lot of the intervening years grappling with different ways to sort of relate to and reject the discourse around her work, girls. what are your kind of current thoughts on her? I think she's an amazing person to have up in this, to having this exercise,

because like we were saying about where David Chase's big success fell in his career and how that affects our perception of them. I mean, Lena Dunham's whole thing was that she was younger than everybody, and this was incredible. She had this opportunity, and she was the V of her G, as they say, in adults premiere. And as you have been saying recently, because I think you've done some rewatching,

like girls is still, a little bit him, right? Girls and girls is goaded. Yeah. It's so good. It's really, really good. It's really, really funny. I loved revisiting it for Stick the Landing last year.

You were with us then, right, Kaya? Yeah, I put girls on my best of the decade. But were you with us at the end of girls? When the show ended? I don't know. It's 17? No, I don't think so. Okay.

But the point being, if done right, you know, and you drink the right water, life is long. Yeah. And careers can be long. And I think what's remarkable about, you know, she did lots of life. Lots of work that you just mentioned over the last few years, but she just had her 39th birthday last week.

Like, she's still younger than a lot of these creators were when they had their first success. So to come back with a show that is clearly a priority for her and a passion project for her on Netflix, at the same moment when we're also hearing, like, oh, she's directing a new Natalie Portman movie. I am a fan of second acts. Yeah. You know, because I think that if done right, a creative life has many, many acts in it. it's not just, and it's not even just two.

So I think it's cool. I think it's exciting. And I am also very curious what her second act looks like in the sense of is it just, it's probably more likely to be, she will come back and hit things when she wants to hit them and work on what she wants to work on. It's less like community building of like-minded artists who she's empowering, which is fine. Not everyone is wired that way.

Being both an artist and a manager, sometimes those two things. don't exist in the same brain. It's rare when they do. I was thinking about the sort of reception of girls when it was on. And it was obviously, I think, for as passionately as it was discussed and in times negatively, it was beloved when it was first on. And then I think people started to reject where the characters wound up because it, those characters, like basically saw where those characters ended up as a rejection of who they

were as audience members. know because they identified so closely with various members of the cast. So it'll be fascinating to see her re-engage with that. And I don't know, maybe at that time of watching TV and sort of identifying a central kind of creative force behind shows and being like, I can't believe you did this, you know? But I think the differences, and you haven't watched too much yet, have you, the new series. Girls, what's interesting, and I'm not saying this would have been better,

But if Girls was released into this moment, the audience would have been more primed for it being a very particular passion project of someone that maybe would only go three years and those three years might take six years. Girls was delivered into an ecosystem that, frankly, you and I both miss, of you're going to hit your release date every year for as long as the show is on the air. And some of the show's loudest or messiest growing pains were probably because of that expectation and schedule. I think some of the show's weakest moments were when it was just literally reacting to the reviews of the previous season when Donald Glover, who might be on our list, shows up in like season two premiere, I believe.

But then also the fact that that collaboration first, you know, when I was going with Jenny Connor was so fruitful because I think that it was a really exciting marriage between people who had very, very different visions of how to cultivate art and how to deliver on it. So we don't know,

but I do think she's more attuned to this current moment. or the moment has met her. Why don't we skip to an end with Donald Glover? Because I had a couple of other people here, like Phoebe Waller Bridge and Benioff and We can talk about them next week or we can do this again sometime, but I wanted to do Glover. Before we do, the only thing I wanted to, and I'm sorry, and I know that we're doing it because we're running out of time here,

but like the Benioff and Weiss, I'm always pausing, so people don't think we're talking about Benjamin Off and Weiss. Because they went from Game of Thrones to, you know, the rumors of Confederate, right, to, three-body problem, which I, you know, kind of controversially liked. With a Star Wars trilogy deal in between.

In between. That there is a, in terms of hangovers from previous generations of show running and the industry, I think there is a curse of too muchness and a curse of success. Banyoff, in particular, great writer, and, you know,

we love his novel City of Thieves. He loves it. He won't let it be option because he wants to make it someday himself. He has yet to do that because he's too busy satisfying the demand. of these nine-figure, massive genre deals that he keeps signing. Because that is what people expect of them. And I have to think that at some point,

the two of them turned to each other, and they're like, remember that indie film we used to talk about making? Do you know what I mean? I'm sure, yeah. Like, I'm not begrudging them, their success, their ambition, certainly their income. But it is, I do wonder if when three-body problem wraps up, which is sooner than I think anyone intended for it to wrap up,

you know, it seemed like it was going to be pitched as like the next decade long obsession and now they're like, can we do this in seven episodes, two seasons? That kid's brain coming back from space. Can we, can we, can we, can we, it's too late to send a return to sender order on that? Yeah. That in the midst of all of it, they, you know, that maybe they would kind of like to regroup. Make 25th hour?

Yeah. Regroup, reframe, right? Glover, let's just do briefly because I do want to talk about one element of this. So obviously Glover comes up through comedy and sketch and sitcoms working on 30 Rock. and then going on to be one of the ensemble and community learns under Dan Harmon, et cetera, et cetera, makes Atlanta. Atlanta's fucking incredible and ends in 2022

is one of the most creatively boundary-pushing series that we've gotten a chance to talk about, even when we didn't quite, even when we weren't quite singing from the same hymn book, I think we always were like, this guy is really like on his own journey. Oh, it was one of one, and I think we said maybe too much at the time.

I don't think that show was under any obligation to meet our standards. No, of course not. Yeah. Even if we didn't like this third season as much as the fourth or whatever.

Since then, he's co-created Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Francesca Sloan and he co-created or created Swarm. EPED. E-Ped Swarm with Genean Neighbors.

And so he's in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The thing I wanted to mention about Glover, I think this kind of follows Donald Glover around in his music career and his film appearances and especially in his television

show running or creator life is it's almost like what Benny off and Weiss carry around but to some extent it's a good place to end because it's about what Jesse Armstrong will probably come carry around which is Donald Glover has to be cool like he always

has to be cool I like that and Jesse Armstrong is kind of probably always going to have to be funny I don't know what I would have thought of a Jesse Armstrong movie or television show that didn't make me laugh not to say I wouldn't like it

but it would be almost breathtaking to see Donald Glover to something about like super normal people you know and even in the world of Mr. and Mrs. Smith which of course in the Doug Wyman movie version of it they're dressed well and they're sexy and all that

but the extraordinary lengths he goes to to have this impeccably interior design his the costumes like everything about it is so fucking cool and I was wondering whether or not Like, that can sort of be great because, like, maybe it's effortless and maybe everything he does has got this kind of magic dust on it. And the same thing can go for Jesse.

And he's always going to be him when he writes and it's going to be funny. But it's probably a lot to carry around as you get older. I think this is a good place to wrap it up because what we're speaking to is an odd thing to say about writers. Actors always have to manage their brand as well as their appearance, yeah, their talent. And also have to have an almost disturbing, honestly, self-awareness of what people like in them, what they're looking for in them, what puts them in the right light, not always the most attractive light if they want to go Uggow to get an Oscar or whatever, but like understanding their instrument in a way. And keeping time to that rhythm as much as to their own internal creative metronome. And I think that writers being anonymous and, you know, often Uggos, don't have to self-manage to that degree. and can have a little bit more creative freedom

and hide behind the words and hide behind the page, the rise of the celebrity showrunner has meant a different level of expectation that there is a more plugged-in creative class of audience who do say, you know, like we're talking about Department Q, there might be people, and probably a lot of people on Netflix around the world saying,

oh, a Scandine noir, I'll watch it. But then there are people who are like, Scott Frank. Yeah. He did these three things that were mattered to me, and I'm expecting a certain level of something, and so I'm going to look at it through that lens. Damon, next time he comes on, maybe we'll talk about it. But his personal taste lends itself towards, you know, twisty storytelling.

But he carries with him the self-knowledge that people are checking every little road to make sure it's not a cul-de-sac to nowhere or like a rabbit hole that someone's going to fall into. And that does create a second consciousness, I think, for people when the creative decisions they make behind the camera. Yeah, I think it'll be really interesting to, see if he makes another series. Jesse. No, Donald Glover. Oh, yeah. Or whether or not he moves more into features or just starts to indulge more in acting or

kind of just keeps going with this, like, I'll get something started with my name, but it's really somebody else's project or whatever. I think the other lesson here that we'll carry into Monday is when we go through these people and we talk about hits and misses or like long gaps to reinvent themselves, hitting when the iron is actually still super hot does seem smart. Yeah. I don't think any one of the people we mentioned came back. as quickly as Jesse is doing,

other than maybe with the exception of Better Call Saul coming pretty quickly on the heels of Breaking Bad, and maybe there's a comparison to be made there. This is what I'm good at. I'm comfortable with who I am. Yeah, this is the kind of people I want to write about. These issues still matter to me. Here's some more.

And if, it's not just that if Mountain Head was five years from now, maybe if it was under a normal post-production cycle and it was a year from now, maybe people will be like, Oh, he's still doing this? Yeah. I think it was smart to read the room and to read the politics and be like, I actually still have something to say. And while the microphone is still plugged in, I'm going to grab it.

Well, we're going to talk about Mountain Head on Monday. We'll also talk about Department Q. We will be back on Monday. It's been a while since we actually hit a Monday show. Thanks to Kai and thanks to John for producing. Thanks to everybody for listening. We'll see you next week. Let's go get some light of cane patches.