The Watch - Who Is ‘WandaVision’ for? Plus, Ethan Hawke Enters the MCU and ‘Search Party’ Season 4.

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

Chris and Andy talk about the news that Ethan Hawke will be playing the villain in Marvel’s ‘Moon Knight’ series (1:00) and the first few episodes of ‘Search Party’ Season 4 (12:44). Then they get into the first two episodes of ‘WandaVision,’ a show that might serve as a good entry point for new Marvel fans (22:39). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com and join me on the other line. He is, as always, for the children. It's Andy Greenwald. What's a reference?

That's a reference to Wanda Vision, the show that we're going to be talking about on today's Watch podcast coming up next. Did you know about one in three people with Plexeryasus, may also develop psoriatic 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, gusalcumab, taken by injection,

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Connection is why we move forward and what inspires us to keep going. Let's run there. Learn more at brooksrunning.com. All right, Monday, happy MLK day. We're just doing a podcast because we can't stop making content over here at the watch industries. I've got an army of a thousand out there,

just clacking away, just looking at algorithms, looking at the boards, looking at Twitter, saying, CR, you got to talk about this. You got to talk about that. So Greenwald was nice enough to join me today. Chris, the Vision's workplace does remind me of the old Grantland bullpen. It does.

It weirdly does. I often walk over to Fennessee and be like, what do we make here? Nobody understood what we did, but we enjoyed it. Andy, lovely to see you. Here we are on Monday afternoon. We're going to talk a little bit

about Wanda Vision in the second half of the podcast, but I had a couple of things I wanted to bounce off you. in the first half. How are you doing? I think we're going to talk a lot about Wanda Vision. Yeah, I think we'll talk a significant amount about Wanda Vision. I'm not trying to short shrift Wanda Vision. How is your weekend? Oh, great. Great. It's still going until you drag me in here to do a podcast. I mean, it's, you know, it's 80 degrees here in Los Angeles. Nobody's dragging you anywhere.

I think you were like excited to come. You were excited to get out of the house, get to your office, talk to me. You're a very isolated office. I don't want to think anybody's, you know, he's breaking protocols here. Yeah, there's literally no one here. It's actually bizarre. It's a little, unnerving, but seeing someone would be would be nerving. So this is better. I wanted to ask you about a couple of things. That came up over the last, since the last time we recorded. Number one is our boy. I would say he's, he's probably on watch Rushmore, along with Bransky, S-Mail, a couple other people, Colin Hanks. I mean, like, you know, there's a, there's a number of people who could go up on the Watch Rushmore, but Ethan Hawke is up there.

He's a guy that we care a lot about. And for the long, time, I don't know if you would say he was a holdout, but he was not a member of any active long-term franchise, at least not to my knowledge. He's incredibly prolific. He is one of my favorite actors. And over the last couple of days, it was announced. I think it's still like rumored, but like at this point, I think what happens with these casting announcements is that it's like in talks or rumored starts. Then there's like a weird like, I'm not in this show. And then it's announced that they're in the show. So with all the caveats, like, We just did with Chris Evans last week when it was then Chris Evans tweeted,

I'm not in, I'm not coming back as cap. After he listened to our podcast. That was after he listened to the pod. Yeah. Ethan Hawk is allegedly going to be playing the villain in the upcoming Moon Night show on Disney Plus from the MC. So great. So,

Ethan Hawk is now joining Big IP. And, you know, it's funny because we've given Oscar Isaac, not that he gives shit, a lot of guff about spending this much time. in dressing up his apocalypse, being in three Star Wars movies where he runs across the screen four times. And now he's going to do Moon Night. And I think we gave him a hard time.

But when this Ethan Hawk thing came across the transit, I was just like, you know what, man, I salute you. I salute you like our next president, Joseph Robinette Biden. Yeah. Listen, here's how I like to look at. First of all, it's very funny. It's very, very funny. Do you call President-elect Biden

by his middle name as well. I like, I like saying that. I like Robinette. I think it's very classy. I do like that. First of all, this is hilarious, and it's perfect for us, that the two people that we often talk about, the two actors, both because we're big fans, but also vis-a-vis their relationship to big IP or the mainstream, have decided to join forces in this. And frankly, if you pull back the aperture, I don't know how cameras work, but I'm going to go with it far enough. Good thing you don't work in visual storytelling. I just described a camera like it was a bow and arrow.

So I'm crushing it this holiday weekend. One would think that when Ethan Hawk, who I'm sure has been approached for many of these types of things, when he was offered this, the limited nature of it, you know, I'm sure it's a one and done as a villain in this series, but also to work with Oscar Isaac, who I'm sure he either knows socially or probably admires quite a bit professionally. Sure, that's great. Yeah. Why not?

I also started to think about it this way, which is, like many people, Chris, and maybe, hopefully, some in our audience, you know, I have really tried to stop using Amazon.com. And I'm not saying not watching small acts. I'm not saying I'm not watching their programming, but try not to order from them. I won't order books from them. Order from your local bookstore. Everybody should be doing that. Do whatever I can to avoid using Amazon whenever possible. I don't like the way they pay their workers, blah, blah, blah. But the other day, Chris, we're in the teeth of a pandemic. You know, this is a safe spot. People want to hear about culture. But it's pretty gnarly out there, particularly here in Los Angeles County. And your boy needed some new filters for the water filter. That is a very specific thing.

For your Britta. And yet that is the kind of thing that in the before times your boy would just be like going to go over your Gelson's and just cop. Yeah. But I had just done a what we call a big show. shop. You know what I mean? We got canned goods, got the greens. And I was like, you know what? I'm not perfect.

You know, if you cut me, do I not bleed? So I pulled up my phone. Bled some Bezos. I did. And I'm not proud of it. I'm sharing it with all of you, but I did it. When the package arrived, 16 minutes later. By drone. Did I pretend I was checking the weather? bring it inside, open it in solitude, and then hide the packaging at the bottom of the trash.

So no one knew that I had done that. Yeah, I did that too. Why? Because your kids are going to be like you're not really for Medicare for all. It's not the kids, Marty. It wasn't the kids who would be mad about breaking the household edict. My point being, if you're Ethan Hawk, sometimes he got to, sometimes you got to just click the prime quick pay. You know what I mean? You just got you just got to do the convenient thing. He's got bills to pay. He's got an uncertain year ahead, as we all do. but particularly you know in the creative arts, who knows? Go for it.

That's my metaphor. I'm sticking with it. Floor is yours. One way to look at Ethan Hawke is that he is the embodiment of that 90s ethos of one for them, one for me, right? So that he does art house fair and then he'll do something sort of more blockbustery. But I think it's a little bit more gray area to him. He's actually like a little bit more of like a throwback of a highly prolific leading man

quality actor who often will do smaller parts in movies like what? whether it's magnificent seven or lending his talents to an indie movie, like the kid or something like that. And often will essentially like take whatever capital he has to go and get something made. I think of something like Adopt a Highway, which is a movie I saw a couple years ago at South by Southwest, the Blumhouse made,

which is like a very like hard times style 70s character study about a guy getting out of prison and reacclimating to the world. So like rather than looking at it as one for them, one for me, I think Ethan Hawk likes making all types of shit. So his participation, and honestly, Oscar Isaac's participation in Moon Night makes me that much more confident or excited or hyped to see it, as does the news that the directors of this show will be Muhammad Diab, who I haven't seen Crash, which is his movie, but also Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead who directed a movie called Spring, which is really good and endless. And they have a new movie that I haven't seen called Synchronic. But along with William Eubanks are like my favorite.

current sci-fi directors probably. And so that's neat. You had some enthusiasm for Moon Knight, and I was wondering if you could tell me, like, I think the rumor is that Ethan Hawk will be playing a character named Bushman, Bushman? Yeah, I...

You didn't get the Bushman memo? The opportunity here is that it is pretty much a blank slate. I mean, as we just got, we did a long bit about Moon Knight when this was announced and, like, essentially a cipher. like kind of created... 007 vibes. Yeah, right?

No, like Batman, like International Batman, basically. Isn't James Bond kind of international Batman? I'll let you unpack. Well, they tried to make him that with all the origin story bullshit over the last few years,

but that's for a separate podcast. Basically a cool costume in search of a reason for existing, kind of Marvel's version of Batman, but in recent years, because he's considered kind of lame and kind of a cipher, a bunch of writers,

including Warren Ellis, have done more interesting things with him. And I think that this is one of those things where they have a lot of IP, got to keep the pump going, and hopefully there will be more projects like this where interesting people get involved because they can do something.

Because there is not much baggage going into it, not much expectation, they can do something surprising and cool. To your point about Ethan Hawke, I kind of agree, I'm sure he would probably say the same thing, but in this case, mean it, where we have the chance to interview him about it.

I can save this for our Wanda Vision talk. But the one thing, the headline for me from watching that show is that these people still really know what they're doing. They have a very high floor for quality entertaining content. And we can get into whether it matters or what it means or is it a loss to the world that it's this and not that. But if you are a curious working actor who has opportunities, why not see how they do stuff? Yeah, sure. I think it's, it is reaching that level that when you see, and I think people on all sides of the camera, which in this case is a camera and not a crossbow, I promise in my analogy, they're very drawn to highly successful work. And I don't necessarily mean that in terms of quality or like Oscars. What I mean is once Favreau did the Mandalorian and is pulling that off, right, the way that he is in with Dave Faloni, of course, and the rest of their incredible, like, ILM team in Manhattan Beach, everyone who makes. TV or movies wants to know how he's doing it because it might affect their work. And that's not

just people who want to work in the green screen field, right? Like when we talk to Sam, like he's totally enraptured with it. It thinks it's fascinating. And Sam was just talking, Sam started talking a little bit about Battlestar. And I wonder whether or not getting that kind of, that taste of what they're doing on Mandalorian. Maybe it doesn't impact how they make Battlestar per se. But I wonder whether it lit a little bit of a fuse. And I think this is definitely pie in the sky. People listen to this podcast know that we are generally pro-Marvel because we enjoy them in a way that maybe so maybe we're not nearly as critical about the content as we are about like DC recently, which is, which is fair. But I think that you could look at it. Like Ethan Hawk is also becoming

more, he's always been an actor, he's been directing on the stage and and has done some film and he's written books and blah, blah, blah. He is clearly thinking about the next phase of his career. Good Lord Bird was kind of autourish. And this is, the Disney way is how stuff is getting made now. It doesn't mean that he's going to like somehow incorporate his novel, the hottest state into, you know, MCU continuity. It just means that if he wants to be a working director in the future, it probably pay to know how the fanciest or at least the most expensive sausage gets made. But this is a guy who made the first purge. He made sinister. You know, he did a couple of

Blumhouse movies and then developed to me because I never saw these. And made it and developed a relationship with the folks over at Blumhouse and they wound up working on Adopt-A-Hiway and good Lord Byrd with him. Yeah. I mean, he is somebody who knows how to I guess, I don't want to say play the game because that makes it sound like it's almost this, it's Craven.

But I feel like he's somebody who understands the chessboard a little bit and probably speaks to the fact that he's been doing this since he's been a kid. Well, two things. Craven is still controlled by Sony. That is Spider-Man IP, Craven the Hunter. So we should note that as we discussed. But two, Chris, like podcasting, it's a relationship's business. That's right.

You know, it's a relationship's business. Hey, speaking of relationships, that's a really good segue. So this weekend, watched a bunch of stuff this weekend, watch a little of the Nightstocker documentary. Can't imagine you're going to be firing that up anytime soon on Netflix. Kept watching Call My Agent. But I checked out the first three episodes of the new season of Search Party. Just quick refresher.

When did you, I imagine you stopped watching Search Party because we haven't talked about it in years. I did. I really, really enjoyed the first. I don't know if I went back to the second. enjoyed the first and then it kind of just slipped through my fingers. Okay. So I would imagine that one of the reasons, and so the fourth season,

the first three episodes of the fourth season just came out on HBO Max on Thursday. And they're debuting episodes every Thursday going forward. I don't know whether they're going to do it in batches or if they're going one, one, one. I would imagine if you liked the first season, one of the reasons you like the first season is because of the particular chemistry between the four leads, between Leah Shawcat and John Early and Marith Hagner. like this idea that this was like a group of friends and that they actually did like these almost

Scooby-Doo ask adventures together. And while there were some individual plot lines, for the most part, it was a group dynamic. And, you know, people were commenting about this on our Facebook group and I thought this was right, which is essentially like this is now like four different shows, or like three to four different shows as they've continued to, you know, keep doing this. And I do not begrudge anybody for, you know, I like search parties still like as a, as a, as a, idea, but one thing that sort of jumped out to me was the fact that they have taken this very special group dynamic and essentially

separated it. And I was wondering if you, as somebody who has made TV, talk to people who have made TV, has probably thought about things in terms of, like, well, we have to have X, Y, and Z happen in a writer's room so that we can plot out this story. Why is it that when we get these special ensembles, the instinct as shows go forward is to split them apart. is to send people on their own adventures

and to send people like, whether it's paired off or on these individual quests. And then, yeah, maybe at the end of the season, you bring all these people back together. But I was thinking about how that, you know, maybe Lost was sort of the most, the first thing that I actually thought of when I was thinking about this.

But even the last season of Stranger Things, I thought, took what was a very adorable and heartwarming group of people. And, you know, they added more and more characters to them and then separated out like these little pairs, sent them on. on season long journeys only to come back at the end. What's that about? Is that a scheduling thing? Is that a, we have to keep things interesting for ourselves in a writer's room? Why do, why do shows do that?

Well, I'll let you in on a little secret, Chris. You know, I like to keep church and state separate. So when I, when I go to my big time Hollywood producer meetings, you know, it's, it's just, it's earmuffs, you know, like for you. Because I guess in this metaphor, I'm bringing you, but I'm putting earmuffs on you. I'm really struggling today. here's what I want to say to you. There aren't that many stories. Yeah. There just aren't that many stories.

And at a certain point, you know, I think generally this is true of longer running shows, which means something different for a, in the modern age, where long running show is anything over three seasons as opposed to, you know, like in the ER days when it was 10 seasons plus. Sure. At a certain point, mixing and matching is the best way to try and chase spark. It's a way to try and shuffle things up, you know, the dynamics of the cast to find out maybe different pairings work.

But also, your corrective flag the writer's room, too, because writers get bored writing the same scenes or the same interactions, the same relationship. So you're always in search of something else. Also, and this is very, this isn't specific to that show, which I haven't been watching. And there are, of course, many different shows, this might not apply the same thing to. It might not apply equally to. But if it's a show that is driven by romance, for example, you know, and think about like teen shows like Dawson's Creek or the OC, like everybody ends up dating each other because

that's what fuels it, right? And at a certain point with some series, if you know everyone is waiting for something and that thing could be the one true pairing or it could be getting the gang back together again or getting off the island or whatever, then you know it becomes a game of delayed gratification and trying to find usefulness in the stalling that doesn't feel like stalling. And so in a case like this, it might be right, like, everybody wants the gang back together again. And so we have to hold on, we have to hold out and not give them what they want until it feels good. But that is a dangerous game, I think, to play when you're calculating audience's reaction. I think it can often be misplied.

Yeah. I mean, Thrones was like this too, right? Like, they would just be like, you got to, I got to walk the Kings Road with this person. But when I get to the castle, then I will be teamed up with this person. And then we will go and do this. And I will sometimes inexplicably. feel the need to go north of the wall or whatever it would be the case. It's like sometimes it almost feels like you're playing, you know, like a choose your own adventure book or a like a board game

rather than like actually following characters. I suppose that also speaks to the, and you know, now that it's on peacock, I suppose it's back in the news with the office, the everlasting durability of workplace shows because there is a built-in arena for these people to be, like they should be in the same space. They shouldn't be out. It's a situation. It's a situation. It's a situation coming. Well, yeah, right, right, right. But that's right. And I think that we often think about, it's interesting. This is something I think we've talked about in a bunch of different ways over the years, but as shows have trended towards more limited seasons, it's been less relevant to our conversations. But I think we generally think about the lifespan of a show, a serialized drama show,

as being about story. Here's where the story started. Here's where it was going. And here are the various little, you know, digress, sometimes season-long digressions that we experienced along the way. But it's kind of like, and I am worse about this subject than I am about photography, but it is more of a math problem where its story versus divided by, multiplied by time. And you also have to think about how much time you have to do it and how you're going to continue to make them, you know, finagle themselves into each other's lives and dance and get back together and come undone. I mean, it's sometimes that kind of, sausage making is challenging for people to hear about

or less interesting because it basically reminds you that it's just soap opera. It all of it is. And I think that the search party is a show that, you know, we, and we're pretty not flipping, but casual about like whether something's getting

should or shouldn't be renewed or whether it has any more gas in the tank and something like search party that had a delightful first season and an interesting enough second season. But it's been, I thought the third season was kind of bizarre and the fourth season is kind of doubling down. on that to the point where, you know, I was actively one...

Speak specifically, too, because I think people might not even remember what the show is. So if you don't want to hear any spoilers for Search Party season four, I mean, this is only three episodes, but in the first three episodes, it's like Doria has been kidnapped by an obsessive fan, a stalker who has recreated her apartment in New York in a basement somewhere where he is keeping her and has shaved her head and she is losing it and is trying to escape. Elliot is now a conservative commentator on a Fox News type network and has sold out like his belief in gay marriage and progressive rights for money. Drew is working at like a Rye Playland type place and has met a new girlfriend and they

both share something dark in common. And Portia is trying to get the role of Dory in the like mini series version of their own story. So all those things are happening. And it's just, I still really enjoy the actors and the performances, but like we are now very far from the original sort of kernel of what if these hipsters got really obsessed with a missing woman and kind of lost the, like took that to the logical conclusion. This also sounds to me like something where a show has to kind of rework its reason for being in midstream, right? Because this is a show that that was pitched as was Greenland, as was produced as and was really appreciated and enjoyed as exactly what you said.

These hipsters get involved in something over their head, but that's not a multi-season thing, unless they had decided that that first case really was four or five seasons worth, but TV's not really made that way anymore. So instead, I guess it had to become a different kind of thing based around not the specifics of the logline pitch about this one case, but more about the specifics of these four people get into topical hijinks, right? Yeah, basically.

I mean, it doesn't sound bad, but the way you're describing, it also makes this sound noteworthy in the sense that that kind of thing, most shows don't get the rope to reinvent anymore. Yeah. And search party's own survival is really interesting.

I don't know whether it has to do with it. It must have particularly devoted following in the right demo. I think it must be relatively affordable to make. I mean, has a podcast dedicated, like an official HBO pod that's Bowen Yang is hosting. Like, I feel like it has some sort of, it must have some passionate community around it for it to be at this level.

And I think it must have the right fans, too, whether that's Casey Blois or whomever, but not many things made the jump from services. You know, I think, like Doom Patrol jumped from the DCU thing to HBO Max. Search party went from TBS to HBO Max. Not many things did. Yeah. Okay. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll break down Wanda Vision.

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Classic me. I have one other small Marvel bit of business. And I didn't want to do it before the break because I felt like you did a really nice job going from... I mean, we cover a lot of Marvel stuff. So we did some Marvel stuff, Ethan Hawk, then we did search party. Do you think that, like, my great segways lose their value if you still go back and undo them?

No, no, if I had undone it in the moment, but everyone enjoyed it. We had a nice conversation about a show I personally haven't seen, which I know people love. And then we took a break. And when we're recording these, I don't know how long that break is. You know, you like, again, speaking of church and state, you know, Chris and Kaya, they like to keep me pure. You know, I don't know about the commercials, the ads anymore. I don't do them. So when you say, let's take a break, is that 30 seconds?

Is that seven minutes? I don't know. Actually, that's where Kaya and I put the real pod. That's fine. I can't wait to hear. So I have one quick Marvel thing, which was today, you know, I'm getting ready to do this podcast, talk about Wanda Vision. And I see a little bit of news about my most anticipated Marvel thing, which is the new Thor movie, Tyca's return to the franchise, Love and Thunder, getting underway. Quite a cast. Natalie Portman, wielding the hammer. Janeback.

Christian Bale as the villain. It just seems like what a wild ride it's going to be. But the news I saw said that another old favorite of ours, Matt Damon, will be in the movie. But here's how it was framed. First of all, news broke because the country of Australia made an announcement being like, among the many talented people coming to our shores for cinematic purposes, the great Matt Damon. That was like out of once upon a time in Hollywood. Scott Morrison was just like, we'd like to welcome.

Matt Damon from the born franchise. He was really. I also don't know why Scott Morrison's voice was like that. That was bad accent work. I think that Scott Morrison was doing... He was kind of Mando-ish. Yeah, he was doing your Mando, your Carl Weathers imitation. New South Wales, sir!

How global we are. Yeah, I'm giving you more space if you want it. That's okay. No, you're good. But here's the thing I wanted to say. It was all framed as a return to the franchise. because it was like, as everyone knows and loved, Matt Damon had a cameo in Thor Ragnarok,

and I had to press pause on the world for a second. And really, really wonder, there are very few people who love that movie as much as I love that movie, right? Okay, maybe there are people who have seen it more than the one time they saw in the theater. So maybe they loved it more than I did. I think it's safe to say that there are people

who love that movie more than you. But I'm a big fan, you know? I really enjoyed it. Would you say that's like your number one Marvel movie? It's definitely, I'm not prepared. You know, I don't have a list. I'm not prepared, but it would be in the conversation. My new thing, just FYI, one of my resolutions,

was to heavily support dog shit Marvel stuff. So like I'm super into Ultron now. So like you want justice for Spader? Yeah. Like you live your life according to the Socovia Accords? Yeah, it's just like how you're like just, just like we don't spend enough time talking about Socovia. Here's the truth.

We have allowed big Marvel to propagate the lie that Thor the Dark World is the worst Marvel movie when the first two Avengers movies are right there. You know what I mean? Like that is a conversation worth having. But I watched the other night because, you know, I've been watching all this hoops recently. So I'm often in the TNT area. Is that Jake Johnson's Netflix cartoon?

And I just keep, they keep showing like all the Marvel movies on USA on these marathons. And so I've caught like a lot of the first two Avengers movies recently. And yeah, I'd like to punch some stuff up in there. Yeah, yeah, I think they probably could be revisited. But my point being, so they're like, as we all remember, Matt Damon's hilarious cameo in Thor Ragnarok, and I have no fucking idea what they're talking about to the point where I was wondering if this was the Mandela effect as made famous in how to with John Wilson? Like, is there a division in America, on earth of people who remember Matt Damon's hilarious

cameo in that movie? And those of us who swear that never happened. Do you have a, do you want to weigh in on this? I mean, I remember it. Matt Damon is, is one of our great cameo makers. Like, he is one of our great guest stars. He is one of our great, I have appeared for 55 seconds in Ragner Rock or. I came to just fuck up humanity in Interstellar.

This is what I want to say to you. Not only is he a great cameo artist, which also plays into his reputation, which by all accounts is deserved as being a great guy. Like, people just really like him. One of the common traits of a Matt Damon cameo is that when you see him, you're like, that's a movie star? That guy?

When he is lit correctly and like wrecking shop in the Bourne movies, or when he's in the Martian and he's charming and smart and all these things. He's great. He's a movie star. And then he shows up as a teacher

in Kenny Lonergan's Margaret and you're like, this guy? Or you see him on 30 Rock? You know what I mean? You were going to figure out how to bring Margaret into this.

And you're like, I've been bringing Margaret into every podcast we've done for the last seven years. You just haven't noticed. Actually, I've dropped one line of dialogue from the three and a half hour cut

into each episode of the watch. And if you string it together, it's a beautiful performance of that misunderstood classic. I'm just saying, he has extremely that guy vibes in every other thing. And I respect that. Okay. Should we talk about the biggest show debut of January? Yeah. We finally got a new TV show. I think you and I had both been sort of itching around, like, you know, when are we going to get something? We have talked a little bit about like feeling like maybe the pipeline was going a little dry, but obviously that's like beggars. I think we'll be, we'll look back at this time and be like,

remember in January when we thought nothing was on? But, you know, like I mentioned, I was watching Search Party. There's a bunch of stuff that is on the Wilds on Amazon, I still recommend. But Wanda Vision is certainly the big, the first big, 2021 release. I think a lot of, like, I watched all of Bridgerton, really

enjoyed it. But this was the first big show that was coming in 21. Bridgeton was more, uh, in, towards the end of 20. What did you think of the first two episodes? Because I think for me, it's important to look at them as, I think they were very wise to put the first two up. And I think I would almost recommend people look at them

as 1A and 1B of one episode. Because if they put these up one at a time, once a week, I think we might be having a slightly different conversation. Now, so I was curious somebody like you, who is maybe not like just crushing tape all the time anymore. What was your reaction to the first two?

I loved it. I totally love them. I was delighted, charmed, enjoyed it. I should add also, my couch mate and life mate, my wife, has never seen a single Marvel property at all. This is the one to start with for your wife. When I said this to her, I know. When I said this to her, she said, that's not true.

I saw Spider-Man. And I was like, no. Then I explained Sony deal to her. And that's how we end up with a Jared Leto vampire. spin-off. She loved it. I thought you were going to say, I explained the Sony deal to her, and that's what I got a phone call from Laura Wasser's office.

Listen, she loved it. She loved the twists and turns. What happened with Daredevil? She asked, glad. I can't wait to explain that to you, I said. Right. No, she... So I was not only watching the show with curiosity, you know, in a very...

But through almost a child's eyes. Yeah. Well, the children were finally asleep. Right. But I was nervous. I was doing that Venn diagram, or not even a Venn diagram, it was literally like a diagram of like a triangle where one eye is watching the show, and the other one is watching to see how it's being received.

Like how much longer, or like, is there going to be a moment where I'm going to be asked to finish this on the iPad? And she really liked it. And I think that there's, I sort of alluded to this earlier, but like almost a two-track conversation to be had about this. And maybe this is going to be the way going forward for all Marvel shows. because on the first track, this really, really is my shit. Like, this really satisfies a type of entertainment that I think everybody requires from TV,

but maybe they get it in different forms. 1950s domestic sitcoms. Well, not specifically that, although we'll talk about that. But just high-level competence, if not cleverness and entertainment, you know, really committing to a really interesting, fun bit. and everybody giving it their all. That was really entertaining to me. Now, track B is in the service of what?

In the service of, you know, chasing your own tail of corporate dominance and the service of making jokes about TV shows that the majority of your audience won't get? I'm not ready to do track B yet because I thought for track A, it's just pretty, and I know this wasn't intended to be their first show, and I understand why. I'm glad that it was because it is absolutely from jump making the case that Marvel films, Marvel Entertainment,

is no longer just a blockbuster movie enterprise. They are a comic book entertainment enterprise because this, down to its weird self-referencing Easter eggs, is a comic book story. And I don't just mean that it's pulled from real comic book stories, and it is, and we can talk about that. But I mean, taking characters and doing weird-ass shit with them

for a limited amount of time, knowing that it's limited, that people like the characters, so they're going to probably pick up the issues. This is just classic Marvel in a way that sometimes the bombast of the movies isn't. And that, as people know, because of my longtime fandom,

that really resonated with me too. I went into this with very low expectations because I don't really care about Vision and Wanda as characters. Yes, nor should you from those movies. Yeah, and since I don't have a relationship, I know that there are apparently a couple of really good vision runs, but I never really checked about the comics. And so I went into this just really curious because I would imagine there are more people out there like me than not in terms of their relationship to those characters.

So just as a little bit of background, I'll just mention that Matt Jack Schackman directed all these episodes in Jack Schaefer, who wrote the Black Widow movie and previously wrote The Hustle. She wrote the scripts, I believe all of the scripts, but she's the main sort of- She's not credited on two, but she was the showrunner. She's the showrunner. And it's basically Wanda Max Moff and Vision, they're quote-unquote stuck, at least in the first few episodes. in a 50s television landscape that has a lot of very overt references

to the Dick Van Dyke show and to be wished. Yes? First 50s and then 60s. It seems like the... It's progressing. The decade is changing. Yeah, I think that each episode

might go forward. And so it's got, obviously, Paul Bettney and Elizabeth Olson reprising their roles as Wanda and Vision. It brings in Catherine Hahn as a nosy next-door neighbor and Fred Malmad is in it, who you may remember from, I don't know, like a serious man,

but definitely just as a great character actor, and he plays Vision's boss, what's there, Debra Joe Rupp, right, from that 70s show and friends and tons of other things. It plays the boss's wife. And the first episode is essentially just like this kind of slightly disorienting look as Wanda and Vision seem to be in media res with this life that they've got

that is in this sitcom, but are also sort of mildly, aware that something is off. There's a date that it's the anniversary or it's a special day that we're starting this story and they can't seem to figure out why it is. They keep thinking maybe it's the anniversary. Maybe it's because we're having our boss over for dinner. And second episode is not dissimilar. It's basically them going through the steps of suburban utopian life and yet still feeling like there's something slightly off. There's a voice coming from the radio that says, Wanda, Wanda.

There are certain characters who seem a little bit just not right. And there are moments where they seem to be aware of what is happening, that they are inside of this sort of simulacrum

or this alternate reality. And I think that there were points when during the actual first two episodes where I was a little bit like this is dragging or I didn't feel like the actual things I was watching on screen were

quite that entertaining, honestly. But at the same time, I weirdly was pissed off that there wasn't a third and fourth episode to watch as soon as I was done too. And strangely enough, for something that I think is being pitched as this curio

that's like on the side of a lot of like the sort of mainstream Marvel storytelling, I did just like a little bit of cursory Googling and reading about the show and was frankly blown away not only by the amount of shit that they packed into the margins

and the details of this show. But the amount of work they obviously put into nailing certain things, like the credit sequence of Wanda Vision being the credit sequence of Dick Van Dyke show and stuff like that. So really kind of after that, I went back and rewatched it a little bit. And I was just kind of like, whoa, amazing job. Like really, really like kind of the same way you would feel after you watched Mandalorian where you're like, well, you guys did it.

You guys are just working it really at the top of your game. And even if this isn't going to change my life necessarily. I really do appreciate what's going on here. I didn't necessarily like ever crack up or find it funny or like get blown away. I definitely think the beekeeper reveal towards the end of two is is very cool and it makes you perk up a lot. But you were blown away, huh? Yeah.

Well, I think you hit on a bunch of things that are worth commenting on. I think the first one is nobody would care about these characters from the movie. They're barely characters in the movies. They barely exist. And it's not just because there's very little real estate. for, you know, tertiary Avengers, no offense to them both. But part of their presence in the movies often felt like, well, these were characters who were in the Avengers, so we should put them in there. And you often see actors who have a lot to recommend them, like Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olson, kind of just get lost in the scenery, in the plot and in everything else that's at play there.

what's exciting if you know obviously there are whole swaths of people who won't be excited by this at all but if you are interested at all in these types of stories and in these characters in this world this points an interesting way forward which i think is a little bit different than the way we've looked at it before which is to say that like okay these are secondary tertiary characters in a big action movie but we like them maybe we'll make a new big action movie about them it's saying no let's tailor something to their specific talents that wouldn't otherwise be seen and let's continue this relationship in a new direction. That's obviously why the actors signed on. You know, also they probably got paid very well to do it. But what we see from Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bedney

in just in the first episode, let alone the first two, is completely unrecognizable from their performance in the movies. It's totally delightful. And you can also tell that they're enjoying it and giving it their all, you know, in a way that really is winning and really is entertaining. And I'll be interested to see, not to make this a knee-jerk either or, but like, as part of Walter Hamada's big DCU push, you know, they're pre-announcing TV spinoffs from movies as they're announcing the movies.

Like there's a suicide squad spinoff that James Scott is already working on. That's the thing. Wrote all the scripts for already. I think it's the John Sina character, right? And so what will be interesting to see and it will inevitably be compared to is, will that series like,

like Suicide Squad? Here's more suicide squad. Or will it be more in this model, which is there's something interesting here and we're going to let it be what it wants to be. Those are very different models. An interesting point because I don't know that the DC stuff has like a consistent tone. I mean, I guess it's dark, I suppose.

But, you know, I saw this weekend that there was like David Eyre on Twitter was sort of starting to talk about how he had like the air cut of suicide squad. And then it was a lot darker and a lot more like the Comic Con trailer that they had shown. And I think one thing that Marvel really has going for it is that there has been this. And then, you know, I think some people might be like, that's the problem. but there is a uniformity of feel to them, with a few exceptions. I think a lot of these movies have a kind of chatty, uh,

one-liner quippy sense of humor. They have like a certain kind of lightness to them, like where like, you know, very rarely are you, are you, until you get to like end game or certain parts of Black Panther? Are you like, oh, I'm deeply like upset now? But there's also a tone that's in a lot of the movies that I was really happy wasn't here until the very end. At the end of both episodes, we get a little breaking the, I don't know what wall it is in terms of this unreality.

The third eye wall or something. We hear a voice that some people are thinking as Randall Park's character or other people that we know from the MCU basically watching this. That this is, they're being observed. And that moment, everything from the lighting to the way it's shot to the aspect ratio that changes, the way it sounds, is the other dominant tone of the Marvel's movies, which I'll refer to as the Mr. Stark tone. which means that someone is walking down a shiny hallway handing Robert Downey Jr. an iPad and telling him something's gone wrong. It's usually Kobe Smolders who's doing it, right?

Sure. There's always the like, dun-da-d-d-dun-da-da-d-d-d-d-it. It's like, oh, right, this is an action movie. And I was very happy that that wasn't in the show. And I'm actually not dreading, but I'm not looking forward to the time when the fiction breaks, because the fiction is really fun. And to go to circle back to that, I am not. And I know a lot of TV critics are, and I commend them for it, and I am reading their takes.

because I don't have this capacity. I am not a TV historian. You know, like, I have seen classic sitcoms because you can attest to this too, Chris, and we were growing up. If you stayed home sick from school, these shows were still in rotation. Like, I dream of Jeannie and Bewitched

and maybe not the Dick Van Dyke show as much. That was, I think, eventually back on Nick at night when we were kids. But these shows were part, we know them, like Gilligan's Island and these other, like we just Brady Bunch, these shows were on. They weren't that old when we were not old.

Sure. So I'm familiar, but I'm not like appreciating the deep references to what it meant to be married in the 1960s and I was represented on television. But all the rhythms that are still present in sitcoms today were born from, particularly from the, you know, the Dick Van Dyke Writers Room with Carl Reiner and Larry Gelbard and all the geniuses who worked on the show and basically invented our comedic language of television. So to see them do that so lovingly and accurately and feel the rhythms are correct was really fun. for me. And I liked the way it also then puts in that extra bit of like, well, I'm not actually human. You know, so they were, it was that second to third level of awareness that made a really charming and fun. And committing to it by having Catherine Hahn, who's having a great time, clearly, or Fred Melamid, who, you know, is such a specific type in person. I loved all that.

Yeah, or Debra Joe Rupp, who's actually been on that 70s show is essentially the more modern version of those old sitcoms anyway. And I think we should take a moment just to give a lot of shout-outs to Matt Shackman, who, is a tremendous director who's done, he was a child actor, he's done like tons of episodes if it's always sunny in Philadelphia, he's an episode of Fargo. I mean, he's done. Thrones? He did Thrones. I mean, he has one of the most interesting and active resumes of any TV directors working. Clearly, he loves TV and saw this not as like a paycheck gig, but like I can really have fun with this and get into the weeds, as I was saying before, with like color saturation and stuff. And so it is a labor of love. Now, is it a show? Now, is it a show?

ship in a bottle on a number of levels? Maybe, because it's ultimately, I guess, going to be about someone taking advantage of Wanda's crazy reality-warping powers to... At the end-game, isn't Vision dead? Yes. Yeah. Like, doesn't Thanos tear his forehead out?

His head gets crushed, yeah. Right. Which is why he's like, my head's indestructible. Right. So we're doing some sort of vision reclamation project here, I bet. And, you know, to your other point about the comics, like, Scarlet Witch has never made any sense. Like, she was just sort of like...

have like a new past or like they reinvent her a lot right yeah like she was she's a mutant in the comics obviously that's not the case in the MCU she's she's magnito's kid right in the in the comics they that's not the case in in the MCU because they didn't own the X-Men but her powers have just been like well she can hex you and you have bad luck and you slip in battle to a infamous storyline in the last 20 years where she snapped her fingers and said no more mutants and eliminated all mutants except for like well of course like Wolverine from the Marvel universe. And just millions of people blinked out of existence.

To other even weirder stories where she did go to the suburbs and marry Vision and retire from superheroing and they had twin kids. And then you found out later that their kids were products of a deal she made with literally the devil and involved a witch whose name sounds a lot like Catherine Hahn's character's name. It's Agatha, right? Yeah, Agatha Harkness, who lived next door. So is she a witch, or is she a mutant or she an Avenger? I mean, good luck making any sense out of that hash,

but there is a tradition of this kind of storytelling for the character. And look, in the movies, there was no tradition of any story for the character. So why not? But I guess where I am with it, and this might not be where everyone is, because I'm sure there's a huge swath of people who like their Marvel and their Marvel, and they know what they want and are looking for the Easter eggs of like, Oteona Paris is playing Monica Rambo, who was a character who was named Captain Marvel, which was confusing and then got another name,

and is going to play a figure in Captain Marvel, too. and there's a helicopter crash that looks like Tony Stark's thing and then she's there in town and what's going on. There's a way to watch the show for that. It's cleverly laid out. But I am the dude.

Unexpected, you know, Everard probably could have guessed this. I like it when they're, I like the weird part. I think I'm going to enjoy the first half of the season more, but I'm curious if the spirit of the first can travel into the second.

I think it's strange because the more I think about it, the more I'm like, you know, something like this, which feels very light and feels not disposable, but like minor, is actually something worth more scrutiny

because they are so good now at this point at layering in hints, Easter eggs, meanings, whatever into this stuff. I mean, even the fact that all the performers on the show do such a good job mimicking 1950s live in front of a studio audience. Like, basically, like, kind of looking off

away from the character that they're addressing, whether it's because they would be reading cue cards or playing to the audience, basically. You see Bettney do that a lot. It's really, it's quite charming. I had one follow-up question I went to ask you, unless you wanted to do any other Wanda Vision stuff. Just to say, I feel like these shows and their success,

and I know I used that word a bunch, but I mean it literally, like this has, this worked whether you like it or not, is going to force a reckoning that maybe we've been avoiding or everyone who has involved themselves in or profited off of this TV revolution has been avoiding, which is, what's it all for? And what I mean is, I mean that sincerely.

Like, we definitely pump up certain, there are brilliant television shows that are artistic and as meaningful as any other media, as any book we've read or movie we've seen, speak to us, teach us things about ourselves, show us visions of humanity. And we celebrate those. Ozark, yeah. But I'm talking about it. I should just name the show I'm talking about. But we also have built an industry around chasing that truth and power and art in all of it, right?

And we're like, well, what does this have to say about we're doing? Disney is making, I think, a very good bet. that they can wink and faint towards meaning, but they're just going to smash the like button on your pleasure centers, you know what I mean, and just give you all the Star Wars stuff and give you the comic book stories and the Disney stuff, and it's going to have the trappings of something deep and profound.

But as we've said, even when we've been praising the Marvel movies, they are unto themselves, right? They don't say anything about our world. I mean, if there's anything very sweet about this whole entire endeavor, it's like you wouldn't probably be able to sell a show about a woman who thinks that she's trapped inside of a 1950s sitcom and is imagining her life with her husband and is able to basically manifest her dreams and anxieties

in this sort of pop culture prison. No, the version you can sell is Zoe's extraordinary playlist. Yeah, yeah. Which is no disrespect to that. I mean, that is a show about a woman's internal life with a conceit that is a little odd that is played to the cheap seats. you know, I mean that not that it's cheap to watch the show.

I mean, she literally sings the songs to belt them out to the back of the auditorium, figuratively speaking. Yeah, a challenging drama about someone stuck in their, like, locked in syndrome. Yeah, who's basically like protecting themselves by placing them, by placing herself in, like, this world. Yeah, we're not getting that, that's not getting greenlit anymore. Right. So you have to kind of accept the fact that if you want to watch an espionage show with Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawk, it's got to be about Moon Night.

It can't just be about, like, the Borden legacy. My last question, if you found yourself in a Wanda Maximoff S position where you had to hide away in a fictional television world, what show would you pick? Oh, my God. It has to be a scripted show. Why, would you pick Top Chef?

Yeah, no, or I'd pick, like, the, you know, any Asian, based episode of parts unknown. You know what I mean? Although I guess wet markets... Tokyo sex shops. I was like to say, wet markets have taken a bad rap the last year,

so maybe not that anymore. Boy. So I'm hiding out and I'm... Yeah, and it's like, I think that what you're looking at here is comfort, right? Like, so you're not going to choose deadwood. Do you know what I mean?

No. You're not going to be like, what I want to do is get consumption, you know? I think the most natural pick is like a Mike Scher sitcom, right? So it's like parks and rec because everybody's nice and doing their best. And you can, there's a decent diner. And like you could just kind of hang out there for a while.

I don't think I necessarily, if I was really like seeking mental refuge, it would be like my watching habits. Right. It wouldn't, I don't, I don't really want to like vibe out with something extremely challenging. You know, I don't want to like just join the police force with Elizabeth Moss in top of the lake season one or two just to like heal my soul. What do you got? What's your answer? I definitely would go pre-internet just because I think that would be

like sanity producing. And it's tough. Like part of me wants to say Miami Vice and just drive around in 80s, Florida, and sports cars, but there was a lot of murder in that show. Yes, that's the thing. I don't know if my lifespan would be ideal.

Part of me was like, wouldn't it be fun to be like a mid-level member of Coach Taylor's staff? in Friday at lights, like the quality control guy or, you know, like, linebackers coach. And like every once a month I get to have dinner with the tailors and catch up on everything. But for the most part, I have like a pretty chill life in, in West Texas. But if you look at the timeline of that show, you have very little job security because

that guy changed jobs a lot. And I also think that like you have to deal with like, you know, season two, while we choose to ignore it would be a reality for the people on that show. So Landry killing a guy. That guy killed the guy, yeah. The train crash in season one, you know, streets going to get shark stem cell therapy. I also see this as a long con to get you back to Philadelphia, which is where the Taylor ended up. That's all I want is to be the OC in Temple underneath Coach Taylor.

But yeah, I would say probably in Miami, even if it would be a short run. I would love to watch you on a go fast boat or whatever they called them in the TV show. I think, listen, I think you look great in. deal. I always have. Thank you, man. I think so, too. We're going to wrap it up there. We'll be back on Thursday, and we'll continue talking about Wanda Vision throughout the season, so you can expect our Monday shows to cover them. So keep on top of that show. And until then, man, I'll talk to you on Thursday. Great job for Hainskies. Just really think we did it.