Creator Eric Kripke on Ending ‘The Boys.’ Plus, ‘Top Chef’ Season 23, Episode 10 and ‘East of Eden’ Trailer.

May 14, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min · 13 segments

Andy and Kaya talk about the trailer for Netflix’s upcoming ‘East of Eden’ adaptation starring Florence Pugh (6:32), Jodie Comer being the lead of Damon Lindelof’s next HBO series (13:24), and the extended hiatus between seasons of ‘Ahsoka’ and ‘The Terminal List’ (16:48). Then they react to ‘Top Chef’ Season 23, Episode 10 (30:34). Later, Andy is joined by ‘The Boys’ series creator Eric Kripke to discuss what originally drew him to the material, writing that main character’s death in the penultimate episode, setting up ‘Vought Rising,’ what’s in store for the series finale, and more (45:26). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Email us! thewatch@spotify.com Host: Andy Greenwald Guests: Eric Kripke and Kaya McMullen Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Additional Video Supervision: Sarah Reddy Order and it will come. Like today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speakers: Andy GreenwaldHostEric KripkeGuestKaya McMullenHost

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Welcome and show setup1:35 – 3:19

Andy GreenwaldHost1:35

[tense music] I need support staff to clear the room.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:39

Stand up and walk, now.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:42

Hello, welcome to The Watch.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:44

My name is Andy Greenwald.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:45

I still have no official title at The Ringer.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:47

Uh, but I'm joined by someone who does.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:48

Kya McMullen, welcome back to the big chair.

Kaya McMullenHost1:51

I promise you we're, we're working on it still.

Kaya McMullenHost1:54

Maybe-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:55

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost1:55

... like three years from now? [laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost1:56

What do you think my title would be? Person Most Desiring Parking Validation.

Kaya McMullenHost2:02

Um, we love to call people a talk strategist lately, so like I think we could probably grab you one of those.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:07

What do you think my talk strategy is? Show up a little late-

Kaya McMullenHost2:09

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost2:10

... unprepared-

Kaya McMullenHost2:10

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost2:11

... talk a lot.

Kaya McMullenHost2:12

Watch, like three trailers before we get going.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:14

Just did.

Kaya McMullenHost2:15

Yep.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:16

Well, just to bring people up to speed, I have to sit in the big boy chair today.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:19

It's not very comfortable for me.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:20

I'm not wearing enough layers.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:21

I'm not wearing a hat.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:22

But, uh, Chris is continuing his drinking tour of the East Coast, and we miss him dearly.

Kaya McMullenHost2:27

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:27

But thank you for stepping up.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:29

We are gonna talk about a bunch of headlines, some new stuff.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:31

Uh, and then later in the show I will be joined by Eric Kripke, who is the showrunner and developer of the Amazon series The Boys.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:39

The Boys will be ending next week.

Kaya McMullenHost2:42

Wow.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:42

So we're talking to him in anticipation of the finale.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:45

We haven't actually done that interview yet, so I can't do that thing where I say what it's gonna be like.

Kaya McMullenHost2:48

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:48

But I think it's gonna be pretty good.

Kaya McMullenHost2:50

I think it'll be nice.

Andy GreenwaldHost2:51

And I will let people know, I intend to have the first part of the interview be generally spoiler-free, 'cause I am curious about what it's been like, uh, running the show essentially for a decade.

Kaya McMullenHost3:03

That's really-

Andy GreenwaldHost3:03

It was announced in 2016

Kaya McMullenHost3:04

... yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost3:05

I know.

Kaya McMullenHost3:05

I was gonna say.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:06

So-

Kaya McMullenHost3:06

That's really rare these days

Andy GreenwaldHost3:07

... it's so rare, and he has gone through so many permutations of not just the show, but of the industry itself.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:13

So we'll talk generally about that, and then we'll pivot into some more specific things.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:16

And Kya, I know that you wanted to join me for Top Chef talk.

NFL London trip brainstorm3:19 – 6:09

Kaya McMullenHost3:19

Yes.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:20

You've been sidelined from these quick-fires for too long.

Kaya McMullenHost3:22

I know.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:23

Um, so you-

Kaya McMullenHost3:23

I've made my way back from Last Chance Kitchen.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:26

You do.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:26

[laughs] You did, you're back on the big show, and now you have to handle dessert.

Kaya McMullenHost3:29

Great.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:29

Just like Rhoda.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:30

Okay, but the first thing that I really wanna talk about with you is, um, this might seem like an After Dark thing, but I promise it's not.

Kaya McMullenHost3:37

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:38

So this week, as I'm sure you know, um, the NFL schedule was announced.

Kaya McMullenHost3:42

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:42

I know you've been following this-

Kaya McMullenHost3:43

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost3:43

... very, very closely.

Kaya McMullenHost3:44

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:44

Uh, it was announced that my beloved Philadelphia Eagles will be playing in my beloved city of London-

Kaya McMullenHost3:49

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost3:49

... against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, October 11th.

Kaya McMullenHost3:52

Perfect time of year to go to London.

Andy GreenwaldHost3:54

That's kind of the time I'm always there.

Kaya McMullenHost3:56

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost3:56

But I don't know if I will be there this year, for any number of reasons.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:00

But here's what I want to say to you.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:01

I want to speak it into the universe.

Kaya McMullenHost4:02

Okay.

Kaya McMullenHost4:02

Let's do this.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:03

I think The Watch podcast needs to be boots on the ground for this event-

Kaya McMullenHost4:07

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost4:07

... one way or another.

Kaya McMullenHost4:07

Of course.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:08

I think we could talk culturally about this game.

Kaya McMullenHost4:12

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:12

I think that we could, I don't know, the Jacksonville part, maybe we talk about Jason Mendoza from Parks and Recr- no, I'm sorry, from The Good Place.

Kaya McMullenHost4:18

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost4:18

Like, that we could bring TV into it.

Kaya McMullenHost4:20

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:20

I'm pretty sure we could wrangle an invite to the Industry set.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:23

They will be filming the final season then.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:25

I think we could do it.

Kaya McMullenHost4:27

Two in one.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:27

Or at least I think Chris could do it, because he spoke-

Kaya McMullenHost4:29

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost4:29

... more consistently positively about the last season than I did.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:32

Shout out to the fellas.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:33

What's the third thing? What's the third heat that's gonna get us there?

Kaya McMullenHost4:37

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost4:37

And I'm not above asking people to email suggestions or to come up with boondoggles to get us there.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:42

What's the email address? I don't have access to this email account.

Kaya McMullenHost4:45

thewatch@spotify.com.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:47

These emails will be read.

Kaya McMullenHost4:49

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:50

Not by me.

Kaya McMullenHost4:50

No.

Andy GreenwaldHost4:51

So if you would like to continue, and I say you generally, the insane comments that people like to make about me, you can do that in the email safely.

Kaya McMullenHost4:59

Our email inbox is very positive, I will say.

Kaya McMullenHost5:03

We get some really-

Andy GreenwaldHost5:03

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost5:03

We get lots of thoughtful stuff.

Kaya McMullenHost5:05

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost5:05

But you also, you're the filter.

Kaya McMullenHost5:08

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:08

It's very nice.

Kaya McMullenHost5:08

Well, Chris and I.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:09

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost5:09

Chris and I filter.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:10

You guys protect me.

Kaya McMullenHost5:11

One thing I've always been curious about-

Andy GreenwaldHost5:13

Kaya McMullenHost5:13

... is why, why do we do, why do we play NFL games abroad?

Andy GreenwaldHost5:17

I think they are attempting to grow the game.

Kaya McMullenHost5:19

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:20

Um, and during my time there the last two years, when I would sort of see sad-faced, hungover slash on their way to getting drunk Jaguars or Titans fans wandering around Fitzrovia-

Kaya McMullenHost5:30

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost5:30

...

Andy GreenwaldHost5:30

I can't say that I felt like it was making a profound cultural impact, but they do it.

Kaya McMullenHost5:35

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:35

And they do it every year, and they've played games in Brazil and Germany and other, um-

Kaya McMullenHost5:39

The Fantasy Football Podcast went to Dublin last year.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:42

Which camera's on? The Fantasy Football Podcast went to Dublin, so why shouldn't-

Kaya McMullenHost5:45

So why, why not us?

Andy GreenwaldHost5:47

What's more fantasy football than this podcast?

Kaya McMullenHost5:49

When's the Pride and Prejudice adaptation going out?

Andy GreenwaldHost5:52

Ooh.

Kaya McMullenHost5:52

Can we make it this, like a threefer?

Andy GreenwaldHost5:54

I, we need a threefer.

Kaya McMullenHost5:55

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:55

We need a third thing.

Kaya McMullenHost5:56

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:57

So we'll do an event.

Andy GreenwaldHost5:59

We'll come to your business.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:00

I, I, I don't-

Kaya McMullenHost6:01

I don't know.

Kaya McMullenHost6:01

I don't know.

Kaya McMullenHost6:02

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost6:02

I don't even work here, so I will do anything, but let's get there.

Kaya McMullenHost6:05

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:05

Let's make that a goal.

Kaya McMullenHost6:06

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:07

And-

Kaya McMullenHost6:08

We're putting it out there now

Andy GreenwaldHost6:09

...

Pride & Prejudice chat and movie talk6:09 – 7:32

Andy GreenwaldHost6:09

I, so okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:10

So, so I wanna go to the, the game.

Kaya McMullenHost6:11

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:11

Chris wants to go to visit Industry, and you want to be-Pride and Prejudice adjacent

Kaya McMullenHost6:16

Yeah, I'd like to be on the ground just, you know, assessing

Andy GreenwaldHost6:19

So this is the Netflix series.

Kaya McMullenHost6:21

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:21

Um, we don't have a new release date for that, do we?

Kaya McMullenHost6:23

It's supposed to be this year, so I feel good.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:25

Late 2026.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:26

I think you might be right about this.

Kaya McMullenHost6:27

That, that feels good for an October release for me.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:30

What are your Pride and Prejudice power rankings?

Kaya McMullenHost6:33

Um... [laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost6:34

Like, what's the definitive for you?

Kaya McMullenHost6:35

I mean, probably the movie.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:36

The tw- the 2005 movie?

Kaya McMullenHost6:37

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:39

I- I've said it before, it's the number one draft pick for movie night in my house, and the-

Kaya McMullenHost6:43

And I've said it before, your daughters have great taste.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:45

Great taste, but it's impenetrable because I was like, "Look, there's a new series coming out." No interest.

Kaya McMullenHost6:51

Hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:51

Absolute no interest.

Kaya McMullenHost6:53

Huh.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:53

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:54

And in fact, like, I can't even be like, "Look, there's your beloved Mr. Darcy.

Andy GreenwaldHost6:57

He's starring in The Miniature Wife."

Kaya McMullenHost6:59

[laughs] Well, I think that's fine.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:01

Yeah, no interest.

Kaya McMullenHost7:02

Who do you think would have to be in the Pride and Prejudice adaptation for them to be like, "Yes"?

Andy GreenwaldHost7:07

Sabrina Carpenter.

Kaya McMullenHost7:08

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:09

Do you think we could squeeze her in there? She's not too tall.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:12

Could probably fit her in.

Kaya McMullenHost7:12

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost7:13

Okay, so-

Kaya McMullenHost7:13

Did your daughters go and see The Devil Wears Prada 2?

Andy GreenwaldHost7:16

They did.

Kaya McMullenHost7:17

And?

Andy GreenwaldHost7:18

Th- I think their review was perfect.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:20

Everyone looked great.

Kaya McMullenHost7:21

Okay.

Kaya McMullenHost7:21

Well, I'm gonna go see it this weekend, so.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:23

That, they did not advocate strongly for the plot.

Kaya McMullenHost7:26

That's fine.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:27

But they thought everyone looked great.

Kaya McMullenHost7:28

And I mean, really-

Andy GreenwaldHost7:29

And I was like, "You, you really understand the assignment."

Kaya McMullenHost7:31

[laughs] Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:31

You know what I mean? They get it.

Netflix’s prestige push and East of Eden trailer7:32 – 12:52

Andy GreenwaldHost7:32

The next point of business, you brought this to my attention, is that Netflix, um, which really is suddenly in the prestige business here, dropped the trailer for this long-gestating miniseries adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden.

Kaya McMullenHost7:44

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:45

Uh, this is notable because, I mean, notable for a number of reasons.

Andy GreenwaldHost7:49

One reason was I really feel like this has been in development for half a decade-

Kaya McMullenHost7:52

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost7:52

... for numerous different outlets.

Kaya McMullenHost7:54

And I feel like there's been multiple East of E- wasn't there just a Jude Law East of something?

Andy GreenwaldHost7:59

That I don't know.

Kaya McMullenHost8:00

Hold on.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:01

Are we in the Steinbeck-sans? What makes this interesting, there are many things that are interesting about this, the cast is bananas.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:06

Um, and we'll get to them, but Zoe Kazan directed this, uh, wrote and directed this.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:12

And famously her grandfather-

Kaya McMullenHost8:14

Yes

Andy GreenwaldHost8:14

...

Andy GreenwaldHost8:14

Elia Kazan, Hollywood legend, directed the 1950s film that James Dean starred in.

Kaya McMullenHost8:19

Right.

Kaya McMullenHost8:19

And the Jude Law property I was thinking about was just a movie titled Eden.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:23

Oh.

Kaya McMullenHost8:24

So we have an Edenverse.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:25

Do you think they're related?

Kaya McMullenHost8:26

Nope, not at all.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:27

This one is just slightly to the east.

Kaya McMullenHost8:28

A group of disillusioned Europeans settle on a remote uninhabited island in the Galapagos.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:33

That was the Ron Howard sex movie.

Kaya McMullenHost8:36

[laughs] Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:37

And it did about as well as a Ron Howard sex movie would be expected to do.

Kaya McMullenHost8:41

Oh, Sydney Sweeney was in this one.

Andy GreenwaldHost8:43

My favorite television actress.

Kaya McMullenHost8:45

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost8:45

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost8:45

So this, so what did you think of this trailer? This is bananas cast: Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, uh, Hoon Lee, who is the best thing about Your Friends and Neighbors week to week, uh, Kieran Hines, Martha Plimpton, and official friend of the pod Tracy Letts.

Kaya McMullenHost9:00

Dark.

Kaya McMullenHost9:01

Quite dark.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:02

Yeah, you feel dark.

Kaya McMullenHost9:02

Like-

Andy GreenwaldHost9:02

You have dark feelings?

Kaya McMullenHost9:03

... no, like the light, the lighting was dark.

Kaya McMullenHost9:07

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost9:07

[laughs] Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:07

Yeah, like everything these days.

Kaya McMullenHost9:09

Um, so I have not read East of Eden.

Kaya McMullenHost9:13

Um, I read other Steinbeck properties-

Andy GreenwaldHost9:16

Hmm

Kaya McMullenHost9:16

... um, in high school.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:17

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost9:18

Um, but I mean, I love Florence Pugh, and I would really follow her anywhere at this point.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:23

I would say that this is not how I remember the book-

Kaya McMullenHost9:26

Okay

Andy GreenwaldHost9:26

... or the film.

Kaya McMullenHost9:26

That's what people are saying online, 'cause apparently Florence Pugh's character is, um, basically evil personified, and in this they are kind of girl bossing here.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:35

Yes.

Kaya McMullenHost9:36

What you, is what you said?

Andy GreenwaldHost9:37

I did say.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:38

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost9:38

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost9:38

I did say.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:39

Um, I mean, first of all, I think it's important if you're going to be redoing something you should have a different slant, and you should have a new angle-

Kaya McMullenHost9:46

Sure.

Kaya McMullenHost9:46

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost9:46

... a new entry into it.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:47

Um, I do think that it's interesting that in order to film a novel set famously in Steinbeck's-

Kaya McMullenHost9:53

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost9:53

... beloved Northern California setting, they have gone-

Kaya McMullenHost9:56

Central.

Kaya McMullenHost9:56

Central California

Andy GreenwaldHost9:56

...

Andy GreenwaldHost9:56

Central Valley.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:57

I'm sorry.

Kaya McMullenHost9:57

Yes.

Andy GreenwaldHost9:57

For me, it's northern.

Kaya McMullenHost9:58

I-

Andy GreenwaldHost9:58

I just live down here

Kaya McMullenHost9:59

... everything above Ojai for you is northern.

Kaya McMullenHost10:01

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost10:01

Literally.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:02

That's really true.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:02

But you, you're actually above the Central Valley.

Kaya McMullenHost10:05

Yes.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:05

I'd like to apologize to you and to our future governor, Chad Bianco, for that slip-up.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:10

I think, uh, they filmed the s-

Kaya McMullenHost10:11

Who's Chad Bianco?

Andy GreenwaldHost10:12

Isn't he the sheriff who's running for governor?

Kaya McMullenHost10:15

There's so many people running for governor.

Kaya McMullenHost10:17

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost10:17

Listen, could we do a California politics podcast instead?

Kaya McMullenHost10:20

Anytime.

Kaya McMullenHost10:21

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost10:21

I'd really like to.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:22

I am disgusted.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:24

Uh, anyway, they've chose to shoot this entire thing quite east of Eden-

Kaya McMullenHost10:29

Yes

Andy GreenwaldHost10:29

...

Andy GreenwaldHost10:29

in New Zealand.

Kaya McMullenHost10:30

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:30

And so when they are looking, when, when Cal, uh, and Cathy are looking out over the landscape of America, they are in fact looking out over where the hobbits live-

Kaya McMullenHost10:40

Hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost10:41

...

Andy GreenwaldHost10:41

in the Shire.

Kaya McMullenHost10:41

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost10:42

Um, but-

Kaya McMullenHost10:44

Which I feel like is a bummer because Steinbeck is so, especially that area-

Andy GreenwaldHost10:50

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost10:50

... like Salinas, Lake Valley, Central California, it's so, like it's basically a character-

Andy GreenwaldHost10:57

It is

Kaya McMullenHost10:57

...

Kaya McMullenHost10:57

in the books.

Kaya McMullenHost10:58

And would be nice for it to be a character in the show.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:02

Do you think is the argument that that Steinbeck's California no longer exists? That's also Matt Mahan, the mayor of Sacramento's whole campaign argument, I believe.

Kaya McMullenHost11:11

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:11

Bring back Steinbeck, so that you have to sort of create it in fantasy and in aggregate, and also within tax breaks.

Kaya McMullenHost11:17

Yeah, but I mean, that just like, that trailer, like nothing about it...

Kaya McMullenHost11:22

Like I, you can recreate California in other locations.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:27

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost11:27

And I, we've seen it done many a time.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:29

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost11:30

That trail- nothing about that trailer screams that area to me.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:34

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost11:34

Um, I've made, I, my parents live right above, um, the, above Salinas, like 30 minutes out.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:41

Do they?

Kaya McMullenHost11:42

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost11:42

So I make that drive, like quite frequently-

Andy GreenwaldHost11:45

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost11:45

... um, between LA and, uh, like Northern California.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:50

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost11:50

Take the 101.

Kaya McMullenHost11:51

It's a lovely drive.

Kaya McMullenHost11:53

Um, yeah, nothing, nothing about that trailer screamed-

Andy GreenwaldHost11:56

Brought, brought that back to you.

Kaya McMullenHost11:57

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost11:58

I am interested in this for man- number of reasons, but mainly as Netflix's back to prestige play.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:04

It, it's interesting because there's this project, Pride and Prejudice, which we didn't even intend to mention, and then just knowing behind the scenes, like them maneuvering for big literary novels to try to get ahold of those adaptations, that it does seem like a return to what they were doing 10 years ago.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:21

It did seem like there was a moment when Netflix was like, "Why would we even be in this marketplace?"

Kaya McMullenHost12:25

Right.

Kaya McMullenHost12:25

Well-

Andy GreenwaldHost12:25

"We don't need to do prestige"

Kaya McMullenHost12:26

... gourmet cheeseburger.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:27

The gourmet cheeseburger.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:28

Why do we need to serve steaks?

Kaya McMullenHost12:29

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:29

Suddenly they're back in the steak business, which-Made the potential Warner Brothers deal more interesting because then they would just be buying the, um-

Kaya McMullenHost12:39

[clears throat]

Andy GreenwaldHost12:39

...

Andy GreenwaldHost12:39

in this case Peter Luger.

Kaya McMullenHost12:41

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:41

Sorry, I'm losing the steak metaphor, but it seemed like they would be buying the thing that they were trying, the, the space they were trying to get back into with HBO.

Kaya McMullenHost12:48

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:49

That didn't happen, so now they're-

Kaya McMullenHost12:50

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost12:50

... making their own HBO shows.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:51

So we'll see.

Looney Tunes revival and studio moves12:52 – 14:25

Andy GreenwaldHost12:52

Um, speaking of Warner Brothers, two other small bullet points for you.

Andy GreenwaldHost12:56

One, my favorite headline of the, the day in the trades was Warner Brothers Pam Abdy, half of their, um, record-breaking at the box office film team emphasizes, quote, "Commitment to bringing Looney Tunes back to the screen." Who said we can't do things in America anymore?

Kaya McMullenHost13:14

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost13:14

I genuinely need to ask you this, Kai-

Kaya McMullenHost13:16

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost13:16

... as our news correspondent.

Kaya McMullenHost13:17

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:18

Does Looney Tunes mean anything to you? Do you care?

Kaya McMullenHost13:20

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost13:21

I loved Looney Tunes-

Andy GreenwaldHost13:21

Okay

Kaya McMullenHost13:22

... as a child.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:22

All right.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:23

Good.

Kaya McMullenHost13:23

And I'm sure future generations of children will also enjoy some Looney Tunes.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:27

Well, they won't unless Pam Abdy gets her butt in gear and brings Daffy Duck back to the big screen.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:32

I do-

Kaya McMullenHost13:33

Well, there's the Will Forte, uh-

Andy GreenwaldHost13:34

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost13:35

... yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:35

Coyote vs. Acme.

Kaya McMullenHost13:36

Isn't that, is that not Looney Tunes?

Andy GreenwaldHost13:38

It is, but-

Kaya McMullenHost13:38

Is that not in the Looney Tunesverse?

Andy GreenwaldHost13:40

I believe it is in the larger Looney Tunesverse, but wasn't that canceled?

Kaya McMullenHost13:44

Yes.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:44

And now they're bringing it back.

Kaya McMullenHost13:45

Canned, but now apparently Pam Abdy's is-

Andy GreenwaldHost13:48

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost13:48

I mean, it-

Andy GreenwaldHost13:49

Renewing her commitment?

Kaya McMullenHost13:50

There's a read- there's a movie that's already made for you.

Andy GreenwaldHost13:53

Do you think that this is connected? You know how, um, one of the reasons why the Ellisons w- were able to do Paramount was that they promised Trump and Brett Ratner they could make-

Kaya McMullenHost14:02

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost14:03

...

Andy GreenwaldHost14:03

they would make Rush Hour 4?

Kaya McMullenHost14:04

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost14:04

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost14:04

[laughs] Do you think that, like, he wants to bring, someone in the administration wants Foghorn Leghorn back on the big screen to, like, show us how it's done?

Kaya McMullenHost14:11

I would not.

Kaya McMullenHost14:12

[laughs] Um, at this point-

Andy GreenwaldHost14:13

I wouldn't be surprised.

Kaya McMullenHost14:14

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost14:15

Great.

Kaya McMullenHost14:15

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost14:15

Great.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:15

Great.

Kaya McMullenHost14:15

Great.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:16

Great news.

Kaya McMullenHost14:16

Great.

Kaya McMullenHost14:17

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost14:17

This is another thing you could put on the list of things I will be excited to share with my children that they will have no interest in.

Kaya McMullenHost14:22

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost14:23

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:23

But, um, I look forward to that.

Damon Lindelof’s The Chain and Jodie Comer14:25 – 17:46

Andy GreenwaldHost14:25

Casting announcement for friend of the pod Damon Lindelof's new series, which is called The Chain.

Kaya McMullenHost14:30

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:30

Believe it is announced as a miniseries.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:32

He wrote the pilot with Carly Wray, who worked with him on The Leftovers, and it is based on a novel that has a disturbing-

Kaya McMullenHost14:40

Okay

Andy GreenwaldHost14:40

... premise-

Kaya McMullenHost14:40

Okay

Andy GreenwaldHost14:40

... about child kidnapping.

Kaya McMullenHost14:42

Love it.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:43

And he's cast Jodie Comer.

Kaya McMullenHost14:44

I saw that, yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:46

I have no notes other than to say that's awesome.

Kaya McMullenHost14:48

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost14:49

I love Jodie Comer.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:50

[laughs] Who doesn't love Jodie Comer? Maybe Sandra Oh, but that's only internet scuttlebutt.

Kaya McMullenHost14:54

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost14:55

I don't work here.

Andy GreenwaldHost14:56

I can say anything.

Kaya McMullenHost14:57

So the premise is that she, her child gets kidnapped-

Andy GreenwaldHost15:01

Mm-hmm

Kaya McMullenHost15:01

... and then to get her child back-

Andy GreenwaldHost15:03

Mm-hmm

Kaya McMullenHost15:03

... she must kidnap another child.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:05

Oh, that's out there.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:06

Oh, right, the book's been published.

Kaya McMullenHost15:07

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:07

Okay.

Kaya McMullenHost15:07

I mean, I saw this on Twitter.

Kaya McMullenHost15:09

I feel like that's, like a f- like, you know.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:10

This is true.

Kaya McMullenHost15:11

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:11

This is the premise.

Kaya McMullenHost15:12

Um, how do we feel about that for you famously no-

Andy GreenwaldHost15:16

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost15:16

... don't watch child kidnap.

Kaya McMullenHost15:17

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost15:18

Well, how do I feel about it as an entertainment?

Kaya McMullenHost15:20

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:20

Or how do I feel about it as a premise if I was forced to do it? Let's do one of the two.

Kaya McMullenHost15:24

[laughs] It's up to you.

Kaya McMullenHost15:25

It's your podcast today.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:27

I think it's the people's podcast.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:29

I think for number one, uh, I find the idea of Damon taking a really, really grabby, this will move books, this would become a gangbuster, um, Blumhouse horror movie premise-

Kaya McMullenHost15:41

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost15:41

... and doing Damon things to it, making it a longer series, maybe making it more psychologically-

Kaya McMullenHost15:46

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost15:47

... um, complicated.

Kaya McMullenHost15:48

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:49

I love it.

Kaya McMullenHost15:49

Great.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:50

Personally, I think I could do it.

Kaya McMullenHost15:54

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost15:54

I think I could in or- because okay, the idea is in order to get my kid back-

Kaya McMullenHost15:58

Uh-huh

Andy GreenwaldHost15:59

...

Andy GreenwaldHost15:59

I have to take someone else's kid.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:01

What, so then at the end of this equation-

Kaya McMullenHost16:03

You just give the person their kid back.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:05

Well, no, at the end of the equation, do I then have an extra kid, or do I pay that kid forward to someone else?

Kaya McMullenHost16:10

[laughs] I think you'll have to watch the series to find out.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:12

Who do I swap the kid with? Because I wanna be clear about this.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:14

Like, there, I think there's a lie about parenting-

Kaya McMullenHost16:17

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost16:17

... that I need to be the one to dispel-

Kaya McMullenHost16:19

Okay

Andy GreenwaldHost16:19

... on this entertainment/fantasy football [laughs] podcast, and the lie is that once you have children, you love all children.

Kaya McMullenHost16:28

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:29

I like mine.

Kaya McMullenHost16:30

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:30

There's some other ones I like.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:32

You, you know what you did, Kyle.

Kaya McMullenHost16:33

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost16:34

Maybe some people are like this once their hearts expand-

Kaya McMullenHost16:37

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost16:37

... to take in all children.

Kaya McMullenHost16:38

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:38

But it's not like when once you have ki- once you have kids and you hear, like, a kid screaming on the plane or misbehaving at a restaurant, you then have empathy with the parent.

Kaya McMullenHost16:47

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:47

You can still be annoyed-

Kaya McMullenHost16:48

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost16:48

... by the kid.

Kaya McMullenHost16:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:50

So if I gotta take one, I'll take one.

Kaya McMullenHost16:52

Kids are everywhere these days.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:53

You can just grab them.

Kaya McMullenHost16:54

[laughs] You can just grab them.

Andy GreenwaldHost16:56

[laughs] The parks are overflowing with them.

Kaya McMullenHost16:58

I love it.

Kaya McMullenHost16:59

I feel like Jodie Comer's, like, has not had a great run recently, so I'm excited.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:04

Where, where are we at in the Comerverse?

Kaya McMullenHost17:05

I don't, like-

Andy GreenwaldHost17:07

What have we been doing?

Kaya McMullenHost17:08

I don't know.

Kaya McMullenHost17:09

Let's pull up the IMDb.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:11

Hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost17:12

I, that's, see, and that's the problem is that, um, it's Last Duel.

Kaya McMullenHost17:16

Oh, she was great in 20 year, Eight Years Later.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:18

Yeah, she was good in that.

Kaya McMullenHost17:19

You saw that?

Andy GreenwaldHost17:20

I couldn't make it through it.

Kaya McMullenHost17:21

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:21

Don't tell Chris.

Kaya McMullenHost17:22

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost17:22

I did turn it on.

Kaya McMullenHost17:23

But she was really good in that, but The Bike Riders was not-

Andy GreenwaldHost17:27

Oh my God, remember her accent in The Bike Riders?

Kaya McMullenHost17:28

Yeah, it was tough.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:29

That was a good moment on the internet.

Kaya McMullenHost17:31

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:31

Did you watch 28 Years Later?

Kaya McMullenHost17:32

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:32

Oh, you guys watch scary zombie stuff all the time.

Kaya McMullenHost17:34

All the time.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:35

And do you watch it in the evenings, then you just sail off to bed?

Kaya McMullenHost17:38

Yep, yep.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:38

Untroubled.

Kaya McMullenHost17:39

Yep.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:39

That's 'cause you're not spending all your nights worried about who's gonna kidnap your kid in exchange for their kid.

Kaya McMullenHost17:43

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:44

It's just-

Kaya McMullenHost17:44

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost17:44

... you can't turn it off.

Kaya McMullenHost17:45

I just... [laughs]

The four-year-season gap problem17:46 – 31:02

Andy GreenwaldHost17:46

It's incredible.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:48

Wonderful.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:49

My last point that I wanted to, to bring up, and this is something that I think that will continue to be a point of discussion on this podcast, and Chris and I will get into it as these shows turn up.

Andy GreenwaldHost17:58

I believe in the last week we had the announcements of release dates or release areas-

Kaya McMullenHost18:04

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost18:04

... for the second season of two fairly high-profile shows.

Kaya McMullenHost18:08

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:09

One was, um, Chris Pratt's The Terminal List, which was an action show.

Kaya McMullenHost18:13

I don't, don't, I don't remember it.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:14

It did, by all accounts, did quite well for them.

Kaya McMullenHost18:17

If you say so.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:18

Uh, again-

Kaya McMullenHost18:19

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost18:19

...

Andy GreenwaldHost18:19

they, that's what they said to me.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:21

Um, and Disney+'s Ahsoka-

Kaya McMullenHost18:25

Okay

Andy GreenwaldHost18:25

...

Andy GreenwaldHost18:25

in the Star Wars universe starring-

Kaya McMullenHost18:26

That came out, what, a decade ago?

Andy GreenwaldHost18:28

[laughs] No, the cartoons did.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:30

The point is Terminal List premiered to-

Kaya McMullenHost18:33

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost18:33

... great fanfare in the year of our Lord2022.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:38

July 1st, 2022 is when the premiere episode of The Terminal List debuted.

Kaya McMullenHost18:45

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:46

Season Two has now been announced to premiere, I believe, in October of 2026.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:52

This is a four-year gap between seasons one and two of a show.

Kaya McMullenHost18:56

For a show that, I mean, who watched that?

Andy GreenwaldHost18:58

Chris.

Andy GreenwaldHost18:59

[laughs] This is why we can talk about it.

Kaya McMullenHost19:01

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:01

Well, I mean, this was also part of what appeared to be Amazon Prime's successful strategy of doing pulpy, right-leaning-

Kaya McMullenHost19:09

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:09

Um-

Kaya McMullenHost19:10

The Jack Ryans-esque

Andy GreenwaldHost19:11

...

Andy GreenwaldHost19:11

Manesphere-type things.

Kaya McMullenHost19:12

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:13

Reacher.

Kaya McMullenHost19:13

Reacher.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:14

Um, especially also with, with movie stars.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:17

In The Terminal List's defense, there was a spinoff series, prequel series starring Taylor Kitsch that did premiere last year.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:23

So the list was growing over the past few years, but four years is an insane amount of time-

Kaya McMullenHost19:28

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost19:28

... to do between seasons.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:29

Similarly, Ahsoka premiered with my beloved Rosario Dawson in 2023.

Kaya McMullenHost19:35

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:35

They, Dave Filoni, the now head of Lucasfilm, said that, first of all, he said that of all the Star Wars characters, Ahsoka, comma, his own creation, comma, is his favorite character.

Kaya McMullenHost19:47

Hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:47

Which is a bold choice.

Andy GreenwaldHost19:49

Um, he announced that Season Two will be coming in early '27, putting it right in that sweet and entire college career window of four years between seasons.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:02

And I guess what I wanted to say [laughs] was what are we doing? Like, I understand Chris Pratt's a big actor and has movie commitments.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:10

I understand that Chris Pratt at one point was a big actor and has a lot of voiceover commitments.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:14

I understand that, um, Disney shows require a lot of post-production-

Kaya McMullenHost20:18

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost20:18

...

Andy GreenwaldHost20:18

although I didn't think they needed this much, since they do a lot of it in front of the volume-

Kaya McMullenHost20:22

Right

Andy GreenwaldHost20:22

... which fills in the background as you're filming.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:24

Um, it just does not seem to me to be a successful strategy to delay that long between the first and second seasons.

Kaya McMullenHost20:34

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:35

You know? I mean, we're gonna be talking to Eric Kripke soon, and there were delays between seasons of The Boys, but there was a global pandemic and a strike.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:43

They still managed to get the show out on time.

Kaya McMullenHost20:45

And now that they are able...

Kaya McMullenHost20:47

I, I'm watching them crank out The Pit-

Andy GreenwaldHost20:49

Yes

Kaya McMullenHost20:49

... literally what, like year after year at the same...

Kaya McMullenHost20:54

They...

Kaya McMullenHost20:54

Like, there's a new season every year.

Andy GreenwaldHost20:56

Yes.

Kaya McMullenHost20:56

I'm just like, so what, why can they do that over there and not do that elsewhere?

Andy GreenwaldHost21:01

Could make...

Andy GreenwaldHost21:01

You can make the point, you can make the argument, I won't, but someone could, that these specific shows are in genres that are challenging to reproduce on the old television model.

Andy GreenwaldHost21:11

There's a reason we didn't have action stars starring in these types of global action shows every year back when it was must-see TV on Thursday nights in the '90s or Star Wars on TV.

Kaya McMullenHost21:21

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost21:21

That's harder to do.

Kaya McMullenHost21:22

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost21:22

The problem is, like with everything else in this country, we have so radically abandoned the middle and the middle class-

Kaya McMullenHost21:28

Right, right

Andy GreenwaldHost21:28

... that the, the glaring delays here really, really stand out.

Kaya McMullenHost21:32

Well, and in the case of The Terminal List, why are you making a spinoff to your show before you've even made a second season to your show?

Andy GreenwaldHost21:41

I, I, I don't know.

Andy GreenwaldHost21:42

I think you could also say, my understanding is that this has been in the can for a while, and that there, you could point to institutional changes.

Kaya McMullenHost21:50

Ah.

Andy GreenwaldHost21:50

Um, that, uh, Jen Salke departed Amazon, Peter Friedlander took over the programming s- slate at Amazon, and maybe took some time to make decisions about Windows and releases and what the overall plan was.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:03

But it's a real problem.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:05

And-

Kaya McMullenHost22:05

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost22:06

... it's a problem that trickled down to, like, w- we, you just did, we would do it all the time too, point to The Pit as the example of-

Kaya McMullenHost22:12

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost22:12

... what you can do.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:13

I worry about that a little bit because The Pit perfected the broadcast television show for the modern-

Kaya McMullenHost22:20

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost22:20

... streaming era.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:21

What seems to be the market inefficiency now is the good ongoing drama.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:27

Now, this has been something that's been an efficient inefficiency for a while.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:31

It's not easy to say like, "Hey, we found a Succession.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:34

We found Mad Men." Like, that's not hard to do.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:36

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost22:36

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:36

If, if it was, we would be living in a very different universe.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:39

But I do feel like attention strayed so far from those things that we just lack that backbone to our television in a way that is in, in...

Andy GreenwaldHost22:47

Obviously, those of us who do a weekly podcast-

Kaya McMullenHost22:48

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost22:48

... are really feeling it, but I think audiences are feeling it too.

Kaya McMullenHost22:51

Yeah, it's just we need to get a little bit more serious here.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:55

We have to get serious.

Kaya McMullenHost22:56

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost22:56

You talk to your camera when you say it.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:57

I think it's okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost22:59

You have standing here.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:00

We have to, have to, have to get more serious here.

Kaya McMullenHost23:02

But I'm happy for Chris that his beloved Terminal List is finally returning.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:07

He loves it.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:07

Um-

Kaya McMullenHost23:08

Does he...

Kaya McMullenHost23:08

Did he actually like it?

Andy GreenwaldHost23:10

I mean, I think that, uh, I don't wanna put words in his mouth.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:12

Yes, first of all, I wanna put words in his mouth, but I don't feel qualified here.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:16

Chris is a pretty easy sell-

Kaya McMullenHost23:18

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost23:18

... for shows about guys wearing non-branded baseball caps carrying guns.

Kaya McMullenHost23:21

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:21

It's [laughs] I mean, it's not that complicated.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:24

But I was looking at, like, the 10-year shift in, um, drama series-

Kaya McMullenHost23:29

Uh-huh

Andy GreenwaldHost23:29

...

Andy GreenwaldHost23:29

Emmy nominations, and just to, to realize the way that event series, um, genre series, and anthology series have just eaten the heart out of what used to be the bread and butter of our television viewing experience.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:47

10 years ago, for the purposes of the Emmy conversation, I went to 2015-

Kaya McMullenHost23:51

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost23:51

...

Andy GreenwaldHost23:51

so we can do 20- 2025.

Andy GreenwaldHost23:54

The 2015 Emmy nominees for outstanding drama series were Game of Thrones-

Kaya McMullenHost23:58

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost23:59

... big genre show, still managed to make it come out mostly on time; House of Cards, uh, which at that moment was still a year-to-year show; Downton Abbey, year-to-year show.

Kaya McMullenHost24:10

Year to year.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:10

Better Call Saul, year-to-year show.

Kaya McMullenHost24:12

Year to year.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:12

Mad Men, the last great year-to-year ongoing drama; Orange Is The New Black, year-to-year ensemble show; and Homeland, the same.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:19

Like, that was what we were used to having.

Kaya McMullenHost24:23

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:23

And you can argue the merits of each one of those shows, but you understood what they did, what your relationship to them could be, and on and on.

Kaya McMullenHost24:31

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:31

So fast-forward 10 years, and the nominees are Andor, one of the greatest shows of the century, but always-

Kaya McMullenHost24:38

Did

Andy GreenwaldHost24:38

... two seasons and done-

Kaya McMullenHost24:39

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost24:39

... with a significant gap.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:41

Um, Slow Horses, year-to-year show.

Kaya McMullenHost24:43

show.Hey, and they are a real...

Kaya McMullenHost24:45

They're almost like [laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost24:46

Clockwork.

Kaya McMullenHost24:47

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:47

They have the trailer for the next season at the end.

Kaya McMullenHost24:49

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:49

But I would argue a Slow Horses 10 years ago would not have made it into that category.

Kaya McMullenHost24:55

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:56

It would be, like, a nice thing-

Kaya McMullenHost24:57

Yeah, yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost24:57

... to enjoy.

Andy GreenwaldHost24:58

It would not have been considered the stake.

Kaya McMullenHost25:01

The backbone of the drama category.

Kaya McMullenHost25:03

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost25:03

The Pit, which we just discussed, deserving.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:05

The Diplomat, which I think quality-wise you may vary on, but I think that there is a l- there's delays, but it is a good faith attempt to, like, have something going.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:14

Severance-

Kaya McMullenHost25:15

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost25:15

... see you in 2028.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:18

Um, White Lotus, uh, not the same show year to year, and not, you know, and also you can't always count on it schedule-wise.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:25

Um, Paradise, lots of fun.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:28

Deserving? I don't know.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:29

And The Last of Us, big genre show, couple years in between, and what's the runway? Like, it's, it's created to end.

Kaya McMullenHost25:38

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:38

So, u- some of this is obviously presaging the conversation I'm gonna have with Eric, which is just, like, he's really good at making a show that isn't trying to answer a question, but is just trying to keep it going.

Kaya McMullenHost25:46

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:48

But, it, it, I don't know.

Andy GreenwaldHost25:49

Am I, am I drawing too wide of a net here by pointing out these long season disparities and then railing about the Emmys?

Kaya McMullenHost25:57

And that's another point too, is that everything is, like, eight episodes-

Andy GreenwaldHost26:01

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost26:01

... now.

Kaya McMullenHost26:02

Um, and it just seems like somewhere along the way everything got way more expensive and also way more inefficient-

Andy GreenwaldHost26:10

Yes.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:10

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost26:10

... which is not [laughs] like-

Andy GreenwaldHost26:12

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost26:12

...

Kaya McMullenHost26:13

I don't know, like, and then I'm sure it's, like, a combination of, like, lasting COVID effects and lasting strike effects, but, like, it just seems so confusing to me that it just takes so long to do these things, and also they cost a lot of money.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:26

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost26:26

And then also you get the East of Eden trailer and everything's dark.

Kaya McMullenHost26:31

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost26:31

That is-

Kaya McMullenHost26:32

And filmed in New Zealand.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:34

Voice of the people on this one.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:35

I think there are a lot of reasons that go into it, and, um, one of them is of course, like, budgets.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:41

When you, w- like, if you have the Apple strategy, which seems to be, like, if we can get an Oscar nominee to do it, we'll do it.

Kaya McMullenHost26:47

If we can get three Oscar nominees to put in one scene together.

Kaya McMullenHost26:50

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost26:50

Exactly, then we'll renew it.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:52

Like, Margo's got money troubles, which apparently is an ongoing series now.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:56

Um, that raises the price.

Andy GreenwaldHost26:58

If it's a Star Wars show, if it's a Game of Thrones show, that raises the price and it raises the, um, the post-production time.

Kaya McMullenHost27:04

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:05

Um, all that's baked into it.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:07

I continue to think one of the biggest problems is we skipped a generation in terms of teaching people how to make television.

Kaya McMullenHost27:14

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:14

Th- this, this deeply speaks to some of, like, the Writer's Guild stuff a little bit in the weeds.

Kaya McMullenHost27:19

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:19

But in terms of-

Kaya McMullenHost27:20

Yeah, I mean, I remember that was one of the big discussions the last round of negotiations.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:23

Yes.

Kaya McMullenHost27:24

Was like, "Let's have...

Kaya McMullenHost27:25

Can we have writers back on set?"

Andy GreenwaldHost27:26

On set to learn how to produce.

Kaya McMullenHost27:28

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:28

So that you don't have to hire people who have never been on set to run shows, and then you ship them to Budapest in control of a $100 million budget, and they inevitably fail.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:36

And then you have to bring in more people to back them up, and then you have to shut down production to rewrite the scripts.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:40

And I'm not necessarily looking at you, Dune: Prophecy, but it could be any of the many Dunes comma Prophecy out there.

Kaya McMullenHost27:47

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:47

But this is not really sustainable.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:49

I think it's really notable that The Pit we're holding up with good reason and celebrating it, and the, the guys who, who make it all have a little gray in their beard.

Andy GreenwaldHost27:58

And literally they are the guys who made ER, and they were on the shelf for... [laughs] Well, John Wells was never on anybody's shelf, but, like, Scott Gemmill was like, "Give me a chance, I'll do it again." [laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost28:09

Or you have something like Widow's Bay right now, where you have-

Andy GreenwaldHost28:11

Yep

Kaya McMullenHost28:11

... someone who had lots of reps on Parks and Rec, and now-

Andy GreenwaldHost28:15

Katie Dippold

Kaya McMullenHost28:15

... it's making a really good show.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:17

It's a really good example, and I wish I could sit here with you and talk about this week's episode.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:21

But I had, I had to watch so many episodes of The Boys to catch up.

Kaya McMullenHost28:24

It's okay.

Kaya McMullenHost28:25

I also wish I could sit here with you and talk about this week's episode, but I too.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:29

You haven't watched it?

Kaya McMullenHost28:29

I am back.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:29

Okay, fair.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:30

The last point about the ongoing show thing I think it's worth discussing is when networks' streaming services do stumble on something that is working, they cut it short.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:41

T- today, this week alone, Netflix announced a fourth and final season for The Night Agent-

Kaya McMullenHost28:47

Hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost28:47

... and a fifth and final season for The Lincoln Lawyer.

Kaya McMullenHost28:50

Hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:50

Neither of these are shows that I watch.

Kaya McMullenHost28:51

Hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost28:52

I watched the first season of The Night Agent.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:53

Did you? Did you like it?

Kaya McMullenHost28:54

It was good.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:55

The phone rings, right?

Kaya McMullenHost28:56

Yeah, the phone rings, and then he has to go save the girl.

Andy GreenwaldHost28:59

So it's a horror show.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:00

Nothing is worse than the phone ringing.

Kaya McMullenHost29:01

[laughs] It's a, I would say it's a thriller.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:03

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:05

I, uh, I was gonna say, n- when has not watching a show ever stopped me?

Kaya McMullenHost29:09

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost29:10

Um, I, what I can tell about these shows is that they are working-

Kaya McMullenHost29:16

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost29:16

...

Andy GreenwaldHost29:16

in the sense that, like, people enjoy them, they understand what they are, the audience is good and consistent.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:21

Um, production seems to be flowing well enough.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:23

They get the shows on the air r- with regularity in the model that we're talking about, and yet they're ending.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:29

And I think that's when, we talk about the inexperience on the, the writers or production side.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:35

It's not inexperience on the streamer side, it's just, um, a disparity in goals.

Kaya McMullenHost29:40

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost29:40

Netflix, um, reaches the fifth season of something, and even if there's more creative road or if there's, you know, like in the old days, N- NBC would be like, "This is one pro- more, one less problem for me-

Kaya McMullenHost29:53

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost29:53

... to keep something going-

Kaya McMullenHost29:54

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost29:54

... and to keep people tuning in and guaranteeing advertisers a certain thing." Um, Netflix is like, "Well, now we have five years of the show, and we're done."

Kaya McMullenHost30:02

And it'll get to sit in our library forever.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:04

Ex- exactly.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:04

It's never leaving.

Kaya McMullenHost30:05

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:06

They don't have to do any kind of costly renegotiations with cast or crew for, um, second contracts or reflecting the success or whatever that may look like for them.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:16

And also, it's this weird, uh, brain space that they're allowed to occupy, which is we're not...

Andy GreenwaldHost30:22

Uh, we can be concerned about our current audience of The Lincoln Lawyer-

Kaya McMullenHost30:25

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost30:25

... and we feel bad for them.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:27

But we are also measuring their sadness and engagement with the untold millions of future viewers of The Lincoln Lawyer-

Kaya McMullenHost30:33

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost30:33

... who will be in our systems, uh, in our ecosystem, discover a show and be like, "Sick, five years of it."

Kaya McMullenHost30:40

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:41

Probably in their algorithms, that's more millions later.

Kaya McMullenHost30:43

But yeah, like how many people are waiting for the next season of Lincoln Lawyer?

Andy GreenwaldHost30:46

Versus how many people might discover it and be excited to find it.

Kaya McMullenHost30:50

And be like, "Oh, great."

Andy GreenwaldHost30:50

Another reason not to cancel this month, and that's cheaper for them.

Kaya McMullenHost30:52

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:52

So anyway, all of this was the segment of the show that I like to call-

Kaya McMullenHost30:57

Everything is bad

Andy GreenwaldHost30:57

... we're screwed.

Andy GreenwaldHost30:58

[laughs] Everything is bad.

Andy GreenwaldHost31:00

But, um-

Kaya McMullenHost31:01

Everything is bad and nothing works anymore

Amazon Prime midroll reprise31:02 – 31:34

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Top Chef season review31:35 – 46:25

Andy GreenwaldHost31:35

Before we bring in Eric Ripke, Kaya, your silence on Top Chef has just been too much.

Andy GreenwaldHost31:41

We need to talk about Top Chef.

Kaya McMullenHost31:42

I really enjoy this season.

Andy GreenwaldHost31:44

Tell me-

Kaya McMullenHost31:45

Okay

Andy GreenwaldHost31:45

... tell me where you're at with it, and then we can talk specifically about this week's episode.

Andy GreenwaldHost31:48

I will call up the specifics.

Kaya McMullenHost31:50

I don't know why.

Kaya McMullenHost31:51

I was trying to figure this out last night.

Kaya McMullenHost31:53

I don't know why I'm particularly enjoying this season more than others.

Kaya McMullenHost31:59

I think it's because there's not, like, a very clear front runner, I guess.

Andy GreenwaldHost32:03

Yeah, there, there, there is ...

Andy GreenwaldHost32:04

I ...

Andy GreenwaldHost32:05

You could argue after this week there is, but I know what you mean.

Andy GreenwaldHost32:07

There's not someone who is doing donuts, not literally making donuts-

Kaya McMullenHost32:10

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost32:11

... dunking on everyone week after week.

Kaya McMullenHost32:12

Yeah, exactly.

Kaya McMullenHost32:13

Like, there's not a Buddha where it's just, like ...

Kaya McMullenHost32:15

And, like, that can be fun to watch where you're like, "Wow, this guy is just a, like a master of his craft-"

Andy GreenwaldHost32:20

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost32:20

... and, like, he's just, like, dominating.

Kaya McMullenHost32:23

Um, but I mean, the key to reality TV competition shows is kind of that you need to not know what's gonna happen next.

Andy GreenwaldHost32:32

True.

Kaya McMullenHost32:32

Um, uh, and then [laughs] I ...

Kaya McMullenHost32:36

Also I, like, I feel like all of ...

Kaya McMullenHost32:39

There's, like, Anthony and Lawrence-

Andy GreenwaldHost32:41

Mm-hmm

Kaya McMullenHost32:41

... who are kind of, like, the two front runners.

Andy GreenwaldHost32:43

Tier one.

Kaya McMullenHost32:43

Tier one.

Kaya McMullenHost32:44

And then everybody [laughs] else below them is kind of having, like, a mid off.

Andy GreenwaldHost32:48

Let's call it the Sherry zone.

Kaya McMullenHost32:49

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost32:50

Sherry might be the most mid contestant in the last decade of Top Chef.

Kaya McMullenHost32:54

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost32:55

But, like, that's almost ...

Kaya McMullenHost32:57

It almost, because there's so many mid contestants it's almost fine, I guess.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:02

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost33:02

I don't know.

Kaya McMullenHost33:03

And then you have, like, Broda, who's just, like, w-

Andy GreenwaldHost33:07

Very, uh, inconsistent-

Kaya McMullenHost33:08

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost33:09

... let's say.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:10

I, I think, I think I'm struggling with it, and I'm trying to identify ...

Andy GreenwaldHost33:14

I'm trying to identify what the major problem of the season is.

Kaya McMullenHost33:17

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:17

Like, because there's a bunch of stuff that we could list, including, like, the clearly reduced budgets that they're dealing with-

Kaya McMullenHost33:22

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost33:22

Well-

Andy GreenwaldHost33:22

...

Andy GreenwaldHost33:22

in these last few years

Kaya McMullenHost33:23

...

Kaya McMullenHost33:23

they got outside.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:24

They got outside.

Kaya McMullenHost33:24

[laughs] They got outside.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:25

The de- de-emphasis of the Quickfire as something that has anything to do with what ...

Andy GreenwaldHost33:31

Again, this week was different.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:33

This week did lead directly into the elimination.

Kaya McMullenHost33:34

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:34

But broadly speaking, the Quickfire is just b- brand management and cash winning-

Kaya McMullenHost33:39

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost33:39

... which is not really related to the larger competition.

Kaya McMullenHost33:42

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:43

Maybe this is just, like, the, the glorified bubble that I allowed myself to exist in, 'cause this is the only competition show that I watch.

Andy GreenwaldHost33:49

It did feel in many ...

Andy GreenwaldHost33:51

It does f- ...

Andy GreenwaldHost33:52

It did feel in many years that we were seeing some sort of real time conversation about what greatness in American cookery might look like.

Kaya McMullenHost34:00

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:00

Like, when, you know, when Chef Eric shows up with West African ingredients that the show had never brought in before, and I'm like, "Oh, this is now new.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:08

A new line of conversation has entered the chat."

Kaya McMullenHost34:10

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:12

Um, or Buddha's, like, absolute technical excellence versus-

Kaya McMullenHost34:15

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost34:15

... and I'm not gonna be able to name contestants off the top of my head anymore, but, like, versus, like-

Kaya McMullenHost34:18

I was just Googling.

Kaya McMullenHost34:18

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost34:19

But, like, there were people who were like, "Well, what I do is more soulful and homey," versus technical brilliance, and what does that look like? And are we entering the era that I think Chris has talked about, like the Survivor era where there are people who are students of the game-

Kaya McMullenHost34:31

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost34:31

... coming to the show?

Kaya McMullenHost34:32

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:32

And that's kind of what Buddha was.

Kaya McMullenHost34:33

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:33

He's like, "I know how to win this." Um, I know that he cooks at a restaurant in New York, and people enjoy it, but I don't think he's gonna be the face of cuisine.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:43

He's the face of competitive cuisine-

Kaya McMullenHost34:45

Right

Andy GreenwaldHost34:45

... which is a different thing and was, you know, w- maybe not my favorite either, but interesting to watch-

Kaya McMullenHost34:49

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost34:49

...

Andy GreenwaldHost34:49

in the dynamics.

Andy GreenwaldHost34:51

The fact that, that this week felt so crushing because we lost Gwen, who was by far the most engaging television personality-

Kaya McMullenHost35:00

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost35:01

...

Andy GreenwaldHost35:01

but failed to cook the fish properly in a fish challenge, was kind of emblematic of where we're at.

Kaya McMullenHost35:07

Well, and lost your, your nemesis.

Andy GreenwaldHost35:09

I've heard that Seager stans are big in our emails right now.

Kaya McMullenHost35:12

Yeah, there's a lot of justice for Seager.

Andy GreenwaldHost35:14

How many burners do you think Seager has right now?

Kaya McMullenHost35:17

I mean, he looks like a guy who would have a few.

Andy GreenwaldHost35:19

[laughs] Who would have a couple.

Andy GreenwaldHost35:20

But I feel like that was ...

Andy GreenwaldHost35:21

I don't remember the last time that happened where I was like, the show is going to be worse off for losing a personality-

Kaya McMullenHost35:27

Right.

Kaya McMullenHost35:27

I see what you're saying

Andy GreenwaldHost35:27

... as opposed to worse off for losing culinary excellence.

Kaya McMullenHost35:31

Maybe that is why ...

Kaya McMullenHost35:33

Maybe that's a component of why I'm enjoying this season more is because I, maybe the personalities are outshining the food.

Kaya McMullenHost35:40

Like, I genuinely-

Andy GreenwaldHost35:41

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost35:41

... like, like, most of the people on the show, and, like, I think each ...

Kaya McMullenHost35:44

I was sad to [laughs] lose the other, the brother.

Andy GreenwaldHost35:47

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost35:47

And I was really, I've been really enjoying that dynamic.

Andy GreenwaldHost35:51

Yeah, that was nice.

Kaya McMullenHost35:52

Um, but yeah, I mean, I think I would agree that as a whole the f- cooking on this season has been poor.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:00

Not up to snuff.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:01

And then I think you notice then ...

Andy GreenwaldHost36:03

I'll k- ...

Andy GreenwaldHost36:03

I've said this every week.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:05

I just think editorially they know what they're doing in a way that is confident and good, and the judging panel, those three are phenomenal.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:12

And when they bring in old friends, like an Emeril or something, it does elevate it.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:16

But it feels so small week to week.

Kaya McMullenHost36:19

Hm.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:19

Like, even when they went outside, you know, uh, to, to go fishing, the challenge was just, like, using these small fish that they or their associates managed to catch and serving them to a very small table of people.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:33

And it's like, in a way ...

Andy GreenwaldHost36:35

I mean, maybe in a way it's representative of the world that we never recovered from COVID because there's [laughs] an element of the season that feels like it's still a little pandemic-y.

Kaya McMullenHost36:42

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:42

Like, we can't let that many people in, and we can't let them go out.

Kaya McMullenHost36:46

They came out of COVID so strong.

Andy GreenwaldHost36:48

So strong with that Global All Stars season.

Kaya McMullenHost36:49

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost36:50

And I wondered what's ...

Kaya McMullenHost36:52

If it was ...

Kaya McMullenHost36:52

What's happening now is kind of also parallel to what's happening right now in, like, the concert, like, um, industry where people came out of the pandemic-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:01

Mm-hmm

Kaya McMullenHost37:01

... and they were so ready to, like-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:03

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost37:03

... be with other people again.

Andy GreenwaldHost37:05

Yes.

Kaya McMullenHost37:05

And so it led to, like, a huge surge in, like-Um, tours and, like, ticket prices-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:10

Mm-hmm

Kaya McMullenHost37:10

... and blah, blah, blah.

Kaya McMullenHost37:11

And now people are kind of like, "Okay, I did it."

Andy GreenwaldHost37:14

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost37:14

Like, I was with the people again.

Andy GreenwaldHost37:15

[laughs]

Kaya McMullenHost37:15

And now I can't really justify spending $400-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:19

Yeah

Kaya McMullenHost37:20

... to go see, like, a mid-level person.

Kaya McMullenHost37:23

And-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:23

Plus, if you're out there, your kid could get snatched by Jodi Comer.

Kaya McMullenHost37:26

Exactly.

Kaya McMullenHost37:27

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost37:27

You gotta be careful.

Kaya McMullenHost37:27

That's what I was thinking about, too.

Andy GreenwaldHost37:28

That's it.

Andy GreenwaldHost37:28

I knew you were thinking about that for me.

Kaya McMullenHost37:30

Um, but I wonder, too, if it's now with the same thing with the restaurant industry where post-COVID people were so eager to be out-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:37

Kaya McMullenHost37:37

... and, like, at restaurants and trying food, and now that's kind of waned, and what we're left with is really, really high prices.

Kaya McMullenHost37:46

And, like, it's kind of like, do I need to go spend $200 on a meal? Like, not-

Andy GreenwaldHost37:51

Listen, our podcast where we just talk about how-

Kaya McMullenHost37:54

Los Angeles, yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost37:54

... mid all Los Angeles restaurants are, and also how sad our politics are-

Kaya McMullenHost37:58

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost37:58

I don't know if it would do numbers.

Kaya McMullenHost37:59

[laughs] I know.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:01

But, like, like, the experience of staring at the ballot we got in the mail and then staring at Postmates and being like, "Man, we are cooked.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:08

Like, I don't want anything on either of these lists right now," is a real, real problem.

Kaya McMullenHost38:13

Everything is expensive and nothing really works anymore is kind of the general theme of-

Andy GreenwaldHost38:18

100%.

Kaya McMullenHost38:19

Um, I have a question for you.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:21

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost38:21

Does it still mean something to win Top Chef? If you are a chef, does it still mean, like, does that still carry a lot of weight, do you feel?

Andy GreenwaldHost38:28

It's a great question.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:29

I think broadly speaking, it doesn't in what we might have once thought of as a career.

Kaya McMullenHost38:37

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:38

But I think that long ago, the path, the traditional path for restaurateurs and cooks diverged-

Kaya McMullenHost38:44

Andy GreenwaldHost38:44

... where the first few seas- the first 10 winners of Top Chef, I think almost to a person, op- immediately opened a restaurant with their winnings in their hometown, and some of those restaurants, um, thrived.

Kaya McMullenHost38:55

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:55

Some of them, like we're, we're recording at Spotify.

Andy GreenwaldHost38:57

There's a Girl & the Goat, which is Stephanie's restaurant-

Kaya McMullenHost39:00

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost39:00

... here.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:00

Um, a lot of those restaurants closed because most restaurants close.

Kaya McMullenHost39:04

Close.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:05

And really, the path open to winners is to become professional, uh, media chefs.

Kaya McMullenHost39:11

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:11

And the migration from the Top Chef universe into the Food Network universe, like immediately start competing on those shows, immediately start hosting things over, over there-

Kaya McMullenHost39:20

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost39:20

...

Andy GreenwaldHost39:20

when those, those, there used to be a much thicker firewall between them, that's vanished.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:25

Um, or like Buddha, who immediately went on to the Padma's rival show to compete on that.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:30

Um, because-

Kaya McMullenHost39:31

So you just do a circuit now

Andy GreenwaldHost39:32

... that's what he's, that's what he's good at.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:34

So-

Kaya McMullenHost39:34

We also get a lot of emails about how, um, your silence is noted on Padma's com- cooking show.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:42

The reason for th- that does- that's not po- that's just, like, I don't have time to watch it, and then it was like six weeks in.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:47

I'm interested.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:48

I mean, she got good cooks to be a part of it.

Andy GreenwaldHost39:50

I've heard that the competition level is really good, but that the production for, like, the first season of a show has been spotty-

Kaya McMullenHost39:57

Andy GreenwaldHost39:58

...

Andy GreenwaldHost39:58

in terms of, like, actually executing it.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:00

Um, I don't know.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:01

I mean, I, it, it was interesting.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:03

So Duane got, got kicked off, and she was a sparkling personality.

Kaya McMullenHost40:07

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:07

Two personalities at times.

Kaya McMullenHost40:08

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost40:09

When she asked Jonathan-

Kaya McMullenHost40:10

Rip to Duane.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:10

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:11

When she said to Jonathan, "Do you wanna call your brother?"

Kaya McMullenHost40:13

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost40:14

Was low-key one of the most savage things ever said on this show.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:18

Um, but she immediately did, went on her Instagram and once the elimination aired and did a AMA.

Kaya McMullenHost40:23

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:24

And of course, all the questions are about, like, would you go on Tournament of Champions on, um, Food Network? Would you come back for an All-Star season? Would you do the...

Andy GreenwaldHost40:33

And she's like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." Uh, I think that the brand is the front of house person that she did more than-

Kaya McMullenHost40:40

Right, I see.

Kaya McMullenHost40:40

'Cause yeah, 'cause her cooking was never particularly-

Andy GreenwaldHost40:45

I, I mean, it seems like it's what I would, I would wanna eat those things.

Kaya McMullenHost40:48

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost40:48

But either you, to do that, you either move to a smaller town in America and open the restaurant that does that and devote yourself to that life-

Kaya McMullenHost40:56

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost40:56

... perhaps Widows Bay needs some Vietnamese flavors, or you become the public face of something-

Kaya McMullenHost41:02

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost41:02

... and that's also not something that every chef can do.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:05

Um, I mean, I, I do think it's interesting that, like, like Brandon is in, I think he's in Montana.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:11

Um, like some of these, uh, Rhoda's in Hawaii.

Kaya McMullenHost41:14

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:14

That they're pulling chefs who are able to make their life and their restaurants work outside of the major spotlight cities.

Kaya McMullenHost41:19

Right, yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:20

Um, but what it means, I don't know.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:23

I mean, I don't watch any other competition shows.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:26

So do you feel like, is Top Chef still meaningful and entertaining if it is just another Food Network Tournament of Champions where a bunch of interesting-

Kaya McMullenHost41:36

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost41:36

... people run the race? You know, it definitely always succeeded, you know, in, in, in terms of the reception because it was like, well, Tom Colicchio is here, and we get Danielle Bolud to drop in, and this is, like, the gold standard.

Kaya McMullenHost41:48

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost41:48

Does it matter?

Kaya McMullenHost41:49

Is your pool of contestants getting smaller and smaller-

Andy GreenwaldHost41:52

Mm-hmm

Kaya McMullenHost41:52

... because less people are incentifi- incentivized?

Andy GreenwaldHost41:55

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost41:55

Like, your best chefs are like, "I don't really need to do that anymore.

Kaya McMullenHost41:58

It doesn't really mean a whole lot." Then that might be the reason why season after season, like the, we're getting less of an interesting cast.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:07

Yeah.

Kaya McMullenHost42:08

Um, I mean, I, my theory with reality TV shows is that they're almost always best at the beginning when you're not, especial- and this is, like, less for, like, reality competition shows-

Andy GreenwaldHost42:18

Kaya McMullenHost42:18

... and more for just, like, a housewives type of deal.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:21

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost42:21

But like, like Love is Blind really faces this, where like it was really great at the beginning when it was, like, lesser known, and so people in theory were more on the show to actually find love.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:32

Right.

Kaya McMullenHost42:32

And now people are just on the show because they wanna, like, launch their influencer career.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:36

Yes.

Kaya McMullenHost42:37

And it just-

Andy GreenwaldHost42:38

Right

Kaya McMullenHost42:38

... gets all a little too meta and, like, a little too boring.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:41

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:41

People go on Top Chef.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:42

They know what the score is at this point.

Kaya McMullenHost42:44

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:44

And it's, you know, every so often you'll get a sous chef who's like, "My boss was this champion, and now I wanna come on and do the same thing, and, like, they're sponsoring me almost to, to have my chance to do it." But otherwise.

Andy GreenwaldHost42:55

There's also these just changing trends in, in dining where, like, 10 or 15 years ago, like Voltaggio Brothers would be like, or Richard Blais would be like, "The assignment is to make a cheesecake.

Andy GreenwaldHost43:05

I will reinvent cheese and cake." And that was a certain type of...

Andy GreenwaldHost43:09

energy-

Kaya McMullenHost43:10

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost43:10

... and a certain type of show.

Andy GreenwaldHost43:12

Trends in dining are definitely more like how much homier can we make this? How many ways can we do a smash burger? How many ways can we do fried chicken?

Kaya McMullenHost43:20

Oh my God, I know.

Kaya McMullenHost43:20

How many ways can we do an elevated Chili's?

Andy GreenwaldHost43:23

Exactly, and that or, or all restaurants want, and they should want to be Houston's or Hillstone group.

Kaya McMullenHost43:27

I know.

Andy GreenwaldHost43:27

Like, which I love, but you kind of want to see the imagination-

Kaya McMullenHost43:31

You will not find me bashing-

Andy GreenwaldHost43:32

It's as good as it gets, but I don't know if I wanna watch that in a competitive setting.

Kaya McMullenHost43:36

Yeah, that's bor- that gets boring.

Andy GreenwaldHost43:36

And so bringing it full circle to the season, like what Lawrence did this week, I would, I would pay money any night to eat what he made, like the, the, the classic Chinese style steamed fish with-

Kaya McMullenHost43:50

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost43:50

... rice inside.

Andy GreenwaldHost43:50

Like that is exactly...

Andy GreenwaldHost43:51

That is my favorite thing to eat, as Chris loves to mock me for.

Kaya McMullenHost43:53

[laughs] You like a steamed fish?

Andy GreenwaldHost43:54

I love a delicate fish over rice.

Kaya McMullenHost43:56

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost43:57

But it, it is reflective of where the show is at, that he seems like on a glide path to certainly the finals by just executing something-

Kaya McMullenHost44:05

Right

Andy GreenwaldHost44:05

... very, very, very well.

Kaya McMullenHost44:06

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:07

Um-

Kaya McMullenHost44:07

Or like-

Andy GreenwaldHost44:08

No shame in that, but-

Kaya McMullenHost44:09

Was it Rhoda who just gave them like the fried fish over like a pureed-

Andy GreenwaldHost44:14

She cooked it perfectly, and that, but-

Kaya McMullenHost44:16

And so yeah, at like whatever week we're at, is that-

Andy GreenwaldHost44:20

It's right.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:20

That's a great point.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:21

That's a great point, and is that a fault of the challenges and the ingredients and the budgets, or is that just where they're at, where they are like scrambling to stay alive? Where if Gwen had just cooked the fish, it was uncooked, not only would she be av- be safe, she would've been in the top three because she did something that is from her perspective-

Kaya McMullenHost44:41

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost44:41

... from her culture-

Kaya McMullenHost44:41

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost44:42

... everybody liked, and it would've been done well.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:45

What was exceptional?

Kaya McMullenHost44:48

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:48

Nothing really.

Kaya McMullenHost44:48

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:49

Damn.

Kaya McMullenHost44:50

So where do you think they're gonna go next?

Andy GreenwaldHost44:52

What, like what place in America?

Kaya McMullenHost44:54

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:54

Whoever gives them a tax break.

Andy GreenwaldHost44:56

Like, there's always someone on Reddit who's just like, "I have looked in the city records of Charlotte, and I see that they got $1.3 million to film there." So that's also why they will likely never...

Andy GreenwaldHost45:06

I mean, you know, we'll see if I'm wrong, and maybe Gail can talk about this if she comes back on.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:10

But I don't think they will ever be back in LA, New York, Chicago.

Kaya McMullenHost45:13

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:13

People are like, "Will they..." Obviously, I would like this.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:16

Why don't they go to Philadelphia, which has truly great restaurants right now? And the answer is Philadelphia does not have a, from what I understand, there's, there's no line item budget for attracting.

Kaya McMullenHost45:27

Mm.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:27

They do have...

Andy GreenwaldHost45:28

I do believe they have some Hollywood tax breaks and credits.

Kaya McMullenHost45:30

Mm-hmm.

Kaya McMullenHost45:30

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:30

But I think I read that they do not pay-

Kaya McMullenHost45:34

Andy GreenwaldHost45:34

... productions outright to come as part of like civic boosterism.

Kaya McMullenHost45:38

Bummer.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:38

I know.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:39

They're too busy just letting people park in the middle of the street and, you know-

Kaya McMullenHost45:43

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost45:43

... sell their tickets to Knicks fans.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:45

Um, it's a bummer.

Kaya McMullenHost45:46

I will say as a whole, I, I wanna re- I am really enjoying this season, and I love Top Chef.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:50

Oh yeah, but w- it wouldn't be a podcast-

Kaya McMullenHost45:53

I know

Andy GreenwaldHost45:53

...

Andy GreenwaldHost45:53

if we didn't pick nits.

Kaya McMullenHost45:54

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:55

Um, Kaya, thank you for sitting in with me.

Kaya McMullenHost45:57

Of course.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:57

It's always a pleasure.

Andy GreenwaldHost45:59

Um-

Kaya McMullenHost45:59

Wow, we really went right up to the wire.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:01

Right up to the wire, and we didn't even get to book talk, so we'll have to circle back to book talk.

Kaya McMullenHost46:05

Okay, great.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:05

Um, did you read Play Dead by Adam Ross?

Kaya McMullenHost46:08

No.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:09

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:09

Well, maybe we c- maybe you can.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:11

[laughs] Well, Chris made me read it, so it's good.

Kaya McMullenHost46:14

I know.

Kaya McMullenHost46:14

That's what all the, the dudes wanna read right now.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:17

It's true.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:18

All the dudes?

Kaya McMullenHost46:19

All the dudes.

Kaya McMullenHost46:19

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost46:19

Man, I gotta zag.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:21

All right, give me...

Andy GreenwaldHost46:21

We'll go offline.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:22

You'll give me a book that the ladies like.

Kaya McMullenHost46:23

Okay.

Andy GreenwaldHost46:23

We'll get right back to it in my interview with Eric Kripke.

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Eric Kripke on The Boys: the endgame47:52 – 1:25:43

Andy GreenwaldHost47:52

I am thrilled to be joined once again by the showrunner, the developer, the lead voice behind the Amazon Prime series The Boys.

Andy GreenwaldHost47:59

Eric Kripke, welcome back to The Watch.

Eric KripkeGuest48:01

Hey, thanks for having me.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:03

Very happy to have you.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:04

Um, because we are talking at a, a fraught not vault time, we've just, uh, watched the penultimate episode of the series-

Eric KripkeGuest48:13

Yes

Andy GreenwaldHost48:13

...

Andy GreenwaldHost48:13

the seventh episode of Season 5.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:15

So we will, at some point, talk about the events of that episode and the season and look ahead to the finale, which I have not watched.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:21

But I kind of wanted to, instead of starting at the end, start at the beginning, both to avoid spoilers, but also I'm really, really curious about-

Eric KripkeGuest48:29

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost48:29

...

Andy GreenwaldHost48:29

this journey.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:29

So if you don't mind, I [laughs] wanna, like, make you send your mind all the way back.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:34

Um, I realized this morning that The Boys was announced as a TV show in April of 2016-

Eric KripkeGuest48:40

Correct

Andy GreenwaldHost48:40

... which was a decade ago.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:43

That's 10 years of [laughs] your life, and the world has changed enormously since then, both politically, culturally, and specifically to our conversation, within the industry.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:54

It was announced as a Cinemax original, I believe, at the time.

Andy GreenwaldHost48:58

Um, could you talk a little bit about what drew you to the project then, what you thought was cool, interesting, and relevant 10 years ago, considering how much all of that must have changed since?

Eric KripkeGuest49:10

Yeah, I came into it, um-First and foremost, as a super fan of Garth Ennis, the author of the comic, and, um, for my money, Preacher is one of the two or three best comics, period.

Eric KripkeGuest49:28

Um-

Andy GreenwaldHost49:29

Did, did you also have the experience I did, which is inappropriately reading it as a teenager and having your mind blown, but in a way that you could never explain to anyone around you? [laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest49:36

Um, I did, except I was, like, 22.

Eric KripkeGuest49:40

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost49:40

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest49:40

But yes, close.

Eric KripkeGuest49:42

Uh, um, but it's fun.

Eric KripkeGuest49:44

Like, what's great about his comics is, like, you really can't read them in public.

Eric KripkeGuest49:49

Um-

Andy GreenwaldHost49:49

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest49:50

... you know, you really have to shoulder it in c- in case, uh, you get arrested for indecency.

Andy GreenwaldHost49:55

Which is great socially for 17 and 18-year-olds reading.

Andy GreenwaldHost49:58

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest49:58

So fun, especially when you're on a, especially when you're on a plane-

Andy GreenwaldHost50:01

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost50:01

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest50:01

... and it's your job to read that issue of The Boys, and you're sitting next to a kid.

Andy GreenwaldHost50:06

Well, Eric, you've done that to me because I've had to catch up on The Boys while traveling, and so my laptop is open with-

Eric KripkeGuest50:12

Andy GreenwaldHost50:12

... unspeakable things, so-

Eric KripkeGuest50:14

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost50:14

... thank you.

Eric KripkeGuest50:15

Now, and now, and now you can't go 500 yards within a school, so.

Andy GreenwaldHost50:19

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest50:20

Um, I was really into just Garth Ennis, and I, so I found The Boys as a comic and, you know, read it voraciously.

Eric KripkeGuest50:31

Um, and then, um, I was talking to a producer friend of mine, Ori Marmur, um, who had the rights, and I just, I just jumped all over it.

Eric KripkeGuest50:42

Um, around the same time, s- Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were coming on board as well, so we all met and just kind of came on together.

Eric KripkeGuest50:51

And, um, we started with, um, it would really be fun to take the piss out of celebrities.

Andy GreenwaldHost51:00

Right.

Eric KripkeGuest51:01

You know? Um, um, Seth's, uh, pitch, uh, when we first went around town was, um, what if Iron Man was Robert Downey Jr.?

Andy GreenwaldHost51:16

Good pitch.

Eric KripkeGuest51:17

And, and then I, and then I would pitch the story.

Eric KripkeGuest51:19

But, um, so it started with, like, almost in a proto The Studio way, which is Seth and Evan know an incredible amount of insider knowledge about celebrities and the industry and how celebrities are packaged, and we're gonna put all of that into a superhero show and make the world's most realistic superhero show.

Andy GreenwaldHost51:43

But it's interesting because at the time, like, taking the piss out of celebrities, sort of knocking superhero culture down a peg just as Marvel was ascendant, that, that was enough, I would imagine, to get you some interest and maybe a green light.

Andy GreenwaldHost51:56

At a certain point in your development process, uh, reality began to outpace fiction [laughs] I think in ways that probably, uh, surprised all of you.

Andy GreenwaldHost52:05

Was there a moment that you point to as, uh, as the, as like an inflection point where things that you may have thought were extreme or wild or fun in the comic or in your writer's room were suddenly becoming plausible, and you may have to rethink some of them?

Eric KripkeGuest52:20

Uh, there's more of, like, a couple small moments.

Eric KripkeGuest52:24

I mean, you know, we took it out and pitched it, um, before Trump was elected-

Andy GreenwaldHost52:30

Yeah

Eric KripkeGuest52:30

... for example.

Eric KripkeGuest52:32

Um, and when we first started talking about it, he was the insane dark horse candidate that no one took seriously, if you can go all the way back to that.

Eric KripkeGuest52:43

Um, and so it was a few things.

Eric KripkeGuest52:46

It was, I had dinner with Garth Ennis, and I was picking his brain about, um, what he liked about, like, what inspired him to make The Boys, and he, and he said something.

Eric KripkeGuest52:58

And again, this was, this was before the election.

Andy GreenwaldHost53:02

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest53:02

And he said, um, you know, he's like, "I was thinking about how terrible some celebrities behave, but ultimately, they don't have that much impact on the real world."

Andy GreenwaldHost53:15

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest53:16

You know? He said, "But what if they had the impact of politicians? So what if you crisscrossed celebrities with authoritarians, um, what would happen?" At the time, honestly, it washed right over me.

Eric KripkeGuest53:31

I w- j- I was like, "Wow, that's, that's a kooky sci-fi concept, my man."

Andy GreenwaldHost53:35

Are we ordering desserts?

Eric KripkeGuest53:36

[laughs] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Eric KripkeGuest53:39

A- and then, uh, you know, and then obviously Trump was elected, uh, around when we were initially developing, you know, um, I may have written the pilot, but we were, you know, starting to put a room together and really develop what's this show.

Eric KripkeGuest53:58

And that sort of came back to me, and I was looking at the characters and, and I said, "Yeah, they really are, you know, forward-facing celebrities and reality TV stars with the souls of authoritarians and fascists."

Andy GreenwaldHost54:18

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest54:19

And suddenly that was happening in the world.

Eric KripkeGuest54:23

And, and, you know, I said to one or two of the other writers, I said, "Did we accidentally stumble into the metaphor of the moment?" Um, and we sort of felt like we were talking about the current world we were living in maybe more than any other show, and most importantly, we were way ahead of everybody else.

Andy GreenwaldHost54:48

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest54:49

Right? Like, like people were only then just starting to take out pitches and stuff, and we were heading into pre-production.

Andy GreenwaldHost54:56

Yep.

Eric KripkeGuest54:57

You know? So I'm like, "We can get first to market," which is part of the game too, right?

Andy GreenwaldHost55:02

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest55:02

And we can get first to market with maybe one of the most current shows on television, and wouldn't that be amazing if our superhero show could also be-A satirical metaphor for not just the celebrity world we're living in, but the political world.

Andy GreenwaldHost55:21

I'm also curious if you can think back the major differences, again, this is from the 10-year window of, like, okay, you're, you're talking to Seth and, and, and Evan, and you're pitching something to Cinemax versus you are bringing this ship to a close for Amazon Prime [laughs] in a very different world.

Andy GreenwaldHost55:35

Um, in terms of what this...

Andy GreenwaldHost55:38

I'm wondering if you have, if you have an ability at this moment to reflect on what the show became versus what you initially thought it could be.

Andy GreenwaldHost55:44

Your own expectations, what has surprised you, and its role within, like, what it means to make a sh- Th- this is very broad, but I'm specifically, like, what it means to make a show feel so significantly different 10 years on, post-COVID, post-strikes, post so much.

Eric KripkeGuest56:00

I think this show, frankly, succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams.

Eric KripkeGuest56:10

Um, you know, all the years on Supernatural, you know...

Eric KripkeGuest56:17

So I've been on a show that has, you know, gone years and years, and granted I left it, um, after s- somewhere in between seasons five and six, but, um, but-

Andy GreenwaldHost56:28

We, we should note that it ran another 10 years.

Eric KripkeGuest56:30

Yeah, then it ran another 10 years.

Eric KripkeGuest56:32

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost56:32

Which is crazy.

Eric KripkeGuest56:33

So, yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest56:33

But we always said the whole time, like, um, it sure would be nice to be a hit instead of a cult hit.

Andy GreenwaldHost56:40

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest56:41

Um, and The Boys, j- just to be on a big, fat hit and, and it captured the zeitgeist, and it captured politicians' attention, and Barack Obama is telling people to watch it.

Eric KripkeGuest56:56

And it was incredibly gratifying because it was the first thing I'd ever done that was genuinely me.

Eric KripkeGuest57:09

Um, because I was...

Eric KripkeGuest57:12

You know, I had network standards and practices for anything I did for Supernatural.

Andy GreenwaldHost57:18

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest57:18

But to be able to completely do my sense of humor, my influences, which is, like, half Sam Raimi and half the movie Network.

Eric KripkeGuest57:29

And, um, you know, what I find important and interesting and funny, and to be able to do it all without any restrictions, and then to have it hit, you know? It's, like, a very lovely feeling when you, like, really put yourself out there.

Eric KripkeGuest57:48

Uh, is weirdly the most personal thing I've done, and, and for it to have this reaction is, is mind-blowing.

Eric KripkeGuest57:57

I mean, it's, it's never [laughs] gonna happen again.

Eric KripkeGuest58:00

But, um, but it was a nice ride.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:03

Well, first of all, we don't know that.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:04

We...

Andy GreenwaldHost58:05

As, as your show has proved, we don't know a lot of things about what's to come.

Eric KripkeGuest58:07

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:08

Um, I...

Andy GreenwaldHost58:09

One of the things that I admired and always commented on and complimented year to year was what it felt like watching The Boys was for all of the forward-facing, you know, a- as relevant as looking at the news ticker stuff that you were playing with, like as the Fiselle material, the show had old bones.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:26

In the sense of, like, these characters are on this story, these characters are on this other story.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:30

We will tell a story this episode that will build into a larger jigsaw puzzle-

Eric KripkeGuest58:34

Yes

Andy GreenwaldHost58:34

... et cetera, et cetera.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:35

And I, I love that about the show.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:36

And I, I wondered if you could...

Andy GreenwaldHost58:38

Thinking of that sort of how to, how to, how to make the trains run on time element of TV that you learned in the trenches of your previous jobs, how do you approach a final season? Because I think, um, inevitably when you end a serialized show, you choose the answer and you choose the question that it was asking the whole time.

Eric KripkeGuest58:58

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost58:58

It's no longer about all the fun things that you could explore.

Andy GreenwaldHost59:01

It has to be about one thing.

Andy GreenwaldHost59:03

Um-

Eric KripkeGuest59:05

Mm.

Andy GreenwaldHost59:05

How did you decide to make that turn into the final, uh, into the final leg of the race? What wa- what was interesting to you to settle on as it was time to wrap it up?

Eric KripkeGuest59:15

Well, what was really challenging, um, and interesting was we had spent the first, you know, four seasons talking about pointing out everything that was messed up in the world.

Andy GreenwaldHost59:31

Right.

Eric KripkeGuest59:32

Nothing but naming problems.

Eric KripkeGuest59:34

We were naming problems for years.

Eric KripkeGuest59:37

And then finally in the fifth season, we all look at each other and we're like, "We actually have to s- say a solution." So you, you started having conversations we had never had before, which is like, "You know, where do you find hope in the world?"

Andy GreenwaldHost59:54

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest59:54

"How do you think we make things better? W- how do we get that in the show without being deadly earnest?" Right? Because it's a show that sort of lives on its, I wouldn't call cynicism, but it sort of has this irreverent, sarcastic vibe, so you can't suddenly become, you know, J- Jimmy Stewart in Mr.

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:16

Smith Goes to Washington.

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:17

You have to couch it in its, in its tone.

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:20

So how do you get all that across was a big thematic concern for us.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:00:25

Hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:25

Um, and then how do you properly service 15 characters in a way that feels satisfying and emotional? Um, and that was, you know, our attack.

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:46

I...

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:46

You know, look, finales are hard.

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:50

Uh, people...

Eric KripkeGuest1:00:53

What I've come to really very much realize, um, as we've been airing it is everyone has a very distinct idea of what they want the finale to be.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:01:04

Always.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:01:05

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:06

And when you're not doing the thing that they had in their, the vibe that they had in their mind, they're very vocal.

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:13

[laughs] And, and...

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:16

But, but-I approached it, and the writers approached it, of like it's...

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:22

We've always put the characters first.

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:25

Like, we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing in that we're going to track, you know, through every episode, and then those, as you said, through every episode, and then puzzle pieces into the season.

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:40

We're going to track th- these characters to their conclusion.

Eric KripkeGuest1:01:46

And if we get that right, then everything else is gravy.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:01:51

I think it's such an interesting point, and I wanna drill down on it.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:01:55

And so this is...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:01:56

Uh, I'm gonna g- jump into some spoilers for the season through episode seven on this.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:01:59

But specifically, when you're talking about what, what, what fans want and the way fans engage with the show and the way audiences broadly engage with the show, I think it's interesting to, like, let's carve out, like, what happens with Kimiko in episode seven, which is, like, you can look at it in terms of, like, the plot of trying to expose her to radiation to give her a power that might kill Homelander.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:02:19

That's not something that was seeded.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:02:21

Like, that emerged in this episode.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:02:23

But if you watch it as the a- the a plot or the a side of the record that is about the end of her relationship with Frenchie, then it becomes something quite different.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:02:33

And so I think it's interesting to consider the way an audience who is gaming out a season and gaming out character and plot might bump up against something that I would imagine, not to put words in your mouth, and I'd like to hear your perspective on it, you were building from the other side of that wall.

Eric KripkeGuest1:02:46

A few things.

Eric KripkeGuest1:02:47

I mean, one is, you know, obviously we were building towards, spoiler, Frenchie's death.

Eric KripkeGuest1:02:54

And so we wanted Kimiko to be...

Eric KripkeGuest1:02:59

You know, we wanted to talk about this episode as if Kimiko's...

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:03

We were trying to put in all the, the, the clues and breadcrumbs that Kimiko was gonna die by the end of the episode, um, to try to take a little bit of the attention off Frenchie, I think with frankly, uh, middling success.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:17

[laughs] I think, I think, I think once Frenchie starts talking about his future-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:03:20

I was gonna say-

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:21

But like-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:03:21

...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:03:21

it, it was a McBain Simpsons moment when he's like-

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:23

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:23

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost1:03:23

... "Oh, you can adopt a dog."

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:24

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:24

Or, or-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:03:24

The three kids, sure, but...

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:26

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:26

Uh, uh, yeah, when Scoey is, uh, uh, gonna, uh, buy the boat called The Live Forever.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:03:33

Exactly.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:33

Um, right.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:35

No, for sure.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:36

But, but, you know, there's also, I...

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:38

There's also something like you're watching this slow motion car crash, and you know that it can't be averted.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:44

And, um, so we wanted to do that.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:47

We actually went back, um, uh, because we always do.

Eric KripkeGuest1:03:52

Like, one big value of streaming, I'm sure you know it on the shows you work on, is most of them are written before you shoot, and so you could really go back to episodes.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:05

You know, once you really have a better handle of how the ending is gonna work, you can really go back and seed them in.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:12

So, you know, as early as, I think, episode four, Butcher is having witnessed Soldier Boy depower that guy in the wall.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:04:20

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:20

And you see that his wheels are turning.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:23

He's watching the Soldier Boy video.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:04:25

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:25

In episode five, he's carrying all this weird equipment into the back and, and he says, "Me and Frenchie are working on something because proper planning and preparation..." You can start seeding in all these things-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:04:36

Mm-hmm

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:36

... that they're actually in the background of the show.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:38

They've been doing this-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:04:40

Mm-hmm

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:40

... all along.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:42

Um, and so that was valuable.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:45

But yeah, to me, the moment is about the end of the episode.

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:50

You're, you're just...

Eric KripkeGuest1:04:50

You're building to ripping those two apart, um, and, and really showing that if there's going to be any victory, it's gotta come with terrible sacrifice.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:05:05

There's no way to get too granular on this answer, 'cause I think our audience is interested in what goes on in, in writers' rooms generally.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:05:11

I wondered if you could talk about the process, especially for this final season, of, like, addition versus subtraction.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:05:19

And what I mean by that is I wondered if you had a whiteboard where you wrote every single dream thing that you, you and your team hoped to get on the screen, whether it's bringing back PJ Byrne, or killing Seth Rogen, or giving finally the dog vomit POV that, you know, the audience had been demanding, versus all the things you have to winnow away to, as you said, service 12, 15 characters.

Eric KripkeGuest1:05:40

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:05:40

So I, I don't know if it's, it's worth talking about just in terms of, like, the whiteboards themselves, or looking at a character if it's easier for you, like looking at Hughie or something, like all the things you want for someone versus how much you have to take away and trust that, like in the Coco Chanel line, less is more.

Eric KripkeGuest1:05:55

Well, I mean, a lot of it came...

Eric KripkeGuest1:05:57

It's a good question, and a lot of it comes out of the first five, six weeks of the room.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:03

Um, 'cause that's when we're really more than anything talking about the overview of the characters.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:10

And, um, I think the thing we were most clear on was, like, the last 10 minutes of the finale.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:22

You know, after the big fight and explosion, we sort of knew where we wanted every character to end up.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:33

Um, so we have, you know, columns on the whiteboards for every character and, and, you know, call it beats one through 10 or whatever that stretch over the eight episodes.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:45

Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:47

And we had the last beat of all of them.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:06:50

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:52

Um, and so then it became, "All right.

Eric KripkeGuest1:06:57

Well, what's the first beat? What, what do we think is in the middle? How do we make it feel so that they're moving and growing-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:07:04

Mm-hmm

Eric KripkeGuest1:07:04

... and turning to get to this ending that we wanna get to?"

Andy GreenwaldHost1:07:10

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:07:11

Um, and then whatever didn't service, um, that-Usually that was a good clue that it had to, it had to go away.

Eric KripkeGuest1:07:23

I mean, we throw in jokes and moments and satire and our usual nonsense.

Eric KripkeGuest1:07:28

Um, but the spines were always looking at, um, what they needed to go through to hit the beats that we needed to hit.

Eric KripkeGuest1:07:41

Like, there's a, a written on the board for episode seven was, um, we need to remind Hughie and remind the audience that Butcher will murder anyone who gets in his way on his way to his ultimate goal, and to beware.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:07:59

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:07:59

Um, you'll see in episode eight that that becomes an important piece of information.

Eric KripkeGuest1:08:04

So, you know, they're all, like, built of a piece.

Eric KripkeGuest1:08:08

The other thing we did, and, um, because I heard, uh, anecdotally that this is what Breaking Bad did, and I liked the idea, is we had our writer's assistant go through every single loose end, um, every single character that was alive, every single storyline that we left on the floor, and they had an entire board filled with it.

Eric KripkeGuest1:08:32

Um, and so it's sort of a good buffet, right? When you're looking for what's a story that we wanna play, or what's a character, we're like, "Well, let's go to the board.

Eric KripkeGuest1:08:40

Is there something we can pay off that we set up seasons ago and then we'll look like geniuses [laughs] because we did that?" And so that's where, like, bringing out Eagle the Archer again and, and, you know-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:08:54

Langston's great

Eric KripkeGuest1:08:54

... uh, yeah, like Adam Bourke and, and, um, you know, all those things came out of, uh, uh, just having, like, a menu, uh, that we could, uh, we could play with.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:09:09

Internally, what is the reaction like in the writer's room when someone suggests a, uh, gold Christ-like statue of Homelander versus two weeks ago in your writer's group chat when someone sees the gold Christ-like statue of Donald Trump that everyone is prostrating in front of? That, that seems like a full circle moment.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:09:27

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:27

It's not a good feeling.

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:29

[laughs] Like, no one, no one is sending each other the high five emoji.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:09:33

[laughs] Like, got it.

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:34

Like, it-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:09:34

Yeah

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:34

... yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:35

It, it's only like, "This is really creepy." And, and what people have to remember is we wrote it two years ago, right? We wrote it before, uh, uh, he won the sec- his second term.

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:49

So we're trying to come up with...

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:52

Here's what's really scary and unsettling, I think.

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:55

We weren't even reacting to-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:09:58

Right

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:59

...

Eric KripkeGuest1:09:59

the shit that Trump pulls like we had in previous seasons.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:04

That was not what we were studying.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:06

We were studying countries that had authoritarian creep and what that looks like in its early stages.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:15

You know, that golden statue is a Saddam Hussein thing.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:18

That wasn't, that's where we got it from.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:21

You know, and, and going into sanctuary cities and, and, you know, starting to claim yourself as there by divine right.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:33

And, and, and we were...

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:35

If anything, we were really looking at history because the truth is, um...

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:40

And, and I think some fans I've seen are expecting, like, oh, it should've been this apocalyptic-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:10:46

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:46

... you know, battle, like, deep into World War II or something.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:51

And, and that's just, one, we can't afford that, but two, uh, that's not the story I wanted to tell.

Eric KripkeGuest1:10:59

I wanted to tell the story that, like, the fascists creep to we're building camps and we're moving people into camps.

Eric KripkeGuest1:11:07

What's scary about it is it looks like the world you're in.

Eric KripkeGuest1:11:11

There's no moment where the switch flips and Thanos is there, and suddenly it's some big, you know, uh, uh, apocalyptic fight.

Eric KripkeGuest1:11:21

It's your world with groceries and s- and reality shows and soap operas and, and the people in charge saying, "Oh, this is absolutely the patriotic right thing to do."

Andy GreenwaldHost1:11:32

Mm-hmm.

Eric KripkeGuest1:11:33

You know? And so I wanted to show that world, but, you know, I wanted to show not, you know, uh, uh, uh, Berlin, 1944, I wanted to show Berlin, 1938, you know? And, and so you...

Eric KripkeGuest1:11:48

I can't tell you how unsettling it is that when every one of these things come true, and it's based on something we found in Eastern Europe or Germany or one of the banana republics, um, because they're all warning signs.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:04

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:05

You know? And, and so when everyone's, like, laughing, like, "Oh my God, they did it," I'm like, "No, you guys." [laughs] Like, you feel a little bit like the dude at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:16

Like, you're running up and down the street and you're like, "No, these are warning signs.

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:19

These are not good, funny things.

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:21

These are bad, bad, bad things."

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:23

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:23

I'm as powerless as anybody.

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:25

I think if anything, the show has demonstrated an unbelievable ability to not change anything.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:32

[laughs] What a legacy.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:34

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:34

Right? Right? Exactly.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:36

Uh, we can't talk about the gold statue without talking about the man and the actor who inspired it because as a longtime holder of Antony Starr stock, as one of, like, the world's biggest Banshee fans-

Eric KripkeGuest1:12:47

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:47

...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:47

I knew that this guy could do anything, but I, even I didn't know he could do this.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:12:51

And I, I wonder what the experience has been like writing for an actor who almost, well, I think is deeply underappreciated in this role because people just think that's what he's like or that's what he's doing.

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:01

Mm-hmm.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:01

But he is capable of pushing it.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:03

He finds new layers to this very, very complicated, flawed monster week to week.

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:10

He's astounding in the role and, um, if there's any, uh, uh, if there's any Television Academy listeners, like, please give this guy an Emmy.

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:21

Like-I don't need any for m- me.

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:24

I, uh, d- but give Antony Starr an Emmy, for Christ sakes.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:28

The thing that will convince them is the dog POV sex dream where he offers-

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:33

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:33

... his ass to the dog.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:34

I feel like if you can get someone who's for your consideration to consider that part of him-

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:39

Well, if nothing else, we could put up that clip as he's going up to accept the award.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:43

Absolutely.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:13:43

I mean, what more does this man have to do to earn your respect?

Eric KripkeGuest1:13:46

But to answer your question, it's an incredibly collaborative, um, process, where we'll write what we, you know, need the story to be, and then, um, I have a lot of, you know, really in-depth conversations with Ant where we go over every line.

Eric KripkeGuest1:14:11

Um, and I completely welcome it.

Eric KripkeGuest1:14:14

You know? Like, I actually love that process, um, when somebody is as locked into the character as he is.

Eric KripkeGuest1:14:23

Like, he never says like, you know, the cliched actor things of like, "Well, why don't I do the cool thing?" Or, "Why don't I have more screen time?" He's only like, um, you know, "I'm really trying to prove to my dad that I'm a real man, so maybe when the president offers me a glass of milk, I get really mad and puffed up, and I ask for a Manhattan instead."

Andy GreenwaldHost1:14:49

[laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest1:14:50

Like, that's the type of convers- And that'll come, that came from him.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:14:53

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:14:53

You know? And I'm like, "That's amazing.

Eric KripkeGuest1:14:55

We're definitely going to do that." And, and so...

Eric KripkeGuest1:15:00

And then he'll say something.

Eric KripkeGuest1:15:01

I'm like, "Well, I don't actually think that's where we want it to go," or, "This is going there," or, "Maybe that's too far." And, and we'll just go back and forth, and, and I'll end up rewriting there live as he and I are just talking about the psychology of the character.

Eric KripkeGuest1:15:20

And, and so then he gets really locked in about unders- it also helps him understand the character beats one to one to one, so when he gets on set, he knows exactly where he's moving through a scene, which he really needs to know.

Eric KripkeGuest1:15:36

I mean, that's something that, um, he likes to be prepared.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:40

It- it's so subtle.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:41

I was watching Singin' in the Rain again with my daughters, and I was watching Gene Kelly in the beginning, and I was like, "Oh, my God.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:47

There's some of this in Antony's performance."

Eric KripkeGuest1:15:50

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:50

The part where he's saying, "Dignity, always dignity," and the lights are blind- A- and like he, he's pulling on so much [laughs]

Eric KripkeGuest1:15:55

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:55

... to play a character that in the wrong hands could be so one-note.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:58

It's amazing.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:15:59

In the spirit of, uh, we were saying, like, where is hope in this universe, the one thing that I was noticing, and I w- I was curious your thoughts about it, was this season as much as anything else has seemingly been about the limits of fear as a cudgel, which is another thing that I think might be...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:17

This is a more positive thing that you could send around in the group chat, where there's, like, a whole article in The New York Times about how some European leaders aren't saying, "How high?" anymore when our president tells them to jump.

Eric KripkeGuest1:16:27

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:27

And how small that is, but how, the effect it can have on bullies.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:31

And we saw it in, um, A-Train or Frenchie just not being scared of him, to his face.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:37

Now, it didn't work out well for them.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:38

Did work out well for Paul Reiser, which, which-

Eric KripkeGuest1:16:41

Right

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:41

...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:41

I think was great, because you can't, you can't kill Paul Reiser.

Eric KripkeGuest1:16:44

You're not gonna kill Paul Reiser.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:45

Uh, maybe Homelander loves Mad About You.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:47

But I-

Eric KripkeGuest1:16:47

Yeah.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:16:48

But, but I, I did f- wonder if you could speak on that a little bit as a theme, um, for this season.

Eric KripkeGuest1:16:53

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:16:53

There, there's, there's a couple in there, which is, one, um, the fact that if you take away his power, um, and if you take away the power of a lot of autocrats, um, they've got real glass jaws.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:15

You know? Real thin skin, insecure, um, narcissistic, ego-driven.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:22

Like, they're, like, take away their power, and they're the most pathetic kid in your history class.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:29

Um, and, and, and we all make this sort of pact of like, "Well, I guess they're all in power." But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:39

You know? And I think that's a point we're making with Homelander, and I think you'll really, you know, spoilers, but really be driven home in episode 8, which his characters keep saying to him, you know, Soldier Boy, A-Train.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:51

They keep saying to him like, "You're nothing."

Andy GreenwaldHost1:17:54

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:55

Um, and that's a point we're making.

Eric KripkeGuest1:17:57

The other thing is, you know, this thing that, you know, where he's, there's an emperor's n- new cl- new clothes factor to this, where for the first time, his people are saying like, "Oh, shit, this guy is really crazy."

Andy GreenwaldHost1:18:15

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:18:15

"And so what do we do?" And, and most of them acquiesce.

Eric KripkeGuest1:18:22

Um, but the point i- There is a point with which most autocrats eventually go too far.

Eric KripkeGuest1:18:35

You know? The, the, you know, the famous McCarthy, like, "At long last," or, "Have you no dignity?" There's a moment with which the fever breaks.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:18:43

And they're exposed, yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:18:44

And, and you're exposed, and the crowd is like, "Oh, this person is insane." And that's s- another thematic that we're trying to head for, which has, you know, precedent in history.

Eric KripkeGuest1:18:58

And it's hopeful.

Eric KripkeGuest1:18:59

It's a little wishful thinking, maybe.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:00

I, I do wanna end with a thought about the finale, but before we do, I did wanna point out the, the other artful if not downright acrobatic thing that you guys have done this season is you are setting up the prequel series.

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:13

Mm.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:13

Which I believe is tw- Is it 27, likely to premiere?

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:17

Early, uh, or first half of '27 anyway.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:19

Vought Rising, and I've never...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:21

Uh, maybe this has been done before, but I've never seen an example of a show introducing a character at the end of their story... knowing that we have a lot of beginning of the story.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:33

I mean, I guess broadly speaking, that's Saul Goodman on, but that was not the intent.

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:37

Right.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:37

Whereas Bombsite shows up at the, I would imagine, if not the end, close to the end of his adventure, and there's a lot of road to come in the new series-

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:47

Mm-hmm

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:47

... where and which he is a regular.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:19:48

How did you balan- how did you do that balancing act?

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:50

A balancing act is exactly right.

Eric KripkeGuest1:19:52

How do you do enough that you can touch on it, but not so much that you feel like it's homework, um, or you feel like it's just a commercial? Where it really came from, honestly, was we had this notion of this V1 MacGuffin and, and we knew Soldier Boy was gonna be a character this season, and just, like, well, why is he immortal? And why is s- Stormfront immortal? And what is it about, you know, whatever they had, right? And, and, and so once you come up with V1, we didn't start it with like, "We gotta get Bombsite in there, guys.

Eric KripkeGuest1:20:36

We gotta sh- set up our thing." It's just more like Paul Grellong, who runs that show, his room is down the hall, you know? And so we're hearing in our room what's coming out of that room, and we're, like, excited by it, you know? And so...

Eric KripkeGuest1:20:52

And we got to hear what he was doing with Bombsite, this character, and it was all very cool.

Eric KripkeGuest1:20:57

And so when the question comes up in our room of like, "Well, who ultimately has the V1? You know, is it just some rando old hero that you never will see again, or should it be one of those characters 'cause those characters are so badass?" Um, that's how it kind of evolved.

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:18

It was pretty organic.

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:19

There wasn't, like, a lot of, um, craven, you know, commercialism in there.

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:25

It, it came from a spot of it's a full universe and we have these pieces.

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:31

And so if, if we're able to use them, why not?

Andy GreenwaldHost1:21:34

Without spoilers, um, what would you like to set up for the finale? Like, what would you hope people are excited about? What you hope they will take away from it? Anything that you'd like to, to give to the adoring public in the days before they learn everything?

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:50

Right.

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:51

Um, I would say, um, I hope they like it.

Eric KripkeGuest1:21:56

Um, I would say, um, most confrontations that they're hoping for happen.

Eric KripkeGuest1:22:05

Um, you know, we really did the exercise of like, what does the audience want in this finale? And let's make sure we give it to them, and don't do that rug pull thing, which is like it's more artful to not give you the thing you're counting on.

Eric KripkeGuest1:22:21

Like-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:22:21

People love that

Eric KripkeGuest1:22:22

... we just...

Eric KripkeGuest1:22:22

Yeah, yeah, like I just, like, give them the thing that they want.

Eric KripkeGuest1:22:26

So the things happen that I think they will want to have happen, hopefully in some interesting and surprising ways.

Eric KripkeGuest1:22:33

Um, and I want them to, you know, walk away feeling like, um, what we've been saying throughout, which is, um, hope is hard and it's difficult to, to make the world a better place, and it comes with incredible setbacks, and it comes with lots of failure, and it, and it comes with a lot of sacrifice.

Eric KripkeGuest1:23:04

But if everyone just tries to do it a little bit every day, um, then we have a chance to save the world.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:13

I think that's beautiful.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:14

That's, that's better than the, the legacy...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:16

What was the previous legacy you had? Which is, I hope they like it.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:19

I think that's-

Eric KripkeGuest1:23:20

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:20

... that's a stronger act out.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:21

That's-

Eric KripkeGuest1:23:21

Okay, I'm gonna go with this legacy

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:22

... that's my note.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:23

Um, last thing, a week ago, you had a number of celebrities, clearly fans of the show, some executive producers of the show, guest star, all of them had the privilege of having their bodies ripped apart by a super speedster literally running through them with just the most...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:37

What is the foley you use, like, to, for the exploding body sound? It's really resonant.

Eric KripkeGuest1:23:42

Um, it, um, it's an inc- it's a lot of, um, steaks getting ripped in two.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:48

There you go.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:49

Okay.

Eric KripkeGuest1:23:49

Um, and I think there's some smashed melons in there as well.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:53

There's a little frisson of Gallagher that I notice-

Eric KripkeGuest1:23:56

Yeah

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:56

... each time.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:23:57

Um, okay, so they all got that, that, that privilege, that honor on screen.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:02

Eric Kripke, the developer, the showrunner of the show, if you did your Hitchcock moment, maybe you did, I haven't seen the finale yet, what would your preferred gruesome, explosive, destructive death be? Because truly, if you want a second legacy, the grossest deaths maybe ever on television.

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:20

[laughs] I'll, I'll happily take that.

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:23

Um, you know what death I w- always really enjoyed because it really creeps me out? You know that moment when, um, someone is surrounded by zombies and the zombies start ripping out their intestines and eating them while the person is still alive?

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:40

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:41

That, that's what I would want.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:42

You'd want that moment of, like, awareness.

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:44

Yeah, like, where you see that it's happening-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:46

Yeah

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:46

... and your lower intestines are being pulled out, but you're not dead yet.

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:51

And, um, that feels like, um, the type of movie death I would want.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:56

It's not like-

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:57

Now, I want, I want to be super clear.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:58

Yeah.

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:58

I don't want that-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:24:59

Eric KripkeGuest1:24:59

... death in reality.

Eric KripkeGuest1:25:01

Um-

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:02

But y- I feel like you were projecting a little bit with Seth Rogen, who has half of that, is aware that his body is ripped up, and then someone brings up, um, the pickle movie he made.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:09

So I wonder if-

Eric KripkeGuest1:25:10

Right

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:10

...

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:10

if, can I just, can I, hat on a hat, you are attacked by zombies, you see them eating your appendix and your whole body, and then one leans over and says, "Supernatural Season 3 was kind of mid."

Eric KripkeGuest1:25:20

[laughs]

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:21

Like, would that be-

Eric KripkeGuest1:25:21

Yeah, I'd enjoy that.

Eric KripkeGuest1:25:22

I think, no, I think that's the, I think that's the bow on the whole thing.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:25

Perfect.

Andy GreenwaldHost1:25:25

That's the [laughs] perfect bow as I can come up with.