‘Euphoria’ Season 3 Premiere

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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. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me in the studio with a green apple on his head, it's Andy Greenwald. I'm excited. I'm excited too, man. We are releasing this on Sunday night. It's The Watch. We're really just talking about the first episode of Euphoria tonight, today. And by first episode, you mean the first episode ever. You're like pure driven snow. It's unbelievable. Do you think you have a ton to add besides the fact that it's your first episode? How long is this episode? People can email us at thewatchatspotify.com. They can follow us at thewatchpod underscore on Instagram. You can watch us on Ringer-TV on YouTube. And you can watch us on Spotify, where you can also listen to us. And you can also listen to us on YouTube. And you can also listen to us on a bunch of other podcast platforms. Greenwald, we are here for a grand experiment. Rarely in the history of this podcast. The 14-year history of this podcast. Do we basically like say, hey, this show in the middle or end of its run that one of us hasn't watched ever before, we're just going to jump right in. And I think it will give us a unique, if possibly not particularly functional, take on this show. First episode of Euphoria, the third season, much delayed. In between, Sam Levinson did The Idols and Zendaya made one of the best movies of the year, the drama. She's in Dune. There's obviously like a roster of actors on this show that have pretty much exploded. Sidney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, et cetera. I have been watching the show more or less since the beginning. I think I caught up on season one a little late. I was a real fan of some specials that they did, some like one-offs that they did and really loved season one. I think I caught up on season two. I'm seated. I'm seated not only for this show, but I am seated for your- Seated? Yeah. I thought you meant like the tournament. Yeah. Like, you know, like I have my popcorn and my soda. I just can't wait to hear what you have to say about this because I don't know what the experience is watching this without the lore, without the context, without anything. And I want to be clear. I didn't Google anything. There were multiple times during my viewing of episode 301 where I briefly wondered perhaps the path, the history of the character. How does Maddie know her? Yeah. I don't know who, who's Maddie? Alexis Demme's character. Who's Alexis Demme? She is the manager of Dylan, the little actor guy. She's- Oh, right. Okay. You did watch this episode. Yeah. But I didn't know who was the character or not. Like I didn't, is that actor guy important? Has he been on the show before? He hasn't been on the show before. Okay. See, this is what I'm saying. Yeah. Nor did I do my other tried and true method of watching television, which is continually text you during the experience. Now, some might say that I didn't do that because you were on stage in San Francisco talking about basic instincts with Mallory Rubin. Yeah. But others might say because I was showing great restraint. Sure. And respect for the purity of the experiment. Maybe next episode you'll want to like look up some stuff. Nope. Okay. Here's why. This was exhilarating. I loved this experience. It felt freeing and just, uh, I feel uncaged. And as someone whose opinions are famously caged, get ready. Here's genuinely, what I mean is what I love most about television, ongoing television, why I talk about it, why I work in it, why I watch it, is that experience of cumulative narrative storytelling and the, um, the investments that we make in a show and we make in the emotional lives of fictional people and in the creators to continue to deliver. What we grow to expect from these characters or to surprise us in ways that delight us and rapture us even further. That commitment, that relationship, Chris, can also be a yoke. It can drag things down. And at its worst, we, it's what we see with the kind of toxic fandom that exists online or even inside of our own bitter hearts, where shows cease to be what we want them to be, or more charitably cease to match the highs with which they announced themselves. And so, you know, I think that the experience of watching it becomes one of diminishing returns into resentment and disappointment. Um, I have been guilty of this in my personal life. And I've been guilty of this on this podcast as well. When shows that I have loved miss the mark or miss the mark, perhaps arbitrarily that I have set for it. And it is very, very hard to engage beyond that point. So to turn on a show with no prior knowledge, other than the fact that, I mean, I will cop to the fact that I, I am aware that this is the chaos menu of seasons, that this was many years in the making, that the wrangling of talent was quite difficult, that there were aborted other versions of the show in which maybe they were still in high school, if the timing worked out differently. I think there were different pitches, yeah. There was a detective show we had heard about, which sounded interesting to me. I am also aware that the filmmaker, creator, auteur behind the show, Sam Levinson, made, uh, made The Idol. Mm-hmm. Um, I will not be referring to that show again during this podcast. Um, today, during the next five minutes. Okay. No. Uh, so to turn on this episode and be greeted with a riot of color and outrageous situations was fun, thrilling, exciting. I didn't have any baggage. I was not laden, I was not weighed down by anything, and certainly not by dozens of tightly packed balls of fentanyl. That's right. That's right. Although stay tuned for the afternoon. After show, in which, so it was a, you could hear me be, get excited about this project over the last few weeks, and it actually is super fun. And you can tell me your feelings coming at it from a different place, but I did, I do have a sense that entering into this season, this premiere, with this attitude is actually helpful. Because if I had investment in these characters as young people over time, and not just, not just the normal time between seasons, quite a long period of time now since the show debuted, I would probably feel a type of way about where Sam Levinson has chosen to pick up their stories again. As just, I'm entering a new world where these are the stakes, and this is the aesthetic, and this is the tone. Okay, let's see. Yeah, I think that there's been some, um, well-reasoned criticism of this season so far. I've only watched the first one. Critics were given the first three to check out. There's six this, this season. Um, to, of sort of saying, like, what is the reason for Euphoria beyond being Euphoria? Like, beyond making more of an incredibly successful series that HBO has a financial and vested interest in having stay on the air. It's got three of the biggest stars of their generation on it. You really, like, you know, like, you can't let that opportunity get away from you. And cracking the story, like you mentioned, has been something that has gone through several iterations, reported that came out after The Idol that went through some of the, you know, at least behind-the-scenes stuff that was being anonymously, for the most part, talked about, but, like, that you, like, mentioned. Rue becoming a private detective, Rue becoming a surrogate mother. What are we gonna do? Is it gonna be, like, shortly after high school? Is it gonna be a massive time jump? You have to accommodate, you know, these people's schedules, but also them aging, but also their different artistic interests as the years go on. I was kind of curious for you, you know, Obviously there's like the, no, it is not. um jumping into the two towers without ever having heard anything about hobbits and just being like i guess now i'm just watching this although i do wonder if somebody could do that because there's just like yeah it's a big fight i like it with this like did you find yourself being emotionally caught up in it at all or was it simply wow what a what a boisterous riotous like daring piece of filmmaking this was it's the right question to ask um i think zendaya is such a this is this is not a hot take this is a freezing cold take i think she's an incredibly unique and charismatic star when she is on screen like all great movie stars i'm invested in her predicament and one of the things that this season in this episode does very well is that it's a very unique and charismatic star and i think that's what i'm invested in and i think that's what i'm invested in is drop us right into a circumstance that is outrageous and thus um complete it's like it's like jumping it literally is cannonballing into a pool she is i'm meeting her and she is a drug runner trying to cross the border from chihuahua into texas yes uh in a manner that is um quite risky it's purely cinematic it's like the idea she drives her car up to this sort of up this ramp up to the top of the border wall she can't get the car to get down to the ramp going down so she is symbolically stuck between stations on the top of the wall and the car will neither tip backwards nor forwards and she has to do this incredible balletic move out of the car and down the ramp so that the car doesn't fall on her at any given point and there's a bird and it's like a really good silent movie sequence chris cinema it speaks to a point in time where it speaks to a point that you made that i was some might say gently resistant to others would say outwardly hostile to in our discussion of a show i said i wouldn't mention again the idol that you were making the case that sam levinson on his own is a filmmaker to watch is an interesting director and creator and visual storyteller separate and apart from the drama and soap opera of that show this this opening sequence makes the case for itself on its own terms and frankly that was kind of my feeling about the entire episode am i particularly invested in the things that seem to motivate him um i would say through one episode fairly strong trending no um but the way in which he is telling the stories particularly the rue story which maybe this is intentional and maybe this is a good thing is just so much more compelling than any of the other stories that are a part of the show and maybe that's an argument for why continuing us you know season three makes less sense than let's just tell a new story with zendaya whatever the case may be um i thought that there was such a dynamism and such a flair and you know i i it's the kind of thing that our old friend sam esmail would often say on the podcast which is when he approaches things if the visual storytelling is not just worthy is noteworthy is is eye-catching is dramatic is invested in the story and i think that's a really important thing because if the visual storytelling is full of specificity he's in and generally that's not how i approach television because i'm maybe it's a conservative mind or maybe it's just the more writer-driven mind or maybe i'm just nervous about people who are gonna have to do it 24 to 48 more times i want to see if the thing has legs i don't really care so far with this the audacity of the opening was enough for me yeah this is a show that does not have or at least to my knowledge does not have a blueprint it is not a show about x and y and it's not a show about x and y needs to happen for x to be a complete statement i mean i'm sure that this will probably be the last season of euphoria i i'm i'm just because of the complications behind the scenes in terms of mounting it but um it can do whatever it wants i think the heart of the show is ruse addiction story and it's been the most gripping parts of it for me i know people who are like i liked euphoria the first time i saw it i was like oh my god i'm gonna watch it again and i was like oh my god i'm gonna watch it again and i was like oh my god i'm gonna watch it again We can make an episode about that. There are obviously all these other plot lines. But to me, she's the heart and the head of the show. And the stuff that's happening around it, it's interesting to try and make the two meet. And if I had like any problem with this episode, it's like seeing how they're going to get those two like sort of roads to converge eventually. With only six episodes, I'm sure they'll figure something out. But I really, really, really, really am invested in the Rue character. Her performance is remarkable. And then, you know, as far as like what you're talking about with like the visual aspect of it, not only do I think he's a talented filmmaker, I just really like the way he shoots Southern California. Yeah, the light, the yellows, it's really, really dramatic. And even the more garish stuff, like the, you know, Sidney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi's house. Yeah, and like the idea of like bulldozers moving sand back and forth. And, you know, this was relevant to a conversation we were having in our previous episode about, you know, a completely incomparable show like Your Friends and Neighbors that I'm going to comp anyway, which is like when characters are having hyper-real, let's say charitably conversations that i don't recognize as conversations that human beings have with each other if you put them in like a garish 80s cocaine narnia i'm paying a different sort of attention yeah because the hyperreality extends past the dialogue it becomes the whole point of the scene so the way that they they're living in this place that is like a combination of the house from Wild at Heart and also in Old Age Home imbues the entire thing with a sense of, yeah, cinema, but also of a comprehensive storytelling. You might not like the story, but someone's telling you something. Yeah, and he's able to push the limits of what's in a frame. So when Cindy Sweeney and Jacob Elordi are having their big dinner where she's explaining to him that she is going to join OnlyFans to pay for her flower budget at her wedding. What was the candle budget in that scene? That was what I was going to say is that you could do that and say like there's low lighting or there's five candles and they have like 80 candles going and that might be why these shows take so long and cost so much and you know the amount of times they may have to go in and whether those are fake candles but like it's just pushing it to the limit of what people can accept you know and then seeing like the results of that on screen is pretty impressive. you have this is a tough argument to make but i'm going to try to make it the best version i would think of an opportunity to have a budget an hbo sunday night show ascendant stars like a lordy and sweeney um the best version would be to have something incredibly compelling because you have all of these, you have the best ingredients at your disposal. Um, the worst outcome would be timidity. We have the best ingredients, but I'm just going to, to make the food analogy, I'm just going to make a, I'm trying to make a lobster mac and cheese. I'll put some truffle oil on it. You know what I mean? The second best option is I'm going to, you know, paint their faces like I'm a fucking Dutch master and I'm going to have them gulping down giant 80s martinis and shoveling spaghetti into their mouths while they talk about online pornography. It is a choice. A widely held misconception that OnlyFans is only pornography. I've heard this a few times in this episode. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever have a plan come together out of nowhere and realize you're missing something? Like a last minute beach day, a spontaneous hike, or an outdoor movie night you didn't plan for, that's when Prime's same-day delivery has your back. Getting you exactly what you need, fast and reliably, so you can actually join the moment instead of watching from the sidelines. Same-day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.com slash prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas. Terms apply. I have another cultural comp, but I do think in the service of, if we are even servicing it like can i can i talk about the storylines and you can tell me or not tell me yeah i mean i i have not re-watched two so i will do my best but i am not the i'm not gonna fact check you brother yeah i don't even want to know the lore okay but from my understanding here's where we're at i i knew ambiently that that zendaya's character was named rue and had addiction issues if i would say if i were watching this cold i am i would not be aware for addiction issues i would be aware of the fact that mistakes made in her past have have made it impossible for her to have a future and that's where she is. So she finds herself, um, outrageously running drugs and, and, um, curry being a courier for drugs, along with a friend for, um, a mild mannered woman who seems to also have a lot of play by Martha Kelly, who has a lot of redneck farmer associates where they cook or make pills. Um, at the same time, although we don't yet see the overlap, Jacob, a Lord is living with his fiancée, played by Sidney Sweeney. Cassie. And they're living in, as we can't keep describing this mansion, this funhouse mansion anymore. And she is trying to make content so that she can have income as well, both to pay for their wedding and to find value in this world. And he is sort of a harried. He's taken over for his father's construction company and is trying to become a developer, building retirement and old age homes in Southern California. Sort of like a would-be Rick Caruso type trying to build here. Sure. That's interesting way of putting it. Yeah. We also are seeing Maude Apatow's character working for a television executive played by Sharon Stone, making a. On like a CW type nighttime soap. A nighttime soap, something that definitely doesn't exist anymore. But sure, in this world it does. And that's. And then someone else is managing an actor and that crosses that storyline. Maddie is managing one of the actors on LA Nights. Maddie and Lexi are still friends. And I will say one of the hardest times I laughed was when Maddie accompanies her client to a premiere and it looks like an Amazon straight-to-streaming movie called If I May, If I Might. Yes. And I believe it's all HBO and HBO Max. Yeah. And everything's on the Warner Brothers lot. Yes. Look, I think. And that's really. I mean, like you've got. Like on the surface level, you've got it. So Rue has become basically indentured to Laurie over the course of the end of the season. It really turns into the Uncut Gems second half of Goodfellas sort of vibe of the show really comes out. And Rue gets in deep with this character, Laurie. There's some stuff that I think will be explained later that happened perhaps in between the two seasons. And some of that is going to be related to the character played by. I guess, Cloud, who tragically passed away in between season two and three, the actor himself. You don't know about Jules. I won't spoil anything about Hunter Schaefer's character. The only thing I would just really say is that the Coleman Domingo diner scene is sort of a. It's a callback to the other special, right? It's a callback. It's like a continuing variation on the theme of what their special was. I mean, there was two sort of standalones. One was Rue's kind of trying to accept a power, a greater than her part of the 12 Steps. And the other is about Hunter Schaefer's Jules character. And this conversation that they're having in the diner about Rue kind of needing to get her head around the idea of a god and god being in control and not her is obviously fundamental to her saying, I thought maybe god might be this other drug dealer or rather a pimp who will pull me into this other world and away from Rue. And that's our guy, Mr. Echo. That's our guy named Mr. Echo. Who shows up, well, she delivers drugs and uses the bathroom and then becomes friends. Well, I think she gets, first, she's nearly killed because it turns out that the drugs that Laurie gave her to give to this new guy was fentanyl. And. Or laced with, touched with. A young woman dies of an overdose. And everything in the scene is beyond over the top. And again, because of the absolute DGAF, DGA meets DGAF, which is how I would describe it. I would describe Sam Levinson's aesthetic. For sure. I'm weirdly, okay. Like, even the candle scene, I'm looking at my notes that you were referring to, I wrote, ah, this is everything. Looks good is stupid. Yeah. But okay, fine. Like, I was enjoying it. And again, when you have. I still laughed. Like, the thing that he does, as much as he gets great images, he knows exactly what people are good at. Or he sees people in a way that I think is very specific. So the Zendaya performance, we can talk about. I'm pretty mesmerized by her at this point. I think just coming out of the drama, one of the things I love so much about her is her lack of vanity. Totally. As far as, like, Rue, who's, like, run ragged throughout the series. But also, like, in the drama, like, her interest in taking on difficult roles, but, like, more, like, roles that fuck with her public persona a little bit. There's a scene in this episode where, I mean, she is famously one of the most beautiful, multiple stars in the world, and also one of the most fashionable, and always people are checking. And charming. And charming. But my kids are like, love her, but also look for her red carpet looks. Like, they want to know. That is part of her mythos. And so then for her in this show to be a dirtbag, but also a dirtbag who is placed next to all of the young women at, what's the guy's name? Alamo's party. Yeah. And her just be like, wow, you look great. That's cool. Look how you look. Like, that is such. It's an intentional turning everything on its head. That works. So he sees Zendaya in a certain way, or their collaboration. Sam Levinson. Yeah, Sam Levinson does. And they've, you know, they did a film together. Like, they've done a lot of work together. And I think he sees, like, the comedian in Sidney Sweeney. Yeah. And I think. That cut the biggest laugh of our marathon recording today. The silentest little. Snort. I think he sees the humor in her persona. And I think she is in on the joke, but like 80% in on the joke. I think White Lotus was that too. This is funnier to me. Yeah. Like, her Cassie is funnier to me than the White Lotus thing. I think those are the only two things I've ever seen her in. I have some other films I can recommend if you'd like to check them out. Yeah, please give me a list. Maybe it's movie night with the girls on Friday. Let me know. I don't know which one I should fire up. Housemade anyone but you double feature. Yeah. Can't wait. The. Yeah, like, in terms of, like, the setup for Alamo, you know, wearing tighty-whities and a bathrobe in true, like, last act of Boogie Nights fashion, deciding to do William Tell to her, to William Tell him if she's a rat or not or worth keeping around, is such a provocation and such an absurdity. And it is entirely, in my opinion, earned by the noise she makes when she survives. Because she is so, to your point, he knows how she's going to react. And that, you get the sense that she, maybe that's how she laughs when she's surprised by something or delighted by something or the real her, quote-unquote, that people who work with her may know. And what comes out of her is so natural and riveting that those moments make me excited to keep watching the show. So, I think, I think that there's, big picture, what seems to motivate our friend Sam is, on some level, deeply uninteresting to me. The show, the voice of the show, and he writes the show alone and directs it, comes alive on two moments to me. One is how stupid writers' rooms and groupthink are inside Hollywood. When everyone's, like, doing, like, little snaps up about how stupid they are. Not how we need to do representation right in the show. And he's like, he's like my parents watching MSNBC. He's like, got him. The other moment is when Jacob Elordi says, it's hard to build in Southern California. This is a motivating issue, you know, among a certain class of people here. Sure. I think that I find less compelling. But within that, the comparison that I would make. You're not a big, you're not a big disowning guy. It's just okay. It's okay. That's okay. Look, I've read some compelling arguments in the abundance, or, you know, the abundance sector. The comparison I would make is Brett Easton Ellis. Yeah. Who is a writer who I, despite everything, still have a lot of time for. Okay, so here's the. But the reason I bring it up, and then I'm sorry, so I'll let you go, is that the early books that he wrote when he was very, very young and basically the same age as the characters he was writing about. So Lesson Zero and Rules of Attraction. I loved so, so much because, and maybe this was just me also being young when I was reading them, I felt that they were like absolutely like, you know, intentionally provocative and over the top. But there was this like beating heart of universal youth in them or yearning or something or telling the world that it's phony from the inside of that world that I found really, really riveting and magnetic. And I've continued to be interested in him and try to read him even as the books have become paler and paler imitations of that same thing and even sometimes commenting on them or revisiting them The reason I do it is because his angle and his point of view about this place that we now live in remains so sui generis and it's just him. He has his own genre. And I kind of felt the same way here where obviously I didn't watch the high school seasons but clearly we have moved past high school. And so I'm finding what motivates him to be like just spinning out from, it feels like the same thing as stuff that really motivates someone about the world who has rarely left the 323 area code. Be like, don't go south of the border. It's drug runners and fundamentalist religious people and all of that. And it felt kind of pat and very, you know, not particularly stakesy or gripping. But the point of view on it is kind of compelling and funny and clearly deeply felt. And that keeps me engaged. Yes, every moment that you're like, I think you're referring to the moment where Zendaya's first First confronted with the idea that she needs to swallow like 20 balloons worth of drugs. Her acting in that scene and her facial reaction to the like what she has to do, which is pour KY jelly over balloons and choke them down. So she goes and gets her friend Faye to help her. Big week for KY. It's on your friends and neighbors, too. Oh, good for those guys. I'm glad they're reaching out beyond the. They're finally getting their name out there. It's going to be a big guys. I'm not I'm not a financial advisor, but buy lube stocks at the hotel I was at. And it was just like a really normal hotel. I've ever gone into like the Hotel General store and the KY jelly is like lower right hand corner. They're just like just in case. Just in case this weekend goes a certain direction. Yeah, that's what makes hotels great. And I'm like, but it's just like you and a woman who's like selling like, you know, tourist trap, like accoutrement memorabilia and also toothbrushes. You go in there for a magnet. Yeah. Toothbrush. Pringles. A snicker. And a sex toy. That's fine. Anyways, India's performance during that whole scene makes it because, yeah, it's completely like a cliched like south of the border. Everything goes upside down. She doesn't have a simple task. Her task is to save herself. She gets in her own way. The second she arrives at this place, the one thing she is told by Daryl Brick Gibson is don't do any. Don't touch anything you're not supposed to. He's he's given a performance to a second. She is taking off her shirt, dancing with all the girls, hanging out, drinking, smoking weed, even though she's supposed to be sober. California sober, I guess. So she is a participant in her own downfall. She always has been in the show. She she wants to feel something maybe more than she wants to feel clean. You know, a question about that. I know I said I wouldn't ask too many questions about it, but like is it was your takeaway from this episode that she is clean? And sober from the addictions that she like she was on pills and things in the past. Is the California sober like actually how you view her after this episode? I think she was like breaking her edge, really. I think that she's just in a ton of trouble. You know, there is a thing, you know, I was it is funny how we consider this stuff because I was reading this once. This will surprise no one. I was recently reading a Scottish crime novel from the 80s. And in it, like the tough but tender police inspector laid laws. Like trying to talk frankly to a woman who's had a tough time. She's trying to get off the heroin and trying to leave the country and start over because she's she's, you know, in the Glasgow criminals are circling around her. And he's just like, you look a bit peaked. I'm sorry I put you through this. Let me get you a gin and tonic. And she's like, thank you. Like immediately. And, you know, my maybe this is just my like modern, you know, brain where I'm like, she shouldn't be doing that. Right. When, in fact, I think for for generations and including on the show. I don't know. Necessarily that they make an explicit statement when she's talking to Coleman Domingo about the degree of her sobriety and whether or not it's just like off the hard stuff, but still like every once in a while. But like when she was smoking a blunt and drinking whiskey, I with it with Amos, I was like, well, we're going into some some dark, dark waters. I'm curious about the reaction to us talking about it this way, because I would imagine that people who are euphoria fans are going to have much stronger feelings about the season. Because it does seem like such a dramatic break from the show that they fell in love with. That's that said, what I'm enjoying about it is not the the visual pyrotechnics of it. It's something that you've been alluding to constantly through this conversation, which is that I mean, there are two kinds of visually expressive directors. One type is just so in love with the images that they make that I that I find it a little bit airless and it chokes the life out of the thing to make the perfect picture. And then there's the type of director who just I just fucking love actors, man, and knows actors. And as you said, can bring out aspects of actors that they see, not necessarily they alone see, but that they have some unique perspective on. And that was what I was picking up on in this episode. It's just like, I'm going to put these people on the screen and I'm going to let I'm going to enjoy giving them a chance to enjoy it. Yeah. And if I had invested multiple years of emotional and intellectual sweat equity. In Rue's sobriety journey only for it to be this, I might be a little bit ticked or I might be a little bit impatient with it, but I didn't. So I'm having a good time. Yeah. And I also think that it's become a little bit less grounded in TV reality and is now going into almost like a kind of California dreamscape reality. I think I always appreciate directors who understand a region so natively that like. And I think I always appreciate directors who understand a region so natively that like. The they can do a crane shot of a back lot, even though the back lot that they're shooting like, you know. Yeah. They're shooting like just like a nighttime soap or whatever, but he can make that feel like La La Land. And then he can also shoot the desert and he can shoot Calabasas and he can shoot a rundown apartment building. But like he loves it. Like I can see in his through his eye the everyday things that he has always kind of been like. No, it's like these courtyard apartment buildings are beautiful and the washing machine that's in the separate laundry room is beautiful. It's a good point, because I think that among the many, many, many criticisms that I had about the idol, one of the loudest was. I felt deeply that the show just absolutely couldn't decide if it was satire or celebration, if it was like scabrous and judgmental or it was somehow credulous of like. I felt deeply that the show just absolutely couldn't decide if it was satire or celebration, if it was like scabrous and judgmental or celebration. and expensive real estate opportunities. Sure. But doing it in a way that is pretty, pretty inspired. 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The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor including the show-stopping towering santa oh i like that one and his impressive reindeer both 8.5 feet and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night when you want decor that delivers impact the home depot has it make your home santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want all waiting for you at the home depot this show is i wonder if it's the last of its kind how would you categorize well to me what it's become is it backdoored its way from going from like what if teens but really fucked up you know to the last vestige of the like we'll give Nicholas Wending Refn a 10 episode show good yeah David Lynch you want to make the return cool like Carrie Fukunaga you want to shoot all of true detective cool director Park Chan-wook go off king well even he not not on little drummer girl but on the sympathizer it seemed like that got like a little bit taken away from him midway through or they're like it did not feel like totally a vision all his tv is coming home tv is coming back to being tv like every once in a while you'll have somebody who's like i directed all of this or whatever but like the idea of television as this grand playground for directors specifically to flaunt in. And I'll say this too. I have been generally pretty underwhelmed by what people who I thought were movie stars have decided to come back to television for or dip down into television for to do. I would like to believe that, you know, the opportunities to do long-form storytelling and to play challenging roles and, you know, like as the middle class or the sort of mid-tier genre movie disappears you get to go do Mare of Easttown on HBO I think that's like what you should do when I see people who are like say you just wanted to be on a fucking TV show like you were beautiful man like what are you doing like you're Harrison Ford like what are you doing like that stuff like kind of I understand it's like maybe the hours and the location are better but it's uninspiring to me yeah to see Zendaya and Sweeney and Elordi be like we're kind of like at the top of our game right now in terms of like what we can get made and what we you know Wuthering Heights and Housemaid and Drama all like recent obvious successes whether they were contractually obligated or psychologically terrorized into returning to the show I have no idea but they seem to be like invested in doing it Elordi I can't quite tell yet well and I respect the fact that they're like now this is good this is different and we're going to leave our mark on this and I don't really know how many more of these we're going to get so I'm going to enjoy it what's the Elordi quote that's going around about this season where he's just like maybe we did something good maybe I don't know like some version of that yes I mean he is not the most like yeah I think he is a pretty stoic like interview subject I mean he seems like a charming guy but like I don't know necessarily he gives great quote but I also wonder whether he's just like I feel like this character really had a conclusion in season two and so now he's just kind of like a ghost living out there but also to your point like one of the things that marks one of the things that marks a successful movie career these days in the eyes of people like us not necessarily like the people who actually hire anyone because to them it's like how many animated video game characters can you voice this year but in terms of the let's say the people that Sean would be tracking and put on this list of big stars you know under 35 stars it does seem to be actors who are constantly challenging themselves by working with idiosyncratic directors and and the willingness to play in other people's worlds and the best of the best and this is sort of the DiCaprio method you know are following that Chalamet and Zendaya probably chief among them and so if in that regard and I I'm not pulling a full 180 here I'm not putting Sam Levinson who did make the idol in the same category as you know I'm not putting any of the great ascendant filmmakers of our time yet necessarily but I do think that this felt less like George Clooney having to go back for season six of ER because he was under contract and more like I'm going to go do what where for how long okay we'll see I am going to approach this with the same playful spirit that I brought to what was I mean there's the drama he did last year about the north the great some we talked about it the great walk north I think God we're terrible about this but that into that or to Wuthering Heights or to Frankenstein the narrow road to the deep north and narrow a couple road or Priscilla of words in there yeah you can squint and make that make sense this is not having to go back and pretend to be in high school even though you've aged out and careered out the role that you had that broke you in the first place buckle up for Jules I assume we're going to get her next next episode so Jules is the last remaining major character who from yes the show who is who we have yet to see this season so far this is Hunter Schaefer playing in and she's a sugar baby in New York is that a spoiler or that was referenced wasn't referenced yeah it's in the trailer oh can I mention the one that my favorite scene of the entire episode please I really really liked Rue as an Uber driver and I really like the Batman scene I thought that was a moment when I could see the purity of the vision of like we're making fun of LA but we love LA but we're also not being too heavy handed about like rebuilding the Palisades in the right way LA like like Batman being like the city someone in the backseat doing a Batman voice being like the city has changed and then going out to like fist bump Wonder Woman I also liked your listening to the audio book of the Bible that was sick yeah I think I've been in that actually and it really changed my mind about some stuff okay so a shorter Monday episode for us because we just wanted to do a euphoria one and you're going to be on the road again and I am on the road again actually this has already happened at this point right no I will be on on route to Denver when you hear this episode probably so shout me out if you see me do you think when is the show in Denver Monday night okay so people could still potentially if it's not sold out yet you people could maybe show up for this myself and Zach Lowe and Tim Hardaway jr. that's my dream blunt right there yeah can I ask you a lot of athletes Chris make excuses when they play in altitude and they say that I've been thinking about this constantly okay so do you think you will be affected do you think your performance should be judged differently with an asterisk I don't like altitude yeah when I was when I visited New Mexico I took note yes of its of its effect on me I would say as someone who worked in altitude in New Mexico it's no joke and does it take a while for the altitude to kick in like if I'm only there for 36 hours is it going to matter I think the main thing you just need to hydrate more than you think you do and that if you like if you let's say you'll have a good show and you'll be like ah fellows well met let's have a course yeah the you know the mead of the Rocky Mountains you will have one and you will touch God like you will be super fucked up from like one light beer and that is a really weird feeling in Denver right now just being like what is this guy talking about I think that every podcast we do I actually have just like a model listener in an REI coat drinking a course and like shoveling snow being like this fucking Nancy thanks for going on this euphoria journey with me I think it's going to be exciting six weeks for us I think it's gonna be fun I this is we should do this more because it is very freeing to just engage with television this way thanks to Kai Kai and Sarah we will be back on Thursday with a mega show it's the finale of the pit we'll have some top chef we'll have some other TV kicking around beef is coming up so a lot of stuff take care you shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods market this is us banks 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 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