‘Widow’s Bay’ Season 1 Finale With Creator Katie Dippold and Director Hiro Murai. Plus, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Trailer.

I need support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am the editor at TheWinger.com and joining me in the studio, he was bitten by an animal and then he became the animal. It's Indigree Maltz! That's the best line in the finale of the best show of the year. Widow's Bay, which we are going to be talking about the finale today on the watch podcast. We are also joined by Hero Mariah and Katie Dippel, the director and creator of Widow's Bay, which as Andy mentioned is his favorite show of the year. I'm open for business. You are like those judges who will say that Joe Biden was certified the winner of the wait one presidential election. I believe you won the election. Cool. Under pressure. We are going to talk about that. We're going to talk a little bit about the Spider-Man trailer. I have a couple of questions for the keeper of the war across from me. I have some questions. Maybe a couple of other things. Just some programming reminders. Sunday night is House of the Dragon season three premiere. I'll be doing Talk the Thrones with Mal and Joe, but Andy and I will be discussing it on Monday from our usual just sort of left field, the skew viewpoint. We'll keep hitting Star City as we're able and then next week, next Thursday, the bear season five drops. Andy and I are going to be discussing it in our usual three, three, two way. I think we'll do three episodes of it. We can kind of like live in it a little bit, even though I know everybody who's rocking with the bear will probably watch it that weekend. Before we get into it, can we address the elephant in the room for people who watch us on video, which is that we are doing the Michael Keaton Batman Vicky Vail table scene? Yeah. It's like Ned Badi in network. Yeah. I kind of, because we had a table. We have a larger table here today because we had two guests, hero and Katie were so lovely to come by and talk to us about the finale. Do you want to do, let's just do a little bit of like the kind of the light work. Yeah. Entertainment House cleaning. I actually do want to talk about the Spider-Man brand new day. We do. Um, trailer, which dropped about 25 hours ago. How have you spent the last 25 hours? Well, here's what I've been really interesting. But he's Zach Barron wrote a fantastic piece about the making of the Odyssey, um, and he interviewed, uh, Homer, uh, he interviewed Homer. He interviewed Norm Miller, um, I believe he talked to David Letterman about it. No, I mean, he talked to, uh, uh, Matt Damon, he talked to Robert Pattinson. He talked to Tom, uh, Tom Holland. And Tom Holland was the one who jumped out at me in this piece because this was clearly like a life changing experience for him to work on the Odyssey and so much so that he says it had a profound impact on the making of brand new day, which was not only like did the production of it have to be adjusted so that Holland could essentially star in the Odyssey, I think or co-star in the Odyssey, but it learning how Christopher Nolan makes movies and learning how his storytelling works and learning about a lot of his in-camera stuff that he does to like make everything feel real, um, led Holland to work with Destin Daniel Kretten who's directing this, this new Spider-Man movie to change the film. So knowing that, yes, I was curious whether you watched the trailer and felt anything different about the movie felt anything different coming off the screen that looked like not Christopher Nolan had an impact on this, but like that this was somehow tended to and cared for in a way that maybe I think works aren't I think one of the main things that's going to be different no matter what and I think it does it does look and feel slightly different certainly from the previous Spider-Man trilogy, but one of the things that is absolutely fact is that in order to get Tom Holland to come back to do a fourth movie, Sony and Marvel gave Tom Holland an enormous amount of creative control over the film. He was only coming back for a movie that he wanted to make in the tone and style that he thought would be interesting for Peter Parker and Spider-Man to be in. So that seems pretty clear in the final product. So I think that even predates going to IMAX camp with Chris and Hoyt, I think that he definitely only wanted to come back. It was going to be different. I think there's been already been pre-release press saying that he wanted it to be more grounded or whatever. As a long time Spider-Man, you're the number one Spider-Man fan in my life. That is praise. I think both. Oh. Okay. So now we're suddenly walking back. I have other interests. It's like when we ask you who your best friend is, it's the same answer. Sean, you know, Sean is more of a symbiot guy, Sean likes venom and carnage and all that stuff. You know, I'm kind of a purist. I have said on this podcast, like I like the character best when the character is street level and grounded and not wearing an Iron Man suit and flying into space. It is a real tribute to Steve Ditko and Stanley that that character can do those things, but I think the character works best when the stakes are smaller and more relatable. Do you need him to be a teenager? Well, no. Now he's a young man. I know. Tom Holland's 30. And he said I don't want to be playing Spider-Man when I'm 30, but I think that's another reason why I think he was like, "Give me the keys and I'll drive the car one more time around the block." Yeah. Until the secret worse comes out. Right. At least one more time probably. So I think all of that is good and I was very happy to see that at least in this trailer, he has the most important things to me in a Spider-Man story, which is personal life anguish and a suit that is not made out of adamantium with a talking AI system embedded in it. That's cool. Also, there's a very long tradition of Spider-Man being the gateway character who swings down to the West Village to chat with Dr. Strange, which was the last movie. Now up to Columbia and Dr. Banner, can you help me with something and Punisher is in this movie? So all that. Super cool. That said, I'm going to turn it back to you and say, Chris, Spider-Man brand new day trailer, what is this movie about challenge? This is now the third, I think, glimpse of it that we've gotten and I have no idea what the plot of this movie is. Not unlike House of the Dragon. I feel like I need to refresh my memory about what is going on in this movie. So as far as I can remember, both in Dr. Strange in the mountain of madness, no, but gone. Mouth. Madness. Multiverse. Multiverse of madness. There's Spider-Man gets strange to wipe everybody's memory in the world because he doesn't want to be Spider-Man. This was no way home. Yeah. And then what happens at the end of Dr. Strange? I believe. What are the implications of that start to go wrong, right? No. It's the Dr. Strange movie is not relevant. The Dr. Strange, no way home was essentially also a Dr. Strange movie. But Dr. Strange did that, right? Dr. Strange did that. This is like when they're like who fixed the potholes in New York? Sherlock Holmes made Zendaya forget that man and then she married him. That's true. Yeah. I don't really remember what's like at stake or what's happening here. He felt that the knowledge, because Aunt May spoiler died, the knowing his secret identity was too dangerous. So his best friends Ned and MJ had their minds wiped and they went off to MIT while he remained alone in New York to protect the streets. I think that they're probably still hiding a bunch of the stuff that is going to happen to him in this movie for a variety of reasons. Obviously, you and I have had some fun trying to guess who Sadie Sink is playing. I don't think we tried to guess. I think we name names. Yes. We did say that it's sorry, Van. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. Right. It's jingray. Yeah. Yeah. Which would be exciting. It seems like this movie is going to be about the punisher. This is the trick. This is what I was waiting for. You're acting like I'm not sure if I'm interested and then it's all burn fall. Yeah. This is Peter Parker Wayne Jenkins fanfic. But are they sports washing this dude? He just killed like 87 people in his special like what is and now he's just like, I'm here for PG 13 banter with my guy, Spidey. Let me introduce you to something called comic books. The punisher that hangs out with Spider-Man is not the same punisher that Carthenas wrote. Where yeah, where he like personally executes. Do you think Spider-Man punisher voted for mom Donnie? Wow. Punisher is a slew of guy born in bread. Like the way we get these rats out of the city, feral cats. The only thing punisher doesn't like about Curtis Lee was he soft on cats, like he does not give a shit. You know what? I think that Peter Parker used to rank choice correctly. You know, I think he probably, I think Brad Lander may have been his number one, but he put mom Donnie to once they endorsed each other and he's happy with how it now four years ago, I think he voted for Catherine Garcia, who is the sanitation boss. No, I remember her. Yeah. That's, let's go four years before that. How much time do we have before I would as pay interview? Yeah. I mean, I like the fact, I've said this, I think before that, like I like when the movies echo that aspect of comic books that there are PG 13 versions of the characters who do team ups and then sometimes when they're in their own respective genre stories that can get a little bit earlier. I like that. My thing is this movie has been presented to us as I primarily, okay, I don't even know primarily. So there's the storyline where he is mutating into some sort of human spider hybrid. Right. Cause he doesn't need like the, he's shooting it out of his wrist like Toby McGuire again. There is the version of the movie where he is fighting the hand. The, um, a comic book, a global ninja crime organization that Frank Miller created in the pages of Daredevil 40 years ago. Okay. I do not know why he's doing that, other than I guess if a global ninja criminal enterprise attacked your city, you would fight them. But sometimes they have like, there was like, here's going to be this big villain, but it's like wrapped up in the first 15 minutes. There is, I guess what I'm saying is I cannot, maybe this is going to be genius. Maybe this is going to be like frozen to and there is no antagonist other than what's inside of us. But it is odd that a tentpole movie is not telling you what the story is other than boy Peter's really going through it. That said, all the tracking suggests that this is going to be the biggest movie of the last three years. Right. So maybe it doesn't really matter, but it is interesting that it's going to be a Punisher team up movie, a Hulk team up movie, a boy is shooting fluid out of himself in surprising ways movie and also with a ninja global cabal and introduce mutants into the Marvel universe. That's a lot. Speaking of a boy shooting things out of his body. Can't wait. Justin Keritzkies has a screenwriting credit on this and apparently did it for you, right? Yes. Challengers. Call me by your name. I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. So the original, the, not the original, but Chris McKenna, Challengers and Queer by that. Chris McKenna and Eric Summer. I think who had, who had the credit on the, the first three Tom Holland movies and were praised for the comedic stuff like they, they, they brought in a, I guess a, at least on the page, a more serious, more dramatic screenwriter. How do you feel about that? I think it's exciting. I think it's cool. I think his like, he obviously knows his way around like some of the psychosexual kind of like, I'm changing kind of stuff, you know, I think that, that this is interesting that, you know, he wrote challengers and dayas and obviously in this film, I wonder if there was any like, hey, this guy's really good. We should work with him. It's psychosexual transformations. Yeah. Chris, what do you want in a Spider-Man movie? You're playing. You're doing the classic. He's not my guy. Okay. I'm cheering for everybody. It's like watching two countries I don't care about in the world cup. I'm just like, I'd like to see some goals, you know, like, uh, okay. But is it like, you don't care about them like Uzbekistan is playing? Or are you like, oh, Cape Verde, that's cute. It's more like Cape Verde. That's cute. Okay. Cool story. Cause I just feel like you're doing your typical like, you know, DNC sponsored. Like you're going to Iowa kind of thing where you're like, how great that we have spiders and men. And then you're also, you're like, do we have room for Punisher in this? Do we have room for psychosexual transformations? Take your free. I'm a 21. I care about a craft. You know, and if I want to see, you know, what lessons he learned by making the Odyssey reflected in this movie, I want to also see if these superhero movies can change with the changing nature of Hollywood and the changing expectations of audiences. Look how reasonable he is. I know. You just won my vote back. I'm, I don't think in no way, Spider-Man brand new day is going to make a gazillion dollars. Like I am not concern trolling it at all. What I am interested in is I think that there is a whiff of like Hollywood realizing that like you can put the crap here. Right. But like if you're going to go for like the big audiences and you're going to, you want to make something a sensation or something that people have a relationship to, like we have to get back to deepening people's relationships with this instead of just having it be, did you see in the post credits, Stinger, Charlize Theron's character showed up? Like you have to have it mean something more and you have to have it have a little bit more depth. So I'm actually going into this movie with like a little bit of a magnifying glass. I'm really glad I needled you unkindly because that was a very, very smart summation of where this is. And I think it's a very optimistic take. I honestly do think like for all the shit we've talked about Avengers, like they actually have like to say nothing of the fact that those are probably going to be the most expensive movies ever made once they finally finish shooting them or writing them or whatever they're doing. If it's a lot of guys standing in front of green screen, not knowing what scene they're in or which movie they're in, I think it's going to, you're going to be able to tell. And not just, not just that, but on top of it saying the only emotion that we were able to like ring out of this old piece of laundry is from a previous movie or from a previous generation's relationship to a non a no longer, uh, to a mooted franchise. Yes. You know, I think that no way home, I mean, I, as you said, doomsday and secret wars will be the test of this. But no way home was I loved it if I was a phenomenal movie emotionally and in terms of spectacle. But it rung the emotion primarily out of giving Andrew Garfield a send off for the trilogy he wasn't permitted to finish by Hollywood. That's, that's diminishing returns. So maybe I need to put on my CR glasses as opposed to these glasses and, uh, say the fact that there is not a clear antagonist with larger ties to psychovia is potentially a good thing. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. I mean, we got there. Yeah. Ken Burns is psychovia coming in 2028. Oh my god. Why has no one done that? Wait, why has no one done Ken Burns's Marvel civil war? Why are we only thinking about this in minute? The Shoken Farewell letter, but for a guy who got like psychovia dropped on it. The entire the dearest Abigail, no, then they cut, they're like, and then there was quick silver. And it cuts to like Elizabeth Olson like wiping away a tear and see be a tone. Where's she? Where's Wanda? Where's Wanda? She, she's, she's in jail now, right? The character. Yeah. No, I think, I think the characters in jail, I think Elizabeth Olson pulled the Scarlett Johansson ripboard, which is just like, fuck y'all I'm done. She's not going to be in these new ones. I mean, everybody has a price, man. We'll put a pin in Spider-Man. I want to talk to you about the finale of "Woodoo's Bay" before we bring here on Katie on. Okay. We wrap up with Greenwald's agenda, fully proven correct. Thank you. I doubted my own magnification. Raiders of the "Woodoo's Bay" Reddit, Andy Greenwald, as the Indiana Jones of that. And he figured out that Evan was not in the clear. His, he was still going to be part of the lineage of- No, I never said that. You didn't? No, I said, I said, after, first of all, thank you for my hero's journey. I thought you texted me and were like, I was right. I was right, but I stopped believing I was right, which is a sign of a good show. Okay. I had laid out the evidence coming from the flashback episode that the inevitable last descendant of this curse, inheritor of the curse, would be Evan. And then there was the, the, the, the misdirect towards Ruth. Thank you. Yeah. Go to that saying that this is "Woodoo's Bay" and the finale, I guess, because- But thank you for beginning where all these things should begin, which is me proving myself right? Well, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this. First of all, did you ever expect when you were watching essay episode four, episode five of the show, that you would find yourself in such an excruciating, dramatically tense moment as Tom trying to decide whether or not to kill Ruth, is kindly, if absent-minded, a system who apparently has incredibly rich life outside of the office, because he thinks that she is the last line of the descendant of the, of the colonial era, or pilgrimage. We have to, I mean, I think one thing, and people, hopefully, will stick around and listen to our interview with Hero and Katie, it is kind of sometimes a, a, a check on us, because I, I was prepared to come in here today and talk about, and I, I, I, I will talk about the brilliance of the show, but I also love to celebrate the moments of what feel like very, very clever, very, very thoughtful foresight that, um, you build a character like Ruth into the margins of the show as a, as comedic relief, as texture, as someone you're happy to see, as a joke you're happy to return to. But in no way are you expecting that the actor who plays here will carry one half of, one of the most dramatic sequences on television this year. Talking to Hero and Katie, one gets the sense that they are of the Vince Gilligan school, Katie, especially of like, whoops, we painted ourselves into a hell of a corner here. How are you going to pull it off? There's probably a TED talk to be given about how genius can come from crises like that. But, uh, to answer your question more directly, no, in the fact that the show can at once bear the weight of such intense moral, uh, such an intense moral dilemma and decision making and have you feel it and have it also have these other strands that are so central to the show, like how, how we misplaced, how we, how we confuse work for family and how we take advantage of both in all the wrong ways and then sometimes we all end up being family. And then there's life lessons from a haunted island about how life's always kind of hard and you just got to do your best and help a woman down on top of the porch and then back up again every day. I, I, this is maybe good for a, a whaling town, but I just think the best TV shows are, uh, load bearing vessels and the fact that this series expanded its potential for this episode blew me away. So that's a really good segue into the other element of this episode that I thought was fascinating, which is obviously, uh, it was Jeff Hiller's character, um, Dale coming across this film strip, uh, which suggests a, uh, underground society slash cult slash we will find out in season two. The show has been renewed to nobody's surprise of, um, ritual sacrifice of an almost like practical kind of relationship with the demonic forces of the island and that there's this relationship between the church bells and how many people need to be sacrificed for whatever is living in the sub sub basement of the town hall building. Just off of the electric chair. Yes. And first of all, like this is, you know, if you've been watching television for a long time, this is like finding the hatch. This is like a move you can pull late in a season to be like, there's another level to the game. You know, I thought that that was really well handled. I was curious whether or not. This shows deviating somewhat or like the late period, the late season of the show deviated very fully from monster of the week. And in fact, started to do a dalliance with we are the actual monsters, because what if you put a soul in a storm shelter and, you know, what if you ask us if we're choosing to choose to solve the trolley question that Tom is talking about. Yeah, it's a classic writers room conversation that just went into the show. Yes. I thought that was brilliant. I'm excited for season two because of this, but there, there's this funny thing where I like, when this season was in mid flight and it was like this week, it's a, a sea had coming out of the fog. Next week, it is a self-help book that is actually a book of spells. There was just like this, like, delight of like never knowing where it was going. I don't really want to answer any questions about their show. That's how I feel. I think I, I, even though there was more lore in this final episode than I would have expected, I remain delighted and honestly unmoved by a lot of it, not unmoved in like I, it's not working for me in the, that's just not how I'm watching the show. And the more things they tell me, the more excited I, I am about it. I think again, there's just some, however modest Katie is about the planning and execution of the show, there was a deep level of thinking that went into some, some decisions that could just really be devil a long running series. And they range from, you know, cell phones don't work. Okay, we, we took care of that. To what is the actual population here versus how many people are visiting and what is the relationship to the outside world and how can we keep this going? And one of the smartest things was this idea that was suggested in the pilot and then brought back in the finale, which is that the island goes through these moods or these cycles. And during these cycles, crazy things happen. That gives them such credibility because if these things were happening 24/7, no one would live there. No one would visit. There wouldn't even be the chance to make the argument that people should live there. So it bought, and it also though buys them time. It buys them time to retrench, think about what's going to happen next, the characters react to it and then dive back in and have things start to wake up again. And potentially they wake up again with other delightful and funny horror movie tropes haunting them for an episode or not. But I think the other template that the season gave us that is so smart is that every one of those tropes and every one of those hauntings is going to be inexorably tied to a character's emotional life or their history. And so we have a way to continue to be interested in it without it feeling like a stunt. Yeah, there's also like so much room for expansion on this show. And I don't know whether or not the core audience is going to be happy to hear that. But like you could obviously have new boatloads of people arriving during calmer times. You could have a real estate developer who comes and decides this is great oceanfront property. You could have somebody wants to build a golf course. What have you? You know, that worked very well for Yellowstone. And the first part of what you were saying reminded me of like the second season of your friends and neighbors where James Marsden shows up and moves in next door. Well, the thing is that I think I have some times a little bit of a I was talking yesterday with with a couple of people breaking bad. And I was like there's it was really like at least three different shows. You know, it's like the same time or over the course of the series where it starts out and it's this black comedy about a guy who's got the worst news of his life and decides to become a master criminal. And there is a fish out of water show of like this guy who's never been part of a criminal underworld slowly becoming more and more adept at it. And then there is the crime epic that is basically on like Godfather level that concludes the show. I would be curious to see whether widow's Bay in three years we look back and remember and we're like remember first version of widow's Bay that was like monster of the week. Yeah. And now it's but now it's about this or that or the other thing. I think that what's promising, I mean, there's a lot of things that are promising. One is and you guys will hear this in the interview. I don't think I think Katie wants to keep making the show obviously, but I don't think she feels any great burden to like stretch this out. You know that she has a story to tell and we'll have as much fun as possible doing it, but it won't necessarily move through eras in that way. I think the other thing is that there's a lot of room for it to be about a community, not just one man. And even if it is, even if the focus ultimately does land on on Matthew Reese's character on Tom Loftus, it is about his relationship with his son, his son who is now the inheritor of a great and ancient satanic evil living underneath the island. Did you get the impression that he knew that at the end of the episode in the final shot? I don't get, it's a good question. I didn't get the impression that he knew, but I did get the impression that he was now suddenly more than aware of. He was like, when can we go to the red socks? There's something here that I have now witnessed that I am now connected to. You know, I don't understand that it is a part of me. I'm so excited about this show. It is such a joy. It was such a gift. And it is such it's such a, when we talk about this in our interview, but the specificity of it, you know, to be able not just to have a exciting new show to look forward to when it when it returns in a year, a year and a half, but this show and this place with these actors and whatever is lurking around the corner, be it a monster of the week or a character actor that Alison Jones has drug out of the dugout of the most perfect obscurity and brought back in front of us. I was talking with Sean yesterday about the your spider-man friend knows about his his edition of projections has just went up today and we were talking a little bit about like where movies are at and what are some of the new, you know, rules of movie of movie making and movie going in the movie industry. And I definitely think I have a little bit of I'm always thinking about the relationship of television and movies for those things can be very fluid, but like right now, I obviously think that between obsession and back rooms, spider-man, Odyssey, the way people are talking about the movies, the way people are going to films that there's a a centrality of of it in the culture like that disclosure day, yeah, disclosure day, big hit, but also very divisive, you know, and in a way that I've really enjoyed some of the conversations I've overheard about it. And I think it's led me to wonder about like what TV can be and what TV should be in that in that world and that reality. I think you and I have lived through some really like plum days of like even if only X amount of million people are watching succession, it feels like all of them want to talk about succession all the time. And as TV has tried to become bigger and bigger and bigger and consume more and more and more of our time, I wonder sometimes whether like we've lost certain just known knowns of like how to make it and what people like about it. And here in Katie and hero talk about it where it was like it wasn't like what we were trying to do was make hereditary meets this or you know like this very kind of like almost antiseptic or scientific way of like it's a pitch. It was like no descriptor something that she lived with for a really long time. She'd obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this world. And then she and hero were like let's make a place that people want to come back to for two and a half months. That's like that's all you gotta do. Like and it's way easier said than done. But if you want to know like what TV should be or what TV can be, it's not necessarily like what do we not get out of presumed in the first time? It's like let's make a fucking world that people want to hang out in for three months. Which is really hard. Yeah. But you have to give people creative space and oxygen to give them a chance to accomplish that. And it's such an important point that you're making and it's such a necessary point at this moment when the companies who own all of the the purse strings are algorithmically inclined whether because they are essentially tech companies who have taken on this other piece of business to monetize and exploit or because every even the traditional studios that remain are now tethered to the streaming model where they have almost too much data to pour over as if it contains some sort of clue like goose entrails in the year 1200 BC. That's not how stuff happens in film and in TV. Good stuff never comes from trying to predict the future or predict the weather. But I also have to take a moment. I think people who listen to the interview will hear this as well to call myself out on it because I think that as I did a moment ago with like the planning for Ruth like I I take comfort in the same way like I like a really accurate weather forecast in the idea that well because Katie is so good at what she does and at such a vision and hero is such a genius at making high high level television that they walked into every meeting confident and walked out confident and everyone understood because they always knew what they were doing. No writer and I would imagine no no some directors think they always know what they're doing but very few creative people have that kind of confidence day to day but more importantly that kind of confidence is kind of antiseptic and anti art because it disallows other people's ability to contribute. So the writers that Katie assembled saying well actually I think as she says Bashir should come in and kill or shoot Ruth and what's that going to do for our story or hero talk talks about the set deck team and what they did in Ritz House, which is so memorable in its one episode that it appears in, you have to have that uncertainty. What we take as a confident, authorial, artistic voice is often the product of that weird alchemy of complete anxiety and terror and creative inspiration when you need it most. Yeah, absolutely. It's a good place for us to segue into our interview with Katie Dippell, the creator of of what is Bay and hear him or I who directed four of the episodes for the first season. Annie and I will be back on Monday to talk about House of the Dragon and Star City and whatever else happens over the weekend. Hope everybody enjoys USMNT, soccer ruse tomorrow, me and Adam Friedland will be going on after the game. Oh, you're going to go on a lot? You're going to react? I don't know if we're going to go live live, but you know, how is your Australian accent? That is a hard one to do. Do you think you can. Do you know what? I don't even know if it's going to come up, honestly. Oh, because you think we won't even be talking about the soccer ruse. Don't provoke that. No, no, no, I did not mean it that way. I just mean like, you know, what Adam and I are doing kind of transcends exist in a world beyond impersonation. Look at me trying to drag you back down there. Thanks to Kai and Kai for producing. We will be back on Monday. Everybody have a great weekend. Katie and hero, thank you so much for joining us on the watch. We've loved the first season of "Woodows Bay" obviously as we've talked about it and cessantly. We can't wait to talk to you about making it and what's the future for this show. Andy, I think you were going to lead us on. I am, but I also want to say that I'm especially excited that we're getting you, Katie, here with the energy of having just come from the Jersey Shore and drinking what might be your first coffee in years. It is. It's my first coffee in a very long time and we're going to see how it goes. I think it's going to be great. So. How I sound right now is going to be very different in 30 minutes. I think we should just let you cook for a second marinade and then, okay, so we have many questions about the brilliant finale and the brilliant first season, but I feel like we need from you, Katie, the definitive origin story of this script because there are. I think you've talked about it a little bit, but the sense was that this was generated years ago. Maybe even this was a script in some form that got you hired on Parks and Rec, is that true? Can you confirm or deny? Okay, so yes, I was 28 and I wrote it as a sample for Parks and Recreation, but it was different than it was much more comedic, much more joke, joke, joke. And it. I think it gave Mike sure an idea of my humor, but so it got me that job, but it was quite different than what you see now. I think that for many of us, the scariest thing imaginable isn't necessarily a seahag. It's looking at creative writing we did over a decade ago. So can you just talk a little bit about why you continued to return to this idea and how did your professional experiences since the Parks and Rec job shape what it became? That's actually a great point because I don't like looking back at old stuff either. It's actually a horrible experience. I don't even like looking back at stuff that's been made. I have a hard time. You know what I mean? But I just kept tooling away at this. So it's like something that never fully went away, because I have to always thinking about it. And I don't know. I can always a draft in progress. Yes. Exactly. It was my version of novel. Gotcha. You know? I don't know those two. Age 41. So I would just always just bring notebooks, especially when I was traveling east, I would just brainstorm what this place could be like, and what kind of things could happen there and the different characters. And I just kept at it forever. I just never wanted to stop thinking about it. Had you thought about it in terms, in like the visual terms, the rich way it was realized in this Apple TV version of the show, had you started to think about it visually before you started talking to hero about it? Had there been, like, was there a look for the show in your mind when you were even in those early days of creativity with it? So okay. The very first version, there is a moment in time after a couple years at Parks where I started shopping it around. And we almost, well, there was going to be an offer, but I put a pin in it because I just had this very bad feeling. It was not the right time that I had not thought about it enough or what it would really feel like and what it would look like and what this world was going to be like. And so that's when I kept working on it. And I remember watching Atlanta, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. And I love just that cinematic half hour television. So special. And all the different swings they would take, and it was so rich and so much texture to it. And so as I kept working on it, I always thought hero was the dream director for it. I never thought in a Boeing years I would get him to do it. So I was also still hilarious to me. He said yes, because it just seems like a crazy move, honestly. But so I would, it was very inspiring to me and TV just started changing. And so I wanted this to feel like a place that you would want to go to and that would bring a certain kind of look. And I wanted it to feel grounded. And so I didn't know exactly what he was going to do. You know, he's a brilliant director that makes all sorts of surprising choices. But we talked a great deal about how we wanted it to feel. I think the one of the first things you said was like, you know, obviously it's just got the joke density in the world, but you know, all that stuff. But you're just like, I just want to be in this place drinking a coffee in a diner. And the feeling of being there was like so specific and you just, you knew what you wanted there, you know. And I think in a way for TV show, how it feels to be in that world is kind of the most important part. And I'm like, it can be funny. But if it's not a place you want to return to, then you got nothing, you know. Is there a magic trick to doing that? Is there like a thing that you've done maybe over the course of a couple of series that you feel like there's a question I want to answer or there's like a something I want to execute, whether it's something about the depth of production design and set dressing or, you know, whether it's location scouting. But I'm always curious about like, what's the thing that's repeatable? I think it just accumulates. I mean, I think big part of shooting a Massachusetts was that it, there's just the quality to that part of the country that we just couldn't get anywhere else, like trying to fake it and Canada felt bad and, you know, and then, and then I think the other part is just character dynamics. And like what it feels like to sit in a room with these characters just felt like the leading thing with the show. And that part I always felt like you had a really distinct idea of how it should feel. I feel like one time I was there's one joke in the pilot that we talked about a lot because I think hero always liked it, but it was also grappling with how does that fitness role, which is the calendar joke and in the original, yes, because we really like thought long and hard about all these little choices and, um, and so like the calendar joke originally was, um, a wolf, he's flipping through and he's wolf, wolf, wolf. And then it shows a sexy fireman with a shirt off and he looks at the top. And it says wolves and firemen. So like that calendar was specifically made to be wolves and firemen, which I actually think is a funnier, broader joke, it's a bigger joke. Um, and then so I think you liked the swing, but we think, but what is, how does that fit in the scene? Like where this man is coming in and he has, you know, he's determined to do this thing and he's dealing with Patricia and he's doing all these things. But so then I changed it to just a random flipped over truck. That's not explained. Why that's an encounter. It became a different kind of joke, but I think it felt better to us. And then my reaction was like, it's so interesting because here, your point is so well taken about how the nature of TV means we want to spend time there as audience members, but specifically with a project like this, the characters also have to get coffee there and have to live there in between the action. And so much of this project, I would imagine has been, was a like a relay race of communicating tone until you have the proof of concept and you've shot the pilot, no one can truly understand what it is. Right. So could you talk us through a little bit of those conversations before we get into them more specifics of the show like Katie, we heard about you talking to hero and then once you two are together, what do you say to the production designer? What do you say to the executives at Apple? What do you say to Matthew Reese when he comes into me with you? How do you communicate what at that moment only exists in your burgeoning shared consciousness to get them to buy in? You just talk, you're just a very smart way of talking to the actors about treating it like a drama, you know? Yeah, I think, I mean, it's all kind of a guess to be totally honest because we're just kind of building the plan as we're flying it, you know, and so I think there's a little bit of pretending like, you know, what it is, you know, some people I listened to you, but I think the first thing we talked about is like, you know, when I read the pilot, it was like so funny and it was clear that it was a world that Katie's been thinking about for a really long time, you know, but I was just like, I wasn't quite sure how to kind of tackle it. And the Katie was the one who was just like, I just wanted to feel like a real place, you know? So like the authenticity and like the reality of these characters as absurd as some of them are was the most important thing, right? And so that made me go, okay, then that just played a real, right? And so, you know, obviously there's things that are heightened or like an agronistic or a little strange, but like I think building the like internal logic and reality of this world became the most important thing. Yeah. Yeah. Which is also hard because when you're grounded, because we wanted it to be grounded. So when you do have tension or something terrifying happen, you can't, you'll lose everything if you do a joke where someone's not taking it seriously. Yeah. Like I was always wanting to avoid something terrifying happening. And so in a character being, well, that happened, but it's like, you have to spend every moment like, oh, no, what would they do? Like how would they really. react to this. And it's also hard for the actors because I don't know what they're drawing on from life. You know, I hope not much. So it was, honestly, it was a, it was a tricky thing because I also think, and then in terms of the executives, it's definitely a lot of projecting confidence. But I do think we were very confident about the feeling we wanted. It was just how to get there was constant question, it just constantly refluxion. And does this feel good? Does this feel bad? And just doing that the entire time? I do, and you can feel the fact that especially in those early episodes when there's still some like town hall office business going on that none of the people in that and those scenes think they're in like a sitcom. Like they're not like, this is my bit that I always do when I come into the office. Like it's all the comedy is very much like a product of day-to-day interaction over like tasks that they have to solve. So you guys were telling the actors that pretend you're in a drama, but there is comic things happening, obviously. Like what was this sort of like the way that you led that ensemble? Some of it is just casting like, you know, some, like the people we got for it is just like the Avengers of character actors. Like the, you know, these guys know how to play the absurd seriously, like that's kind of their whole thing. And we were fortunate that like a lot of the people also have really good comedic timing, you know? And so even when they're playing at real, they know how to kind of like dodge and weave around a punchline or like, play it up or play it down. And so yeah, it was just kind of like getting them all in the pentagon and seeing what happens a little bit. And I just saw an article of Stephen and the Rolling Stone where he's talking about how comedy you always play it straight. And I love that. And that's what's so funny about him. But I think to give him more credit, he's also on top of being a great actor playing it straight. He's also one of the funniest people in the entire world. I mean, he's a community genius. So like having people who are great actors that will play it straight, they'll never sell try to sell for joke. They're not going to be hammy. But they are also all very naturally funny people. I mean, I was going to ask if the casting, like wish list for Wic began with Stephen and ended with oot. Like, could you ever have imagined anyone else in this part or did he just take it over and run with it? God, I mean, he's like the best person that's towing both lines. Like he's just he's so perfect for it. To be honest, I didn't have anyone any one actor in mind for any of the parts. But when he said he was willing to do it, it was like, that is wonderful news. Find the comment there always up for it, but you wanted to do the penguin suit. So do I get to wear prosthetics? One thing I think you guys have said you've heard us talk about is like the sum of the Parks and Rec DNA that may have existed in the show. And I always think about the way that Mike sure over Parks and Rec and in good place really brought some of the propulsive contemporary serialized storytelling into the half hour and comedic space. And you can actually say with a straight face that I am. You can see that he is a big fan of the wire when you watch Parks and Rec. So I would say only there. There's slightly different. Katie, can you talk about how you learned that and then how you applied it here? Because I think that one of the genius things about the season is that you are telling a big story in a cinematic way, but you hasted it so beautifully so that you can enjoy the fun. You can enjoy episodically along the way. There were two moments that really stuck out to me. The first is like the pilot. Oh my god, we are going to be in hell for 10 episodes and then the tourists come and you kind of take a breath and you exhale. And then the other one was just the decision to split 103 and 104 into almost individual perspective episodes that allowed you to tell story happening concurrently that didn't sap from the overall momentum. Like this is like high level breaking, like room breaking stuff, but I just thought it was so impressive. That's very nice to hear. Some of those decisions were having not done it before and not realizing how hard it would be. For example, we had already broken episode three with the hag and we and a writer had pitched that Patricia finds this health help book and we started going on about, you know, our emotional fears of rejection and status and so what does she try to throw this party and then somehow in the room and what if these are happening on the same day. Now why we decided to add that complicated layer to it. I don't know, but it seemed fun at the time, but it was. That's what the skill he says. That's how he plots, dude. And then he just lives in regret. Yes. But it's a good exercise. Look for the parts of it. You know, I it's it was such a great room there and I always the things I love the most about this show or something like I love a good throwaway joke that can come back later and a more meaningful way and this show that can come back in a really terrifying way, you know, not even as a joke. I also loved the world building in Parks and Rec, you know, I so all those are just in my bones now and so that was it was fun to take what I learned there and use it, whether it's for comedy or just lore intention. Yeah, I was going to ask some glad you mentioned lore because that's it's kind of become a catch term recently. I mean, I know that like I've had lots of conversations with people about back rooms and obsession regarding like whether or not like, you know, are these stories that can be solved essentially and that like you're going through these puzzle pieces. And I was curious about like the or how it feels to like organically write something that also has a clear undergirding of like this is the actual history of the island. This is I know where this is going in a season or two or whatever the case may be versus also keeping it lively and playful and allowing you, you know, moments for where someone can be like, what if Patricia found a self-help book? I guess you can kind of divide those things into into two spaces like there's the everyday life stuff that happens and then there is the, well, these are the planks of Windows Bay's history that we know we may reference at some point and the monsters that are out there. But how much did you guys talk about, you know, what has happened on this island and what what is coming for this island? It's the first four weeks we spent time thinking about both things. We would think about what would be fun to do. Like it would be a fun episode. Like him going to, you know, an inn to prove it's not haunted seem like a fun thing to do. But then also we equally spent time thinking about the history of the island and we really tried to come up with a history that felt very real. So because I think when the absurd moments pop out, it's even funnier. A lot of the show is, wait, what? You know, which I think is also what hero is so good at where it's never too much in your face or two. It's just sort of like you can blink and miss it, you know, and you just sort of catch those moments. So we talked about both and then it was just sort of an organic process of, okay, what feels right now? Like, oh, I just want this to feel like a monster the week episode. I just want this to be fun. And then like, okay, now we have to get a little bit more into the story and get a little emotional here. I say that like I mad at it. But so and it's interesting like seeing the reactions because we are trying to do a couple of different things. And I've seen people that have loved the monster the week episodes and then when it gets into more lore, they're like, no, yeah. Well, I think we all kind of like long for I want 20 episodes of of just like, what am I getting this week kind of? Yes. And and that's but I think it's more of like a nostalgia for a kind of TV that you feel for three weeks when you're watching Widow's Bay and then you're like, okay, cool. Like now we have to figure out whether or not Ruth is Evan's grandmother or whatever. Yeah. I really was hoping to do get all of it if possible because I really wanted I guy, I'm a lunatic. So I'll go to sleep watching a horror movie. Like I will just put on like, you know, the exorcist or something and fall asleep happily. But I like, I'm also a very anxious comedy writer, but I feel like I wanted it to feel like someone can go to bed and be like, oh, I want to put on the in episode. So there's a stand alone so you can just put something on and enjoy it for itself, you know, but still I know myself. I only I want to watch a show what that's more serialized that there's a bigger story and that we're answering questions. So that was why we tried to do both. Yeah, there's something kind of like like old TV about the way we built it that I think is really refreshing. What I want to say is a side anecdote is that whenever I would go into Katie's production office when we were shooting, she would be like, you know, very seriously typing on her computer and then on the TV on the wall. There would be, I guess like a YouTube screen saver kind of thing of like a silhouette of a man standing in the woods with like spooky wind sounds and I'm just like, what's happening in here? That's like one of the easier ones. That's one of the later ones. There's one that's Halloween. There's just these videos background videos for, you know, very similar. Yes, I'm trying to get them to make one for the show. But there's one that it's just a house in the hadn't field, but every now and then Michael Myers comes by just like carrying this dead body and it's so upsetting when it happens. So sometimes someone would come in my office and I'm like, oh, I hope he doesn't come by because this would be an inappropriate thing to happen because he's trying to do a job watching Halloween vibes videos that are three hours long. Let's try to get this conversation under three minutes before I know he shows up. I do want to delve into the psychological root of this, but I also want the coffee to peak. So I can ask you a question while that cooks a little longer. You The way you guys were just talking about old-fashioned TV, comfort, and new-fashioned TV ambition, I didn't want to talk about it on the directorial side. Here, there's been a move towards the autor theory where a director will direct a series like it is a movie. The thing that you guys pulled off this season that I was incredibly blown away by was four directors directed this season. There is no massive tonal shift or drop-off and quality between any of them. People brought their own sensibilities and points of view and quirks no doubt. But that is such a veteran move. We used to watch television and multiple people would direct it, but it would still feel like it was coming from a collective voice. How did you handle that? How did you manage to pull it off? - I think there's two parts to that. I think part of it is just in the writing, you know what I mean? I think because I assume, because so much of it lived it in your head for so long, there's like, I've never read a pilot and been like, oh, I know this whole world. You know, a lot of times you read a pilot and you go, oh, they just wrote this, hoping that somebody will tell him to go write a second one or a third one. This one just felt like a fully fleshed kind of world. And so, you know, I think what's magical about that is that there's already boundaries, there's already kind of things to play with. And so even if you got someone who, you know, didn't direct the last block to come in, there's still kind of playing with like pieces that are speaking to each other and it has its own sort of rules that are a little more stable than, you know, you can't direct it off the rail. I don't think. You know, I've been working with the same sort of DP and edit crew for a really long time. You know, all the guys who did that land I came back for this. - Christian Springer. - Yeah, Christian. And our secondary DP, Cody, Jake, was our key gaffer when we first started. And so I think there's like an understanding and like a mutual language. And obviously the directors come in and put their own vision to it, but there's also kind of this like, you know, like a mutual understanding of taste among all the crew. And so I think that keeps it a little consistent. - One of the directors is Andrew D. Young who did Friendship last year, which is one of my favorite movies. And there are elements that you could see like the work that he does with Tim Robinson, which is incredibly funny and also kind of horrific at times. It's just like, you know, almost like there's a fader and you could go in either direction. Katie, what is this connection that I have to be honest with you? I had never personally pursued or experienced between the hysterics of comedy and the hysteria of horror. - I'm a weird one to ask because I find both very delightful. Like I'm not, you know what I mean, I'm not-- - You're the only one to ask me. (laughing) - Now don't ask me. I just think that I've always found horror very fun. Not, I mean, like, I mean, I love her editorial. I wouldn't say that was a fun time. I felt like I just, you know. (laughing) - I wanted the Wikipedia. - But I mean, I loved that movie as Masterful, but I really, it's just anticipation and, you know, building suspension and then payoff. I find it to be very similar. Like I, you know, in the movies when, I love when something scary happens and people scream. Someone screams and then everyone collectively laughs. There's a similar release that taps into as an anxious person. It's being able to watch the other shoe drop, you know? But yeah, Andy, I do think, I love when people of backgrounds and comedy do horror. It's like the Jordan Peele thing or Zach Kregger. I think there's a reason it can work really well. And Andy's so funny. He's so lovely. It's, I remember on set. I remember I went out to him with a note. And I was just like, can you just, I said, can it just like sleep at night? Do you think you could do blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, it's just you sleep at it. You say that with every note. I don't know how often I've been using that just so I can sleep at night. Even if it's a deeper shape. I was like, okay, I think that your bagage episode is a really good example, though, where it's made obviously from such a loving place of scenarios like that of slasher and, you know, like Halloween and Friday the 13th. And it's really funny, but it's never like a satire of it. It's kind of, it's like right on this line of like, no, she's running in ugg boots. And, you know, this is an apparition slash, like, you know, undead, you know, demon following her, but it never feels like you're like doing scary movie or something like that or you're like lampooning the fact that like, it wasn't funny that like sometimes like these things walk, but that they always catch up to the victim. And I was curious whether or not you guys spent much time talking about horror movie touchstones in terms of things that you wanted to reference or whether it was kind of putting aside all of those references and trying to like, live this stuff in a much more organic way. I mean, I think Andy just got it. Like, you know, he knew we all love Halloween and all those slasher ways, but especially Halloween. And so I think he just understood it. And so we know we would talk more about the character. And, and I, we had a conversation about tone and, you know, not wanting to scary to feel silly, but that I would say back your baggage or old baggage, I should know the names of the episodes. But I feel like it was the closest to kind of pushing it. Like just in script, like it was, I usually am like, really start about like this scary, can ever feel silly. And that one was towing the line a little more, you know, that I would usually like, but it just felt like we weren't going to redo the genre out that's been done. But we weren't going to come up with this brand new horror element to that franchise. So we might as well have fun of it. And the fun is this 40 year old woman running around the neighborhood, trying to get people to see that this boogeyman is stalking her. I want to ask about, um, about Matthew Reese as a collaborator. He is as a former guest in this podcast. We can attest that he is one of the most delightful people we've ever met in person. And is like a truce with Army knife of abilities because he can be the funniest person and he can be the most emotionally vulnerable actor alive. Going through the season with him, writing and directing, what was the collaboration like in terms of keeping him anchored to where Tom needed to be as both the protagonist as both in many ways the like the audience surrogate of like, I don't think something bad is happening here. What did he need to stay grounded in a character that, uh, that needed to play so many different notes throughout the course of the season? I mean, I don't think he needed a lot. He's just very good. He's just really good at acting. He's looking really good at. Yeah, honestly, like, I think he had like a couple of questions, you know? When's lunch? Could I write a horse this season? Yeah, I think there was some discussion on his backstory. And there was like a couple of like logic things he asked that I was like, Goddamn it, he's right and then fixed, you know, but like, um, but he really is just a very good actor. He's just very good. And I think he's also just a very naturally funny person. And maybe he hasn't had a chance to play with that as much. And so he was excited at the prospect. Yeah. And I think when we first started talking, we all kind of, you know, we zoom together. And I only know him as, you know, uh, Perry Mason and, and the Americans. I was expecting like a very deadly, serious, somber man. And he was just a joy, you know, as he was, you met, uh, and I think we just all kind of agreed that like, okay, the way to approach this is going to be, find the real emotional with kind of truth of it all. And then all the comedy and horror stuff can sit on top of it. Um, and after that, he was just like, okay, I understand. And we just kind of got through all season, I was just putting him through all these crazy scenarios and finding the reality inside of it. That, that, that was like the cast was like the easiest part. Do you mean, like, they're just, it was really not a lot of questions. They would just show up and do incredible work. I mean, I'm sure you're giving direction. Am I really, but, um, they're just in terms of, I don't know. I just, there wasn't a lot of, I don't know. It was, that could have made this very hard. Yeah, it was one of the easier parts. They were all delightful and just fantastic. I do remember when we shot the finale where he had like, you know, like 15 pages of like just the most crazy dramatic scenes with Ruth, uh, he pulled me aside and I was like, I signed up for a comedy. And this is the most dramatic acting I've ever done. Well, that's like, that's a good way to get into the finale and to the sort of last run of episodes because, you know, Andy was asking you guys about breaking story and about about playing my sitcom roles versus maybe playing by a more new found prestige TV roles. But I thought it was amazing how much you gave in the finale in terms of like, here's where this could go. Here's what else is happening. We've got the, the film strip that that Jeff Miller is watching. And, um, obviously the whatever is in, in that basement and that dungeon, um, can you talk to me a little bit about where you wanted to end up in terms of, I want to give this season a satisfying conclusion versus I want to save stuff for future story that we're going to be telling. I'm a big fan of just giving as much as possible and then deciding what the next season is. I mean, just going as long as you have, I'm not trying to drag this out or, you know, 20 years. I mean, because I think there's more you could do in this world that is beyond the story. But anyways, I guess, um, I just wanted to give as much as possible. But I did, I knew there was going to be probably a season two. I mean, I didn't know it. We didn't know it until recently. - Thank you, congratulations. - Thank you. So I don't know, I knew going into the writer's room the final dilemma that Loftus was going to have presented to him and I knew he was going to find out about his son and how exactly that was going to play out that was discussed a lot in the room and it was really fun because I didn't know it was interesting I had people pedra like some writers that were like oh I would grab the gun and drive to our house and shoot her in the back of the head. Some people were like nope I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I was completely wrong on who would do what. So it was a really fun time debating that and so yeah it was just a lot of arguments and then someone else had pitched the bishier move and so once we knew that was going to happen then we started working backwards to try to make sure you can buy that as much as possible that a man would be pushed to the brink like that and who in the writers room pushed for the line but he got bit by an animal and became that animal. Oh god I wish I could remember. I think we should throw a parade for that person. I know this is where my this is my brain is. I paused and rewound four or five times. It's my call my daughter in from the other room and I was like this is everything to me. This is so perfect. It's a liver. Check-offs jokes or check-offs throwaways we're like I guess now we have to have a guy who got bit by an animal and became that animal. I mean some of these some of these like you could absolutely do an app. I like that some of these things are meant to be thrown away and never revisited and then some they would be like oh no there could be a whole episode about that you know. Yeah so I don't know that's exciting. Speaking about old school television the thing that we have been delighted to observe and hear about and read in the news is that like it does sound like for as much as we have any access to these opaque streaming metrics that your show is a phenomenon in the sense that apparently it is just growing week to week to week and the audience is finding it in a way that is exciting as a fan of the medium like that's something that people used to happen and now really only happens in the bear and the pit and maybe widow's Bay. What has this 10-week journey been like for you guys of having this weird thing that especially for you Katie this weird thing that has lived in your head for so long and suddenly sharing it and finding that maybe other people also like weird things living in their heads. Yeah it's really wild you know because I remember just a couple months ago I would like look online to see if there's any chatter about it and be absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm like well it's it's crazy to work so hard on something for so long and then you have to be okay with no one seeing it or or no one liking it like if you're doing it just to try to make something that people absolutely like that's I think how you end up with something more formulaic or expected so I really had no idea even though I knew I was really proud of the work I thought everyone just did such incredible jobs on this show like I just really like I'm always blown away by the what everyone brought whether it's the directing or the cast or props or the VFX like the score but you just don't know and I was just I honestly up until the night before reviews started coming out I'm like well let's see what this is going to feel like because it could be a real bad you just don't know you just don't know which whose coastline meant the most to you because I think we have like Stephen King was tweeting about it you got the rare Tim Cook tweet recently which I didn't know he knew he had a television studio so that was very excited. You care about that Toro? You care about Del Toro? Yeah. Yeah. Did you care about Del Toro when was really thrilling because I had from a horror director. Yeah yeah. You know what I mean like yeah because I have like been in comedy for a long time so a horror director to like say that about the horror in the show. And specifically call out the horror aspect was like really exciting. That was shocking but not I mean that's on the series of it was I was delighted and surprised. I will say like to you know speak on Katie like I think as we were making it like every sort of craft person or department had kind of coming in I could tell that they were invested in the world the show that is like pretty rare you know and I think it just speaks to the world that Katie initially sort of crafted like this is you know it's pretty rare like the set deck people were like they had lists of what every worker at the town hall would have in their desk. You can tell. You know what I mean like they had the specificity and the dressing at Ruth's house was like it was like a very personal to the set that's like they it was like they were pulling from their own like it relationships to their moms and aunts and then you know just from that error point killed me I guess all that is to say like I you know who knows how shows hit in the world but I could tell that people really liked investing themselves into that world you know. Why do you think you've now been a part of two shows that have done this so successfully you've done also other brilliant work I'm not trying to shit on Patrick Somerville for example but in cases in listening I know I kind of want that no but specifically in the case of Atlanta and with widow's bay I just feel the evidence of something was the best advice I ever got which is that a pilot script is a wonderful thing that opens a door and then you have to unlock it and let everyone else come into it and bring their enthusiasm and that's so that's when things can elevate when everybody is rowing in the same direction with that same spirit that brought you to your laptop however many years ago it was yeah here having worked with two creators who have been able to communicate that what is this secret sauce I mean it's sort of a crapshoot a little bit but you know I think it is it does feel sometimes like a chemistry test you know what I mean like you're kind of like I think good ideas have its own sort of like gravitational pull and I think people are drawn to it and they want to make something inside of it yeah and so like I think obviously you have to walk in with a good idea but then if you let the right people in the room I think a TV show starts to kind of take on its own life you know and and I think it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts and and I think I've watched that with Atlanta I watched out with this and I think it's I don't know it's magical every time you know what I mean like you watch it after that you cast sort of like oh that you're that person now like you're not you know and I mean you were someone on the page and now you're just this sort of full person that I like watching and so that was a you know that was an experience of making this show in a lot of ways does the passion people have obviously you know expressed for the show make not writing season two more difficult but like do you think about things like oh I want to expand this and and and and widen the palette of characters because the one one of my favorite parts about this season is there's this you know five some six some of people who understand what's happening and then everybody else is kind of like well am I going to have any vacancies at my in or like how are we going to make it through through the summer season like do you think that the interest in the show has changed the way you're approaching it creatively at all? Not really I mean it's helpful to know that I'm I'm happy to know that people like the monster or the week episodes and so you know would love to keep that feel alive and even though we can keep going deeper into the lore and exploring different character stories but I'm basically going to go back to the jersey shore next week and I'm just going to lock myself up in this little condo and I'm going to go to the there's a I found a new haunted house on another boardwalk nice amazing I'm going to get soft serve ice cream every day I will come back a different person and your brush tees and then and then go into the writer's room and this is like the this is the part that's fun that you know you can just imagine anything and then it's and then it's hard and then it's very hard I noted with interest that Damon Lindelof is a huge fan and if you ever need advice about creating a show that has a mysterious island full of questions that become as very very popular very very quickly you could probably reach out to him that there is some precedent there he has offered that which was very nice actually which is very nice you could do an instructional video and send it to you on reels last thing since I have you Katie I feel like we were just talking about how wonderful two of the great pillars of modern television are Atlanta and and that would os Bay in a different medium Katie there by my estimation there have only ever been two good tweets one is was the drink there oh yeah that's a great one the other one was your boba Duke Halloween party tweet it is actually kind of amazing to watch people's face light up when I try to explain like in the early days of like you have to watch would os Bay and I'm naming things associated with it and I say no it's the it's the woman who did the boba yeah that might actually be like great viral marketing it's kind of incredible could could you I don't want to send you even further back in the past but could you just tell us a little bit about the life and afterlife of that tweet you mean like how the how it came to be how I came to be sitting there or I don't honestly we could just close our laptops and just let the cameras run whatever you'd like to share oh okay I I Halloween I take very seriously clearly yeah I think that's obvious and so I wanted to be the boba Duke you know as one would sure I went to like a salvation army and got like the coat in the hat I really lucked I struck out I mean I mean I said what's the opposite of struck out oh right thank you and then I put a lot of the makeup on I feel like I put the white makeup on more than needed to be like you know to me like arms that weren't shown and then first time my boyfriend was watching TV and I stood outside that window and waited for him to notice me and so I got a little scared there was excited about that. He did notice. He did finally notice. How long? It took a long time. It took a very long time. And then we drove to my friend's house who's having his party and I, you know, I had a friend said that he was dressing up as the soprano's character, but it was just wearing a track suit so it doesn't count. And, you know, I was dressed up. And so also, I, I just, it looked, it looked worse than it even is in the photo because when I smiled my red wine teeth, it was terrifying looking. I was talking to my friend, like, Jessie who took the photo and I was trying to tell her a story and she was like, I'm sorry, I just can't talk to her right now. It was like wander off of her drink. So, um, that was that night. And then I didn't, I put the treat up like, yeah, later that year. And, uh, it was fun. I feel like it really seemed to resonate with people. It was a throwback Thursday. It was a date. So, yeah, so I did have to explain that to my children. So again, it's, it's teaching. It's a teaching moment. Yeah. But I do think jokes aside, like everything that we've just talked about in this beautiful show is kind of in that. Yeah. You remember, you didn't know that I was in that tweet until after we started working together. I remember, yeah, I was so starstruck. So I was like, you're the bad guy. It's, it's incredible. I personally think Apple should have given you any overall you wanted for that tweet. Oh, that's nice. But if it took this show, then okay, I'll take that too. Um, congratulations. You both. It's such a joy and hopefully we'll get to talk about it again in the future. Thanks for having us. Imagine setting your makeup. Then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. 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