All The News Out of Comic Con, ‘The Agency’ Season 2, and ‘House of the Dragon’ S3E6

Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. It was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we feast! An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios. The Dog Stars, now playing in theaters and IMAX. Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns with a gripping post-apocalyptic thriller when a mysterious radio transmission shatters a lone pilot's isolated existence. He embarks on a dangerous journey in search of hope. Starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, and Guy Pearce. I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com and joining me in the studio, just a kid from Akron, it's Andy Greenwald! I thought you'd start there. Yeah. Despite the weekend. Anything you'd like to get off your chest? We are going to talk about a bunch of the trailers coming out of Comic-Con. We're going to talk about the second season of The Agency, the most recent episode of House of the Dragon. Okay. But I thought we could talk a little bit about LeBron James joining the Philadelphia 76ers. I had a couple of questions for you. You mean LeBron James coming home? I mean, if home is a Tribeca condominium that he'll be living in. You think he's going to do, is he officially going to do the J.J. Reddick? Yeah, but you know what? That's the fucking dream, dude. That is the dream, is to commute. I mean, I would personally. I would personally live in Philly and go to New York to work and play. But however you want to handle it, like, I'd love to have two places like that. It's true. We can't fault him for that. Who among us didn't start in Philly and then live in New York? And you know who's not going to care? Philadelphians. Honestly, like, you know, we have our sensitivities. Yeah. We can get our backs up a little bit. But if LeBron James wants to play for the Sixers, he's welcome to live in New York. So let's talk about this. This was a. I received a text message from our buddy, Zach Barron. I believe LOL was included in the link that he sent. 8.30 a.m. Pacific time. Yes, I was dropping off a child at camp. Yes. And actually stopped about three blocks short of camp. Told her to walk the rest of the way. No, you didn't. Because I had work to do in the content mines. See, the thing is, is that I have to tell you something. Yeah, okay. This is just us. I've received more texts from you about, like, Ben VanSummeren than I have about LeBron coming. First of all, it's VanSummeren. He recently signed with the Buffalo Bills. He was a deep, deep bench backup for the Eagles last year. First of all, he was going to be our starting fullback until a ruinous injury on, I think, the first play of the season. But you've expressed way more excitement about way more random things in Philadelphia sports. And I feel like you've sent two texts about LeBron. And then not responded to a lot of my memes. Okay, I'd like to apologize to you about the memes. The memes, they were excellent. You also made a really, really sterling appearance on our all-parents' favorite television channel, MSNBC. I'm sorry, MSNow. Yes. The ex-MSNBC's Twitter. Shout out to Hallie Jackson. That was a delightful segment. She's a real one from Yardley. She was really representing. Yeah. So you've been great. And I've been enjoying all of your content and memes. I think that I believe in the adage of. I was also on the Zach Lowe Show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Was he from Yardley? No, he's not. Think global, act local. You know what I mean? I think that this is operating on such a higher level than what I can comment on. I think it's so crazy. I think it's ludicrous. So this is a little bit of indie rock snobbery on your part. Absolutely. When it's your discovery, when it's a backup fullback, you're like, oh, that's cool. I found him. But when it's LeBron James, you're like, oh, I'll let the other ones go to Olivia Rodrigo. You have to understand that I have spent 25 years, four years, how many seasons has he been playing in the NBA? Since I was three. Since I was two or three. So I've spent all of that time thinking about him as much as I think about the planet of Jupiter. Like, it exists. It's fucking enormous. Do you know what I mean? Like, you can't make your solar system without it. But it has had nothing to do with me in my life. Yeah. So all of a sudden, he's moving to Yardley, so to speak. Yes. And it's just making me laugh. I think it's great. I think it's exciting. I am super excited. I'm super in on this. I am not. Shout out to Shiel Kapadia, who's debuted a new voice about a guy who's not into this. That's not me. I'm not that guy being like, we're not getting prime LeBron. I think this is hilarious. A lot of characters have emerged out of this. Zach Lowe introduced stat guy who doesn't know if there's enough ball and is going through, like, all the warp and why it's not going to work. I just think you have to, from the psychology of a deeply committed and emotionally disturbed person, a deeply disturbed Philadelphia sports fan who, over the last few years, has really pioneered a new realm of living and dying with every game but not watching them. This is just, what can one do? This is hilarious. And I like the team and the fact that it is a basketball fit and the fact that someone is going to show up into this completely decade-long dysfunction in the locker room and be like, actually, I'm an adult professional and I know how to win. It's thrilling. Yeah. But also protect the kids at all costs. Protect which kids? Tyrese and Vijay. Those guys are psyched. They get to play. They get to play with LeBron. So I'm not upset. I don't think he's going to come in and be like, I need you to trade both of those guys for Kevin Love's corpse now. He's not going to do that. I said he's not going to do that. He's a middle-aged man. I just want everybody to know we're excited. And I think the watch, one thing we could do in this coming NBA season, since there are 34, apparently, 34 nationally televised Sixers games. Did Adam Silver have this? He had, like, the different charts. He was waiting. And he had the button? Yeah. And I think we could make Sixers watch part of the watch. But that would involve you doing some tape work, though. I will say this. I am extremely excited. I think it's going to be an interesting, what's Zach's character about not sure if there's enough ball? I'm not sure if there's enough me this fall, considering fall is traditionally a time of busier work, office and travel. Yes, I know. The Philadelphia Eagles, Ben Van Sumeren's former team, will start playing. This is what I was going to talk to you about. And, Chris, my beloved Tottenham Hotspur, is kicking things off from their return to the top of the table late August. If you pivoted from Sixers-LeBron to Tottenham, I'm just saying, it's going to be a busy. There's going to be a moment in October where, if things go according to plan, we have Red October, we have Eagles back, we have LeBron on the Sixers, all happening at once. And, like, the Studio S2, right? Like, are you going to bring. Just put that stuff aside for a second. Okay. Focus. All right. If we were ever going to do a Philly live show, it should be then. Okay. You're putting me on. Yeah, sure. Okay. Let's. Can we talk mostly about sports? Yes, of course. No, everybody's going to want to listen to Studio S2 takes. Live. Andy, this. It's very exciting. This is. We can leave sports there. Let's leave the games behind. All right. And talk about the art and business of entertainment. You can always hit us up at thewatchatspotify.com. We're going to do a mailbag episode next week, recording it tomorrow, so if you have any last-minute questions. But so far, thank you so much for your questions. Have they been good? They have been. There have been several people who've written in to say, Dear Sir, to you, thank you for giving me space to also feel like the Odyssey wasn't all as good as everybody's making it sound. Did I say that? You had some. You were a little bit more measured, and you were like, that was pretty goofy in places. It fucking was. Okay, good. I stand by that. There's five guys, five people in the world who are like, thanks, brother. That really made me feel seen. I'm not for everyone, but I'm for someone. If you hear this on Monday, and you send in your email tonight, we may get it for tomorrow's mailbag, so the deadline is coming. The WatchPod underscore at Instagram, ringer-tv on YouTube, where we are rocking and rolling with the Prestige TV podcast. And today, like I said, some news at the top. There's a bunch of Comic-Con stuff. We did not go. Did you regret not going? No. You said that real fast. Here's the thing. Yeah. I like San Diego. San Diego is one of my favorite music towns. Some of my favorite bands have come from San Diego. Drive Like Jehu, right? Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, some bands without John Rhys in them, Antioch Arrow, et cetera. But I don't want to go to Comic-Con. I don't think it is. It doesn't really have. That's a real like. But it just goes on YouTube pretty much like the next day. So why would I go to San Diego? To do it? We went together once. I went in 2004. I think I went as your like bag man. I was like, you were going to interview the Banshee cast or something. Yeah, I was. I was just like, I'll just sleep on your floor or whatever. No, no, no. This is a famous story that we don't need to revisit. We had two beds. That's cool. But that was the first time I saw. Did you take both of them? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't. I'm sorry. That wasn't contradicting that you were on the floor. I just wanted you to remember. No, that was when I. That was the first time I observed in person your. Your. Um, podcast sleeping regimen. No, that's not true. you saw it when we went and interviewed Mogwai in Chinatown in New York City yes that was the other time we shared a hotel room but I don't think we didn't podcasts didn't exist then oh when I put pods in yeah and then I put my arms like I'm not you just lay back slowly on your bed yeah it was unbelievable but yeah oh yeah one day we'll talk about that Mogwai has their big anniversary concert right think about going well cause we that's another foundational story we tell that one less than we tell the train spotting one yeah somehow Mogwai is not as grabby it's still Scottish though yeah it's true okay we'll circle back to that so Comic Con we went once we have not been back yeah that was a long time ago so what do you have here you have obviously Marvel kind of singing for their supper like there was a moment here where I think after that Doomsday trailer Marvel fans I think will ride or die with this with this crew no matter what there is a contingent of people who are always going to be present for this the projections for Brand New Day are already like astronomical oh yeah I think above Odyssey like it's it's gonna make a boatload of money but in terms of like where things are going there was a little bit of skepticism it's fair to say after that Doomsday trailer so I think they had a lot they had to get accomplished at their presentation so we're gonna talk a little bit about that there are a couple of TV things I wanted to talk about but we can we can stick on Marvel you wanna start with Marvel yeah because there's a few things here that I thought were cool for number one obviously I think the big headline was that David Johnson who industry watchers and I mean capital I industry watchers will recognize as Gus from the early seasons of industry is gonna play the fucking Black Panther yes he is going to be the kid from the the end of BP2 grown up now eagle-eyed viewers and watchers and listeners or whatever have pointed out that that does seem a bit difficult to do in terms of like how much does he age like when what timeline are these movies taking part in and there's speculation that this will be a post whatever doomsday is well I believe they've already announced the release date for this Black Panther 3 is 28 which would be not only post doomsday it would be post secret wars okay so it would be in Kevin Feige's beloved sacred timeline restoration yes where there would be only one yeah but Shuri is still in it BP3 yeah sure because she's in the doomsday trailer as Black Panther right yes right , right if this was the hill that you died on where you were just like there can only be one legitimate Black Panther I am just what did you think of the casting? well I think the casting is exciting I think the larger conversation is definitely one of what are we doing here in terms of Marvel Black Panther is a little bit carved out of that conversation because if Ryan Coogler wants to make Black Panther 3 then they should make that movie he is on the extremely short list of writer, directors filmmakers who move every needle artistic commercial certainly box office and if this is what he wants to do with all of the goodwill and industry cred and basically market moving power that he has accrued since Sinners which was an incredible bet on himself famously good I'm interested you know he would not come back to do a movie he didn't want to do even if the fanboys in that room were screaming that trilogies need to be completed or whatever and I think what we know from the sadly scrapped original script of Black Panther 2 when Chadwick Boseman was still with us and was going to be starring in the movie that was going to be a father-son movie so this is clearly the story or the kernel of the story that Coogler wants to tell and so this will give him a chance to do it and I guess I read also some reporting that this casting was done months ago that they've been quietly building towards this and planning it and this probably aligns with the timeline where Denzel Washington either he said it or someone said it that he's going to be in this movie Denzel is in this movie and now that's also been confirmed so unlike some of the other things that they've announced which we're going to pivot to if a filmmaker has a story he wants to tell that's exciting I wish that the same artistic vision applied to other movies yeah this is what I want to say so just on Johnson really quick not only is he great in industry he was he has been a guy over the last two years specifically who is an old school like when you were watching it like if I'm watching a movie with like another person or in a theater or with my wife or something like that routinely gets at like they'll be like who was that that guy was awesome he was in Romulus and he was incredible in Romulus and he's awesome in The Long Walk with Cooper Hoffman so he has obviously got something and I think it's interesting the qualities that I think he shares with Bozeman as a performer like a kind of centeredness but then there's some differences you know he has like a little bit of like I don't know like maybe perhaps like a knowability I don't know I don't know how to describe it because Gus was such a distinct character in industry and then since then like he's played a you know a synthetic person in Romulus his Long Walk character is awesome but in any case um well I think I think it's great casting I think what's interesting about him is that he's one of the rare cohort of performers who can signal to a camera that what he's doing and what he's thinking are different but both are incredibly incredibly alive and active that's a really good way of putting it and I think that he that adds something I mean he's gonna be in a mask for a lot of the movie but that adds something different to the character and maybe fits into what I could imagine be a theme about not teenage he's 32 but like rebellion or rebelling against a legend or resisting or resisting a mantle of some kind I think that's an interesting story to tell and you know they have a situation where like immediately they when they they announce this they tell the story of casting Johnson and it's gonna be shot on film I'm sure in 65 or 70 or some great format um and you know Denzel is in it and you already you immediately start thinking like can they not move like this for all the other all the movies you know what I mean like and this was sort of I know the original promise of a certain era of Marvel where it was gonna be and Star Wars to some extent where it's gonna be like we're gonna get great filmmakers and tell great stories and we're gonna merge this amazing intellectual property with their artistic vision and and it just seems like that whole experiment is basically a failure uh whether it's people leaving projects like Lord and Miller on Solo or you know Edward Wright on Ant-Man and and or arriving at this kind of uh flattened pre-viz we just need people to get this from A to B we can't really take too many chances or ever do anything pretty provocative you know Thunderbolts being like an exception to the rule maybe so I just I guess weirdly it was bittersweet just cause I was like why can't you guys make like badass like Avengers movies this way I guess maybe that's like a lot of moving pieces a lot of moving pieces I think it's a couple things one I do wanna just have a moment to do like a a naval burial at sea for a take I was proud of which was that all of Doomsday and Secret Wars was just part of a long game to reboot the Marvel Universe where Michael B. Jordan is Black Panther um that's interesting I don't think he wants to do that um he might show up in Secret Wars who knows but uh so I just wanna like salute that you know drape drape that coffin the flag I think it's great that Michael B. Jordan does not need to show up in Secret Wars me too like as like a he doesn't need that in his career I completely agree with you um don't get me started on the Adam Driver as Mr. Sinister rumors that are bubbling up right now as well um so I think it's always worth contextualizing what you're saying that all there is a legitimate there's a legitimacy to that strain of thinking to those rumors that like I I know some of it's confirmed but I'm not I'm not breaking news here but like Kathy Kennedy in her tenure at Head of Lucasfilm literally did meet with everyone you know there was the Vince Gilligan meeting there was many David Fincher meetings there was Soderbergh meetings um Kevin Feige I'm sure has had similar meetings with the the best of the best and what they discover is that there can only really be one no Adam driver of these cars they are too expensive they are too difficult to maneuver and if a filmmaker like David Fincher comes in and is like cool I am you know I want to do the Submariner movie but I get Final Cut and I do whatever I want that's just not going to work in the timeline that's why you end up hiring in best case scenarios like really really solid workers who can deliver like what the Russo brothers were when they took them from TV um or where we're about to get with Sean Levy it's just not it's just not consistent with what these things end up having to be for shareholders and for delivery dates and global vis effects sweatshops or whatever the case may be um Black Panther is the one outlier here because they need him much more than he needs them and I think by all accounts they have a very good working relationship but if that relationship was ever threatened and Feige and Luis Esposito were like actually we need to you know introduce the new warriors in this movie also I think Coogler could be like well good luck making it without me sure you know and good luck having anybody believe in this if I am somehow not part of it exactly so it is it is a it is a power thing now turning the page to the other announcement from it um I I I again I want to say this in a non snobby or judgmental way we listen and we don't judge Sean Levy is a professional people pleaser, right? - Okay, yeah. I have separate apart from what I think about the man as the man or the artist. I've never met him. But like he clearly strikes me as someone who can walk into any room and convince people that he can solve your problems and deliver for you. And he's done that now with Star Wars because he's making he's now wrapped a Star Wars movie. And he's about to do this for Marvel, having done Deadpool and Wolverine, which I think is one of the most odious pieces of pop culture ever released in the last 20 years. But it made a billion dollars. So congratulations to everybody involved. Do we talk about that? I fucking went to L.A. live at 8 a.m. and saw it and dragged my ass over here to talk about it. You can go to movies whenever you want. You know that, right? Not with a particular parenting schedule. Yeah, I'm just saying. Theoretically, one could. I don't remember that episode at all. Was I there? You may have been doing the 2020 NBA redraft episode. Where I was like, it was fine, you know? Like, I laughed. Chris Evans is playing Fantastica. No, I think I was actually pretty mean about it. Now that I think about it. Do you think that that's why you don't remember it? Because there's a part of you that, like, blacks out like bad mommy? Other mommy? Oh, sorry. Flatulent mommy? What do we call it? Other mommy. Other mommy. When you're being mean. I think I'm a little bit more disappointed in the Gosling aspect. No, that's why I was backdooring that. That's what I want to talk about. So, Kofi, you can have so many different parts of your career. And if this is what Ryan Gosling wants to do, it's not like he hasn't given a large chunk of his soul to the art and craft of acting and made really complicated movies and done really demanding roles. He has. And if he wants to just kind of, like, spend what I imagine is his early 40s? Like, how old is he? He's a couple years younger than us. Yeah, like, mid-40s, chilling somewhere, probably with the beach next to him, and then making movies that his kids will like. I don't really love that excuse, though. No. I mean, like, I just kind of don't want to be challenged anymore and make movies that my kids will like. Guess what, man? Your kids are going to like good movies soon. Yeah. You know, you can make some of them, and they can watch them when they're 18. I'm not saying you have to make Blue Valentine every six months, but, like, this whole, like, I want to make movies my kids can watch. Like, your kids want to watch cool shit. Yes. And there will be a day, I can attest to this, when your kids will become teenagers, and they'll be like. Like, what have you done with your life, Dad? They'll be like, you made Drive? Then they'll be like, and then you made the fucking Fall guy? Right. Grow up, Dad. Like, yeah, it, I think it sucks. I think it sucks on many levels. Here's one level. Ghost Rider is stupid. Ghost Rider is a stupid character. Okay. I have no relationship. I have read comic books for much of my life. I have enjoyed Ghost Rider's appearance in comic books from time to time. Ghost Rider is dumb as fuck. Ghost Rider is a guy named Johnny Blaze who gets inhabited by the spirit of vengeance and transforms into a dude with a flaming skull head who rides a motorcycle and whips people with flaming chains. And Nicholas Cage has been that role in movies. And Eva Mendes was in that movie. And was married to Ryan Gosling. Does Ghost Rider play a part in any larger Marvel kind of story? I mean, every so often, when an interesting writer takes over one of the big franchise titles, one of the things that they do, and this is, I bet you could name, like, a national side manager who does this with World Cup teams just for LOLs. But it'll be like, now whoever is taking over the Avengers, and it's Iron Man, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, fucking Ghost Rider. And everyone's like, what's Ghost Rider doing here? And then, then it kind of wears off. Okay. So, sure. But the fact that Kevin Feige is up on stage, being like, we've struggled for years on how to bring John Blaze into the Marvel universe. I'm like, some people are working here, sir. Some people have real jobs. My job is going to see Deadpool. My job is seeing your swill, sir. At eight in the morning. And I'm a parent of daughters who, what did you say? One day we'll want to see good shit. Yeah. Who want to watch Only God Forgives. Excuse me. As someone whose job it is to talk about movies and television shows with his best friend twice a week, I stand up for the working man. Anyway, so that's dumb. Gosling being like, this is what I want to do is also really disappointing and dumb. But the dumbest thing to me is a room full of like hundreds and hundreds of nominal adults screaming and cheering for someone getting hired. Your dad just came out. No, but for real though, there's no movie here. There's no movie. There's not. They're like, and now we're here to announce that Ryan Gosling has been promoted to VP of International Marketing and Research. And I was like, fucking hooray. You got a job. He didn't need the job. There's no movie. Yeah. It's an idea of a thing of someone doing something later. They have the font for the poster and everything. Look how you're quietly zagging. I'm not zagging at all. You're Homer Simpson into the bush right now. You know what it is? It's a fucking Sean Levy movie where he's going to be a spirit of vengeance, but he'll probably have a soft spot. For a kid, you know, like, come on, dude, if there's a kid in Ghost Rider, there's going to be a kid in Ghost Rider. Do you think he's going to be a little, is he a little, a junior ghost with his head is on fire too? Little ghost. You know, it would be cool. This is kind of a tangent. I don't know if you ever see these, but there's a great thing on Instagram that pops up all the time. First of all, everything on Instagram. Great. Love it. But it's just like a dude in England who rides a bike, mountain bike with his little kid in the front and the videos are just the kid going, "Daddy, bus." And he's like, "Yes, that's a bus." He goes, "Daddy, bus." And he's like, "Flowers." He's like, "Good, that's flowers." What if that was Ghost Rider? Is the kid, like, harnessed or? The kid has a little seat on the, and he has his own handlebars. Oh, okay. So he's riding on the bike and then the guy has like a camera and that's the video. I could watch that forever. I like the dude who gets up at like before dawn and like rides through Trafalgar Square and kind of. John O'Verity? He's my hero. Yeah. That. Okay. Sorry. I watch that shit live. That guy's the best. Because he's waking up in London. Yeah. And it's 10:00, 9:00, 10:00 PM here. Can we just. Yeah. Can we sidebar for a second here? Okay. Here's why I think we're doomed. And it's not about Wolverine and Deadpool or whatever. It's about the fact that you know, and everyone who listens to this podcast know that most of my time not, you know, working real hard is like looking at like London restaurants and pub content on my phone, like Instagram, like I follow restaurants, I follow whatever. And the way that it gets you is that it constantly, constantly pushes you towards extremity in the worst possible ways. So like, I like to watch James Dimitri go into pubs and order a snake bite, which is beer and cider. And then I'm like, then it's like. And blackcurrant. And black, with a little blackcurrant on top. Yeah. Or a lot of blackcurrant. Then, then I go to like suggested for you, and it's a guy walking into a Costco in Florida being like, I've got $10. How quickly can I get blackout drunk by chugging this pop off bottle? And I'm like, no, no, I, I understand Claude that these both involve men drinking, but there's a, there's a difference here. Uh huh. And then I follow a British restaurant, you know, and I'm like, oh, it looks like they've got a, an interesting Tandoori special. One day I'd like to visit that. And then the next suggested for you is, is this American woman being like, the British people are pussies about spice. I'm going to take their six chicken wing challenge. And then she just starts barfing in the restaurant. I don't want to know that. I don't want to see that. Well. I blame Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's probably been greater infractions and crimes. Nope. By large tech companies than you being forced to watch somebody puke. I'm just saying how this is, this is the way things go. This is the way we try. This is the trend. This is how we go towards ruin. And maybe Sean Levy directing Ghostwriter is the first, the next. I will just, to put it, to put a bow on the Ryan Gosling thing, uh, I don't, I don't want him to be sad. I don't want him to be upset. And I want him to make money. Like, and those are all great things. Me too. He's the best. That's why he should have just kept making nice guys. Yeah. Because it would have been right in the middle. Yes. You know, rather than all this, all the way over where every couple of movies, you're going to get a Project Hail Mary, but then you're also going to get a, a, a fall guy. Well, a fall guy was okay, but like the gray man, um, pretty bad. So yeah. Uh, what about the whole, they didn't do, I think we thought many people thought many people are saying. That they would announce the X-Men. Yeah. I guess they didn't for reasons, including they're still holding on to. They're still pretending like the Fox X-Men are going to live for more than 15 minutes in that movie. I know. I know. No, no spoilers. But that's how. No spoilers, but they're like Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd and Kelsey Grammer are all going to be in this movie for the same amount of time. Like that is. Yeah. Everyone's like screaming. Um. So excited. There was apparently a doomsday trailer, uh, where I, I guess there's more, more to it. And it's like Vanessa Kirby narrating like doomsday. Um, Dr. Doom was like doctor. He showed me his credentials. He's actually a PhD, not a medical doctor. He actually, what do you think his doctorates in, um, whatever it took to get, what was the Sokovia? Like, what was it? Was he like an infrastructure doctor? Oh my God. Rebuild Sokovia. He's from Latveria. Right. Yeah. And he's like, and probably Sokovia radicalized him because if it could happen to one made up country in Europe. Yeah. That's the way why he's radicalized that took his family. Right. Who? Like some tragedy. Yeah. It's so funny. level of water carrying where they're like no no no doom is different as a villain because they took everything from but that's the same as what happened to thanos right it's the same as everyone it just you take everything from me i become a super villain um kind of on the superhero tip lightly what i just wait did you have any other thoughts about this new footage or about this new has it changed do you think that they did anything i didn't see the new footage come out i didn't see it they were just describing it i read a description of it look how fucking far we've fallen i don't think that that comic-con footage has come out yet as of press time did you see the only thing that i know and i i intentionally i i don't want spoilers even if the movie ends up being trash of what of doomsday but you've read it already i don't think they're doing one-to-one they was there wasn't a story called doomsday we think that oh but you ever read like the leaks or anything like that no and and look at your face i have doing the wind horse but all i'm seeing is headlines being like oh my god lm fao all the leaks are right so people are like not thrilled about that oh i i think it's a decent enough story you think it's a decent enough story what's your phd dr ryan public relations that's fucking right um just to put a cap on the superhero side of things there was another lanterns trailer there was a whole lanterns event looks really cool um you can't yada yada that i'm not yada yada ending anything it's a great trailer the trailer is a great trailer it's a great trailer is so good and it's we were talking just a minute ago about bringing your artistic sensibility to a corporate one or not even a corporate one but one with like an established ip and i would say at the on the dc side of things right now for as much as gun and saffron are kind of running dc cu i thought this very much felt like an extension of watchmen yeah and leftovers and some previous stuff and uh i thought that was really cool now maybe part of that is because it looks like they shot it they shot in oklahoma i believe they shot on locations yeah um but i don't really know anything about green lanterns so this is all all the like ring and who gets to be what stuff is new to me but that's what i'm curious about because they they had a teaser that was very grounded as they say yes and then this was much from what i understand like the like the hardcore fans were like what have they done to my beautiful green baby yeah and then in this one they were like holy shit that's sinestro in the flesh and yet that's an incredibly fine line to walk which is why i'm really praising the trailer because i i thought it was an incredible trailer it looks like a very very rare marriage between both sensibilities but you were coming in cold were you put off in any way by the ring stuff or the space no i think i got it i think i understand what's at stake and and what the ring does and i i don't necessarily understand all of like which which every lantern guy is but i thought it looked really good and also the archetypes that these people are playing like kyle chandler playing the like a little bit past it hanging onto the ring a little hard aaron pierre waiting in the wings aaron rogers brett farve action going uh kelly mcdonald's and a lot of you know you were saying a decade ago i did the banshee panel a lot of banshee representation here um ulrich thompson who's the villain on banshee is playing sinestro yes he seems great in the trailer great sinestro is the bad guy is he also a lantern is he was a lantern and he was corrupted by did they take everything from here no yellow is the bad color oh so now he's bad okay uh and chris coy who is also in the deuce yeah on banshee gary dillahunt porno jack nathan and uh laura linney so come on this looks really good man um that comes august i believe 19th something like that so it's mid-august i would say the i would say this is fascinating to us both because we like the people involved and we like to see more interesting or thoughtful or creative expressions of the material that everybody is working with i think it's going to be interesting um to look at the ways two two different levels of collaborations worked with the show when it comes out one is we're talking about our friend damon lindelof who is one of the co-creators and worked on season one of the show yep also working on season one of the show is tom king who is an incredibly accomplished and really innovative and often brilliant comic book writer who's written arcs on like shades changing man and and vision and batman that have been really groundbreaking and this is him working in a different medium and uh but the one holding him together is chris mundy who made ozark yep that's top heavy as far as tv shows go but from all accounts it was a really successful collaboration so i'm interested to see whose dna or what recombinant form of like storytelling emerges from that and then two i know you were watching because i know you're a big dcu guy you saw that um nathan fillion's guy gardner is in this i thought that would that would that was long known it wasn't a surprise okay but that character as being like james gunn's favorite version of a green lantern that he already introduced in superman who's just kind of like a very meta self-aware joking dickhead being in this show which is like no we're doing true detective and we're not worried about the larger ramifications could that just be like a one episode like like one off or do you think he's like going to be showing up at the end of very traumatic scenes and being like wow i can't believe this is happening well that the question is like what who what wins when you combine two strong flavor profiles and like can they shade it differently and present a different version of him kind of the way that marvel is going to try to do with bernthal's punisher who we last saw in his one-off special basically reenacting only the gnarly parts of infernal affairs right and then now he's going to be like gee spidey time to tackle the hulk we'll see um two more tv shows that i want to talk about i'm going to talk about the cot trailers from comic-con uh and they they are united in a kind of vision of the future so i think they work well they're retro futurist tv shows one is apple tv's neuromancer adaptation which is william gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel that has been long kind of like many many filmmakers have tried to unlock this from ridley scott to chris cunningham who directed those twin videos to like the chuck russell who recently passed away um and like i think mel gibson was going to be attached to the ridley scott version at some point but people have wanted to make this book for almost as long as it's existed and it is hugely influential uh on the matrix on on tons of stuff you know one of the funny things with making something like neuromancer is that probably every five to seven years it goes in and out of style both in terms of the visual language of like what's being made now but also what's happening in the culture in terms of packing and all this other stuff and i thought this trailer looked awesome so this comes from i believe his name uh it's yeah it's graham roland who does dark winds and jd dillard and uh he i think jd dillard directed all 10 episodes it's not coming out until next year but it just looked really cool like i mean i suppose there are parts of it that kind of look fifth elementy although for some people i don't know that that's going to be a turn off and calvin turner seemed like a really stable central force in this but more than anything i just thought it like the trailer is essentially cut like fincher's girl with a dragon tattoo uh teaser and it just had a really great vibe i i mean i thought it looked great um i think it's it's impressive too to do it from like uh basically uh from standing still like i did not have anticipation i did not have expectations do you ever read any gibson no i wondered if you were you anywhere i think i mean i read neuromancer did you in high school or something like that or college but yeah i got it didn't blow your mind fucking thing no yeah i think the risk with material like this that has been so beloved and so influential for so long is that you come back to it and it's been strip mined for parts culturally i think that's kind of what happened when peacock finally got around to making an adaptation of huxley's brave new world oh yeah which is that like that has been that that mine is we're gonna be talking about diamond mine soon with the agency season two but that had been sort of like a kind of like a kind of like a kind of yeah you know viking had been there viking had been there already we were too late um which doesn't mean the attempt was like was a bad idea it's just when you get there and you realize that people get these references already and convincing them that this is where they came from is tricky so seeing the neuromancer trailer there are going to be people who are like oh they're just doing the matrix but the matrix was doing this yes i thought that was wise on the part of the trailer to have some text that like pushed forward the idea of like this is the thing that invented all this stuff yes and i i just think it looked i thought it looked really good you know one of the things that was neat about it was even though there are some images that will look very reminiscent of say blade runner uh there's also stuff that like the woman with the the crazy sharp nails and the glass eyes like like there were some really striking visuals in this that i thought were like very very cool i think that the one of the things that the tipping point for adaptations like this is how you approach the material with hindsight and history meaning if you make it and try to imbue it with the same kind of cautionary i'm william gibson did not write it as a cautionary tale he's like always been kind of visionary and future-minded but you can't approach this text as like ah this was a warning sign for the town crier because we're in a totally different version of actual reality now but if you approach it as like the bones here for something very cool and compelling a story are worth doing then you do it and i think that's one of the things that i think is really important and that's why i think it's such a good book and i think it's such a good book and it just the bones are good like the cast is deep and kind of impressive we've got mark strong peter sarsgaard you've got dane dahan yeah um clements poesy um andre de shields from hadestown there you go big box office hit this weekend hadestown do you want to talk about that um but uh i i thought it'd look cool also um have you ever heard of this guy aubrey drake graham he's an up-and-comer he's a producer on it night did he get a piece of this wow uh another trailer that came out another seminal piece of retrofuturism and you know a story that we just can't quit is blade runner so we've got ridley scott's several versions of the first film we've got dinny villeneuve's blade runner 2049 and then a long gestating i feel like this has been announced this was announced a long time ago blade runner 2099 uh which is a new amazon series that i believe comes out in the fall starring hunter schaefer and michelle yo and you i would say i'm pretty into these two performers and i really like just saying the word replicants much like cousin cousin richie on on the bear but the idea that this takes place 50 years after the villeneuve film yeah and i would say they haven't iterated much on the architecture or look or feel or design of this movie yeah or this story considering the fact that it would be close to 70 years of of time taking place so i'm curious about it i'm definitely going to check it out but it almost felt like they repopulated the sets and skin of blade runner 2049 to some extent when we talk about the agency and we're going to talk about it momentarily um we've talked a lot about how it is kind of like an orphan of a different time that somehow survived it's like little cal l that's a dcu reference yeah it's like a little sent away from the dying planet because it was built it was put together to be a Showtime flagship show and is now somehow existing in this like post Skydance merger Paramount Plus timeline. Right. I kind of feel the same way about this Blade Runner show which exists mainly because there was such and you know this is now eight or nine years ago but like the same like we must control these rare earth minerals slash IP of like we must just continue to iterate things that people know and turn them into TV shows that brought us Lord of the Rings, that brought us much of the MCU's failed Disney Plus slate like the desire to get something into production was really strong. Separate apart from whether there was something worth telling or the audience appetite was there for it and then there are these other things that just I feel for the people who made the show because it was something you know was pre strike that was they were going to film in iron Belfast and they had like the sets built they were spending their tax credit and then the strike happened and they'd spent their money then they moved the entire thing to Prague like this is very modern television and then all of this to debut the trailer and just confirm that it's a limited series. Right. Which was I'm they can tell you that that's what they intended for it to be but nobody intends for that. It's also an interesting story to me about who controls this particular piece of IP because for there are two things Ridley Scott who's getting up there in years but trying to outrun the devil but has his hand still on Blade Runner and Alien. Yes. And I think has sometimes a kind of not contentious complicated relationship with letting these things go to other people. Yes. Now I don't know how much of it is rumor and how much of it is real that like he had a very like looking over your shoulder relationship to Betty Alvarez on Alien Romulus and that is partially why Alvarez is not coming back for a new film and I believe they went through another director who was also like I'm not going to do this if like if he really wants to do it but I think what he really wants to do is finish the Fassbender story with the prequels so you know it's just one of those things where it's like he for better or for worse has some sense of ownership over these things. And perhaps actual technical contractual ownership over these stories. So you're not going to really get any of this stuff done unless you say from executive producer Ridley Scott before the before the title. She was turning 89 this year. I do know that. That's wild. Yes. Yeah. Is he going to run for president? No but like when you when you have older parents I think you're just like this is what I'm saying. How the fuck like my mom couldn't operate Apple TV like how the fuck can Ridley Scott direct Gladiator to I might have something to do with what you know we anecdotally we've heard that like he does have like someone providing him with caffeinated drinks for half the day and then make maybe a little alcoholic drink in the afternoon like he's he is on a very like regimented schedule of what he likes me to honestly I know but I think the difference is someone is just there to provide it for you. Yeah must be nice. It must be. I think it must be I I don't know. I don't know. I think you big Blade Runner guy at all. I love the first movie. I was pretty into the sequel. Yeah. A good Gosling. A good Gosling. But again like the franchise. I mean it's in in the moment I was like this is a perfect vehicle for him. And then now in retrospect I'm like the his engagement with the franchise model. I feel like I wish he was doing other things with it. But this is the world that Gosling. No no no. Gosling. At the time. Oh and he's like. If you're you look at it as a Villeneuve movie. Yeah I see what you're saying. You know like that that the one there are the two paths that it seems for contemporary actors and they are to do the DiCaprio and just try to only work with the best directors and avoid superhero capes and tights or there's the like look man I just gotta I gotta establish a beach head here. Yes. In Sokovia and then I can do work on the side. That was always like Sam Jackson said Bruce Willis told him get a character that you can go back to every three to five years so that like you never have to worry about ups and downs in the box office. I think that Pedro Pascal is doing that but what people don't realize is that character is cinema cellist Alex whatever Alex Behemoth. Alex Behemoth. That at the end of the movie he opens the cello case and his costume is in there. Doom is in there. And he flies off. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. It may have been years ago but I still remember the feeling of unpacking my kids lunch boxes after school and find nothing left. As a parent that's a total win. Boar's Head maple honey ham, American cheese, maple honey turkey, all time greats in the school lunch game. It's real quality protein that tastes great so you can feel that winning feeling all term long. Whether you're doing wrap sandwiches or a quick snack box, Boar's Head makes packing school lunches easier. You'll be proud of what you pack. They'll be happy to finish it. Fuel their school day with the premium choice Boar's Head for lunchtime inspiration. Visit boar'shead.com slash back to school or head to your local deli counter. This episode is brought to you by ADT. One second you're enjoying your day off. The next, your phone buzzes. 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Face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch. And enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at Netflix.com slash house. I want to talk to you about The Agency Season 2. Now, we usually don't do wrap-ups like this where there's no sort of defined which episodes are we talking about. So for anybody who hasn't watched The Agency Season 2, you'll find this conversation useless, but we wanted to knock something out that we felt passionate about on a Monday because I think that Dragon was a bit divisive this week for us. Not between us. Not between us. I mean like I think between what they offered up and what we liked about it. So I have a couple of kind of like superlatives questions about the season itself for you. Yeah. I wanted to ask what you kind of took away from this season as a whole. I will say up front that I thought it was excellent. It didn't feel excellent. What do you mean? I really did have, I had trouble with the remake element of it, I think. I don't think I don't think that this is I wish they had taken more chances and I wish they had done some different things with the characters and i wish maybe it didn't feel as like i was trying to i couldn't even think of a of a metaphor or like an illusion like what is what is the experience of watching something so specific being so brilliantly and thoughtfully remade but so catholically that you're like okay and then i i remember like henry does this and then this happens and then this happens and i think when you're watching a suspense thriller to have all of suspense taken out of it and this show is made much more like a suspense thriller rather than the french kind of like what makes a man a spy and who is he and what is he keep going no you know what i mean like this is much more like we have to go get biking we're gonna track well i do think that that and we talked about this with season one too that that one of the slight tweaks that i think is a smart one is that when you take a show that is and we're talking about laburo which everyone should watch it's one of the i don't know probably my one of my top 10 television series ever definitely the best spy series ever um which is about french the french intelligence service and they are not the they are not the biggest elephant in the room and so when you make the same show about the power that everyone else reacts to about the cia you have to tweak some things and i do think that the tweaking towards being more of a cut and dry power show and an action show makes sense yes um but that is a very subtle tweak that is not necessarily you know as granular as i think you would like and i agree with you my experience with i didn't i don't think they leaned enough into that well yeah i i think i i i think a number of things i think it is frustrating that a show built on the best bones you possibly could acquire through ip purchasing or transferring and then was was um kitted out with just a god tier cast i mean richard gear and jeffrey wright on the show it's ridiculous are on a different level than most performers on television and i could watch them forever and i wish that i could richard gear just doing work a day like what do you want you're in my office stuff like but now get out of my office is is it's ridiculous how good he is but also i'm here for the garrisons i just saw do you know that he's starring in the adaptation of the lisa halliday novel asymmetry i did which is about a young woman's romance with philip roth when he was 40 years old yeah i saw pictures of him filming that who's the woman uh in the film diana silvers who is she was on um she wasn't book smart okay she is she is accurately 40 years younger than him comments were so cool about this movie i gotta say they were really looking for the nuance in the literary adaptation anyway i'm just saying late period gear where he just he's still like a completely unique beautiful and charismatic individual but he looks so fucking over it is incredible it's just like he got a little extra he got an extra color in his palette to play with and i i think it's amazing but it is kind of frustrating that a show with so much pre-built going into it to my mind having now watched both seasons really took a while to find its own footing my experience with it was very impressed with season one very impressed with the accurate adaptation very excited that people would be discovering an incredible story um but it didn't rise beyond the level of its adaptation when season two started and it was dumped uh unceremoniously and we started getting feedback from people who binged it that it was incredible it's taken a leap after three episodes i didn't fully agree because what i felt was that same sense of like the best karaoke performance i've ever seen in my life yeah sometime around four or five i think when owen goes to africa it elevated for me and suddenly i noticed that it was doing things not just in like differentiating in terms of adaptation but finding new parcels and packets of ideas and themes and emotion in the softer character moments between scenes you could feel it at the beginning of season two when the you know owen is hooking up with rain who's the office is an assistant in the office and then you know the the party where you get a little sense of and by the way the the character in the french version as kind of like the office guy who is just inexplicably an absolute swordsman yeah um even after his grievous injury um that's canon that's canonical but but there was just more room to grow there and like the blair character who's there throughout the season one and then and i should i should be saying yeah i think she's amazing and i love the way the cadence that she's chosen to speak in this character that both i think help probably helps with her accent because like almost everyone on the show she is english playing an american but um adds a different very subtle note that suddenly you realize you've been listening to the whole time so the fact that it i sit here week to week with you and i celebrate and champion shows that find their footing that kind of lean into what's working for them and suddenly they're it's a like a firework show of an ensemble it's very odd that a show this expensive and this like heavily mapped and you know and non um it's not exactly an there's nothing improvised really about yeah but it that it had it found a spark 15 episodes into his run its run is both maddening and also thrilling because i thought the run from 205 to 210 was some of the best tv i've seen this year i thought 208 was just goaded as an episode on its own terms with its smaller with its small tweaks and it kills me because i mean we should talk about the content before we do what i'm about to do but like i think this is all we're gonna get and i think that sucks i i wonder if that was maybe in the back of my mind as i as i finished this season but yeah like this is a this is a strange critique because what i'm saying is they did an excellent job remaking one of my favorite tv shows ever and it's not the same feeling what is when you're watching a star wars sequel and you're like this is essentially new hope okay yeah oh right you know what i mean like the shadow the gestures and the large movements of this show are the same as when you're watching a star wars sequel and you're like this is essentially story are basically a new hope this this is literally the bureau yeah uh and i think because of the genre and because of the literal story that it's telling at a certain point like even if it's what i'm watching is thrilling the experience of watching it becomes a little less than average because i'm like yes and see i know exactly what's gonna happen i think for me it this is this is very interesting to me because that was definitely my reaction through season one season two even as i remembered and we should probably also say like i have not revisited that series i probably that's i would love to re-watch it but my sense memory of like the word the lyrics coming back to me is not instantaneous i did not remember the chess scene that was going to end the season until like 209 yeah and then i got excited about it for me the difference was once i started to feel the idiosyncrasies and the specificity of the emotions of these characters not of the woman in the office but of katherine waterston's naomi and who she was and how she's playing the part and what her role in this is it reinvigorated my engagement with the scene work yeah so that i knew broadly like what was going to happen with hassan zamani and like his very bad espionage and why he gets busted yeah and i think also in that moment i was on the edge of my seat again and i was like i'm gonna do this again because i enjoyed that kid's performance and i was just locked in on the stakes for them yeah you know to your point like i knew that danny is getting away but the show does a couple things that i maybe they did it in the french version i don't remember i think i mean i don't even remember how it would have played out in the french i don't remember how it plays out in the french version of like who is richardson in the french version version and what how that goes like well i don't think he executes him no he in in the french version malatru who is matthew kasavitz's character martian in this version is he betrays france to america yeah and the americans are that yes to buddy garrity from friday night lights to the cowboys the cia um and and that adds a whole other element of like are these our allies or are they just the bullies who we owe i thought the whole like the the china aspect of of uh of this guy's rise through mi6 was very cool of richardson's rise through mi6 was very cool i think there were two plots that that i found very uh difficult to like sift through again which was one very minor but martian's relationship with his daughter and to the danny plot because the danny plot was so close to let's do one than the other the daughter stuff was i to my mind much better this season okay um it was it was minimized it was better chosen like i thought that the the moments and they made a joke about whether fast bender could smile or not or whether he could laugh or not um the the agency of season one and the way they overweighted that those scenes i think would have it surprised me that they didn't actually steal directly from the bureau which if you remember the entire second season's framing device is him writing his confession diary to his daughter while he's in a hospital bed that's season one well it's season one we see i think it's season one he's in the hospital selling out to the americans but we don't know what he's who's interrogating him and why he's in a hospital bed. That's the conceit. In this season, I believe it's the confession. I thought it showed great restraint that it didn't do that for the entire season. I agree. And the things that it did pull from LaBuro made me excited. Like, in this case, Poppy's relationship with Dozer is her name in the American version. But in the French version, the daughter has a surprising relationship with one of the minders. And it's sort of like this weird found family thing. I think the show did such. Well, let me address the other thing before we get to the other compliments. The other thing was the Danny plot. I found it broadly as interesting as the first one. Maybe it's just personal taste. I think Sarah Lightfoot-Leon, who plays Danny, I liked her. I was more compelled by her as an actor. No disrespect to the French woman from the original series. But I do. I just thought she has such a vibrancy and passion that you see. Like, she can play big so that when she's playing small, you're really, really laser-focused on watching her. I did think, and I can't tell if it's just the nature of the show, in my mind, the second season was so expansive of LaBuro. And I remember what felt like really long set pieces and a lot of time spent in Iran in different ways, slow building with that relationship. Mm-hmm. And it felt rushed in this season. I don't know if that's rushed because I was fast-forwarding in my mind. Maybe we're, like, in some weird ways the wrong people to talk about the agency. Because, like, I don't know that we can untether ourselves to the original show. You know, I'll talk about some stuff that really worked for me. Okay. The entire Valhalla thing and Owen and Robin I thought was awesome. And I thought tying it into American right-wing extremism, but also, like. Letting Owen kind of be this desk jockey who gets cocky and wants to become a field agent, not unlike the original series. But Magaro is so good in the show. He really is. And I specifically really enjoyed his conversations, brief as they may have been, with Harriet Sampson, Dr. Blake. Yeah. With. I thought she brought such a cool quirk to it. I mean, that is one of the things that you really have to get around is the idea of, like, a therapist walking around a spy agency and getting people who keep secrets for a living to just constantly speak in total vulnerabilities. But I thought her scenes with Fassbender and her scenes with Magaro were some of my favorites. But the entire. The Africa, the Central African Republic, diamond mining, Antwerp, like, all of that stuff was really awesome. Shout out Clayne Crawford from Rectify as Viking. You mentioned the therapy scenes. Like, you and I read these books, spy fiction, and watch these shows for the clear-out ISO moments when Len Dyden or John le Carre or recently Oliver Harris can really let us know what's going on with these people. And what excited me about those scenes, especially in the back half of the season, was you could feel the Butterworths starting to vibe out on that a little bit. And there's the Dr. Sampson scene with Naomi where she says, and I wanted to write this down before we did our pod, where she says, two sorts of people are drawn to this, those who wish to be someone else and those who are unable to be a person in the first place. And it's like, my God, that's George Smiley's music. It's just connecting it to this great tradition of, like, sweeping, bombastic psychological statements about the broken people who take it upon themselves to fix the world. And the show elevated on that. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple of moments also spy to spy in this season. But specifically, there's one, it's kind of when everything is about to collapse on Henry and he and Naomi are walking from the floor into his office and she's like, let's go, like, let's bring down Martian. And he's like, you can't go too soon because of this and you can't wait too long because then you become a target. And he's just like, If you miss an apex predator. Yeah, basically like trying to explain why they have to time their move against Martian perfectly. And they don't time it perfectly. Because obviously, the MI6 guys are working against them. What about Naomi and Osman, played by Kurt Egewan, who's also on House of the Dragon? And, like, that's an incredible scene where they're both saying, let's not do the thing that you do. Yeah, let's not, like, play for, like, positioning. Positioning, yeah. And, you know, the thing about this show, again, I agree with you. I wish they went further with this. But it is so, like, all great, truly great spy fiction. It is very. unsentimental about the way that people just get crushed up and used. And that's what I meant by, like, the Danny scene where, you know, the rescue, we kind of knew it was going to happen. But the moment of almost needlessly killing the gas station attendant and then seeing the photo of him with his family laughing. Yeah. And there is nothing heroic about what any of these people are doing in a way that I find really compelling. Broadly speaking, I'd like to think that we use our platform here for good when possible. I would like to implore someone more powerful and richer than us to pick this show up and make more. We do not know that it is canceled. It is not officially canceled. There could be negotiations being made right now. And it might not be that Paramount doesn't want it as much as, like, now because of the way, whatever reasons, like, this cast is, like, I'm not going to be available for nine months to live in England, you know? It just strikes me as such an. It would strike me as such a deeply unfortunate fumble. Things happen all the time and good shows get canceled and good stories don't get resolved and good intentions don't get met. But you've put together something here that is not only incredibly special but is kind of just getting going. It's on the precipice of being awesome. And the difference is it's not asking some other rich-pocketed tech company or streaming service to take a chance on the Butterworth brothers, who, by the way, studios have taken chances on before. Clearly, Paramount. Paramount is very much in business with them, yeah. It's the fact that you have a roadmap. You have three more seasons of one of the greatest shows of all time to draw from. And if your concerns were that the show is too chilly, too cerebral, too this or too that, the end of this season should remind you that the Fassbender action season is beginning. And he clearly likes doing that stuff. And frankly, the fact that Matthew Kassovitz was doing it I found really interesting because it's not the natural fit or what you'd expect. Fassbender seems like he's waited 19 episodes. Matthew loves wearing hooded sweatshirts and executing dudes. It just seems like he's waited 19 episodes to go full Prince of Persia. So you have this. You have it all teed up. Let them bring it home. Mr. Ellison, let them finish this. Are you willing to change your feeling on the merger? If they're going to do it, they bring this back? Well, look, I think we've all. Tempers have cooled. There's a cooling off period. We've all paused here. But I agree. I will accept. I don't know Rob Bonta. I will accept a temporary restraining order on my penchant for class warfare. If they. I think when we first talked about this, we were talking about how, no matter how we felt specifically about the show or the season, we just feel like in a multi-billion dollar global arms race for content, there should be a place for a show like this. Yeah. But what's. What's maddening is you have it. I know it must be incredibly top-heavy and expensive and this cast is outrageous and shooting in five countries and navigating people's schedules and paying George Clooney and Grant Heslov their EP fees and everything else. Heslov directed a couple episodes. And he did really well. There was some beautiful direction in this episode where there was a shot he had where stuff's going down and then it just isolates Naomi in the bullpen. The action was really well directed. It's not an easy show to make, I'm sure. But you guys are making it. And yet, when I went back to the show, back to review some of the episodes this morning briefly, I mean, again, I don't. No one knows what this means, but it's not even in Paramount's top 10. I feel like. I'm not saying these services aren't on the up and up, but I feel like Apple, at least, is like if there's a moment for a show to be doing well, they'll give it a little top 10 nudge. Yeah. You know, this speaks to the difficulty in getting people. Everybody who watches Lioness, should watch The Agency. Like, there should not be a huge disparity between the audience for Lioness coming back next week and The Agency. Like, if you enjoy spy stories, if you enjoy complicated people trying to figure out their allegiances, like, you would love this show. But it's a little bit denser and there's fewer action set pieces, for sure. And there's way more plot lines. I mean, I was talking to Bill about it this weekend and he was just like, there's just too many people on the show. You know, and I was like, all right, well, I think at a different time, like, if this was up against, like, after The Sopranos, you'd be able to follow it. But, like, something has kind of changed about the mechanics of watching these. It's also, I'll say that there were. I'm not pretending the show's perfect. I'm not pretending it was a perfectly positioned adaptation because I think the thing that really hooks people into Libero is that initially, before it's anything else, it's a love story about star-crossed lovers trying to get back to each other. And then it becomes. comes every day. everything else and I think Jodie Smith-Turner really steps up in this season quite excellent this season I thought she was incredible yeah and there's a lot more road for that character to travel as well but I I have to say that I've never fully been invested because Fassbender is like like Paul Lewis seems like a kind of a chilly prick too do you know what I mean yeah like I I you don't see him turn it on and turn it off and they don't have many opportunities to rekindle the spark so I don't feel as an audience member the same like yearning desire for this to work despite all of the betrayal and treason and I think that that might be a necessary building block to get people to buy in so that they can understand I mean there's a line there's a line in this episode right before Fassbender executes Paddington's dad um where I had to put the subtitles on and he's basically saying how long have you been taking the chairmans and there's a very specific Chinese word remby yes of like the like quid pro quo like like like and I'm like you're asking the audience to unpack that line with or without subtitles like good for you yeah but that is not a Taylor Sheridan show in terms of I do wonder whether or not I would feel differently about it because I think that the Fassbender's casting for as much as I adore him as a performer is challenging at times and I do wonder what would happen if you had gone with like say Peter Sarsgaard who is a very Matthew Cassavetes-esque American actor and you know perhaps a little bit older than you would want to play Martian but still like has that like looks like an English teacher but yes you know I mean he's like a killer you know like that it had there's you see Michael Fassbender you're like you are the fucking killer you are literally the killer in the David Fincher movie I have no doubt that you're like eating protein in the backseat of a car getting ready to kill the head of MI6 and when everybody is like um you're the greatest liar who's ever existed I'm like yes he is yes it's the first thing I think about him yeah or I mean thank god you know Viking it's a tough way to go although if you got doing what you love and he did love chess and overthrowing African republics but when he's just like you are not a weasel I'm like yeah if that guy got off the plane and it's like I work for a diamond merchant in Antwerp but I'm not even the boss yeah I would keep him away from all sharp objects I would keep him away from magazines thinking he was going to Jason Bourne my ass um Viking man lived as he died as he lived uh let's uh take a quick break and then we're going to do House of the Dragon really quick okay we're back let's talk about Dragon uh we don't need to belabor this one because I imagine you did not care for it wasn't my favorite hour uh nor was it Mal and Joe's I'd like to hear about this they well uh you can on House of R uh they they talked extensively about last night on Talk the Thrones about like their issues with this episode some of which were adaptative it's that word I'll allow it uh Emily Wilson would not allow it some of them were just basic storytelling like how did that guy get from there to there and successive scenes um enjoyed the Laris Agon stuff as usual uh R.I.P. to my guy Kristen Cole well I want to talk about that uh Detective Grasso may you may you may you continue to patrol Bucks County I don't want to spoil anything but he survived worse that's true do you know what I mean that's true uh what did you make of this episode well I I guess I'm really curious more to hear your perspective a little bit in the know a little bit on the outs you know because I didn't particularly find I didn't find anything particularly different in this episode than the ones that have been boring me for the last few weeks and so I don't really want to belabor those points it's just it's a lot more like now we're here now we're there now we're here now we're there I think that my issue with it was just that they're they're having the same conversations every episode over and over it's like particularly the Rhaenyra Allison conversations being the same ones and the Rhaenyra Daemon conversation and you know like it's a lot of people being like what should we do next yeah and and holding their breath for the big things they have to deploy and so you can almost feel the same hand of no pun intended of of plotting that you know put the the battles at the top and then tries to basically tries to play with timing and surprise and you feel that with what happens to Sir Criston Cole um but I was just sort of felt very little from that like it did I it felt more manipulative to me to have it begin an episode because what I felt was the the the galaxy brain plotting of like the audience won't expect this and yet what it did was just more remind me that this was a road to nowhere anyway yeah and and now the show has highlighted that the show has not pretended you know his speech last week about how we're all going on a suicide mission now did not make it seem like there was a happy ending in store but the the the general feeling that I struggle with week to week and frankly I'm sure people are as tired of hearing me say it as I am of saying it is like I feel like the show presents a series of boxes and then checks them yeah boxes is a word that I want to jump on here because I think I've tried to articulate this in various ways over the couple weeks and this is obviously like I think that this is my favorite season of the show favorite uh but I don't know I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that I don't know it's unfair to compare one to one to game of thrones but game of thrones probably didn't have a spectacularly different scene to scene um difference in what people were doing you know often talking you know uh I think what I'm craving is either scenery or like I I wish that more of these conversations could be happening in different places than throne room chamber chambers heron hall like in the dark woods somewhere like part of the thing that made throne so great is because they would put these pairs of characters uh out on the road somewhere trying to get from one place to the north or from essos back to whatever and you know dorn and all these places it was like such an expansive portrait of this imaginary world that no matter what people were talking about it was cool to look at and it seemed like what they were looking at or where they were would influence the nature of the conversations and change the nature of the relationships and because so many of these characters are trapped by their own power I mean even ormond has basically been in like a dining room for three episodes now uh smelling things eating or barfing eating they're going in or out and for as exciting as that sword fight was I thought that was an awesome scene I was like yeah but it's like this is I I don't know it's just this is all happening in one of the three places and I I think one thing that thrones really successfully avoided was even though the battles were huge takeout episodes I don't really I never really sat around being like when's the battle gonna happen on game of thrones until the very end and on dragon I feel like they're almost overshadowing the entire series reverse engineered the wrong way we were talking this is the third reference to banshee in this podcast lani paraster who directed and started I think started his career banshee directed this episode he's directed other episodes of dragon the action sequences are incredibly well done there are moments you know like just just like that whole opening sequence where there's the ambush and the surprise attack if if you were someone who cared deeply about sword or mace combat you would be so delighted with this episode you would have nothing else to complain about that's not my bag and frankly coming off of the Odyssey I'm ready to address all of this town's foley experts with a plea of like can we find a different sound for swords entering people's bodies like I think that we iterated a lot in the last decade and it's real crunchy now and you really get the sense of metal on metal into metal on bone and there's never a stabbing that isn't just like like I remember like doing when I was in foley for my show and you see a character smoke a cigarette they're like let's sweeten that cherry up a little bit you know and you make every cigarettes sound like it's the greatest yeah it's like you yeah it's like it sounds like Matthew mcconaughey breathing yeah true to death it sounds like Matthew mcconaughey breathing yeah true to death detective they're doing that with the sword fighting and god bless them but like maybe we can do something different okay like we're ready I don't know what that sound is maybe experts will come in and say well it's a perfect combination of like metal on metal and like wood snapping and also I don't know kittens dying I like that's like very very accurate I'm sure but uh it's it's that that is what the show excels at and I think that the the larger thing that will continue to be I'm not I'm not pretending I don't like the show I've never liked the show you can tune out now if you want but I will continue to say that the idea of stakes is still often misunderstood by people when we're talking about television shows and the reason one there are many reasons why game of thrones was excellent for a wide audience for many years but on a very very very um specific level its reason for greatness is the same reason why the pit is great which is because you feel like you were watching something where the stake not the stakes where the um yeah well in this case like the stakes are that the world or someone's life will never be the same after this in game of thrones it was like a prophecy is going to change the world forever winter is coming the status quo is going to end and we are going to tell that story of the end of this version of this world and we didn't know what we didn't know where it was coming from or how it would affect people but we saw people journeying with that knowledge towards that towards that end you know similarly like there's a version of a show like lanterns which we're excited about which would be like guess what these guys are space cops and this year's season is there's a space cop murderer or it's like this guy is no longer going to be a space cop and this is his replacement and this is the most existential threat these space cops have ever faced in the history of their space copping existence i'm leaning in what are your intentions here and the fact with house of the dragon is the lesson every character learns every episode is that it can always get worse yeah and what's the meta story here i mean a macro story here i've not spoiled my spoiled anything but i've watched game of thrones so guess what i know the targaryens fuck up and fail yeah i think that there's elements of i really don't need to get into a deep debate about this but i do think that within those conversations that say damon is having with reneara reneara is having with alice and there's things about the nature of power that i find kind of interesting and how she could be successful she would just have to be history's greatest monster like she could achieve everything that she wants she would just have to burn tumbleton to the ground and her reluctance to do that for whatever reasons whether it's because she's listening to missaria or she's listening to her better angels i don't think is going to go great for her um and perhaps there it's difficult to tell a tragedy because i think that's ultimately what this is and telling a tragedy on television where half the people probably know the story and half the people can guess what the story is and just based on what happens in game of thrones you know they don't sing great songs about reneara the sweet and kind like you know like people are just kind of like watching they want well executed tragedy then and you know one of the things that i thought was really odd about this episode was the kristen cole thing happens in the beginning i think his viewers are like i've spent a lot of time with this character that was a dramatic and sort of thrilling death and not a single other character on the show knows it great point and i know word travels in weird ways in this westeros where sometimes people seem to know where everyone is and get updates from ravens and sometimes people are like waiting on information for quite some time but that just seems like something that would travel the kingdom pretty fast if the hand of the king or queen or whoever you know was was murdered in battle and nobody seems to give a shit and he has connections to all sorts of people in the show you know be it their adversary their lover their betrayer whatever and i thought that was strange and i think that's a flaw of the show that they're not like this leads to that which leads to that yeah but i mean i think it's just a flawed construction they've done a lot of good work this season by putting characters in the same building as each other which was impossible for them to do last year so we're getting more of it but not enough and i just think i think your point about tragedies was really interesting because uh what are some of the greatest tragedies in the history of television they're the greatest shows in the history of television the sopranos is a tragedy breaking bad is a tragedy breaking bad is a hundred percent a tragedy breaking bad is a hundred percent a tragedy the wire in a way is a tragedy that also found room for you know great moments of hope levity joy emotion all everything the tragedy of it is more compelling to me of a show like look listen i know we're doing we're like in entering hour two of a podcast of episode eight of season three of house the dragon and i'm comparing it unfairly to one of the greatest shows of all time about cops in baltimore i get this is a little bit ludicrous but the tragedy of that show is because people want to and they struggle because change is very very hard yes there is a version of westeros that is that there's a version of daenerys that was that right like that is not that is not david simon's proprietary idea but the show also has to service these moments of made-up history and dragons per episode and i don't everybody loses a little bit because of that it's it's too it's at once um is it once too broad and too specific in its names well we won't be speaking about it again until after the finale i think that's good and i think that's for the best so uh we'll be back on thursday regular show and then next week just so you guys know mailbag on monday anthony bourdain special on thursday where we'll talk about some of our favorite episodes of his various shows some of our favorite kind of extra bourdain pieces of culture and does this mean we won't be covering like the shards premiere in real time we're gonna have to wait a week on that i'm going live on twitch for that dude that's janky rant janky rondo uh talk to you guys soon thanks to kaya uh and we'll be we'll be back on thursday endless summer escapes start here travel the worlds of netflix irl inspired by fan favorites like stranger things and squid game brave the upside down face off with the front man play leveled up with the front man and you'll be back on thursday with another episode of janky rondo arcade games shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks beat the heat play eat and shop on repeat at netflix house at galleria dallas bring your crew and save get your tickets today at netflix.com slash house tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery 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