The Watch - What Do the Emmy Nominations Tell Us About the Current TV Landscape? Plus ‘I May Destroy You’ and ‘Perry Mason.’

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

We break down the 2020 Emmy nominations, including some very obvious snubs (8:01) and what they tell us about our current TV landscape (18:14). ‘I May Destroy You’ gives us a type of intimacy rarely seen on TV (33:11), and it’s clear that HBO spent a lot of money on ‘Perry Mason’ (45:00). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by an American pickle. An American Pickle stars Seth Rogen as 1920s factory worker Herschel Greenbaum and as his great-grandson, Ben. When Herschel falls into a vat of pickles, he is perfectly preserved for 100 years and emerges in present-day Brooklyn. An American pickle tells the uniquely heartwarming story of Herschel and Ben as they learn the meaning of family, stream the new Max Original, an American pickle, August 6th only on HBO Max, rated PG-13. I ain't sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan.

I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line. It's not about awards. It's about respect. It's Andy Greenland. I couldn't have said it better myself. What's up, man? It's Thursday after a two earthquake night. Andy and I continue to crank here.

Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to stop you there. two earthquakes. Yeah. I thought there was one earthquake and then one aftershock. That's not, you can't just like double dip on that. If it wakes me up twice, it's two earthquakes.

Okay. So the second one woke you up too? Yeah. Can I be honest with you and our listeners? Since, you know, I personally think our podcast has improved as our abilities to see or speak to one another have diminished because now we're just catching up here. Yeah. And if people are along for the ride, God bless.

This was the first earthquake that I've, felt other than the one in New York in the summer of 2011, which I'm one of the few people who felt. And I was gently awoken by a light shaking. And I actually had this strange feeling. I woke up. I was like, well, that might have been an earthquake. But I felt like, Chris, I felt like the good Lord was just shaking me back to sleep. I felt like I was being rocked in my cradle.

Yeah. Could not have been cozier. Slept better last night than I have in a month. No aftershocks over here. So this is where I'm at. And the question for you is, am I just like geologically in sync with the plate, with the state? Or am I so deeply frazzled down to the last nerve of my last nerve that I'm just like, take me darkness? I think you live on San Andreas's fault of emotion at all times.

So any tectonic movement is actually just setting you back to zero. you're sailing smooth. I've just, like, there are many, many cartoon characters and comic characters that I could relate to on a number of levels, but the, this is fine dog, I've never, ever felt anything in common with other than, like, if I'm cold, I'd like to be near a fire. That's really who I was last night. You know what I mean? I was like, okay, I was my best, Chris, I'm going to, I'm just going to rec on this whole thing.

Chris, I was my best self last night at four in the morning. whenever that was. Do you have a go bag? No, 100% no. Yeah. Yeah, my wife had put together one on like an Amazon shopping cart. Right. And I was like, we don't need this stuff.

Is it still waiting in your Amazon shopping cart? It's all in the safe for later. Yeah. I would like to officially now designate this for my heirs and, you know, descendants. Kaya is a notary. So this is official. My official go bag is the bag waiting for me at Skylight Books. free ad containing the next three Larry McMurtry books that I just pre-ordered from them.

That is my go bag. We have a little admin to get to. So many people are tweeting at us. No. I mean, I'm... You hate that construction. You hate that. I do. We want to, we want to kind of lay out the lonesome dove plan for, and just give people some heads up over the next couple of weeks. First of all, let me brand it. Let me interrupt you. Let me crash through like Kool-Aid man and give all shouts to the Briar Patch Sound Supervisor, Kevin Buckelts, who in a text to me, named this the summer of Dove. Oh, wow. I thought it was going to be

Lonesome Pod and I was going to be like, no disrespect to Kevin, but it's sitting right there. It's a layout. Summer of Dove, baby. Okay, Summer of Dove, colon, lonesome pod. How about that? That is an ATM level brand management. Bob Sony is in the building. What have you called it? So, okay, next week, Andy and I are going to be doing some recordings. Some people have been like, hey, I'm reading the novel. Maybe it's taking you a while. I totally understand. It took me a while. Took me, I think, the better part of a year to read it because I stopped after 200 pages.

And some of you are reading it watching the miniseries, which is available on stars, but can be purchased through your usual streaming platforms, Amazon, iTunes, etc. The way we're going to break this down is Andy and I are going to record four 25, 30-minute segments based around the episodes of the miniseries. That is just basically as using that as like a roadmap. I think mostly what we will be talking about is our love for the book. If you're watching the miniseries, it's a very faithful adaptation. But I think that the book obviously contributes a lot more psychological and emotional depth to the story. You can save and play for later if you don't want anything spoiled. We're going to do our best not to jump ahead of ourselves when we're talking about narrative points,

like story points within our conversation. So we'll try not to talk about things that happen at the end of the book in the first episode in case you're watching along. But we thought that that would be the best way to kind of go about doing this. So those episodes are recording those next week and they are going to air, I believe, on the 10th, the 13th. It'll be in August. I mean, we'll see.

Who knows what we come up with? You're already deviating from the schedule. We had a planning call and everything. And you're just like, you're already like. Did we talk scheduling, though? All I care about is when we do it, because for me, it's about process, not results. Right. That's right.

Just like the Sixers 2020 season. No, and you know what? That's why you're Mr. Hollywood. It's all about process. Yeah, who cares? So these things will air the month of August. For people who have been asking, there are other books in the Lonesome Dove, quadrology, is that the word?

Just to reiterate, is something I said on Twitter? Is it quadrology or tetrology? Tetrology? that sounds more likely to me. Again, process, not results. So it's all about trying. No bad ideas in a brainstorm. Lonesome Dove is the er text.

That's what we're talking about. That's where all this comes from. That was the first book written. That was followed up a number of years later by a direct sequel, Streets of Laredo, and two prequels, Dead Man's Walk and Comanchee Moon. Streets of Laredo is a knockout.

I highly recommend people move on to it after their reading of Lonesome Dove, but it is not essential for our podcasting. We might talk a little bit about why you should make that additional journey at the end of our summer of Dove, but that's where we're at. So in case people, you know, I think people are very like, very obsessed, more fixated on the correct order in which to do things now because we live in an expanded universe, universe. but Lonesome Dove is the book.

Start with that. That's where it started. There's no reason that I can understand to read this chronologically speaking. Yeah, I agree with Andy. I'm just reading them in the order in which Lairman, Mercer wrote them. That's the easiest way to kind of go about doing it. I too had a lot of anxiety about, should I start from the beginning now? Or should I start from the beginning before Lonesome Dove? And it's not a big deal.

So look for those 10th, 13th, 17th, and 20th. We'll do four of them. They're going to be great. We've been looking forward to doing this conversation for a long time. And it will not get in the way of. your regularly scheduled program. Those episodes will kind of be backloaded on to the end of your usual watch content. So we will not stop talking about I May Destroy You. We'll have other stuff that we'll be chatting about. And we have other stuff to chat about today, Andy. We do. It's your

favorite industry pod because the Emmy nominations were announced this week. And we want to get into them because they were an interesting group of nominations in what will be an interesting year of celebration. And I want to begin, as I often do, by making it about us. because people know. I was not nominated for an Emmy. No. I also wasn't, although I was eligible. But it's okay.

It's all right. You know, not sore at all. I wanted to say, though, because this is really, this is the level of vanity that I wanted to bring to this conversation, which is people know from listening to our podcast or people who don't even live in major media markets that there is an additional season out in Los Angeles,

summer, winter, fall, spring, and FYC. And FYC season is when billboards are up and people are doing the rounds for shows that stopped airing months before to draw up consideration. You may have heard some of them on the watch podcast themselves. Well, I just wanted to say, correct me if I'm wrong. But I believe this year, we were two for two, right? Am I forgetting three for three? Because Sarah Snook, guest on the watchpot nominated. Yeah.

Rami Yusef, guest on the watch pod, nominated. Padma Lakshmi, guest on the watchpod, nominated three for three. There was another one. Hollywood. There's another one. Which one? Paul Meskell. Oh my God, Paul Meskel, nominated.

Yeah. I mean, there was another one. Damon was on the pod, but that was a while ago. Who else? Laura Linney. Oh, wait, so interviews you do without me are canon now? Oh, okay. All right.

I see. I thought they were like Comanche Moon. You know what I mean? They were like prequels that we were. pretending didn't exist. Okay. Okay. I get it. Wow, we really are the arbiters of this. That feels good. It feels good to be kingmakers. The road to greatness runs through us. And I, and I, I think that everybody has been saying that out on the streets and now it's coming true in the real world. So many people have been saying that. People have been, tweeters have been tweeting. But, okay, but jokes aside,

it's weird. I guess I'll start with this because, and then, and then we can get into more into categories. The attitude that I tend to bring to these award shows, and maybe I say this every year when we do this Emmy nominee breakdown, is with something as arbitrary as an award show and something as absolutely expansive and just deeply subjective and stratified as TV in 2020, it is so much better to focus on what did get nominated than what didn't.

Better to celebrate those that through, obviously, excellence, but also through perhaps a quirk of category or a quirk of the moment or voter's whims were recognized because there are names and projects on this list that surprised me in a good way and surprised me in a good way even enough to counterbalance the absence of certain acting nominees from Better Call Saul that I'm certain we're about to get into. One of those being, I was going to say, this is a. Yeah. When unorthodox on Netflix gets nominated and,

Winger, who also was on this podcast, but years ago for Deutsche Land 83, gets nominated. The star Shira Haas gets nominated. I can't explain that. I mean, part of that, there's a certain percentage that is the show's excellence. There's a certain percentage that is the absolute marketing dominance of Netflix in this FYC season. But then there's also, who the hell knows? Who the hell knows? And so just be, I'm just thankful for that more than I am bemoaning the lack of Ria Seahorn or whomever else we're going to name check now. Yeah, I mean... Oh, she was on the podcast,

hasn't she? Yes. So, okay, there goes our batting average. But again, non-canon because I wasn't part of it. Please continue. No, I was just going to say, I agree with you. It's better to focus on getting excited for people who did, and it feels weird to be like,

hey, I'm going to take it down a pegger, this person who got nominated for an award, just so, you know, you weren't really, you didn't really deserve that. That feels a little bit odd, even if Michael Douglas seems to have a very full life outside of getting annually nominated for the Kaminsky method. You can't, particularly at this moment, I understand why people get, are more willing than ever and more easily angered than ever, more willing than ever to be frustrated by things.

You have good reason to be upset and frustrated about all sorts of injustices in the world, certainly injustices more than television nominations. But we say this every year. We say when we talk about the Oscars too. Like, you cannot fix an industry. You cannot fix a society. And you cannot validate your own preferences and taste through the absolutely obscure and abyscure and abyscure. two nominating process of an award show. It's never going to work.

It's never going to work. There's never going to be a list of nominees that we can hold up and say, finally, we have a document that reflects our best taste, morals, and values. You can't. It's just too hard to turn a big ship like this.

I mean, you know, you look at without being at all nasty about it, like, by all accounts, season three of killing Eve, has been a letdown, right? Like, I think a lot of people would say that. It's not anything against Joe, Comer and Sandra O to say, I would have loved to have seen Ray Seahorn jump in there at maybe

one of those two expense. I'm psyched that Zendaya got nominated. That's like an, I thought she was incredible in euphoria. And there's up and down the ballot. You can see people where you're just like, oh, that's so cool that this person got in. It's tough because you wind up taking something away from someone to when you're like, oh, this is a snub, this is a snub. Also, it's, we talk a lot about on the show about,

We don't know who is watching what. It's just incredibly hard to tell who's watching anything. You guys know from my opinions as a critic and as a creator that it's impossible to get people to watch stuff. It's really, not impossible. It's really hard. And it feels very arbitrary. When you look over this list year after year, you compare them year after year, you do get a sense, I guess, of what members of the voting body are watching. And they seem to be watching the Kaminsky method.

They seem to be all in on killing Eve and Mrs. Maisel. And in that, they are not unlike fans. You know, there are plenty of people, we are guilty of this in certain cases, and there are plenty of people who are in this side of the sort of the critic podcast industry and also probably in our Facebook group who are watching shows that they're like,

this is appreciably declined, but I'm a fan. So I keep watching it. Viewers on the nominee academy are the same too. For me, it's more, and they're sticking with it, and they still like their people, and they're still trying and hopefully, optimistically watching that it's going to get better, even if it rarely does. But this year, those same people, they seem to be watching what we do in the shadows, too. Which, like, that is more

mind-boggling to me on some level, especially if you look at past history, then Rea Seahorn, undoubtedly coming very close because Better Call Saul once again was nominated for series. So who can pick it? I don't know. Can you illuminate for people who maybe don't know? Because we talk a lot about award shows usually in the fall and winter when the Globes and the Oscars come around. Obviously, Sean does an amazing job with Amanda talking about the movie side of things and breaking down the way the Oscars and Globes work.

Tell me a little bit. How do the Emmy nominations work? How does the voting work? Do you know? I mean, there are people... Is it guild-based noms, like the way the Oscars work? Yeah. Oh, guild-based? No, it is not based on the guild. They're members of the Academy. Right.

That's right. Sorry. Academy-based, yeah. Yes. And during the FYC season, they are, you know, putting in people, they are essentially voting on the nominees they'd like to see. And then subsequently, people vote on the winners. There is, as with the Oscars, there is an enormous amount of lobbying. There's an enormous amount of politicking behind the scenes.

To say that the politicking has gotten bigger is absolutely true. to say that the politicking and lobbying has an enormous effect is absolutely true. But I don't mean to say that it's true to discredit the personal taste and values of the voters. Sure. It's not a situation where they're being bribed or overtly whined and dined, but it is unquestionable that they are reminded of things effectively, that things are put in front of them in a smart way, that storylines or potential reasons to vote for X over Y due to, circumstances or maybe that person is owed or there's a groundswell of support or blah, blah, blah, all of that absolutely factors into it.

And it seems like their habits are formed. Once they start in with, okay, killing Eve or Kaminsky method or Maisel or what have you, once that gets in the door, it becomes a, it's pre-routine for things to get nominated year over year. It does. And I don't have the answer to this next point. And I would love to hear if anyone has a point of view on it. But what I don't understand is how, um, something like Cessaly Strong getting nominated for S&L happens.

Absolutely not arguing that it's deserved. I think it's especially cool in people from ensemble shows like that, get a turn, get noticed, get, you know, get their moment. But I don't really understand how that just naturally happens. Maybe it doesn't. I mean, maybe I'm being too credulous. Maybe NBC Universal or whatever is just like, we're going all in on Cessaly this year.

We're going to make this happen for her. Maybe they do. Or maybe she has her own reps that do that. Or maybe it's just a beautiful, wonderful thing. that happened. You know, I, that makes, that's more opaque to me than something more, something, than even what we do in the shadows getting nominated because you could make the case that, you know, FX has a reputation of quality. They have a good marketing department and people have slowly realized, including your boy right here, that this is an A plus comedy and that,

you know, it took a minute for people to kind of figure it out. Right. So let's, let's talk about this. Let's, let's name some specifics here because the main takeaway. When is the actual award ceremony? in September So I want you to imagine obviously it's unlikely that this will have any in-house component in September but I want you to just sort of put your mind here

with me. Okay. You're in a Dorothy Chandler Pavilion-esque building the Nokia theater, wherever they do this. Yeah, but it's Zoom, but whatever. And you hear a voice boom out as everybody's sort of seated

and stuff like that and you hear a voice boom out. And that voice says, Mando! Mando, I have an aisle seat so that I may still enjoy tapas. While the awards are going, the finger foods are delectable, sir. Mando, do you see me? I'm waving from over here. What I love about this, I love everything about this.

You caught me out. I wasn't expecting grief at the ceremony, but you gave me grief, pun intended. I love a world in which this entire... Mendo, Ray C. Horn, it's a tragedy. This entire ceremony is virtual, and yet Carl Weather's attended. I've seen Tuscan Raiders with more sense, Mando. How could they not nominate her? Kim Wexler is a complex character.

This is the best way to talk about it, honestly, because these categories and the nominees are so, it's so weird. TV is in such a weird place. You could have the kind of conversation that I think we were heading towards just a moment ago and we'll continue to have where we're just like pointing out bright spots and bright spots. and you point out enough bright spots, you might convince someone that there's a beautiful constellation of stars

and everything's in galactic harmony. Or you could just be like, there are a lot of bright spots spread out over a large, strange, vast and confusing space that only a Mandalorian can navigate. For those of us, podcasters or just culture vultures in general,

who like to extrapolate about the state of an industry from an award show or from a nominees are really having a hard time parsing these particular entrails this year. You think so? Well, yeah, because, Everybody knows who listens to the show, blah, blah, blah.

We talk about Game of Thrones. It was, you know, blah, blah, blah, monoculture, whatever. It's gone. And then in its place for both comedy and drama, like, I have opinions here, but I guess you could say this. There's a bright side and a dark side to talking about these drama nominees. Let me list them for you. Better call Saul, the crown, the handmaid's tale, killing Eve, the Mandalorian. Ozark, Stranger Things, Succession.

Glass half full version of it is, what a wonderful time in television where the very best of what we have to offer range from a old-fashioned throwback procedural that's also a high concept, high IP space opera. And, you know, the successor literally in all other ways to Breaking Bad, to the previous generation's crowning glory. or you could be like WTF, there is no person alive who watches all of these shows, and you could make a case for each of them. But I don't know if you'd make the same case for any of them. As I delivered that brilliant observation, I killed another set of batteries, and I'm Zoom audio from here on out.

I apologize for the fidelity heads. Please continue. no I was just going to say that the best drama this year kind of reminds me a little bit of best picture and it feels almost like these are not necessarily shows that you would put in a one-to-one comparison but are a wide swath of what TV has to offer right now and it doesn't sum it up at all like there's not a it's not a complete list there's so many shows here that I think could have gotten acknowledged for instance I'm just off the top of my head orange as the new blacks last season I mean there's there's a bunch of shows here that I think are were very worthy of nominations but there's something

about the inclusion of the Mandalorian and Stranger Things specifically. And to some extent that make me feel like this is their version, this is the Emmys version of getting the Dark Night and Best Picture, you know, or creating a world in which there's few things that seem to unite people or at least be these water cooler shows still are getting time. And to the extent that, you know, when we talk about like the Oscars and what's the matter with the Oscars and how they need more star power, there's really I don't know if there is a bigger star than Baby Yoda. I don't mean to be...

No, it's true, but I guess what's weird here for me is if they really wanted to do the most... The version of nominating Avengers for Best Picture... Yeah, right. ...would be nominating Hawaii 50 and Grey's Anatomy for Best Drama.

Interesting. In the sense of just sheer numbers, the people who talk about TV, like us, and the people who are super engaged viewers definitely watched the Mandalorian and Stranger Things more than they watched even Better Call Saul or Lodge 49 or something, right? Like there's no question about that. Wouldn't it be more like Yellowstone?

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Like these are, Stranger Things and Mandalorian are particularly interesting contenders here because they feel more like, and again, we are intuiting hive mind think to something that is actually a group of independent entities. This didn't happen, but it does feel like a sop to a certain type of viewer, like a, you know, who loves to talk about TV, loves to feel connected about TV, and is into genre, aka probably a lot of the watch podcast listeners. That said, the other thing that separates the Emmys from the Oscars is that because of the way TV has gone, it feels like it has its own separate category for the A24 releases. that crowd up your visual screen on the Oscars every year,

and that is the limited series category. Yes. The limited series category this year is Little Fires Everywhere, Mrs. America, unbelievable, unorthodox, and Watchman. Now, you could make a case. I'm not saying you should, but in a different world, you could tell me that those were the nominees

for Best Drama Series of the year, and I'd say, that tracks. That makes sense to me. Yeah, I mean, obviously there'd be some glaring omissions, but it wouldn't be surprised. exactly because you know for look I mean we can be subjective here like if for me in those best drama nominees only better call Saul and succession really belong there in my own personal pantheon of greatness and then the rest of my picks for the year would be in that other category what would be your picks in that other category watchman yeah for me if if you had to make a company let's say you had to make a combined five nominee category it would be for me it would be uh Succession, I recall Saul, exactly as he said. Watchman, I mean, unorthodox, and I guess Mrs. America,

only because I feel terrible. I haven't watched unbelievable. I heard it's great. Yeah, unbelievable is phenomenal. That's really interesting. So you're saying, make a five-show category out of drama and limited. I'd probably go Saul, Succession. Let's do what you coward.

Say, Zark. Watchman, Ozark. Yeah. unbelievable. And honestly, I think I'd do Mandalorian. Really? Yeah. As far as like, I mean,

because I don't really know how to, um, evaluate Mandalorian as an accomplishment, but I definitely think it gave me, it was an achievement. And I think it's an achievement worth noting. Let me make this more challenging for you. Would your answer change if there was just a five category best show?

And we had to bring comedy into it too. And I'll list the comedy nominees. Okay. Curb Your Enthusiasm. What a comeback season. Dead to me. The Good Place, the final season. Insecure. Long overdue recognition for a show that just finished the fourth season. Your favorite? The Kaminsky Method. Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Shitts Creek, final season, recognition. And what we do in the shadows. I could be talked into Insecure slipping in there. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, if we're talking about a five show thing, I would probably, you know, I think you could make the argument that Insecure gets in there instead of Mandalorian. I don't know. I guess that I've created a straw man or straw person of people who are looking to divine the tea leaves from nominations.

But I realize I'm just really talking about myself because I wish looking at the comedy category there was a show that kind of like, because half hours have become more flexible and mutable and there are even a couple hours in that comedy category. I kind of, you know what I'm, instead of trying to torturously explain myself, I'll just say, I miss Atlanta. I want the best show or potential best show of the year to be in that category too. I think that it's a healthier landscape when you could point to all three of the main categories, comedy drama limited and find something that just represents the very best of the, of the industry of the medium in all three. That's, yeah, yeah. To ding on like The Good Place or whatever, which was a wonderful show that,

ended strong, it just, I kind of want that heat. I want to feel that electricity from all the categories. And that might be a tough ask. Should we pivot and just say, congratulations to longtime friend of the pod, Damon Lindelof, because I think surprising no one, except maybe Damon, Watchman absolutely rolled and had more nominations than any other show.

And dare I say it, deserving. Yeah. Yeah. And whether or not, it was conceived of as a single season show. I think that that became a huge talking point. I can't remember when Damon said that. Was it once the show had already aired? Or was it prior to airing? It was more that he never said otherwise ever,

privately or publicly. It's that it became more of an issue and it was put to him with more frequency and more force once the show was a success. Yes. Okay. He never deviated. Yeah, whether or not it would have been like a significant difference in its nominations

if it had been just in the drama category and just outside of that limited, I don't know, but it deserves every single nomination it got. Yeah, and it's just wild. I mean, it is truly wild the degree to which the show was prescient. And maybe, you know, it also in some ways was too late. But everything, I mean, obviously the masks thing. It's just outrageous. But everything, I think the show just deserves so much commendation,

not just for the incredible creative undertaking that it was, but just for how much it has to say and continues to say about the world that we are living in and the way that Damon said it on camera and off too. I think he's been, I think he is as surprise as anyone that he's carried some weight for social justice issues and racial justice issues and that the show has become such a flashpoint for,

both. But I think these carried himself with real consideration and grace. And I think part of that continues to the Instagram post he wrote this week and reflecting what you were just talking about, which is that he's done with this. And it's up to, and it's for someone else to do next. And I think that that's extremely appropriate. And it's just, I mean, that show is going to win in that category. I feel very confident. And I hope it wins in multiple categories. Because I think it speaks, It speaks to the best of what the medium is capable of in front of and behind the camera. I also noticed that Yaya Abdul Mateen was nominated. He was also a watch guest, as was Mark Duplus, who got nominated for his role on the

morning show, which we chatted a little bit about his acting gigs when he was on the show last week, and he was also nominated. I mean, for what it's worth, like, yes, there were snubs. But if you go down the list of actors nominated, this is really like a Valhalla of great performers. Yeah. Old, new, underappreciated, long appreciated from Jennifer Anderson, Oliver, Jennifer Anderson, Olivia Coleman, Laurelini, and Zendaya, as you're saying.

I mean, Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Cape Lancet, Regina King, obviously, I mean, Carrie Washington and Paul Mescal, a good old Hugh Jackman. Yeah, for bad education. It's pretty cool. Betty Gilpin from Glow, Darcy Cardin, getting a nom for Good Place. Yvonne Orgy, another friend of the watchpot. representing. That all makes me pretty optimistic and pretty happy. There's a lot. There is a lot. There's a lot to like here. Yeah, it'll be, and we'll talk more about this as it gets closer.

Fascinating to see how they execute the actual ceremony and both on a technical logistical stand level and also in terms of the tone and the way people are feeling in September as we get out of this summer and approach, hopefully, on election day and all that. So it'll be a really like, interesting test study on how we do these things now. One last observation. I don't know if you had any others just randomly. It's sort of cool to see something that I think we know, but see it reflected in the nominations, that the Daily Show family tree

and how dominant that is in its particular field. So the variety talk show nominations that, you know, for years were dominated, the nominations anyway were John Stewart would be, nominated, but often Letterman was nominated. And Conan or even Jay Leno, it's Trevor hosting The Daily Show. It's Samantha B. It's John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and also Kimmel. So four out of the five nominees either are The Daily Show or our Alums of the Daily Show, which is pretty remarkable. Yeah, that is pretty amazing. We can take a quick break here,

and then we'll come back and talk a little bit about the most recent episode of I May Destroy You and a couple other things. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by an American Pickle. An American Pickle stars Seth Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a 1920s American immigrant who is accidentally brined in a vat of pickles for 100 years emerging in present-day New York City. Seth Rogan also plays Herschel's only surviving relative, his great-grandson Ben, a mild-mannered computer coder living in Brooklyn. From the producers of the disaster artist and 50-50, an American pickle tells the uniquely heartwarming story of two men from different generations who must learn the true meaning of family. Stream the new Mac's original American pickle

August 6th only on HBO Max, rated PG-13. All right, man, we're back. Why don't we chat a little bit about I May Destroy You? Which, I think in our conversations, we've done what we usually do with, like, reliably great shows that are on a week-to-week basis, where we almost fall back into, yeah, this show's great.

Don't know what you want me to say about it. I have to admit that I woke up on, I had not gotten a chance to watch it on Monday night, and when I woke up, I saw a headline I think it was on Vulture or something, but it was like, things take a dark turn for Arabella was the deck.

And I was like, Jesus. Like, I was definitely like, I kind of like waited a day to watch it. It wasn't appreciably more dark, I don't think, than any other episode of this show, but it was,

I think that this was an episode that I think you had mentioned before being, like it was getting short shrift. The, Michaela Cole's performance is so fucking good. And the amount of different pitches she has in her arsenal from the thing that she does

in the kind of opening monologue about borders and boundaries in Theo's group. And she's just ice when she does it. Yeah, through like hang out in the park with Kwame and T to going to Italy to reunite with Biagio, unbeknownst to Biagio,

is such a panoramic performance. And it never, And it never doesn't feel like it's the same person, but it shows how many different people one person can be. I was just absolutely blown away, especially when Biage, that whole scene where she goes out to pay for the pizza, comes back in,

Biagio's locked her out. And she goes from basically cooing, kind of, you know, like, oh, I was just thinking that might have been a bit weird. And then as it kind of becomes more and more of apparent, what's happening, and then more and more apparent what dire situation she's in in Italy with no international data and just a return ticket but nowhere to stay, she loses it and loses it in a way that obviously

forces a confrontation with Biagio that we can talk about. But I just thought that the way that storyline played out this week was just like, well, you know, it's a standing ovation. Yeah, and her performance is just part of the show's project, which does something that I think is so, so, so close to impossible, so hard, which is to center the audience so totally in subjectivity. Meaning we, as the audience, feel enormous empathy for her. We understand the parts of her that led her to this moment and her need and what she wants and what she even deserves.

And we also know mistakes she makes. And we also know how her external, behavior could be interpreted or understood by someone who does not have the access to the subjectivity that we, the audience has. To have all of that floating while you're also watching a TV show is just, it's really stunning to me. I did want to ask you, not just as a fan of the show, but as a fan of storytelling, really, you're passionate about it. Has there ever been in television or cinema, a surprise visit that has gone well. No. I know you don't like being put on the spot.

Well, I mean, they do it so well in this episode because they've established that enough stuff happens. We now know that this investigation and this series essentially has been going on for nine months. They do such a good job of allowing for things to happen off screen or in between episodes while not playing fast and loose with whether or not it's a mystery or not. But there's a 50-50 chance that she might have texted Biagio and said, like, I'm coming. You know, like, you don't really know, I think, until she comes out and is looking at the bus schedule or like the taxi stand, like, oh, this guy's not picking her up. Like, she has not, she doesn't seem to have a plan. She doesn't have enough lira, you know, and she's just going right there.

I think it's Euros. Oh, yeah. Is it not Italian lira anymore? RIP, the lira. I love saying lira. That's why I did it. I know. I miss it as well.

You're right. Euros. She doesn't have enough euros. She's monitoring the cab fare. And it just becomes more and more apparently. This is a bad plan. Oh, shit. So the answer to that is no.

I cannot remember a time where someone's been like, especially post the invention of mobile phones. Yes. I cannot think of a time when someone is just like, I'm just going to show up and it wasn't like, what the fuck are you doing here? It's also, she is. she is the

Mozart of a certain kind of interpersonal bread. So when she went to get the pizza, and then I realized in appalling, almost slow motion, that the camera was tracking her entire return upstairs. Yeah, I was like, what could possibly happen to her? I was like, is this

pizza guy going to attack her? I was really like getting kind of nervous. And you know that something bad can and will happen. And you also know from watching seven previous episodes of the show that the terrible thing that's going to happen isn't, isn't the pizza guy stabbing her or whatever. It's not a jump scare. It's like a slow, slow burning, just emotional horror. And that same feeling

was suffused in the Kwame plot as well, which, you know, had so much, okay, a lot. A lot of credit is given, deservedly so, to Ito O'Brien, who's the intimacy coordinator for the show as she was for normal people. But it's almost as if there was an intimacy coordinator or observer or commentator in every step of the process, because that scene between Kwame and the woman whom he meets on a dating app and goes out and goes home with is the most, it's a very delicate, two-step, you know, and it never allows us, like I was saying before, about subjectivity, it never allows us to be on anyone's side. No, I know. Nobody is in a fixed place. The same thing that happens, forgive me, I forget the name of the woman that Kwame goes out on a date with, but,

you know, she starts out very self-effacing and kind of like, I hate my hair and I have this hat and like, you know, wait for people's eyes to start darting away from me. And the same thing goes for Biagio when she shows up, like he goes, he runs the gamut of reactions. There's, His eyes stay pretty shook. But what do you, I mean, like, what did you make of when Biaggio was like, I want to read me what you wrote? Like, I mean, I thought that he ran through so many different kind of reactions to her. And clearly he decided when she walked out that door, he was like, I have to close this door because this person is dangerous for me. Yes, I think that you make a great point in bringing up that moment.

To me, I interpreted that as, and I don't know if Beascio deserves as much credit, because he has not really behaved that. admirably, but also he never, never presented himself as Prince Charming throughout. But I read that moment as a kind of commentary on the idea that all behavior by an artist is worth it, if the art is good. You know, like, did you write something beautiful and powerful about doing this insane thing? If so, maybe I'll understand it better. I don't know if that's really character-based, that inference or it's more like the way I'm looking at the overall project. But this idea that there are no sides and that everything is constantly shifting, I mean, that's echoed in what Kwame says about sexuality and it's also echoed by what.

Yeah. Exactly. And it's echoed also by what Arabella says at the beginning about where we lay down our markers about what's okay and what isn't okay. Right. And the episode's called Line Spectrum Border. It just continues to kind of stagger, I guess, both of us. It is a show about the impossibility.

of knowing things and connecting. You know, she has chosen as her subject matter, the thing that 99% of writers do anything that they can to avoid. Or if they end up there, they like to leave you there and then back away slowly. They don't start there and then just kind of sit in it. And last thing before we move on, just to make a note of it,

since you mentioned the interview with the cops, it was a really powerful and noteworthy moment. I can't imagine anything as accidental. They said it's been nine months. since the attack, and both police women are visibly pregnant. And there's a, not that that's related, that part is related, but the idea of femininity, motherhood, this shared moment with these four women sitting at this table,

that was, again, it's a very rare kind of space to see depicted on television and how it was all reacted, and the spectrum of which, you know, Terry and Arabella react to it. This is, these are rooms and spaces that as viewers, particularly as male viewers, we are not often granted access to. I even thought that the mirroring of the sort of the way that Terry and Arabeil talk to each other and what kind of things they say. So them saying, your birth is my birth

as like a kind of mantra over the course of the season and then seeing these two counterparts in a different world who literally are pregnant at the same time and their birth is their birth. and that birth being somewhat timed, you know, I think that the, I think one of the cops was probably saying like she was close to giving birth. So it,

the whole, like, way in which she will mirror things subtly with dialogue, but then also with visuals or dialogue and narrative, is it's very, it's a, it's a really uncommon experience. And I was thinking about like, well,

what do I want? There's usually things you ask when, especially you're watching a show episodically week to week. You're like, well, do I want to have happen for the rest of the season. don't think I've been this satisfied

with something where I'm like I don't really know what could happen or what will happen but there's no like landing the plane for I may destroy you it doesn't I said do you think that's another reason why

this is the show of the summer because we don't know when anything is going to end anymore like there's a there's a desire for some sort of decisiveness or finality or anything and it's being denied to us

as it often is in life but this show is just kind of continuing. And I'm not saying that would rub me the wrong way in a different time, but it does seem once again uncannily in sync with how we're experiencing time. It's one of those, it's one of the first shows I can remember where I think to myself, this could be five seasons or it could end in four weeks. Next week. It could end this week.

And we'd say, okay, thank you. You completed the sentence. If it did, I mean, God forbid it it ended the way it did. But I'm just saying, the way that this episode is. Speaking of that, the other thing I love about the show is we thought we only had like five minutes of conversation about it in us and look at us.

Kind of felt like she got eaten by a shark at the end, right? That sound? Like, yeah, I know that she didn't because that would be a very different show, but maybe it's a credit to what the show is that I thought about it and rewound it just to make sure that her head didn't disappear because fucking Italian jaws just leapt up out of the deep looking for a canola.

or whatever? I don't think they have a lot of sharks in the Mediterranean, do they? I didn't think they had a lot of sharks in Maine either, but I hope you read the news this week. I did. I did. Anything's possible. Was there any other stuff you wanted to hit before we got out of here? I know that you were slowly making your way up Perry Mountain.

I'm still at the peak, so. I just, you know, I even burned some of these thoughts with you on a call yesterday, but like, I'm trying. And my main thing, and I haven't gotten yet to the episodes that many people are saying. So you got back into it because not only me, but a couple of other people were like, it gets really good, right? Yes. Well, I got back into it because of you. Let me just look you in the eyes and tell you. But even after still not being convinced, other people have backed you up. My main thing about this show, the cast is so wild. This cast list runs so recklessly deep that it is just staggering.

It's not just that, you know, you get to the second episode, and it's like, oh, Tatiana Musslani is a major performer here, or Stephen Root is on this show. It's that you keep going down the line. And like Chris Chalk, who's just been a reliable, that guy in a lot of prestige dramas, and is really well loved and respected by people who've been in plays with them and done theater and, you know, maybe hasn't gotten that look

suddenly as one of the main characters, which is thrilling to see. It's that standing behind Tatiana Musslani and what's his name, the T-1000, is Robert Patrick. Yeah. Is Taylor Nichols, the dude from Barcelona and Metropolitan? Yeah.

Just stroking his goatee? He's the deacon Seidel, man. It never rests. And so I have to be honest, I may have begun to say this before when I attempted to join the Mace Mob. My main reaction to the show is unquestionably colored by the fact

that I look at this, and I just see time and I see money and I am jealous. I'm just jealous. I admire it. I think the production design, the locations, I mean, it's just otherworldly. It's so, so high quality. It's really special. It's a beautiful show.

But I'm also dying. I'm like, so you're telling me they went to that location for a four-minute scene between characters we're never going to see again? Okay, you're telling me that of all the shows on HBO International's docket, the one that needed, I want to say, $2 million, flashback to the trench warfare of World War I is fucking Perry Mason. Yeah, not like all the show

on the Western Front. You guys could have made that. Of all the shows this year that had a line item in their budget for not one, not two, but three different extras holding in their intestines as they died under German mustard gas.

It was this one. So that's my process right now. The one thing I wanted to say about what's going on now in Perry Mason and it doesn't spoil anything because I got, I'm so happy, happy that you're going, that you're on the case, as it were. I was thinking a little bit about

it will surprise you, it will come as no surprise to you that Perry Mason is, is in the courtroom, you know, now. And I was thinking about how, like, in the early episodes, I was kind of like, so this guy's a private detective. I wonder, is it going to be like he's Jake Gittis and like, it's going to be a couple of seasons of this or what's going to happen? And then it becomes apparent that he has an opportunity to sort of become a lawyer. And I'm like, Are we going to have to sit through, like, law school? Like, what's the deal? Like, are you going to watch him, like, drive his Model T across town to Brentwood and go to UCLA or something?

And I realize now that we're kind of in the money part of the season, that it's kind of like, it reminds me of, like, some of, like, the alt-rock songs we used to love where it was like, oh, yeah, it's quiet, loud, quiet, loud. This season actually had dynamics. It made you wait for the part that was the big reward. which is getting him in the courtroom and getting him in this character's natural environment. And I almost now appreciate the couple of weeks that I had to sit through of like, oh, is this guy just going to keep taking like quick little

little Manola shots of dudes cheating on each other? Like, I'm really glad that I stuck it out because it's become like a very, very lean, mean show. Look at you. You feel rewarded by the work you put in, just like a real, real baby boomer. it's funny what you're talking about though like the origin story because

this idea of like deconstructed storytelling and like emphasis on origin stories the example I always think of and this was not first certainly wasn't the last because this has been what TV and movies have done

you know like for God's sake let's see I would love to see Thomas and Martha Wayne gun down again because otherwise I how will I understand how this young boy became a bat but there was a now it's almost 20 maybe it's 20 years ago

I can't believe this but 20 years ago when Marvel was like before the movies really like we need young people reading our books and they they hired the great writer Brian Michael Bendis to do a new Spider-Man it was called Ultimate Spider-Man and eventually that led to Miles Morales

to become an important character in media but at the time it was like let's reboot Peter Parker Miles Morales that's going to host the Today show Miles'rales live with Miles and Kelly. And one of the things about that,

it was a great series. I really enjoyed it. I read it at the time. One of the amazing things about it was Bendis took, I think, four episodes, four issues, maybe even five, to tell the story that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko told about Spider-Man

in one establishing page. Like, it was just such a, and at the time, that felt like, oh, good, we can finally, like, in the same way people thought about TV in general. Like, we can use the sex. extra space to really flesh out the story and fill in the dots, you know, and explain the things that were otherwise unexplainable.

But there are certain things, and I say this without full knowledge of where Perry Mason is going, there are certain things that you're okay, yada, yada. Yes. Which is to say, if you have Matthew Reese staring off into space pulling on his 19th cigarette of the morning, I get from that that war is hard. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's no version of World War I memoirs where they're like, the thing you got to know

about trench warfare as it wasn't that bad. Nobody said that. So there are some things that are worthy of continued articulation and some things, like Perry Mason fighting in the trenches and going to law school just to get to the story you want to tell, you might not need. Well, I've excited for you to see how he circumvents that stuff. And I can think of no better way to end this podcast than trench warfare, we got it. It was bad. Trench warfare, anti. Yeah. We're willing to take the hard stance. The watch is anti-war. trench war affair. Can you just tell me, is it episode three, four, or five that he crams for the Lsats? Because that might need a trigger warning in my household. I'll let you know. Man,

it was good to see you. I apologize to everyone, but especially Kaya for my audio fidelity. My heart's fidelity is never in doubt now to this podcast. I'll see you on Monday.