‘Black Doves’ Season 2 and ‘The Lowdown’ S2E5. Plus, How the Midterms Will Impact Your Favorite Shows.

"I need support staff 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 on the other line, impoverished from all his betting losses on election night, it's Andy Greenwald's. It's funny as I was prepared to start with that too, like my calcium profile is in shambles. You bet the house on Darlene. You can't do that. The red wall was supposed to hold, and now, now look at me. What's up, brother? Good to see you. How you feeling? This is our first podcast in the Woke 3.0 era. Are you feeling good? Do you want to do a landing? Where are you at? I'm feeling great. You know, I was driving down a Santa Monica Boulevard today, much like the Tom Petty song of old and a bus went past me and I saw a big billboard on the bus, big advertisement on the bus, rather, for a show called 9-1-1 Nashville and it stars Chris O'Donnell, and Chris O'Donnell half his face in this ad is covered in bees and Ryan Philadelphia is the co-star. If his face is covered in snakes and I never want to know the answer to why it happened, much like election night, you just got to let things roll out sometimes. I'm so happy to see you and I'm so happy to be doing the pot today. I got to say, like, we have had a great week surfing the blue tsunami. I'm sorry to be that guy, but Tom Petty was, was venturable of art, you know, because it was, she was a good girl. She loves her mom. She's crazy about Elvis, but she lives in the valley. I kind of, she's not living. She had Sam Marken, that's why she's not living in Nithia's LA the way we are. Do you understand what I mean? She was more like on the outskirts of it. She couldn't imagine a future like this for herself. Should we just start the pot over then? Honestly, we should just wind it back to you at zero over the pod. We should start over. We should start covering down Navi. We have a lot to talk about. We have television shows to talk about today, which might make us stunning some change of form for us. And we got the return of black dives, which comes back today on Netflix. I genuinely would like to hear any thoughts you have on election night in America because it was an engagement. We don't need to talk to politics, but like, although I'd like to, but we could just talk about like, did you, you engaged with television that night in a way that maybe only our parents do in the sense that we had to cable news on? Brother, I went, I went full send, you know, I was talking with some people who were like, I'm going to go to the movies or I'm going to go out to dinner and just put my phone away and I'll check later. The last two election nights, I've been traveling. So Andy and I legendarily for Trump's reelection, uh, legendarily, because it's legendary because I flew to England where you were living at the time. We, I fell asleep at a relatively normal time that night and was awoken at 3 a.m. by a phone call that broke through on my wife's phone to announce Trump's reelection. And that's cool. Was it from Susie Wilde? It was like, what's up bitch? Wake up. Yeah, it's Susie Wilde's, um, yeah, I wonder if she's going to stick around. But, uh, the next day you and I recorded one of our worst podcasts, Sever, where I think we actually were like, definitely trying to talk about some fucking show and it was just a disaster class in, in modern broadcasting. That said, one thing that has always meant a lot to me is that that night we went to a, I, you know, I don't care about free ads. There's a great pub called the George doesn't really nice fish and chips and we went there that night. And I think canonically your wife believes that I was like calm and wise and that in some way, I help set her mind at ease, but really it might have been of like four pints that we all had and like plans to be like, well, at least we're not in that sinkhole of a country. I don't really remember. No. But I love that there's a version of me in which I am calming and non-reactive that someone carries that illusory incarnation of myself. My thing on Tuesday night was like, I'm here and I just flipped on. I opened up the X everything up and I, I like, Conrack, Conracky rock on the big screen. I don't think I really changed the channel much. So yeah, it was like, it was like a pretty intense night of mass media. I was flying. I'm back in New York and I was, you know, I think it's safe to say that I was living out. You know what I mean? Like, I definitely was like, take all of the Avengers end game edits, but it's a southern states flying through wormholes like inject those into my veins. Like that's great. This is, it was a fun night back on the internet for one second. Although watching TV was surprising because I kind of forget that for all of the time and I know that we have a TV podcast. So I apologize for everyone out there who was shaking their head right now. But like because of the nature of what TV is now and our ability to just sort of allocard it as opposed to the omakase, if you will, of decades past. Like, to turn on, to turn on just like television news and then within, I would say 120 seconds of the Senate being called for the Democrats. Savannah Guthrie was scratching her chin and worried about overreach. >> And like, damn, they still have the playbook. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? >> Yeah. >> I don't know how outdated like apparently the McVeigh offense is, but no, no, that's should still work. >> I do wonder whether or not like, I wonder, in watching that, watching the like the NBC broadcast that night, it was really funny because in most of the time when I'm watching stuff on television television, it's either live sports or like a live reality show like Survivor or something like that for the finale. And it reminded me a little bit of watching the NBA draft or the NFL draft. We're there on the, on the networks are being so careful and so discreetly like, well, it's just, it's just too close to call here in Michigan or whatever. And meanwhile, like all of the prediction sites are like 99 to one. Everybody on Twitter is like doing fucking end zone dances and like planting a flag on the star. >> It's not just that. It's like, it's like if it was the NFL draft. And then full five minutes before the Indianapolis cults pick, Adam Sheffield tweets, you all have to trans now, like they were so far ahead of it that it was bizarre. There was this completely asymmetrical information thing where like I was just soberly just learning that it looked likely that Telleriko was going to be the next senator from the great state of Texas. And you guys on the group chat were being like, and run to Iowa, you were, I was like, we're seeing some romantics. You did say that. You did say that. >> I can't remember if we did this in 2024, but I think it's only fair to have to do it again in 26 year, which is, you know, I did we do some sort of like, what does Trump's re-election mean for popular culture? And or where he's just so-- >> I'm sure. >> Shell shocked and jet lagged and everything that we didn't even bother. >> The only thing, I mean, we've done now a number of sad post game podcasts, both sports and politics. And I'm just still frankly dining out on the last Tribe Called Quest album being the first piece of great art in the Trump era take. I just feel like that one has aged like wine in 2016. >> Holy shit. >> Do you know what I'm just get haunted by your own old dates? >> No, they're all dynamite. What are you talking about? >> I'm working to approach this from a couple of different ways. I'm most concerned with what this means for Landman season three. I do think we're going to get a lot more Rebecca, you know, bolstered by this blue wave, I think Rebecca Landman is going to have maybe some monologues of her own to give. >> I'd like to extend some grace to the other side. >> Oh, of course. >> Of course. >> That is unclear. I feel like Taylor is not afraid of a strong woman. I feel like Governor Hosa might, you know, you could work with her, you know what I mean? >> I feel like we could build bridges. >> Yeah, the new lioness, yeah. >> Or do you think that Rebecca's model, like what do you think is going to be the content of Rebecca's season three monologues in this drastically changed Texas? >> Well, I just think that she's going to need to do some follow up conversations with Billy Bob about the petroleum industry and maybe the sort of cloud of liberal delusion that most of us live under. I actually, I don't think that this is going to impact Taylor Sheridan's work much at all. >> Not at all, although it would be incredible if he just was, you know, a palm tree just bending in the wind and like, much like Jerry Jones was the big surprise cameo in season one if the season three cameo was better or work, you know, just being like, listen, I've been down a few times. >> Also in the hospital bed or no? >> No, he's been redeemed. >> No, because it would like, you know, hands on the hospital when Jerry Jones comes in. >> No, I know, but I'm saying. >> And then there's flowers. >> There were a couple of really great posts on Tuesday night about we're going back to Heller High Water Taylor Sheridan, there was also like the only election coverage I like and it was Nicole Kim and Martin Donovan from wine city and from their computers. I'd love to know what Martin Donovan was like for them yesterday morning. >> Let me tell you what I'm actually afraid of. >> Or do you think he was tweeting like Clay Travis the whole night? Like secretly he has a burner account being like, she's dead looking good. >> I do think that. - It's a deep delusion. - There's probably like a degree of enthusiasm on the part of a lot of people, and I would imagine some people who are listening to this podcast outside of like the global state of things which remains pretty precarious. There's also like, I think some pretty dark clouds on the horizon for the entertainment industry and the world that we generally cover. And I don't think that Rob San getting elected governor changes that. Like I don't think that David Ellison is gonna be like, "No, everybody, you guys can keep your jobs now." Listen, don't besmirch my fellow brown graduate. You know, I just feel like, like, we have so many other things to come. - I didn't think like Rob had a great time in Providence. I saw an interview with him and he was, they were like, did you like live your time in Providence? And he was like, "Ah!" You know, it made me appreciate Iowa more. - Did you see that? - I know. - I just feel like, do you think, were they gonna like besmirch the East Coast, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah that is Providence? Like I feel like that is, it's not like he said that he spent a wild summer in Bushwick. Like he was studying in Providence. But he didn't even say like a, I did like the coffee milk. Like he didn't like try to like pass briefly as a local. He was like in order to appreciate heaven. You have to leave it briefly. - Yes. That was intense. - Do you have fun memories of Providence as a city of living? - Yeah, don't you? I mean, you lived there. You felt like you were a part-timer. - I did down on the Amtrak, yeah, for sure. - You were around. The question that is interesting to me is, I think that as our recently re-elected attorney general in California, Rob Bonta proved the Skydance takeover of Warner Brothers was going to go through with some measure by partisan, I don't know if it's support, but acquiescence one way or another. And it does strike me that David Ellison member his op-ed in the Times. Like I do think that in the public facing moves that he has made, he has seemingly either gotten the memo or this is actually just true to his character, reached out across the aisle a little bit and seemed to be preparing his company to exist in whatever the next version of the American government may be. All of that, though, is kind of held in check by the fact that right before the election, he took an enormous, like all Republican super PACs, took an enormous amount of money from Elon Musk. - Yes. Do you wonder how that is going to sit? He bought this company in an enormous amount of debt. So if someone is offering him billions, I would imagine that the break boys and his business affairs department are going to say take it. But I do think that the, you know, I do think that the the wins have changed a little bit in terms of how cool people are with that. - As much as there's a perception that there are changing sociopolitical headwinds and this is like woke is probably not coming back in the way that people are joking about. - I do think that if there is some sort of market correction on the way that the AI tech stocks have fueled the economy over the last couple of years, in so much as the market almost feels divorced from lived experience and reality for 95% of the people in the country. That if there is some sort of like collapse or recession or at least kind of breaking of a fever in terms of what these companies are worth, what they're allowed to build in terms of data centers, all these things that are now kind of back on the table. That could affect some of these companies that are intertwined with that business and that is most of these companies. A lot of these, a lot of our favorite streamers have really like kind of handcuffed themselves to these companies and their stock price is tied to them. So if that comes down, if there is some sort of sobriety here, then I think that that could affect maybe the amount of stuff that's getting made, the amount of money that's getting spent on the stuff that is getting made, et cetera, et cetera. - Did you see before we move out of the world of Skydance that this didn't even occur to me, although I think smarter people or more deserving people probably predicted this to some degree of accuracy that as part of the reorg, some higher profile paramount plus original shows in the pipeline may get up streamed to HBO or HBO max and from HBO or max originals. - The Nicole Kidman legal thriller, some of the stuff. - Discussion. - The Nicole Kidman thriller has been specifically mentioned enough for there to be enough smoke for there to be fired. But like that's an example of a show that in Casey Boyz's reassessment of these now complimentary services that that would make more sense on his side of the fence than on the fence side of the fence that it came up on. - Yeah, it would make sense just because the reporting suggested that Cindy Holland had dozens of things like at various states of motion. So you can't scrap it all. You can't just do the, it'll be on showtime. Don't worry about it. Like some of that stuff gets upstream, do I imagine? - And I think that's really smart. I mean, I think that's one thing that a lot of these services have struggled with, which is brand identity and a clarity of vision and a consistency of vision. Certainly even within, I think the idea was that Cindy Holland and her brief tenure, which to your point, we never really, we've yet to see all the fruits of because she was in the world for such a relatively brief amount of time. But prior to her arrival, that was one of the main sources of confusion of the paramount plus network. It was the Taylor Sheridan box. There was the CBS stuff that existed. There was the Star Trek stuff. And then there was the showtime stuff. And when I say showtime stuff, I mean, shows that were made for showtime when it existed as a distinct entity, including Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone's The Curse and agency a show we like. But then just sometimes other stuff, like I mean, I guess the example would be the Nicole Kidman show being like this. I imagine this was bid on by Apple and maybe even HBO was in on it early, but it just ended up in this place that also shows ultimate fighting champion. So it's just, so I think it is a smart opening play to say actually this belongs to, but just sorting it out. Like this belongs with us, that belongs to you. And now people can begin to understand what our vision for having all of this maybe it may look like. Any other watch podcast centric observations from the way things might be different on Thursday than they were on Tuesday morning. - Well, I'm glad we don't have to change the color of our logo. I think that we have stayed true. - That's exactly why it's blue. - I think that's, I mean, I've always assumed that. - You were just waiting for me to hear about it. We ever talked about it out loud. Now, man, I mean, just, you know, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a sore winner. - We do have a new mayor in Los Angeles. There will be, like, Nithya Rahman will do taking over as mayor of Los Angeles. There's a lot of news about a not only federal tax credits for basically reshoring film and television production, but also making California the home for that again. I think that's in a very like kind of like, it could go one way or another pretty soon. There's a lot of building going on in California. I mean, like, there's a, there's a new soundstage complex on Santa Monica that they're almost done building. You don't know who's moving into that. I don't know if there's any action at a lot of these places, but, you know, as of now, there are still really only, like, they're handing out like what, 12 credits a year to shoot an LA and-- - Well, we also have a new governor, which is interesting because the way, the weird way in Basera and the weird way that the California jungle primary worked out, one of the things about Basera is that he's a relatively blank slate and that like he wasn't propped up by anyone industry over the other in terms of donations or in terms of like back scratching or promises. So there's, it's kind of a blank slate, I think, in terms of his priorities and vis-a-vis production. And I say this, we talk about this often more bloodlessly, but like, I'm talking to you from New York. This is my third straight fall working in this industry away from my own home and the children, which I am fortunate to be doing, but it is indicative of a larger trend that they're just, now, I want to be clear. I don't think there was ever even a proposal to shoot Hogwarts on the back lot in Burbank, but generally speaking, my experience is indicative for people up and down the line in that like, we all move there to work in this industry and the end of work isn't there. So I'm very hopeful that it will come back. - Not a lot of other TV news, worth like getting too worked up over. I did notice that Sky TV over in England is mounting and has now announced the cast for a girl with the Dragon Tattoo series that comes from the production company that was behind the crown. It's directed entirely. The reason I noted this was it's being directed by Renald and Marcus Green who did We On The City and I can Richard. - And say it, say the name of the Punisher One Shot. - You say it. - He is a Punisher One Shot. - It's not called One Shot. - It's your man. - No, there were many shots. - David O yellow and Viola Preda-John Play, Lisbeth and Michael or Michele, who are the sort of the two main protagonists, Jonathan Price, Lena Olin, James Darcy and Camille Coutain from Call Your Agent. - Did you watch the movie? I dare you, did you? - Not yet, maybe we should watch it. - Are you a scandal? >> I am a big, big fan of international noir. Like if we ever do a special show, I could, you know, between the two of us, we could account for probably most countries in and outside of NATO in terms of like at least a couple series or writers. But I, for whatever reason, I never really got into the Scandi books. I never fell in love with them so I don't have a real sense other than what we know from the various TV adaptations that we've checked out over time. I am a, a appreciator and an observer, but I never caught the, the bug. Like I never did. All I do is watch a guy overlooking like a frozen field and try to figure out the generational violence that has been visited on a small town in Finland. Like I know that sounds interesting. >> But I know people who are like, that's all I watch is the Scandi section of Netflix. And I've done a couple, but like, you know, so you need to, to mix up the palette sometimes. >> I mean, like one of our favorite shows that's coming back is, is Department Q and that is based on a Scandi war. And so I think there's elements of those types of stories that we really like. But to your point, as someone like you who reads for tourism as much as anything else, like the relentless chilly bleakness of those books hasn't always been the thing that I most want at the end of the day. I like, I like a little, like I saw you were digging back into our guy Iso, who is like the great crime writer of Marseille. And the thing about those books are they are incredibly dark and bleak. But then every other chapter, he's like, I seasoned the whitefish with mint and oregano, the flavors of home. Like god damn. >> Yeah. >> Can't be that bad. >> Speaking of reading and tourism, I'm about to engage in some tourism. So it's going to be kind of here and there on the pod for the next couple of episodes because I'm going to vacation. But I am leaving tonight and I'm like, okay, final London, do I bring the book I am currently reading, which is Troubles by JG Farrell, which is very good. But I have hit like, I hit like a kind of like, I'm going to pick this up after the six, when the sixers lose their second game, I will go back to this impressionistic novel about 1920s Ireland. Do I bring the book I'm reading? Do I bring a guaranteed entertainer thriller with me? Or do I bring no books at all knowing that the big dog will eat when he gets to foils and dawn and everything else? >> Yeah, okay. So this is smart. So you thank you for this is a very important question. I've been I've been living inside of this question as I've been going back and forth from the coast, even of like what and also like what is actually useful for me to have because I have a lot of as we all do aspirational books that are on my bedside table. And I'm realizing with the busyness of the job that I'm doing now and everything else like this might not really be the time to crack, you know, what a worn piece or whatever. >> Effinger too at this particular moment. >> Dude, I found wake up babe. A new effinger is just dropped. I found a book called The Oppenheims. I'm not even kidding you. Bro, I'm so so serious right now. I went to McNally Jackson and they're publishing they're doing their own like here's some like I want to be stuck. They're like these are out of print and I just picked up some and one of them is just like this searing novel written in real time as as the Nazis slowly took over Germany tells the story of a German Jewish family. I'm like again and again. Let's go. You're like Joe Biden, I'm getting the gunshots out of that for real though. But okay, but so here's what I've started to do and I don't know if this this would work for you. But one thing that I have discovered is that when traveling, first of all, I think take the aspirational type book or the book you're reading out of it. You are going to do some book shopping there and if the if the great literary bug strikes you, you can fill it with whatever you buy at foils or don't or wherever else you go on your trip. And just for context, last time I went, I think I brought I don't even remember what book I brought that I was like, I was like, oh, this is quite gripping. I'm going to be reading this while in London. Immediately in London found a spy novel where it was basically like a guy chasing a Russian spy through us like a shale in the Alps and I was like, this is all I can do. I am generally a old media like I love to have a book in my hand kind of guy, but I got to say the kindle during travel, but only for very specific things because it's not just it take it lightens your load of your carry on, but also you can read in bed with the light off and then just go to sleep. You don't need to actually like, you can feel like you're kind of in a not very warm soft light, but so but not all books for me are kindle books. The kindle books for me are either things like, you know, a brand new I talked about on the pot like the book about the making of Paul Simon's Graceland, which you can read in either, you could read in one night basically if you're feeling insomniac, but the other thing that I'd like to keep loaded on there is like, there's always a secret Elmore Leonard that I haven't read. And now the new guy in rotation for that is that's where I'm reading essay Cosby, who's one of the great thrill writers of first time. And every time I go to a bookstore much like you, I'm like, I pick up the thing that I feel like I should read. And then I'm just like, that book's called razor blade tears, two red neck dads killing the people who killed their sons. But generally, because it's in public, I'm like, I should probably get the more aspirational book now. But now I'm like, you know, like and Billy are really running the ratchet. >> I'm so mad, dude. I was like, the thrillers have killed me. I was I read a rabbit run the first updike angstrom book. And like, it's beautifully written. It's it's probably a little bit anachronistic at this point or out of style. >> Do you think of it? >> Because of Tuesday's election results. >> No, just like in general, we got past 1987 and I think things changed a little, but- >> Run rabbit, but run for Congress. >> Every time like, I'm like, oh, is this building up to a massive shootout outside of the general store? I'm like, no, this guy is just going to notice like his old basketball coach and see his future and start crying and leave his wife. >> And then, and then I've succinctly put the basketball coach's wife. >> That's right. >> By the way, I just just to put a put this down for you, I did break my own rule on this less cross-country trip. And I did pack declare by Tim Powers, which I am reading. And that is a brick. >> How do you have that? >> Recently, I'm digging it. I mean, I'm also very nostalgic because you are going to London and this will be the first year out of the last three that we haven't been there at the same time. And I feel very sad about that. So, so reading about a young orphan boy being poorly parented by a stern spy master in 1930s, 40s and 50s London is hidden different, you know? >> Yeah, you're thinking about your own orson over there. What else to what else to what else? >> I guess we can just get into the shows. You want to talk about stoop doves first because I think that's a bigger deal for for our purposes in terms of like, if you like lowdown, we're going to talk about lowdown. But in case you're just like, you need something to watch this week. Joe Barton's comic thriller action-flavored espionage show. Joe Barton for people who don't know is the creator writer of Gary Haji, which was on Netflix a few years ago, and the Lazarus project, and then has worked in movies. >> And Amadeus. >> And Amadeus, which came out earlier this year. So, Barton pull in double duty. And the first season of black doves was 24. >> I want to say 24. >> We probably talked about it during our post-Trump podcast. We just don't remember. It starts here nightly as Helen, who is essentially the first lady of England at the point of the second season. She also moonlights as an assassin in a secretive cabal of killers known as the black doves. Her friend and fellow assassin is played by Ben Wichot as Sam and Sarah Lancashire, who people know and love from Happy Valley, sort of plays the shadowy spymaster. Read. New additions to the cast. This season includes Sam Riley, Bobby C. Say, and Ambika Mod, who was wonderful in this is going to hurt, who was also with Ben Wichot on that show. We talked about that a couple of years ago. And it goes up entirely like all Netflix series is tonight. So, Andy and I are only going to speak about things broadly here. And we'll get into more detail the next time we chat. Did you get a chance to check out the first episode of the second season? >> Yeah, I'm so happy this show is back. And I don't know if you saw that that clearly Netflix is happy to that they had not just a lavish premiere, but a lavish premiere that involved an unprecedented drone display over the Thames. >> That's nice. >> Spelling out things like we're back darling. Do you think people thought this was like a viral Andy Burnham? I've made the train slightly cheaper stunts? Like, what do you think the average person in London thought was going on? Because I think the show is popular. >> I don't think it's that person. Our drones in general. >> I know, it's like, cool drones. Give me more of that. No, so look, we love, we love Joe. We love the way that he writes. And particularly what is so wonderful about this show to me. And we talked about this a lot when we covered the first season is that it inverts the priority pyramid for an action show or a drama show in 2026, meaning there are plenty of of head shots delivered from beautiful handguns with silencers on them last season featured a bunch of rocket launchers. I mean, there is a lot of full on action and violence. >> Shane Black style violence. >> Yeah, meets John Whitton with the ballet. >> But the priority is always the characters. And the almost a yearning, deep platonic friendship love that Kira's Helen and Ben-Wishel Sam have for each other is the beating heart of the show. And is where the blood comes from when it's not exploding from people's heads. So I find that so engaging because those are two of, I mean, I think Ben-Wishel is one of the best actors alive and I think Kira Knightley has, I don't know if she's ever been better in this later stage of her career. She still gets tons of burn in my household due to her period dramas of the early part of the century. I also just want, and here's where I want to bring you in on it, is I love the joyful creative freedom of a show where it's just decided that some things just don't matter. And by that, I mean the rules don't apply. So much of our contemporary entertainment is hamstrung by the fact that, well, actually, you couldn't do that anymore because there's flock cameras everywhere and everybody has a cell phone and facial recognition and Black Doves doesn't give a shit about that. Black Doves posits a world in which the sitting first lady of the UK can just go for a private jog and have a spy meeting, can just slip out of a party and get in a gun fight. Like if you just agree, which the show Blanket does, that these things are happening in this reality and we're not gonna look too far down into them because that's what's the point of that. It's not emotionally true, it's just gonna be factually true. There's a freedom in that. And I love that in that freedom, Joe tells a great story about characters with great humor and heart and fun. And that ultimately is more important to me than being actually UK as some of the most stringent gun laws on the planet and this. - Not in the show. - No, not in the show. - There's a degree to which this second season reminds me a little bit of the second season of industry. I think one of the thrills of Black Doves first season, much like one of the thrills of industry's first season, was, did anybody check on this? Like do you guys know what's going on on this? Like, you know, it's not that it's unfinished or that it was, but it felt punk to me, you know, it felt like, they're like, I know that you guys all follow the rule of like, if it's funny, then it has to be funny all the way through or if it's dramatic, it has to be dramatic all the way through. But there was something about the first season of Black Doves that's felt so alive in its irreverence and in its, speeding in the face of convention, even if it's a very conventional show about like, super assassins, like living in a kind of high band society of London life or, you know, in "Kiss of Sam", not, not, but Kieran Eilish character certainly is, you know, this idea of like, the princess and the toad who are also assassins or whatever. The second season almost instantaneously locks into, this is Black Doves and you know it and we know it and everybody likes it. It's real good, you know, and I completely agree with you. There's something liberating and people might think, well, you don't apply this to every show and I don't know what it is about some stories and some shows and the worlds that they create that create a permission structure for you to like, fuck it, man. I don't really, you know, like, like, 'cause if you and I will spend playing a time being like, why did he do that? Yeah, I can speak to that because specifically, the thing that I hate most in anything is cynicism and I hate shows that or movies or whatever it may be where, quote unquote, nothing matters. And so we can have these crazy things happen. We can fixate on the violence. We can have people just, you know, ping pong from extremity to extremity in terms of their personal life or their public behavior or whatever the case may be. The reason I started by saying that what grounds the show is the emotional connection between these two old friends who find themselves in different stations in life and different moments in life and different relationships to their life and their work. Just, it's a blanket for me. Like, that's what the show is and building from that, these are people who are clever, who take pride in their work and the work is an expression of their psyche. It's not just, you know, it's not just bullets for bullets sake, although sometimes I begin to wonder if it is, but the show is essentially about the relationship between these people and the people that they know in their particular workplace. And because it is grounded as something, the more irreverent decisions have a less existential impact on me, I think. And this is even before we got into, like, you know, the supporting cast, like Ella Lilly Highland as Williams and Ambika Madu shows up and as hilarious and striking and I think that to your anarchy point, you know, Joe has said and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to him that like, this didn't come together the way most shows come together. I think it came together from him being like, I'm thinking about writing a spy series and that folks being like, cool, Cure Knightley wants to do a spy series and they were in production within months. And he is a very fast writer. So I think that the feeling that we enjoyed so much in season one of him discovering it as he went along, we enjoy that anarchy and that is similar to industry. And what I've noticed so far in season two is, it began from a place of, okay, by the end of season one, we know what the show is and now we're going to write that show. And so it does feel a little more boundary and grounded even though it is still quite high-flying. And Andy and I are talking mostly in terms of like a writing philosophy and like a kind of stylishness to the show and how it's kind of locked in on what it's good at. We haven't said a single thing really about what the second season is about because I think it would be kind of complicated to explain and thus far after only watching one episode because I didn't want to get too far ahead of it. I don't really totally understand. You know, obviously there are like Russian nesting dolls of levels of like the Black Doves organization and who's working for who and you know, all this different stuff and are the Black Doves all turning on each other. That seems to be a plot line. And obviously also Helen's new perch within Downing Street has kind of opened up a whole new world of possibilities. But it kind of is besides the point to get too deep into like this season is about X. >> Yeah, because I mean, I think even as you were introducing it, I love the first season. And then when I started watching the second, I was like, what are Black Doves? Like I almost don't care. But it is asking you to just say, okay. >> It was also two years ago. >> Yeah. >> It was two years ago, but even so, the idea that there is a somehow private consortium of highly paid, highly talented, highly infiltrated spies that is separate from MI5 or MI6. And that Helen is one of them and who has been put into a relationship that has now allowed her to socially climb to the very top of British power structure, but also kind of loves her husband and definitely loves her to children with him. Whereas Sam is no longer, I believe, a Black Dove in his more just a champagne, sad, sack, freelance assassin, but is now being hired to hunt Black Doves. That's pretty much what's going on. >> Yes. >> But I don't think you need to, it's just one of the things that you just have to-- >> There's just one of the things that you just have to-- >> Fuller political reality that you need to understand, yeah. >> One of the things that I think is so essential and so underrated and often hard to articulate challenges of the show running is deciding on the content of and controlling the flow of information to audiences. And the thing about, like, there is a secret spy organization that exists is to my mind telling us that, reminding us of that, and then we're on our way because the more time you spend digging into why this exists, how does it work? I think the less successful the show is going to be and the less fun we're going to have having it. And the show, the swagger and the delight that the show discovered as it got bigger and funnier as the first season went on is more fully formed here at the start of season two. I mean, if you remember the beginning of the show, like I'm meaning the series premiere, was kind of about Helen having an affair with the handsome dude, I believe, from Gary Haji. And it was a little bit of melodrama to that in terms of like, is she going to run away from her life? And I don't think that that flavor doesn't really live here anymore. And I think it's better. I think the flavor of the show has been with show with a gun in his hand sipping champagne alone at Christmas time. That's the vibe and that's a pretty winning vibe. I look forward to talking to Joe about this and I hope people check it out. I mean, obviously, I think this does pretty friggin' well for Netflix. It's kind of, if not a four quadrant show, it's definitely like, if there's stuff in it for everybody, there is like a kind of hound dog, hound dog adorability of Wishaw. I think Karen Knightley is like a pretty big draw within this, within the realm of the show. And then it's got like a ton of really good action. So it's a, it's a very cool show and we'll be talking about it a little bit more of the next couple of weeks. Where are you happy to see Babu C.C. say out of Whalen, Utah? I was just hoping he's going to still have the cool arm, though. We don't know that he doesn't. He's wearing a bespoke suit. It's very big. I don't know. Should we do low down before we get out of here? Let's do it. So, I just wanted to say this about this most recent episode. A dog with two tails. directed by Rafael Casal, who plays Johnny on the show who's Lee's ex her new husband. This is the one this episode, which I thought was really lovely. It was kind of like the peak of its powers for this series, I think, because you had three or four different storylines that I don't think any of them were dragging. I don't think any of them needed to be picked up by the other. This is the one that made me feel like it was most like reading a crime novel. Both in terms of the depth and bench of characters, the sort of mid-season, there's a villain behind the villain that we need to meet, the clarity of what this season's about and also like the twist at the end. And you know, I don't know if we're ever going to get more lowdown. I feel like sometimes you and I are speaking to each other. I don't know. I mean, do you? I don't know, but I don't think anything has changed. I've been spoken to Sterling. I've been spoken to anyone at FX. The fact that it got a second season makes me think that there is a working model for FX to continue to support the show. That there is a plan for how much it costs to make it, the way that they make it, the schedule that he's able to keep it on, that makes it doable for them. I'm not saying it's getting renewed, but I think that it, it much like reservation dogs, which is probably cheaper show with fewer stars and kids in half an hour, I just think that if they weren't committed to making this, they would have stopped making it after one season. That's my hope, but I don't know. I mean, dogs had three seasons. I would love to see three seasons of the lowdown. If you can get Tommy Lee Jones and Betty Gilpin, John Hawks now to join your series for a season for a run, I think that there's enough people. I just felt like I've had two conversations in the last two weeks where I mentioned where somebody asked what I was watching and I was like, "Well, you can't listen to a podcast about that, but no big deal." I was like, "Oh, the lowdown is my favorite show that's on right now." They were like, "Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to watch that." I'm like, "Fuckin' Tommy Lee Jones." They're like, "Tommy Lee Jones is on that show?" And I'm like, "God, I guess it's just really hard to break through, man. I guess it's really hard to get that across." Then we're doing the Lord's work and we're going to talk about every episode because this is my favorite show that's on right now. This is, you know, as you've known since January, this is one of the six shows on my top three. And I love it. You should actually only take it last year. But this year, the best of TV year episode. You should just do a top three. But it's nine shows. Yeah, no, I get it. I understand the assignment and I'm ready to meet it. It's interesting to hear your response to this episode because I also found it not an outlier, but like for me, thus far, I thought this was in some ways the weakest episode, but I don't even mean that as necessarily harsh criticism. One of the things that the show has done so well that has impressed me so much across both seasons is that it has really run at a very challenging problem for mystery shows on television, which is urgency. If a crime needs to be solved or if someone is in peril, then obviously the only thing to do is solve the crime or rescue the person who's in peril. But that framework doesn't give you a lot of breathing room or moments to focus on the archaeological dig or as this episode does, Francis's bowling birthday party that starts to build an uneasy truce between father and son and Tommy Lee Jones and Ethan Hawke. You just don't have room for that stuff. Yeah. The lowdown is our favorite kind of crime novel because really the crime is to the side. The novel is that stuff. Like that's actually what we're chasing and what we love. So I thought that this was an episode that found its moment to indulge a little bit, but it did feel sort of temperamentally different than the other episodes. Totally fine with it. Beautiful moments. And what it would have really pointed out to me was that we can tell people in our job as podcast host trying to get people to watch good stuff that this is one of the best detective shows honestly ever on television. I would say already two years in or one of the best hour longs that is currently airing however you want to frame it. But maybe the way to draw a wider audience in is to tell them that this is an elite hang show. In the sense that usually when we think of a hang show, what I mean is do you want to spend time with these people in this world? And more often than not, those are sitcoms because that's just the nature of what the shows always were. Like, yeah, I want to go to cheers every week. Everybody knows my name, sweet. I just like being with these people. The situation changes, but the comedy stays the same. But the best, best, best dramas of the last 20 years know that they too have to be elite hang shows. And so a lot of madmen was that. Like, what are these? What are these guys up to? Or like the episodes where they would go to Pete's house in the countryside. And it's like now Don's fixing a sink and somehow I'm riveted. Or the wire, not thought of that way, but like the whole fuzzy Dunlap stuff. Like just the hijinks of these people in between the moments when they are trying to address the drug crisis in America made the show elite. The pit, you know, how much do we talk about the cases or how much do we talk about what they're chatting about at the nurse's station? This episode of The Lowdown, where, you know, it was, it was a real die new moment where it's like we already have Tommy Lee Jones. And now we have Kyle McLaughlin back for an episode. And we have Michael Hitchcock and Keith David. And last season we had Tracy Letts and Scott Shepard and just an entirely underappreciated upper middle class of actor just getting to eat. And the eating is good. Yeah, also like actors that we get John Hawks added to it. Haven't seen like I also an amelio who plays Lonnie on this show and is in everybody want some and is in the weight with Ethan Hawke this fall in theaters. I think it's already on streaming. And it's an awesome movie. People should check out. He's fantastic. And like they he's obviously I almost feel like they're like this guy's so good. We need to kind of there's a scene in this most recent episode where it seems to actually branch out and McCann and Lonnie who are this sort of, um, Cohen Brothers Esk like marks in this show because they're being run by people like in more power than them. But they are given their own little like we have to dig up a body sub plot and it's Schneider's body. It's a life delightful. Yeah, they have to dig up chili. There's also something really cool going on where I don't know that the show is necessarily I would I'd be really curious to know if Sterling has a rule for this. I talked before about my interest in mystery shows that keep the audience in the same place of the mystery. The same progression of the mystery as the detective and mystery shows that go ahead of the detective detective and wait for the detective to catch up. And for the most part, the lowdown is kept it with Lee's progress, but I think that a ginger is the true detective of this show. You know, she's the one who's taking it personally. She's the one who is haunted by what is happening. She's the one who can't abide by the idea that somebody has come to her for help and been killed twice and that the man that she loved might be a murderer. You know, and she's the one. I thought it was such a lovely, awesome curveball to have her be like, I need to be left alone to Lee at the end of the night. And you're like, okay, that's the end of the episode because Lee's POV is our POV. So when somebody says goodbye, that means it's over. And instead we go to a gas station with her where she has like a nervous cigarette and she finds out from, uh, from, from her, her prison snitch. She calls me Cleven. Yes. Who's, who's in jail because he got to suck her feet and went to jail for her to go find out information about Miko. And he's like, yeah, everybody here is like talking about how Miko killed a kid. And then so now we have flipped this into this guy I'm trying to exonerate is also this guy I'm trying to maybe track down. And then of course, Cliffhanger, she gets kidnapped by Lonnie and McCann. I just thought that was such a great wrinkle that while Lee's life is almost a 10, it's it's a chaining some semblance of like balance. Uh, gingers is spinning out of control. And that the, the great curveball of the show is this shifting nature and always surprising nature of relationships. Like that if, if Lee is imprisoned and Martha Plimpton, I don't even know if we've talked about the Plimpton Sons, like she's, she's just another banger for her. She's just like having the best time of her life at this character actor stage of her career, um, is imprisoned by her, by her. And then he gets a phone call and his phone call is to Kalma Glockman who is now the governor of Oklahoma, who shows up to get him out of prison. And this is, you know, probably due to scheduling and the other factor, like I don't know if we're going to get more Kyle this season. But the fact that they cleared out a lane for him to have an episode into play with the surprising dynamics of this relationship that Lee is a gadfly, but everyone can kind of tolerate him until they can't. And because he's so undeniable is, or relentless depending is such a, it's such a winning choice on the part of the show that like if he was constantly speaking truth to power and nipping it powers heels and then getting kicked by power, it would be one thing. But he is kind of charming. And everything else is also just kicked down a level, which I think is also part of Sterling's larger cultural project, which is that like if this was a New York noir, New York detective show, like so many are, I don't think we would have Kathy Hocker. phone number, you know, but, but there's something about this place that is so specific and he knows it's so well. >> That an alt-weekly journalist might know the governor. Yeah. >> And then they might both be weirdly discomforted or intimidated by a, you know, law and order touting rogue judge. >> Yeah, I could just want to be in out there who is like, I think we should bring the news back. >> And, and, and for it to be John Hawks is so perfect, because like, we should probably at some point or maybe in the off season of the show, assuming we get a new season, talk about all the actors who clearly are meant to be on on the lowdown, but haven't yet. Like, of course, John Hawks is on the show, but because my brain is so lowdown-coded when he showed up, it's a, not a very John Hawks role recently. Like, he doesn't usually play someone with that much, like, charisma or power. He usually doesn't play heavy. So my first thought was, yeah, of course they got Lyell of it. >> Wait, no, that's John Hawks, but my brain is now like, correcting for people who ought to be on the lowdown. >> Yeah, who? What Austin City Limits musician is also going to be on? It's a, it's a, what's the outcome doing, come on. >> It's a delight. And, yeah, I think that I thought that it was nice to get everybody together in the bowling scene, even though to your point about if this is a New York more, I don't think that Lee could wake up in a prison in one county, go on a day long horseback riding, PSA film watching Budweiser drinking adventure with a judge and a governor and still make it to his daughter's birthday party. >> I don't know. I made it from JFK to downtown Brooklyn in 27 minutes the other day. >> You're talking about that. You're going to have one of your trips. You're going to be sitting in two hours of it. >> Every other trip, I'm just saying, it's possible for everything to light up. Yeah, I just, we're going to say this now and I'm going to say it again in a few weeks that like, what are we doing this for in terms of this massive, massive television industrial complex in which content is created, packaged, beam to us at all price points with all different packaging methods and intentions and write-offs and it's also opaque. Like, Disney should be able to make this show because the one thing that would make me question it is if Sterling hadn't come back to them with an incredible season two. A season two that I think sharpens and elevates the whole argument for the show in a way that season one only began to do. So if that's the case, come on. Like, we still ought to be able to do this in America and we got, if we can't, we got to figure it out. >> It sounds like a running for office. Honestly, this was my year. Do you know what I mean? Like, never, but I probably could have snuck in under the gun this year. >> Yeah, you probably could have. >> How hard was it really? Like Montana just voted blue. Like, I just think that if there was ever a moment, this might have been it. >> Would you do some sort of like, I just moved your two years ago to get, get in on like a certain district or a certain, certain senate seat? >> Oh, right. Like, where would you go? I don't know. There was that dude who ran for Congress in Virginia lost and then moved to rural North Carolina and just took out a member of Republican leadership. >> Oh, yeah. Oh, hey, right. Are you, are you ready for the NIL era of Congress? >> Do you think we'll ever go? >> We're like, people just growing up and it was just like, our parents did not talk about who the, the Congress people were from Texas or North Carolina. Like, I would know, I didn't have to know. >> I knew who Jesse Helms was, but like other than that, just because he would be cut because you had a lot of merch or what. >> Oh, excuse me, this is such a less legendary fucker that like he is name rang out. But like, I don't think I knew who the, yeah, now in retrospect I did know a lot of these, but like, I'm trying to think of like, I was just, I was going to say like the senator from Iowa and I was like, that was Tom Harkin. >> Yeah, exactly. We're like, Alan Simpson from Wyoming. >> Oh, that dude, yeah. >> These two loom large in media. But also like, the level of fury that Senator Alan Simpson created in my father in like 1993 and I'm like, that dude would be a member of DSA today, do you know what I mean? Like, that was the villain. Come on. >> But yeah, do you think we'll ever go back to a point where we don't know that like, which way the railroad commissioner of Texas went? I'm sure there are a lot of people listening and we're like, I don't know that dude, you got to show up. >> I would like to know a lot less. I think that bring ignorance back in 2027 is my platform. Oh, my God, I would like to get so much dumber, yes. >> Yes. >> It was great to see you today. Thank you for spending some time with me. >> It's what I do. It's my great pleasure. I'm just jealous of your trip. >> Yeah, coming up, I think it's an AG Special One Monday, is that your plan? >> We got some irons in the fire. I haven't read you into them yet, but I've got some, I've got some feelers out to the community. And we're going to take care of it. We're going to take care. We're going to put a little show together. >> And then I'm going to try and jump on for some of, if not all of Thursday's show next week. We're not sure about the following one day and then we'll be back the third day of the 19th full force adventure style. Thank you so much to Andy. Thank you so much to Kay and Kayah and everybody hold it down on one vacation. >> Safe travels. We have the watch now, brother. America's in safe hands.