The Watch - What Do We Want From Summer TV? Plus: Katie Couric’s Grub Street Diet | The Watch

Episode Date: September 6, 2019

Andy calls in from New Mexico with a couple of people from the ‘Briarpatch’ cast on the line (2:43). Katie Couric really loves tomatoes, and other things we learned from her Grub Street Diet (8:20). Plus, we’re watching ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ and the final season of ‘Orange Is the New Black’ as the summer winds down (24:55). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Andy Greenwald and Juliet Litman Read Katie Couric’s Grub Street Diet here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer podcast network. Up on the Ringer.com this week, we've posted our streaming recommendations for the month of September, updated our 50 best superhero movies of all time list, and make sure to check out our Stephen King coverage by Ben Lindberg on the site and on the big picture podcast. On the sports side, our NFL experts are giving their predictions for the season, the storylines they're most excited about, and finalizing their rankings of the top 150 fantasy players of 2019. You can check it out on the Ringer.com. Hey guys, thanks for listening to today's episode of The Watch. Bit of a wild one today. So I call Andy in New Mexico on the set of Briar Patch,

and Andy happened to be sitting with two of his Briar Patch co-stars, Kim Dickens, who you obviously know from Tremay and Fear of the Walking Dead and Deadwood and Gone Girl. She's hanging out. And also Jay Ferguson, who you may remember from Mad Men and who's one of the stars of Andy's show. So Jay and Kim, we're hanging out with Andy on this set. They jumped on briefly on speakerphone, so apologies to anyone who that audio fidelity didn't quite meet their Brian Wilson-esque standards. Jay is a avowed Dallas Cowboys fan, and I, as a Philadelphia Eagles fan, immediately started talking shit to him.

So thank you to him for putting up with me. And then Kim talked a little bit about working with David Fincher. And then Greenwald jumped on. And, you know, I think for core watch listeners, this is a good conversation. but we basically did a line-by-line breakdown of Katie Couric's Grub Street Diet from New York Magazine. Is it the most popular content we could have made today? No. Is it the most authentic to us? Yes. So we talked about the Katie Couric thing for a while. And then we talked about Apple canceling. It's for show. Where you cancels, put it in turn around. It's not going to put up. It's a show called Bastards with Richard Gear, and it's not going to be on Apple.

And Apple's not even up yet, but they're already getting rid of some stuff. So we talked a little bit about that. Then I was joined by Juliet Lippman, and we talked about Four weddings and a funeral, Succession, Summer TV, what we're looking for from Summer TV, and just kind of like spun through a bunch of different shows. Good fight, the boys. So really fun conversation with Juliet. A couple of really interesting ideas came out of that one.

So thanks for listening to The Watch. We'll be back on Monday. We'll have the audio from number one boys with Jason Concepcion and I talking about Succession episode five. I'll have something else on Monday. And then Tuesday, I'm actually going to New Mexico to visit Andy on the set of Briar Patch, and we'll record a pod from there and put that up on Thursday.

So a really cool week of pods coming next week. I hope everybody has a nice weekend. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the Ringer.com, and joining me on the other line from New Mexico,

rushing me through my intro. It's Andy Greenwald. First of all, welcome to New Mexico. I've got a guest here. I've got to be a special guests. here. I've got makeup artist Taylor coming.

Uh-huh. You're not going to see it. I'll make sure I hide it. This is podcast debut of Jay Ferguson who's here. Yes, I'm here. Jay, what's up? Congratulations on seven years of Ezekiel Elliott.

You guys must be so happy. He's been right out of it. Thanks, buddy. And I'm so glad that you jumped right into it like gangbusters. I've got charts and graphs ready for that ass whenever you are. So, no, I know that running backs age well.

That's what the NFL has told us. So you really want to get a guy when he's in his 30s and all the partying is behind him, and that's when he can really be serious about exploding out of the backfield. Right, right. Like Brian Westbrook or a Shady McCloy, somebody like that. That's right. Jay, thank you so much for joining the watch today. Andy, what's going on down there?

We also have Saints fan Kim Dickens here. What you got for me? Oh, my God, nothing. I'm just in awe of their offense. I'm not stepping near the Saints. Also, New Orleans fans are very, very touchy. Well, the danger of impromptu podcasts that both these fine actors are being called to set

by Paul. I don't think she needs to go. I think it's an instrument. I think. I think Kim can hang out there, but I am a second. This all plays well on the live podcast, right? This is fantastic stuff. This is gold. Andy, what is like, what is the banter on the set right now?

What do you guys, like, talk about in between takes? What do we talk about? These guys, so today is the day I love, I bet the fidelity is great on the speakerphone too. So today is the day, is this the first day, Kim? Just like my interview mode. Yeah. You have to understand, Kim is resting in a beautiful gazebo.

I'm standing over her like a total weirdo. You're like a talk show. Okay, I'll sit on a talk show. Today might be the first day that you, Rosario and Jay, first time you've just had a whole day, just the three of you. It is the first time that we've done just the three of us in a scene. I think it is. Yeah.

And it's actually a really electric chemistry. I might add, we've had the gaggagled a couple of times. This is a thruple I am shipping. Is that the correct TV fandom way to say it? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Greenwald, did you mess up by not writing more scenes for the three of them? Is that what you're going at? Is that after you're leading with this?

The thing for me. The thing for me. The beauty of Kim is that she's been telling me that since day one. Yeah. So there have been, including that she agreed to do this. Chris, what's going on there, man? No, not a ton. had like a couple of like pop culture news items to bring up to you.

I get the feeling like you're not watching a lot of stuff, less than usual. I told Christus the other day that I watched the first episode of Mind Hunter with my wife. He did. And I fell asleep. Yeah. Because not because it wasn't good, because I'm tired. Yeah, you're really tired. Do you watch things when you're on that?

It's nicely slowly paste. Yeah. I was, I saw, I crammed the whole of Mind Hunter season two. You did? Oh, yeah. Kim, did you like it? I love it. I would finish an episode and go back and rewatch it.

Because I'm watching it in my Albuquerque apartment TV. Maybe it's not as good as my situation at home. So I have to like, really, can I hear it? Make sure I hear everything and see everything because, you know, I'm a Fincher fan, obviously. But I just like to just go deep. I go deep. So do you, can you watch Mindhunter and see like people's eye twitches

and tell that they're having Fincher multiple take post-traumatic stress? disorder? It's not like that, Chris. Let's see. How to describe those multiple takes? They sort of break you down. You go through the whole day. You get to your hotel room.

You feel defeated. You meet all the other actors in the hotel. Lick your wounds. And then you can't wait to go back the next day. That's amazing. It makes you be your best. He makes you be your best. Andy, are you getting those kinds of performances out of people, man?

I mean, let's make it easier. What ways am I not like if? I feel like there's the bigger list. We're getting them in two or three. We're just throwing down the middle. That's right. You're like Eastwood. We're always throwing down the middle.

What? I'm like Clint Eastwood. Yeah. That's life, baby. Exactly. Exactly. We make all our meals on time. That's the important thing.

One here, one there. I can't believe that at the end of the long day at work, you're ready to just tuck into some mind hunter. Oh, yeah. Delicious. It's scary, too. That's unbelievable. Kim, are you watching anything else right now?

Me? I think that was it. That's it. Are you guys up on succession yet? Andy, did you catch up? I haven't even caught up, buddy. Like, this is my lowest point as a pop culture podcaster. I've watched nothing. I can contribute nothing.

And in fact, once we let Kim go back there per day, I think what we're going to talk about is Katie Couric's Grub Street diet. I have no idea what that is. Katie Couric kept a diary of what she ate every day for a week in the Hampton, and I just want to be Katie Couric. Wow, yeah. New York Magazine does these. things. They do these Grub Street diets. Andy actually has done one of these before, which is actually

the most engaged I've ever seen Andy professionally with an endeavor is when he did this. I know that he has his own TV show now, but I've never seen him more committed to an act of creation than his Grub Street diet. But Katie Courts is an all-time Hall of Famer. Because you really can tell a lot about someone by what they eat all week. You can actually like the biggest window into their lives. And Katie Kirk's life of leisure and vodka martinis and tomato sandwiches just sounds fantastic. Every morning her husband goes and gets her a latte and a muffin. And then she picks a tomato from her garden and eats it. Like it's just...

You know what? She knows that a live. I know. What are we doing here? What are we doing in this gazebo? I'm like, grounded for a new gatorade somewhere. There's someone who will get you one. Speaking of, so wait, Chris, Paul is coming to fetch him away.

Kim, thank you for doing it. Okay. Kim, thanks for coming on the watch. I'm going to move to a different location. Okay. Sorry about that. All right, Andy's back. So, you know, I know that you were playing a cool for Kim Dickens, but I think that

if we're not going to talk about TV and I have Juliet Limmon coming on in a couple of minutes and she and I are going to talk about TV. I have to turn to other people in my life to actually talk about these shows. But Andy, like, I don't think, I want to give watch listeners an idea of the level of excitement that you and I have. Every once in a while, like Andy and I are completely different schedules right now. I'm doing a lot of podcasts. He's obviously making a show. Like when we get home, we're in different zones. So a lot of the times it'll be like, be sure to ask me about, like, Lana Del Rey or whatever, and he'll just get like no response from me or I'll ask him

something and I'll get no response from him. Something happened over the weekend, though. Yeah. I got a text message from Andy. It was a link to this Katie Kirk piece. This Katie Kirk author, first of all, I've met Katie Kirk. Can I tell you something? Can I tell you something? something? What? Dynamite lady. Like, absolutely All-Star lady.

So I was like already like my eyebrow went up when I saw you sent this to me. And you sent it without comment. That's the important thing. It's because you fucking know me. And you knew what my response was going to be. Wait, when did you meet Katie Couric? Do we just rewind the tape? There was like a thing a couple years ago.

I think I went as an ambassador of the watch because I went to like some upfront's thing for like a podcast platform. and she was launching her podcast. And I went to be like, yeah, you know, The Ringer, we're doing a lot of cool stuff, blah, blah, blah. But she was there. That's amazing.

So first of all, the only thing that you've misrepresented in the story is that I did send a comment. It seems like being married to Katie Couric is pretty chill. That was the comment. And let me just say another thing.

You immediately read the speech. You got it. And you then text to me a couple other choice quotes from it. Maybe we can discuss. But I also want to set the context Again, I just want to thank our long time with this difficult time of not watching Hillary.

It's all right. We don't have any ads today. You can just let it rip? Great. Can I tell you how I really feel about English muffin? So the moment was so beautiful and so pure on our text message exchange that I screenshot it because I was actually going to tweet it, like, that this is what was coming on the podcast.

I didn't do that. What I also didn't do is remember that my iPhone is mirrored to the iPad that's in my home in Los Angeles. and my wife saw this. And when I was home, she was like, I see that you've been talking about Katie Couric. And not just talking about her, saying it would be killed to be married to her.

So, and you know what I did? I owned it. I was like, let me tell you about Katie Corrick's dream life in which every morning her husband leaves their palatial Hampton's mansion to get her a muffin and a latte. she emerges into her garden to pick a warm tomato

sun kiss from the hot East Coast summer sun slices it and makes a sandwich out of it on white bread and then later that night Pepperage Farm white bread with Helmand's mayo she's so specific and it's like it's sort of bougie because you're like oh like you went out into your

garden to get a tomato okay but then she cuts back to the people and she's like no Pepperidge Farm Kenny Power style slatherer it with some mayo, let's go. Tomatoes and Rosey Summer. And then, six hours

later, actually, we've lost track of time in the blinding, you know, Orient Sun or wherever the hell she is. She then just goes to a casually goes to a fundraiser and pound Tito's martinis with the Clinton. Like, it is so

adult appropriate lit that I cannot get over this. I cannot get over it. It is a perfect document, and she has moved to the top of my want to hang out with. So the best thing about this Grubstery Diet, I will link to it when we send out this sure to be Blockbuster podcast. I'm sure

Kaya's updating your ZipRecruiter right now. So the the thing is is that like Katie Kirk happens upon pretty normal groceries over the course of this diet. Like pretty normal foodstuffs. But each of them seem to come with an attendant

celebrity recommendation. So it's like she has I think she has like on like one day she just eats tomatoes or something like that but she has it with Malden Salt and she's like Bobby Flay introduced me personally to Malden Salt I'm like I know that Malden Salt is somewhat of like

Kai do you use Malden Salt? No but I've reading I've been reading a lot about it and now I'm really intrigued Okay but would you necessarily need a like if I was like Kai have you ever had Malden Salt would you be like Chris Ryan introduce me to this It's a sky. Every time Kaya removed perfectly browned and

crisp chicken thighs from her oven and applied a perfect dusting of finishing salt. She'd be like, without Chris Ryan, I would not have- No, because if Kyos listening to me, she would get perfectly grilled chicken thighs and then pour a bottle of Evian on top of it so that she could have water chicken. No, and so I was thinking of what are some things, what are some things that you wish a celebrity would introduce you to, essentially? So my big thing is, I would love to casually say, Josh Brolin introduced me to this Chalua sauce. I don't know if you know this, Chris.

This is actually true, but it was character actor Stephen Tobolowski who first put me on to kombucha. No, not really. Years ago. Oh my God, yeah. That's a true Hollywood story. She also, the thing about this Katie Kirk

Grubstreet Diet that's been really inspiring is how non-committal she has on a lot of stuff. So, like, there's one, this is an actual quote. This is an actual prose. I never had oat milk, and a friend of mine was raving about it, so I tried it. I can't tell yet if I like it.

Speaking of, I actually am beginning to think, and this is, you know, this is maybe the subject of another Blockbuster podcast, I think true name or wealth, it's being able to successfully be the straight line mouth emoji on almost every topic. You are allowed to communicate your actual thought process.

And you can just be medium on things. Because there's no power disparity. You know, you don't need something from this person. You're not worried about what they could do to you in the future. I think that I feel this way about I think that Katie Kirk feels this way. She is straight-line mouth emoji in this piece about oat milk and about

Alec Baldwin, which I think is exactly right. Because she has this whole thing about how she's at some celebrity auction in the Hampsons, right? And they auctioned off lunch with her and Alec Baldwin. And I believe the quote is, and you have that... I do. I just have a gravel pit in front of me in the moment.

Alec is... What does he say? They're co-hosting a USTA Foundation dinner at the U.S. Open. Sure. The Foundation does incredible things by providing kids who may not have access to tennis programs with an opportunity to learn to play and the discipline and structure that comes along with the program. But they also incorporate academics as well. I've been a supporter of this from member of years, yada yada, tennis.

Alec is always fun, and they raised a lot of money. Always, stop there. Alec is always fun. Over the last 25 years, you and I in the rest of America have heard many sentences uttered about Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin is a brilliant actor. Alec Baldwin has an enormous amount of chest hair. Alec Baldwin is rage punching someone on the freeway and montage.

Alec Walden is the best Jack Ryan, yeah. I've never heard that Alex Baldwin is always fun. That is so medium that I am just over the mood about it. The thing is, that's only the second best encounter she has in this Grub Street diet. Because this is the best one. Quote, for dinner, we went to our friend Andrew and Daniels' Lobster Feast. They do it every summer and it's so fun. They set up a table right on the beach.

This year, it was super windy and hard to talk and hear, but it was still a really good time and the food was delicious. Lobster, seared tuna with wasabi, corn salad, potato salad, lots of alcohol. So here's my mind vision of this. Defening winds cascading off of the raging Atlantic as Katie Couric stands there with so. sired tuna, tons of salads, apparently, and like a leader of alcohol. I brought a plate of desserts and picked at it with Lorraine Braco, her daughter and

her daughter's husband. They were really nice and interesting. They are staying at Lorraine's but live in Paris. So it was interesting talking about Macron and French politics. These fucking guys are out there talking yellow vests, and they can't hear each other. and Dr. Melfi is standing next to them. I'm picturing full Ingmar Bergman's seventh deal. Gale Force wins.

Gail Force wins. The dude in the TDK cassette commercial, right? Like the faces of the cast of Apollo 13 when they were on the vomit comet. And they're screaming, screaming. And Karen French politics. And here's her adjective of choice. It was really interesting. I love it.

God could be Katie Kerr. I love it. You go to their... You're going to Cooperstown, Katie Couric. I don't have a ton of other media and TV news to talk about with you. You're obviously not watching a lot. But I was curious whether or not you would see in the news that there was an Apple show, an Apple TV Plus show, has already been canceled.

This is a show called Bastards. I keep wanting to call it husbands because I'm like, oh, they would never have put a show up in the first place called bastards. But they were going to. And it was, it's a show called Bastards. It's adapted from an Israeli show. It was a show run by Howard Gordon, who I believe did Homeland in 24. And it starred Richard Gear.

It was an eight-episode series about two friends who served together in the Vietnam War and then a tragedy strikes and it changes everything and they go on a vengeance spree after this tragedy. Apple has canceled this show already, which is pretty... Well, okay.

They put it into turnaround. Apparently competitive situation. where Apple outbid other suitors for it, and the show is owned by Sony TV, free and clear to sell it elsewhere. Yeah, the thing I wanted to ask you about is just the interesting nature of these sort of upstart streaming services

deciding tonally what they're comfortable with. Because HBO, obviously, all bets are off. Netflix is pretty free and easy, but, you know, for Disney, who have already branded themselves as sort of a family-friendly service, and for Apple Plus, who I think are really playing a lot of sides of the fence here, it's kind of interesting to think about something about this show rubbed them the wrong way.

Well, I think it's what's for me, what's particularly interesting is that the greatest successes critically, and in some very prominent cases commercially, from this whatever age of TV that we're in, or at least going back to what people called the golden age of TV 10 years ago, came from a combination of electric material, risky material, envelope pushing material and suitors, in this case by suitors, I mean networks or streaming providers, whatever you want to call them, who didn't have anything to lose. So they could take a chance on the script that other people wouldn't. And we've talked about this many times. It's not an obscure story that Breaking Bad and Mad Men were both right. Like Vince Gilligan and Weiner had TV careers,

and these were the strips they carried from job to job to get them job, but no one was willing to make them until AMC took a chance on both of them. because AMC was a place that showed The Godfather Part 2 six times on a Sunday, and they needed to make a splash, and they needed to be as noisy as possible, and they took a big bet on talent. That has happened again and again. If you think about Amazon, I mean, Amazon doesn't certainly a successful company without its prime video show that made people start paying attention to Amazon critically anyway. It was transparent.

The show that arguably might not have been made anywhere else. Similarly, you know, Netflix with Orange is the New Black with the one that prize people. I would argue more so than House of Cards, which was a really just big spend, to try to impress everyone and blow everyone else out of the water. What we're seeing now with not just established brands, maybe the two biggest established brands in the world, Disney and Apple entering into the space, they're trying to do things backwards. They're coming in saying, we know our brand and we need content that fits our brand.

That means you're going to, you know, obviously for Disney, that means things like shows starring the Avengers, which seems like a pretty safe bet to me. But it also, in the case of Apple, when Apple's saying our brand is kind of, you know, family-friendly uplift, that they're going to be limiting their very highly paid,

highly-reported programming heads, the two fellows used to run Sony television, and sort of narrowing the possibilities for it. You're going to end up with situations like this, where those guys coming from Sony bought a Sony project, they must have been intimately involved with, behind the camera and Howard Gordon and Warren Light, and also Richard Gear.

And then there's like, this doesn't fit the mandate. It's very interesting. I don't know what it pretends. I don't have an opinion about it. I certainly haven't seen the strip, but it's interesting, and it's backwards from what we've seen for the last 10 years.

Hey, man, don't want anybody ever tell you, you don't know what you're talking about with TV anymore. You know that? You still got it. You still got it. If you poke the bear,

something's going to happen. Andy, I'll let you go. Thank you so much for bringing Jay Ferguson and Kim Dickens on the watch. I mean, that was limited. I think that chance that you might be doing some podcasting

from Albuquerque. There's no chance. I bought the tickets, so I'm going to come. come down to Albuquerque next week. I'm going to spend the day at the Briar Patch set and then Andy and I are going to record that night if I can keep him awake.

Maybe we'll have some guests from Briar Patch join us. And we'll have a Rollican podcast. And we'll have that. That'll be up for next Thursday. Next Monday we'll have a usual succession talk. And because, you know, I was trying to go with this guys set up. All the PAs were like watching us nervously from the house.

Just now I walked around the corner to talk to you. And I heard a bellowing behind me and Jay is saying, that's it? Are you kidding me? That's it? Because all he wants to do is find someone worthy to shit talk the Eagles with. Because I am, you know this about me. I am so bad at it. I didn't even remember to say that we won a Super Bowl recently.

I just melt down in the face of Cowboys hatred and he welcomes it. He was born in the dark. No, I can't wait. I am setting up GoFundMe pages to pay Dak Prescott's contract. I'm like ready for it. So if we get Jay next week, that'll be awesome. Andy, thanks so much for calling in. We'll talk to you.

I'll see you next week. I can't wait. I'm going to catch up on Succession. If you are in Toronto, this again, come see if you can, please come see the Breyer Patch premiere. We're premiering the first two episodes of the show at Toronto Film Festival on Saturday.

I don't know. Tell me what's... If anybody has any tips, any tips that don't involve a lot of that and I won't hear it. Don't want to hear about that. Andy, thanks so much for calling it. I'll talk to you soon, man.

Great, great job, Brad. Bye. Bye. I'm now joined by Juliet Litman, calling me from New York City. Hi, Juliet. Hi. I just did a quite frankly unhinged 15-minute breakdown of Katie Kirk's Grub Street diet with Andy. What the, oh, is it?

I thought you're going to say you did it alone, and I was going to be so pissed. I was like, you knew you were having me on. Why didn't you save that for me? No, I did it with Greenwald because it's literally the only piece of pop culture he's been engaged with in the last three weeks. And it was like old-school Andy. Like, he was really into it. But, you know, like- Or some of his takes.

I guess I have to listen to the pod. I think it was mostly just that we were like, Katie Kirk is famous enough to just express no opinion. Like, just to be like, I don't have an opinion about oat milk yet, and that is considered content. Well, I thought what was kind of amazing was she was trying to be funny. Yeah, let's do part two of this. I don't know.

I really like Katie Kirk. A couple years ago, you and I both went to South by Southwest, and I went to this, like, women's breakfast, and she was one of the speakers. And someone asked her about Matt Lauer's right after. me too. And she had such a great answer. I've been carrying it around in my notes for a while. And she basically was like, it's not on me to have to apologize or explain this and like, don't put it on me. And I just thought that was dope. And it was also kind of the attitude she brought

to her Grub Street diet, which is just like, I'm doing me and I don't care about anyone else. Yeah. It's like I had a tomato sandwich, kiss my ass. And she was like trying to be funny. And I was just like Katie Kirk, you're not funny. But that's okay. No one's asking you to be. I don't know. It was a tour to force. I was mostly really concerned, confused. Just got questions about the errands that she's sending her husband down. That's right. Yeah. He's traveling very far to get her to that bagel. I believe her house is in East Hampton, and I think she sends him to Southampton to get her Goldberg's bagel.

And what's that time spent? Like, what are we talking about in terms of, like, getting there? 10 to the day of the week, I mean, it's minimum 20 minutes. Bare minimum. I mean, could be a lot more. I will do that. Like if my wife's having a hard day and she's just like, you know what really come in solid is a veggie burger from canters with fries and some cookies or something. Like I'm like, I'll go pick that up. It's not a big deal. And LA, it's like everything is 20 minutes more or less.

Okay. Share Horowitz's his father. He does say exactly that. Okay. I'm probably closer an age to him than I am Sherer Horowitz now. Absolutely, Chris. The reason why, so I have a thematic tie-in for all of this. All righty.

Okay. Women? Women culture? Ladies be eating tomato sandwiches. No, it's summer and kind of like this sort of like, you can kind of like lose your head a little bit and just like everybody kind of has their vacations or is in their own like little bubble for a while. And they wind up like watching stuff in like a way that I think is purely pleasing. Like there's not that much you can say appointment TV, but there I don't know if there's a lot of assignment television where you're like, I have to do this. So, like, Succession's happening now. I think a lot of people we know are watching it.

But it's not even a tenth of the size of, like, Game of Thrones where you feel like you're literally left out of 50% of your conversations if you don't watch it. And so that leaves people to kind of have dalliances with shows that they want. And you and I have both watched four weddings and a funeral. Hell yeah. I woke up this morning and I was like, how do I fit this in before having to leave the house? I fucking love it. So for people who haven't watched or watched, but like I've only watched an episode or two,

why don't you give you the broad strokes of how you're feeling about this show? I would say this show is objectively subpar. It's like not in the top tier of serialized narrative television. Okay. However, it's like immensely pleasant, as you said. Like there's not a lot to worry about every like 13 minutes of this show. There's a reference that I'm just like. Like, are there really that many people outside of myself and I guess Mindy Kaling that get this?

And I just really enjoy it. It's purely fantastical. There is no, no tie to reality whatsoever. At all. It's only, at all. It's also, like, only has, like, 2% of a commonality with the film for weddings and a funeral. And that commonality is the title and, like, some scenes shot in London. And it's kind of like if Friends was made multicultural, set in London, included like the fact that everyone went to college together, attempted to be witty and quirky and like on trend and also a romantic comedy and failed at most of those while still being an enjoyable watch.

Well, that's also the thing is like... Is that a good description? It is because it's almost like I feel like I am. watching this show from like six years ago. Do you know what I mean? Like it almost feels like something that you're like, I don't, there's nothing really to watch.

So I'm just going to watch old episodes of four weddings and a funeral, even though it just came on. It feels very like streaming one point now. Like it's something that like Netflix would have taken a flyer on and you're like, oh, I don't know if the streaming TV things are really going to work out. And it could have been, I don't even think it was in development for that long though, which is the weird thing.

But yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't have a really clear hook. I can't really explain it in a quick manner. Yeah, it's about a group of Americans living in London. We've talked about it a little bit on the pod before, but like they were... I think you mean you talked about it. Yeah, I did.

I mean, I did the Rusillo monologue about it. Yes. And there's nine episodes are up now. I have actually finished the season. Thank you for screeners. And it's about these friends... I have no spoilers. I'm not going to spoil anything.

These friends living in London, they're American. So you know how like I'm anticipating this with a bunch of the shows they're going to come on this fall and like even succession even whatever like people will have essentially like they'll have like this exacting expectation of like well you know this this part of the show didn't make total sense like why didn't they do it this way for a funeral so quickly shatters that part of your brain like it's so beyond the pale when it comes to like plausibility or whether or not these people would be friends anymore why they're friends with like a reality TV star in the show why one of them is working for a Tory member of the House of Commons.

You know, like, all this stuff where you're just like... Who also is, like, the first, like, openly gay member of Parliament ever, according to the show. Yeah. And that way, it's very 90s. And I was reading Wesley Morris's great essay about friends today. And which made me really, like, pine for the days of, like, just an easy watch where it's just like, we all sit down and we watch this because it's escapist fair. And that's that's that. So do you feel more excited when you have something that's escapist that's,

that's purely yours or something that you can share with somebody? I want you to guess my answer. Definitely purely yours. Purely mine. I'm not that interested in a conversation. In fact, I feel so much more pressure with The Bachelor being so popular now. I can imagine. There's just like a lot of people talking about it.

It's like it's a lot more pressure. But yeah, I mean, like one of the reasons for weddings and a funeral is fun is like it's so bad, but there's like no one talking about how bad it is. So you just sort of like don't have to acknowledge that it's really bad. You don't have to explain it. You don't have to justify it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't need to be like, why am I spending 47 minutes this morning watching this objectively bad television show with a weirdly super charming cast? I think the best thing about it is the cast. And very weirdly, I would not include Natalie Emanuel, the star and like probably most famous person from the show. Yes. Who also is playing an American, even though she is British and it's set in London.

Yes, it's so weird. She actually, that role, so she plays the lead who's named Maya, who is kind of the catalyst for the show. And she was a recast. That was originally supposed to be the comedian Jessica Williams. Oh, I didn't know that. What's the story behind that? After the pilot. I don't know.

I just was doing some research into the show and I started watching it. And I will say I started watching it because I didn't know what to watch. And Amanda Dobbins was like, well, if you tried four weddings on a funeral yet? not for me, but I heard the people like it. And then I started like looking into it. And yeah, she came in after they shot the pilot. I guess they redid it. Interesting. So one of the things, you know, you are a big champion of the idea of a recast. So like when you get to, if an actor is no longer interested in being on a show, I would be curious to know how, how far you would take your theory. But like if you like a show and there's like a character. I'll take it very far.

Yeah. So you would have like famously, you would have recast McDreamy, right? Absolutely. I would so much rather. McDreamy still be alive than still being like true to the Patrick Dempsey version of it. I'm sorry, I miss McDreamy like all the time. You're not a Patrick Dempsey originalist? No, I'm certainly not. If Darren on Bewitched could be recast, anyone could be recast. I would like to offer an amendment to this bill of television rights that you have.

Okay. I would be into more of a rep theater style. Like I think that next season, if they were going to do another four weddings and a funeral, I think that they should trade roles. Oh, interesting. So there is a British character, Gemma. I feel like Natalie Emanuel should just like play Gemma. You know what I mean? Totally.

John Reynolds should just play cash. Like they should just mix it up. They should like try that. And I would love to hear if anybody is like likes an ensemble show, hit me up and or hit up the watch Facebook group and let me know is what's the show that you would love to see. Not a recast, but like literally people playing character musical chairs. It would be so fun with Succession. I mean, it would just be so much fun. Yes.

I mean, can you actually imagine Shiv being Kendall? Oh, my God. That would be incredible. I mean, I would be so happy for Jeremy Armstrong. Jeremy Strong, yeah, because he would just get to have like cool outfits and be competent. Yeah. Yeah, and also, like, Matthew McFadden can literally play any part, like, on that show. He could be any character.

He happens to be excellent at Tom. But if you know Matthew McFayden, you know that he could be Kendall, he could be Roman, like, he could do anything. And I would love to see that happen. Also, like, what if Cousin Greg was a total conniving asshole? Yeah. Like, what if Cousin Greg was actually Roman or something? Yeah. They would have to explain how he was like the size of Joe Johnson, though.

And like, yeah, they're Roy kids. Yeah, that'd be confusing. But whatever, then they just would write in a plot about him having a different mom. So is there other private Juliet TV that you want to share with the world? I feel like this just fell out of favor But my favorite thing that I've watched In recent memory is the final season of Orange Is the New Black

Why did it fall out of favor? I watched a lot of that too I went including the finale It was just such like an in vogue show And like you know When it first came out in like 2013 And then I think it got really super dark And I stopped

I couldn't keep watching And then I just like wanted to see Where things ended up for these characters You love a finale I love a finale I fucking love a finale And I absolutely loved it It was so beautiful and devastating and, like, not for the faint of heart.

There's a whole ICE immigration. No, dude, like, it's not, it does not make you feel good to watch this show. No, it was so, so sad, but I think it's, like, mandatory viewing. It was, it was so excellent. I absolutely love that. I also think, I'm sure you discussed this a lot, but I loved years and years. I think that, you know, you asked me earlier today, like, what is, what are you looking for in a TV show right now? I think a lot of it is, like, very familiar.

but still, like, far away, which is a place of privilege when it comes talking about ice, that I can say that kind of thing, you know? In terms of its engagement with the real world? Yeah. Okay. And I think that those shows are so startling that in some ways I, like, appreciate how they give a depiction and, like, a face to concepts that I know exist, but I can't really conjure on my own, like the horrors of deportation and, like, what our future. could hold in like this technological crazy world we live in, which is the years and years.

And I think that like when there are like these really pressing concepts that I can't quite grasp without some kind of like personification, I like appreciate it, which is one of the reasons I like Orange is New Black and Years and Years. And I will say that like I think I think a lot of comedies have just kind of gone wayward. But like what do you mean by that wayward? Like this is maybe a bad example, but like younger used to be so smart. like uncannily so and like this season has been so bad. So they've like almost like run out of ideas

or don't really know how to continue to like comment on like publishing and media. I don't know. It just feels like it's like truly lost its way. Like it's become more of a soap opera? Yeah. And it's just not that funny and it's not that smart. I think that I think when you are known for being really smart and then you stop being that, it's very difficult.

It's hard to tell with you because like, you know, you were like, I love the boys. Yes, I did love that as well. You didn't love that as well. a show that I thought was literally made in a lab for you, which is Good Fight. Yes, it did not like it that much. Okay, was that because it was a little too close to home? There's no romance and I really, really need a romance. I like, really, that's important to me. Well, that's a really interesting point because like that is, yeah, and that was like such a driving, like, I don't think

it was necessarily my major interest in the Good Wife, but there was a lot of romance in the good wife. Oh my God. Josh Charles's Will Gardner brought more heat to network television than anyone has since George Clooney is Doug Ross. Like, it's crazy. And the good fight just, like, had no interest in that. And, you know, I don't find Trump-related television cathartic. I just find it, like, either too close to home or, like, annoying. And I'm just like, I actually am watching this TV to not think about Donald Trump.

So I didn't like that they kind of gave over the whole series to Diane being, like, just so tormented by him, which I obviously relate to. Right. But I just didn't enjoy it. And also, like, her marriage, I, I, I. on the show, Diane and Kurt. Yeah, Gary Cole. He's a right-wing for ballistics expert,

who in the most recent season hangs out with Don Jr. and Eric Trump. And I'm just like, just too on the nose. Not interested. I don't know. And also, like, I just need a romance. I'm sorry. Do you have the similar feelings about Succession?

I think this season of Succession is very good, but I complained about it. And I swear I like some television without complaining. No, no, no. This is a good, candid conversation. I love it. My complaint about it is I feel like the writers are in on the joke. Like, season one was amazing and just sort of like different than anything else.

And very much because of how it's shot and like the cinematography of it. But the writing is really amazing and smart and acute. And I think episodes two and three of this season, I have felt like they're like a little bit too in on the jokes. And it's like too many one-liners, you know? Instead of being like for every fifth line, it's a great joke. It's like every third line. And it's like a little bit too much. And, you know, like, you got to get the people what they want.

Like, Stranger Things love that they double down on Steve and Dustin and sort of, like, putting that group onto themselves in season three. But, like, I feel like it's almost too much Tom and Greg in season two of Succession. So I guess the real question is, which I had not actually thought of it in these terms. And I certainly have noticed that I also think that there are moments, like, especially in late period VEP, which is another show that I adore. But you can see that, like, there were 15 jokes on the whiteboard,

they used eight of them, and four were awesome. And it's just like a high volume kind of thing. So like when Roman walks into a room in Succession and just rattles off like five insults, two might be like the funniest thing you've ever heard, but he's also going to say three other things. The question is,

is are you watching Succession because it's a comedy or a drama? I'm watching it because it's a comedy. Yeah, I'm watching it because it's a drama. I actually like, I'm just like enormously invested in the Kendall Shiv Logan kind of triangle and the family drama aspect of it. And the comedy is actually an added bonus. I will say, though I watch as a comedy, because I love Greg and Tom, I think that Kendall is just, like, incredible.

And Jeremy Strong is so good. And his coat is so incredible. And he looks so good in it. I just love his outerwear. This is a show that leans into outerwear, and I really appreciate it. But I also think that having Brian Cox be on the show, now, like, as, like, an active participant instead of passive, is a little bit less fun. Like, I liked it when he came in off the top rope, obviously, at the end of last season.

But I think when you have, like, a looming figure who you see but doesn't really speak, there's actually, like, a power to that, which they kind of gave up by having him be such a huge presence so far. Yeah, I mean, I think I go the other way. I think if you're going to have somebody as good as Brian Cox, you don't want him in a coma. That's fair. Or peeing on rugs the entire show. Like I think it's interesting He at least has like an arc

And I think it's one thing that they've done really well On this show is given Pretty Characters who have to live within the boundaries of like We need Roman to be like this Because Roman is essentially a funny character Or we need Kendall to be like this Because Kendall is essentially a tragic character

They still give them arcs So that they are different Like somebody I was talking actually with a co-worker today And they were like You know I hadn't watched a few episodes of succession this season and kind of didn't get it. And I had no idea Kendall had gone through

such a huge transformation over the last, obviously, like 14 episodes. Interesting. Yeah. Well, it's funny. I was watching my mom, and she was like,

what happened to Kendall? And I was like, he killed someone. And she had, like, forgotten. Oh, yeah. And that's kind of interesting. I also think that one thing that Succession really brings

into, like, stark relief for me is that I so frequently don't like me in character. but really like fetishize the recurring roles. And that was always true for me with every WB show. And I think that's true with like, with an ensemble show, I often like,

I'm just way more drawn to the secondary characters because they usually just make a lot out of their more limited screen time. And they get to do a lot of the fun stuff. Yeah. And like to that extent, when Holly Hunter appeared, like, I mean, it was just exhilarating.

And her haircut was so amazing. And I think that's another thing. That's like the problem with back to four weddings and the funeral. is like all of these actors and their roles are like a little inert and that's like why the show is bad if there was a little more like pop

I wouldn't be like this is an objectively bad show but for some reason that like ensemble does not sing and the when they come together it's like not exciting it also just feels like a lot like they had mixed messaging about like what the show was because there are some scenes that are so like the plot line

who's the reality TV woman who's like on Love Island Zara and Craig she's pregnant with Craig yeah like the Those two are like almost in this like really like over the top comedy. And then everybody else is kind of in like a sort of glossy mumblecore movie. It's it's really kind of odd in some ways.

That's a really good point. But every show we talked about as an ensemble show, you know? Like even the boys. That's true. These are all ensembles. I love an ensemble. But like you either have magic and when they all come together or every storyline. Yeah.

Or every, and that I bring it up on every podcast, but that's why ER was so good. like the chaos is what drives it and everyone's like in their own drama. Well, that's also you get back to the like, I think that in when we were growing up, TV was a slightly more passive medium than movies. Movies was a more active like I am fully invested in the two hours that I'm watching. And TV was I'm invested in 20 hours of this, but there are certain people that when they come on screen, I might, I guess when we were growing up, we would look at the newspaper or whatever. But like you might not pay as active attention.

And that goes in even for things in. in Lost and The Wire and Sopranos, like, people are like, oh, I don't care so much about this plotline. I'm going to, like, talk to my wife for a second. Yeah, totally. And that's when you go for the T-SAP. That's right. Juliet, thank you so much for calling into the watch today.

It's always a pleasure of podcasting with you. Thanks for having me. It's honored to be asked. I will see you soon. Just happy to be here. Yeah, see you soon. Bye.