The ‘X-Men’ Cast, ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Footage, and More D23 News. Plus, ‘Lanterns’ Series Premiere and ‘Furious’ Episode 6.

I need support 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, having just received a hologram to inform him that Andy Dalton is now the QB2 for the Eagles. It's Andy Greenwald's. I like this because it's both very specific to my interests, but also is something that could have been communicated from 2016. Sure. Yes, that's right. You are the best at this. We are going to talk about lanterns. We are going to talk about Furious. We'll talk a little bit about the old Disney 23 celebration. Can we talk about the Eagles preseason or QB2 battle? I mean, I watch two minutes. And I was like, this is sub-sport to me. Some of us do the work. Did you watch? You didn't watch this. You didn't send a single text message about it. Maybe I sent them to my other more active chats. Thanks for noticing my facial hair. This is the line of spirit. This is happening. This is going to go on until we get to the bottom of who sent the Bella Rousen's to Joe's house. And we get Joe free. We bring Joe home. Is this also because you want your body to do it and not a pill? Thus, I don't know what it is in this context. But I think we can all guess. That would be funny if I got hymns. Is it possible just asking for a friend? Is it possible for hymns to get misdirected in a body? Or any pill that does that. Sure, sure, no free ads. But I'm just saying, I don't know necessarily how it works. But if you took a pill that's like, your hairline will come back. But you just start developing robust Alec Baldwin pelt. I mean, would you trade that? Would I trade top for a buck? Would people trade that? No, not top for bottom. But if you were like coming in, so out on Monday, you get more hair back, but it goes everywhere. Or you have no idea. You can't choose where it goes, but you get it. Wow. That's a real like monkey paw kind of question. Well, the point is that for people who are caring, Van's going to come on next Monday, and we're going to talk about Linus. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, you also ask him these other hard-hitting questions. You're not gonna be here. No, no, no, no. I'm going to provide you with a list of questions that I'd like you to ask Van for me. I'm probably not going to regard those with any seriousness because you don't take Linus seriously enough. That's what I've realized. Not as seriously as some people on Instagram. Oh, yeah. Are you going to address your errors the last week? Yeah, but my silence was deafening. Apparently, go through it as we're in German shepherds. No. And apparently, dogs can't be racist. I take issue with that. I think Samuel Fuller takes issue with that. I don't think that they're born racist. Do you know what I mean? It's a nature and nurture thing. You know what, man, let's not even worry about it. Let's stretch. We got a lot of fun. We got a lot of fun. We got it. Let's not even worry about it. I do want to talk to you a little bit about Disney. That was sort of the big announcement on Friday was they filled out a little bit more of the X-Men cast. They showed a little bit more of Doomsday. I think at the venue, they showed some starfighter. I want to open up the floor to your headline that grabbed you the most. No, we got to run through it because I don't have the full list. I think we should, should we start with X-Men and we'll work our way back for some time. I can't. Let's start with X-Men. That was my NFL preseason game. I was live checking out it. You were seeing it. I was watching. I was texting about that. What were your initial thoughts as a fan of both? The X-Men and of corporate fan events? I thought, I liked the cast and I think that at Jake Shire, who's directing it, was saying all the right things about where he was going to be pulling from with Claremont and Chris Claremont and Jonathan Hickman is sort of inspirations as far as X-Men writers go. I liked the fact that he was like, and that Feige echoed this, the thing about X-Men is that we haven't even scratched the surface of cool stories that involve them. How much time is it going to take to get this off the ground in terms of storytelling, not in terms of production because the movie is dated for 28. May 28. But how much heavy lifting before we get a full flight X-Men storyline that feels like, you know, we're basically where, say, Spider-Man is now where, like, if they wanted to keep making Colin Spider-Man movies, they are like, they're going now. They know what the tone is, they know what the look is. And as I think you're alluding to, he's established as a character and with a relationship to a rogue's gallery and friends and allies and other heroes in the city itself, whereas the question with something like X-Men, which I think allowed, which is one of the reasons why some people, we won't need to name names, thought maybe it would be a, they would go all in on like a TV universe for them. That was also definitely in the era that we were talking about, that era is now ended last week about putting the content directly onto streaming services, but that it is so, so, so, operatic and so, enormous and the sort of the, the, the, the errors and the errors of storytelling. So to do it in a two-hour movie, to your point, is this going to be Charles recruits his X-Men? Is it generally shows up in Westchester and a full-headed haired Professor X is there. And he's like, what's up? Actually, you know, we love living up here, we don't miss the city at all, there's a great theater, you know, we can still get the same room and open the place right by here. You know, the tinfish supply appearance really improved. Okay, so run through the cast. Let's talk about it. Kit Connor, who, here's the thing I really admire about this cast is they are making pretty significant bets. I saw some people make the comparison of, got a lot of these X-Men on rookie contracts. I love that. Kit Connor, as Scott Summers, I liked him in warfare. People liked him in hot, hardstop, right? I haven't seen that. Sadie Sink, people just saw in Spider-Man brand new day as Jean Grey, Christopher Abbott, and Adam Driver are the big addition here from the cast and girl. Let's circle back to both of them. Indie Navaretti, who is incredible in, in obsession, obviously, is playing Rogue. That had been rumored to be Kaley Spani and Indie Navaretti was no rumored to play Mystique. That's not happening. My void is playing Storm, Samara Weaving, playing Emma Frost, already posting thirst traps of herself, reading Emma Frost comics. Do you feel like those have pushed your own thirst traps of you reading Emma Frost comics off of the headlines? What, what, what should I post thirst traps of, me watching Linus? I think that there is a 42 zins in the, like, kind of like, yes, no. Just you, like, watching Linus with, like, a pouch of big wig chew. Or what if you, like, took a large caliber rifle and walked down, like, a downtown Los Angeles Street having robbed a bank, sort of, you know, people would be like, "Oh, my God, it's happening." Then you'd get arrested. And that's in the cast. And then Adam Driver is playing Mr. Centerster, which is a fascinating, meaningful, interesting choice. Ridiculous. Let's go into the specifics of these, these Lynch pin castings. Driver, there was too much smoke for it not to be a kind of fire here, especially like a couple of weeks ago in Figgy was sort of winged. I keep asking him. I keep asking him. It is, I think we definitely, Driver has an incredible career in which he somehow is spoken about, I mean, I think he's a phenomenal generational talent. But he's spoken about as if he has always long as chewed the sort of capeshit, and he's just, like, not a part of that world. He was Kylo Ren. So he went right into Star Wars. He wanted to keep playing Kylo Ren. Sure did. He showed movies where he goes. He's fighting dinosaurs. Like, that dude. Oh, that got buried. That was, like, a George Clooney Nespresso commercial from the '90s. You know what I mean? Like, nobody talks about that movie. I think the streets remember. Yeah. Yeah. Which street? Oak Street. Or the dinosaurs are still rampaging. Yeah. And look at it this one of two ways. I mean, you can look at it at the cynical, like, you know, one for them, allows them to keep making James Gray movies where he walks around the streets of New York and period costume. Which I am. I will be there for that. Yeah. I want to be clear. Yeah. The second thing would be that this creative team and the idea of starting something new and fresh and not necessarily, you're not necessarily signing up for Secret Wars 2 where the Beyonders were in, like, a leisure suit when you sign this contract means that this might be a fun thing for him to play. The more hopeful version of this is. You taught something, King. And it was a Beyonder reference. Which camera's on? They know. The streets know. They have an ally up here. The best case version of this, I think, is that he was really interested in the idea that they brought to him, which was we're not doing what everyone expects, which is Professor X versus Magneto. And then there'll be like a lot of chin stroking articles being like, you know, it's actually an analog of the civil rights struggle. And in fact, the Mr. Sinister that emerged in the Jonathan Hickman comics is an absolutely push. Who are you talking to, man? Other things that emerged. I've read those, yes. I know. But, okay. So, when the character was introduced in the 90s, it was just, like, pure 90s. Like, now, here's a guy who looks like Colossus, but we colored him differently and his name is Mr. Sinister, and he's real into a blood science and genetic stuff. And, like, who would have thought that later on he would become a thought leader? Yeah. And he would have thought that he was going to do his podcast. But, Diary of the Sea. Yeah. So, honestly, Andrew, Mr. Sinister, Uberman. The thing that Hickman did that was so cool was he made him like super campy and over the top and a little bit insane. - Yeah. - In that-- - A little bit. (laughing) - I'm just trying to like-- - I understand this. - On board people, yeah. So I think the idea of him playing like a fanatic is pretty fun and interesting and a definitely the same kind of zag we would have seen. We have seen the playbook before, I think specifically with the Tom Holland movies where they're like, we're gonna pick this up not from a stopped position. We're gonna pick it up like when they're already in motion and we are not going to pick it up with the biggest possible feeling. - It also would appeal to something. - That they are not doing. Now the youth of Professor X would suggest a, what was the James McAvoy the first one? Was that in first class? - First class, which I liked quite a bit. The youth would suggest an origin story, however. - Yeah. - However. - Okay. With all the incursion timeline die-shaking that's gonna happen in Doomsday and Secret Wars, you could just shave the head and have like a younger Professor X, right? Like we don't have to-- - No. - We're not necessarily joining these guys with a middle-aged Professor X in a middle-aged Magneto, what have you? - A couple of things here. To us respectfully, Christopher Abbott is a young fellow. - No, I know, he's a 40-year-old something. - When the film comes out, he will be 42 years old. - Yes. - There are people in the studio who probably think of that as still, you know, more senior. - Yeah. - But still viable, I'm sure, just as a thought leader or a leader of a faction separatist, super-hero team, I think that like it's kind of, it's not, the idea that these characters are supposed to be elderly British actors is really a construction of the successful-- - That's Fox thinking. - Brian Singer, that's outdated Fox thinking. And if I may just grab hold of another piece of stray random IP, for example, we all love Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith, but those characters from-- - It's Harry Potter. - Harry Potter. - The canonically, like the Snape character is 30, not Alan Rickman, and I love Alan Rickman. So I think the idea that like, that Professor X is just 15 years, Gene Gray's senior, it was fine. - Yes. - That's a big 15 years at that time. - I was just gonna say that it would seem that this is a, an X-Men story that we have yet to see yet. - Do you think it's-- - We have not seen yet. - Do you think it's a story arc Phoenix? It's not gonna be Apocalypse. It's not gonna be-- - No, it's Charles Xavier would-- - It's Peter Past, it's, yeah. - It's Charles Xavier with a hymns prescription, but where will it go? And what is Mr. Sinister Dunn? - That's up to Beast to figure out everything. - That's up to Beast, that's why he's-- - And that's why Charlie Melton was like, I can't do it. - I can't do this. I have a luscious locks. My question for you, I mean, I just like Christopher Abbott a lot. I think he's a very interesting, surprising actor, and I think that's a very cool choice. - I saw him on stage off Broadway. Danny and the Deep Blue Sea with his soon-to-be partner, Aubrey Plaza, and he had a broken leg and still performed. - Wow, wow. You saw him do it on a cold rainy night in Stoke is what you're saying. - Worried that I had COVID. Well, I mean, you know, we were all, we were back then, it was sort of still early days, but it was like a real like 50/50 kind of thing. - Did you have it? - No. - Are you sure? - Yeah. - Can't have it if you don't test. - This was 23, I think it did test. - Okay, good for you. - I want to talk about-- - I still test. - Sometimes I test just to see what's going on. - On the wind here, like why are you swabbing again? - I was like, Influenza B, interesting. - That should be fine. I want to ask you about, are we saying, do we say never ready? - Yeah. - Okay, I want to talk to you about her because I'm unfamiliar with her game. I've not seen that film. - Jesus, good as it gets. - I think it's exciting. Do you, I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to have a hot take here. I have historically thought, you know what? Everyone knows this about me. This is what I lead with. Rogue, coolest, scariest, X-Men power, probably of all. - Can't touch. - But also, I think the least well executed in the history of the comics and on screen. Partly because the character, at least in the Claremont comics, is so much like a, well, I declare a sugar. I can't touch you except for six issues every year when someone, you know, does something in my powers and I can kiss Gambit. - Right, Jean puts a bubble around us and we can make out. - Yeah. - Sounds nice. Do you feel like this is, is this exciting casting because of the performer? Is it exciting casting because of the performer and the role? - I'm not a rogue guy. - Yeah, okay. It's not a problem. It's just not a fave. I would love for them to take the Cajun down 10%. - Well, she's not Cajun. - She's just Southern. - Southern. - Gambit is Cajun. - Gambit's Cajun, sorry. She's Rogue is, is she-- - She's from America's South. - Okay, so let's bring the SEC down 10%. - That's the way to put it. - I'm not saying that that's an issue. I'm just saying I would love for them not to settle her with a big accent. She can handle it. She would be great, but it'll just be everything everybody talks about. - Okay. - Is the accent. But Rogue, not my fave, but honestly neither is Mystique. - Yes. - Well, I'm a gene guy. That's just who I am. - Are you okay? Do you want to speak to the listeners now? How do you feel about the fact that after 40 years of just sort of shrugging, they have finally just given up and being like, this gene grade does not have a codename? 'Cause she was saddled with the dumbest codename of all time. - Yes, Marvel, right? - No. - Marvel Girl. - Marvel Girl. - Is Marvel as someone else? - Yeah, that's Carol, right? - Is Marvel then became Captain Marvel? Yeah, she got promoted. - Yeah. - From the magazines to the army. Marvel Girl then she was Phoenix, but that's a tainted chalice. - Yes, it is. It is. And I think if we could see him brand new day, she got that Phoenix in her. So I'm sure that will get addressed in some film later. - I'm so excited for the memes, like Jalen Carter X-ray, but it's just got Phoenix inside of him. Come on. - Dark Phoenix in him. - Yes. I love it. - I know you were desperate to talk about Doomsday some more. I just wanted to give you some space to do so. - I just don't think they're doing anyone any favors with this right now, and they need to like take the W that people are interested with Spider-Man and move on. I say that genuinely, it is a, we identified this as did many other people, as a Herculean marketing effort to begin with, where they are building an entire movie that is the direct sequel to, until brand new day, the biggest, highest grossing movie in the history of the American box office, and the entire movie is about a character that no one knows anything about, and has never been on screen before. - Yes. - Yes, he is played by the actor that everyone loves, but they are not showing that in the trailers. So they are having to establish this guy's bonafides in the same way that every summer Ben Simmons would post an Instagram of him like in the gym and be like, ready to go get it. Everyone's like, wow, he's gonna really shoot basketballs this year, and then he didn't. All of that said, this new footage, which just has Sue Storm, a character that America looked at and said, okay, saying, Victor was wonderful. We loved him. He was great at dinner parties, but then they took things from him and now he's a monster. Okay, tell me more about this guy that I've never met. It's like we all, it's like their collective girlfriend in Canada, is this guy Doctor Doom. And worst of all, in this trailer, the fucking scene where Thor confronts him, did they film this in Heron Hall? Like, it is the most negative space, nothing burger slop chamber I've ever seen. Like, I just don't know why they are pushing this as an iconic image for an audience that has just seen the beautiful glimmering streets of Glasgow, Scotland, double for New York. Like, at least show me some sort of flora or fauna to suggest that you are remotely on a planet, you know? - I'm trying to decide if I'm gonna zag. - I know, watch this, zoom in on him. But let's see the thought process. - Here's what I liked, okay. - It wasn't a nerd. People were yelling. - You mean the characters? - Yeah, I felt like something was at stake. It's felt like something bad happened. And they're like, Victor, what did you do? I like that. - You know what he did. He killed Fox's ex-men first five minutes of the movie. We all know that's what he did. And Shang-Chi is like, oh, damn. I saw those movies. Like, what do you mean, what did you? Victor, what did you do? We don't know you, man. We don't know you. We have never met you. - Do you think that's cool? This is what this pod has started to do. - Yes. - Is this screaming about Victor Vandoon? - It's where it was always headed. (laughing) - This was like the fourth pod in a row that we have levered with like a big opening segment about Marvel lore. - Okay, passive voice. - Who among us sets the agenda? - Who is doing this? - Who is the schedule maker for the podcast? I am, I'm plug-and-play. You set me up for anything. I'll talk about it. - I think it looks as bad as it can possibly look. - Okay, there you go. - There you go. - Yes. - I think there are educational films being played at the Camden Aquarium that look better than this. But I did like a little bit the fact that they let my boy Pedro yell at him and get his triple frontier back. - Yeah. - I like that. - And they have like, there was just some drama palpable in it, which I had been, you can't not have both. You can't have it look like it was shot on like 2017 volume software. - Yes. - And also have people be like, "But what do you mean, Victor?" - You know, like you have to. - Yeah, you have to move, you have to feel it. - Yes, yes. Then the incursions matter, you know? - I would, this is a new character, I think you should develop between now and December, where you are like the old Rada instructor, you know, like some of these actors came up under your tutelage and the London theater scene, you are molded them, like maybe Aaron Pierre worked with you before he went Hollywood, and then they call you in to the set, the London set of Doomsday and you're like, "No, no, Victor!" You know, like, you're going up to everyone, you're going up to like a pile of styrofoam and ping pong balls, you call it Evan, and he's actually over there catering, and you're just trying to get them to feel what they can't see. - Did you ever expect girls to be so important to the Marvel Universe? - Thank you, that was the take I was missing, yes. - You did, but did you think it would be women from girls who populated Marvel? - I mostly watch girls for the boys, there's my take. - Yeah. - First of all, the social mammoth in Madam Web Erasure will not stand. - You see, she's an industry season five. - I did, I did. - Do you think that, it's almost like making Conrad or now ordering from the prestige television menu, like they got access to a different thing on Postmates, where it's just like, "Oh, Karen and Chip good now." Like we can now access the higher, it's great, the higher price items. I think that's going to be cool. Do you, would you like to comment on girls' return to prominence? - I saw that Lena Dunham and Carly Rae Jepsen. - I was about to talk about this. - Are doing a 10 things I hate about you musical with open sex here? - This is going to go down to treat, as they say, in my household. - And I wonder whether or not girls will wind up deciding the next presidential election one way or another, that we open up the doors and we say, you know what, we haven't discussed this show enough, we haven't litigated enough. - You think that's going to become a hot button issue between Asaf and AOC? - Whose girls' bonafides are, honestly, that's tough. - You're such a marnie, John Asaf. - Generationally, they're right in there to talk about it. That's exciting thing to look forward to. - It's always amusing when like, some, like we talked about this a lot with short term 12, where-- - Short term 12 being like the-- - Destiny Daniel Friends. - This is an independent film that had Michael B. Jordan, B. Larson, John Gallagher. - Yeah. - And Rami Malik. - Yes. - And all those people went on to make-- - McKee Stanfield. - McKee Stanfield, Blockbusters, et cetera. And now you've got girls supplying the demand. - That's exciting. Which are you more excited for in May, 2028, X-Men, or the Democratic primary? See, they don't do that on other podcasts. - I just wish we could integrate them into, it's like we could bring them together. - Yeah. - Like maybe different X-Men characters just voicing the platforms of the candidates? - If we would give you five minutes to prepare for this idea, I would blow your doors down, but I can't do it on the flight. I'm really, really, maybe we'll just circle back at the end of the pod. - Who do you think Wolverine would voice? - No, that's the thing, like there's a lot of-- - And Wolverine would have been Platner. - Yeah, problematic. - Northern, you know, problematic. - Northern. - Yeah. - Always testing how much you can heal. - Absolutely overconfident in terms of the damage you can sustain while remaining in the fight. That is-- - Wow, there's a lot here. There were a couple of other Disney things that are less interesting to you, like I imagine you do. - Is this gonna be like bluey stuff? - I imagine you didn't check us. - I watched lioness for you in the monster. - 18 minutes of it, you didn't even get to the dogs. - Three episodes of Bluey and it's all dogs. (laughing) - Boom. - Defeated. - I assume you didn't check out the tangled live action trailer or whatever. - Is that Mandy? - The original is me. - Okay, who's in the new one? - Other people. - Okay. - Milo Mannheim, who I know you remember from the Zombies franchise in Disney. - Is that an actual person or is that a character? - Yes. - Okay. - We'll circle back to that. Yeah, I think the, I do think we have to address the fact that they released like a teaser of the Bluey movie. And I brought it on my cellular device over to my nine-year-old first. And instantly, she was like, "Oh, it just begins with a little balloon." And she was like, "Oh, is this Bluey?" And she leaned in. And then it revealed Bluey and Bingo in glorious computer-animated 3D. And she said, "Oh God, no." This ruined my childhood. And I said, "respectfully, you are still a child." - Yeah. - And without a pause, she said, "My early childhood." (laughing) It's gonna be a lot to overcome. The move to 3D computer-animation. - Do you know when you're nine? You know how you like you don't really remember? I personally don't really have a lot of memories until kindergarten, right? - Kindergarten's five. You had memories at nine. - I know I had memories at nine. - Oh, I see, I did not remember when you were nine. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I remember when you were two. - Mm. - No, I can, thank you. - Finally, I'm a value add to this podcast. - Yeah. - No, they do not remember. They do not remember. I think, 'cause that would be funny if you were just like a grizzled nine-year-olds when I was two. - I had it so good. No, I did my older daughter, my older daughter, my older daughter did say early pandemic was peak for her because she didn't know it was going on and she didn't have to go to school anymore. And. - Didn't she have Zoom class? - She, she like, not tearfully. She like, confessed to me that sometimes during second grade Zoom, she clicked off and looked at other things. - Yeah. - I was like, I forgive you. Sometimes when I'm writing a screenplay for money, I also click and look at other things. - Sometimes when Chris is talking. - I have nine tabs open right now. The drift is real. - And Chris is like, Kyle interrogated her in the rules of the Geneva Convention. - Oh, wow. - Yeah, no, that's good for her. That's a big breakthrough. - Yeah. - Well, those were the big announcements, I guess. There was nothing really like Star Wars-y, right? There was just like. - They showed Starfighter, but I was not invited to do so. - They showed the movie? - No, they showed like a minute of it or whatever. And then I think, I think actually I couldn't tell if I was being gaslit by Twitter, but I looked at it. But somebody was like Sean Levy said something about the movie drive. And I didn't, I don't know if that was true. - Did he was remaking it? - That it was like influencing Starfighter, but I don't, that's true. - You should pause and we should make a whole podcast about that statement. - I think that was literally like somebody did it in Twitter, it was like just to be like. - Just to get you worked up. - Yeah. - They didn't get me worked up. - Frozen 3. - Did you see Kristen Bell who showed up at a Savannah Bananas game and just started singing songs? - We didn't show it up, like uninvited? - No, she was like invited, but I wonder whether she's like, if we're gonna make this live action frozen, I'm in this shit. But I'm gonna show you why. - I'm gonna show you why. - She's like, I'm not getting cut out of this. - Yeah, I mean, that's tough. I mean, that's like the, that's the wicked path, right? We're like, what's your name? - Adina. - Adina, but also, you know, your girl. - They're Chenowith? - Chenowith. - Yeah. - You think she's my girl? - Not in terms of our artistry, but politically, and religiously, I think you kind of are more aligned that they had to like show up for like a little cameo and would get one. - It would be her for you, dog. - In which direction? The beard is keeping me guessing. I can't tell if it's fundamentalist or just hip. Anyway, no, Frozen 3 is not, that's a cartoon though. So works. - I think that it's inevitable that they're gonna get Frozen live action. - I mean, I think it might be. - She can't play Elsa, right? - It might be inevitable, but, well, she's Anna, or so, I know you know that, we were just testing me. But I'd like to think, I don't know. I'm just a humble, not even stockholder, but I'd like to think that the Moana reception maybe is a little bit of a brushback pitch of like, you might actually have to think of something new, but then again, the rest of the adjustments are. - Josh, tomorrow seemed really chasinged. - Yeah, it seemed like we hear you. - As he was up there being like cocoa too. Incredibles three, starfighter two, drive. (laughing) Just the starfighter just driving. - We're in gloves. - Who cares? - You watch that. - Okay, but for real though. - We did this bit a while ago where like, we were just like, just make drive, but with Jedi's. If in the first 10 minutes of starfighter, Ryan Gosling puts on space gloves. - If they drop tick of the clock, like, I'll never leave the theater. I'll just, I'll move in there. - They won't do that. - They'll do CBS Sunday morning like feature ads about like, the guy who won't leave starfighter. (laughing) - No, I'm perfectly comfortable here. (laughing) I live on a diet of cookie dough and diet RC. So impossible nuggets for you. - All right, let's get into the television from Sunday. - All right, all right. - Can we just say, I don't mean to cut you off. I did just want to say at the top that we did see the film Tony, but because it's only in like seven theaters. - 35. - 30, okay, so a factor of seven. We won't talk about it till later in the week, but we both highly recommend it. - I think we'll talk about it. Maybe what we'll do is we'll record something on Thursday and we'll put it at the very, very end of my conversation with Van about Ryan at some Monday. You can see what happens. So like, after an hour of you and Van-- - So how many people in this studio quit and protest? - An hour of you and Van talking about extraordinary rendition techniques. And at the end of it, I'm like, you know, every food story is really a story of people. - Did you know that in the third episode of "Lionist," the two lionesses take a bath together? And they get interrupted. - Inrupted from what? - From bathing and other things. From communicating love. [BLANK_AUDIO] with each other. - I can't, are you trying to get me, what is your intention here? - I wanna see if that makes it any more interesting. It's slice a life, you know? - When you call them lionesses, it feels like it's a national geographic show. - Stay or lionesses. - But are they bathing each other in the manner of actual lions? - They're taking a straight up old school bath together. - Okay, that's wonderful. - Yeah. - Do the lionesses generally stick to the pride like that? Are they? - This is a, I think a new wrinkle for lionesses. - I also, I'm honestly surprised Joe's letting it happen. But that's, did Joe burst in? - He likes their room for me. No, I only take cold showers. - That's right. - How many lionesses are there in a given time? I thought there was only one. I thought it was like a high-ender situation. - There are two on Joe's team right now. - Someone else have a team? - No, there's only one lioness's team. And, and, and, Alexander, the Ukrainian double agent, knows who they are. She's like you are lioness, you are lioness, and then she points at Joe and goes, and you are the lioness. - That sounds like luck. - Oh, she just guessed because it's the three women there. - And it's a show called lioness. - Bobby's there too. She didn't call her a lioness. - What did she call her? - Nothing. She was just like, and you're her team. Anyway, I'm giving you out of context lioness stuff. - That's my favorite kind of lioness stuff. - Let's do lanterns first. How about that? - You show. - All right. - This one is pretty highly anticipated by your boys. And for good reason, because it comes from Chris Mundy, who was one of the main creative forces behind Ozark, Damon Lundolf, who was one of the main creative forces behind Lost and Leftovers and Watchmen and Tom King, who is a beloved and adored critically and commercially comics writer, author of anything in particular you want to highlight? - Tom King. - I mean, he's had incredible runs on, I mean, vision, right? I mean, it's really Tom King's moment when you think about it. 'Cause the super girl was supposed to be based on his, his woman of tomorrow comic, he's done runs, a vision I think is a masterpiece, but at DC, he's done runs on, he's done Wonder Woman, I think he's a written bad man, he's, he is really the dude who, he's not like Hickman, but in terms of if you want to hire someone to radically rethink what the possibilities of something that already exists could be, he is just other brained about that, he's a genius about that stuff. - This is a small screen rendering of the beloved DC superhero, which in this story gets bifurcated between at least so far after one episode, two lanterns, Hal and John Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre respectively, and it's a time hopping, grounded detective show that also has elements of intergalactic intrigue, and cop and police work. In 2016, Hal Jordan is half-heartedly training John Stewart to be a lantern, even though Earth only gets one at a time. Being a lantern for laypeople means being some kind of space cop, protecting Earth from extraterrestrial invaders, I think that's fair to say. And Jordan Stewart are drawn to an apparent mass shooting in rural Nebraska, where they become embroiled in the lives of a sheriff named Carrie, played by Kelly McDonald's. Her lawyer husband, Billy, played by Jason Ritter, very nice job by him. His father, William, a mysterious possibly government-affiliated militia leader, played by Garrett Dillahunt, awesome to see him on screen, also to see him back on HBO. And William's wife, Zoe, played by Porna Jagnathan, who is also an HBO vet. - Night of. - Night of. The pilot is a real, it's like a pilot. It's called pilot, and it has got a lot of work to do. Do you think it did the work? - It's almost a heart, it's too hard of a framing, I think. I would say that through one episode, and I know there are some critics who have seen more, we like to go one at a time. I was reminded at once of two things. I was reminded of the fact that the lift to get something like this that is as burdens, or blessed, depending on your point of view, with so much history, IP, understanding, perception, expectations, fan expectations, to get it off the ground, to begin with, is enormous, and almost superhuman. And not just that, then, to grab the wheel as aggressively as Mundi King and Lindelof have done here, and try to turn it in the span of 50 minutes from what it always has been, and what people who do know the character think of it as, which is intergalactic space cops, and make it true detective, also, in an HBO prestige type investigatory program. You feel the G-forces, fighting them at every turn. There is so much exposition, there is so much table setting. And then you make it something that is set in multiple timelines, which is also incredibly challenging. So, I would say that I found this pilot to be incredibly engaging, incredibly entertaining, promising, but deeply effortful, in that there was no moment when I felt it relaxing into the show that it could well become, and become quickly. That's not a problem. Like, we have years of experience on this podcast, let alone, in our lives. - I'm understanding that pilots are hard. - I never mind when it's fleet of foot. It's when TV is like, this is going to be a slog, and it's not going to be funny at all, and it's going to be so self-serious about it, it's like own setup and stuff like that. And I think that there isn't that. - Yeah, it's not that at all. You know, a lot of exposition in this episode, but the highs should really make people bullish on this, because, and we'll get into some details of the plot now, so if you haven't watched Lanterns yet, you can skip to Furious, or you can honestly probably just take the week off and then come back when I talk to Van about Lyonus. It's the scene where Hal interrogates the alien, which is a scene that you've seen. It's not unheard of to have that kind of interaction. It was so well done, and it was the first time I think we got to see Kyle Chandler's iteration of the Green Lantern actually be worth his weight. - You know, other than his ability to put on a ring and fly, like that was actual detective work he was doing to some extent. I thought that was so good. And the turn that the alien basically makes midway through when they were talking about Harry Potter of all things. - I was gonna say, Hal's genius alien test is something that you would have failed. - I know he went to Hogwarts. - Did you know that in 2016? - Yeah, yeah. Under pressure in a police station in Nebraska, you would have full access to that. - I can't do any of the sorting or any of the other stuff, but I know that that could went to Hogwarts. - Okay, but that's also the same way, like you know that like Andrea Goddalla went to Arizona. Right? - I can't just do, though. - You just, in your bones, you know the colleges people go to. - Yes. - Okay. - I mean, up to a point. But up to a point, there's Instagram accounts that were they shout at men on the street, and they say, "Hey, where did Judd Beechler go to college?" And it's like, "I know Arizona Wildcats." - We were only talking about it. See, this is your alien, because you only studied Arizona. - No, I mean up until 2000, I would say 2005, six, seven, eight. I'm from 85 to 2005. I'd say I'm pretty confident about where any basketball player would talk. - Particularly if they were coached by Loot Olson in the other Arizona Wildcat community. - No. - They were busted, alien. - When this show sings, it sings. When Dylan Hunt is on screen, it sings. When Aaron Pierre and Portagnavin are chatting at the bar, it's going. Like, there are a lot of stuff here that they have to introduce us to a concept that maybe some people don't understand. Introduce on top of that. Not only are there no galactic space cops, but there's a reason for that. - He has been this alien discovery. - And the world is okay with it. And that this guy is a celebrity, we understand their aliens. And then the next piece is, that's incredibly challenging, is we have to make the audience believe that a man who could fly to Alpha Centauri in back is going to willingly put himself into a jail cell to be near someone that he thinks is an alien. Like that the stakes can go from galactic to local and regional that effortlessly. In that, I thought that in many ways, and I do not mean to discount the work of Chris Mundi here because A, we don't know the actual inner workings of the way that these three, honestly, Alpha's delineated their responsibilities. But everything I understand about him is that he is an incredibly affable, like consensus builder and really good at the less glamorous parts of show running, which is making everyone buy in. So I'm not trying to minimize him, but I will say that this episode in many ways did feel like a conversation between Tom King's comic book specialty, which is saying, yes, Green Lanterns, but now they are investigating a crime scene in Nebraska and there's a tough-talking female sheriff who doesn't give a shit that he can make anything out of it. - That's right, a mashing. - Which is taking place the year that Trump gets elected. Like they're very purposeful with what they're choosing. - And if you are a comic book, even casual reader, I think you are at this point used to the idea of like, oh Tom King's Green Lantern number one just came out and it's a really interesting new spin on it. So that part. The places where I saw Damon at his best is that when Damon runs right at the kind of, the impossible to understand or the impossible to articulate thing and makes a joke about it, you know? - To do an example of that. - Well, like just the way that Chandler is just like, actually, you know, aren't you supposed to be like, you know, an intergalactic peacekeeping force and he's like, actually, the universe is pretty peaceful. - Yeah. - Or he's just like, when he describes the origin story of Green Lantern as it exists in the comic book, which is this test pilot finds a crash, an alien ship having crash landed and the pink guy gives him a ring. And he's just like, he either said good luck, good luck or fuck off. And I don't know which it was. Like make the joke about it and make the subtext text so we all understand that we can move on. - And so there's another thing, which is, many writers may not take this as seriously, but Lindell off last night, a bunch of interviews with him were released. You know, in the aftermath of the episode. And honestly, just because I'm not very familiar with Green Lantern, this didn't strike me as completely outrageous, but like, you know, Damon was sort of put in a position to be like, I'm really sorry that we've killed Hal Jordan. - Yes. - And the reason why we had to do that was, I think for a variety of reasons, but he was sort of being cheeky when he said, you can't say you have to pry the ring from my cold dead hands unless you're willing to make Hal cold and dead. Now, it's a, it's a Lindell offism, but it's also a Mundism, if you've seen Ozark, to be like the thing that should happen at the end of the first season happens in the first episode. - Yes, so you watch this pilot, and it's, there is an element of like the giant in Twin Peaks going, it is happening again, but for Kyle Chandler and a prestige television show. Literally, that maybe the third thing he says on screen is you'll have to pry this from my cold dead hand. So it's very mayor of King's Downey, in the sense that like we know, but now the show is gonna play with time. So he is not off of the show. There's just going to be a-- - Also with galactic space cops and magic rings, like you could theoretically bring him back. - You could, but I also think that they are making, this is where it starts to fit into the James Gunnverse in a, I think, a relatively interesting way, which is they, he's, like he likes Guy Gardner, as his favorite Green Lantern, clearly, and Nathan Fillion will show up as that Green Lantern. It seems to me, Aaron Pierre has already been announced as co-starring in Man of Tomorrow, that that's what they're doing going forward. So it's okay, I mean, even more so than Marvel, Marvel has had a more recent thing where there's like, now there's a new Hawkeye and she's a young woman, and they've rebooted their characters, Miles Morales being maybe the most famous example of it. DC's been doing this since before anybody cared about stuff. Like I made a passing joke less week about the Golden Age Green Lantern, who's a guy named Alan Scott. So Hal Jordan isn't even the first one. - Right. - It's just the first one where they created this backstory of him being a spacepop of the magic ring and not just a guy in the hood where literally holding a lantern. - Right. - So they've chosen which one they want to use. So I like the fact that maybe I'm reading too much into it, but all of these eras gunverse, the fighty MCU would ever, in this fullness of time, are fleeting, so choose, make a decision, make a history, make this the guy that taught the other guy, and have the fun with him now while you have him on the show. I like that, I was fine with it. And again, it also speaks to the actual, like under the hood challenges of this episode, which is you have to not only introduce the entire mythos, but you also have to introduce this one guy who you have to care about so much that the episode ending with him being dead in the future lands. Otherwise, he's just another guy, and I think it did. - It was interesting because the interviews after the episode were so like we know people are gonna be outraged, but I thought what was cool and the best moment was that the Kelly McDonald and Aaron Pierre characters come upon his dead body in the same stadium where this mass shooting is taking place, where he's convinced there's been, and this is where he was brought when he was younger and indoctrinated into becoming a Green Lantern in the first place. And he's sitting there, you know, dead, and they're not crying, you know, like they're just like kind of almost like this is, but this was always gonna be where it ended up. - He has no ring, and he has no ring. - Let's talk about some of the casting decisions here. Chandler's great. Chandler is-- - He's going big, bigger than I thought he would go. - I think that's, I think it's good. I mean, I think that again, it is, it's funny that I, when they announced it and what it was gonna be, and there was some talk about like, oh, how will this fit in with James Gunn's aesthetic? This is not James Gunn's aesthetic, but having a guy with a superpower ring doing shots at a bar, is James Gunn's aesthetic? Like that is some overlap thing. - I think like ironically, like a funny song, like a bunch. - Yeah, being of the world is kind of what Gunn likes to do with these characters and make them bigger than life with their personality. So I thought that fit. He is, you know, Matthew Reese is now given a run for his money, but I think Kyle Chandler is in the television hall of fame in just like every time he's on screen, you just like him and you want to be rooting for him and you're invested in what he's doing. So he brings that charisma to everything that he does. I think manufacturing chemistry is challenging. I think a couple of moments in the pilot spoke to it directly that like, this guy eats ribs and John Stewart is a vegan. Aaron Pierre is like carved from a lab to be a superhero in these types of movies. - Yes. - He is a, they are very different energies, which maybe is good. I thought, so my argument for it is that there was at least a arc to their chemistry which matched the arc of the character's relationship and I thought by the time they get to the bar, you know, the John Stewart character is speaking more freely about what he thinks of what Hal Jordan is doing. And isn't just keeping everything to himself and keeping him sirs and calling him sirs. So by the time they get to the bar and Hal Jordan's doing this somewhat ridiculous, I'm gonna play a country song 10 times in a row until these guys at the pool table beat me up in order to get arrested so that I can go to the, so that I can interview this guy who's already in jail which it turns out he doesn't really need to do because he could have, you know what I mean? Like it's this elaborate roots that doesn't matter and Aaron Pierre calls that out. Like John Stewart calls out. - This is a stupid idea. - I ain't gonna answer to do all of that. - We call that. - There you go. I found the, John Stewart backstory where his father is a stern military man who William tells his children every night to be a bit much. That struck me as something that probably looks sick as hell and the first two panels of Green Lantern one written by Tom King and was like a maybe a slight bridge too far. - Did you just didn't like it from a child care perspective or? - No, a food waste. Primarily. You know, that apple could have been in his lunch tomorrow. - I think if it's a red delicious, it might as well get shot anyway. Can we do apple talk? - If you want. - Turn the lights on later and we'll talk about overrated fruits 'cause I'm there for that. Yeah, that said, then the next shot of the show, nope, pun intended, I found this fascinating. It is John Stewart waiting to get picked up by Hal Jordan outside of Spotify Studios down 10 LA. - It's true. - I think you and I both have either driven behind or nearly been side-swiped by Hal Jordan as it turns out right around here. - Hal Jordan needs to work on making rights on red. - I think like many people in LA, I thought that was funny. My other, I do wanna say a couple other positive things about the show, but I definitely found myself again, just coming into a cold, thrown a little bit by some of the casting, not because of the actors, because I love every actor that has had a speaking role on the show thus far. It was what I can only assume to be accounting for the time jumps that I was instant, look, love is love, and age has no distinction, right? But like-- - Do you wonder about Garrett Dillan being Jason Ruggers? - When they walk in to see the owner of this militia ranch and Garrett Dillan was there, I was like, cool, he's got an older brother, or Garrett Dillan, potentially being an alien himself, had Jason Ritter at the age of 15. - You think he's an alien? - No, I'm just saying, but maybe he is because he looks like that, and it has an fully adult 40-year-old son. Similarly, you realize then later, because Kelly McDonald, you don't wanna have people wearing prosthetics in these time jumps, past the point of whatever. That's in the spirit of good television, they've made the right choice. But I was totally confused by everyone's age and role when Pornajaginthon comes out and they're like, hi, grandma, I was like, what? To whom? But then you see Kelly McDonald at the end, and they have not changed her appearance at all, and she has had a five-year-old and 10 years later, she has a-- - He's now all-state quarterback. - And I'm saying that-- - I wasn't, I would not have predicted that for that kid. - He got the trick, he got the magic, what are you talking about? I would have. - I just, it seems like that was not, he was not slinging it. I was like, oh, you know. - Well, first of all, what was the thing with Nebraska quarterbacks? And they all, like, they were just running the option or something? - I used to, but now Matt Rule has brought like more of a pro-system. - I wonder if this is an alternate history, because maybe he's not really, like he's all-state from Nebraska. - But it's not going to translate to the higher level. - No, 'cause he can't throw the deep ball, nor has he ever been asked to. Unless a superhero is like, just imagine it happening. - That's the thing is, I know visualization is important for quarterbacks, but I don't think you can truly close your eyes like you have the force and throw a ball through a tire. - Some people, I mean, Cole Payton, maybe, I don't know. I, do you think, be honest. In terms of 10 year time jumps from 2016 to 2026, which unlike many of the things in the episode, we have experience. Do you think you personally are more on the John Stewart trajectory of like, now I've just got a cool beard, but otherwise I'm exactly the same. Or are you more like the child who is fresh and fresh and thrown a ball and that is now six foot eight and I think we would have to go back to 2015, 16 and look at what we looked like back then. I've looked. And you look exactly the same. You're a real archivist. I am. You're a personal archivist. I am. Well, because I'm the one who's trying to get our papers in order for when we donate them to the University of Texas at Austin. I see. I'm. I'm just thinking about it. Oregon. Why? Because you want to visit there? Do you have a lead in with like the, you're wearing a hat, first of all, could do some real stuff for us. You're wearing a hat right now. Yeah. Are you that easily swayed? I mean, everybody else in college football is what's our NIL, right? I know. Okay. So that didn't throw you at all like the, the different, the age difference in throw me at all. I think that there was probably some stuff that would have been. It was funny watching it with, with my wife who I admittedly was second screening and kind of like, I will watch this so that you wouldn't then turn furious on. And we got about 20 minutes in and she was like, wait, did he say aliens? And I was like, yeah, he did. And she asked me to explain the alien situation. I was like, I don't think I can. I think that's actually a good test audience because this should appeal not because I'm my NDA's I've signed, but just because of like, I just don't understand it myself. Yes. But living quickly through this story. But let's see. And yeah, I mean, I, it has all the elements to be successful and I'm, I am actively excited to watch more of the show. So we can leave it there. We can. But I wanted to ask you about how you felt like this first episode did introducing hot button issues. So to speak in terms of a very white militia, but is more protective about rather than American isolationism. It's global isolationism against extraterrestrial forces. There was a couple of things in there. But what did you, did you, did you think that the alien, the alien, the alien knew that there was a controversy about Barack Obama's birth certificate? That's right. Did you, did that make you lean in? Were you, were you curious about that? No. I settled this through you. I look, I genuinely, there's two things. One, this is a new cop show that, that has a cast that I love with the creative team that I love. It is going to try something pretty unique, which is to be two things at once. Yeah. Completely. Yeah. And not try to hide either ball and be honest about both. It's not, you know, when this was announced, there was a part of me that was like, well, they'd be investigating a murder during a time when Hal Jordan is on cop, space cop probation and doesn't have his ring, so they will ground it. I love that it's not that. The secondary thing that I will be watching for, which is less, less passionate and more intellectual is how high can you push the ceiling of something that has so much to do just to get to the starting gun? And I think that's in a way is actually answering your question, which is if you are making a true detective-esque show that jumps between 2016 and 2026, set intentionally in Nebraska playing with some hot button issues, if you took out the space cop part of it, it might have more opportunity to soar and become something, you know, ecstatic, transformative, fascinating moving, whereas often I do find the ceiling for these sorts of adaptations to be, did you pull it off or not? Well, you know, it's funny is like, I want to get to furious, but the Trojan Horse thing of, you know, we're making a DC show, but we'll be really want to make as a true detective like cop show. Yeah. It's like, cop shows aren't, you could make a cop show. Like it's not like what I'd like to do is make a portrait of a divorce, but since you can't do that, I have to have a murder in it, you know what I mean? Like it'll be interesting to see the relationship between those two things because it's not like you needed to do one to get another one on the screen. No. And the reason why this is particular interest is because we know from their work and from their public statements that like Tom King and Damon Lindelof love comic books and love things that make comic book sense, comic book logic. Damon has done it with Watchman, but Watchman as A as a subject matter is always has always been intentionally more adult and challenging and intellectual and then he took it and went wild with it and didn't really use the source material other than a springboard and tried to update it. This is by design. It's not that it's more conventional, but it's coloring within the lines more. It's just sort of trying to determine where the lines are for that reason alone, I would watch the whole season. Absolutely, but there was enough in this to make me even more intrigued. And I guess what I guess we are hearing is like I really want the show to transcend both genres and become something really unique and special and maybe it will. All right, man, let's talk about Furious. This was the sixth episode of eight and I loved how this one had some of the more conventionally thrilling, cop procedural tropes, whether it's and she become, she out of nowhere, she's face to face with the killer or some of the more like office drama, like Nora taking a really long time to get to Ed's office to buy Alice time at the shelter, et cetera. All these things are happening and in each case, the creative team behind the show pushes the boundaries and goes past what's expected of Eddie's show like this to interrogate character, to push the limits of comedy in a moment, any given moment, like Nora doing the shoe tying thing. I thought it was a really, really great episode that obviously you could probably be a little bit persnickety and be like, so now there's location trackers on everybody, you know, like with the cops. Like that's something that that's probably true, but in any case, like I thought it, I thought it was really an excellent episode, but what did you think? I thought it was incredible. I think this show is elevating week to week. I think it's one of the best things of the year and I think it's, it honestly is just giving me, giving me life in the sense that there's still places to push this. There's still ways to engage with what we traditionally think of as TV or what we think TV has become and devote yourself to it and still find the ways to move the needle in terms of surprise, to play with expectation, to go deeper, to be bolder. I thought this episode had just god-tier bones and construction, meaning that no matter who was making a show like this, in any circumstance, there's going to be a conversation in the writers room at some point about how are we going to cross the protagonist and the antagonist. It is a hallmark. It is a, honestly, bordering on cliche of cat and mouse stories where there's going to be a moment when the cat and the mouse cross. It's the diner scene in heat. It's the car and task. It's the catacombs and true detective. So it's going to happen. The question is, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to dress it up? How are you going to sell it to us? How are you going to present it to us in a, in a new way? And just in terms of construction of both of these women find themselves in a fixed place of refuge with stories to share and reasons for being there that as Catherine says to Alice in the episode, you weren't lying about that or legitimate. And then pairing it with Nora and her own journey inside the mouse trap that is the FBI office. And as you said, the like the office hijinks of just getting from one place to another, but also the one and one confrontation in a way with her abuser in a different sense. And the fury that's in the title and also the powerlessness and hopelessness of these collisions with entrenched male power, twinning them the way they did while finding room for the Danny and Alden runner is, it's the kind of thing where if you, you know, people know this that like in the scripted TV process, you write, you have the outline of the episode that gets noted and then you get sent off to script. Like if you just said showed me or anyone the outline of this episode, I think the response would be delight because they've just cracked it a way to do it. And then the script. Because of the things that happen or because of the way that they happen. I mean, I think that what I'm trying to articulate is that one of the genius things about the show is not that it is breaking the mold is that it is finding new corners and new pathways within the mold to make it all feel fresh and make me reconsider my relationship to why I'm into molded shapes to begin with. Yeah. So I think what I'm saying. So I think it's more the latter. Like this was going to happen. This is the appropriate place rhythmically in an eight episode season to do it. But I didn't expect to do it like this. And then the beauty of it when you can found some expectations, but flatter others, you create a scenario where, and I want to know what you think about this. like as soon as we saw Marshall in the car drinking water. tracking Alice fairly confident where it was going to go and how he's going to get something that happened to him because of Catherine because the gun that we see there. Yes. Did I feel cheated when that happened? Because I was like, oh, I saw it coming. No. I felt like it walked us to the inevitable place for where this episode needed to go. I can't say it enough. I've been saying it weekly like I just find the watching of this show thrilling both on terms of the plot but also in terms of the thought that goes into every scene of it. Here's a different way of putting what I said in the beginning that kind of more gracefully echoes what you've just said, which is that if you imagine the script as like a mixing board, like the way they would mix a piece of music, the way that they will turn up certain aspects of it to throw you off. Like so for instance, one of the things that I was thinking as I'm watching this episode last night is are they really pushing the comedy pretty hard? Like they're they're almost over leveraged on like how funny the the Danny and Alden thing is and Nora's journey through the FBI building and being like, how's your mom? It's my dad. Oh, yeah. I thought he was going to make it. You know, her joy dropping down to his knees also thinking that's all that stuff is so like comic that when Nora finally gets to Ed's office and she starts doing the usual like a high of got you exactly what I want you, but then they actually cut the line and let her do this theatrical monologue essentially with some incredible flourishes of language. Like, you know, they speak with feathers and all this stuff. It hits so much harder because of the daffiness of the journey to get there because it's it's such a great left turn. Right. You know, if she had been like, I'm going to fucking get to Ed and tell him what's what watch them watch me do this. And it's like the whole time you're anticipating it. I think you're like, oh, yeah, you've been building up to this and that, but of course, like that's not how real life works. Yeah. It's not how the reality of the show works. Yeah. And by that same token, I think, you know, they are, they are playing with these, these kind of cliche characters, maybe I'm not even cliche, but like the idea of familiar characters, like the abuse of boyfriend, like the driven cop, like the the serial killer out, out beyond any recognition. And it's like, then they pull them back in different ways. And, you know, that seemed with martial analysis, like harrowing, but they know what they're doing when they have him like listening to sublime and singing along because they are trying to basically be like, look at this, look at this little goofy guy sitting in the car. And then he becomes the biggest monster arguably of the show again, you know, like and him screaming at her, look what you're, look what you've done to me. Like, you made me do this, which is obviously a classic abuser, you know, concept of like, it's you who is making me do this to you, but, you know, for him to be confronted with, with revensions in that moment is she hesitates. And it, and I think it's confrontational with the audience because it's like, do you want him to get shot? Yeah. And she hesitates. So he gets shot. Yeah. Um, I think it's worth considering that like the familiar tropes, when done correctly in a build like this, that's the skeleton, but the sinew is anything but conventional. Um, the sinew is just in the emotion of the characters and the trauma and the traumatic history and the lived lives of the characters is anything but expected. Nora is to your point, dramatic, theatrical, a force of nature, and also an alcoholic. Catherine may have killed Alden's mother, and Alden in that moment says, I don't care because she did give me the one thing that I've always wanted. And so because of that, that's, that, that, that ends the conversation for me. Right. The Catherine scene, when after she's doped Alice, is, I mean, Lola Petacruz amazing in it, but the line, when she says, this isn't even my body, these aren't even my fucking hands. Yeah. Is so disturbing. And so, I mean, again, the idea that she is physically dissociated from herself and her, her physical being is horrifying to imagine, built into the history of the character and challenging for the audience, sort of, bleeding between perpetrator and victim, because that's those, those coping techniques that, that the woman in the shelter is obviously repeating to her, where she's just like your present, you're in your body, you know, all that stuff is, you assume, taught to her to cope with the trauma that she's endured at the hands of these men, but she's using it to cope with the trauma that she's inflicting on other people too. Yes. And yeah, that whole scene on the shower with the green light, I thought was very knowingly an homage to Silence of the Lams, the basement scene with Buffalo Bill and extraordinary. We should shout out to Destiny Echoragas, the director. She directed the last two episodes. Again, the sign of a well-run ship to me is, who knows what went on behind the scenes and what each director brought or didn't bring or what they had to fix and post or not fix or whatever, but when you feel an aesthetic consistency that you, you check the names because you're like another banger, it's a credit to both the director and the system and the production. Similarly, this episode is written by Colleen McGinnis, whose name you may remember from 30 Rock, from SNL, from Rami, like another historically, historically, a comedy writer. So yeah, it's funny, but also this is, like we've been saying every week, like Liz Maryweather did New Girl and did this. And it is incredible to see when you have a bunch of multi-talented but talented and diverse ways people rowing in the same direction here. Like it's, I don't know, I just, I'm floored by it. We didn't even say, I mean, we talked about the North scene. We didn't even talk about Quincy Tyler Bernstein in that scene. I mean, she's, she's really, really, really extraordinary. It's one of the performances with Kato Flynn with, for me, at least the discovery, a discovery of the year in terms of what this person is bringing to the table. And then also like you've got scenes like we're Michael Kostrov, who people remember him as Mori from the wire shows up. And it is an exposition scene. He's letting Danny know like where things stand, what he wants. And you get a little bit of like Feds versus cops, jurisdictional banter, but fully delivers what is usually like a very like, I want results. I'm glad you brought that up because he comes in thrown gas. And it's so knowing because your point is important. The audience, like of a baseline TV audience sees that guy and we're like, okay, we're in an East Coast urban show somewhere in the law and order realm. I don't mean law and order literally, but it's like it's like the wires and cops, whatever. I would imagine when you talk to actors who do, you know, who do a day here or do a day there that the balancing act is really tricky because you show up and you want to like, you really want to make the most of your small meal. You know, these pretzels are making me thirsty famously. But you also don't want to steal the spotlight from the plot from what you're trying to serve. He came in thrown gas and, uh, Scoot McNairy was ready for it. And the production itself was ready with like to catch, you know, it's like that it was built for that. So we notice it. Um, it's hard to describe other than the fact that it's such a welcome thing because there are no scenes off on the show. Yeah. That what I've been trying to tell people not just on the podcast, but in life, why to check it out. It's primarily, you may think you know what it is from the log line or from the poster or whatever, but give it two episodes and realize that every scene surprises you in one way or another and that alone is a gift. But the fact that now it's rolling two episodes left and I don't feel that episodic either. It's not bloat. It could be one of you. I've started eight is the new 10 as the as we're saying here in Hollywood in terms of episodes. It's not always the right number. Even 10 isn't always the right number. Sometimes it's clearly by the time you get to this, you know, the end game, you're rounding third, there's too many episodes left or there's clearly not enough time. Right. I, you know, talked to me in two weeks, but it just feels like it's well, they've managed it well. If you had to guess, did Nora really get hoodwinked by Ed there or do you think she was using like a fake laptop as or something? Like, is there something? No, I think she got got because the laptop was wiped because Aldon just put it all in a thumb drive. Right. The thing that I didn't fully understand and maybe we're not meant to is at the very end, Danny has the thumb drive and he goes outside of the building to find out what's on it. And I think maybe other audience members as well assumed he would be scrolling to Catherine or to Alice, right? Or to the name of her friend who's she's trying to avenge. But he gets to Alice. Right. Is the implication that Alice is a part of this? I don't know. I mean, different Alice. And he was just looking because he loves Alice. I don't know. I, I, I mean, Alice was meeting people online, but I don't know whether I don't know how that works. It wasn't. So you didn't walk away from that scene being like, aha, you didn't, it didn't, I got to that point and I was worried that I did a hon like that too. Okay good and then you were you doing picture and picture lioness bathtub scenes? Other more than one? No, not yet. This is the first time they've bathed together. Okay well it's just cool. It's a long deployment, saves water. That's just good stuff from us today. I think I'll let them be the judge. First day I'm not sure what we're gonna talk about. You don't know? No, not yet. But I'll let you know and like I said you'll probably miss next Monday's furious. Well depends how much you mean you wanted me to like we could we could pre-record some stuff. Okay we're not sure yet. All right it really depends how much time van needs. This is good stuff for for our listeners to you know hear hear how we put this all together. Don't you think? Yeah. What if instead of after dark we just did procedural corner where we talked about our plans and like because you would just be like hmm interesting idea. I'll text you when I when I've decided. You know I think that's compelling. Thanks to Kaya, Kai and Sarah and we'll be back on Thursday and I promise you this. I'm not gonna bring up a single X-man on that episode. Yeah okay we'll see. I figure it makes my pledge. All right we'll see.