‘East of Eden’ E1-4, ‘Slow Horses’ S6E4, and ‘The Altruists’ Trailer

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FanDuel is now available everywhere in the U.S. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Age and location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. See FanDuel.com for eligibility. Gambling, problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. 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 and I am an editor at TheWinger.com and joining me in the studio, he now knows 100% more about brothels, it's Andy Greenwald. It's not the brothel itself because I think I, I think I'm the best brothel owner in the world. I think I'm the best brothel owner in the world. I think I wasn't wrong. Uh huh. About the basic ins and outs of a brothel. No, but like in terms of their, their pickling and canning. You know, just the financial planning required to it. Yeah, sure. Uh, we're talking about East of Eden today. Uh, first four episodes of Zoe Kazan's adaptation of John Steinbeck's American classic. Uh, and then we're also gonna talk some slow horses. It's so great to see you in the flesh. You thought you got rid of me. Apparently your, your new favorite beverage or your old favorite beverage that you never alerted me to. I, this is a thing that happens with people who have been, come on, we're in person now, we can talk. Friends for a long time is that sometimes old friends try and pull a fast one and nobody's comfortable with just being like, there's a new drink I've been trying and I really like it. Everything's always gotta be like, I've always known about this. No. This has always been the best thing. You just don't know me enough. And I've never seen you get, what is this? You've never heard of this. What is it? This isn't the Pepsi challenge. So about a year ago, I started enjoying a beverage that was new to me. I'm not Columbus-ing this. I'm sure that, that the Italians snobs, possibly redundant, have always been aware that the combination of espresso and tonic water is delightful and refreshing. Yes. It has now become more available in coffee shops, right? It's like you do an espresso shot. That's usually soda water. Yeah. Next to it. Gotcha. So this morning, because you know, I'm on East coast time and have been zooming since before the sun came up, I was like, I'm gonna treat myself this morning to our local barista specialty. And I walked in there and they have an espresso tonic on the menu and I got one. Now I feel this is good. I'm, you know, this is, I'm gonna close my computer early. This is good. I'll close my computer. That I'm back in town. You think you can close your guy? I'm gonna put mine away. Okay, go ahead. Here. Why don't you take mine? You take mine. What's the difference? The same 16 tabs open to NBC Sports Philadelphia. Chris has how much money? My point is I generally operate from a perspective of I'm too available to you. I'm too available to you. And I tell you too much. So in between the 18, that's true. It is true. Yeah. You do tell me a lot. Which, which color is more dominant in our chat window, whichever one is mine. You know what I mean? Like you say, oh, that's interesting. What do you think about that? 19 texts later that usually end with IDK anyway. And then you're just coming out of a screening and you and Sean are like, you're like, Sean, sorry, let me, let me tap out of this steak dinner for a second and look at this. So at no point in the last year was I like, Chris might not know my coffee order has changed in the daytime. I just, I feel like I've seen you drink a lot of coffee. I've never seen, I've never seen you drink that. The other reason is because our, our wonderful benefactors here at the international Spotify corporation provide us with some free coffee beverages. And so, you know, eagle eye viewers of the pod have seen me have an iced coffee from them that I don't drink. Right. Today's different. You're going to have a nice coffee from them that I don't drink. Right. Today's different. Right. Today's different. Right. Today's different. Right. Today's different. You're not going to drink that. I'm going to drink this and it's going to affect the content of the show. I have so many things I want to ask you about today. Uh, how many are coffee based? No, there's a couple of news things from the world of, uh, popular culture. Okay. I also wanted to talk to you about, um, watching your life pass before your eyes through the careers of offensive linemen, but that might be after dark and that's not about the manhunter. Yeah. Let's start here. Okay. Which is, I was curious whether or not any of the paramount stuff from the last couple of days, the skydance stuff, I should say, right. Cause it is a skydance corporation that encompasses now two great legacy studios. If any of it was like jumping out at you of like the massive amounts of debt that they have to service. So it's apparently the fact that Larry Ellison is selling his north Palm beach, uh, estate for $160 million. Um, it's peanuts. Yeah. So am I right about my numbers here that, that this, they, this is a newly formed company built on the back of $80 billion of debt. I let's not get too deep into the numbers cause we're going to get them wrong, but it is a tremendous amount of debt servicing that they have to do. Right. And like, they essentially have promised $6 billion in, I guess, savings in terms of, uh, redundancies, I think, but the way that they're kind of approaching it is like efficiencies. So, so they're going to, you know, whether that's the tech stack that they're talking about, uh, ways in which they're going to maximize the real estate holdings of the two companies. But the thing that jumped out at me, uh, was, you know, when Casey Bloys had given his statement or made a statement after Cindy Holland or right before Cindy Holland left, when it was clear, he was going to be taking over the direct. He kind of pointed us in the direction of imagine these two services being bundled, not merging. And then, uh, in his town hall or is addressed to the troops, David Ellison suggested that there will be a, a mega mega streaming service on the horizon that will bring together the two, the two great families of, of all those Warner brothers and all those, all those Ellison siblings, all those guys up on the mountain of paramount. So yeah, like in the near or distant future, we'll see some sort of HBO paramount. I don't or, or skydance plus, I guess is what they could call it. Right. And then you get all of it. Yeah. For like $60 a month. I don't know. I mean, what's the, what's, what's a number for that? I know financial analyst, but when I assume most stories of companies being bought on the back of debt and then promising, it's all going to work out because of efficiency that usually works, right? Like everybody has been talking about how like, this is just doesn't have now, if anybody knows how to survive it. And if any company, if anybody has navigated, it's Casey, it's HBO. Well, right. Yeah. So I, I, I am some of those Warner brothers properties of it's just been like between time Warner and everybody else who's bought them over the years. I mean, and, and the, the inverse of that is if there's ever been a major media corporation that has mismanaged its brands and assets, it was the artist formerly known as Viacom, which let MTV and comedy central among others just wither and die and into nothingness. Now that's pre Ellison, but that is, that is the legacy of what I saw a graphic being like, now all of these brands are combined into one friendly family. And I was like, some of these are just ghost kitchens, man. Like the, they don't even exist anymore, but one night it's a Chinese restaurant. In terms of like what I'm looking at next are pearl clutching about the fate of our beautiful HBO. I'm not worried about anymore. Casey has solidified his position. HBO has survived worse. It may survive even worse. I don't know, but that is not a this year, next year, three years from now, worry. I think the bigger worry is, um, job losses and which is going to be devastating, I think in, in this town. And that does have like downstream effects, but I'm not entirely sure how they get to 30 theatrical releases a year. If they start axing people by the thousands, I don't really see how that works out either. But I would say the most interesting thing to a merge this week to me was that the first thing that they did when they took over midweek, I mean, this is only still like 48 hours old in terms of being official. The first thing they did was they just dragged diggers corpse out and just kicked it a few more times that the very first thing that like came out from the new sky dance regime was, yo, actually this is the biggest bomb in history. And they were cooking the books. I thought that was an interesting story to leak out. So what Andy's referring to is a story that kind of has gone around on Hollywood sites where the paramount or the sky dance folks looked at the ledger as soon as they got it, the ledger. came into their hands like the Darkhold in that Doctor Strange book. Somehow Digger has lost them $250 million or something. Well, look, there's always funny math, right? That Warner Brothers was saying, no, no, this movie, you know, production was only X amount and we only spent Y amount on marketing. So we are losing money, but it's manageable. It was worth the risk. And Paramount came in and said, actually, they spent $200 million just to make the thing and then another $100 to market it and so it will lose exponentially more. And, you know, it's just, I guess that's how these things work. Like all studios do this. All studios blatantly lie about how much they're spending or how much they're losing. They all cook their books to relatively acceptable degrees. I guess it's probably also, you know, it is the multi, $100 million equivalent of a classic Brian Curtis Now They Tell Us notebook dump where like the first thing the new regime comes in and says, man, the old guys really were bad at this, but we're going to be better. But yeah, that seemed like a kicking Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi on the way out. I will say saw Digger. Yeah. Liked it quite a bit. Whoa, look at you. It's not a zag. I mean, I don't think any. I think you can. There's you can say maybe like the overall message of Digger is this or you can say like you enjoyed or didn't enjoy aspects of it. But I certainly was like, wow, blown away by the scope and vision of its production. How well and Cruz is incredible. How would I do as a cat dad? I think you'd be fine. OK, thank you. Is that your primary interest rather than the climate disaster facing our world? I drive an electric car. So that part is settled. That's settled business for me. Can I just ask one other question about it? This is a little bit pulling from your third chair on the big picture standing, which I respect. It was very interesting for that Digger for that. Skydance, first thing they do is shit on the old guys like Digger story that there were kind of two thought trains leaving the station from that. One was basically one was like, man, like this is that's a ridiculous amount of money to spend on something. And DeLuca and Abdi were really over their skis in terms of empowering filmmakers who are not going to be, you know, financially responsible. The other side of it was this morning of, well, now, no one is ever going to trust a filmmaker to do something original in the theatrical space again. And my main takeaway is it just sucks that everything is now, every argument is now reduced to one sample, one example. You know, this was, this was, that's a phrase, that's a way we talked about. What was it just like, like two or three weeks ago when I was just, I felt like there was something that we were talking about, the TV show that we had mixed feelings about, but it had become an exemplar of a type of TV that we want to still be made. Maybe. Maybe this is just something we always do, but I'm blanking on specifically what I was saying. It's part of our severance comments too when we talk about severance. I feel somewhat severed right now because I'm like, did I say that? Did we say that? No, I feel like we, I mean, I often say that, but like, It's like, yeah, you're like, I'll die supporting it's right to be this show kind of thing, but I don't remember what it was. Yeah, and I wish it wasn't all on this to say like, so anyway, I didn't know how you saw that as a film commentator. Yeah, I mean, I feel complicated about this because, you know, it's easy to look at like the C-suite and be like, why does David Zaslav get an $800 million parachute going out of this possibly catastrophic merger? You know, why do people need like this kind of extravagance in there, like just to basically green light something, you know? But I do think that there's always been a relationship between fiscal responsibility and being able to take artistic decisions and take strategic leaps. And if Digger had been made for $60 million, and I don't know what that version of Digger would have looked like or how, what cast it would have had, or if it could even gotten a sit down with Tom Cruise, but like, it is the kind of movie that probably should be a little bit more financially responsible in its relationship to what kind of money it's going to bring in, you know? And I think that, I think we're going to continue to see some kind of stories like this as these costs kind of are bloated and there's, like, the interest rates are higher. I think if you want to shoot stuff here, it's expensive. Yeah. But I think somewhere, somewhere like outside of like firing more grips or firing more marketing people, there needs to be some sort of evaluation about why this stuff costs what it does. Fair. But I also don't know the insight in like the details of the economics of filmmaking enough to like make it like a definitive statement about that. I just don't know. It looks incredible, but that's like more than they, like that's more than a Lord of the Rings movie. Well, right. I mean, I think this is just, it's the nature of how. And he shot in Pinewood for nine months or whatever they did. Like, I understand why. But this is a reflection of our economic reality. It's either, it's literally all or nothing. It's either, it's back rooms and obsession or it's Digger and. I mean, if you look at the other list, the other thing, in these stories about how much money it lost, of course, there was a rush to be like, well, there was John Carter from Mars. There was, you know, other famous bombs. The Marvels was up there as one of the greatest money losers of all time. They kept making Marvel movies. They did, but they will never make one with three women as the lead again. So I guess that's a win for some demographics. That should be our horizon for how long we pod for. Until Marvel once again. Makes a three-woman Marvel movie. Not a two. The Watcher's on the wall. Our work here is done. When Marvel finally makes good on the promise of that one. 102-year-old Kevin Feige finally says, we can do it. That one shot in Endgame when Gwyneth Paltrow is revealed inside of an Iron Man costume and looks at Shuri and nods. Like, when they finally cash that check that they wrote in that scene. Yeah. God, I heard of someone on the streets of. You know New York, right? It's kind of like a walkable city. I heard some people talking and they were like, I didn't know there was a new. There's a new Avengers movie out and it's like really. It's like a really big deal. Like, it's made a lot of money. And I couldn't tell if they were time travelers or like beautiful people who only read the New York Review of Books. Are they talking about. They were talking about the Endgame re-release. But they were actively engaged with this idea that there was a new Avengers movie out that seemed to be pretty significant. And they were intrigued by it. And it was completely guileless. And so I can't decide if they were. What side of the cultural spectrum were they on? Were they children? Or were they like. You saw them, right? Or was it like. I didn't see them. I heard them talking while I was ordering a coffee and I didn't like turn around and be like. I didn't Thomas Friedman journalist. if you were ordering a coffee and they were talking about I heard there's a new Avengers. That's not how children talk. I realize now I've also made an error in my story. I was ordering an espresso tonic. Were you really? Because I enjoy that during the day. And I was so focused on keeping it from you that I didn't turn it around. But I feel like was it like. If I turned around, I guess it could have been. It could have been people who are new to culture or it could have been Wallace Shawn and Elaine May. It would have been. The funniest is if it had been Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. And he's like. I hear there's a new Vision series on. That's not too far-fetched. That's coming out soon. Yeah. You excited? Yeah. I'll check it out. You know that like. We have a couple of shows coming out soon that I'm excited about. Vision Quest and Lowdown. Yeah. Lowdown's next week so we'll do that next Thursday. Do you feel personally triggered the fact that like the advertising for Vision Quest. One of the few posters that are ever. One of them is James Spader with a giant. Didn't we have this conversation before? No, we did. Okay. And you were like, oh, James Spader isn't a robot in this? And I was like, no, it's just. It's James Spader in like. And now they are advertising it. They're like, is that David Letterman or Michael Stipe? No. The Blacklist crowd getting in there. What was his name? Like Raymond Reddington? He didn't have facial hair like that in the Blacklist. I wanted to ask you about the trailer for a new Netflix series called The Altruists. The Altruists stars Anthony Boyle who we loved in Say Nothing and was in Masters of the Air and of course Julia Garner who is, you know, the other day I was on Bill's Pod and we were talking about cable TV Hall of Fame actors and Reese and Danes and all these people. I think Julia Garner is in the mix there. The Americans. And this is about Sam Bankman Freed and the fall, the rise and fall of FTX. And it comes out and it comes via like almost at this point like an old school way of thinking about TV production where it's adapted from I believe New York Magazine piece. I think they are producers on it. And then New York Magazine are producers and then the Obamas and Higher Ground are producers on it as well. Graham Moore who did the Imitation Game. The Alan Turing movie. This was interesting. I mean, go on. You can keep saying. Well, I mean, we can talk about the movie. There's a pedigree of it. The series, I'll check it out. I mean, I'm always interested to watch performers like Boyle and Garner act. I don't really understand how crypto works and maybe that is actually a benefit to watching something like this. But I was curious how you were feeling because Fantasy Today wrote in his projections newsletter about this wave of movies we're about to get. Like artificial? Artificial social reckoning Alex Gibney's elon musk documentary the nathan fielder movie with elizabeth holmes you can see everything and obviously on tv we've got the altruists and we've gotten another you know amanda cypher played um elizabeth holmes a couple years ago yeah but i was curious whether or not this collection of films and this tv show specifically piqued your interest like is this a world you want to yeah investigate through this i i find some of these films to be a little bit more appealing than the tv show only because i'm curious about viewing these subjects through the lens of a specific uh filmmaker or artist like i want to see a point of view about this well said um i totally agree with you about that um but i'm curious whether or not like you think it signals anything do you think it i think they i think it's a tough i think they're generally a tough sell i mean there was that run of um well there was the game stop movie that paul dano is but in tv there's there's also been like we crashed um i think i'm thinking a lot about uh our friend sean talked to mark maron for criterion channel yeah and through my enormous jealousy i also really enjoyed it and because i i also would love the chance to sit down with sean and he's hard to reach nicely played did you see how i did that yeah but maron very succinctly said something that has been living in my head ever since because sean asked a question generally about like comedy and and and satire and he was like well it's hard to be farcical when you're living in a farce and so i i think that there is an element of why digger is about is it yeah it's expensive so we don't like that right no i liked it all right you like no i'm just saying like your mileage may vary on having your nose pushed into an aspect of the world that we have to deal with and live with every day yeah um this one does stand out to me for a couple reasons one of which is as you i'm with you i don't understand any of this and i it's not this is not a story that i'm going to tell you about it's not a story that i was particularly paying attention to so i'm interested in it i also think that good storytelling and good acting draws my interest more than the subject matter usually yeah and anthony boyle is an awesome young actor and is doing something completely different from what he has done in other recent things including the house of guinness show right yeah that's right as well and alex lother who we love from from andor and from you were you were bigging bigging up that howard's end the other day he was in that as well that howard's end um i think that's a great question i think that's a great um and from alien um earth alien earth earth um and julia garner is awesome so i found i thought this was pretty exciting i also really am appreciative of the fact that like the calendar turns to october and a young podcaster's mind starts turning to like a top 10 list and then these incredibly rich streaming services are like no no we're not done yet and things that i hadn't registered are starting to come out and be released yeah i would still say we have like five things but there's always a like i i did not know about this yes i know there's always a sneaky like oh i didn't know that was coming out but i i would say that this is yeah we're nearing the end here we're nearing the end and i i would say that the tv schedule in general is just way way way way way too tilted towards the emmys for my tastes fair and i don't i think you can make it when we have discussed like binge model versus the binge release model versus weekly release until the cows come home i i think that there needs to be some sort of like executive order about like how many new shows go up at any given point and what what sense there is in putting up three or four new shows at once and then there being like a three-week so you need you want it's like what trump said about the border we need to shut the whole thing down until we figure out what's going on is that what he said i think that's the last thing he said on the subject yeah that's the last time i read a would you all these movies must be of great surprise to you which i've just been fascinated would you would it be a swing voter issue for you like would you swing a vote if someone was like i will appoint a tv streaming czar to regulate it depends on who it is you know i okay i was thinking i was just thinking about you posting like like deborah messing recently posted like an what did deborah messing post are you aware like an eight eight screen thing explaining why how she's come to believe that her vote for the governor of new york city is going to be a not in good conscience go to kathy hockle and she's gonna go to like she's a new yorker yeah yeah she i believe she said she was going to leave the city when our most recent mayor was elected but anyway i feel like you should do that and be like apropos of nothing i just feel like fairness demands deborah messing in nashville i would watch that if she if she did like a like like learning to love the the south oh yeah i thought you meant in nashville like the film yeah or no i don't think i would watch deborah messing in a remake of robert altman's nashville sam altman's nashville in which he puts other people in to the movie and they all are just talking to chat gpt and he's like don't you want this don't you want this fascinating culture um anyway this seems cool i i i'm interested also when you said graham moore who's the film he's the screenwriter who made imitation game he also did the he won an academy award for it did you do the jackal too did he do day of the jackal too uh no okay it's just like oh now he's making a tv show and it looks really accomplished and has a big cast and has one of my favorite producers the obamas behind it i know that's why i brought it up in the first place i love them as content producers i wanted to ask you before we do our two shows today yeah can we talk a little bit about the lantern rumor not a rumor but yes can you set this up for me sure because i think you were for the first time and maybe since 2017 you were across something news-wise that i was like i haven't heard about i'm all across deborah messing social media and that is not an endorsement to be clear i just like to know where all the cast members of will and grace like a digest of her posts on facebook news no no i said alerts yeah across blue sky cross threads all of them so i brought this to chris's attention i actually like two roads diverged in a in a yellow in a in a in a in a in the woods here where i was like should i tell chris about my coffee order or should i tell chris about the the the news that is roiling the dc fandom yeah which is that um and we we sourced this by texting justin to see where he had said it so justin brick gibson my friend at co-ep on the show and vanessa baden kelly who is also a a writer on the show yes the producer went on the midnight boys and and they all had a great talk like pew pew thank you yeah um it was really it was a really cool conversation it was an awesome conversation um where the midnight boys like didn't back down which i thought was a really cool to see them like say like this is what we thought and here's how it played out and vanessa and justin were really honest about their experience holds people accountable listen can we do a second podcast about this new chapter in van's career do a podcast about van's podcast can van come on no no absolutely he's on enough pods he's busy yeah we could just do we look at you holding van has said chris ryan is on enough pods he probably has honestly yeah uh no i i but i've been enjoying van's work greatly political over the last two weeks incredible anyway uh they they in in the course of this podcast they said that in the initial break of the season of lanterns what ended up as episode five which was called lights out yes which was quote unquote the big one the battle of rushville yes was slotted to be the seventh episode of the season and that the the switch where it became the fifth episode was done in post now this doesn't mean to be clear that you could just lift out lights out as it stands and drop it in seven and seven becomes are they all dropped down like everything else was then edited towards this direction or scenes were cut differently to help the change but i guess it did inspire a pretty big debate where some of the people who are like hashtag not my lantern were like oh that would have been so much better because of the placement of the battle or maybe because then the mystery of noah would have remained a mystery because i do think one of the i think it makes a more significant character as well yeah and it changes the nature of mysteries i guess and how they play into the show well it adds another one because i think if those yes because then you see from the later in the season is happening earlier and so you're following 2026 and they're like ever since this happened and how into jail for 10 years and we've been rebuilding what happened we're like what the fuck happened and then you see and you're like oh i can see why that guy went to jail for 10 do you think then the blackmail plot makes more sense like what and also just generally do you think this was the right choice the wrong choice um i think i'm agnostic but i'm curious if you had strong i think it worked otherwise i think that the way that they did it probably i know that some of the the pushback about green lantern about lanterns is that there isn't enough green lanterning and that there's not enough ring stuff and there's not enough flying in space and there's not enough green lanterns and there's not enough green lanterns and there's not enough suits but i actually thought that the last couple of episodes had way more to say about what it means to be a lantern yes and right you know and heroism heroism and brought guy into it and talked about you know like panic rooms in the basement ever since you know and all this stuff and i so i think it was weirdly more in service of the dcu than rushville was uh i mean I mean, certainly a version of the DCU that is thoughtful and considered with moral stakes and scaffolding which i think we're more interested in yeah i think that i think it works as it is but i i personally probably would have been a little bit frustrated if you had two episodes of people talking about something that they wouldn't just explicitly talk about yes and i think that that is a little bit of a hang-up that i have with these shows that other shows that do multiple timeline storytelling is that in any kind of reality people would be far more explicit and far more forthcoming about like i can't believe that you know the thing that changed everything for me was when hal and zoe played one-on-one on our souls you know that was fucked up and i'll never forgive them and i'll never forgive this person or whatever and you wouldn't just be like you can't tell me that what happened in rushville didn't matter you know like i also can't i can't separate any of this conversation from how fascinating i find the decision making like how and when to deploy information is one of the most frustrating aspects of all writers rooms not just shows that are intentionally twisty um and the sense that i got from hearing justin and vanessa talk about it was that they that i mean first of all rooms argue and disagree but then almost inevitably it's not falling it's like they fall in love with the possibilities of what they choose to do and so i think for them delaying rushville was a key i don't want to say keeks i do not want to create the idea that they disagree with what happened because that's not their job and that's not what they said but that the decision was such a good one on from their perspective in terms of challenging the audience's perceptions and not hand-holding and really laying down a marker that this is how we're going to deal with time and story in the show mm-hmm i would say that without having been involved in those conversations and coming to a blind i was struck by the boldness and the the of the of what they ended up with i mean there aren't that many moves left to surprise people in terms of how to tell time stories or time shifting stories on tv getting to the finale with three episodes still to go felt pretty radical to me and kind of exciting yeah now that doesn't mean that it didn't create problems with the show later on that i still don't think they were able to solve for one of which which which is the lack of surprise in the noah reveal a more fundamental the the sort of detached nature of the reparations blackmail thing the biggest one to me though is unrelated to the time shifting stuff which is only i wouldn't say it's like not at me but it hasn't really resolved itself into that vibe of like but i liked it which is i don't get what manhunters are like i think that is a fundamental problem with the show that didn't affect my enjoyment of all the things that i was doing and i think that's they're very important to be a mcguffin yeah you know what i mean like they're too important to just be like oh don't worry about it it's like the gauntlet and if you get all the jewels something big happens it's like yeah their nature of like we were robot assassins created by the guardians and when we went rogue they they x'd us out is like it's too significant of a story to not actually be like okay so but what can you do you can grant the miracle of childbirth to somebody but but also what not like but also what do you want to do yeah because i understood on a human perspective which was the point of noah that he was part human that he wanted revenge against the the guardians and the people who did this to his grandmother to his to his creator to his people to this town etc etc but zoe's whole thing was just she was tired and wanted to get away and she didn't hurt people did she particularly like at the end she was willing to rain down death upon everyone i think what she did was abin sir caught one i think it was ambiguous because you could say that she saved all these people and then she gave them a life of good health and abundance and then she expected them all to die for her right which seems to be a different story than the story of what she did on anton's world which is fine people can grow and change even robotic intergalactic assassin people yeah but anyway it's just it's an interesting idea to get out there and it's i you know what release the writer's room cut that would be cool i i would love to see more stuff like that with tv where it's like hey you know lanterns has been on for a year but we're gonna re-release it as like a different cut now you can watch it this way like michael man did with miami vice that's exactly right is that what you're thinking of well i spoke about that in my my solo pod last week did you or earlier this week i was busy listening to the midnight boys i got one pot a week in me let's talk a little bit about east of eden yeah another another show uh where writer are are are a writer in this case is is taking liberties with some beloved source material yeah um personally uh i was i was quite surprised to see sinestro show up in salinas valley california thank you back there wow i wasn't surprised there's a lot of fear there clearly and a lot of like yellow wheat like you weren't watching the same show i was brother you are not on my level but go on and then deborah messing shows up and is like do you guys believe in voter id um me yeah careful i don't give a fuck i know i love that for you um anyway east of eden yeah let's set the scene uh it's a seven episode netflix miniseries i talked a little bit about this um in my passionate recommendation earlier in the week i believe and uh andy and i have uh knocked out four episodes so i think that's a useful first chapter or part of this series to talk about because it largely encompasses cyrus adam charles trask and kathy ames and they're and they're part of the story and um and then we get into cal and aaron later who are in i think book readers minds probably the main characters of east of eden um at least they were to me uh i would say the main character of this story is kathy up until this point and this has been the conversation that i've seen so again have mostly in press and this has been the focus of most writing about the series so far is um the i guess centralization and to some extent i wouldn't go as far to say like rehabilitation no but the reinterpretation of of kathy as a human rather than as a i wouldn't go as far as to say demon but they say it in the show i mean you do say in the show yeah and i and i want you to like i feel like you've had the chance to engage with zoe's press more or like i i would like to hear maybe our list yeah i hope we get to talk to her about this yeah what motivated her i mean obviously the the part of the story that is like the soundbite that's incredible is her grandfather made the the film version with uh with james dean and so there's there's obviously legacy here and this show is about family and legacy and all of that but i am curious about the like passion she had for this project because it spans years i think it spans even potentially like network homes it was never officially anywhere else but i think ending up on netflix the way that it ended up was not necessarily guaranteed when this thing started yeah she's talked about hearing that this was going to be made and and being like i have to do this sometimes when you can look at like the list of executive producers of something it tells you a story in and of itself and this is one of the one of the anonymous content is a producer of this of the show and steve golan who founded anonymous content is listed as an ep of the show and steve golan passed away in 2019 so it is a it has been a labor of love for a very long time okay but um but yeah i do want to talk about i mean i want to talk about the unmatched beauty of these episodes and some of the greatest some of my favorite actors doing god to your work within it but i really am interested in that point because as you were saying episode two and episode four are kathy episodes and florence pew is captivating and incredible in them but they do seem really really engaged with the doing the work of looking deeper in the sense that steinbeck really and i'm not going to pretend that i read this book recently i read it in high school but everything i've now read about reading it to kind of jog my memory does remind me that kathy is very intentionally a a figure from hell an evil figure and she's a product of the original sin yes and and and zoe feel seems and these to know more than just that not to leave that alone let us learn more what would that look like in practice what is contextually interesting or historically accurate that might help produce a person like this and the show doesn't sugarcoat it i want to make it clear that this is not some like i don't think it's rehabilitation in any way but it is it is more nuanced and it is spending a lot of time filling in things that were not necessarily um on steinbeck's punch list yeah i think that this is the most interesting question about this adaptation is that can you do can you change the aperture or can you change the angle that you're telling a story from and in this case i think trying to give kathy more of a voice she does voiceover narration in the series she has i mean a lot of these scenes come from the pages of the book but i think they're told in different slightly different ways can you change that without changing the substance of her actions and words and so these are going to we're going to discuss the details of the first few episodes of east of eden so if you don't want it spoiled for you save this conversation for when you've watched the first four episodes or perhaps when you've watched the entire thing this is a writer's room conundrum that i'd be curious to know it's like can you can you adjust how this character is going to be colored how it's going to be received in a in a in its writing but not change this is a woman who shoots her husband in the chest and leaves her newborn twin sons screaming for sustenance to to become a second madam at a brothel and enact a months-long uh plot to murder the woman who owns the place and to turn the place into more explicitly a house of sin a house of sadomasochism yes and yeah yeah and so in the book when you're reading it kathy's behavior makes sense quote unquote because of she's she's born out of like this this crack in the earth you know what i mean like she is part of a a book of genesis level you know like like slice through humanity yeah and in the show she is somebody who is a product of uh institutional and social abuse of women yes that that goes on goes back centuries i think you could say that's the same thing you know what i mean yes that there is like an element of that that i think i i think is is zoe kazan kind of saying one is is almost like hard to visualize and it's fantastical one is in interfaces all the time and they kind of could result in the same thing and i think that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the same thing yeah i think that this i think the most successful thing i mean it's very very that aspect of it is incredibly successful and really noteworthy and important fellas the phrase the female gaze gets thrown around a lot these days especially on this pod so let me be the one to really opine on it um but in all seriousness you feel the work of a i don't want to say just female filmmaker because these first few episodes were directed by garth davis who is incredibly talented and made top of the lake uh directed the episodes jane campion didn't one of my favorite shows left you know that i was saying should have been on that new york times list but i didn't vote for it so it's my own fault culpability matters um in the sense that just by just by staging the scenes that you're either implied in the book elided in the book or in the book with the perspective of with zoe kazan's perspective as a woman in the world and the way that she wrote the script every one of those scenes is charged differently what you feel in every scene that kathy is in in episode two and four that i found really compelling was you can see the calculus in the eyes of the men who say one thing and then immediately do another especially all the men who present themselves as like i'm not like i'm not like other guys even the moment when and mike feist is amazing on the show i think when charles wakes up and she's by his bed and he recoils because he has said like like recognize like i understand this is a serpent in the garden i understand what she is and i am the same thing and i am bad and he pushes her away he says what are you doing and his his quote-unquote his morals are leading and then he plays it instantly being like i have a strong feeling about this unless you're going to sleep with me and that is in everyone's face and that changes that changes the calculus of the character and on screen and it to your point it becomes less about her being the source of all evil and more about her becoming someone who recognizes the nature of the world yeah and learns to monetize and weaponize it or is like almost an outgrowth of it you know what i mean she doesn't create her and she won't it won't end with her yes and you know her actions in this show i wonder whether for people who are just watching and have not read the book are are confusing because they go against what we usually they're not tv behaviors you know they're not like usual on-screen storytelling behaviors is to watch somebody who's not just content being like living on the wrong side of the tracks or working as a prostitute or you know whatever it is that you see on the screen what kathy does is try to fight against everything in the world telling her that what she needs is a man and a man who wants to survive and she's saying actually i don't need anyone i don't want anyone i reject i want complete and total independence and freedom and it's a behavior that i think we lionize in a lot of stories especially westerns about uh male heroes where it's uh i mean i wouldn't say anyone lionizes ethan from the searchers but he is the quote-unquote anti-hero of the searchers and at the end he's alone but what he has given this family what he has given will lead to the civilization of the west you know um kathy does not get that grace note um she does not have that what this woman did for the greater society no one will ever know kind of moment but it is a similar kind of behavior you know what i mean it is a similar kind of like single-mindedness and coldness that drives her that is a pretty consistent characteristic of most western anti-heroes yeah they're all anti-heroes i think that's really well said i and i also was thinking about how this is a really interesting and thought-provoking double feature with furious which we which we just talked about in the sense of what does it what does it feel like to see as a male viewer or as any kind of viewer to see a woman fully engage with power or autonomy or agency or flout conventional behavior and in east of eden it is intentionally quite biblical like it seems like a aberration from god for her to just say no i don't want these things and i think that that's another thing that that that i don't mean to i'm calling her zoe like we know her we do not but that zoe kazan does is really really underline the moments especially in episode three that are basically about consent that's in the valley that's when they get to i don't want to go there right i don't want to do that i don't want to go there i'm going to leave she does say all of those things and she's like i don't want to go there i don't want to go there he does not listen now when she tries to leave the first time she's like i did tell you this yes and the way she talks to him i think suggests some sort of perhaps deeper psychological aberration in this character that is not conferred to her in the book you know like whether it's sociopathy whatever however you want to diagnose her it's it's it's an interesting wrinkle that i don't think they do they don't dwell on and certainly don't explicitly describe i mean other people are like she's tired she's weary she's given birth it's postpartum surely once she sees the babies she'll love them surely once she recovers herself physically she'll love the babies surely she'll yeah everybody needs to bend this thing into normalcy and speaking of western i mean that is also the subtext of all western stories we must normalize this land and the normalization process is actually grotesque yeah and and and that is baked into in a really thoughtful way into adam's story as well about oh how great you fought the indians i will not speak about that you know now i think one of the things that the show struggles with and i say this with respect i don't mean it it fails i think it actively engages with and sometimes wins and sometimes maybe it's more of a draw is is that just the sheer weight of all the things that have to happen in order for it to be the book that it is like for example getting adam from the child that we meet under the rough tutelage of podcaster tracy let to the christopher abbott that is just so blindly in love with a woman who is only signaling disaster doom and gloom to him yes like i i love christopher abbott's performance i think he's alive in every moment and he's giving us a lot of the soulfulness and depth that is required for the part and i also like the fact that it doesn't run from the other character's perception of him as lazy or idle or ensorcelled in some way i would love i mean but but i just mean like that but it didn't stop me from doing and i guess sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you but i just mean like that but it but maybe this is more my question it it turned me into a tv viewer in the sense that i was asking why does he love her so much as opposed to of course he does because this is chapter two or chapter three of a seven chapter i can do the intellectual argument for why he loves her so much and it's not even based on the book it's literally from the tv show and he actually is asked yes he is at multiple points like hey like this is your opportunity to give up your wife or this is your opportunity to tell me why yes this is the way it is and i think you know it's it's it's it's it's you know um kieran hines's hamilton character does ask him this when he's showing him the property the property for the first time in in king city or outside of king city i think he's a guy who comes from an incredibly hard upbringing that is true maybe even harder than usual for the time being saw an enormous amount of violence mindless violence in the west when he was serving as a man uh in what was known as the indian wars and comes back and finds brother that in the book i think is given a little bit more of a like and these guys eventually learned to love one another as brothers until kathy came along in the show i think he's like what is my life like i'm not a soldier i don't have a father my brother is like a loner farmer who goes to brothels and gets hammered as his like relief from this hard physical labor that he is kind of consigned himself to. He's not interested in going to California. Adam's been a vagrant. He's been in all these things. And then he finds this woman who literally pops up out of nowhere on his doorstep. Her body is shattered and he nurses her back to health. He can pour a part of himself that he's never been able to use before into her. Yeah, like it's like he finds a part of his heart that he never knew existed. Yeah. And it doesn't matter what the reality is because he's written the story. He's written the story that this is my salvation. He's written the story. We are going west. I think that's really well said. I want to be clear though. It's like he's written the story meaning not John Steinbeck wrote the book. No, Adam Trask is like my story now takes me to California with my beautiful new bride. We're going to take a picture. And what he doesn't know is that behind this sort of like scrim of a fantasy that he's having, Kathy is, for lack of a better term, soiling that. Charles's brother has desecrated that the world is not interested in his story. So I think that his character gets short shrift, sure. But I also don't want an 11 episode page for page adaptation of the book. Nor do I. I didn't. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think that's that was really good. But I agree with you. Were you an English major? But I agree with you that I don't know that it's my favorite part of the series. It's like I agree with you that I'm I wish he had it. There's only his leak. And Kieran Hines's Hamilton character are the chorus of this tragedy and are allowed to articulate everything that I think we as viewers are having this conversation about. They should have a podcast. And not just not just that. Like, I want to I want to like foreground this by saying this show is fucking beautiful. Stuart Dreiberg shot it. He shot a lot of James Campion stuff like it is immaculate looking. But everything, the costumes, the production design is astonishing. The lighting. Like it really, really is. And we are lucky to have it. And it's easy to like lose yourself in it. I mean, I jokingly texted you and for the first 15 minutes, like is East of Eden too beautiful? My column. Laura Cartman did the music. And there are moments where I'll just be kind of like, this is pretty good. I'm like kind of coasting along and I wonder if the brewers are winning. And and then like the music swells in as the train pulls away from Mike Faced at a train station. And you're like, oh, is was that just like 20 seconds of the most beautiful filmmaking I've ever seen? So let me just say that. But in general, one of the things like of the multiple tracks that I'm engaging with while I'm watching it, I really do have this feeling that again, I don't mind because this is actually mirrors maybe the way you or I or anyone would read a big novel. There are moments when I feel the intensity of the show leaning in. And there shows there are moments when I feel like going more slack. And the moments that I feel like going more slack, or attention going slack. No, I feel like the show, it's the show's the show is a as a metaphysical creation. It's interest, you know, like it comes alive in. It's always beautiful. And there are moments when I feel like it's leaning in and moments when it's kind of like leaning out and it's getting it done and advancing the story or connecting the dots or moving things forward. This is not to discount what happens in those moments. I mean, there's a version of this that is not just dismissive of the Cyrus Trask Tracy opening, but just doesn't even do it. And it was done with detail, attention, and care. But the moment that this show lit off like a firework to me wasn't the first moment Florence Pugh appears or the moment that she really steps into her own as Kathy. It is that the Kieran Hines and Hoon Lee scene when they walk away from this awful dinner. They stop speaking pigeon. And Lee is given a chance to have a full humanity and Samuel Hamilton is given a chance to have full humanity. And I want to be clear. I do not remember if any even version of this scene exists in the book. But that to me was like incredible God to your television. I do think that there is the conversation where it's like I don't speak this way because that stuff. I know that he is like an incredibly well-read person. Yeah, that's not like I can't remember. I think that some version of like they don't want to hear my educated voice because that then is a threat almost. Yeah, the way that everyone is playing a character and the way you can reinvent yourself in the West. But also like Hoon Lee is a phenomenal actor from from Banshee to your friends and neighbors to the King and I on stage. And he holds the screen and he has this deep well of humanity and intellect. And it's just like when actor meets role and I'm like, this is an Emmy performance. Yeah, in all senses of the word. But also Kieran Hines is just one of our great that guys and he becomes this person and you love him and you see his roughness. And you see the he's playing an Irishman in a certain way. And the way that they dance around each other and reveal each other and it feels like invention and it feels warm and inviting and like free from the relative inflexibility of we must advance the novel that it just was like it was just thrilling to me. But I say that not say anything else is bad. It's just that are these moments when it steps into becoming it steps into what I always love in TV shows, not just what I love in ambitious adaptations. I think they're amazing on this show. It'll be really interesting to kind of judge this show in its totality because I marvel at the choice to tell an epic so intimately. I think if I remember correctly, like there is a lot more stuff about the land and what they're doing with it and what what it gives them financially and you know, maybe that will come but I think that the choice to make this more about the intense feeling of the characters and I was is a really fascinating one, you know, because it's doing something that television can do that maybe novels can't. Now novels can narrate interiority, but they can't necessarily show people experiencing it. Yeah, right. And make us feel it too. I was curious whether or not you found the performance style to be particularly modern or I think it's all on the same page, which is the only thing that matters. I think everyone's like, everybody's agreed to act the same way. That is the sign of a strong creative control, a strong creative engine. And nobody is saying like anachronistic phrases or anything. It's not, it's not, nothing is bumping in that way. But there is a deep sort of like, in some ways I wonder whether it's an homage to some of the performances in the film because there is a kind of deep pained and modern psychologicalized, if that's a word, but psychologized acting going on. I really like the observation and I want to think about it in the second half, because it is not a often discussed aspect of making something, which is not just casting, which is obviously hugely important, but the synchronicity of good casting where you're casting people who are complimentary to each other. And it's not like, oh, it'll be exciting to see these completely different acting styles work together. It's not, sometimes that's amazing. Like Jeremy Strong and, like Kieran Culkin, like sharing the screen in successions. Like, I don't know if you could imagine two actors with more wildly disparate approaches to the craft and it works. Everyone here seems so complimentary and locked into what they're doing. And they are also playing in a kind of, I mean, it's deep interiority, but they are playing a more like widescreen, almost tilted to history, to like the camera of God kind of performance. And it's also the way it's shot, of course, but like, I don't know, like it's so beautifully cast. And like, I feel like we're underselling what Pugh is doing because one of the tests of a great performance is like, who else could have done this? Who else? Yeah. I don't know of a contemporary actor that could have ticked all the boxes necessary, including, you know, on like a more cynical level, like getting it made. Well, look, I mean, I think I've seen more actors than I can count at this point. At this point in Pugh's career, decide enough's enough and that what they would like to do is make things that entire families can enjoy or that they can show their kids or that, you know, like, or, or I don't, not, yeah. I, this is an incredibly challenging role and an incredibly demanding role. And I feel like pretty singular these days in just being like, I am going to be, I am going to be a vessel of what most people consider evil. Mm-hmm. And she's naked a lot of this series. Like it's, it's an incredibly brave performance and I don't see a lot of other of her contemporaries doing this. I agree with you. I also want to run at your point about like doing things that for, for families to see and children to see, I would like to take this moment to apologize to the families and young children on Delta Flight 771 yesterday from JFK to LAX. Um, they definitely saw more of Black Widow than they anticipated and they also saw your humble narrator perhaps hitting the 10 second skip so if there was some nuance to some of those sex scenes I am I got a cop to having lost some of it because they were pretty straightforward in the early 20th century you know they kind of went at things not Kathy I don't know what you're talking about Kathy seems to be a cut above an emphasis on the cut yeah the the all-time like hardest thing I've ever watched on a plane next to another person is Manchester by the Sea because of how you behaved or because of how well I was locked in I had to do it for rewatchables and I needed to like a rewatchable film honestly it was one of our best episodes uh and but yeah like a couple things in that movie that I think my seatmate was like what my thing and I texted this to you and I I didn't get a lot of response but maybe it's because I didn't give you the specificity of what I was drinking on the flight because I think you maybe you don't know what I'm always curious about what you're drinking um the guy next to me did what I thought was such a good idea because they had the movies which was like I'm gonna watch all of the J.J. Abrams Star Trek this is my move I have told you this what the international flight is time for the Lord of the Rings trilogy right so I think he was doing a version of that I don't know if he if these are favorites or he was just like this is cool this is the right level of engagement and he watched the first one and when I wasn't watching or skipping Florence Pugh nude scenes I was like seeing and kind of remembering that movie kind of rips like that first one with Chris Pine and Quinto and Nimoy like that's a good movie and he enjoyed it and then I dug back into the farmlands of Salinas and when I looked up again he was watching the third one Star Trek Beyond with Idris Elba yeah which I swear to god I don't have any memory of I don't think I saw that one so I was like oh he must be he must love this one or he must have recently re-watched two into darkness yeah but no I don't think I saw that one I don't think I saw that one after three was done he watched two is he like the lanterns voter who wants to reorder it or was it a mistake and I just it's driving me crazy I wish you could reach out to this guy and perhaps he was the whole time was like I can't believe I'm sitting next to Andy Greenwald if you're listening I think he's like I can't believe I'm sitting next to the guy who made the Elizabeth Holmes documentary I can't believe this guy is paused on this brothel scene and is now doing some sketch work yeah why is he painting her like one of his French girls um I think anything's up for grabs when you're on a plane it's true it's a lawless uh if people are allowed to drink no matter what time of day it is I think you can watch Star Trek in whatever order you want god bless you yeah I vote for you I mean I you know that my my my all-time move on a plane is to uh basically like draft off of what the other person is watching so I'll if I'm if I'm in one of those rows I will like kind of clock what they're watching and if it's of interest I'll do about 10 minutes no sound watching their screen nothing has ever more been more compelling than someone else but then you start from the beginning I've started Dark Knight Rises like right behind a dude you know wow and I'm just like I got you man if you miss anything I'm your backup you're the spare and then at the end we can like as we land we can talk about whether Bane was right that's incredible you know what you should do but when they notice what you've done it is weird for a few minutes and then when you turn to them put your hand on their shoulder and say they've done it for a few minutes they've got to find one of us in the wreckage brother no I just go you know what you had a good idea and there's no right there's no ownership over good ideas not man not in an airplane the collective spirit no yeah hell yeah I love it this episode is brought to you by boar's head what if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli well boar's head just did that 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intravenous infusion from the start trim fire is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks followed by injections under the skin and then the next week you'll be able to get a new one every four weeks if your doctor decides that you can self-inject trim fire proper training is required trim fire is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment get checked for infections and tuberculosis tell your doctor if you have an infection flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine explore what's possible ask your doctor about trim fire today call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimfire radio.com i'm pro football hall of famer brian dawkins and i lived for a long time with something i did not know the name of major depressive disorder i carry sadness and anger because i thought i could handle it alone but i couldn't now i want to make sure others know that that support is out there if you're experiencing similar symptoms or similar symptoms talk to a health care professional visit mddallies.com to watch my story paid partnership with johnson and johnson brian dawkins is not prescribed cap lida lumateperone i needed more from my antidepressant so my doctor added cap lida lumateperone proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone building on my progress without starting over cap lida is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only individual results may vary in clinical trials weight gain was not common elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke cap lida is not approved for dementia related psychosis call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes behaviors or suicidal thoughts right away antidepressants may increase these risks report fever confusion stiff muscles which may be life-threatening or uncontrolled muscle movements which may be permanent high cholesterol and weight gain may occur as can high blood sugar which may be fatal monitoring is recommended common side effects are sleepiness dizziness nausea dry mouth feeling tired and diarrhea these aren't all the side effects ask your doctor about cap lida learn more at cap lida.com or call 888-252-4824 in some ways i feel like we give slow horses short trip because of its routine uh excellence this uh episode uh featured a spoilers for um yeah episode four four lost and found of season six of slow horses uh spoilers going forward so this episode featured a character death which was significant um if somewhat telegraphed because of this person's i think inner darkness and fascination with the going beyond this mortal coil i featured one of my favorite scenes of the season if not the series which is harkness and lamb at a shake shack talking about the old days yeah um and continued with the sid and river uh kind of buddy cop movie as well as a delightful collection of some of the women who work in slough house or have worked in slough house uh trying to go get from one safe house to another do you think five guys is mad they didn't get the contract because i'll tell you i mean there's a lot of five guys in london i i saw that shake shack's numbers are down oh they've gone soft i think so i think they overexpanded if you ask me wow just my just one wall street guy's opinion danny meyer come on the watch and i've suddenly leaned in i wonder i i don't know how that happened but to me yes that would have been a five guys although five guys lighting quite garish i think i think the issue is more the peanut shells and like the aesthetic i think this had the right look and the lighting for the scene yeah so you know the best yeah the best space wins it's not really about they didn't even eat honestly so it is pretty astonishing how much people in at least in london like five guys it's a whole genre of food i think yeah they love they love a five guys i i also felt pretty strongly that like the kid the kid kind of messed up because lamb's initial place for this meat was a more public yes it was liverpool street station and there's some there's quite good food around there is there including some like nice like even like takeout options yeah yeah i i think that would is a better play for both what he wanted to eat and also for what jackson lamb wanted which was a successful spy yes moment yeah um yeah we're done talking about the episode no the this is this is the best season since the first i feel strongly um i i i find it like and i know people's mileage may vary on it one thing that is nice about slow horses and its consistency is that i do think that the most surprising range of people in my life of all of all ages have such enthusiasm for this show and get so excited about it week to week so i don't want to be like well actually season five was you know substandard but i i just find that the elevation of stakes across the board and the way that they are playing the characters because the other challenge of the show year to year is like, how do you group them? Yeah. And also just like, this is, this is. This is a situation that you need to create a reason for them to stay here without going away from the central conceit of what they're doing there in the first place. So these are disgraced loser spies, but they don't quit the business. You know, they're not like, I guess I'll go into private security or I guess I'll open a used bookstore. You know, I mean, they're they're committed to doing this and you have to every six months manufacture enough story to keep them engaged, but also slightly change their characters over time. And now, obviously, like this is something that McCarran has done tirelessly over, I think, 10 books by now or something like that. But in the series, it's just walking this tightrope of everybody wants the repeatable Jackson Lamb experience. Everybody wants the unflappable Diana Tavener experience. Everybody wants the dashing, but but dodo brained river cart, right? Like walking into yet another trap experience. But we need to somehow create stakes. We need to somehow create an evolution of this story and have people have like memories of like this happened and this happened. And I don't want to go back to this or I do want to go back to that. And I think that this season is. Really pushing the ball forward in that regard. And it's pushing the ball forward in terms of it's really placed lamb at a very useful position, which is not just top down omniscience. It's putting him right in the middle where he is worried about people that he disdains. He's involved in things that are above his pay grade, which like Diana and far below, like babysitting his kid, which is just a funny subplot. But also it gives him. The scene with with Harkness about we used to rule the world and now we're meeting at a crappy burger place in Canada. No, I actually like Shake Shack. I don't want to be clear, like free ads. That would get me a lot of cred. I thought that working on Harry Potter would impress my children. But if I got one free Shake Shack once, that would actually move the needle considerably. That scene was of a piece with the monologue that was, I think, the high point of the previous season where you were where you learn that lamb. It's not just as. He's been in the game, he has lost quite a bit in the game, but this reminded us of that figure in a way that was really cool and creating a distraction in a public place to get out of being killed is not a new trick that the writers of Slow Horses season six discovered, but I was such I was so locked into the scene that I didn't I wasn't thinking that way when he lit the cigarette. You know, it it works the old the old hits still work. Also, some other things that were good are. The folding of flight into. Slow House storyline. Great. Awesome. The modulation of Roddy Ho. So it is not just an extreme outrageous. This guy is not just gross, but he's also actively stupid, which was one of the drivers of last season. And the performance is great, but it took you out of the moment. So I think he's been modulated well for the season. And then that whole set piece in the bowling alley. Again, it's like credit the director, Adam Randall, because he's using these neons and these the glow of these video game screens. I like that outer like outer ring of London stuff or out like out like greater sort of like these cities that have a filling station and like two things, but like aren't in the play. The play park or like the for the suburban kids. You like the Russian assassins? I always love Russian assassins. I mean, at arm's length. Yeah, I love that. How did you feel about about Coe? You know, that character to me is is has been played as both comic relief, but also. Mm hmm. Maybe has a backstory and like a interior kind of, you know, psychology that maybe is only hinted at. Yep. I think I would have to go back to the books to know if there's like a deep Coe sort of narrative that I forgot about. Yeah, but I thought it was appropriate for the intensity of the violence of this season for it to cost something. But sorry to see him go. Yeah, I agree with that. I think Tom Brook. Gave a very memorable and very odd performance. It was appropriate and it was surprising. And it was a cool scene when he's just like sort of sitting there with his knife and he's wondering about the what the benefits, the pension benefits being in Russian intelligence and the whole thing about I drive. But there was just a again, it's just like all the characters are shaded in a direction this season that makes me more interested in all of them. Nothing has changed, but literally every single one from from Standish to. To all the other characters whose names I'm blanking as I talk about them. Louisa. Yeah, Louisa. The other one I was thinking of like we're coming at them slightly differently and they fit really well into the mechanism of the season. It makes me greedy and be like, oh, I wish these showrunners had another run at Coe. Maybe there was more there, but also they're working off of books and I don't know. We don't know if these guys are suddenly like my take that, wow, the show is so much better now and reenergize just with these new showrunners is not meant at a slight at Will Smith. It also might be the material. It also might be. I think it's also like. It's an argument between whether or not TV should be this repeatable experience versus this evolving experience. And I think that that tension is what makes this show the fact that they are leaning into it being more of an evolution and that these characters are changing and that the consequences of actions are significant. And it's not that they always get to avoid the exploding building and they're like, oh, my God, it's it's sometimes they're in it. You know? And I really I really appreciate that. Even if I'm sorry to see some of my faves go down. Also, it's fun seeing Olivia Cooke is always good. She's good on House of the Dragon, but it's fun seeing the things that she does in House of the Dragon used better, I would say, given more space. She seems delighted to be on this series. She I mean, she's yeah, she's she's rocking and rolling after dark. What do you got? Do you want to talk about the Eagles? Yeah, sure. Yeah. OK, so do you want to set the scene a little bit? Yeah. Yesterday was a very significant moment. In Eagles history, Lane Johnson, who's probably one of the two or three best players to ever wear a uniform, retired. So that's two days ago. And then yesterday we traded Cam Juergens, who was the starting center on our Super Bowl winning team and pro bowl replacement to Jason Kelsey had been moved to guard and was the worst offensive. He was not doing well this season and was traded to Baltimore for a couple of draft picks. And there's some discourse out there that suggests this is. A white flag season that this is we're getting out from under some contracts and we're trying to accrue some draft capital. We're moving off of an old version of this team and into a new era with a new coordinator, but that we don't think we have it this year. I've watched all four games and I would reiterate that we do not have it this year. Will you be getting up at six in the morning to watch Sunday? It makes me feel better that we didn't actually go through with a plan that maybe only I said, which was we should go to London to watch the Eagles. You did say that. I did. I did say that because I like going to London and I usually like watching the Eagles and as a longtime Tottenham fan to see the stadium used differently. This would have been a kind of homecoming for you. It really would have been. How's your Spurs fandom going? Well, there's been the there's been the fortnight break for international play. So I look forward to getting my teeth kicked in again starting this weekend. I am a my sports fandom is almost entirely sentimental. So it may surprise you to hear me say that I actually appreciate the lack of sentimentality. This and I think you're saying no, you're sentimental, but Howie Roseman well, I mean, I do love watching a grandmaster at work this dude traded a one and a two in 2022 for AJ Brown and Cam Juergens and then in 2026 got a one and two back for them. Did Harry Harry Roseman tell you to say that? That's magic. Yeah, that's wild. I would rather root for a team that the team is based in reality because I struggle with reality. So I really I'm interested in the fact that they seem to be seeing the same thing as we are and aren't lying to our faces. Do you know what I mean? I think it's very difficult to do that in football. Yeah, I think it's one thing to say in baseball. You know, we just we're not that good and we're selling Trey Turner and Bryce Harper. If any, if we're not Dave Dombrowski lifetime contract and we're not in basketball, you can tank easily. It's it's impossible to take in football. I mean, you can do it, but people get hurt. Or, you know, guys lose their jobs. Like, it's very it's bad. Or there's lawsuits like with Brian Flores. Yeah. And so this would be a real like zag market inefficiency. Like, we're sellers, but the way we're going to beat everybody is by selling first. And that would be a real risk. I think we are in for a very long season. But I like again, like I, but I also am not like a trenches guy. You're like following these dudes on Instagram. I'm excited. I don't know anything about him. I like he is the smallest defensive lineman maybe ever to play. And then the other guy on the line is like six, nine. You can't bend. Right. Right. Right. I love it. All right. I love the extremes. No, I guess like I am more like Duncan Egg. I think the thing is, I think we can agree on one thing, which is that the NFL is stupid. And it is deeply stupid. All teams are kind of bad, except for three. You can tell yourself this if you want. Yeah. But like the first. The first six weeks, especially like nothing makes sense. Most teams are kind of bad. We've had it really good for a really long time. And I do not take that for granted. And I think that I would, I mean, ask me again in five. weeks after getting just stop watching getting boat raced for weeks but like but I am more interested in the opportunity to be like okay let's see let's see what it looks like if we have anybody here if these guys are good yeah then running out Cam Juergens to wave his arms at people and getting pancaked every week telling ourselves that this is the same team that won the Super Bowl I wanted to just get your yeah on the record response because Zach Berman and Sheila Capati were talking about this on the Philly special as I was driving in I they're the voices in my ears continues to go in the wrong direction yeah and names like Saquon Barkley get brought up as a trade ship or Zach Bond yeah right you say what I say flags fly forever fellas okay it's really about the color it's it's about that I root for the shirt the front of the jersey not the back now that said I will not hear any Jalen Hertzlander and I think he's playing great that's weird yeah that's weird I think it's not his fault so that you wouldn't trade Jalen never to the Cardinals what no number one pick no I don't think no okay not my QB that's my QB one come on what do you I can't do this one what you got to root for something you got to root for something I I I think the other thing that's crazy is for as excruciating as that Rams game was we were two yards of winning it like and then and then you say what I mean I'm not saying I would have come away from that being like a game inches man I don't tell you it could have gone I don't think that the sky is falling I think there are good things here I don't know what I don't know what has happened that has made me reasonable it could just be circadian rhythms being disrupted and travel but I am okay with it because I just don't Chris I don't like being lied to that's the thing okay radical honesty at all times you want to know what I ordered a coffee shop I'm not hiding a goddamn thing okay last thing is did you see LeBron James holding Tyrese Maxie's child don't do this don't do this thing on camera I don't know what I did yeah I did it's pretty good stuff it's really really good stuff you worried about the Huck Porty injury it's disappointing I feel bad for him yeah we need a backup center desperately who you got I really I don't know you haven't worked the waiver wires here I mean we could get a body in but I don't know if we're gonna get anybody who can like I mean like Nick nurse was like well like LeBron can do some and I was like oh shit you know now I just don't I don't think LeBron was like what I want to do is play small five with his degenerative arthritis yeah and my sciatica I here's the deal yeah we're about an hour and 20 in so I don't know if anybody's gonna hear this no show on Monday well we both have travels next week but we will be united in New York City on Thursday to do a podcast where we'll talk about the second season of the lowdown and maybe we'll complete our East of Eden conversation which was so wonderful to talk to you about where are we gonna have it are we gonna record like at the Spotify studios are you gonna come to my office are we gonna do it at like boat bar where would you like to do it I would like you to tell me where to go the last time we tried to record at a bar was a bad brother and while it was an awesome experience we had a great time it was not of the greatest audio fidelity that was also due somewhat to us I think not knowing how to record a podcast after 15 years yeah I think ideally we would record it in a professional podcasting studio I can't wait to join you in that studio you tell me where to be I will be there I will be there five to nine minutes late but I will be there thank you to Sarah and Kai for producing today and we'll be back next Thursday to talk about the lowdown in East of Eden and anything else that happens we will be East of Eden right is this East not like St. Louis okay baseball heaven this is US Bank's cozy cash formations with your chief financial playmaker Fernando Mendoza you are worthy of financial security budgeting is not restriction it's freedom you are smart you are capable you are giving your money a purpose you are learning the language of saving of growing now streaming member FDIC copyright 2026 US Bank this episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals seasonal treats and easy entertaining elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics and as the fall evenings draw in why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots herbal teas lozenges and supplements make sure you look for sales throughout the month shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market