The Watch - What to Expect From 'Deadpool 2'? Plus: 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Westworld' | The Watch (Ep. 258)

Episode Date: May 17, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and David Shoemaker catch up on breaking ‘Lord of the Rings’ news (4:00) before discussing what ‘Deadpool 2’ has in store for its audience (17:00) and this season of 'Westworld' so far (25:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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rocks, weddings, being woken up by thunder, grilled chicken, pumpkins, fall drives, and more. Now here's a personal request from Joe. Please watch. Joe Para talks with you Sundays at midnight on adult swim. Hey guys, welcome to the watch. It is Thursday. Greenwald is somewhere flying over America in an airplane. I was joined by maybe the greatest relief pitcher in Ringer podcast history,

David Shoemaker, who filled in. We talked about Lord of the Rings. There was some news on the Amazon front with Lord of the Rings and the new show that they'll be making, that very expensive show, and it hasn't even started shooting yet. We also talked about Deadpool 2, and we talked a lot about Westworld, as you would expect from the host of Westworld the recapables. Make sure you're subscribed to Westworld, the recapables. Make sure you're subscribed to the Mass Man Show and make sure you check out the press box. And also, while I got you here, I want you to check out our new music podcast called On Shuffle, hosted by Micah Peters.

They spent the first episode talking a lot about Post Malone. It's a great podcast. It really is a great cross-section of music news. music opinion, but also a really thoughtful conversation about what music, the role music plays in our life via technology. I thought it was a wonderful first episode. So make sure you check out on Shuffle. Also, make sure you're listening to the big homie, Sean Fennacy on the big picture, because tomorrow he'll have a podcast with Andrew Gurdadarro on Deadpool. He's going to see it tonight. They're going to knock it out. So you'll be able to get your Deadpool takes from Fennacy

almost as soon as you see Deadpool. So that's Channel 33, the big picture. Sean Fennacy, Andrew Gooder, on Deadpool. Greenwald and I will probably talk about that on Monday. We got a lot to get to. So without further ado, let's get to the watch. I need sports to have to clear the room. Get up and walk now.

Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, kicking my ass and cursing me out. It's David Schumacher. Thank you for having me. This is maybe the first week in Ringer history

or I'm coming close to your podcast total. That's true. We're working, man. David is the host of Westworld Recapables. So we're going to talk a bit about Westworld. Sure. Later on, David Offes also hosts the Masked Man show. Is it anything else?

Oh, in the press box. So that's three pods you can catch Shoemaker on the Ringer podcast network. And Westworld Recadables is twice a week. That's right, because you guys have the Tuesday show. That kind of goes deep dive onto theories. So that's four a week, man. That's like 1918. pitcher rotation.

He's like, here's the ball again. I'm going for Tommy Johns after Westworld is over. Yeah, whatever the podcast version of Tommy John, you and I both need it. But I have David here, ably filling in for Andy, who is on a jet plane, I'm sure watching a film that came out in 2016.

And that's fitting because Shoemaker and I are talking about Deadpool, which is Deadpool 2, following up the Blockbuster 2016 movie with Ryan Reynolds. We're going to talk a little bit about that. We're going to talk about Westworld. But I wanted, I mean, if you come to the watch, you'd come to hear about IP. That's my favorite thing to talk about.

So I wanted to talk about Lord of the Rings because last night, the One Ring.net, which I don't know about you, man, but this is like my go-to Tolkien gossip site. I love it. It's like the hoops hype for Tolkien. They broke that, they had confirmed with multiple sources that this Amazon show set in the Lord of the Rings universe is going to be about young Aragorn. And that is obviously the character that was. She's the worst rapper name of all time. Young Aragorn. Hmm.

I could see him on a Yadi song. Okay. But this is obviously the character that's played by Vigo Mortensen in the Peter Jackson films. And to my reaction to this, so the actual tweet from the One Ring.net, which is where I saw it,

is breaking. We have confirmed from multiple sources that Amazon Studios' new billion-dollar L-O-T-R series will open its first season centered on a young Eric. Gorn. And my first reaction to this was that makes a ton of sense. Yeah. Because a billion dollars, and it's like, it was 250 up front for the rights.

Yeah. Is what I believe the number was. To get the rights from the Tolkien Estate to make this show in the first place, it's like if you're going to spend that kind of money, it's the same thing for the Star Wars franchise. You've got to have some Skywalker's. Oh, yeah. You got to have some high profile characters. Although it's interesting, like,

I wonder I wonder what I mean obviously Aragorn is like you know one of the most high profile characters from that franchise yeah but I'm sure like Vigo sitting at home just like could we not just do old Aragorn can I just like keep this going and then like people

I'm sure the audience would be even bigger for that they let him get pretty old in the movies themselves doesn't he like quote unquote die at the end yeah but I'm sure he is like as he's paging through his Eastern promises expanded universe script that he probably gets sent He's like, I could go back to being strider. He's an older dude, but I think you're absolutely right.

It's got, I mean, it's a big character. It's a, you know, people recognize it, and people are going to be into seeing what happens. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this a little bit with Paul Shear on Monday, and he was such a great guest. We talked about his work on the new version of Galaxy Quest and how he was updating that, but still wanted to have ties to the original. And that's the same thing I'm thinking about with this, because as we see more and more things get, set in this universe or reimagining Friday Night Lights or reimagine, there's rumors Bob Greenblatt did a very bad job this week at upfronts of denying that there would be a new office on NBC in the near future. And even in that announcement, there was some follow-up reporting

that there were several members of the office cast who were keen about rejoining the show, basically. Of course. Yeah, who wouldn't me? As they would be, because these things only work, they're only as strong as their connections to the past are. Whereas, I think we've seen, seen that, that's been proven out. But I think when we were first delving into this, and I was like, they're going to have Star Wars anthology movies, and there's going to be multiple trilogies of Star Wars movies. I think we were all kind of like, as kids, when we were sort of growing up on something like that, we're like playing with action figures, but imagining new stories and imagining new worlds and imagining new plot lines for them. And it's easier said than done. Oh, yeah.

You know, it's easier said than done to just be like, there's some L-O-T-R stuff that is not even in Peter Jackson movies and was never even mentioned and is like way off on like another like part of this story but we're gonna expose we're gonna spend $250 million just for the right to make that and they're gonna come for this yeah I think that I mean you understand everyone understands why the IP is so valuable right or why any IP is so valuable but we talk about you know Game of Thrones as IP we talk about I mean Westworld as IP it was pre-existing movies you know big big time writer

you know, it was the creator. But those shows worked because they were good shows. Yeah. Right? And they were well produced and well marketed and well acted and directed and everything else. So you've got to actually make the product. Yeah. And now there will be, you know, there'll be Game of Thrones spinoffs.

Presumably there'll be, you know, some of the same production crew, some of the same creatives. But the bar is weirdly even higher, I feel like, for those. And that's where they're going to be with the Star Wars. And listen, you get a base. of people that are going to show up to watch any Star Wars, anything, and the baseline for Star Wars is way higher than anything else. So you're, so, you know, there's a lot of confidence that comes with that. Lord of the Rings, I feel like, is really complicated. It is. It's a really weird move to spend that much money, not weird. You understand why they did it

because you keep hearing that Amazon wants their own Game of Thrones. Although I said semi-jokingly, do I think Mallory Rubin the other day, it's like when they announced the expanse, or I said this is to Allison, the expanse was canceled, and everyone's trying to get someone to, and they were going after Amazon to pick it. up. And I'm like, isn't it, I mean, I feel like there's just as good of a bet if you took the expanse, get that small but dedicated fan base over, and then just make the expanse 25% better. Yeah. You know, I mean, just like really go in, like hire, hire one of the, one of the writers from Game of Thrones to be the showrunner and just spend a lot of money.

Start it over or continue it. No, continue it, but just make it better. Like, make it, make it that show, you know? Absolutely. But, but I think that Lord of the Rings in particular is really tough, because for one thing, a lot of the premise of Thrones was knifing Lord of the Rings in the back, right? I love this for it. He loved those books, loved the IP for whatever it's worth,

but like turn it on its head. Right. And the other thing is we know where it goes. Now, a lot of people have theories as to where Game of Thrones goes, but there's going to be no question that, like, Aragorn survives any given episode. Sure. Right? Sure. And so there's a Game of Thrones,

like we never know what's going to happen next. And you see this in other shows, like The Walking Dead, you know, when people, the main characters can die. And I guess we can have supplemental characters that die, but, you know, we know what happens at the end. It's the Peter Jackson franchise. Yeah.

So it's a little bit more difficult to get that sort of, that sort of prestige uncertainty, you know, that storytelling ability in there when you are dealing with such. Known quantities. Yeah. Yeah. And then outside of the narrative stuff, there's the production value,

which Amazon obviously is willing to spend a ton of money on this. But the Lord of the Rings movies, were groundbreaking in their use of special effects. Oh, yeah. And one thing that Game of Thrones did very smartly, and I'm sure part of it was a product of just making sure that there was going to be an audience. And I don't even know if, like, HBO and Michael Lombardo

when they started that show knew what kind of audience that they were going to develop or have for Game of Thrones. But they've had like this really nice trajectory where those early seasons, especially the first season, is more palace intrigue than anything else, right? Like it's mostly people, betraying one another. You have to ride down here

and then I'm going to ride up there but when you ride up there I'm actually not going to be here I already snuck out. That's a lot. And then as they've gone on in seasons there's been bigger and bigger and bigger set pieces

in battle of the bastards and giants and dragons and all this other stuff. It's funny we would have those conversations like the whole way through the first five seasons of the series about them saving their money for the big last episode.

I mean you would see like on an you could flip the channel and see like insurance commercials that had a bigger CGI dragon budget than Game of Thrones Absolutely. You know, for the first couple seasons of dragons. And, and, yeah, yeah, I mean, the difference is going to be on Amazon with all the money

they've already spent and that they're going to continue to spend. It's not like this sort of like, you know, we're not going to give them some pat on the back for like using their budget to its fullest. We're going to be like, why didn't they spend $100 million more dollars? Yeah, man. I mean, like, that's the problem with what's, when you're playing with something like this, this high stakes, you're going to get to the place where like most people are going to sit down, turn this on and be like, so last I checked, there was about.

of Helms Deep. Yeah. And that was pretty impressive. Yeah. So what are you guys doing? Are you going to have a guy riding around in the forest? Yeah. Or is it going to be some epic?

Now, I have to admit, like, I'm not like a Tolkien scholar. I haven't read. Nor am I. I think I read Fellowship of the Ring, but I don't know, like, about the Aragorn legend. One thing that I did find very amusing was in that, so the One Ring. Dot net, like, tweeted this out. Mm-hmm. And then did, like, a whole tweet storm about all the stuff that it could be about.

And it's like elves and all this other stuff. And it sounds great. Some dude was like, hey, P.S., like, where's, like, the text for this? Because, like, I didn't, you know, I don't remember reading a lot about young Aragorn. Right. And the one ring.net, people were like, yeah, I mean, it's like page 244 to 252 in this book. And he's like, so that's like eight pages. Yeah.

And they were like, they said, hashtag, don't be hasty. And then they had, like, a whole explanation for how they could fill it in. But this is kind of the issue when you're mining some of this. is that eventually, just like it did for Thrones, this will be the creative responsibility and work of some TV showrunner. Yeah. And that's something that, like, Peter Jackson

really never got out from Underlord of the Rings. I mean, this is a massive, massive job, and he might come back for this show. There's rumors that they're trying to get it. Well, it would be great. I mean, I think that would bring some level of, like, kind of authorial stability to the show, you know? I mean, one of the things the fans,

that fans of any IP, of any book series, of any whatever these days, Star Wars included, insist on as authenticity, right? And even if it's not, you know, they can still love it one way or the other, but those are the big complaints that you hear. This wasn't true, you know,

these new Star Wars movies weren't true to the expanded book universe or whatever, you know, and that's the kind of, you want the confidence that somebody's, who knows what they're doing is back there pulling the levers. I don't think that this kind of stuff

is lending itself to, I don't think that people are looking for radical reimagining of Lord of the Rings. Like, they're not like, I want a gritty Hurt Locker version of Lord of the Rings. Or I want Dindy Villeneuve's version of Lord of the Rings. Sure, not at first anyway, no.

Yeah, but I think that that's even been proven out with some of these other expanding universes and franchises where, for the most part, you know, Star Wars director musical chairs is really fun to follow, but at the end of the day, whether Ron Howard directs it

or Gareth Edwards directs it or Tony Gilroy directs it, or whoever comes in and finishes it, they all wind up kind of in the same zone. Mm-hmm. And I wonder whether that's the case, you might as well just go get Peter Jackson because are you really going to want someone

who's like, I have my fresh take on Lord of the Rings? No. I mean, I think the Star Wars universe, I mean, you kind of bore that out. I mean, you're right. There's, I think everybody conceptually wants a bunch of, like, you know, very different movies or TV shows. but you kind of want

like not until you're already exhausted by the mainstream version of it or like the very expected version of it and who knows of that if you ever get tired of it yeah you know that's maybe why the Rousseau's are so successful at what they're doing is because they're just kind of like yeah like we know where to insert ourselves

and not. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, within the context of it. I think that what you were saying before about the Lord of the Rings movies is really important because the, I mean there are a ton of diehard Tolkien fans, people have read every page have definitely read that eight-page passage that this show is going to be based on.

But so many people are going to be coming to this because of the movies. Yeah. And those movies have been living for the past, what, 10 years on TVs and on iPads and computer screens and stuff. They stay on TNT. Yeah, they're on all the time. So, you know, back to what you were saying about special effects and everything else, you're going to be comparing them to those movies.

And they hold up. They definitely hold up on TV. When you watch them now, they feel very much at home on television. Yeah. I mean, in some of these cases, and this has been, you've read a lot. There's a lot of rumors about different shows that are in the works because of up fronts

and because of, you know, the networks are sort of announcing plans to do X, Y, and Z. I saw, there's, I can't remember if it's, who's developing it, but somebody's developing a young Alfred show. Oh, yeah, I saw that yesterday. And I think Sean Fentasy tweeted like,

this is hell, like, this is my idea of L. And that is, like, would you make a show about a young butler in any other way if it wasn't part of, like, this is the guy who winds up being Batman's butler. Right. No. But I think that that's why, like,

there are some ways in which this stuff is scraping the bottom of the barrel. And then you have something like this where you're like, yeah, you know, even though they had like probably 21 hours or 22 hours of Lord of the Rings movies at the end of the day with the hobbits. Yeah. They probably still have a lot more stories they can tell. Yeah, absolutely true. I think it'll be fun to watch.

Well, do you think Deadpool, too, is going to be fun to watch? I'm hopeful. I think it'll definitely be fun to watch. Yeah. It's gotten, I mean, I really have not been paying that much attention because I know I'm going tomorrow to the opening. Yeah. I mean, not to the grand opening, but I'll be there on opening day probably,

and I'm excited to see it. And in a lot of ways, my expectations are kind of low. I mean, I liked that the first one was very different than all the other superhero movies, or enough different, you know. We're working with the same set of crayons here. But, you know, I don't, it feels like, even though I've been keeping a little bit of a distance from the reviews,

it seems like the headlines I've been reading, people have not been overly positive about it. I think they were like, it's a Deadpool movie, and this is exactly what it feels like to have more than one of them. Yeah. Which is there's probably some thrills and some laughs, but there's, like, a limit to the, like, emotional resonance of the character and also, like, how serious...

This film is, like, not a serious movie, so... Yeah. It's sort of... It's going to have to bear the weight of being a blockbuster while also just being, like, this is essentially, like, an 80s action comedy. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think that when Infinity War came out, and before that,

I mean, since the Avengers movies have been coming out, there's these kind of regular occasions for people to write, is this what Hollywood is now? Is this what movie going? Is this all that movies have to offer is these superhero movies? And in some ways, Deadpool is the kind of the distillation of it, that when you get these, you know, experienced movie reviewers who feel sort of forced to go watch Deadpool and to report on it

because this is the biggest, this is the movie of the month. So, you know, people are, the exhaustion is sort of clear. For those people, I would just say that it's, this is like for, like, what's been going on forever. Yeah. Like, my dad would do this in the 80s when he was reviewing movies and everybody would be going to see Blast Boy Scout instead of Howard's End or something, and he would be miserable about it. And that's, so just the fact that, like, First Reformed is also coming out this week and is, by all accounts, one of the best films of the year.

Oh, wow. You know, 1% of the people who are going to go see Deadpool will all, you know, we'll see that movie. But like, this stuff all tends to even out. I think that it's just the sort of blast radius of these blockbusters now feels almost like you can't even have, it doesn't even matter what your opinion is because they are unstoppable. Yeah. It would have to be a pretty, it would have to be something like Fantastic Four that is just absolutely savaged from its pre-production, up until its release and then disavowed by the people who are in it for making it for it to be like no one's going to go see a superhero movie.

It's a perpetual motion machine. I mean, I feel like half of the push notifications I get on my phone are about Deadpool ticket pre-sales. You know, I mean, it's like, there's all these articles that are about how well it's about to do. We have the same thing with Ultron.

I mean, with Infinity War, we have the same thing with Black Panther. And as long as the kind of pre-hype is on point, is on message, then, yeah, people are going to just pour into the theaters. Would 15-year-old Shoemaker be surprised at Deadpool's popularity?

Now, not as a movie, but as a character? Well, I think 15-year-old me would have felt really self-satisfied. Like, yeah, see, this guy, I told you this guy was awesome. Right. But the 15-year-old me would also be like, no, where the hell is Lobo the movie? Or where's all this? We're all my other favorites, you know? I need the max on the big screen.

It's amazing to think of, like, an underserved comic fan. Sure, right now? Yeah. I mean, every podcast that The Ringers done has hit on this at some point. but like just the amount of gratitude that I felt when like the first X-Men movie popped up and wasn't terrible. Yeah. You know? It's that's a real thing.

But yeah, no, I mean, Deadpool is, I think, in a lot of ways, it's just made for 15-year-old. I mean, that's the, that is the audience, even though it's rated R. And there's a lot of, like, you know. And there's a lot of perpetual 15-year-olds out there who, like, want to revisit that. I think that's exactly it. I think that we embrace our, you know, there's the sort of like everyone's a nerd theory now, but it's also like everyone's still a kid and we still love all that stuff.

That's why I think this, I mean, we were talking about this with Micah yesterday, but like that's one of the reasons why I think that this is such a popular character now because it is the, sure, if you want to care about X-Force and try and like parse the Fox version of the Marvel universe versus the Marvel Studios version,

the Disney version, there's some stuff in there for you, and I think that this movie is going to get into X-Force. Yeah. By all accounts, there would be an X-Force movie before there's a Deadpool 3.

Mm-hmm. But if you just want to see dick jokes and headshots, like this is, this movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, the thing that everybody points at about Deadpool is the kind of self-awareness, the breaking of the fourth wall, and that's all real. I mean, I think all of the Marvel movies

have been very self-aware, and that's why they succeed in a lot of ways where the DC movies don't. It's just the sort of ability to laugh at oneself or, you know, to kind of be,

aware of the whole enterprise. But we were talking a little bit with Zach Mack right before we started recording. And yeah, it was, in a lot of ways, Deadpool ate itself the moment it existed, right? There's no more, how much, there's no other wall to break, right? Unless Ryan Williams

walks into your movie theater, which he seems to do it on the press tour every day. But, but yeah, I mean, it's, and all, and there's a wink, there's a wink in every Marvel movie. There's a wink in, you know, in every movie you see now. Yeah, because it probably feels good to play with elite. Like, DC doesn't even have the luxury at this point,

even though those movies are nominally, like they make a lot of money or they at least have a big box office returns. They don't really have the luxury of joking about, like, remember when we miscast this part? You know, it's like that Marvel doesn't have that problem so they can all sort of be teasing each other about like, you know, oh, yeah, like we've been doing this for so long. Or like, we're all such hot guys named Chris.

It's like, can you imagine a moment like that in a DC movie? No. But, you know, part of that is that D.C. deliberately sort of went the other direction. It's just like the color scheme is different. The whole vibe, the editorial vibe is just very earnest, you know? And it's, they made a deliberate move to not look like MCU. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about Westboro in just a minute, but first a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the homies at Thomas's English and muffins. Looking for a breakfast that's worth skipping the snooze button for.

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Microsoft Teams in Office 365, visit office.com slash teams to learn more. Shoemaker, I feel like I'm in good hands because obviously, you know, Andy was actually not that harsh on Westworld on Monday, but generally, I think that the conversations that Andy and I have revolve around like a very good, topic, which is, is this show good or not?

Westworld, sort of the television version of these superhero movies, where I think someone like Andy is probably like throwing his hands up and saying, hey, like, aren't we going to have a conversation about whether this is good or not? And everybody else is like, it's too late for that. Yeah. You're in it.

You're in the matrix right now. Deep in it, yeah. How hard or easy is it for you to like sometimes stick your head up and say like, wait a second. how I actually like feel about this as like a story and a piece of art. So we've been watching the screeners, which are about to end, sadly, but we've been watching, you know, a couple days ahead of the, of whenever, you know, the regular folks out there get to watch it.

But we watch it in a room with, you know, four or five people. Yeah. People are going to be on the show, someone from, you know, the social media department or whatever. And so you get a little bit of a cross-section and you can see how people are reacting. And then I can kind of, I usually just watch what their watches they watch. and then I'll watch it again on my own and sort of see how I feel.

So you get a little bit of a zoomed out view, but it's hard. Yeah. I mean, I think that the answer that you implicitly pose is pretty straightforward that like it's not, it doesn't really matter if it's good or not. Especially, like season one,

I think that was a really important conversation. Sure. I think with season two, for better or worse, it's, they've just been just doing stuff, you know? I mean, they clearly have tried to get a totally different vibe for every episode. Like every, the first scene in every episode,

has been just engineered to make you feel out of place and excited. Yeah. And the show still has this sort of earnestness that was overflowing in season one. But more, but it's like, it's like a very earnest person directing, you know, Temple of Doom or something. Like, they're just trying, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, it's a totally different show. And it's a show that is, that we're like the, the, the, you know, plot twists and everything are much more at home. Yeah. You know, you can, everything just sort of flows seamlessly.

And I've, I've been enjoying the hell out of the season. I haven't been, too, because I think I came to a, like a nice place inside of myself where I was like, this is just a multi-million dollar version of HQ. Like, we're all going to gather on Sunday and we're going to try and figure this thing out. Yeah. We're going to take the test. We're going to, like, try to answer these questions. And those questions aren't, like, about the nature of humanity.

And I'm not looking to Westworld to teach me anything about the nature. nature of humanity. I am looking at Westworld as this like ornate puzzle and this actually like very interesting demonstration of what happens if you take away all the things that you're taught to do first in a story. Where are we? When are we? Who are we? Yeah. What do we want? And then like you take it from there. Like all these basic basic like narrative functions that you're supposed to perform when you're starting a story. And Westworld has done that to some extent. They have been like, this is somebody and this is what they want, or this is a robot, and this is what it wants.

But the way that they've kind of said, well, we're not going to tell you where it is, or we're not going to tell you when it is, or not going to tell you who put them here, or why they put them here, or what their ulterior motive is, has become kind of fascinating. And in that way, I don't then have to worry

about whether or not I find Dolores and Teddy conversations, particularly crackling. I mean, if I want Hepburn and Tracy, I guess I can watch Hepburn and Tracy movies, you know? Yeah, and it's hard to do, I mean, Dolores and Teddy are doing this sort of like meta version of Hepburn and Tracy or whoever it is, and it makes it. Or like a syrup version of it, like completely.

They might be doing the best possible version of it and that doesn't necessarily make it like a joy that leaps off the screen. I think you're right. I think that some of those basic, I mean, you know that they're messing with us on some of those basic questions. So where are we thing is the most obvious one. Because in episode one of this season, you had the military men in that very, and that kind of the second, I guess not the opening scene,

but when Bernard wakes up on the beach and then he goes, when we see Carl Strand for the first time, he's speaking to the Chinese military or whatever. And my first read on that was this was Nolan and Joy saying, all these theories about where we're located is not important of the plot. This is us saying, stop talking about it. We're just going to throw it in the very beginning of the first episode. Yeah.

But ever since then, they've been kind of rolling that back and giving us all these hints that, like, we don't know exactly where we are. Right. That that military was there. We've seen some signs in Chinese or whatever. But, like, they've not said it out loud. And now, and all of those crazy theories that, like, maybe this, we're on the moon and China just owns it or something or whatever. Like, all that makes a lot more sense. Yes.

So, I mean, it's, I've said all season that, that, you know, there's a huge, unreliable narrator motif to the show. which you see with like Bernard not knowing where he is in space and time. Or who he is, right? Yeah, and Dolores not, still coming to grips with who she's going to be. But the showrunners are the real unreliable narrators because that you don't know, you know, if this were, if this were like, if this show was being run by someone who had done it before, I feel like you would feel more confident that they were making every decision. It's not that they're doing it right or wrong, but doing it in a way that we can, that we're comfortable,

that we're familiar with. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's sort of like you go to an art museum and there's this giant piece of like, modern expressionist painting on the wall or whatever. And then you're like, yeah, I wonder what that was all about. And you read the little placard that's next to it. And you're like, I don't really buy that.

That was just something like 25-year-old that wrote that description. You know, I don't really know if it's true or not. Right. But like this whole thing is really cool. Yeah. This painting is really beautiful and I'm into it and I can't, you know,

and I would love to hear the painter talk about it. I think that, you know, just to kind of echo what we were talking about earlier. And when you have these things that are like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, and you have a huge crowd of people who have like a pre-established investment in whether it's characters or a world or whatever, then that's both very powerful because you have their attention, but you also are playing with their expectations.

The difference with Westworld is that I feel like it is almost crowdsourced. Yes. Like we're writing it. You know, they may or may not take our advice or acknowledge our theories are correct or not or, you know, play into our expectations or subversed. them and those subversions or confirmations may or may not make much sense. Yeah. But there is 1,000% of relationship between the Westworld fan base and the Westworld creative

energy, you know, and absolutely true. What we're looking for in this show and what we're sort of piecing together is definitely like the central tension of like the experience of watching it. It's not, oh, God, I really hope that Dolores is redeemed or, that, you know, William is redeemed at the end of this long journey through this world. It's like, that may or may not happen. They may make nine seasons of this, and they could be, the last three of them could be in Rajworld, for all we know.

Yeah. No, you're right. It's all about the kind of immersive experience. It's like True Detective Season 1. Like, I had one of my best friends back in New York, Tom, like we have all the same taste and, like, books and TV and movies and stuff. But he missed True Detective Season 1, and I just kept telling him, you got to check this out. It's so great.

I check it out. And when he finally got around to watching it, like nine months later, he was like, yeah, it was pretty good. Did he already know all of, like, Yellow King stuff? No, I think he'd stayed away, but he just wasn't as into it as I was expecting him to be, and we started talking through it. And I was just like, oh, you know what you're not getting that I got is Reddit. Like Sunday night, you go right from the show to the message boards.

And you're part of this experience with everybody else trying to figure out the literary sources and everything. And that's a really important part of how TV is made now. And Westworld has got it. I mean, Westworld, I mean, this past episode, there was a book that was very clearly put right in the opening scene, the camera panned by, and I couldn't get in the screener we had, I had, I couldn't pause or screen grab it to figure out what it was,

but I was just like, I can't wait until Reddit figures this out, and Reddit figured it out 20 minutes after the show went off the year. What was it? It was the Vonnegut. It was a Vonnegut book, The Sirens of Titan. Okay. Which is all about free will, and it's about a very rich man who, like, makes his home and outer space on another planet.

For you, I mean, I think there's a first season and one of the reasons why, if I could speak from, Andy, struggled with it, was ultimately a lack of interest in the character trajectory of robots. You know, like what happens to them and whether or not they are quote unquote free or not. Has the show for you moved past that? And if so, what is the most interesting thing about the show outside of like the play? plot mechanics of like, where, where is this show taking place or whatever? I feel like the hosts have taken even more of a backseat this season in terms of watchability in a way to the humans. You know, they're still very interesting, but I almost, I think I enjoyed watching them

as unwitting, as just like as robots who were like were actually, actually had consciousness, but hadn't found it yet, than these people who were, like, kind of angstily trying to embody their new consciousness, or in Bernard's case, trying to figure out just what he's doing there, or, like, what he's doing from scene to scene. And part of it's that, you know,

man in black is now allowed to be more than a one-dimensional character. So, you know, there's all, there's, the humans actually have a lot of intrigue around them. And you have characters like Elsie and, And, well, I guess Grace is what we were calling her, but Emily, who just sort of like pop off the screen. Yeah. You know, and meanwhile, you know, Dolores and Teddy are like acting real hard.

And having the same conversation every week. Yeah, right. Yeah. I wonder whether or not, in retrospect, because I think what Westboro had to do was show a lot, despite the fact that it obscures a lot of things, it had to show a lot of cards at first. You know, you basically wanted to create this idea that William could be the,

the villain of the show, but also the hero of the show at the same time. And obviously that duality is sort of commented on. But I wonder if they had known it was going to be a hit on this level, if they could have told it almost chronologically. And it had been more of an arc of like

happening upon this technology, building this thing, having these sort of really deep moral questions about whether or not you, you know, death should be the end or not. And then you sort of slowly get into these, outer reaches of this world rather than the kind of

half flashback half time jump stuff that they're doing. I think that's a good question and I think that it's not even, I don't know if it's even a showrunner situation or what, I do think that there's, you know, I count myself among those who kind of figured out

the man in Black William thing very early on and watched the whole show and when I mentioned it to people I didn't feel guilty about it because I was just like, I wonder if but then halfway through the season I was like, oh, there's wondering anymore. And then I then I retroactively felt bad for like, you know, waking up the host as where, right. But it's easy to look back now and be like it was a mistake to build the whole first season around a reveal that a lot of people figured out early. Yeah. But it still, that drew a lot of people in. Yeah. Right. And this, and I, and I keep bringing this up with Dolores. Like,

I think that, I mean, I would totally believe it if you told me we did market research for the show and 90% of the viewing audience still thinks Dolores is the hero, like as of episode five. You know, so there's, you just don't know how everyone in the world is watching this show. You see this with Game of Thrones all the time where it's like the vast majority of people watching miss 50% of what happens. Right. And you have like, and you have probably people out there who have been dying for like two or three seasons to see Searcy get her head cut off. Yeah. Not that I know what's going to happen to Sersey or anything. And then you have some people who are like, they can't lose this person because she's like the most exciting person on this show.

But I do think to answer your question. I mean, I think there was probably a more linear way to tell it. But I think that I, but so far I think they've done a pretty good job. I mean, I think that, I mean, this season has been, you know, after episode one, I thought we were going to get a totally linear show. There'd be flashbacks and everything else, but I really thought season two is going to be the mystery of what happened right before the beach. Yes. You know, it's a two-week window and everything is within that, and they've gone in a million different directions. And there are at least three-time zones, I guess, and possibly more depending on what you're thinking about Arnold.

Yeah, absolutely. Right. There's just so much going on. And I don't, I mean, it's almost impossible, it's almost impossible to judge it, you know? I've been enjoying it. It doesn't feel, it definitely feels like there's more of a steady hand than like Lost, which is what it keeps getting compared to by myself and, you know, to this season. There's a lot of Lost in there.

But like, you know, you watch Lost thinking like, I wonder if they're going to be able to stick the landing because they've just been making stuff up as they go along. Yeah, also just like, you just go back and realize like how nuts it is that Lost was 22 episodes a season. And you're just like, wow, there's really like five episodes, like five weeks of our life where you were just like. In an Iraq, torture. chamber. Okay, cool. Yeah, right, exactly. All right. Well, Westworlder recapables goes up Sunday nights.

Yeah. The theories and tinfoil hat stuff goes up on Tuesday. Right. And then Masked Man. Every Wednesday. And Wednesday afternoon. And press box is Tuesday mornings, I think. Tuesday mornings. Okay. So you can hear Schemaker all over the ringer podcast network. Thank you so much for filling in today. Thanks for having me, man. I was going to be bored today without something to do. Talk to you later. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Thomas's English muffin. Here's a breakfast I always get out of bed for. The Thomas's original nooks and crannies English muffins. There's nothing quite like that irresistible nooks and crannies texture, perfectly toasted, crispy edges with a soft warm center. How the butter pulls inside all those

nooks and cranny spaces is just amazing. It's a delicious burst of flavor in every warm, toasty, buttery bite. Thomas's nooks and crannies English muffins are truly like no other. Today's episode of The Watch was brought to you by Joe Perra talks with you, a new show on adult swim. It's a quiet show about Joe and his friends and the things in his life like breakfast foods, rocks, weddings, being woken up by thunder, grilled chicken, pumpkins, fall drives, and more. Now here is a personal request from Joe. I'm not Joe, but I'm making the request for him. Please watch. Joe Parra talks with you, Sundays at midnight on adult swim.