The Watch - What’s the Future of James Bond? Plus, Celebrating Craig Mack and Bad Boy Records | The Watch (Ep. 235)

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald celebrate the life of Craig Mack and the incredible run for Bad Boy Records in the '90s (2:30). Later, they discuss James Bond’s uncertain future (10:00) and what a 31-hour binge of every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in preparation for ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ would look like (22:00) and analyze Episode 2 of Netflix’s ‘Collateral’ (33:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Build your own bracket now at yahoo.com slash torny 2018. And welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am the editor. at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio. Andy, come out and play. It's Andy Greenwald! What an exciting intro!

For all my fish and spaghetti friends. I love it. It's the bad boy podcast of the ringer podcast network. The watch, the re-up, it's Thursday. What's up, Andy? We invented the remix on this podcast. What is a podcast remix? What would that be?

Would that be like Juliet hosting this pod? That's when Katie Nolan gets here. to just sort of take her rightful spot in the second chair. Chris, I'm excited about doing this podcast today. We have a popery of topics to talk about. And most of all, I'm excited because, first of all, you're well rested. You've not been on an airplane today. I got a full tank.

But also, right before you hit record, you said, finally I can be myself. And I just feel like, I'm really curious what that's going to be. Andy, today we are going to talk about, we'll talk about collateral episode two. that show continues to be good. We enjoy that show. We're also going to talk a couple of news bits.

Danny Boyle, possibly directing the next James Bond movie. This proposed 31 hour, the MCU marathon, the AMC theaters are going to be running going up into Avengers Affinity War. But a somber note, although I want to celebrate Craig Mack's life. I don't just want to mourn his death, which I obviously do. But like Craig Back is somebody who maybe some of our younger listeners don't know, although I'm sure they know his two or three biggest hits. Craig Mack was like the original bad boy recording artist

for Sean Combs' iconic New York rap label and made one of the great rap songs of all time. Yeah. Flavor and Year. The Flavor and Year remix featuring Notorious B.I.G. In a classic verse. And specifically the video for that remix. Yeah.

Which is this, I think it's hype. Williams. It has to be. It has to be. Hype Williams, white background, black and white photography, guys just stunting. And, you know, like, there's lots of people who talk about, like, seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or seeing Eleanor, hearing Elvis for the first time. It's, like, I don't know necessarily that it's, like, on that level of, like, cultural significance. But in my life, when I saw that in 96 or whatever it was, 94, that was, like a screaming across the sky moment.

It was, like, the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life. up into that point. Yeah, 1,000%. And you have to consider the degree of difficulty because Rampage, the last Boy Scout, is on that remix. Yes. That's a dude who went to the cool rap name store twice

and struck out both times. And he was just like, I'll just, all right, this is the hoagie you gave me. I guess I'll eat it. Yeah. Craig Mack passed away this week at the age of 47 of natural causes. That's what was reported in the New York Times

and our buddy John Caramanica wrote his obituary for the times. You know, Craig Mack was his name. First of all, that's something. Yeah. We sound celebratory because just bringing Craig Mac back into our lives, even under such terrible sad circumstances, has brought us a lot of joy because he and his music brought us so much joy. To your point, I did not know Craig Mac was his real name.

There was a moment in 94 in the early 90s when there was like Keith Murray was a rapper. That was a dope era. It was an incredible flex. He was just like, I'm just Keith Murray. I'm going to rap now. It never occurred to me that Craig Mac could. have been his name. Right.

Our producer is his cousin, apparently, Zach Mack. Zach Mack and Craig Mack. They have much in common. They inspire us. They both inspire us. I didn't realize that. I mean, you're born to do it. You're born to do it.

But that's like the pitcher. The guy was born to be a pitcher because his name is Grant Ball 4. You just got to do it. There's nothing else you can. I think that what we need to communicate to our younger listeners is in 1994, flavor in your year was the biggest song of the year. It was the most important song of the year. It was a, I like the way he said it.

It was common streaming across the sky. It was so exciting. To be fair, Thomas Pinchin said that. I'm just stealing it. So, can he co-host? Is he a veil? Thomas Pinchin and Katie Nolan remixing the watch would be pretty wild. Wow.

Ringer squad goals. That would be amazing. It was a complete, complete game changer. And I also think that people even who know the song don't realize that that dropped first before Biggie came out, before juicy dropped, I believe. And for a minute, because we were young and music fans were very, very into still, maybe this is inherited or borrowed from, like, Stones v. Beatles.

We were very into binaries. We had just come off of Nirvana or Pearl Jam, which at the time you kind of had to choose. Some people, like you have softened on, you like both bands. Sure. Not me, man. So just, I never liked the PJ.

Because I had to be Team Nirvana back in 1991. So you're telling me you're not going to go back up, sit in your station wagon and listen to Corderoyd off of Vidalogy. I'm going to confirm that. I'm going to confirm that. You can follow me and watch. But there was a moment when it was just like... That would be dope if I was like, Jane Goodall,

just like following behind you and be like, are you going to listen to Corderoy? You did tag me on my outer ear. It was like Craig Mac or Biggie. Which of these is going to be the bigger star? Yeah, there was a second or that was a question. I think, you know, that question was quickly answered. You know, you mentioned Nirvana and Pearl Jam,

and I think it's actually a pretty apt comparison. not necessarily because of where they were coming from in terms of like their nominal punk rock roots. But there was something about Bad Boy in the mid-90s, mid-late 90s, that captured the street feeling of rap at the time where you just like, it did have an energy that you could only find out in like the city streets. Playing out of cars with open windows. The vocabulary, the fashion, even the musical sensibilities.

But at the same time, the way that Puff and Hype Williams collaborated to come up with a look and that whole shiny suit era that would follow later on. But this was more of a like, what if we shot a bunch of dudes still wearing like track suits and hanging out?

Timberlands, yeah. And Tim's, but we shot it as if it was a Michael Bay movie. Yeah, it was, I mean, what's funny, or it's not funny, it's obvious if you listen to this podcast because now we are elderly men, but like this was incredibly aspirational.

And incredibly, this was the coolest shit there was. And I recommend, I assume many people follow them already, but Questlove wrote a long tribute to Craig Mack on Instagram that I recommend people check out. He talked about just what that track and what his rapping on it meant for the culture in that moment because we were coming out of a West Coast dominated moment. And he said that the New York rap at the time

while Dr. Dre was dominating in the earliest part of the 90s was really, I'd never heard this phrase, but I think this makes a lot of sense. It was coming out of the crack epidemic. It was paranoid and jittery and fast and sped up. And to hear flavor in your year, which had that, like, swagger and that slow boom bap that brought West Coast fans back into New York rap in a way. I mean, clearly things were about to get worse before they got better. Sure. But sonically, this was a huge thing.

And it was a harbinger for a period of whether you want to call it, New York exceptionalism, New York supremacy, before Atlanta and the South really put their stamp on rap. but with that era of New York where there was just such like a, like, it was kind of like watching the Yankees play where you're just like, I just hate these guys because they're so good. Like I knew, and you know, I was from, I was living in different East Coast cities than New York. And when I got to New York, like that feeling of sitting and, you know, like making time to listen to everybody from like,

whether it was Flex and Angie in the afternoon or Star and Buck in the morning. And all these, you would listen to Hot 97 all day. You would listen to these people like stop by the radio. They would be at the tunnel. There was this like imaginary but very real community and there were these places and there were these people and these video directors, fashion designers, all these people that you kind of would hear about that were all emanating from New York at the time. And I think the greatest, the tragedy here is that Craig Mack with his talent and charisma and charm and humor was there in the first leg of the race and quickly the pack went past him, you know? And whether it was because Puffy paid all turned all of his attention, the full spotlight on a biggie,

which is definitely the case. But also, Biggie Stardom was the harbinger of, as you said, the shiny suit era and marketing for dominance and marketing for videos. And there's a profile in the times of Craig Macon from that time where he just seems like he's a sweet kid. He was a kid from, I don't know if it was the South Shore, or Long Island.

He was from the Bronx originally and then he moved to Long Island. And he just wanted to like, he would have fit in almost better in like a little bit of a goofier era. Yeah. And it lapsed in. Yeah, you definitely, it's like, It's really wild to like think about his, you know, the ready to die coming out,

what, like a week after Craig Max's debut album. Was it Operation Funk the World? Yeah. All right. So, yeah, definitely. May that Operation Never end. Check out, Flavineur, check out Craig Max's music on wherever you check out music on streaming or on iTunes.

I wanted to, let's talk a little bit about a couple of news bits here. One is this Danny Boyle story because this actually came out today. Danny Boyle is starting to do some press for Trust, the FX series that he is coming soon, where it's basically the same story as all the money in the world, it's the Gettie kidnapping. We'll hit that show a little bit closer.

Fewer recastings. We'll hit that show closer to its air date. But news today that Danny Boyle and John Hodge, he worked on with Trainspotting, a lifeless ordinary, a shallow grave, that they are working on a Jim Spond script. Yeah. Daniel Craig is in for another Bond movie.

There is a screenplay from Neil Purvis and Robert Wade who have worked on the last few of San Mendi's directed bonds. And they have a short list of directors, which includes Denis Villeneuve and David McKenzie, who directed Hell or High Water. But there is now this, like, competing project. And so Danny Boyle said, we're working on a script at the moment.

We'll see what happens. But it's a great idea, so hopefully it will work. We'll love to be able to tell you more, but I can't. This is an interesting thing, because Danny Boyle, I really enjoy his movie. Yeah. Very script-dependent. I think that some of them are kind of sappy.

Some of them are kind of traditional. Some of them have really great ideas, but then fall apart at the end. And some are just uniformly excellent. But whether it's Steve Jobs or Sunshine or train spotting, you know, he's pretty dependent on his script. He's also very, he's a formalist. And he likes to screw around with our ideas about what a Hitchcockian thriller or a survival story or a biopic should be. Remember trance? I think that was his most recent, like,

here's what I really like to do movie. Yeah, which was this incredible psychological thriller. I think which was Rory O'Dawson, right? And so with this Bond thing, especially since it's going to be the last Craig Bond, or at least supposedly will, that's a perfect opportunity to do something like that, to radically reimagine what a Bond movie can be.

And Danny Boyle's the perfect director to do that. Yeah. I do not think that this will happen, though. I think it might, and here's why. I think that everyone is chomping at the bit to reboot Bond. This is a great opportunity for a new generation to get a hot young actor, potentially to address some of the diversity concerns that have long, well, not unfortunately, not long, but have plagued the franchise in the last decade.

But Daniel Craig is back. This almost definitely will be his last one. So I actually have a lot of time for the idea of Danny Boyle coming on because he's a veteran director who certainly directs like a young person. He's a very exciting camera. And I think your point is the right one. So let's send him out in a way that could actually be... I mean, they're not going to make the Logan version of Bond.

This isn't going to be like the... This isn't going to be a completely formally different thing about. To be fair, that's what Skyfall sort of is. Yes. Yeah. That's a great point. So sure, let the veterans have one more run at it, and then let's really tear it up and see what happens. So here's the problem with that. MGM and the Broccoli, the family that sort of has been stewarding this?

Speaking of cool names you're born with. Right. They are not, they are not, this is not their last movie. This is not their last movie. And they hold onto this property. And whether it's been, Quentin Tarantino rumored to have, he wanted to do Casino Royale, I believe.

He had a vision for that, even way before they even did it. Or Christopher Nolan, who is frequently associated. Oh God, that would be awful. Well, I mean, he made one with inception. They doesn't need to make a bomb movie. Yeah, right. I mean, he made his version of it.

Yeah. I mean, every, I think every, idea, not every idea in terms of like dream within a dream, but from the Morocco chasing. Yeah, like those were all bond set pieces. I don't think that they are looking to change how we feel about bond. I think that they would do that with the next bond that they cast or whatever, but they have over and over and over again straight away from this idea that they want to like upend what people's notions of James Bond are. Now, granted, the world is changing. There could be a lot you could do with this character. And there's also, it's a very interesting time to set a James Bond

character in. Just look no further than the front page of The Guardian and read about what's happening in Salisbury with nerve agents being deployed. But that's not really what Bond does. No, and, you know, this actually... It's not a Le Carrier character. But this goes to a bigger question that we can sort of fold into our discussion and maybe this is just going to hang over a lot of our coverage for the foreseeable future, which is we are in a moment in entertainment and culture where existing IP, you know, we'd say it and we'd joke about it. Every time you say it.

Is currency. It's more powerful than anything else. And there is such a desire to basically strip mine the canon for content that every one of your previously considered to be unadaptable classics is going to be up for a TV. version, right, or movie version. And Bond is one of, Bond obviously isn't a classic literature, but Bond is one of those tent holes that is always going to be in production or always going to be in development. And what I'm realizing, and this is coming of a little bit from watching things

as they unfold on the development side, is the slavish devotion to protecting and doing right by these older institutions and these beloved classics that mean something to a lot of people, I think in general those executives and creatives who are fostering this are forgetting that a lot of these, the best parts of these books, characters, franchises have already been stripped mine for parts themselves. To your point, Inception had some of the better James Bond set pieces that we've seen in recent years. You're totally right about that. What can Bond do better? Because Inception can also be original and have be about something else. And so this tension between people like the Broccoli

who are protecting their asset and the people who want to use Bond to make a contemporary story, the tension between them is always going to exist. More likely, we might be headed to a point where we are going to see all of our favorite directors and writers Bond movie in other pieces of work. So then what is a Bond movie?

Do you get what I'm saying? And they've also resisted doing what Star Wars is done, honestly, which is anthologizing Bond. There isn't a Moneypenny movie. There isn't a Q movie. Young Bond. There isn't a Young M movie. There isn't a Specter movie.

It just seems so un-British to do that way. Well, hell, I mean, like, honestly, if you really wanted to cake up, I would just start from the beginning. I would just do modern re-imaginings of Dr. No one from Russia with love and you only live twice. I mean, I would just do those stories that people love so much and those movies that people love so much. You could just do, you know, what was like the Dr. No Island, or you could do. There's so many different things you could do with those movies. And they've basically followed the same recipe that they've always had, which is they have a bond for about 10 years.

They make about three movies with that person. Yeah. And they are not turning this into the Commander Bond expanded universe. Well, that said, I think the thing that drew people to the Mendez movies, or at least the Daniel Craig movies, let's call them, was that this was dark bond. This was adult bond, right? This was, there were stakes. there were characters introduced in Casino Real that, you know, Vesper, that haunted him, recurring things.

Who's the character actor that plays the guy who's in all three of the first ones? Oh, the guy who's in Skyfall they have captured? Yes. Let me, I'll find it. And we've talked about a lot of those movies on this podcast. And I guess I admire the world building that they did do. But I also feel that they got too far away from something that is universal about Bond, which is that he fucking wears a tuxedo and sleeps a little.

a lot of people and drinks a lot of drinks. And there's sort of a fun, global international swagger to it that is absolutely out of pace with the time. So I get a little bit excited when you're like, well, what would it mean for Bond to be reimagined as a 2018 Le Carre character actually dealing with the fallout of a post-NATO world, you know, if that's what we're headed towards, unfortunately? Or that's interesting, but is that Bond? Would it be better to just do a flashy modern version of a 60s movie and just have it be a throwback. Obviously, these are the discussions they're having.

It's Jasper Christensen playing Mr. White. That's memorable. Anyway, he was a big time inspector as well. Let's put a pin in it with this, which is to say that hiring Danny Boyle and bringing back Daniel Craig is a very, very high class, expensive way to punt the conversation that we're having.

Yeah. They don't know. They don't know what Bond is going to look like, and this buys them time. Well, it's a unique property in the sense that they have always played a little bit fast and loose with what's the continuity in these movies. And what is the continuity in this story? And there's actually a Commander Bond theory that James Bond is the code name for all these different guys who have served. And that there are plot lines and through lines through all the movies. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I can put that in the show notes. It's pretty cool. It's like a Tumblr post and somebody's just like Commander Bond theory. And it's like basically that like it's not the same character and we're just pretending like he's started over. over again, it's like actually like James Bond quote unquote dies or retires and then another person comes and does that job. I just settle for a good movie. You know what I mean? I would.

Like, I would just like to have a good spy movie. You're such a Craig Mack, man. Kind of. You just want to say Operation Funk the World. That's your only job, James Bond. That's just funk the world, man. Get a drink. If you just want a good movie, how about 31 hours of good movies?

Okay. pitch me on this. So AMC is going to do this thing leading up to Infinity War. Theaters, not the television network. In the television network. Television network will make a lot of sense. You could actually hit pause. I thought that's what this was initially.

No, this is in certain AMC theaters. They are going to do a 31-hour MCU marathon, starting with Iron Man going up to Avengers Infinity War, into a screening of Avengers Infinity War, which I'm still not sure that Avengers Infinity War won't be three hours long. I don't see how it can avoid it. Yeah. We had a really fun conversation on the ringer slack this week where it was like, where would you take your naps?

Like where would your naps be deployed? Oh, during this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. This is an interesting test case, though, because I think that the conversation about Marvel movies and the idea that there is like this really essential, like, you need to see dark world or you need to see Dr. Strange to understand Black Panther. You're naming some primo nap material. Well, I'm saying, like, what we're really talking about is a lot of after, you know, end of credit sequences. Yeah.

And then some, like, you don't need to see these movies to understand anything about the movies. Let's be clear. You don't need to see these movies. So are you, I feel like you're like, you're like arriving at. No. No. What I don't, I guess what I'm, the reason I'm reacting this way is because I am trying to, I enjoy most of these movies. and I'm on the record on this podcast

enjoying most of these movies when they come out. With very few exceptions, I don't think about them again. And the thought of considering them as part of one large totemic work is a bummer to me. It's cool from a marketing perspective.

I think Kevin Feige is fascinating and incredibly successful and pretty brilliant with what he's done. But I don't want to consider, much as I don't want to consider a season of television you know, as like episodes of television in one season as chapters in a book.

Sure. I don't want to consider each of these movies as a movie. And did I enjoy it or did I not enjoy it? And then the connective tissue, that's marketing, honestly. If you're looking at them on your own time, please do not actually sit in the theater for 31 hours. To see the, again, to see the world building from a corporate storytelling point of view,

that is really valuable and worthwhile to track Robert Downey's facial hair choices over a number of years. Yeah. Bravo. But I feel like it would just dull you because the other thing is they're spaced out enough in our own life and experience, I think, that we don't, well, I'll use eye statements. For a long time, I didn't bump up against how repetitive a lot of them are. Yes. How they all end up with the same kind of punching at the end with the same CGI. You know, and I think I even said this in a more muted way when we were praising Black Panther,

which is it still ended up with CGI punching. I mean, for as groundbreaking as that movie was, it still ended up with two CGIPanthers fighting each other in a train station? I mean, I couldn't see that. I mean, I literally couldn't see that. So that's not going to, I don't think it's a good light to see these movies. It's interesting. So I do want to throw this one question at you.

Let's say you don't have to see the 31 hours. To be clear, do I have to contractually? What if you had to see one of the phases? So there's phase one, phase two, phase three. I'm just going to run through these really quick. They're 18 movies. Phase one was Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor. They really consider the Norton Hulk to be canon.

They do. Go on. Do they? Isn't that? That's not Banna? No, Banna's not canon. No, Banna's not canon. Norton's canon. Okay.

But phase one was Iron Man Incredible Hulk. On this podcast, they're both canon. Right. Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, First Avenger, and the Avengers. That's one. That's the first phase. Phase two, Shane Blacks, Iron Man 3.

Yes. Thor, the Dark World, which multiple people involved with were like, that was a terrible experience and I never want to make another one of those movies. That's a tough L. Captain America Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Age of Ultron, and Ant Man. Phase 3. Phase 2 really ends with kind of a whimper there. Phase 3, the phase that we were kind of in or wrapping up now, is actually, I think,

maybe the most entertaining Civil War, Dr. Strange. Pangborn Yeah, I remember Guardians of the Galaxy 2 too Spider-Man Great Ragnarok

Fantastic Black Peas Wow And then Infinity War And Infinity War And Infinity War Yeah, I think so It's the loosest

Definitely It's kind of the baggiest Like let's try some stuff Yeah I'm psyched because Neither one of these I mean like I can't sit through

Old Tron again No I mean I was gonna say That is and I think it would maybe surprise people, that's where you take your nap. Yeah. That, you know, we...

Dark World is more like more like Rocky Horror Picture Show at this point. It's not even, it just exists. Like, you know where I watch that? People won't be surprised on an aeroplane. Yeah. And that was a fine way to spend an hour and a half or whatever it is.

But we definitely overpraised Ultron because if we... I don't remember how much we praised it, but... I can't remember. But it's bad. It's bad. And there was a... got by.

That was Secovia, right? Yeah, I think the first movie got by, too. The Secovia Accords. Yo. I think, by the way, what a heat check this decade has been for Josh. What, wow. To go from the Walt Disney company being like, here are the keys to our most preeminent potentially money-making franchise to being bounced from Batgirl because, quote, he didn't

have any ideas for it. That is quite a run. No, but like there was, there was an. element of more is more to the Avengers movies in those movies because they functionally, I mean, we'll find out in a few months from the Russo Brothers. I don't think they can work because there's just too many people in styles and

mouths to feed. So those were trying to get by on like a more is more theory. Like we'll just have Iron Man punch the Hulk. And then also an Eastern European country fall from the sky. That movie is not good. So I want to leave us with this one note with Avengers Infinity War on the way. Our former colleague

Sam Donsky, who we adore. He had a phrase called, or an idea that was called director bullshit. And it's when directors of commercial genre movies are doing interviews and they're like, well, you know, aside from obviously the neorealist work of Roberta Rossellini, I was also deeply influenced by the paintings of Francis Bacon. Yeah. And it's like you're talking about national treasure.

The Russo brothers who were directing Infinity War recently asked what they were sort of drawing from for Infinity War. Now, these are the guys, remember, who said Winter's Soldiers, was their parallax view. Did they say it? It's not a direct quote, but I think Faggy or somebody was like we were inspired by the paranoia of 70s thrillers

and then, you know, too bad, we ran with it. It's like this is the worst thing that's happening in the world. Anthony Russo, though, no ambiguity here. The movies that we looked at, two days in the valley

and out of sight. For infinity war? Yeah, I'm not joking. We got to get these guys on a podcast. He's trying from 90s heist movies. Terrific. Yeah.

I love it. That is the single most interesting piece of news. What do they have to steal? The stones? The stones, man. From Thanos? I think he's stealing him, my man. Oh, he's, he's like, brolins like, I got these? He doesn't have him. He's got a real empty glove. Okay. You know what happens when he gets him? Oh, a lot of... Do you know what happens when he gets him?

You can make... Don't spoil it. It's the infinity gauntlet. You can do stuff, like manipulate time, and it's the most... Because each one has untold power, and if you do that, you're basically a god. Okay. You're basically a guy. Okay. You still have that chin, but you are basically a guy. Well, because I assume you've been reading, we haven't talked about this,

that the now in production Captain Marvel film, which I guess is the beginning of phase four or whatever. It's drawing from 90s action movies? Yes. Like what? Well, I assume it's like they're trying to make a Shane Black movie, but Shane Black's not involved. Okay. It is also set in the 90s, which I think is kind of interesting. And Jude Law is in it.

Are you aware of this? As the original Captain Marvel, who Carol Danvers takes the mantle from. So if it's set in the 90s, is she not going to be in like the next Avengers? No, no, she is because she's also probably been flying around in space, not aging because she's super powerful. Because Danos is going to be like, I got you with these infinity tools. I would be shocked if she does not make an appearance in that movie. Okay. She's an intergalactic kind of character and a very cool character on the page.

And good directors, Anna Fleck and Ryan Boathek and Anna Bowden, who directed very small movies like Half Nelson are now doing this. But, yeah, and Sam Jackson is in it. So this is basically... Is he going to be 90s Nick Fury? Yes. Is he going to be like Jules from Pulp Fiction or something? I can only assume so. I mean, it does seem like they are.

Again, I would not be... I dismiss these movies in the same segment as I say, Fagie knows what he's doing. And he does seem to be ahead of the curve in a way that is remarkable in understanding what audiences probably want at a given time. Because he gave Cougler the keys. to the kingdom of Wakanda with Black Panther

well before, I think, not just the culture, but the movie-going, mass-movie-going audience began to indicate that they were checking out of these more formulaic punch-the-clock. This is what everyone looks like. These are the beats you have to hit films. And also not just that, that they all have to feel the same

that you can maybe give a little more freedom. Yes, they did all end with CGI punching. I just said that. But there are some differences. He does seem to be loosening up a little bit. Thor, Ragner Rock was one of them and then Captain Marvel, that's interesting. And that kind of fluidity and like

preparing for these changes before they happen is kind of key to succeeding in Hollywood. And DC doesn't seem to be able to do it. They've been doing these movies for 10 years and the people who saw Iron Man when they were 12 or 22 now. And so maybe they can handle like the humor of Ragnorok. But also he knew, because he's a smart executive,

that what people really want out of Infinity War is a Black Panther sequel four months later. And by all accounts, like the last third of the movie, is that. Good. And it's like basically based on things to do in Denver and you're dead apparently. It's Latisha Wright in the Charlize Theron role two days in the valley. And we'll go from that. Andy, we're going to talk about episode two of collateral, but first a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Wolverine the Long Night. Marvel is unveiling their first scripted podcast and it's available exclusively on Stitcher Premium. Wolverine the Long Night is going where no audio series has gone before and you will want to be part of

it from the start. The gripping tale follows the story of Logan, a strange newcomer in the small town of Burns, Alaska. You'll be immersed into the heart of a murder investigation following along as special agents explore a string of mysterious deaths around town. The series stars Richard Armitage as Wolverine, who you might know as Thorne Oaken Shield from the Hobbit trilogy, plus Scott adds it from 30 Rock and a special appearance from comedian and podcast hosts Chris Getherd. To listen now, I'll go to Wolverinepodcast.com and use code Marvel for a free month of Stitcher Premium. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by SciFi's new series Krypton, which tells the untold story of Superman's grandfather, Seg L,

as he fights to defend his world and his family's legacy, the House of Elle, filled with some very recognizable characters from DC Comics Universe, and executive produced by David S. Goyer Krypton premieres March 21st at 109 Central on Sci-Fi. Andy, we're back. We're going to talk briefly about episode two of collateral. We've been doing these chapter readings, basically, of these streaming shows where you guys can run ahead of us or be right on pace with us. We're doing episodes by episode, show by show. So collateral, episode one, we did on Monday.

Today's Thursday. So we're doing episode two. And I don't really, I want to save some of my takes. Let me just put it this way. Okay. I have some takes for three. Oh, look at you watching. I can't help it.

I really love this show. I'm sorry. All right. But I do want to talk about your boy. Am I 5 agent Sam Spence? Who shows up in episode 2. Yeah. He really, he really escalates things.

He really, he really looks like Stephen Delane. Yeah. Had like some exfoliation and put on a great suit and just showed up in the game. But he's not Stephen Delane. Just did six lines, looked at the mirror, slapped his cheeks, and was like, it's time to be racist. Let's go.

Yeah. David Hare's screenplay or his teleplay for collateral has been widely praised. But if it has been criticized at all, it's that certain characters are essentially avatars for points of view that are being bandied about. Yes. Discourse surrounding certain things in England about refugees, about immigrants, about Brexit, about whether or not it's going to be Fortress Britain or it's going to be an open island. And Sam Spence is the most chillingly pragmatic character about all of that, which is everything is just sort of like, I already knew that, and this is just a cold, hard trade that we're making.

What did you think of this character? Because I think every show needs a Sam Spence, which is like a instigator who shows up a little bit into the season to kind of make things happen. To be honest, his arrival was the moment that it pushed me a little bit out, not out on the show, just temporarily out of the moment, because I began, in those moments, you sort of blink and you see the game board and you see what David Hare is playing with. Now, again, that is not necessarily a criticism of screenwriting or playwriting, which to some degree reminds me of.

There is a theme. He is trying to make points. He is using his characters, as you said, as advocates for various points of view about a pressing societal issue. So, yes, you need someone to come and really spike the ball and Kerry Mulligan gives great reaction to him throughout the same. scene, she does bemused better than most people alive. But it was a little too much for me. And in moments like that, though, I have to once again shout out S.J. Clarkson, the director. Because sometimes I think this is going to come across as faint praise, and I really don't intend it to.

The speed of this show saves it again and again and elevates it again and again. I love traversing London with these cops. I love jumping from scene to scene because no scene overstays it's welcome. Do you like Labor MP? That's a tougher hanged. Yeah, Labor Embed David Mars. He's a tougher hang.

I like him. John Sim is great. I like John Simmons's state of play. He's perfectly castes. But so when Sam Spence comes, I'm like, okay, well, this guy is way, way, way, way out there to really put his thumb on the scale and be a villain. And I wish that the show was subtler than that.

But it's four episodes. We've got to keep it moving. And the other thing is, And I think I would imagine that David Hare would probably say this in his defense. There are probably tons of people exactly like this. Oh, absolutely. And I think it's for as polemical as this show is, it's basically constructed like the Maltese Falcon. You know what I mean?

It's basically cool characters happen to bump into each other in a city where it's like, this city is way too big for you guys to keep bumping into each other. Or the idea that all the characters are somehow like crisscrossing each other in these various moments is unlikely except in the world of detective fiction. Yeah, I think that he probably is a more realistic avatar for someone in law enforcement than Kip Glasby is, unfortunately. But I will also say that David Harry is able to do a lot with a little. There is the guy who I guess is the medical examiner, or at least that's what he's serving

this, and his name is Fuzzy. And he shows up very briefly repeatedly. But I remember him. I remember his name is Fuzzy. I remember the type of dynamic he has with Kip and the other detectives. And look how much you can do if you just take pause for one second, give someone a little something that's not all white knight or black hat. Small other side note that I want to express as we turn the corner into the back half of the show.

Carrie Mulligan, Kip Glasby, gets a lot of praise, rightly so. Great actor, great performance, great name. But I really also want to shout out Nathaniel Martello White, who plays her. Nathan. Yeah. It's not just that his name is Nathan. It's that his name is Detective Sergeant Bulk. Bravo.

Names matter. Yeah. Names matter. And Glaspie and Bulk investigating this is so much better than Jones and Smith investigating this. So it's funny. Sometimes when we're talking about the show, which we've now been doing for a couple episodes, it's not too dissimilar from our Craig Mac conversation. It's like we went into a pawn shop and we found something so well made that reminds us of other things that we enjoy. Yeah.

And it's almost like a curiosity shop. Which I don't, again, that is another example of kind of damning it with faint praise. We think this is good and it's good right now. But some of the things that we are most responding to and excited about are these kind of throwbacky things. How are you feeling about where Sandrine's journey is taking here? Sandrine is, I think, another case of like Sam, where I think that Hare wanted to write about,

it's essayistic. He had a collection of essays he wanted to write. He wanted to write about the state of labor, the Labor Party. He maybe wanted to write about the intelligence services and their relationship, what's the difference between law enforcement and intelligence,

the intelligence community. I think he wanted to write about veterans coming back from wars. He wanted to write about women in the military. And what do you do when you've come back to a place

that does and doesn't accept you in different ways and what's like to be a woman in the military? And I think he's put together this collection of essays and he's artfully tailored them around

not much of a mystery. You know, like there's a little bit of a mystery and we'll get to the sort of the reveals that this show does. This was a little bit more of a connective tissue episode for me, but I feel like people will be very impressed with episode three.

Do you think, last question, do you think Billy Piper was attracted to the role or agreed to accept it because she was told she would never have to leave a single set? It's a great job. It's just like I get to walk back and forth across this dope London apartment and kind of be flustered and have like three puffs of a cigarette

and throw a pizza. And dunk on my opair. Yeah. Just really pick your battles. Just great mothering all around here. You know, if people want the Daddington review of the show, maybe we'll do it as an after show. Part of the reason why I responded to this show is the fact that it didn't feel like other television shows, that it got started quicker, that the dialogue is delivered faster, that it didn't belabor stupid points just to try and be like, you know, solemnity is seriousness or any of this stuff. So I am willing to forgive it many trespasses because the level of intelligence, and even if it is essayist,

and it is, oh, why is this character doing this now? I find that the level of intelligence in the show is just pretty exceptional for current television. A year ago, if we were going to discuss what new shows or what pilots would we recommend people to watch who wanted to make compelling relevant television in the next year. Obviously, we would have pointed to Atlanta. And sneaky Pete. And sneaky Pete. which actually The transition from

Broadcast show in episode one of Sneaky Pete to Cable Show and episode two remains one of the more interesting inside baseball things I've seen. What I would say for this year, I probably would have named another sort of malleable half hour that we enjoyed last year.

Maybe glow or something like that. For this year, I think the really important pilots and pushback if I'm forgetting things or if you disagree would be I would carry over the dues maybe a little bit from last year, but I would say the deuce and Ozark and collateral.

Because I think the biggest issue that people are struggling with right now is the fatigue you've been expressing. Pilot fatigue. Here we go again, fatigue. Who are these people, and we have to have an origin story, touch your remote 58 minutes left Netflix? Are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me? Original, like emotional wound. So let's figure out ways, especially in the hour-long space, which is not going anywhere. That's what people want to be making, and there's more and more and more to come. How do we get us into this story?

I think that this show is also showing that there are lots of different ways to motivate characters that go beyond deep trauma. And that's generally like on a lot of shows it's like I'm doing this because X happened to me in my past. I don't want any spoilers, but since you have watched ahead,

does Kip Glasby remain clean in that sense? Or is there an original sin? No, so the show ends with her going back to the Olympics. That's terrific. Can we get Maya and Alex on to talk about just like the role of an Olympic athlete and what that means? I wouldn't want to give away anything about it, but I would say that she remains a consistent character. I appreciate that because I think that low-key, one of the better things about it, and again, this probably speaks to your essayistic point, is there is just a lot of low-key, it's not even low-key. There is a bunch of low-level hum throughout the show of misogyny in the workplace and sexism.

not that she isn't accepted and respected, but even the way Bill Koo clearly likes and respects or talks about her, there's just a lot of, well, of course you're a bleeding heartburn. Of course you want all refugees to commit. Of course. Why? And I think the show wins when it's because she's a decent person. Yeah.

Not because, oh, she herself was an immigrant or because she was raised, but it doesn't have to have, as you said, the original wound. Let's tell this story. Yeah. Not both stories. And worth noting, as we close out the conversation on episode two, report in the media this week or in the press that there will not be a season two. That's good.

And I think that makes me as happy as only four episodes. I also don't necessarily believe that, but that's good. Well, I mean, in today's marketplace, David Hare could write another cop show. Right. But it won't necessarily be collateral two. Right. Because collateral two can really only be Tom Cruise's Vincent suddenly waking up with a gas after seven years on the L.A. subway. Now the Expo line goes out to Santa Monica.

He hires a cabby out there. Yeah. And we're off. We're going to go. We'll be back on Monday to talk about episode three of collateral, a bunch of other stuff. We'll post on Twitter and we'll post on our Facebook what that's going to be. Join the Facebook group if you haven't already. I'm going to join it.

I put in a request today. I was trying to play cool. We'll see how to approving you. Yeah, that's the vibe I got. Everyone was just like, why aren't you in it? And I thought it was kind of gauche to go to your own party, like wear your own band t-shirt to your concert. So I shouldn't stand around on street corners wearing the watch t-shirts? No, frankly, it's a little embarrassing.

And so then I said, okay, I'll join it. And guess what it says, pending. Yeah. Pending. We'll see. I'll let you know. Do you know anybody who could get me in? I might, yeah.

I appreciate that. Okay. Be back on Monday. Great weekend, brains. Do, do, do, do, do. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by sci-fi's new series Krypton. Crypton tells the untold story of Superman's grandfather, Segg Elle, as he fights to defend his world and family's legacy, the House of Elle, filled with some very recognizable characters

from the DC Comics Universe, an executive produced by David S. Goyer. Krypton premieres March 21st at 109 Central on sci-fi.