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Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me in the studio, foiled again by Cashew Cheese. It's Andy Greenwood.
I'm glad you mentioned the Cashew Cheese. I would also like to say Chris, before we get into this wonderful recording, where we'll be talking about television shows. Yeah, Paradise, The Pit. Sorry, what?
We're very far away. I wanted to say, well, it's for people who aren't watching us on video, we are sitting like Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale in the original Tim Burton Batman that they didn't see. You are very far from me. But who is who here in this scenario?
I'm always Vicki Vale. Greenwood, great to see you, man. It's, you're here in this on Thursday in the early evening on the West Coast or later at night on the East Coast because we wanted to be able to talk about a pretty big new episode of The Pit that we just have just gone up on Thursday. Today, we're also going to talk about just the phenomenon, the rocket ship, the EMP blast that is Paradise.
I'm really glad we stuck with it. I'm really glad we stuck with it as well. We had gotten a lot of messages being like, hey, it seems like you guys quit this show, episode seven, episode seven, episode seven. And I got to say the streets were right.
The streets were right. We're going to talk about the end of the first season of Paradise, but how are you? I'm good. I also wanted to, I mean, I didn't run this by CT and Kaya beforehand, but like, I did want to debut something new for the video listeners and viewers, where if you say something I disagree with, I'm just going to hold up a sign that says false, because I feel like that's the best way to show dissent.
Do you think it's going to work? You didn't watch. You don't know how effective the protests were last night. Oh, did it work?
Are we good? He's become moderate. We should say to our listeners that we are entering a new phase of our relationship. It's not new.
You haven't read the news in like three years. You keep saying like, here's my new plan, is I'm not going to read the news. And I'm like, yeah, did you see what happened? Like, well, because you can't quit telling me.
That's the thing. I don't, kids. I want to know. I want to know how it's going to go out.
Yeah, but when the lights go off, yeah. Also, I have lots more free time to fill. I don't have to worry about like, oh, this is kid, get to get to soccer. It's like, no, I'll read the guardians.
Do you think my kids play soccer? But do you think they are in Trump's America? That's true. Yeah, they get moving.
Yeah. No, the soccer is a European game. Oh, that's right. Yeah.
Come on. That's right. You wanted to chat briefly about the late gene hacking. Oh, I just felt like we so generally, I would give ourselves, you know, I think genuinely we do a good, a pretty good job.
We do a fine job on this podcast. I do think that due to my massive smothering, open head Adam Scott in severance in the kitchen surgery state of jet lag the other day, that I did just completely forget the four things I want to talk to you about regarding the Oscars. You may have missed it because you don't look at the new Oscars. You know the Oscars were on?
Yeah. I did want to I mean, there's a couple of things that's been nesting all of points here. One was just the immemorial segment in general. Number one.
Yeah. And some. I wanted to make an apology on behalf of the watch on behalf of CT and Kaya. Yeah.
Who both they don't deserve to be tarred with the same brushes us. But Andy and I were like talking about the memorials. This is one of my rhinos. And we're like, what is with this music?
This music sucks. Yeah. And I was just like, well, I was more saying, like, I think I know this song, but I don't think it's appropriately like it's like, you want to have darkness. But like at the end, you're like, but we're all going to have it.
It's uplift. Yeah. Right. And the requiem that they were playing during the immemorial segment on the Oscars, I thought was just a little brooding.
It's not one of your top five requiem. So on behalf of Andy and I, I would like to apologize to the estate of Wolfgang Emma Dayas Mozart. Do you think he's in a public domain at this point? Emma Dayas.
That's a real Philly pronunciation. Emma Dayas. Emma Dayas, get your water ice. Yeah.
I used to get my bread from Salieri. So by that, we just missed probably one of Mozart. Wolfgang, Emma Roso Mozart. That one's probably high up on the Vicious Mozart playlist on Spotify.
And then Tobin's working first on the parapets. We can count on her. So let us know when we're wrong. But yes, the point remains that I thought it was a little over the top for an immemorial.
An immemorial that I also wanted to say was, and this is a weird way to phrase it, the most stacked ever. I know. It was devastating. I think it's more also that we are now seeing people that we grew up watching.
Yeah, yeah. Passaway, which is a very sad fact of life. But like, I think it's only going to get more on Canyas. We're like watching people that I was like, damn.
I knew him. Yeah, I saw many of your films in the theater from 17 to 37. Oh, it's true. Do you know what else does that to you?
When I was in London, I went to see a museum exhibition, really good at the National Portrait Gallery. And it was of the photography from the magazine, The Face. OK. So it was in the August halls of London's National Portrait Gallery.
And it was like, Justine Frischmann, Elastica, 1996. And everyone's like, oh, let's see. Elastica. It was really cool.
But it was also like, we were hanging out looking at these magazines and now it's in a museum. But so OK, so totally sacked. I thought it was pretty disappointing that there wasn't more for David Lynch. I thought this was just about it.
I think they could have done a David Lynch tribute. But in reality, like, as an alternative to the Bond thing. I was going to say, if two major figures of culture died, David Lynch and apparently James Bond. Well, he did die.
James, don't spoil that bad movie. That's been three years ago now. Also, boy, in a way, that title that movie was really like kind of a skull. Yes.
It was no time to die. And he was just like, so you never saw that one. I did see it. OK.
I saw it on an aeroplane. Just as Carrie Masters of the Air Fukunaga intended, right? He directed that right. He directed it.
Why did you do air quotes like they weren't really masters of the air? No, because didn't he also directed the first four or five that they didn't want to talk about that. Yeah, that's big apple didn't want you to know about that. That's what it said.
Directed by Carrie Fukunaga at the end of everyone. This is too manyness. OK. I did think that the sweetest tribute to David Lynch was that Isabella Russell and he brought Laura Dern as her date in War Blue Velvet.
That was beautiful. All of this was to say, the Gene Hackman news really was a gut punch, not because the passing away of a 95-year-old actor is necessarily that. I mean, the news has come out since. It's pretty shocking and bizarre and confusing.
But he had retired 20 years ago. And so the day was inevitably coming. But I just want to take him on the microphone to say, like, I think he's the greatest American actor. There you go.
Where does the second knockout? Thank you. Have other people in the news said something similar? Or am I really on the front edge of your culture?
You zagged. It reminded me of a few years ago, we did a thing where we were just, I don't know. When I say we did a thing, I sometimes can't tell if this is a podcast or just our life. But we were talking about how the iconic list of the greatest rock bands, it's almost always British bands.
And then it's like, well, what's the iconic greatest American rock band? And we kind of made a case for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Oh, yeah, we did that. That's kind of the Gene Hackman is the greatest American actor in the world.
That's a really great correlation. So completely, or comparison, of a cultural moment in terms of where he studied, who he worked with, but completely, sweet generis, and so absolutely, incontrovertibly him always. And just unique from when he came on screen as a performer with his abilities to do comedy and drama and menace and heart. But throughout his entire career, just looking at his filmography.
And I remember when the time that I was casting something and I was trying to cast a male lead, looking for someone who could be physical, but also funny. And we don't make actors like this. Yeah, I mean, he comes from a generation of actors like that Duval Pacino, Hoffman, the Nero, Ere, Cattell, sort of the later end of it, where the character actors were the stars. Yes.
And all those guys have the ability to be incredibly immersive or chameleonic and disappear into costume or accent or whatever. Like, there is a quality about them that is always like, you know, you can turn the dial on Hackman and have him be fourth or fifth down the call sheet, like he has in Reds, or carrying the entire film like he does in Night Moves, or whatever. I mean, yeah, or he can come in and do four or five scenes in Crimson Tide and blow it out of the water almost literally. Or he can just be incredibly funny in and on the joke in the bird cage.
So like, his Lex Luthor, is his Lex Luthor underrated or properly rated? Because he was famous. It's been a while since I've seen the Donner ones, but like, I think that history has really smiled upon that performance. Yeah, and those movies truly.
So you mentioned it. I think that my favorite Hackman is probably Night Moves, which is a 1975 mystery. Yeah, Arthur Penn, kind of in the vein of the kind of stuff we like to read, the Ross McDonald, John D. McDonald, kind of stuff.
He plays a guy named Harry Call who wears a sick leather jacket and drives around LA and then gets hired to investigate something that takes him to the Florida Keys. So it's like, we accepted this idea years before we were born. And it's real swampy and real grimy. And he's so good.
Because he's, again, he walks into a room and other characters are kind of afraid of him. This character used to be a football player. He has size. But in the first 10 minutes of the movie, he's also cuckolded.
And he looks so sad about it. He's just, there just aren't actors who can do that wide range of a performance. Yeah, I grew up with the 80s and 90s performances. So in my introduction to him was kind of cranky old man, like the firm and unforgivable.
He is, the firm is top five, maybe. Yeah, poor Hackman. That's a big part of the firm. It's true, it's true.
We talked about Hori Agman. And I went back and saw him in Crimson Tide or Night Moves and French Connection. Scarecrow. Scarecrow.
But he was always kind of a cranky old man, even in his younger days. A funny glide. Super cranky. Super cranky.
Yeah. I think also we talk about movie star era as the fact that he could be the lead in the conversation, which is a masterpiece. And then be in the 90s version of the conversation, enemy of the state. And still make sense in that world.
And then we did the rewatchables on Tenenbaum. We did the world Tenenbaum's one. Him doing Hackman doing Tenenbaum's. Apparently hating it, but giving one of the greatest performances of his career.
And maybe the perfect coda to his career. And then a year later doing Welcome to Moo's Sport with Ray Romano and then piecing out. It's kind of like the way I won't accept that the chief scored 22 points in the Super Bowl. Like that was a 40 to 6 game.
Yeah. So you think that Tenenbaum's is his last movie? Yes, Tenenbaum's is his last movie. And Welcome to Moo's Sport was Mahomes throwing two TDs against the backups in Garbage Time.
Did you think I was going to be able to bring it back to the Super Bowl? I feel like I listened to it. Do you want to get into Paradise in the Pit? Yeah, how do you want to do this?
Two shows to begin with P. That's one we're going to talk about. Paradise. OK.
Because I'll admit that after the second or third episode, I was like, this was a fun experiment for us. What did we say? We were like, it's actually bad. It was good bad.
And then it went bad bad bad. And I think there was something I was having an allergic reaction to the back lottiness of it, which I know is intentional given that we're going to spoil Paradise, by the way. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend you do watch it, though. And I highly recommend that even if you've only watched the first episode or very little of it, that you watched the seventh episode.
And I think people don't like it. Especially creators don't like it. We say things like this. But like if you are pressed for time, I think it's OK.
You can jump ahead. The show has been renewed. You're fine. You may miss some of the deep flashbacks about Agent Billy, but I think it'll be fine.
Yes, there is like a very soft middle to the first season that then gets really, really, really, really fun and in seven excellent. So seven is called the day. It is essentially, I wouldn't necessarily call it a real time. It feels real time.
Account of the hours before the evacuation of the White House and the arrival at the Colorado bunker. That's Samantha Redmond played by Julian Nicholson. AKA Sinatra. AKA Sinatra has built for the sort of the liberal elites.
I don't know if they're lips. But you know, like it's like the elites of Washington, the essential people who are going to continue or restart society in this underground bunker in Colorado. I would say more than it seems like it's run by like a billionaire oligarch, which is weird. Yeah, it didn't ring true.
And for the majority of the season, you're aware that some sort of catastrophe has taken place. And the world is presumed. Yeah, the world outside of the bunker is ruined. Right.
On the flashbacks to the flight that we have seen so far, I believe in the first episode, maybe at the end, we get a glimpse of it. We know that there is some sort of explosion because I think we see the white light of an explosion. And we know that Xavier Collins, who is Sterling K Brown's Secret Service agent, who is the protagonist of the show, is very mad at the president, James Marsden, A.K., Cal, A.K., A.W.L.T.C.T. We should have more A.K.As in our lives.
I mean, I got plenty. You just don't know about them. Do you really? Like when you're walking around the Ring of Office, what do they say?
Who's moving? I don't know. Spark Club. We find out that the events that led these people to the Colorado bunker were a volcano exploded in the Antarctic.
How quickly did you Google, are there really volcanoes in the Arctic? My attitude about these kinds of things is very similar to my attitude about flying in a plane, which is like, there's very little about it. I can control. Like, I can.
Like, why you're healthy. I can recycle, but there is a certain, you know, like. Do you think that's helping right now? Your yo-play container is going in the blue.
That's how I responded to Trump, sorting my trash. This will show. Good job. Sir, that is compostable.
This is an active resistance. Yeah. I paid $13 for these eggs, and they will go in my compost. So in a way, you're just investing.
And so there's a volcano in the Arctic causing a 300 foot wave, take that 100 foot wave. Yes, I was going to say, what are what that was like in Nazarete? To come out of the Southern Hemisphere traveling at 600 miles per hour, which leads to, it's preceded by an awesome sonic boom, which I did not know. Waves of that size produced.
And I would describe in a style, Glenn Ferracara and John Raccoa directed this. They directed much of, I think, much of, or several episodes of the first season. I think only the first two. And the last two.
The first two and the last. And the last two, yeah. The two blocks. Yes.
So these guys are actually put together, like, a very solid, very entertaining CV of stuff that they've directed. Crazy, stupid love, focus. You know, like, they are very sure hands. I would not have imagined that they would be the first choice for a bite your nails thriller, you know, like this.
But that is essentially what you get, which is like this countdown clock of the very last moment that the people in the White House can get out of the White House, get onto planes, fly to Colorado. They are trying to decide to what extent they need to notify the American public and the world public about what's coming. Obviously, some people around the world are starting to get that sense because large spots of it are being destroyed hour by hour. And we start to learn about it due to the breakdown of decorum on cable news.
Yes. And a lot of the TV news stuff is very cloverfield. It's like they are communicating a lot of exposition by doing these kind of stand-up shots. And there's a lot of like verite, it's very, very cool the way they kind of communicate a lot of this information.
I also did want to like just fact check. Like there is not fact check, but maybe just question. There's the one reporter for the CNN analog. Yes.
And it's like, I'm going to say doing a panel talk. No, not that guy. The one who's just like, I am coming to you live from Jakarta, Indonesia, minutes before a 300 foot tsunami wave arrives. And he's like, should you be there?
And she's like, don't worry. I've chosen to do my report from a balcony of a skyscraper. I was like, oh, yeah, should be fine. Should be fine.
Yeah, for her. Doesn't work out really for anyone. I would say that the great thing about this episode, among just the fact that it is a adrenaline rush. And it's so well done, is A, the sincerity with which they are like, they're treating their subject matter, which is pretty, you know, obviously sensational.
They're like, no, we're going to take this deadly, deadly seriously. I mean, very emo. And on top of that, every time you're like, we're twisted out. I'm wrong out.
Like there's nowhere else for us to go. They got to get on the plane and they got to go. They're like, what if we also had to deal with this? And what if we also had to deal with Xavier Collins's wife is stranded in Atlanta?
But can she get from Hart's Field Airport to an Air Force base in like the amount of time that she needs to get there to get evacuated? Anyone who has ever remotely aided a spouse navigating an airport really felt like that was more gripping. When he's like, steal a car, you have to. I feel like you've said that to be beautiful on occasion.
I don't know, man. This was a real lesson to me that like not A, not to give up on shows, but B, that certain episodes can just be so hot, head and shoulders above everything else that almost, I don't want to say like, redeemes like I'm giving it like, I'm like, oh, you've been redeemed? But it was like, this is incredible television. It was a really, really good episode of a show that also even within this episode stayed true to its bonafides, which is that it is bad shit insane.
Yes. I feel like any conversation about paradise must, as a caveat, the way they describe the side effects of drugs in commercial say that it is kookaburts. May, may, may cause vertigo. Yeah, seizures, like it is so crazy.
And I come here though, not to bury it for that, but to celebrate it. Because Chris, we used to be a nation of many things, laws, but also broadcast television and broadcast television. And we forget this through the haze of Netflix fees and things that broadcast TV, even the things we celebrated, really, really, really, really used to go for it. Go for it in very, very broad, sometimes comical ways.
And I don't know why this is the first example that came to my mind. It's 40 years old. But like, LA law, which was the prestige drama of the 80s in a lot of ways, along with St. Elsbury and Hill Street Blues.
I could bury it, man. But what's that? I can bury it. Do you like it?
Yes. So just name a character. Do you like Stumpfichwaab? Just like naming actors on LA law?
OK, Michael Tucker. Hamlin, let's go. Hey, Martinez, are we just going to do this? Who's the guy Benny?
Who's Benny the? That's where it's a bird, sir, right? No, no, no. Benny, wasn't there?
He was Arnie, right? Yeah, Arnie. No, there was a special needs guy that worked in the office, played by the guy who was the villain in Dark Man. His name was Benny.
Oh, OK. Oh, so I won. But winning feels terrible because he just looked at me like I'm crazy. OK, Dark Man.
Anyway, on LA law, when there was the dynamite played like Rosalind, who was like the badass super villain of the office for one season. And then she walked into an empty elevator, Chef. Oh, yeah. They were like your contracts up.
Guess what? But they were also like, yeah. Our story, our writers room goes to 11. And we will see what happens.
But we are not here to win awards or even be streaming or available on video. We are here to fucking go for it week after week. And Paradise has that baked into its insane DNA. I really, really respect it.
And sometimes when it hits hard, like it does with this episode where they're like, OK, in these 46 minutes, we are going to end life on Earth and do a TikTok of what? Not in the TikTok in the modern sense, but in a reported story kind of way of what it would be like for these people in this room. And have moments of makishness or unreality. Like when President Kal is like, takes a moment to talk to the guys sweeping up outside the office.
But what that gets us are these moments of sincerity and the moments of hysteria. And to the show's credit, it doesn't make anyone look particularly heroic, which I think is maybe that's the most modern thing about it. That's what I really liked about it. You mentioned the hysteria.
So my favorite part of the episode is when the president is given, he's recorded an address that is very like, it's a bit of a privilege. May God bless us. And hopefully tomorrow we'll begin to recover. And we'll be there.
America is shining right. And then he decides to take the tie off both literally and sort of linguistically. Well, it's Kal, so first he ties one on a little bit. He has a drink.
And then he's like, I need a cup of coffee, which is the best, you know, it's just kind of like a legal speedball. Yeah. And he says the globe and says, we're fucking dead. We are dead.
But before that, when he makes this decision and it's obvious to his immediate circle that he is going to now tell the truth about the imminent destruction of the world, Xavier's like, well, it's hot man, because it's about to get steamy up in the oval. Because he knows as soon as everybody figures out, the world is ending and this guy has actually got a place to go. I want on that plane. And it's going to get pretty, pretty ugly inside the oval.
So like the Secret Service agents are then asked to defend the president and in some cases, shoots civilians who are trying to get on this on this transport that's called the Versailles group, you know, of people who are like going to be transported and restart society. And that's when shit hits the fan. And it is it is pretty nice. And then even one of the Secret Service agents isn't invited.
Yeah. Your name's not a list dog. I kind of did like you have to guard the way I was like, from a wave like why? That could be flashbacks to like trying to see the MIA Secret show or something in 2003.
Like the fader. Look at the fader. Come on. I got to be on the list.
I was at the fader court. You were guarding the fader for it. That's right. Even after a stop by Southwest ended.
No, I think it's also when you have a if you'll allow it, apologies to the deceased, a tidal wave of a story show like this. Sometimes it just sweeps past really good ideas. But just by sweeping past them, it pays them some attention. What I mean is like it's what you just said, that like baked into this insane tempo of an episode.
The idea that like other things of other end of the world type stories or apocalyptic stories try to at least showcase the dignity and continuing to do your job or sweep up or guard even after you know, all hope is lost. Or even if it's a post-apocalyptic story and it's like the real the real evil came from within. Yes. It's like, oh, well, that's the breakdown the evil that men do, the Hobbesian, the Hobbesian piece.
But this is like it's already bad in the room before the wave even hits. Yeah. And there's and what dignity is there? Because you're dying anyway.
Yeah. I sort of appreciated that aspect of it. And so that episode was incredibly strong. I have a couple more notes to just pass along before we get to the finale.
OK, because that gets real weird. In this episode, Xavier sends most of it texting his wife during the end of the world, which I get. You want to make sure she gets the airport. But I was thinking about texting with you.
What in the world is going to end? Well, first of all, you'd be informing me. Well, first of all, I'd be like, guess what? Lioness is not coming back.
So news calling. But then I just feel like you would be sending me like, per this new 90s-esque indie jam. I'd be like, OK, but did you see this on Stereogum? This band's pretty good.
And you'd be like, yes, I've been listening to them for years and not telling you something. This is more wise. It's really it right now. That's a good record.
I would do that. I would also. You'd see the dots. And you'd be like, I bet my friend is composing his thoughts about a life well lived together in the trenches of podcasting and media.
And I was just looking for the right Palpatine gift. Just to make you just to make you just to make you. I'm hungry, well, just to make you a whole one last time. The only other thing is I can't remember which character says this.
But I think it's either the president. I think it's the president who says, I assume Nami moves fast, but fear moves faster. Yeah. And I have to say, I don't care if it was a tsunami.
I would just be that's my number one. You wouldn't worry about fear. Yeah. Fear is like fear is coming.
I think people are allowed to be afraid. I think people should be allowed to be allowed to freak out. Especially in low-lying areas. Yes.
Anything else on episode seven? No. Would you say contender for episode of the year? Well, how can you say?
It's only March. It's only March. I really, really like how hard the show goes. It's just like an episode like this in the current way that we seem to understand how to make television in this country would either be the first episode or the last episode of the third season.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like, fuck it. We got more.
We got more. We got more. We got more. We got more.
And so that you have an episode this crazy. And then the powers that be, in this case Dan Fogelman, is like, perfect. I've now cleared the room, cleared the air, and cleared most of the earth. So I can tell the story that motivates me most.
The surprising love story between a gruff foreman and a Senegalese worker dying of black lung. Yeah. Like, let's fucking go. Let's keep going.
The show is so free of the pomposity and the portentiousness of so much prestige TV of the last few years. Compare this to Zero Day, which is also ostensibly about a catastrophe in this country with a focus on the highest chambers of power. Mm-hmm. Did you ever finish Zero Day?
No, I've not. I read the recaps for the rest of it. I watched three and a half of them and then I read the recaps. Does it get real smart?
Does it get real good? Yeah, it gets so smart. It's so smart. God, it's so smart.
I love it. Oh, you're so smart, Zero Day. You're really reading the op-ed pages of the Failing New York Times. That's awesome.
But it's apples and oranges, except I can't do this metaphor. So the oranges are rancid? I don't know. The fact that they spend the finale mostly concentrating on a character who had been in the very, very, very far background.
He's so pleased with itself. And that he is not only the person who tried to do the attempted assassin of Cal the first time, that then he has sent to a Colorado Supermax prison just to the Kismit. He was. He's like, who would have thunk it?
I wind up in the Supermax. And if I can just work around my own escape, I'm right nearby the excavation site, the site of the town. And it's amazing. It's like one of the great, like, well, TV tropes.
Actually, I don't know if it's a TV trope. It's just one of the funniest things is when this guy who's, what's his name? Trent. Trent.
Trent. He has been posing as the librarian in his town. Fake Trent. False Trent.
It's been better. That's what it says on Wikipedia of false Trent. Oh, man. He kidnaps Xavier.
And he's like, ooh, finally I get to unburden myself with the truth about what I've done. And then just tells him his entire life story. Well, he's concuss. Yeah.
And I was just like, this is so great. This is awesome. This is better. Better or worse than current NFL concussion protocols.
Like when they go in the blue tent and false Trent is there to explain the plot of Paradise to you. And if you could follow him. And it's around his like, damn. Oh, that's really riveting.
You're like back in the game. The end of this episode, the end of this season, I guess it's worth noting that there is a woman named Jane who people remember from the beginning part of the season over the course is starts out as a Secret Service agent who is Xavier's protege and Billy's lover. And over the course of the season, it's revealed that she is not only a killer, like an outside hit man, more or less or an assassin, but that she is unwell, that she that she seems to have like a kind of a lecture thing going on. I wouldn't even.
She's a little sociopathic. And she is, you know, what they used to say about Elin Iverson, like 150 pounds soaking wet. Yeah. She's like 105 pounds soaking wet.
But she's a brutal guy. Because at the end of the episode, you guys do or don't care, like basically over the entire second half of the season, it's kind of a lost, you know, Jack versus Locke kind of thing where it's like Xavier and his people and some of the Secret Service agents and they get all the guns. Yeah. And then Samantha and the Brainiacs and the billionaires.
I like calling her by her. You're giving name. Okay. But you're going to confuse people.
They're going to fail. Cut your protocols. Sinatra. And it seems like Xavier has the upper hand until Sinatra who's been swearing that she's not a monster the entire season.
It's also just like this show is so unstoppable. It's unstoppable. It's like it's like it has some sort of food poisoning. It just keeps just keeps coming out of it.
And so the character who's behaving like a Bond villain says, oh, maybe I am a Bond villain. Like, okay, let's move on. That's just who you are for the purposes of the show. Yeah.
He's got his daughter has been kidnapped by a Sinatra. She's threatening to kill Presley and is like, you know, so you're going to do my bidding and yeah, Yana. And then Jane goes rogue. Yeah.
And is like, no, I am going to kill Presley. She's the one who's been dark. She says she did kill her because he's getting real mad, but then Jane pops into the room and shoots Sinatra in the one part of the sternum that doesn't kill you. That is remarkable.
She's bleeding out, but not all the way. That would make a cool YouTube video. Me and Angie shoot each other right here. What if it was narrated with that TikTok voice?
I took my two best friends to a room and I shot them both in the sternum to see how quickly they wouldn't die. I shot Chris first and he seems to be in discomfort and the blood is bubbling around his mouth and neck and he cannot speak, but he's promising me that he'll survive. My children only watch content with that voice. It ends with, like, I'll say, Xavier gets real mad.
He shoots two dudes, point blank at the forehead, but I guess everyone has different definitions of anger. Yeah. He winds up, you know, so Sinatra is incapacitated. Jane is still pretending to be on him.
Sorry, it's like you. Why am I recapping the show? You are sane washing the show. Okay.
In the spirit of the day, like, you have to understand that on this show, there's a massive pot, plot, plank, which is that in recreating society to the best of their ability, they recreate a classic neighborhood diner that serves that classic dish that sucks. Well, they don't have dairy. Do they not? They, I don't think they don't have dairy.
I think when they announce that the cheese is, can you believe it? It's cashew cheese, which barf, but they say they did that. I think it's like, you know, you can make a pretty decent cashew cheese out of this podcast. I'm just saying you can.
I mean, I can have it. You can make a pretty decent cashew puree, but just eat cheese or don't. That's my feeling. Okay.
Okay. Decent cashew cheese. I just watched a Trump's address. You weren't about the dairy farmers.
That was going on. Feed the cows. Feed the cashews. Feed the cashews.
The implication is that they've they've helped society so much, right, that they have made this somehow, you know, it's vegan. Yeah. That's the implication, not they didn't have dairy, but really it's all a misdirect to expose that the woman serving and snacking on the delicious cheese fries has a deadly nut allergy or so she should have. Yeah.
Right. Which if she was really real Trent's wife, instead of a woman eating junk food outside of it, we learn that because the town therapist breaks HIPAA and starts sharing all the confidential files with Robinson, the other secret service agent. There's just a lot of personal morality going on. Since you clearly have retained all the factual information of this show to a degree that I may have not.
Okay. The thing that I'm wondering if they've really dwelt on is when they were making the list, like, can you get into this? The first side list. The first side list.
Yeah. It seems like, correct me if I'm wrong, there are a lot of like high priority people, like the cabinet, friends and family of the president, the billionaires and their friends and family. I assume some crucial people who can do things like surgery, like doctors and scientists who might help repopulate the earth. But then there does seem to be a rather large chunk of the population that's just there to be like, be a bartender or be a waitress.
Now I think that's nice if it was done with an egalitarian spirit, like society needs all its members to contribute to the best of their abilities. I'm sort of wondering though if I was growing up the first time, which I never should have been allowed to do. No. I feel like...
You've been like Lane Johnson. I would say, why are you going to my kids? In that order? That...
Jai. All the other podcasts that we were going to. Van, the whole ringer verse really. Yeah.
That... Well, they're entertaining. You know, I find a way to get you in there. I'm a fan of this man.
False Trent. Welcome to the watch. I may agree about this. Long time before I get away with the fake librarian in your town.
Before you... This is one of my library where we only have loads of stuff and books about the fall of Saigon. You would let me make mixed CDs though. Yeah.
That would be a tell. I'll just stand behind you and be like, I actually heard these guys three years ago. I read that about the most stereo gum. I do think that every single person in the town should probably be a nuclear physicist who unfortunately has to be a bar back until needed.
They're really funny. Yeah. But like, I think everyone should be the elite of the elite, like the greatest, biggest-brained artists and like, like Neil deGrasse Tyson should be there if needed, but he's just selling ice cream in the park. You know what I mean?
That would probably be my way of doing it. I just want to ask you a question before we get off of Paradise. We've had the show and we've had Wayman. Then I think both...
We've got a lot of... Just real joy out of... Joy, yeah. Yeah.
What do you think it says about us that we're responding so... I don't know, not necessarily always positively, but excitedly to this kind of stuff instead of severance? Oh. Well, I was going to say, Malala, no, Malala.
Make America Laugh Again. I'm not a Los Angeles. I'm just trying to make it work. Because these shows are fucking crazy and they're entertaining.
And they are... I mean, one, they're making us laugh and giving us stuff to make each other laugh with. They are also triggering parts of our creative cerebral cortex that just aren't always engaged with. Like, it's not just about solving rational, reasonable, complicated puzzles.
It's also about just having a wild ride sometimes. And a healthy... Maybe we should change the watch of Mr. Toad's wild ride.
I love Mr. Toad's wild ride. You know what we should do? What we could do?
What would have been a good Tuesday column for me to have written to Grantland years ago? What would have been the healthy TV pyramid, like a food pyramid? How many servings of different things makes a healthy diet over the course of a week? Because it does affect...
We could just do that on the watch. Joanna and I were talking about doing it for just another project. We're working with our friend, the librarian. Called the pyramid, fake trend.
It's weird the way his bald spot keeps growing back in. It's fine. But you know what I mean? Because I do think it does affect one's mood if you are over-indexing one type of show over another.
Yeah, I don't know if there's anything else like severance on the air, though. No, no. I didn't mean to... I'm not going to drive by for me on this podcast.
We can love who we want to love. But I want to be clear, I don't think paradise is quote unquote good in the way that we talk about things being good or bad anymore. But I do think it is batch-in-facing. I think we're good.
And it's pretty entertaining. Yeah. And it's definitely got me thinking two times about tsunamis and waves. In the way that the white lotus didn't.
What are things you're thinking about too much? Well, I was just like, do I want to get to higher ground based on like, do I want to get... You mean for this podcast at Barack Obama's company? No, like live in like a mountain.
I don't like altitude. I don't like altitude. Let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about the pit. Alright, bud.
Here we are. Yep, we're back. We're going to do the pit. Do you have anything you'd like to discuss other than paradise and the pit?
I usually we save the stuff for the top of the show. No, I just... You know that I'm always... As established by the beginning of this podcast, I'm always just checking the transom.
Seeing what news are coming across my little ticker tape. And I did just see some pretty exciting news for you. This is a headline from Holly Reporter. Joe Russo says Robert Downey Jr.
is researching and quote writing backstory for his Dr. Doom role. Quote, he is so dialed in. Do you have to...
Was that mean reading comic books? Researching is so interesting. Can you imagine in the stacks? Do you think he's...
Where is Victor's from Hungarian? My family's from Hungary. I'm from Hungary. That's the one slight difference.
So you can't really do a lot of boots on the ground reporting from that. No, no, you fly direct to Sokovia and then you just dress out. That's fine. Is it actually a Jase to Sokovia?
It's the beautiful... A bit about this Marvel Balkans kind of thing. Lonely Planet for that region in the Marvel Universe. No, you're so credulous about this stuff.
There's a very sweet way. I feel like I could say anything right now, and you believe it. I don't know how you research the role other than read comics. What do you mean writing the backstory?
Unless they're just deviating from Canon. it's own thing. Aren't you glad that he's dialed in? No, you wouldn't want him to be phoning this performance in.
I've never really seen him not dialed. Like that's his whole thing is he's dialed. He's super dialed. I'm a, I just, I want the best for these guys.
We didn't talk about Daredevil. Oh yeah, we haven't, I haven't checked it out yet. Yeah, I think I'm curious to see what you think. I don't know if it's gonna be a big project for us.