The Watch - What Is Going on at HBO Max? Plus, ‘Reservation Dogs’ Is Back and Mickey Down and Konrad Kay on 'Industry' Season 2.

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Chris and Andy talk about all of the drama going on with Warner Bros. Discovery, including the choice to not release ‘Batgirl’ and the quiet removal of movies and shows from HBO Max (1:00). Then they talk about the return of ‘Reservation Dogs’ for its second season (24:43), before they are joined by ‘Industry’ creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay to talk about the making of the second season (32:04). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Mickey Down and Konrad Kay Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. He knows real Z's move in silence. It's Andy Greel olds. Z's.

Oh, I know who you're talking about. Talking about Big Dave. Andy, it's a huge day in the town. And while I am in one sense talking about Matt Bellany's podcast, I'm talking about Hollywood. And there's really nobody better to comment on this momentous day in Hollywood as we wait these Warner Brothers earnings calls and finding out what's going on with HBO Max and what happened to Batgirl is a 44-year-old man in his mother's home in Philadelphia weighing in on this. So I'm so glad I can join you today. It's not just that, buddy. It's like we surveyed the landscape and we were like,

okay, let's see. Let's see. What's cooking? What's cooking? in Hollywood today. We're like, oh, big news. Big news dropping. Seismic shifts potentially in the streaming landscape. What time's that dropping? Ooh, four Eastern. Nah. That's Miller time out here. Come on now. Let's do our best Jackie Harvey and the Onion, the outsider's view. And just, just, you know, make some suppositions early. And then we've got a lot of other good stuff to do. We have a packed show. So we want to talk a little bit about what's going on with Warner, HBO Max. We want to talk a little bit about the first two episodes of Reservation Dogs, which dropped this week, episode, season two. And then, of course, you know, it's industry season.

So we had to get the bad boys back. Mickey Down and Conrad Kay joined us again to talk about the first episode of season two of industry, their approach to making industry this year. And just what we can expect from the rest of the season, I think we're going to have Mickey and Conrad on a couple of times over the course of the season. So we're really excited to have that dialogue and see where that dialogue takes us, you know? I'm going to hold space for that conversation. Let's hold space for David Zazlov, because he's out here with a corn husker. Is that what they do when they husk? They've got like a scythe, you know?

That's also what people tune into this podcast for, for a 45-year-old metaphor. In the east side of Hollywood, just dropping Nebraska knowledge. You know what I mean? Here's what you do. You take the seeds. You put them in the ground. The children of the corn. They come and they take it out.

That's fine. Andy, so there's a couple of different ways to talk about this. There is a macro Hollywood, streaming wars, how we consume content now, a conversation that's happening because, in case people don't know, who are listening to this podcast, there's been a lot of rumblings in advance of this Warner call that's going to happen this afternoon.

I suppose if HBO Max somehow gets shot out into space, we can come back and do a topper for this podcast. But as of right now, the idea is that there will likely be some restructural, going on at this relatively new company that is Discovery HBO, right? That they might... Discovery Warner, yeah. Discovery Warner, Media Discovery, whatever.

And that there might be some sort of merging of two streaming services between Discovery Plus and HBO Max, that there might be some layoffs made because of redundancies between the two companies, that some people may have noticed that some shows that were available on HBO Max seemed to be disappearing, that some movies that were original HBO Max or Warner Originals put on. HBO Max seem to be disappearing from the service. That's weird. I think that that's like a whole thing of like, what are we doing with this content? Like I've seen a couple of really interesting threads about from showrunners and from creators on Twitter talking about like, this is really

precarious if you make something and then all of a sudden the digital parent of this company of your thing decides it goes away. And honestly, I'm talking to somebody about that right now, right? Yeah. I don't know what the future for the TV show I made is I don't know where it will be if people will be able to see it. I don't know if it's just going to turn into a pumpkin. And I don't mean the holiday perennial. It's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which is available to stream. It is a real point of conversation with people that you'd better get a physical copy of the thing you made and have it in your home because this idea that, oh, just live on streaming. That's not really the case as we are learning. I think there's a

bunch of different ways into this story. And I think probably the best way is to just go macro to start, which is to say, for people who haven't been paying attention, David Zazlov is the CEO of Discovery, which is a very successful suite of networks and brands, including, you know, like the, the big one recently is the Magnolia Channel, which was in the news today, right? And today there was a press release saying that the Magnolia Channel would be airing or putting some of its content on HBO Max, which kind of goes against the idea that HBO Max was imminently going to be shuddered. So he has taken over this new company, and there's been a lot of rumors about what's going on behind the scenes

and about how that culture fit is going to happen. Now, this is not a new story in Hollywood in the era of major corporate mergers, right? There was a similar conversation when John Stanky and them Texas boys took over HBO and with AT&T, and what was it going to mean and what was going to happen, and I guess it meant Game of Thrones was on people's cell phones for a minute, and then Richard Plipler left his job, and then basically was business as usual with HBO, and they launched what has turned into a pretty successful streaming service. So you have to definitely take a lot of this news through the lens of the Hollywood community

isn't necessarily a big fan of David Zazlov, not for reasons of having worked with him or knowing him, but he is an East Coast executive without the creative background, like he didn't do development of series. at CBS for a while before switching and like going up the ladder. So he's coming in to this world. And there's a lot of protectiveness about what that means and what his point of view is. It does, it has always seemed like an inevitability that if you have a large corporate media company, you should make all of the corporate products and media products available together.

So again, they shuttered CNN Plus basically as it launched. About 10 days after, yeah. inevitably, you know, the back episodes of Tony Bourdain's Parts Unknown were going to be streamable somewhere. And it was announced today they will be available on Discovery. Again, it doesn't make sense long term to silo those two things away from each other. Like in the realm of these worlds, like you should be able to watch episodes of industry and then watch Parts Unknown or any other product that's in that world. So for the consumer, all of that long-term makes sense and is probably inevitable. That said, there were some confusing moves behind the scenes leading up to this big investor call today, right?

Like, at the same time, I know this anecdotally and personally, and just from talking to people here, like at the same time the summer when all the stories were coming out, like Joe Adelian's piece in Vulture and New York Magazine, crowning HBO Max. Whereas, HBO Max is that is the best streaming service for the money, right? Behind the scenes was a different story was being told. Not necessarily that it was a bad service or that it was a bad place to work, but there was a lot of stuff just vanishing or deals going away or, well, this was greenlit, but now we have to reconsider it.

And again, was this normal new boss comes in, looks under the hood, make some budgetary reprioritizations. Yeah, that's probably normal. The extent of it, unclear. Yeah. At the same time, one of the biggest things Zaslav has done is re-up our boy, the watch is number one or number two fan Casey Blois, chairman of HBO, to a big, big, multi-year deal, which would suggest the opposite of what people's fears were in the town,

right? That, like, he recognizes the heater that HBO has been on and, you know, ensuring stability and good creative relationships, all of that. So that's part, that's some of the backstory here. The first Domino's then started to fall this week that led to this call. And again, it was important that you mentioned the thing about creators being like my show, is vanishing because that kind of fear is real, but it's also fueling the Twitter froth that usually does not come before an earnings call on a Thursday afternoon in August. The sort of the chatter about what is happening right now is related to something that that is the headline of this whole thing, which is essentially the announcement that

Batgirl, a $90 million movie made by the directors of the Bad Boys remake and several episodes of Miss Marvel was going to be canceled. Not straight to videoed, not delayed, not we'll put it out in theaters and see what happens. It is gone. A movie starring, Leslie Grace. Leslie Grace. Michael Keaton apparently. Had Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman in it is just gone. And it's when, you know, it doesn't take a genius. I mean, every article about this is said, this is for tax purposes. That if this, this movie, this movie, never comes out if it never seems the light of day. It's $90 million production so far could be considered a write down. Now, you go cue the Seinfeld scene that I saw many people tweeting yesterday

where it's like Kramer and Jerry talking about they just write this off or write it down. And Jerry's like, what's a write down? And he's like, I don't know. But they do. And that's why they write it down. It's like, I don't know how not having a movie that's already cost you $90 million not out in the world works. I do kind of wonder whether or not people at Warner's have been taking a look at what's been happening at the box office this year where it's like, oh, wow. So it seems like people are going to the movies again. Now, they may not consider Batgirl movie theater ready, but they may also be like,

why would we just put this on a service when we don't think it's going to add a subscriber value to the service? I think there's at least four pieces of play here that need to be examined and treated kind of credibly. One, this was clumsy. There's no version of this where this wasn't clumsy and deeply offensive to creators who spent a ton of time and heart and energy and enthusiasm making something. That sucks. You know, there were stories about how the directors found out at one of their weddings.

You know, one of the guys was getting married and they found out, like, minutes before this was announced. You know, Leslie Grace has now made a statement about how upset she is about all of this. People really work hard to make things. And the thought that it's just going to vanish because of a corporate. corporate strategy is devastating. And so we need to honestly be respectful of that. Another piece of this, though, that's worth considering is it's not uncommon for when people take over something to repudiate the previous regime strategy. And Jason Kalar, who was the relatively briefly, but very significantly, was the chair of Warner Media before the discovery thing, he's the one who implemented the strategy

of we're going to flood the streaming service with content to make it competitive. which arguably worked. This time a year or two ago, we were talking about his incredibly clumsy, the town hates him, decision to put all of Warner's theatrical slate onto the streaming series. Which included Tennant and Dune.

Yeah. And the ripple effect of that was Christopher Nolan picked up his atomic ball and took Oppenheimer elsewhere out of his longtime home at Warner's. Denis Villeneuve is still salty about it. People were angry. But it worked for Jason Collar's corporate goals.

It put HBO Max on the map and got people watching it and talking about it. So that was successful. The new regime is looking at a different landscape that you alluded to, which is, okay, so they spent $80 to now $90 million on a movie that's essentially a tweener. And what that means is it's – we'll never know. It's totally opaque. But I think it's probably credible the reports that we've read that the difference in terms of,

like, new subscriptions and new eyeballs for a $80 million movie, on a streaming service versus a 30 or 40 million dollar movie is negligible. Except by negligible, I mean that's 40 million more dollars to spend. Right. So 90 million sounds like a lot of money, but that's also like half of what theatrically released action movies tend to cost these days. If that. So if that, exactly.

So they have a movie that's a tweener. It's too expensive to be a streaming original, and it's too cheap to get seats, to get people's asses and seats in the movie theater. And so it seems like they discussed amping it up. But then what are they doing? There is the tax piece of it that you're pointing to, and I think it's probably credible. But there's another piece, too, which nobody wants to talk about. And I don't mean it to be judgmental or to take away from the legitimate anguish and hurt that the filmmakers and actors and everyone in the crew are feeling. But if the movie was amazing, it would be released.

You know what I mean? Like, it would be. I'm not saying it has to be a master's, piece. I'm not saying it's outwardly bad. Well, this is the thing is that like, I don't know if you've seen like, there's a lot of really shitty stuff out. That's what I'm trying to understand. Is that like, somewhere somebody did the accounting or the math and was like, this movie is basically worth more to us if it vanishes than if we put it on the streaming service with like a one day announcement, you know, that it won't draw in new subscribers. Now, this leads to a whole other parallel conversation about the kind of devil may care we can have seven different realities in DC.

And whether or not that is coherent and whether or not people are kind of like, I don't know what the fuck you're doing. Like there was reports in this back girl stuff about Michael Keaton was supposed to be an Aquaman 2 and there was a test screening and people were like, why is Michael Keaton in this movie? And so now they're just putting Ben Affleck back in there, even though Affleck had like fully basically like hung it up. So this sort of like wild crazy times going on with that IP that they were like, oh, well, we could just do whatever and some of it can live here. And then James Gunn can have this playground. And this can be over here. And there can be four Batman's and six Harleyquins and four Joker's. Maybe people

are like, I don't get this. I think we are reaching multiversal fatigue, which is definitely in the shoes for Marvel. Exactly. But it's not just the idea of a multiverse story, which again, And I think, and I'm not just trying to credit Marvel because I generally like their stuff more than DC, but there does seem to be a slight method to their multiverse of madness in that they are putting up Jonathan Isaacs as Jonathan Majors, I'm sorry, as Kang and like all of this is his Machiavellian doing. And so there's going to be some resolution at the end of it, whether it's Secret Wars or whatever it ends up looking like, right? The DC flood the zone strategy, which was at times brilliant because Joker got nominated for an Oscar. but honestly came from total disorganization at the top. It wasn't, they didn't go in being like we should have nine flashes. They were just like, we need to compete.

We need to, we have a tent pole film slotted into the release schedule without a script yet. You know what I mean? So it doesn't, I think it doesn't work from the top down. And what I mean by that is back to Zazlov, who buys this company. And as far as multiplex stuff goes, franchise is still the name of the game. and the crown jewel of the Warner Empire is still the DC universe. Like that's the one that they have, right? That's the one that can generate all these different shows on all these different platforms

and get people into theaters if done right. And he's looking at it and he's just like, this isn't going to work. If we have like classes of superheroes, we have meat tier. Exactly. The barrier for entry is too high now. I mean, we're learning with the Disney Plus. stuff too with like Star Wars and Marvel. Like we may be saturated, you know, and there's, there's value in stepping back. But, but, but we don't need to go in that direction. But it is just

to say the back girl thing, it's, it's probably too much. And they should, you know, and it does ultimately dilute the brand. So this may sound like we were kind of like, it doesn't even matter if, like, back girl is good or bad. You know, I think the point is that it's being treated as a line item in the budget of a huge conglomerate, as it always has going back pretty much to even the golden age of Hollywood that we talk about. But speaking of the golden age of Hollywood, here's a personal anecdote that I think illustrates what I see is the more existential issue facing us right now, which is also a personal one. So the other night, I was like trying to find something to watch with my mom. And we had just done that there will be blood. We watchables a

couple weeks ago. And in the research, Paul Thomas Anderson talks a lot about how he was watching treasure of Sierra Madre all the time while he was making that movie. I was like, you know what? It's been like a good 10, 15, if not 20 years since I've seen Treasure of Sierra Madre. That must be somewhere at my fingertips, seeing as how I have subscriptions to seven, eight services at this point. And so before I came to Philly, I googled that and it was on HBO Max. I was like, great.

I love that they have these Turner Classic movies in this catalog. I love that. That's a really awesome, like a little feather to have in the cap. So when I'm going to get home and I'm going to watch this with my mom because I know she loves home through Bogart movies. I get back, I fire up HBO Max. It's not there in search. I look at my computer.

The other day, my computer said, that's on HBO Max. It's no longer in HBO Max. That's not a big deal. Sometimes you would go to the video store and you would say, oh, I wanted to take this movie out and they don't have it, so I'll have to find something else. I was able to find something else.

The annoying part was that I didn't have to pay for the right to go into the video store. You know what I mean? and I think that what we're kind of approaching right now is we had this brief moment. We were like, wow, this is really cool. Like, all TV and all movies ever are going to be available to us pretty much at the touch of a finger.

And we'll always have something to watch and we'll never be bored. And there will always be something to talk about. And now I think that somehow the act of watching movies and television has just been made more complicated, more expensive, and less rewarding, you know? And when you kind of get into this zone where, like, you develop a fandom of people who want to see Batgirl and Barbara Gordon come to life in a movie or because they've been told that like DC has all these plans.

So they're going to subscribe to this service and that service and make sure that they're a part of it and read about it and care about the rumors and all this stuff. And then they're like, you know what? Actually, it's less expensive to just fuck you guys over and put this away. You know? And it's the same thing for people who are like, I'm going to subscribe to this because it seems like they have a stable library of some of my favorite films. And I understand that these deals are complicated. I understand the fucking computer wasn't invented when John Houston made that movie, much less do they have like an idea of like where Treasure of Sierra Madre will live in perpetuity digitally. But it is frustrating as just

a person with a finite amount of money and the finite amount of time to constantly be running in circles because of the machinations of these companies. And as you alluded to, like, Like, shit is just disappearing from HBO Max. So far, it's nothing that I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe that I can't watch camping again. But that is annoying. And that is weird. And it is strange. It's, to me, it's really best exemplified by the two emails I got last week, where I got an email.

I don't remember what day it was. But it was like, from your friends at HBO Max, soon to be laid off. No, it was like, from your friends at HBO Max. And it was like, treasure. your memories at Hogwarts one last time. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the gang will be leaving HBO at Mac, so don't forget to watch your favorite movies of the Potterverse. And then the next day I get an email from my friends at Peacock and they're like, buckle up wizards, here we fucking go. Grab your owls and wands. The Potterverse is back home on Peacock. That's because these two services

trade this enormously valuable franchise back and forth every eight months. Like what was the cup in Philadelphia? You know, like when the local teams play? It's like the puck and regatta, right? Like, it's absurd. But that is the world we're living in at the moment while this stuff is getting worked out in real time. And to the larger point, I think one of the reasons why we felt generally confident doing this podcast and starting this conversation today before we know a lot of the way this. is going to shake out practically is just because for all we're talking about, they lost Harry Potter,

they lost Treasure of the Sierra Madre, they lost American pickle. But HBO Max is still a very successful streaming service with the HBO content on it. And David Zazlov isn't dumb. Like, he's not going to shut it down. That's where the narrative kind of lost it now. If he does, though, like we're going to, I'm clipping this and that's going to be the promo for this A million percent. And you can run that along with me being like, these better call solid guys have no idea what they're doing. And then that can be the attack ad on me when someone runs to replace me as co-host because I believe this podcast operates like the county sheriff's office. But it also, and we don't even need to open this can of worms. But again, separate apart from like hardworking people losing their jobs, hardworking people with great creative intentions, not having their visions realized or made public, which I am on that. I am on that. side. That's the shit we don't like. Yeah.

But when we cover the industry, all of this does seem to keep coming back to some original sins. Like, what is HBO Max original programming? What is that? Right? Like, it never made sense from the beginning. And in the beginning, there was just a separate team being like, okay, our buddy Patrick and Paramount, thank you for pitching us Station 11.

HBO and HBO Max will now fight over the right. to potentially buy this series, even though we're the same company. That's how hacks is an HBO Max show from Universal. What? That doesn't make sense. So then there was a reshuffling in the last era where Casey got control of all of it,

and it seemed like things were starting to make a little more sense. We knew what HBO shows were, and we started to know what HBO Max shows were, and they were more things like Peacemaker or the upcoming Colin Farrell Penguin show. So they're the more branded, more broad shows. Reality shows, Selena plus chef or whatever that show is called with Selena Gomez. Like, okay, it's starting to make sense.

Now, is HBO Max a good name for the service? I still don't think so. Do I still understand, like, the giant posters, you know, for We Own the City that's just like streaming HBO Max and HBO Original? Okay, sure. They're still undoing this not. And so I wonder if today's announcement will be part of that. But largely speaking, HACC season three is happening. You know what I mean?

Like HBO shows are continuing a pace. That isn't what's changing. But the way that it, but behind the curtain, things are reshuffling and it will play out for us over the next few months and years. It's not, I don't think it's going to be a consumer issue today. I think the issue today is going to be like, oh, Chip and Joanna Gaines are going to be on my streaming service. Yeah.

Neat. I don't really see. That's my prediction. Well, we'll find out. We'll find out more. We'll talk about it more. By the way, programming note coming 12 minutes into this podcast. we'll probably be putting up our...

24, baby. Putting up our episode early next week. We'll be putting that up on Tuesday to respond to Monday night's Better Call Saul. So we'd obviously been going pretty close to the airing before. But circumstances make it so that we have to do it

the following day that day. So Tuesday will be the next watch after this and we'll also talk about the HBO stuff. Let's talk a little bit about reservation dogs before we get to Mickey and Conrad. I would love to. Let's talk about just regular old TV. But it's actually like TV unlike anything we have seen before.

I don't know. I mean, it is. In some ways it is. But it's really, for something that was so critically acclaimed, seems like it's going under the radar this week. And I think it's going under the radar, not just because it's the dog days of summer,

as opposed to the reservation dog days of summer. I think it's getting dinged for having a normal-ass schedule. Season one premiered a year ago. Guess what, guys? Season two. that used to be called TV. And I get the feeling. People are like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It's been a busy year. You know what I mean? Like, you don't need to come back that fast. Guys, make time. I love this show so deeply and purely, and I admire it so much. And I feel like for me, there is the absolute top tier of TV this year. And they've been very distinct experiences, but very pure. and obviously the bear is one of them

and part of the enthusiasm about the bear for me was the surprise, the thrill. Oh my God, they did what? And they're doing it? And the world is noticing and that was so joyful. Another great show of the year for me was Barry, which was kind of the opposite experience,

which was, oh, I don't know about this anymore. Is that still holy shit? They jiu-jitsued me and elevated to a place they didn't know they were capable of. Reservation dogs, again, And there's nothing traditional about this show, which is at once the most cinematic comedy. It's the most, like, lived-in indie drama. It's so many things all at once.

But the most traditional thing about it for me was, boy, they really figured this show out while making the first season, and they were ready to go make it again. There is absolutely no drop-off. These two episodes that are available now on FX on Hulu, are masterful to me. You know what I thought, because we are talking about this after we've recorded our conversation

with Mickey and Conrad. And I couldn't help but notice some parallels between some of the things that they said about making industry season two. And I think, you know, I've said, and those guys were responding to this idea that the first season was this sort of act of punkish rebellion in some ways

or kind of like flying without a map. And that they were like, we realized we kind of did need some rules like we, to make it an effective show, we needed to have like a plot engine. And I kind of detect the same thing with reservation dogs and it's a good thing. You know, I detect some really like

subtly expert, like, even just with, with Willie Jack addressing the camera head on to start the first episode and kind of do a recap, that's like just a stylish, effective way to ground the audience and lay out a, menu for you about where you're going. You know what I mean? Like just the way in which the efficiency

that now essentially this these first two episodes I think you could generally call one big episode in some ways. But it was just you could tell that it still had a little bit of its wandering spirit. It still had a little bit of its indie like kind of sensibility. But it also had the like, hey, we're going to have Jackie on this show now as a major character. You know, like this is how we like kind of bring somebody from the background to the foreground and give them something of their own storyline. Do you know what I'm saying about? Yeah, but it's also like an incredible victory lap to start the season with it. You know, as you said, she's talking to camera and we get a montage of where things have gone in the relatively short amount of time that's elapsed since the end of

last season where Brownie like turns away the tornado and, um, uh, Laura Dan and Jackie run away to California. Right. But all these other little details like the Kirk Fox character has received a horse in the tornado. Yeah. It's, it's so funny. And it's so funny. And it's so, rich and you're like, oh my God, West Dutie's on this show. Like all of these great, great performers and the characters and people who I've never seen before last season and I can't wait to see them again and be back in this world with their interconnecting storylines and just deadpan reactions. And it's so, for me, I mean, it was joyful to be back.

But again, I get the sense that in addition to, you know, leaning into some structure and building on the foundation that was there before, Sterling Hardjo is just like, Oh, they get my jokes. The things that my friends and I think are funny. The people, the viewers will also like. Yeah. So now we're just going to let it ride. You know what I mean?

And I don't feel any. And I don't know if there were or if it was just my clutching the brakes a little bit because I wasn't sure to give into the show yet last season when I didn't know what it was. But like I seen it is, it just flows the way this, these two episodes particularly can just, meander from truly absurdist comedy that it makes me laugh out loud to a surprising left turn resolution to the let's steal the truck full of flame and hot snacks that started the season

I started the series like that was deeply touching bear is depressed in these two episodes and the show is just like yep one of our main characters is just depressed and alone and that's there's space for that in this world in such a profound way like the casting, Josh Fadham, you know, last scene in Better Call Saul, doing a very strange guest turn as a not maybe. We don't really know if he's a good Samaritan, but it's just weird and funny. Like, I don't know. I just feel like this show is magical.

It makes me really happy to be back in it. It's executing on a level higher than almost anything else on TV. We'll talk about it more in depth. You know, it's a good time right now because we do have a couple of really, really great shows on between Saul and industry and reservation dogs. And it's nice to have these kinds of more human dramas before we get to dragons and rings. So. Oh, my God.

Dragons and rings and Shehawks. And Shehawks. Yeah. Don't criticize the CGI of Shee Hulk, man. I would never. I would never. Let's get into our interview with Conrad A.K. and Mickey Down, the writers, the creators of industry, some of our favorite possible guests.

We have been adoring the season so far. Andy and I have only, I guess we should say, we've only seen two. The second episode is coming on Monday. I will be candid and say there is some like allusions to things that happen into, but I don't think that there are any specific spoilers. But, you know, if you really want to, feel free to leave this interview until Monday night. Yeah, I would say we don't really talk specifically. I don't think it's a spoiler just to describe the emotional sensations of something that happens in episode two. But, you know, your mileage may vary on that. And it was important. It felt important to talk about it at least, at least, at least.

little bit in terms of what their goals were for the season. Because this, guys, sorry, we usually don't do this. Second episode's incredible. Second episode's great. Okay, so let's get into our interview with Mickey and Conrad, and then Andy and I will be back Tuesday to talk about Better Call Saul and who knows, the future of Hollywood.

I'm talking about Sandman next week. I don't know where you're going to be. I'm ready. Waited 30 years for that. Bye, guys. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something. Like a last minute beach day,

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Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Mickey and Conrad, the creators of it, industry, the writers of industry. They're joining us again on the watch. I think this is now appearance three, although it feels like it's more than that. So they're entering the S-mail zone of watch guest spots. We had you guys on to talk about GameStop. We've had you guys on to talk about season one of industry. It's amazing to be talking to you about season two of industry, which came back with a bang this week. Andy and I talked about it on Monday's pie, but we're so glad

to have you guys back on. What's up, guys? Hey, guys. Thanks so much for having us back. We love this show. I was texting Andy saying, like, hearing you guys talk about it, not even in such nice terms. I mean, I can hear you slagging it off for hours and hours and hours. Hearing that you say that you like, it's even better. But it's so funny. It's like, obviously, we were massively fans of the show before we started coming on every week. But it was, it was, it's like hearing some of your favorite sort of characters of a show talking about you. Oh, I want to know which character from the show I am. But, yeah, it's great. Thank you.

What was incredible is leading up to season two, Mickey, you and Conrad had very different ways of anticipating and speaking about it. Because we, Chris and I both have talked with you off pod offline and in the buildup. You were working on it. You were in production. You were in post. One of you, I won't say which, you can out yourself, was like, you're going to fucking love it. And the other one was like, ooh, hope you like it. Now, does that?

You can tag yourself in that comment and then maybe update us and how you're feeling. I don't know which one was which to you. Oh, interesting. Because sometimes I'm one of those and Conrad's the other. It depends how closely we're to premiere. Because I feel like as I get closer to the Premier, Conrad gets more confident, I get less. Yeah, it's a pretty cyclical thing.

I think we, I don't know, we had, I mean, we guys have talked to you about this a little bit. And we, you know, we had a lot of, I guess we, having watched season one come out in the world, you know, we were pretty surprised with the response to it. surprised the upside in terms of the way people liked it. And we just felt that we could, we were very sure about the things that worked about the show

and didn't work so well. And I think we were pretty harsh critics. And we wanted to diagnose all the things that we could, you know, we could do better. And I feel like for better or worse, I think a lot of what sees, you know, you can only hope that it goes so far as to your own kind of, my, my, Mickey's collective imagination

what ends up on screen. And I feel like, you know, there was that, there's a famous quote that, you know, you've got like 60% of what you wanted on the screen and you succeeded. And I feel like we've done more than that with season two. So like we were sort of very confident. I was at least in this instance quite confident for it to, for it to air.

I'm quite excited to be honest. Well, there's like there's another famous like, I guess, quote of cliche, which is like you wait your whole life to make your first album. And then the problem is you have to get up the next day and do it again. And I was wondering, you know, I mean, part of what I think captured a lot of people's imaginations about the show was this feeling like it was coming from. from this incredibly unique pair of voices.

I guess unique and pair is not the same thing, but this incredibly original place and that you guys poured yourself into this show. So what was it like to go and reload and do it again? It's interesting that this sort of unique and pair thing because I feel like me and kind of such a symbiotic relationship. And I remember we always say this, but like we do think with one head almost.

Like we almost, to the detriment of the writer's room or other people in the writer's room sometimes because I'll start saying a sense, and Conrad will finish it. And then I would say, you know what? And then Conradle would go, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And then everyone else, the writers would be like, what do they just do? Yeah.

I mean, as Conrad said, we didn't know how it was going to land. We were so excited when it came out and got the reception, it did. And then when we got the backing from HBO to do a second one, we were just like, we have to leave everything on the field now. Is that the right metaphor? Yeah, that's right. Doing great. For everything at the wall, whatever you want to use.

But yeah, I mean, we just really wanted to just do it again and level up as much we possibly could. And as, you know, as we've been giving an opportunity, we thought there was no point doing it if we weren't. And yeah, I do think, going back to your previous question about how confident we were. I mean, this time, I was, I was confident that me and Conrad delivered something that we were really happy with. I didn't know whether that was going to, you know, it was going to be a success for anyone else. But it was enough for us quietly that we had done something we were proud of. Andy, you said, you said yes, when you were reviewing the show yesterday, you said that the vibe was immaculate or whatever. And we felt like the first season was very much a question of that kind of raw energy.

Like, I think, Chris, you said that it was like a bit of a punk rock thing. And it was kind of, we were allowed into the studio and, like, you could smash around on the instruments to see what happened. I think we felt like what the show really allowed was a very good story engine. And it had good feel. It had good characterization. like the interactions felt not, it was a good world to hang out in, and that can be enough, obviously,

to keep people coming back. But we were like, if we could marry this to a proper narrative engine that kept people coming back week to week and had stronger episodic hooks, and didn't lose any of the stuff that we liked about the show, which was the kind of hangout quality, some of the more esoteric observations,

that references, all about stuff that we, you know, and the soundtrack, all that stuff that made people sit up and take notice in the first place. You know, we had another show runner come and join us on this season, on this season called Jamie O'Brien, who was far more experienced as us and was just really good at holding us to account on certain rigours about episodic storytelling.

And I know me and Mickey, and I know you guys have the same belief that this whole idea of eight hours of film when you're working in TV makes absolutely no sense. You've got to be telling distinct hour-long units of story in a serialized manner. And I think she holds us, she basically held us to a higher standard with that stuff

and I think it helped show tremendously. Can you talk specifically about that in terms of, you know, coming out of the first season? I wondered, there must have been things left on the whiteboard or left in your own experiences, like whether the whole 30 second floor or whatever it is of private wealth management is suddenly open now to Yaz. And like, I imagine that's something that you guys were aware of and found space for in a second season.

But I was wondering about the balance between like big ideas, character, things that you knew you wanted to do versus that granular, okay, in, and I don't, I'm not going to spoil anything. We're going to air this before the phenomenal second episode comes out. But like in the second episode, it was noteworthy in a way that I I really appreciated that there is a gesture, like reaching a hand across the table, that is a repeated hook to that episode, if you know what I mean. So I'm wondering more about the granular episodic decision-making that you're talking about being pushed to in this season?

The sort of textual writing that me and Conrad love, and I think sort of the thing that we started doing and we started working together, I mean, we wanted to keep as much of that as possible, but again, like, we did so much of that in season one. at the detriment of any kind of noticeable story. And I mean, I think it was, I can't remember which who was Conrad, but an executive at HBO. I think it was Amy Hodge, who actually is, she wasn't at HBO, but now she is.

She was said that we were, what did she say, incredible interior designers, but we didn't know how to build a house. It's great, because we were literally like, okay, well, let's spend, you know, six or seven months choosing the faucets, while, you know, the actual structure of the house, it's going to fall out.

And that's what we, and we were obsessed, we're obsessed of imagery, we're obsessed of, like, dialogue, we're obsessive characterisation, we're obsessed of reference, and we weren't able to turn that into eight hours with storytelling. And I think, like, you know, in a film, you can get away with vibe, you can get away with atmosphere, you can get away with hangout. In a novel, you can get away with style, you can get away with atmosphere. But I feel that I honestly generally feel, and this is something that we actually had to learn. And I think it's actually a product of experience and also of getting a little bit, get a little bit of more humility, realizing that actually eight hours of storytelling

is very, very difficult. And you need more than one other person to help you do it. Definitely. I mean, another rule that we told ourselves in season two was there's no, I mean, this is maybe another tortured sports thing, but there's no reason why we can't pitch our fastball all the time. And it's not like, we thought about that. We were like, oh, you know, a lot of seasons of TV,

they think about their, they don't think about having the energy of a finale in their first three or four episodes. It feels like, oh, we need to build to something. Whereas we set up, I mean, without any spoilers, we set up the sort of Harper Eric axis, which was the key axis of season one. We were like, along with Harper and Yasmin, I guess, why don't we just expedite that story as quickly as we can and make sure that, you know,

and make sure the first three episodes feel like, like each one is going at 100 miles an hour and came. But almost our rule in the writer's room was let's burn through this story as quickly as possible and not serve it for the end of the season because that stuff will come. But it just really served the dinners and the pace of the show to put those big story tempoles in terms of big seismic things in the universe of the show happening as quickly as possible, as early as possible in the season.

I have to just, I have to call out, sorry. It's just, it's a legendary flex. I thought eating a popsicle in the podcast was the pinnacle, but now you guys individually dropping a baseball and an, American football analogy in the first 10 minutes. And it's also like, Conrad, if you just want to be like, we can't do TV like Marcelo Bielsa coaches a football team, I'll get it. We can do the reference.

It's a same way for some of you. Guys, this is the ringer, isn't it? I mean, you're doing great. It worked. They both played. I've got to call it out. Mickey, you were talking about the humility that you were sort of learning. And one of the things I've noticed, and again, Andy and I are going to spoil anything

that happens in episode two. But I've obviously noticed like a theme. of surrogate parents kind of emerging from this season or people creating these sort of surrogate parent relationships, sometimes which cross lines with different characters. And I was curious whether or not there was any like TV writer stuff, not that you learned, but that you were like, oh, this is why people do this. Like, this is why people might like kind of like follow this character into this corner or like put these two people together in a car or something like that. Because it was something that I feel like

it wasn't something that I felt like the first season lacked but I do feel like in this the first few episodes of the second season you really start to see like it's it's like the artistry of it like you can make these connections between characters because you guys are being a little

bit more putting the themes a little bit more in the foreground was that something where you guys were like surprised to find out that certain tropes or certain ideas were actually quite useful to use absolutely I mean just you can hang all the stuff we love doing, which is the texture and the characterization,

all the references and stuff. We can hang that on a more traditional storytelling. We thought that those two things were in Athena to be one another, and we actually realized they're actually totally linked, and that they're actually very important, and that you can actually tell a quite simple story, hang all the complexity off the end of it, and it feels like it's very complex.

I mean, we went back and watched those episodes of Mad Men, and we realized that these are very, very simply told stories, but in a sort of pretty luscious way, And we thought, okay, well, we tried to do that. And then we ended up actually complicating it far more than needed to be sometimes. But yeah, I feel like Jamie, honestly, Jamie O'Brien, who came and helped us was just, she was, I think it was the fact that we had done a year already and we'd seen the stuff that worked and she was able to have a sort of outside perspective of the stuff that worked.

And she realized that this is such easy 101 screenwriting. But, you know, the best stuff is the stuff that pushes the story, but also gives you the texture. And I feel like sometimes, you know, some, I mean, the best stuff does that. Sometimes you, you veer off into the more textual writing. Sometimes you hang way too much story on the scene. And, you know, there are a few, actually, there are a few moments, even this season where I think we smashed the story sledgehammer a bit too hard. Like, there are a few beats in there, which I thought, oh, God, we should have really removed that. Like, personally, I think in the first episode, the end of, of this scene where, where Harper wakes up and realizes that Robert

cleaned her room and has left the note for her, I always really fought against that note because I thought, okay, he does, he doesn't, we don't need to know that she's going to move into Rob at the next episode. It's enough that he cleaned the room. So stuff like that, I feel like that's, you know, that's, those are concessions we make, I think, sometimes. I mean, I agree with Mickey.

Like, I think sometimes we went too far and you could sort of see the narrative cogs turning a little bit too much. But yeah, sorry, Mac, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I totally agree with you on that beat. Yeah, I mean, but on the other side of that in season one, there was like a, there was like a, two or three page monologue from a character

we've never met before called Casper talking about how he grew up in a housing estate in the Netherlands and had a Muslim family in his block and it had absolutely no bearing of the story whatsoever and we really thought for it. We were like, this tells you everything about Casper and HBO and the producer's like, who gives a fucking about it.

We thought it's really important. And just stuff like that, like, you know, we needed to have the mirror show well sometimes and for them to say, look, you're still learning how to do this. And honestly, I mean, that's why I get back to the humility thing, Chris, in that, you know, I think it's very easy to jump into this world of screenwriting, shall you say, and think, okay, well, I've seen all the things I like, I've seen other things I dislike, I'm sure I can do better than the things I dislike, and then realizing it actually is much harder to do it

than we anticipated. But yeah, so yeah. I think, I think there's a youth, there's, there's, there's things, that people responded to in season one was the kind of the youth and the punk thing that you guys said, which was like, oh, this is a real fit of expression. And we were kind of like laying the track as we went along and it did feel a bit like that and it was slightly haphazard. And I think the thing, the painful lesson we learned was that as a thing, I was tagging all what Mickey said, but like, you come in and you, when you're young, you're like, oh, we can be really iconoclastic. Like, we're obviously the rules don't apply to us because we're so good at X, Y,

and Z. And then we learned the highway, but there is in, in eight hours of story, those you are, you are just, you are subordinate to the rules of keeping people engaged. And they're, on some level, very simple story beats. But with great actors and good dialogue and good production design and good music, those things are buried. Like, and they're the things that, they're the things that subconsciously keep people coming back. And I think, I mean, I personally think it's really elevated the season. And, you know, you worry about seeing the seams in the work.

I just, I think as the creators, you see the seams yourself. And then hopefully an audience don't see them quite as much as you do. One of the real charms of the first season, and maybe this speaks to the kind of punk rock energy we responded to, was that not only were you guys doing this for the first time, but a lot of your cast was relatively unknown. And certainly we're not used to this level of a production or of exposure. When we talk to Mihala, you know, whom we adore, like, she was like this, the show was me because she had not really left the country before and suddenly was living in Wales leading a television show for HBO. So that all, you know, kind of plays into the meta enjoyment of the first season because you can feel people finding them. themselves and realizing their abilities and it worked within the story that you were telling. And then you guys have to do it all again.

So what was it like? And not even the purpose of the question isn't like, give me, give me tea, but like in the American sense, please give me tea in the British sense whenever you invite me. But getting the gang back together, you know, young actors who have had a journey and coming back to play these characters for a second time, that's very different than the youthful energy of like, yeah, let's give it a go. I would I mean my my main takeaway from the whole creative experience was that it was in me and mickey were and this I mean this was from the producers all the way down the cast and

crew we had a very obviously rigorous hiring process of directors dPs and we I think we were just far more professional I mean this just speaking for me and Mickey we had an incredible sense of energy about the second season because not only did we feel it was a massive privilege to get to do it again but we had the very real feeling that I imagine that I imagine and like a sports manager gets where they watch a team play and they get to basically coach that team again for a second season and you can be like bang bang bang bang bang back so you can you know it's a very as I say I use the word before but very diagnostic thing so me and Mickey had this

amazing amount of like oh my god this creative energy which actually permeated the cast I mean like when they were coming back I think you know they obviously we were very lucky and what a good team of people we assembled in front of the camera but I think they I mean you can probably tell this season one to season two they they grown in confidence and ability just by having watched themselves, which, you know, they came off a really high base already.

I don't know, Mick probably can speak better to this than me. My abiding sense of the whole creative process on season two from the moment we started writing the scripts to the moment we basically finished the edit was of a very,

I felt like the whole thing was very communal and everybody singing off the same hymshe and everybody pulling in exactly the same direction. It was a very, it was smooth sailing, really, wouldn't you say, mate? Totally. I mean, as far as production,

can go, especially productions being shot during COVID, it was, it just felt that everyone was playing in the right, in the same direction constantly and we were all moving towards the same goal. It really did feel like that. And, you know, there was, there were the normal production fires, obviously, but it just felt like every single day,

it felt like we were going towards a thing we wanted to create. And I, and I don't know how, you know, me, I've only ever worked on one other productions, so I've got absolutely no way, which is this show, I've got no way of knowing whether this is, it was normal, but it was just, it felt like it was, it felt like it was, it felt like we were really, really doing something special.

And I felt, I felt proud of the cast. I felt proud of the crew every day. I'm proud of Conrad. And I felt really confident, despite why I probably said to you, Andy. I did feel confident about what we played. You correctly identified yourself in the story. Yeah, like, you got up to get another point. And Conrad's like, you're going to love it.

It's so good. So in the intervening time between when season one ended and season two begins, obviously we've had a pandemic. There's also been, I think, an explosion of interest in the world of finance. Probably do in no small part to your show, but also like you came out, I came out of COVID and everybody I knew was talking about like Adam Too's newsletter all of a sudden. And, you know, we're getting into digital finance and all this other stuff. And I kind of wonder whether or not that increased interest spurred you guys to

drop the, like, really drop the gauntlet and be like, you guys thought we had jargon last season? fucking strap it on. Here we go. Because it's not even like I saw there was a vulture piece that was really good about like the sort of music of the dialogue and not always knowing what people were talking about. But you like there are points where you're like, I need investopedia open while I am watching the show.

I need dualingo open. Episode two was just like watching a foreign film that I was enjoying for large swaths of it. And I loved it. That's really funny you say that because I, you know, we get some press before the show came. came out. I mean, Conroy kept talking about the fact that we've made the dialogue and the fire line is jargon season one is impenetrable. We made it way more decipherable. We've held the

audience's hand. You know, we've got a couple of people playing, a couple of things. And then weirdly, Andy, I actually watched a little bit of episode two today. And honestly, I was like, how the fuck is anything going on? No, look, I can't sugar-cooked this. This is the beauty of industry. So, again, we're not spoiling it. People have a treat awaiting them on Monday. But like, the last 15 minutes of episode 202 is just like transcendent. It is ecstatic. I loved it. It was one of the most thrilling things I've seen on TV this year. I didn't understand a fucking word. I don't know. I cannot overstate how little I understand what they're talking about. And I don't mind. And it actually leads me to a kind of conceptual question I had for you guys, which is inspired by watching your show, which is what does

you do with your money? No, what is money? And I mean that literally, and I'm not asking you guys to, so like, this is not clickbait to get you to be like, money doesn't matter. Like money matters in people's lives, of course. But for these characters who operate in this world, what even is it? Because in the scene that we're referring to, characters are like, I'll pay this much for quid. No, I'm buying dollars. And I'll pay you for more dollars tomorrow if you give me a hamburger now, but also I'm hanging up.

I don't know what they're saying. So what is it? Money is love. Yeah, there you go. Money's love. No, no, no. A less tri-answer is, I mean, just to go back to that sequence you're talking about at the end of 2002, that was when me and Mickey first sold the pilot of the show to HBO, we wrote,

there's a scene at the end of episode one where Harper trades for the first time, and we wrote in that script. She makes this sale to Nicole, right? Correct. Yeah. We wrote in that script that the following unfolds like a car chase. And we never actually made good on that promise with that script. And me and Mick were like, okay, we have to do our equivalent. We always want, and as stupid as it sounds, we always wanted to do a trading sequence,

it felt like an action sequence. And so we were like, we need to do our version of like, if, I mean, this is very high praise, but it was, and not like, not necessarily our benchmark, but we were like, what if Michael Mann was doing a trading show? How detailed and how difficult would the sequence be? And we were like, okay, so let's make this feel like a bank robbery. Is that possible when people are talking on a phone? And, I mean, I'm not saying necessarily we got there,

but, like, the amount of obstacles we threw at Harper and the amount of cutting and the way it was shot. And, like, it was, it's very close to what we initially visited the kind of high point emotionally and energetically of the show being. So, by the you guys liked it, is fantastic to us, because it really was, but, like, going back into that in season two, I would say it's one of our top three highlights. When you say, Mick?

Absolutely. And it's, it's credit. to everyone involved in that sequence from the director as Begita Stemoser and Eric Morby Hansen with the DOP and I'm in the editor on that. I mean it was a very very tricky thing to

achieve trying to make a trading sequence for like a car chase especially when no one understand it's quite easy to understand what's going on in a car chase. One car is tricketing the other and in this one someone was talking a FX an FX

desk to find out if a current client has Salsa Noki, which, no, I doubt anyone even knows what Noki is. It's a pastor to many people. I mean, you literally could be making all of this up, and that's the beauty of it. It's fine. But again, going back to what is money question, I actually was thinking, I was not thinking about that exact question today, but I was thinking more about in the, just in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, character actually want. And I was actually thinking, why do they want money so much because we were thinking about, I don't know what, I was talking to you, Conrad, about this,

but you never actually see him spending it ever. Or enjoying it, yeah, right. The only person enjoying her money is Yasmin, who had it pre the show. So, and, I mean, you never see Harper buying any clothes. You never see Harper go holiday. You never see Robert doing anything with his money at all. No one actually uses money in this, in this show, which I thought was actually quite interesting. And I feel like, I guess it's not really about, I mean, we've spoken about broadly about

the show being a sort of exploration of a, certain type of person that makes money the North Star of their life. It's actually, I guess, when money is totally inextricably linked to ambition. And it feels just like, it's the arena that sets the heart beating the most. I feel like that's why people go into it. So I've gone off your question. I guess what I'm saying is a really good answer. I totally agree with that. But it's also like on the floor, these people are kind of allowed to act as their most true, the most true versions of themselves. It's almost like that's what they've been paid to do in the first place. I think there's even a line

and two about like your alpha stuff works if you're delivering but if you're not, it's actually like basically an HR violation and it's like but you everybody's sort of insecurities and vulnerabilities and also their strengths

and their character traits are on complete and full display. I mean even the introduction of the loudspeaker, which I don't think was in season one right, where like you can Harper a couple of times, starts talking into a microphone that the entire floor can hear. I mean, what's more naked than that

than having an office conversation on a loudspeaker is crazy? Yeah, I think charting how much of their real selves is on display and how much of it is performative is really different character character. So I think, you know, I think one of the moments that I find most powerful in the first episode is the one where Robert finally drops the act when he calls Nicole because it's like, oh, he's going to allow. I mean, me and Mickey talked about the second season a lot in the writers' room. We were like, what is the central question of this season?

And it's, you know, we created what a viewers thought was a very cold world. What is the possibility of vulnerability and connection in this world between people? Are they ever going to be at the same point in their arcs or their journeys or their own relationships, their self-worth where they'll be able to connect? And I think the power of season two for us with me and Mickey, we was always like, all of these characters are ready and willing to be vulnerable, but they're always just going to miss these connections with each other because they're not going to be,

they're not going to be in the scene at the same time to allow that thing to happen, to allow the possibility of being their true selves. So I would argue we see true Harper, we see true, Yasmin, we see true Robert, we see true Eric, we see all of these characters

and we do see them vulnerable and we see what they really feel about themselves, but we never see it, we never see them interact in the same scene and show that thing together. And I think that possibility of misconnection is kind of, people always say to us like, what is Harper and Eric's relationship about?

And me and Mickey are always like, They're like, is it as simple as mental mentee, father-daughter, is it this thing? For us, it's always that, are they going to sleep together? Are they going to kill each other? Do they want to kiss? They want to hug? It's always that unspoken thing of when we want to tell each other our true nature, but we're never going to, we have too big an armor up to ever do that.

And I think one of the – Sorry, jump on you, Connor. I just want to say, I think one of the successes of season two thus far is that you're working with directors who notice the missed connections. The camera is always on the actor in a way that I've been really compelling. held by so that when Harper behaves in a certain way, you cut to Eric taking it in. And there are moments of vulnerability in those cutaways as well. But again, she's on a call or he's angry at someone else.

And so you reinforce it with the visual language of the show in, I think, a more intentional way this season that's really coming through. Understanding the inner life of the characters through the filmmaking was one of the first conversations we had about how to change the show. Because, you know, this metaphor that we always torture. is that the first season felt a little bit like watching the characters through a fishbowl. You know, like almost like going through. It's like, oh, wow, they're behaving crazyly over there.

I think that's kind of interesting. There's a vibe to that. But then you didn't really... I mean, because we were so in the presence as well in the first season, I just think the motivations for that behavior, the actual fear, the wounds in those characters didn't really feel like they were coming through that much.

And, like, just like, I mean, simple things like getting close, to the characters actually physically closer with the camera. It helped massively. And the thing you were saying, Andy, actually, you know, actually allowing in the editing to gauge a bit more of the other characters' reaction to them without actually just like

steam rolling over to the next scene or the next insult or the next barb really, really helps. And yeah, I feel like, the characters are able to show vulnerability this season the way they weren't before. And a lot of that, I don't know, I don't want to spoil anything, but a lot of those

moments of vulnerability when the characters are alone. which probably says more to the people they're hanging out with in the show than they're better than they themselves. Is this the time to talk about Rishi and Hillary's mask? Like I don't know if I didn't want to like take over the rest of our time together. But talk about vibes. Like the decision making of how to empower your brilliant supporting cast and like how when to let them have the screen and hold the thing.

Like the dude only wearing a mask, I feel like production wise that may have presented some. issues and maybe the actor had some feelings about it, but it is so deeply and consistently and reliably funny that I love it. And again, we're speaking ahead of ourselves, but Rishi, who makes a big impression in the first episode, really takes control of the narrative for large chunks of episode two in a way that is so fulfilling and really great. He's excellent. I mean, he really just took the ball by the horns. Like, you know, isn't a bit of season one, but Sangha Rada, the actor, you know, we spoke to him before.

And he was asking about us just sort of, when we were writing it, like, how much am I going to be in it? I'm not really sure. And we thought, okay, well, do you know what? We love the character. Let's just throw everything in at him and see if it's what he can do. And because, you know, the benefit of actually only starting to go into production after your, you know, halfway through the writing process

is that when something reveals itself to be excellent, you can just promote it. Four episodes in when we realized he was really, really good. And we started shooting it. It was like everything, which is why he's in it a lot in the back half of the season. I mean, he's absolutely brilliant. We were also very conscious. I mean, we're lying and we said we weren't very conscious.

There was a very good Financial Times article about how Rishi was one of the most most interesting characters in the show, even though he was on the sidelines because he was a depiction of a British Asian man, but without any of the usual stereotypical hangups normally put on those characters like their relationship to whatever, their British nurse or their home, you know, where they come from. and I think his alphanus, bravado and confidence was all the stuff that cigar read that piece and we read that piece and we really responded to that and we sort of doubled down on making him the kind of

the, you know, all the alpha male of the show really. And I think everything Mickey said, like, Sagar just took, I mean, we gave him some of the chewiest, funnest dialogue and he just, he over-delivered, really, which was amazing to our ears. By far the funniest thing about the first episode is like the realization that everyone is pretty much friends with him except for Harper. When she's just like, wait, what do you mean? Like, you guys are all going to his drinks?

But it also speaks to like her isolation, which I think is really great. But it was so funny when she was just like, yeah, I wasn't invited. That's cool. We made a bit of a virtue of that because on the, it was, I don't know why this happened, but for some reason, Yasmin was going to those drinks. And I don't think we ever wrote her as going to them. I think we just wanted to get all the actors into that space. Yeah.

And then me, we were thinking, like, when we were shooting, like, why Yasm and Rishi friends? Actually, no interaction together. But actually, Chris, what you said,

it really helps. It's like, you got that shot. And Yasm is, like, bringing a bottle of champagne, like, like, hugging someone. It's like,

oh, God. Like, it really has some Harp's isolation. Harper's thinking, like, I've been out a year and like, Yasminorishi are like best others. But also, it underscores stuff that you've already laid.

Like, that's the best stuff in story, right? When it's like you didn't intentionally lay the track, but it's there. And it's baked in, into the show that Yasmin is just more socially comfortable and socially fluid and she can get away with more and she knows how to build relationships and not have to like worry about them or stress about them. And I think that was really well played in, you know, the intentional dislocation

you gave us in season two, which I was talking about, you know, the other day on the pod, which is just like, oh, you know, you talked about how you found some traditional story beats and story logic and found some comfort in that and structure in that. But I think starting the show in a place where these characters aren't friends and haven't used the time off to get closer was. pretty radical. You know, it was disconcerting because I think our TV brains are like, boy, we went through a journey with these guys and, okay, we did a lot of

cocaine, but now we're pals. And it's like, life doesn't necessarily work like that. These people don't have to be best friends. Well, and they're also not like, they're not like, we're going to cure COVID. Like, they're still who they are, right? Those kinds of, those kinds of illusions, I think,

are far more, far more filmic and cinematic than they are in TV. And I think I totally hear you, Andy. I think, me in Mick were very conscious of the fact that we wanted to start everybody in it. Not to dislocate the view so much, but just in a place where we just thought it was interesting development to start, you know, Robert's a very good example because he starts almost, you know, sober, he feels almost like 180 degree turn from where he was at the end of episode A of season one. But then, you know, it's not like, sometimes I think that was a really

big jump, but then like he does have that scene with Darya, you know, where his nose starts to bleed in the riff speech and she's like, you're a co-head. You know, that would give him something to ruminate on. But we just thought it's practically, in a really cynical way, we just thought it was more interesting to jump people back into a place where the characters had jumped forward. We just thought everyone would be like, okay, there's a bit of catch-up to play, but it also gives the actor something else to play. It immediately, you know, just from a very cynical point of view, makes everything feel a bit fresh. We had the organic break of COVID as well. Like, we actually was a bit of a godsend because, you know, we had this idea of pushing it a year

forward and we thought, okay, without that organic break and that sort of forced isolation, how would we do that? You'd be even more discercated if you came back on the floor and Harper was there and everyone was being mean to her but it was not explained why. And again, like the COVID thing was we sort of undaned about whether to include it or not

and obviously there was one part of our brain which was saying no one wants to watch eight hours of this COVID thing, which I don't think they would have. If we had set the whole thing during the actual pandemic, it would have been terrible. But the other part was like, how do we actually make this feel like it's speaking to contemporary working life.

Yeah, that's happening in the world, right. Yeah, exactly. And the most interesting thing about it is that how it's affected people. And people have had hugely different reactions to it. Like everyone had very different pandemics, especially in London. Some people took the rules very, very seriously and didn't go out at all and didn't see their friends or family. And other people, usually from a different socioeconomic background, behave very, very

differently, like, you know, which is what, you know, people said, like, I think Marisa had this idea. she read the script page for the first couple of episodes, she said, wow, Yasn's doing a lot of drugs. Like, when did that happen? She was sort of a wallflower before. And I said, well, she's had a pandemic

where all she's done, as she said in episode four, is go from enormous kitchen to enormous kitchen, quote, unquote, sashing with her rich European friends. And she's been in this bubble where everyone's very social, everyone's very, very coaked up, everyone's very sure of themselves and confident. And then she comes into the world and she sees Harper and she realized

and it's sort of, and Kenny comes back and she's just immediately transported to the version of her that existed a pier point without that. Again, obviously Harper's had a huge amount of isolation and she's been sitting in the hotel room for a year thinking that she's doing a really, been doing a really good job and in fact

the cold water is about to be poured on her when she comes back to work and realise is that her 12 hours a day has been, you know, as Ritchie says, very eloquently, just walking around a hotel room, attacking herself and broke off. What emboldened us as well was the fact that there was no homogenous experience of COVID for everybody. So, like, we were like, anything that we put on screen character-wise is going to feel true.

Because, you know, as Mickey's just said very articulately, like, it was a very, it could be very local. It felt it was global, obviously, by social media. But like, everyone was, you know, countries were having different responses at different rates, masks, mandates. All this stuff was changing so much. So we just thought any, you know, if Wyndham was wearing a mask and everybody else isn't, I'm sure there's a workplace somewhere on a at some point in the last two years where it felt exactly like that. So all of our creative decisions, we were like, if we did it with a light touch, people would feel, you know, as long as it didn't drive plot too much,

people wouldn't be bored by it. It would just feel like, oh, it's in the universe of the show. You know, these guys are acknowledging it, but they're not making it the kind of the North Star of what they're trying to do in the second season. Also, as Chris and I both individually but personally experienced, the shadow of COVID in the UK currently is not as long as it is in some other places. I saw some of the critics to say, oh God, the most

striking thing about this is there's only one person wearing a mask in the trading floor. Now, I honestly think if you went to a training floor now, zero people would be wearing in London. I didn't see anyone wearing a mask in London. I didn't. No, no mask in the airport.

Conrad, the thing you said about Robert and the idea that he's done almost a 180 in his personality from this party brought into this, you know, almost monk. I feel like if you're young and someone says the kind of comment

to you that Darius says in that lift, and then you're immediately put into a situation where you're isolated for a year, you stew on that kind of thing and you think, God, is that the person I think? I think Harpers been the same thing. Harpers been stewing on her relationship with Yasmin, and Yasmin's been doing her best to push it to one side.

And as much as you say, you know, people have moved on, I don't think about anymore. I still think think she's been thinking she's got that version of Harper, the one I got rid of Dari, the one that felt it's a bit Machiavellian and, you know, almost, you know, fucked her career up in some ways. She's got that sort of ingrained in her,

frozen in time in her. And I feel like... You've kind of shattered my illusions about Yasmin, because I thought maybe she had spent the pandemic watching the 100 greatest horror films and had just, you know, gotten through the descent. It was just like making her way through Carpenter next and stuff, just really having a super chill last two years.

Me and Conrad discussed that line before. You were talking about her favorite film being The Descent, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We put that line in. Let me put that line in. Nick was like,

do you think she's old enough to have used that as a reference point? And I was like, it's a fun, it's no reason why she kind of binged it on a hangover. I love it. I love it. It just makes me want to hang out with her even more. We don't want to take up any more of your guys's time

because we'll have you on at least one more time, if not to throughout the season to talk more about this season as more people get to see more episodes. Do you guys want to like, I don't want to put you on the spot for it, but you said you were asking yourselves what the question of the season was, you know, this is going to air this week. People are about to see episode two, which we love. Oh, yeah. Anything you want to put in people's heads, like in terms of what to come or what a question

to consider going forward might be? It's a great question. Thanks. And also, I wish sometimes I wish this pod was video because it was literally like, Siri, what does it look like to put someone on the spot? It was amazing. You can leave it as like the HBO Max. text where it's like,

Harper makes a decision. Eric, yeah. Yeah. You know, like. I don't know. Is it worth it? Is it worth it?

I like that. That's good. I mean, season, I would just say, without, you know, any big season tease,

um, the episode two is, is, is, um, is my, like me and Mickey, you know,

we go back and forth about what our favorite episodes that season are and we feel like in terms of what we, we're trying to set out to do with the show in terms of the balance between personal, work, all of those things coming together, we feel like it's maybe the best example you have the show, so we're really looking forward to coming out.

Episode seven as well is absolutely brilliant. I will say that. Who's confident now? There it is. Guys, thank you so much for coming out. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having us, guys.