The Watch - What We Talk About When We Talk About 'WandaVision'

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

Chris and Andy discuss the fallout of the 2021 Golden Globes, including wins for ‘The Crown’ and Jason Sudeikis becoming a Twitter darling (0:25). Then they get into Episode 8 of ‘WandaVision,�� and the triumph of creating a new story in well-trodden IP and television teaching us about grief (25:25). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join author and former vibe editor-in-chief Danielle Smith and Black Girl Songbook as she celebrates and uplifts the talent of black women in the music industry. Tune in for in-depth discussions with your favorite songwriters, producers, and artists, as well as anecdotes from Danielle. Plus, you'll hear the songs of black women who change the landscape of American music forever. Check out Black Girl's Songbook exclusively on Spotify. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, Which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

Trimphaya, guselcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before a treatment, your doctor should check. you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms,

or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. 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, a spontaneous hike or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for. That's when Prime's same-day delivery as you're back. Getting you exactly what you need fast and reliably so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast. Available in select areas. Terms apply.

I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. 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'll have what Sudakis is having. It's Andy Greenwald. Happy Monday, buddy. The thing about Monday is it's always Monday. Andy, we are going to be talking today about the Golden Globes. Profound. And Wanda Vision, and we don't have to do that thing where we stop. We can just get right into it. Oh, I'm kind of, I'm really used to that now. Now, I know, you're a creature of habit. You're a creature of habit. I like to pop off right at the top to kind of mess up your rhythm.

You know what I mean? Like that's what I do. And yet I've been muzzled these last few months with the framework where you have to set us up. So I've been very quiet at the top. Well, I got to tell you something. I've noticed that. And I kind of sometimes, like, there's this pregnant pause every time I start a podcast where I'm like, what Andy am I getting today?

Now, eventually I always get the best of you. You know what I mean? And I have my ways of extracting that. But there's like sometimes where I'm like, man, he seems a little down today or whatever. And it's just, I don't know how we're going to elicit, like, that pure unbridled joy and passion for comic book culture that I know you have inside you? I, well, a couple things. I appreciate your tender management of me because that's what I expect out of everyone in my life to great effect. People love that.

But two, you know, as listeners know, I recently a year late watched the documentary The Last Dance. And I have to say, I can't be the only one who saw similarities between me and Michael Jordan just in terms of being just like a crunch time. red light player, you know what I mean? That's true. When the game starts, I am fully present, and I'm only thinking about you and just having some hot takes about pop culture. So let's start our flu pod then. How about that?

I don't want to turn this podcast, this particular episode, but in general, like, I'm very sensitive about not making it into a haters' ball. Like, I don't want us to develop, develop, like, a kind of Statler and Waldorf routine, where we're just, like, the, you know, the things that people like, and what we like is just absolutely like untouchable. But, you know, I couldn't... We say that usually for our personal conversations. So I...

I want to keep this, like... I want to keep it non-ad hominem today, you know? Okay. The Golden Globes happened last night. I did not watch them as they were taking place, you know? I actually got distracted by both making dinner, which was a fairly straightforward, kind of a veggie enchilada with a rojo sauce,

and I got a chicken from over Kismet Rotissary. If you're in the neighborhood, they do great rotissory chickens. And just kind of made a little dinner and then watched actually some spring training baseball as a kind of like vibes therapy. And I just want to say that everybody who pitches for the Washington Nationals looks like they are Wayne Grove from Heat. So I thought I'd point that out. But yeah, I was kind of following along a little bit, seeing who was winning.

And then I went back kind of like the way you watch SNL. Like I didn't watch it in the moment, but I went back and watched the clip. and got familiar with everything that happened. Can I, before we get into the specifics, Chris, I know you're teed up here. I just want to jump in and say something I've learned about you since we're sharing is that when you need a little QT or a little YT, U-time, for you would be M-T,

not Mountain Time, but Me-Time. Yeah, right. What you say you're doing is you write, if I ask you, you just write back watching golf. And I realized at a certain point, do you remember like when people used to put a sock on the doorknob in a dorm room in college to be like, don't come in, like something's going on in here.

That's me watching Colin Morekala. But because I think that the real pros maybe had successful hooking up lives and put socks on the doors, but also if you lived, like I did in college, you had a shared room with someone you don't even choose, you put the sock on the door or whatever. You just get a little quality time. So my point is, I don't. So you would put the sock on the door just to like read a book? That you do, I'm saying.

And so I think maybe for you, quote, I'm watching golf. is the sock. I don't know if there was golf on. I actually was watching golf. Yeah, I watched Colin Morcao win at the WGC at the concession golf club. You made up all of those words and said them in that order.

Okay, fine. But you watched golf and you healed yourself and then you re-engaged with the culture. We have, I think, on and off, talked about almost every Golden Globe since we started doing this podcast back in 2012, 2011, whenever we started this podcast.

And I think we do it with tongue-in-cheek, but sincere kind of anticipation and, you know, excitement around the project. Generally speaking, the reason why I have enjoyed the Globes in the past is for the very thing that was absent from this year's Globes, as many people who wrote recap pieces pointed out, this was the Globes year where we did not get to see people getting increasingly toasted on champagne and no food hanging out in a small ballroom. So we had a virtual award ceremony. And as with years past, our buddy, Zach Barron has written about this in the past, for GQ. We have obviously a lot of more recent accusations or charges sort of levied at the

Hollywood foreign press about both institutional bias and also some questionable ethical dealings when it comes to how they choose what gets nominated and what wins. There are no black people who are a member of the Hollywood foreign press. That has been coming up recently in an LA Times article. So you go into this with probably a bad taste in your mouth. You're just kind of like, you know, like I understand we all have to participate in the celebrity industrial complex, but at the same time, like, is this one that we should just like, let's lie by the wayside and try something else? So that was, I think, hanging over this. And then, as usually happens, Hollywood finds a way. Life finds a way to give you like three or four moments that you're like,

really glad that happened. Really, really glad I saw this, whether a lot of or after the fact. And this was pretty amusing. And I'm glad that Daniel Kaluya or whoever was celebrated for their work. So I guess I went into this thing with pretty mixed emotions. And that hasn't really changed. I was just happy for some of the folks who won. Yeah.

I think let's begin by saying anytime something or someone worthwhile is celebrated in a public forum, that's great. Sure. That's great. It doesn't matter how random or suspect the organization. organization is or the circumstances, like, good work should be recognized. People should feel good about having their work recognized in any form. That is truly why I went to CPAC. I also, you know, listen, you've known me for years. I'm a big fan of idols, like golden idols, you know, like all the way

back to the Bible, like that first lamb or whatever that Moses brought down. I was like, that's dope. Let's worship that. Yeah. So, but it's funny. I was going to make a CPAC joke too, but no need now. But basically to say that this is the year, and I am also being slightly tongue and cheek here, but this is the year when a lot of core truths or beliefs that we had as relatively affluent American citizens, these beliefs were shattered or fell by the way, Sutter, you realize, like, things don't always have to be this way. There isn't always a safety net. Things, you know, a lot of truth that we believed about, like, our government or whatever, have fallen or about our own public health or about our neighbors, whatever.

This is also the year that I think the card got pulled on the Golden Globes. And it is not because it's a shockingly non-diverse membership group. Nobody thought it was diverse. I mean, I'm not saying this isn't a problem. We can discuss that in a separate segment or further down the road of this conversation, but everybody knew it was a sketchy clown show. It's always been. That's fine.

But what I think was not well-understand. understood was that the Golden Globes exist, not just exist at the forefront of our culture or our Oscar ballot balloting predictions game, but just exist full stop is because NBC pays to have a TV show where celebrities drink champagne in a room. That is why they exist. The Hollywood foreign press, I'm going to drop another mind bomb for you guys. Press in general is not raking in the big bucks, but NBC having a multi-year contract to funnel millions of dollars to this group to put on this award show, that's why it exists. Yeah, that's it.

And this year they couldn't deliver that. You know, all of the complaints about the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association or of the snubs and the nominations in a normal year, those would have gotten some traction and maybe they would have gotten some response and maybe some much needed attending to within the ranks of this bizarre group. But all of it would have been forgotten with a fun, glitzy ceremony hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poller

potentially in the same city, which then, by dint of having such a weird, small cabal, showered awards on some very deserving people who, my guess is, won't be showered with awards around Oscar or even next year's Emmy time. So fundamentally, they're supposed to deliver an entertaining TV show about drunk celebrities

and they couldn't do it. Not only couldn't they do it, the only real winner last night, other than Andrew Day, I guess, is the Emmys. Because the Emmys really, in retrospect, pulled off something kind of miraculous. It was a really good show. And it wasn't just a really good award show.

It was good in surprising ways. They steered into the skid of the moment and somehow managed to put on something that was technically, I guess, impressive in terms of just pulling it off, but just had a different spirit and a different flavor and was entertaining because of the difference, not in spite of it. Golden Globe's show was pretty much a train wreck.

And so it just fell on every level that it needed to. And yeah, we can get into some of the winners that we're happy about. But I was pretty surprised. And turning it into not just like a weird, uncomfortable low-tech Zoom meeting with celebrities who didn't want to talk to each other was one choice. But then Tina and Amy smelling blood just went after it. and just made those old weird journalists just like eat shit in front of an audience. That was so weird and it made me feel like maybe we're just not going to do this anymore.

Yeah. So I also, one thing I noticed without having the spectacle of the ceremony and the people like interacting, because like there is just like the thrill of, oh look, there's Angelina Jolie talking to Josh O'Connor. Like that doesn't get to happen this year or whatever. But having those ceremony and actually only thinking about the quite nonsensical awards in a lot of ways, makes you kind of realize that the service it provides or like the mile marker it provides on the road to the Oscars is, if not useful, at least educational. So now, obviously, I would say Nomad Land is the favorite for Best Picture, close out, is the favorite best director.

There will be a lot of conversation now about some of the flaws of Nomad Land, I think, You know, I think some of the approaches Nomadland chooses to take to some of the subjects in the movie will be scrutinized maybe a little bit more closely. And there will be some conversation about whether Daniel Caludia is going to be a favorite, whether this person is a favorite. Like, I get what it means to the movies as like a spring training for the Oscars. I don't know what purpose it serves for television. It feels late.

It feels out of touch. I actually don't disagree with many of the winners. I'm a big crown person. So it's kind of cool to see this very good crown season rewarded on such an almost sweep level. But I don't, it felt kind of out of touch with the cycle of TV. And that's something that I think is only going to get worse, not better over the years. And so I sort of wonder whether the globe should just be a movie award show. And if that might be, it's like the way you kind of fix it.

I don't disagree with you. I think honestly, they won't do any of these things. So we're just spitballing here. But if you did want to differentiate your television perspective for the Golden Globes, because you're right, so much of its outsized importance just as an award ceremony comes because it is right before the Oscars. So it does fuel momentum narratives, and that does have an effect absolutely on the eventual Oscar voting in many cases, and certainly the perception of the Oscars.

this far removed from the Emmys, which are the traditional totem of television excellence, it serves no purpose, just kind of weekly parrot what the Emmys kind of did anyway. What would be really interesting is if they chose a lane, because TV, as we talk about weekend and week out, is very stratified right now. And we can spend all this time talking about,

I may destroy you in that way. But millions upon tens of millions of people have never seen it or heard of it. And if you're going to differentiate the ceremonies, what would be great is let the elderly existing members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association continue to work the movie side of the ball. That's where the biggest stars often are. That's those, the lunches they want to attend and the gala's. And, you know, they have a lot of history watching the important movies every year because there aren't that many of them in the consensus culture year after year.

There are probably fewer going forward. And there might even be fewer going forward. but separate the TV part out and hire 70 people diverse people working in the media under the age of 35 and just give them the TV part of it and change it completely embrace what the Golden Globes could be which is a hard-time achievement award to SpongeBob then right

that's terrifying yes Norman Lear hands off his trophy this year to Ang the Avatar from the last Airbender series But seriously, like the times that we've talked about the Golden Globes being good for television and the times that I remember are when they anoint people first. You know, when it was Homeland, for example, winning Best Drama, when it had only been on for a few months, or Donald Glover or Phoebe Waller Bridge, are these people being, you know,

basically demanding attention from the industry and then getting it subsequently six months later when the stodgy or Emmys came around, that would kind of be interesting to just. to just plant a flag and be like, this is what TV is going to be, and we're going to do that. But anyway, they won't do that. So instead, we just get this very weak sauce of, you know, kind of conventional group think,

very, very suspicious outlier things, like that see a movie being nominated for Best Picture. Right. Rosamine Pike winning for I Care a lot, literally a movie that came out like 10 days ago. It's just very bizarre. But they couldn't even put on a good, good show and let me say I thought Tina and Amy were hilarious I loved the opening it was

downhill from there what was so odd was that the show didn't seem to understand what people might want to see and what it might offer that other shows can't for example the the clip package for Norman Lear and then Norman Lear at 98 years old talking about his career and saying thank you great why did they turn it into a a Zoom breakout room where every so often we could see Brian Cranston chuckle to himself while seated next to his vanity-branded mescal. You know what I mean? Like I,

we don't want to look at boxes on our screens. And we certainly don't want to look at them when they are just like almost on dial-up connections with people who don't even, wouldn't even get a zero on Room Raider. It was so bizarre to me. It was such a misread. I'm just going to run through the TV winners really quickly.

Just see if we have any comments on this. So Crown one for drama, Schitt's Creek one for comedy. Queens Gambit one for limited. Just FYI. those are all three Netflix-associated shows, if not Netflix shows specifically, Schitt's Creek was Pop TV,

but became a Netflix sensation. Happy about Queens Gambit. Emma Corrin won for Best Actress Drama, which is, I think, an odd designation. She's in like five of the episodes. There's a couple that she's just straight up not in, so I think it's odd that she, but she definitely has, like,

the most flashiest part in the crown this season. Also, some people in the HFPA membership do kind of believe, that their mandate is to champion the new. Absolutely, because that also goes for Josh O'Connor winning for Best Actor in a Drama, and he certainly did not have as big of a role this season, I thought, as he did the previous season. But, I mean, that's all debatable. Anya Taylor Joy won for actress in a limited series.

Gillian Anderson, one for supporting actress drama, John Boyega, supporting actor drama, and Mark Ruffalo actor in a limited series for I Know This Much is True. And then the most important win of the night obviously came for Best Actor in a Comedy. And that was Jason Sudecass wearing a tie-dye hoodie in the middle of the night in London where presumably he is working on Ted Lassa season two and just being the based god, just absolutely talking his shit. And looking, as many people have noted, divorced A.F. And I wondered whether or not that speech, did you get any flicker of, I should finish Ted Lazo?

No, but I also should say very happy for him. Seems like a nice guy. Very happy for the show's many passionate fans who love it, and I'm sure we're very happy to see it rewarded. I should add, and I think I said this last year on the podcast, even before the Ted Lasso controversy, which only exists on our podcast. You just didn't care for it that much, and I loved it. Yeah, but there are people who are not satisfied with leaving it there.

But the time I did see Jason Siddakis in person, when as far as I know, he was still married, I believe I've mentioned this. He was wearing a regulation Lakers jersey, shorts, athletic shorts that looked like they were potentially tear away. He's compression pants. He goes to the Adam Sandler School of dressing for going outside. Yes. Exactly. He looked like he was ready to leave from where I saw him and head straight to the Allie G. Invitational Pickup Basketball Game tournament. So what I'm saying is when this guy is off the clock, he's all the way off. And my favorite thing about him winning last night was actually a tweet I saw this morning from his ex-wife, the writer and director, Kay Cannon, who...

That's his ex-wife? He was married to Kay Cannon before Olivia Wilde? Yes. I had no idea. His first ex-wife, I guess I should say, are soon to be... I don't know what the nomenclature is, but yes. He's not from Utah. I'm sure it's his first ex-wife, yeah.

Well, I just mean, I don't think he and Olivia Wilde are divorced. I don't know the legal, so maybe he only has one currently one. Sure. I'll love it. Yeah. Anyway, very sweetly congratulating him and loving the show and saying that she has many years' experience of watching the Golden Globes with him stoned A.F. So, you know, I thought that was very sweet.

That's cool. And probably a little bit of a window into it. Yeah, other than that in that long list, okay, that's my response. Yeah. It's nice. Cool. Sure. My response is cool.

Who do you think? Sudecas got all the headlines. My favorite, I can't fucking believe they dragged me in front of a 2002 sunflower stem IMAC to scowl and tuxedo for 45 seconds was Donald Sutherland losing in the undoing, who was resplendent in his resentment and fury about even being dragged to this. Yes. Pacino is similarly uninterested in participating in the, event.

My other favorite response was, was Fincher, taking a shot. I thought that was great, too, because that was also the award. He took a shot when, uh, when Mank didn't win screenplay,

right? Which would have been his late father winning an award. Yes. Um, Aaron Sorkin won that. I was very interested, uh,

in Aaron Sorkin, uh, armoring himself with a phalanx of seven women to combat the seven men who were featured in his movie. The trial in Chicago Senate. I thought that was very interesting. Also, shout out to my favorite joke that Fay and Polar made about his innate ability

to make seven men arguing with each other sound like 100 men. Good stuff. Fincher, I mean, I guess if you want to look at the one potential for the Zoom stuff being a positive, is that it occasionally can give you a little glimpse into a side of a celebrity or an artist that you might not have gotten.

And with Fincher, the reputable. But computationally, right? Sometimes what you get is that he's an exacting taskmaster and he's a total perfectionist. And he's smothering and some people can't bear it. And he's then the flip side of that is he's just self-flagellating when he's done. He's so critical. And yet when we talk to people who've worked with him like Jonathan Graff or Kim Dickens, they're like, we love him. We would do anything for him.

And he's seemed like a very kind of fun, mischievous guy on Zoom. His sense of humor came out. The thing I actually really enjoy about award season, aside from just the pageantry of it, but also the fact that a lot of really worthwhile pieces of art get celebrated is it tends to bring together a bunch of different people from across the spectrum of moviemaking and television making and force them to participate in roundtable conversations. And often those are like some of my favorite interviews of the year. Sometimes they're really backslappy, but, you know, the Fincher Affleck thing that they did for Hollywood Reporter, I think, where it's just Affleck interview

Fincher for 45 minutes is priceless. Like I, like, I wish they had a podcast together. It's just amazing shit. Did you see this? I didn't. It's great. So he's like asking, Affleck is asking Fincher, um, when like the idea for Mank first arrived and Fincher was talking, he said like, you know, it was right after Alien

3 and Affleck goes, so you were at your peak. They should have a podcast. And then they were talking about it. Uh, the Affleck was participating in an actors around Dibble because he was up for, um, a bunch of stuff for the way back. Like, people thought he was going to get nominated. I mean, maybe he did for the Globes. I can't remember.

But he was, like, talking about Mank, and he was like, you know, as a recovering alcoholic screenwriter, it really spoke to me. So, I don't know. Did you, I'm trying to remember which was a recent Marin podcast where he let it slip that he recorded two and a half hour interview with Fincher. And Fincher demanded final cut on it, and so he can't release it. Oh my God. Fincher was like, I can do better. I don't think it was mean-spirited. Right.

He was like, how dare you? Yeah, redo some of this stuff. It was in the Jody Foster one, I think. Oh, yeah. Jody Foster also live in life to the max. Your old pal, Jody Foster. That's right. Any more Globe stuff you want to hit?

Yeah, I mean, I guess I want to ask you, Chris. It's not, okay, so it's not if, when you are nominated for something multiple times. I'm the only one here. You don't have to say my name. I could have been like Ustetes could have been a plural U. Sure right

The Jay McInerner to you I think it's better Like okay I would not attend a Zoom award ceremony And I would attend it in person You know there are people like Francis McDormand Generally doesn't

GAF no matter what But she does show up Like she gave a very memorable speech When she won for three Oscar For three billboards And there's some people Who just never show up to any of them you know, but I kind of really, I, but then there's the school of thought that like,

are there people still don't show up at all if they're nominated? Yeah, I'm sure there are. I mean, I'm sure there are, there's some who have, I mean, I can't name a list of them, but they're generally people who aren't there year to year when they're nominated or they don't make an effort to be there. But I guess the, the counter argument is that if it is a virtual ceremony and you, like, in the case of like, Yaya Abdul Matin, like, aren't even leaving your spare bedroom with a futon on it.

Sure. Right. To be there. It's easier. Jeff Daniels was definitely in like a comfort in suite. Jeff Daniels was in the motel they checked him into for his audition for Yellowstone spin-offs.

You know what I mean? That was wild. But my point is like I respect not showing up for the virtual one. Even though it's easier, it's worse. Because you're going to sit there with a ringlight and just scowl. I don't, I don't see the upside. I don't see the upside. Let's take a quick break.

And when we come back, we'll talk about Wanda Vision. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.

This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets at the game or grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply.

wishing you could be there live for the big game soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd but too often life gets busy or the price hold you back Priceline is here to help you make it happen with millions of deals on flights, hotels and rental cars you can go see the game live don't just dream about the trip

book it with Priceline Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com actual prices may vary limited time off So you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night's day anywhere? Anywhere. What about fancy places like the canopy in Paris? Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby. Or relaxing sanctuaries, like the Conrad in Tulum?

Hilton Honors, baby. What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties? When you want points that can take you anywhere, any time, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Book your spring break now. All right, Andy, we're back. Again, this is not the haters' ball.

We're working through our feelings. You know, I think we are, we're treading a line, you know, and I don't want to ever diminish things that give people joy, especially in this day and age. But I do want to start this conversation by asking you this. Do you think that Kenneth Launergan burned the masterprint of Manchester by the sea when he saw this latest episode of Wanda Vision because he was like,

no one else will ever say anything more profound about grief. I am struggling, Christopher, the only other person here in the room with me. Well, Sasha's here, but, you know. Other than, I know. But actually, Sasha probably isn't listening right now because she didn't want Wanda Visions

spoiled for her. Shout to Sashi was engineered today. There's also a synthesoid that is in six bisected pieces, $3 billion worth of vibranium here in my office, and I'm trying to piece back together. But I'm struggling here.

This show and the tsunami that it presages... There's two things. There's the show and the discourse around the show. It's turning me into Martin Scorsese. I'm sorry, I just am. You wish. The greatest American filmmaker alive. It's who I am now.

That's right. No, in the sense that I find myself on a lonely island, shot Dandy Sandberg, making what I believe to be relatively innocuous comments that I think are by and large objectively true and yet riling the masses as if I am intentionally doing donuts on everyone's Twitter front lawn. Thank God, like Martin Scorsese, I have the wit and wisdom of Fran Lievitts to take solace in. That's right. Because there are two lanes here.

Is this a TV show that is made to the highest level of quality with craftspeople working their asses off on every side of the camera? With great performances. With great performances from actors whom we really, really like, admire, and respect. And is it at base level entertaining? At the minimum? Yes. A thousand times yes.

But I am really struggling. And maybe this is the Twitter coming back on me too, because I'm seeing these tweets that we're, you know, sort of innocuously joking about. But, like, we are, I, you can't put serious, um, parentheses of, like, high art around this show. The conversation, the ways that we talk about things, I may destroy you. It's a sin, which I finished last night and has totally wrecked me. Those shows are interested in human experience in life and leave me feeling very complicated waves of emotion.

Wanda Vision, at its best, leaves me feeling entertained and impressed. That's no small thing. Many, many shows do not clear those bars. But... There's so much pressure on this show. There's a lot of pressure on it. And I don't think that we don't necessarily

give the show the amount of credit that it deserves for being as graceful under this pressure. Because it's the first salvo in this Disney Plus Marvel Extended Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Television Gambit, they're making. And had they put out Falcon and the Winter Soldier first, I think that probably would have been a safer play. That would have been to just double the left, you know, and we just

start the inning. And that's great. And this is definitely a different pitch from Marvel, although I don't necessarily think it's like a Jacques-Tati playful, like, Lynchian thing. I think it is like they had like thing that they were doing in the beginning of the season where they were running through these decades of homages to television. And then it has slowly become basically the middle part of a Marvel

movie where there's a lot of exposition. And that's fine. I think that's cool. I think that you and I are dipshits for getting absolutely triggered by people on Twitter being like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. So that's on us. Honestly,

that's you and me dunking on one another at the same time and then both breaking our arms doing it or something. I don't even know what the image should be, but we're idiots to be at this age in our lives and be like, Jesus Christ, somebody said this on Twitter about Wanda Vision and now I'm like, my mind is broken. That's a cool image. Both of us dunking on very, very, very low nets should be the new logo for this podcast. I really do it. Two, yeah, I think someone tweeted like the line about like grief and perseverance of love It was like, the shot, the hurt, I think Vision says, like, grief is just love persevering or something like that. And they, and somebody put up a tweet that was like, every screenwriter in town just said, fuck, in an appreciation.

Right. I mean, I can't even, I don't know where to begin. I just feel sorry that these people aren't watching things that are good, like really good. You know what I mean? It's like, I remember, people know this about me. I really, really enjoy a feature on the New York Magazine website Grub Street, the Grub Street Diet. Yeah, you participated in it. I was the greatest honor of my professional life.

You're not only the president, but you're also a member. But I read it every week. A random person, you know, I guess with some significance in their field or whatever, like reports back on everything they eat over the course of a week. And it's very interesting about- I've never seen you work on anything harder than you did on this. It's the longest thing I've ever written. I'm sorry to everyone. I'm more proud of that than anything I've written in the last five years.

But, and I wrote it four and a half years ago. But my point is, there is one that stands out, and it was this dude, Stephen, I forget his name. He was the owner of a bar in Greenpoint called The Commodore, which was like a great kind of divey bar, and they had like tater tots and wings, and it was a cool place. And I think he also used to be in bands. He was in Harvey Danger or something. and his Grub Street diet was kind of celebrated because he's just like, I only eat at the checkers near my apartment.

I am a professional cook, so I cook beautiful breakfast for my girlfriend, and then I go eat two fried chicken sandwiches at Checkers and get like runoff coffee from the bodega. And then at night I go back to Chequers and eat two more hamburgers before I go to bed. Right. And everyone was like, like, yes, king.

You drop this king. Yeah. You dropped these two fried chicken sandwiches. You drop dead of heart blockage king. But all I could think of... Can I interrupt you for a second? Can I interrupt you for a second? You know what I did this weekend at one point?

Without getting into specifics? I had my first double cheeseburger in a really long time. Oh my God. How did it treat you? Honestly, I feel like it knew I needed it. And there were no issues. Because you know, sometimes you eat a cheeseburger and you're just like, now I'm dead. I felt power.

I felt power from it and I felt like just like my heart meter went up. That was also probably my cholesterol. But I just felt like I hadn't had a double smash burger like that in a really long time. And it really, it sent me. Sometimes you need it. And by the way, I know that that happened to you because I checked in with you on Saturday and you texted it back, watching golf in all caps.

I was not watching golf. That's the salt and meat coursing through his body. God bless. Yeah. What did we eat the time before we went to see, Fleetwood Mac at like the Twitter Center in New Jersey in 2004, where you introduced the idea of a meat coma to me. I think there was like a large barbecue feast or something. Oh, it was a ton of chicken. I think we ate a ton of like rotisserie barbecue chicken. And I was just like, I'm getting the meat

sweats. We were so, so young. And so was, so was Lindsay and Stevie. Anyway, my only point of this wild digression was that, yes, it's cool to eat that stuff sometimes because it is engineered to taste amazing and to hit the spot. But all I could think when I read it was I was like, I feel bad that he sometimes doesn't eat other food to contrast it with. And that's my only thing with Wanda I don't know. I'm creating, listen, before I get in trouble for this, this is all straw men. Everyone raving about Wanda Vision has other shows they like. I am not defining you. I don't mean to paint you with that brush. But the reason we're struggling to talk about it is, okay, should we talk about this show? Yeah, let's talk about this episode. Sure.

Sasha, feel free to turn on a noise machine right now if you have it already. We don't want to spoil Sasha. But Catherine Hahn's a witch. Yes. And all of this, as it turns out, as a season, appears to be, again, very clever, very well architected work to backfill a character who didn't really have an identity in the Marvel universe to become her original name, Scarlet Witch, but also to introduce magic in a more full-throated way into the Marvel. Marvel universe and to make the character not a mutant, not a, you know, artificially constructed from Infinity Stone's supervillain or an inhuman or whatever they were going to do for a while. She's a magical person who wields magic and is a witch.

That's where all of this was going. Agatha. And so. Is that? No, Scarlet Witch. Scarlet Witch. Right. So, okay.

Once again, this is the sound of everyone who's ever had to construct a pitch document for franchise IP in Hollywood going, fuck. That's what's impressive. Because they did it. They thread the needle. Yeah. They created something that helps them. They got her into a new kind of, they put her in a new car. Yeah. So that's cool. But beyond that, if we're talking specifics, I mean, first of all,

thank you, Lord Fike, you heard my plea. Take me back to Sikovia. You know, I have been banging that drum since Ultron dropped the landmass the first time. Get me back to that fictional eastern European city. I wish there was like a whole front line about Sukhavia. Like I wish we, like, in addition to WandaVision, we could also watch like the 60 minutes

deep dive into Socovia after Ultron and stuff like that. Like, that's, that's my shit. When do we get to the point when we can digitally recreate the God Anthony Bourdain for the Parts Unknown Socovia episode? My God. I mean, like, why not? Why not? So yes, it's basically a dual origin story.

It's the origin story of Agatha. It's the origin story of the Scarlet Witch. There's also this like, I frankly, like, and this might be like the limits of my own understanding of this stuff, or maybe I'm just not paying attention closely enough. But am I right in understanding that Sword actually wants, like, their whole goal this whole time was to get a little juice from inside of the, this hacks to power up this new vision? I hope so. because otherwise my man

Josh Danberg the guy who plays Tyler Hayward Sword director Tyler Hayward Acting sword director Tyler Hayward yeah Acting sword director Tyler Hayward Which this is take

This is what scary So Avengers Endgame takes place in 2020 Right? Okay And that's when the snap gets undone And everybody comes back right So does the fact that he's acting

Acting Director of Sword mean that Trump has won in 2024 has come back and reinstituted his usual habit of making people acting director of things. That's fascinating. Well, first of all, that suggests that Sword, which was created in the MCU for this TV series, is a cabinet-level organization devoted just to weapons from outer space, I believe. It does not like something Trump created?

And does Tyler Hayward have some problematic tweets, and that's why he can't get confirmed by the Senate? Do you think that's the problem? I think, I think, I think, I think, Ken Cuchinelli was nominated to Run Sword. She couldn't get through, couldn't get through the Senate. That's kind of a, that's kind of an L for Tyler, if he's just been acting since Monica Rambo's mother left. If like, Jared Kushner was just like, sure, whatever. Five years ago. Yeah.

But your, your theory works for me if. That sword wants vision to, like, some, something from inside the hex to reanimate vision. That they get something from the dream. that they sent in. Otherwise, it is an extremely lax security policy where he's just like, okay, one of the most powerful people in the known universe, please come into my personal office, which for some reason as operating room windows overlooking the place where we chop up your boyfriend, show her the trauma, and then basically plant the seed that she's powerful enough to bring him

back to life. Right. So it almost has to be that way. I mean, it is either a complete failure of his job or. or expert mustache twirling supervillain shit. Right. So I'm a little confused about that. I think that the other side effect

of the amount of conversation about Wanda Vision, of which I am an active participant, and earlier in the season, was really enjoying because I felt like you could watch a slightly off-kilter send-up of 1950s or 1960s sitcoms, and then go and find out that the newspaper that she was holding

had an advertisement for something that has long been referenced in Marvel comics or might suggest something coming. That has kind of now spun out of control where I feel like where I was a couple weeks ago when it was like, big shit's about to pop off.

We think Reed Richards is coming. She's got this friend that she's texting with. We don't know who that character is. And the multiverse has been invented because there's like this new version of Pietro. Quicksilver. New old version. and like it's just like it's all happening.

And I was like, I'm in the Cadillac, me and Greenwald, Delman Louise, driving full speed towards the edge and I'm ready to just take off. And then it's like, oh, actually, no, we've got a bunch of toll booths before that. And then it turns out that once you get to the last toll booth, the next road is just Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Like the next road is just Dr. Stranger. The next road is just like you thought you were going to go and just find everything out and get all will be revealed.

And in fact, it's just wait till next week and wait till next season and wait till the next movie. And that's my mistake for forgetting how this stuff works. But I think I got caught up a little bit in the idea that this very strange show was going to actually introduce a lot of like pretty highfalutin concepts to the to the MCU. And I'm just kind of like, what are we doing here? Well, it can or it can. You know, I don't want to discredit like the ballziness for lack of a better term of how they opened the season. those three episodes and the craft that Matt Jackman and everybody else brought to them,

they were really fun, interesting, and surprising in ways that the mainst of mainstream superhero entertainments usually aren't. Like, that's very cool. That's good. What I guess has left me feeling both separate and apart from the social media reaction, which

I agree we should not be responding to or attempting to double elbow dunk on or whatever. But like, I think the thing that has left me probably the coldest, and if not even a little annoyed, is the realization that there's just not that much depth here by design. And to use the, I keep going to junk food analogies, which isn't fair because I don't mean to make it pejorative. When I praise Doritos, I am praising them as genius level feats of American ingenuity and engineering. Like,

I love Doritos. I eat a lot of them and then I don't feel all that great afterwards. Sure. Because they have tricked my brain and my mouth into thinking I want more and I want more. And the Evan Peters thing is a Dorito. It could mean that now all the mutants are coming and it's opening the door to this multiverse where the Fox movies are canon when we want them to be and there can be crossovers. Or it could be, as Catherine Hahn said in this episode, I couldn't use the real corpse of, by the way, poor Aaron Taylor Johnson. That sucks. I couldn't get the real corpse, so I just made up a fake one. So it's kicking the can down the road, but everyone, and got that rush.

And for some people, that rush is super fun and exciting, but it's not going to lead to anything except the next thing it's going to lead to. That's how this stuff works. And I think that the reason, if you want to take a step back and we can be a little less catty about it,

I'm not, like, as this stuff becomes more and more the only thing we're going to get, there's going to be more and more scrutiny on what it's delivering. And if shows like it's a sin or, I may destroy you or Atlanta or

or take your pick of any number of like really interesting shows that are pushing what television can be start to become more and more obscured by the all-powerful black hole that is franchise intellectual property and we're just as guilty of that. We've spent seven weeks talking about Wanda Vision but I also think we're spending this much time talking about it because we find the show interesting and what the show means very interesting but I worry that if you're just like

everything I learned about grief I learned about from Juan to Maximoff about age of Ultron, I don't know. I feel like that is a bad lesson to learn. I feel like that is not great personally. But maybe that's my foginess talking. Maybe that's my, I'm out of date.

I'm a dinosaur. Well, I think that when we talk to our close personal friend Ethan Hawk the other week, his answer to the first Moonnight question which I think has been, you know, it's a breakout at the videos on social media, but he was, I think, correctly saying that what we talk about and the way we talk about it matters, right?

And more challenging art or more ambitious art isn't naturally going to fall into people's laps or fall under their screens unless you championed and talk about it. And so I think that to pull the full fourth wall Wanda vision thing with our podcast, I think that we are concerned about the encroachment of the hex

onto what we like to think of as a place where we can champion stuff that's meaningful to us. And we've kept the barriers pretty solid for a while because with a Marvel movie every so often, which I adore,

and I especially adore the experience of, you know, that I hope I can do again one day of going to the arc light at Monday morning, 10 a.m. banging out that movie, coming fresh from the theater to talk to you about it.

it feels limited. But the walls of that enchantment spell are just, they're coming closer and closer and closer. And I have to imagine our buddies, Sean and Amanda, are feeling a little bit of Schadenfreude about this because that's what happened to their turf. You know, the Marvel and Disney stuff's fun to talk about sometimes, but you also want to talk about the other stuff.

But increasingly, there wasn't much middle ground anymore and it was really only one or the other. and you've got to try to find the balance. And, you know, we will definitely, I think, do a post-mortem on how we feel about this and how we're going to cover them coming forward because they're going to be just so many of these shows in the next years in the years to come. Falcon and Winter Soldier starts in the middle of March. There will be like a one week break, I think, or two-week break, and then Falcon and the Winter Soldier starts. What do you want to see in this last episode of Wanda Vision?

Not necessarily like what does it have to do plot-wise, but is there a feeling you want to leave? with that would feel satisfactory. What I really wanted to do is just really successfully set up Dr. Strange 2 in the multiverse of madness. I mean, that's what you say about most things. That's what you, that's what we were saying about it's a sin. Weirdly, and I know, and I was, I know, spoilers, I was disappointed in how that set up the sequel.

No, I mean, I, again, I'm, I'm being kind of bitchy about it because that is verbatim what Kevin Feigy said the goal of Wanda Vision was. There is no, there are no plans for season two. It's purpose, but it is not a self-contained story about one woman's processing of grief, which is the perseverance of love. It is trying to successfully set up Dr. Strange, too. And so I don't, this is why you hear the frustration of my voice because what goals? I don't know.

I'd like to be entertained. Hopefully it'll be an entertaining end. I just want to see Wolverine and Deadpool fight. But that's exactly. That's baked into the enthusiasm here. There are people who I'm sure we've shared meals with and would love and respect, who are genuinely honestly geeked to see a storyline from John Burns' Avengers West Coast brought to life with an all-white rebooted, potentially emotion-free vision,

which is a storyline I remember from my childhood. Unless it's in the service of something, I don't have that reaction. But that's just me. All right. Well, on Thursday, we're going to talk about the final few episodes of It's a Sin. We talked about the first two last Thursday. We're going to finish that season on Thursday. We'll have some other stuff for you.

Andy, I'm sorry we're haters. Listen, guys, if you want to me to be my full, open-hearted, green-and-red synthesoid self, not this cold, unfeeling white reboot of myself, listen on Thursday. Because it's a sin. It's just wrecked me. I hope everybody's watching it. Five episodes, I said six. When we talked about it last week, I was wrong.

I guess it was wishful thinking. It's just wonderful. And I really hope people watch it and ready to talk about it with us on Thursday. Yeah, I think it's the best show of the year so far. So I'm really excited to chat about it with you. Until then, thanks to Sasha. Thanks to everybody for listening. Shout out to everybody living in Westview.

Shout to my Covenant of Witches, by the way. Yeah, shout out to Salem. You gave it your best. Yeah. Wasn't good enough in the end. But we tried. All right, we're out. Talk to you guys later.

In a food system this big, Feeding America races to get good food to neighbors facing hunger. That's why we work in real time, using technology to connect food to people fast. Hunger doesn't wait. Give now to help rescue good food for neighbors at feedingamerica.org slash rescue food.